The thought of such a thing—her seducing him—had his manhood flexing. Although his feelings for Gemma were more than sexual, he couldn’t help those nightly dreams that had plagued him since first meeting her. He’d seen her stripped bare—in his dreams. He’d tasted every inch of her body—in his dreams. And in his dreams he’d constantly asked what she wanted. What she needed from him to prove that she was his woman in every way.
Last night after he’d shown her the guestroom she would be using and had brought in their luggage, she had told him she was still suffering from jet lag and planned to retire early. She had quickly moved into her bedroom and had been sequestered there ever since. That was fine. In time she would find out that, when it came to him, she could run but she most certainly couldn’t hide.
He would let her try to deny this thing that was developing between them, but she would discover soon enough that he was her man.
But what he wanted and needed right now was another kiss. He smiled, thinking his job was to make sure she felt that she needed another kiss as well. And as he walked out of his bedroom he placed getting another kiss at the top of his agenda.
Gemma stood in her bare feet in front of the window in Callum’s kitchen as she gazed out at the beach. The view was simply amazing. She’d never seen anything like it.
One year while in college, during spring break weekend, she and a few friends had driven from Nebraska to Florida to spend the weekend on the beach in Pensacola. There she had seen a real beach with miles and miles of the purest blue-green waters. She was convinced that the Pacific Ocean was even more breathtaking and she’d come miles and miles away from home to see it.
Home.
Although she did miss home, she considered being in Australia an adventure as well as a job. Because of the difference in time zones, when she’d retired last night, she hadn’t made any calls, but she intended to try to do so today. Megan was keeping tabs on the bank situation involving Niecee. With the money Callum had advanced her, her bank account was in pretty good shape, with more than enough funds to cover her debts. But she had no intention of letting Niecee get away with what she’d done. She had yet to tell anyone else in the family, other than Megan and Bailey, about the incident and planned on keeping things that way until the funds had been recovered and were back in her bank account.
She took another sip of her coffee, thinking about the kiss she and Callum had shared last night. Okay, she would admit it had been more than off the chain and the climax was simply shocking. Just the thought gave her sensuous shivers and was making her body tingle all over. What Callum had done with his tongue in her mouth and his fingers between her legs made her blush.
It had been hard getting to sleep. More than once she had dreamed of his tongue seeking hers and now that she was fully aware of what he could do with that tongue and those fingers, she wanted more.
She drew in a deep breath, thinking there was no way she would ask for a repeat performance. She could now stake a claim to knowing firsthand what an orgasm was about with her virginity still intact. Imagine that.
She couldn’t imagine it when part of her dream last night dwelled on Callum making love to her and taking away her innocence, something she’d never thought of sharing with another man. The thought of being twenty-four and a virgin had never bothered her. What bothered her was knowing that there was a lot more pleasure out there that she was missing out on. Pleasure she was more than certain Callum could deliver, with or without a silver platter.
All she had to do was tell him what she wanted.
“Good morning, Gemma.”
She turned around quickly, surprised that she had managed to keep from spilling her coffee. She hadn’t heard Callum come down the stairs. In fact, she hadn’t heard him moving around upstairs. And now he stood in the middle of his kitchen, dressed in a way she’d never seen before.
He was wearing an expensive-looking gray suit. Somehow he had gone from being a sheep-ranch manager to a well-groomed, sophisticated and suave businessman. But then the chestnut-brown hair flowing around his shoulders gave him a sort of rakish look. She wasn’t sure what to make of the change and just which Callum Austell she most preferred.
“Good morning, Callum,” she heard herself say, trying not to get lost in the depths of his green eyes. “You’re already dressed and I’m not.” She glanced down at herself. In addition to not wearing shoes, she had slipped into one of those cutesy sundresses Bailey had given as a gift for her birthday.
“No problem. The house isn’t going anywhere. It will be there when you’re ready to see it. I thought I’d go into the office today and let everyone know that I’m back for a while.”
She lifted a brow. “The office?”
“Yes, Le’Claire Developers. It’s a land development company similar to Blue Ridge Land Management. But also under the umbrella of Le’Claire are several smaller sheep ranches on the same scale as Ramsey’s.”
“And you are…”
“The CEO of Le’Claire,” he said.
“You named it after your mother?”
He chuckled. “No, my father named it after my mother. When we all turned twenty-one, according to the terms of a trust my great-grandfather established, all four of us were set up in our own businesses. Morris, being the firstborn, will inherit the sheep farms that have been in the Austell family for generations as well as stock in all the businesses his siblings control. Colin is CEO of the chain of hotels my family owns. The one we stayed in the other night is one of them. Le’Shaunda received a slew of supermarket chains, and I was given a land development company and several small sheep ranches. Although I’m CEO, I have a staff capable of running things in my absence.”
Gemma nodded, taking all this in. Bailey had tried telling her and Megan that she’d heard that Callum was loaded in his own right, but she really hadn’t believed her. Why would a man as wealthy as Bailey claimed Callum was settle for being the manager of someone else’s sheep ranch? Granted, he and Ramsey were close, but she couldn’t see them being so close that Callum would give up a life of wealth and luxury for three years to live in a small cabin on her brother’s property.
