by Ally Blake
The boat rocked beneath them as he pulled harder on the oars. Meg’s hands whipped out to the sides and held on tight.
‘For a woman who thinks lying on the couch listening to disco is a form of exercise, the hike to my place makes no sense.’
‘Fine,’ she said, throwing her arms in the air, rocking the boat so that he had to steady them with some fancy flicking of the oars. ‘I was casing the grounds in search of chocolate.’
‘Give me a break—’
She lifted her chin as though a haughty bearing could make the words seem less undignified. ‘I warned you. Caffeine is a staple in my diet. And I never expected to have to go cold turkey this week. So actually it was all your fault that I ended up there.’
His laughter again came from nowhere and again surprised the hell out of him. And a few local birds that screeched as they scattered from the treetops nearby.
Gorgeous, plainspoken and stimulating. Delilah herself couldn’t possibly have been more tempting.
Thankfully he’d long since proven himself invulnerable to the lure of apparently easy promise. He’d learnt early on not to trust the feeling as far as he could throw it. So long as the bright, breezy, easy warmth in this corner of the world hadn’t rotted away his indoctrinated dubiousness he’d be just fine.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘ZACH,’ Meg said, and by the tone in her voice Zach wasn’t sure he’d be keen on what came next.
‘Okay,’ she continued, ‘I was hoping to get around to the fact more gracefully, but since I have no idea how long you intend to keep me hostage out there let’s get to the point. You have a seven-year-old daughter named Ruby who, it seems, nobody knows anything about. There. Now it’s out there. So what do we do from here?’
Zach slapped an oar into the water at such a rough angle it covered them both in wet spray. ‘Don’t get cute, Ms Kelly.’
She waved a hand across her face as though swatting away a fly. ‘Stop being so formal. I’ve practically been in your house, I’m on first-name basis with your daughter, and you’ve seen me in this hat. Call me Meg.’
Through gritted teeth he said, ‘If you saw yourself in that hat you wouldn’t be half so concerned.’
She blinked up at him. Hell. So much for proving himself invulnerable. Now she was sitting there gawping at him as if he’d outright told her how lovely she was.
‘Okay then, Meg,’ he said, his voice coarse, ‘if formalities are now to be tossed aside, then I’ll be blunt.’
‘All this time you were being polite?’ Something in his expression must have made her catch her tongue. She mimed zipping her mouth shut. That mouth…
‘I want you to tell me in avid detail about every second you spent in my daughter’s company. And don’t miss a moment.’
She blinked at him. ‘Relax, Zach. We didn’t talk about sex, drugs or rock and roll if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Sex? Drugs? He ran a hard hand over the back of his neck, which suddenly felt as if it were on fire.
‘She’s seven, for Pete’s sake. The High School Musical soundtracks are as extreme as her rock and roll tastes go.’
She hooked a thumbnail between her teeth and looked up at him from beneath her thick dark lashes. His gut sank so fast he pressed his feet into the bottom of the boat. What wasn’t she telling him?
By age seven he’d already stolen his first pack of cigarettes, he’d kissed his first girl, he’d been hit so hard by one so-called parent he’d gone to school with a hand print bruised into the back of his thigh.
He’d known Ruby barely seven months. There was a fair chance he didn’t know his kid at all. His voice was unsteady as he said, ‘Ruby’s situation is…sensitive, therefore it’s imperative that I’m kept informed.’
‘Just informed? Not present? Not available? Not her first port of call?’
The riddles finally became too much and his frustration got the better of him. ‘Meg, I’m her father. If I don’t know everything I’m going to imagine the worst and then go quietly out of my mind.’
A smile spread across her face—a radiant thing that made the sun beaming down upon the lake pale into insignificance. ‘Well, now, that’s just about the best news I’ve heard all day.’
He shook his head, hoping for clarity. None came. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘The fact that you want to know is a good thing. A wonderful thing.’
She even reached out and patted his hand, as if he’d accidentally given her the password to a treasure he didn’t even know existed. It wasn’t the kind of touch he wanted from her.
‘Then hurry up and tell me.’
‘I’m not going to break her confidence that way. Come on.’
Zach glanced at the clouds above Meg’s head. Who in heaven had he screwed over to be made to live through this day?
‘Trust me,’ she said, ‘every girl needs her mysteries, especially from her father. It’s character building. So long as she knows you care enough to want to get to the bottom of them, to the bottom of her, then you have nothing to worry about.’
Nothing to worry about.
She couldn’t possibly have known that of all the four-word combinations that could placate his exasperation with her, that was it.
Still, time and again in his life, just when he’d begun to get comfortable, that was when fate pulled the rug out from under him. Foster families he’d felt as if he’d connected with had let him go. His knee had given way a week before the World Championships and he’d been forced into early retirement from competitive rowing. The momentum and success of his resorts had him finally living his life in such an easy groove, then along came Ruby.
