by Douglas, Michelle; Gordon, Lucy; Pembroke, Sophie; Hardy, Kate
She pushed upright from the van. ‘I’m counting you out because you’re rich and you can’t commit. I’m not going to let you try to buy me off to salve a guilty conscience.’
His jaw clenched so hard she thought he might snap teeth. She pulled in a breath, held it for the count of three and released it.
‘It’s three strikes before I’m out. What’s Strike Three?’ he demanded.
She reached for, and found, her most supercilious shrug. ‘What? Do you want me to do all of the hard work? Can’t you possibly come up with a reason or ten of your own?’ She made her voice deliberately scornful.
His eyes narrowed. Very slowly he sauntered to where she stood. Every instinct she had screamed for her to run. Except for those rogue ones that told her to grab him and kiss him again.
She squared her chin, forced herself to meet his gaze.
‘You’re confusing me with your lily-livered, pretty society boys, Princess. You won’t get gallant manners from me. I’m debating the benefits of simply taking what I want—what, in fact, may be freely on offer—and to hell with the consequences.’
He slanted a deliberately insolent gaze down the length of her body and, to her horror, her nipples tightened and her thighs softened. How could he be so ruthless?
‘Taking it and enjoying it...over and over—and, believe me, Princess, you’d enjoy it too—until I was sated.’
Her body responded to the smoky seduction of his voice.
‘I know how to make a woman want...how to make her respond and to yield.’
She didn’t doubt that for a moment.
‘And what I want right now is you writhing beneath me, begging for release and calling my name as you come with the kind of orgasm that would blow your mind.’
Her breath caught and her stomach clenched. ‘Why?’ The word croaked out of her.
‘The Princess submitting to the local bad-boy and begging for more—how satisfying would that be? What a triumph.’
She wanted him. His words set her body on fire. But they chilled her too. She didn’t doubt that, if he put his mind to it, he could seduce her. She’d succumb. And it’d break her heart.
She met his gaze. ‘If you do that, I will put you through as much hell as you do me. You might, in fact, be able to seduce me, but don’t doubt for a moment that I have the ability to make you pay.’
They stared at each other for long fraught moments. He lifted his hand as if to touch the backs of his fingers to her cheek, but he stepped back with a low laugh and let his hand drop. ‘We’re not all that different after all, are we, Princess?’
‘No.’ But she didn’t know if that were a strike against them or not.
They didn’t speak again. Nell headed for the door of the garage. Rick turned back to Candy’s engine. It didn’t stop the burn in her body. It didn’t stop the burn in her mind. It didn’t stop the insane urge she had to throw herself face first onto the nearest available garden bench to cry.
She didn’t. She just kept walking towards the house.
* * *
The money Rick promised arrived in her bank account the following Monday. Her bank manager rang to tell her the good news—and to try and pump her for information. She didn’t tell him anything, but she frowned as she snapped her cellphone shut. Her father and the bank manager were still as thick as thieves. It’d mean her father would now hear about the upswing in her fortunes.
She should’ve taken the time and trouble to switch banks, but with everything else going on...
She shook the thought off. She’d deal with her father when she needed to and not before.
She and Rick were careful not to spend too much time in each other’s company. He fixed Candy. He painted the drawing room and the library. She baked and delivered orders and went out in Candy—on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
She waited till Thursday before approaching him. ‘You haven’t given me a contract to sign yet,’ she reminded him.
‘Do we really need something that formal?’ He didn’t look at her as he painted the library wall a soft, lush cream.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll get onto it.’
She made a sceptical, ‘Hmph.’ No doubt he’d get onto it the same way he’d got onto those receipts for building materials. She’d yet to see a single one.
The problem with Rick was that he had all of this money, but he simply didn’t care about it. He probably wouldn’t even notice if she paid him back or not. What he needed was a reason to care.
Her feet slowed. Maybe...
She came to a complete stop. Well, why not?
She made a beeline for the telephone to call her lawyer.
* * *
Rick started at the knock on his door on Friday evening. He glanced at his watch. It’d just gone six. Who on earth...?
Nell.
For a moment he was tempted to pretend he wasn’t in.
Prison stole your courage.
With a muttered oath, he stormed over to the door and flung it open. Nell stood on the other side. Holding a bottle of champagne. Holy Mother of God! She wasn’t going to try and seduce him, was she? Damn it, he wouldn’t stand a chance and—
‘Hello, Rick.’
It took all his strength not to shut the door in her face. ‘What are you doing here, Nell?’ He didn’t have to work hard at making his voice unwelcoming. It came out that way. His only other option was to drag her into his arms and kiss her until neither one of them could think straight.
It’d taken all of his strength not to seduce her last week—every single ounce of it. He hadn’t been able to recall anything he’d wanted more than to lose himself in her sweetness, to forget himself, to let himself believe in fairy tales if only for a few brief moments, to see if she could help heal the dark places inside him. He still wanted that with a fierceness that shocked him. And a man had only so much strength.
He hadn’t seduced her then and he couldn’t seduce her now. Nell deserved better from him. She deserved better from the world.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘Do you think that wise?’