“Why did you do it?” she heard herself asking.
“Why did I do what?”
“It’s obvious that you have money, so why would you give all this up for three years and work as the manager of my brother’s sheep ranch?”
This, Callum thought, would be the perfect time to sit Gemma down and explain things to her, letting her know the reason he’d hung around Denver for three years. But he had a feeling just like when his father had tried explaining to his mother about her being his soul mate and it hadn’t gone over well, it wouldn’t go over well with Gemma, either.
According to Todd Austell, trying to convince Le’Claire Richards it had been love at first sight was the hardest thing he ever had to do. In fact, she figured he wanted to marry her to rebel against his parents trying to pick out a wife for him and not because he was truly in love with her.
Callum was sure that over the years his mother had pretty much kissed that notion goodbye, because there wasn’t a single day that passed when his father didn’t show his mother how much he loved her. Maybe that’s why it came so easily to Callum to admit that he loved a woman. His father was a great role model.
But still, when it came to an Austell falling in love, Callum had a feeling that Gemma would be just as skeptical as his mother had been. So there was no way he could tell her the full truth of why he had spent three years practically right in her backyard.
“I needed to get away from my family for a while,” he heard himself saying, which really wasn’t a lie. He had been wild and reckless in his younger years, and returning home from college hadn’t made things any better. The death of his grandfather had.
He had loved the old man dearly and he would have to say that his grandfather had spoiled him rotten. With the old man gone, there was no one to make excuses for him, no one to get him out
of the scrapes he got into and no one who would listen to whatever tale he decided to fabricate. His father had decided that the only way to make him stand on his own was to make him work for it. So he had.
He had worked on his parents’ ranch for a full year, right alongside the other ranch hands, to prove his worth. It had only been after he’d succeeded in doing that that his father had given him Le’Claire to run. But by then Callum had decided he much preferred a ranch-hand bunk to a glamorous thirty-floor high rise overlooking the harbor. So he had hired the best management team money could buy to run his corporation while he returned to work on his parents’ ranch. That’s when he’d met Ramsey and the two had quickly become fast friends.
“I understand,” said Gemma, cutting into his thoughts.
He lifted a brow. He had expected her to question him further. “You do?”
“Yes. That’s why Bane left home to join the Navy. He needed his space from us for a while. He needed to find himself.”
Brisbane was her cousin Dillon’s baby brother. From what Callum had heard, Bane had been only eight when his parents had been killed. He had grieved for them in a different way than the others, by fighting to get the attention he craved. When he’d graduated from high school, he had refused to go to college. After numerous brushes with the law and butting heads with the parents of a young lady who didn’t want him to be a part of their daughter’s life, Dillon had convinced Bane to get his life together. Everyone was hoping the military would eventually make a man of him.
Callum decided that he didn’t want to dig himself in any deeper than he’d be able to pull himself out of when he finally admitted the truth to Gemma. “Would you like to go into the office with me for a while today? Who knows? You might be able to offer me a few decorating suggestions for there as well.”
Her face lit up and he thought at that moment, she could decorate every single thing he owned if it would get him that smile.
“You’d give me that opportunity?”
He held back from saying, I’ll give you every single thing you want, Gemma Westmoreland. “Yes, but only if it’s within my budget,” he said instead.
She threw her head back and laughed, and the hair that went flying around her shoulders made his body hard. “We’ll see if we can work something out,” she said, moving toward the stairs. “It won’t take long for me to dress. I promise.”
“Take your time,” he said to her fleeting back. He peeped around the corner and caught a glimpse of long, shapely legs when she lifted the hem of her outfit to rush up the stairs. His body suddenly got harder with a raw, primitive need.
He went over to the counter to pour a cup of the coffee she’d prepared, thinking he hadn’t gotten that kiss yet, but he was determined to charm it out of her at some point today.
“Welcome back, Mr. Austell.”
“Thanks, Lorna. Is everyone here?” Callum asked the older woman sitting behind the huge desk.
“Yes, sir. They are here and ready for today’s meeting.”
“Good. I’d like you to meet Gemma Westmoreland, one of my business associates. Gemma this is Lorna Guyton.”
The woman switched her smile over to Gemma, who was standing by Callum’s side. “Nice meeting you, Ms. Westmoreland,” the woman said, offering Gemma her hand.
“Same here, Ms. Guyton.” Gemma couldn’t help but be pleased with the way Callum had introduced her. Saying she was a business associate sounded a lot better than saying she was merely the woman decorating one of his homes.
She glanced around, taking mental note of the layout of this particular floor of the Le’Claire Building. When they had pulled into the parking garage, she had definitely been impressed with the thirty-floor skyscraper. So far, the only thing she thought she would change with respect to the interior design, if given the chance, was the selection of paintings on the various walls.
“You can announce us to the team, Lorna,” Callum said, and placing his hand on Gemma’s arm, he led her toward the huge conference room.
Gemma had caught the word us the moment Callum touched her arm and wasn’t sure which had her head suddenly spinning more—him including her in his business meeting or the way her body reacted to his touch.