He couldn’t accept things could be that simple. That certain. There always had to be a catch. What was he missing?
Aw, hell.
‘What did you tell your friends about her?’
‘Nothing!’
‘One thing I’ve learned from Ruby is that girls like to talk to their friends. A lot. About everything.’
‘We do. A lot. But here’s the thing—I have the feeling the reason you accosted me this morning was tied up with wanting to keep your private life separate from your working life. And Ruby would naturally be a big part of that. Right?’
He didn’t say no.
‘If so, believe me, I’m not going to be the one to out her. She’s your only secret kid, I assume. Lone heiress to all this?’
Zach still didn’t say no.
Meg said, ‘Well, I know better than anyone what she’d have in store for her if the world found out. I wouldn’t bring it on any young girl.’
Crazy as it sounded, he believed her. ‘Thank you.’
‘My absolute pleasure.’ She smiled. That lush mouth. Those stunning blue eyes. He had a sudden need to know what they’d look like bathed in moonlight as she spilled apart in sheer pleasure in his arms.
He hooked the oars back into their loops and aimed for the resort, and every stroke felt as if he were pulling them through wet cement. ‘You seem perfectly comfortable in the limelight. Are you implying that’s all an act?’
‘Oh, no, did that just sound all woe is me? Please tell me it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m blessed in, oh, so many ways. And I am perfectly at peace with the contradictions that came with being notable. But I wasn’t born twenty-nine and world wise. You haven’t heard the story of my glittering debut?’
Zach shook his head.
‘Well, here it is. I must have been three at the most. My father was giving a press conference to announce that he’d bought the George Street building in which the Kelly Investment Group was housed and was renaming the thing Kelly Tower. Mum had taken us all along to see him in action. All trussed up for the big occasion, my hair in ringlets, wearing my favourite navy velvet dress and black patent shoes, I got away from her. I made it to the podium mid-announcement, clambered up, tugged on my father’s trousers and whistled through the gap in my front teeth that I needed to tinkle. Need
less to say my father wasn’t all that impressed at being upstaged, but the press ate it up. I haven’t been able to tinkle since without the world knowing about it.’
Her smile was cheeky, but as he seemed able to do with this woman from the outset he felt the undercurrent stronger than the surface words. On the outside it was a cute story about a girl and her dad. For her it was a story of innocence lost.
He pulled the oars harder through the water. ‘Just because a spotlight follows you doesn’t mean you have to perform for it.’
She raised both eyebrows in challenge. ‘You really believe that? Do you really want to know the God’s honest truth? Or are you pushing my buttons in an effort to continue to punish me for the whole Ruby thing?’
He felt a smile coming, but this time didn’t bother trying to put a stop to it. ‘Both.’
‘Fine.’ She took a breath. ‘The only reasons I am telling you any of this is recompense for Ruby. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Fame is a funny old thing. It’s not like I’ve done anything to deserve being remembered. I haven’t invented something, or cured anything or broken any world records. But my name has brand recognition, which gives me not only a certain power, but responsibility as well. Say the name Kelly and what do you think?’
Wealth. Charm. Beauty. But also excessive influence. Secrets. Lies. Scandal. Everything he wanted Ruby nowhere near.
She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘I had to figure out early on how to deal with all that baggage. I have no interest in running the company like Brendan. Or owning the city like Cameron. And the rush Dylan feels every time a new client is lured into the KInG net is a mystery to me. I wouldn’t even begin to know what drives King Quinn himself. But what I can offer with a splash of perfume, a flash of designer skirt and a dash of feminine glamour is a much-needed counterpoint to the excess of testosterone my family exudes. A way to use some of that power for the greater good. And, boy, am I good at it. So good I could sell tickets. But unless you know a guy with a good line in wigs and fake noses it’s twenty-four hours, seven days a week, barely a holiday in sight.’
‘Why do it at all?’
She blinked, clearly thinking him obtuse. ‘For them. For each other.’
‘For your family?’That kind of self-sacrifice was something he was only just beginning to understand.
‘Jobs change. Friends come and go. Family is where you begin and where you end. My brothers may appear to be the kings of the jungle, but deep down they have the hearts of big kittens. They need me as much as I need them. And no matter what part we play all of us are working towards the same goal.’
‘The succecss of your father’s business.’
‘No. For our family to be happy. The business success is a side effect. I certainly don’t dance to my father’s tune, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Is that what I said?’
She frowned deeply. ‘It’s what you intimated, isn’t it? To be fair, I did once. Then a time came when I became a right little tearaway. The things I got up to would make your eyes water. Then I grew up. Took charge of my life. And decided making love and not war was the only way forward.’
‘Who knew the life of a society princess was lived on the front line?’