‘I don’t mean to stay long.’
He glanced at the champagne bottle and raised an eyebrow.
She laughed. ‘I don’t have shenanigans in mind. I just wanted to deliver this.’ She held up an official-looking A4 business-size envelope.
Biting back a sigh, he moved to let her in, careful to keep his distance. ‘What is it?’
She handed it to him. ‘Open it and see.’
She sauntered across to the kitchen as if she owned the place. Which, technically speaking, she did. She reached up into the cupboard for two glasses. She didn’t seem to mind that they were old food jars rather than champagne flutes. The cork of the champagne left the bottle with a pop. She didn’t send it flying across the room, nor did she let a single drop of champagne fizz out of the bottle and onto the floor. She poured the bubbly, lifted both glasses and turned back to him.
‘Well, open it.’ She nodded at the envelope he still held. ‘It’s not an evil omen or bad news. I promise.’
God give him patience. He lifted the flap and slid out the single sheet of paper inside. He read it.
His heart stopped. The edges of his vision darkened. He blinked and read it again. His throat started to ache. She pushed one of the glasses into his hands, clinked it with hers and took a sip. He couldn’t move.
‘I wanted to say thank you, Rick.’
But...
‘You’ve lent me the money that will allow me to follow my dream. I doubt there’s anything I can do or say to tell you what that means to me. But I want you to know my gratitude is real, that I don’t take your financial assistance for granted and that if, in the future, I can ever do you a good turn then
I’ll do my absolute best to deliver on that.’
He couldn’t move and he couldn’t speak. The ache in his throat travelled to his arms, his chest, his temples.
She set her glass on the tiny kitchen table, wiped her hands down the skirt of her Hawaiian frock. ‘Well, that’s all I wanted to say. I’ll be off now. Enjoy your evening.’
‘Nell...’ He managed to croak out her name before she reached the door.
She turned.
‘You’ve...you’ve...’ She’d given him a thirty per cent share of her business! ‘You can’t do this.’
She frowned. ‘Yes, I can.’ Her frown deepened. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s too much.’
Her face cleared. ‘No, it’s not. I talked it over with a lawyer. He assures me that’s fair.’
‘But I don’t care about the money I’m lending you!’
She gave a little laugh, but there was more sadness in it than joy. ‘I know, but I do. I care about it hugely. It means so much to me and I...I want to try and show you how much.’
She’d managed that, but...
‘And I wanted...’ her fingers clutched at the air as if trying to find the words to explain ‘...I wanted to give you something back that might mean something to you. That’s all.’
He rustled the paper entitling him to thirty per cent of her business under her nose. Was she crazy? ‘You’re giving me power over your dream!’
‘Yes.’
She said that simply, as if it were no big thing, when it was the biggest thing he knew.
‘I could destroy it!’
‘Without you, my business had no chance of getting off the ground in the first place.’
‘You shouldn’t give anyone this kind of power over you.’
She moved forward and clasped his face in her hands and bizarrely it felt as if she held his heart instead. Those amazing green eyes blazed at him. ‘I keep telling you that I trust you. Maybe now I’ve shown you how much.’
She pulled her hands away slowly, as if she’d have rather left them there. He stamped on the primal, savage impulses pounding through him. Impulses that ordered him to grab her and kiss her and to make her his.
She backed up a step as if she sensed the fight taking place inside him. Her eyes spoke of her own primal battle. He bit back a groan. She shot him a brave little smile. ‘Enjoy the champagne.’ And then she was gone.
Rick stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed onto it. He knocked back a generous slug of champagne, coughing when the bubbles hit the back of his throat. He stared at the paper in his hands entitling him to thirty per cent of her business.
I trust you.
Thirty per cent!
Maybe now I’ve shown you how much.
Oh, she’d done that all right. Nobody had shown this much faith in him. Not ever. And he didn’t know what to do with it. Just as he didn’t know what to do with the conflicting emotions coursing through him—a mixture of dread and elation, fear and satisfaction.
Enjoy the champagne.
With a laugh, he took another sip. It was good stuff. The Princess didn’t skimp at the big moments.
He paused halfway through his third sip. Maybe she had some ulterior motive, maybe...
His shoulders sank back into the softness of the sofa. She didn’t have an ulterior motive. She wasn’t playing some deep game. Nell had a heart as big as Sydney Harbour.
Something around his heart loosened then and some dark thing slipped away. Nell wanted to give him something important because she believed he deserved it, because she didn’t believe he was a no-hoper or a loose cannon, but because she saw something in him that no one else saw.
And it gave him hope.
Not that he knew what he was hoping for.
* * *
The next morning—the thirteenth of March—Rick knocked on Nell’s back door where before he’d have just strolled in. Before—as in before that kiss. His groin tightened at the memory.
Nell glanced over her shoulder and gestured him in. ‘The paper’s arrived.’
It sat on her table, still rolled up. She hadn’t even had a peek, though he knew her curiosity must be eating her alive. She finished packing up a box of the most mouth-watering-looking cupcakes and set it on the end of the table with a host of other boxes. Pouring mugs of steaming hot coffee, she pushed one into his hand and sat at her usual spot at the table. She rolled the paper across to his usual spot.