She had assumed that since he would be talking business he would want her to wait in the reception area near Lorna’s desk. But the fact that he had included her sent a degree of pleasure up her spine and filled her with an unreasonable degree of importance.
Now if she could just stop the flutters from going off in her stomach with the feel of his hand on her arm. But then she’d been getting all kinds of sensations—more so than ever—since they had kissed. When he’d walked into the kitchen this morning looking like he should be on the cover of GQ magazine, a rush of blood had shot to her head and it was probably still there. She’d had to sit beside him in the car and draw in his scent with every breath she took. And it had been hard sitting in that seat knowing what had happened last night while she’d been sitting there. On the drive over, her body had gone through some sort of battle, as if it was craving again what it once had.
“Good morning, everyone.”
Gemma’s thoughts were interrupted when Callum swept her into the large conference room where several people sat waiting expectantly. The men stood and the women smiled and gave her curious glances.
Callum greeted everyone by name and introduced Gemma the same way he had in speaking to Lorna. When he moved toward the chair at the head of the table, she stepped aside to take a chair in the back of the room. However, he gently tightened his grip on her arm and kept her moving toward the front with him.
He then pulled out the empty chair next to his for her to sit in. Once she had taken her seat, he took his and smiled over at her before calling the meeting to order in a deep, authoritative voice.
She couldn’t help but admire how efficient he was and had to remind herself several times during the course of the business meeting that this was the same Callum who’d managed her brother’s sheep farm. The same Callum who would turn feminine heads around town when he wore tight-fitting jeans over taut hips and an ultrafine tush, and sported a Western shirt over broad shoulders.
And this was the same Callum who had made her scream with pleasure last night…in his car of all places. She glanced over at his hand, the same one whose fingers were now holding an ink pen, and remembered just where that hand had been last night and what he’d been doing with those fingers.
Suddenly, she felt very hot and figured that as long as she kept looking at his hands she would get even hotter. Over the course of the hour-long meeting, she tried to focus her attention on other things in the room like the paintings on the wall, the style of window treatments and carpeting. Given the chance, she would spruce things up in here. Unlike the other part of the office, for some reason this particular room seemed a little drab. In addition to the boring pictures hanging on the walls, the carpeting lacked any depth. She wondered what that was all about. Evidently, no one told the prior interior designer that the coloring of carpet in a business often set the mood of the employees.
“I see everyone continues to do a fantastic job for me in my absence and I appreciate that. This meeting is now adjourned,” Callum said.
Gemma glanced up to see everyone getting out of their seats, filing out of the room and closing the door behind them. She turned to find Callum staring at her. “What’s wrong? You seemed bored,” he said.
She wondered how he’d picked up on it when his full attention should have been on the meeting he was conducting. But since he had noticed…
“Yes, but I couldn’t help it. This room will bore you to tears and I have a bucket full of them.” She glanced around the room. “Make that two buckets.”
Callum threw his head back and laughed. “Do you always say whatever suits you?”
“Hey, you did ask. And yes, I usually say whatever suits me. Didn’t Ramsey warn you that I have no problem giving my opinion about anything?”
<
br /> “Yes, he did warn me.”
She gave him a sweet smile. “Yet you hired me anyway, so, unfortunately, you’re stuck with me.”
Callum wanted nothing more than to lean over and plant a kiss firmly on Gemma’s luscious lips and say that being stuck with her was something he looked forward to. Instead, he checked his watch. “Do you want to grab lunch before we head over to the house you’ll be decorating? Then while we eat you can tell me why you have so many buckets of tears from this room.”
She chuckled as she stood up. “Gladly, Mr. Austell.”
Nine
“Well, here we are and I want you to tell me just what you can do with this place.”
Gemma heard Callum’s words, but her gaze was on the interior of a monstrosity of a house. She was totally in awe. There weren’t too many homes that could render her speechless, but this mansion had before she’d stepped over the threshold. The moment he’d pulled into the drive way, she’d been overwhelmed by the architecture of it. She’d known when she’d originally seen the design of the home on paper that it was a beauty, but actually seeing it in all its grandiose splendor was truly a breathtaking moment.
“Give me the history of this house,” she said, glancing around at the elegant staircase, high sculptured ceilings, exquisite crown molding and gorgeous wood floors. And for some reason she believed Callum knew it. Just from her observation of him during that morning’s meeting, she’d determined that he was an astute businessman, sharp as a tack, although he preferred sporting jeans and messing with sheep to wearing a business suit and tweaking mission statements.
Over lunch she’d asked how he’d managed to keep up with his business affairs with Le’Claire while working for Ramsey. He’d explained that he had made trips back home several times when his presence had been needed on important matters. In addition, the cottage he occupied in Denver had a high-speed Internet connection, a fax machine and whatever else was needed to keep in touch with his team in Australia. And due to the difference in time zones, six in the evening in Denver was ten in the morning the next day in Sydney. He’d been able to call it a day with Ramsey around five, go home and shower and be included in a number of critical business meetings by way of conference call by seven.
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