A bad taste rose up in his mouth. He gulped coffee to chase it away. Nell stared at the paper and her nose curled. ‘C’mon, then, there’s no point in putting it off. We may as well find out what wild goose chase John means to send us on next.’
Us? He tried to resist the warmth the word threaded through him. ‘Nell, you know you don’t have to—’
‘Yeah, right. Blah-blah fishcakes. You’d have never got this far without me, and you’re not cutting me out of the game now.’
How was it this woman could make him grin at the most unlikely moments?
‘And, look, I know it’s not a game. I’m not trying to trivialise it.’
He knew that. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Blah-blah fishcakes?’
‘It’s a wonderful phrase, don’t you think? I mean to do my bit to bring it back into the common vernacular.’
She’d donned her prim and proper, hoity-toity princess manners, but he knew her well enough by now to know it for a sign of nerves.
‘I’m not going to push you out of this, Princess. Rest easy. I just wanted to give you the chance to back out if that’s what you’d prefer.’
She snorted in a very un-princess-like way. ‘Get over yourself, tough guy. Sit. Turn to the classifieds.’
She was right. Putting it off was pointless. With a sigh, he did as she bid.
He pushed his coffee to one side. He didn’t want it. He’d had one earlier. The Princess drank far too much of the stuff. He opened his mouth, only to shut it again. Now mightn’t be the time for that particular lecture. Instead, he ran his fingers down the line of classifieds. On a Saturday morning the paper was full of birthday and anniversary announcements, of births, deaths and marriages, and personal ads.
His finger stopped. ‘Rick,’ he read.
‘What is it?’ Nell demanded.
‘Freemont Park. Two p.m. Wear your party clothes.’
‘What on earth...?’ She leapt out of her chair and came to stand behind him to read over his shoulder, her hand resting lightly against his back. His heart rate kicked up at the warm feel of her. She read John’s message, harrumphed and went back to sit in her chair. Rick closed his eyes and pulled in a breath. ‘He’s proving just as chatty in death as he was in life.’
Rick laughed. Nell flipped open her laptop. ‘Okay, Freemont Park. It’s in the south-eastern suburbs. It’ll take us the best part of forty minutes to get there.’
Rick thrust out his jaw. ‘I’m not wearing party clothes.’
Nell leapt to her feet. ‘I’m off to do my deliveries. I’ll meet you in the garage at one o’clock sharp. Right?’
He scowled. ‘Right.’
* * *
Nell and Rick stood on the edge of the park and glanced around at the assorted picnickers and walkers.
‘Where in the hell are we supposed to start?’
Rick’s face had gone as tight as his shoulders. She clutched a box of cupcakes and pulled air into her lungs. ‘It’s not a ridiculously large park.’
‘It’s big enough!’
‘We’ll just amble for a while.’
She hooked her hand through his elbow and propelled them forward, setting them on a path that led diagonally through the park. They must look an odd couple. She wore her cherry print dress with a red patent leather belt and heels. Rick wore his oldest jeans—torn
at the knee—and a tight black T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved.
In defiance of John’s strictures?
She didn’t mind. That T-shirt showed off the breadth of his shoulders to perfection and did rather nice things for his biceps. If he’d stop scowling at their surroundings he’d be downright hot and handsome.
Oh, who was she kidding? He was devastatingly and dangerously delicious, regardless of what expression he wore. And that day-old growth...
She had a vision of being stretched out beside him and running her tongue across his jaw and...
‘Any particular reason you’re pinching me, Princess?’
Oh! She relaxed her grip and swallowed. ‘Sorry.’
She forced her gaze and mind from Rick’s, uh, finer points, to focus on their surroundings until her breathing returned to within the realms of normal. The park was lush and green, with distant views of the harbour. Gum trees and Norfolk Island pines swayed in the breeze, providing shade for picnic blankets and camp chairs. Oleanders in lush blooms of pink, white and red added a riot of colour. At one end stood a rotunda amid a rose garden.
The bright sunshine, blue sky and chatter from a flock of nearby rainbow lorikeets spoke of summer, holiday fun and relaxation and something inside her yearned towards it all.
A rowdy and boisterous happy birthday chorus had them both turning to their right. They moved off the path and onto the grass, stopping by an oleander in full pink flower to watch.
‘Happy birthday, dear Poppy...’
She couldn’t help smiling. There had to be a crowd of at least twenty people—of varying ages—and everyone was smiling and jolly. An ache started up inside her chest. ‘I always wanted a family like this,’ she whispered. People who loved each other—enjoyed each other’s company—and wanted to spend time together.
‘Me too.’
Of course he had. She had no right to moan when one compared her childhood to his.
They continued to watch. Small children danced around, elderly folk sat in chairs, and everyone else stood as they hip-hip-hoorayed. What must it be like to be the focus of all that love? The birthday girl cut the cake, but her back was mostly to them. She mightn’t be able to see it, but Nell could imagine the breadth of the girl’s smile.