Her frown faded away, but her eyes remained locked on his, a tad wider than normal, as though she couldn’t quite believe she was telling him all of this. ‘You can mock me all you like, but in offering a corner of myself to those who are interested, I am able to use my money, my influence and my time helping some of the less trendy, less telethon-appropriate organisations I believe need all the help they can get, which is extremely satisfying.’
‘I wasn’t mocking you. I—’
What? Envy you your infamously close family? Like hell he was going to tell her that.
Not knowing how to ask, he instead said, ‘Moving on.’
‘Excellent idea.’ She let out a deep breath and leant forward, just a touch, but enough that when her mouth curved into an all-new smile, a luscious, flirtatious, brain-numbing smile, he felt it like nothing else. If her life really was lived on a battleground, that mouth was as good a weapon as they came.
‘Am I off the hook?’ she asked.
He slowed his strokes, not quite ready to return to land. To real life. To the other side of the battle from her.
‘Just one last thing. Tell me how you got the chip in your tooth.’
She crossed her eyes as her tongue slid to the gap. His hands gripped the oars for dear life.
‘It’s so tiny. How did you even notice it?’
‘I happen to be an extremely perceptive man.’
Her eyes slid to his, warm, tempting, wondering just how perceptive he might be. Unfortunately he was perceptive enough.
As she slid her tongue back into her mouth her teeth scraped slowly over her lips and her nostrils flared as she let out a slow, shaky breath. He knew he wasn’t the only one feeling the impossible zing between them. He also knew she was wishing with all her might that he hadn’t noticed a thing.
She tilted her chin up a fraction before shaking her hair off her shoulders in a move meant to distract him from the fact that for the first time since he’d met her she was no longer looking him in the eye. ‘How else would a party girl chip a tooth but on a glass of champagne? On the upside, it was truly excellent champagne.’
He laughed softly as he was meant to do. Her eyes flickered to his and her smile was grateful.
After a few long, loaded moments, Meg asked, ‘I just…I’d like to know one thing too. Did Ruby tell you I was there?’
He shook his head. ‘Her nanny.’
She nodded, then looked down at her paint-chipped fingernails with an all-new smile on her face. A secret smile. An honest smile. One reserved for Ruby.
And from nowhere Zach felt something the likes of which he’d never felt in his entire life—the most profound kind of pride that a woman such as her thought so highly of his little girl.
Meg’s tongue kept straying to the itty-bitty chip in her tooth.
What had she been thinking, fessing up to all that guff in some great unstoppable stream of consciousness? Nobody wanted to see the workings behind the wizard. It ruined the fantasy. It seemed all she needed was a man who looked her in the eye and asked about the real her, and it was fantasy be damned.
Thank goodness she’d been rational enough to pull back when she had. There were some parts of her life not for public consumption.
If she wanted to continue volunteering at the ‘less trendy, less telethon-appropriate’ Valley Women’s Shelter she had to keep it underground too. Every woman needed her mystery, and every public figure needed their sanctuary, even if it meant she had to truss herself up in a blonde wig, red liptick, brown contacts, and tight second-hand acid-wash jeans circa 1985.
If she was to remain Brisbane’s favourite daughter she had to pretend the part of her life in which she’d attempted to leave the spotlight had never happened. She felt lucky much of her memory of that time was a blur of flashing lights—from the nightclub, the police car, the hospital.
As to the way she had finally taken control of her life? If she planned on going through life with a spring in her step and a smile on her face she knew it was best not to revisit the choices she’d made back then ever again.
It was done. It was for the best. Move on.
So Zach Jones—stubborn, pushy, scarily insightful Zach Jones; the guy who saw through her so easily that every time they met she had to chase him deeper into the darkest recesses of herself in order to drive him back out—could just take a step back.
Besides, her big mission had been to sort him out, not the other way around. He was the one with the rebellious daughter. He was the one who’d lost someone close. He was the one who needed help.
As she’d seen real social workers do, she started slowly, easing her way to the point so as not to scare him away.
‘So Ruby was home sick from school,’ she said.
‘Does that happen a lot?’
Zach’s cheek clenched and the look in his eyes made her wonder if he might not be deciding whether Operation Dispose of Meg might have to be put into action after all.
‘I ran away from home once when I was a little older than her,’ she pressed. Though she kept back the part where she got to the corner of the street, sat there for a good hour before she went home, only to find nobody had even noticed she was gone.
‘She told you she had a sore throat?’ he asked, taking baby steps her way.
‘She sure did.’
She bit her lip. Argh! Had she broken a confidence? No, she’d told Ruby she wouldn’t tell her dad she was home from school, and that had been taken out of her hands by the nanny. Phew. She’d make sure the kid knew it the next time…
Only then did it hit Meg there wouldn’t be a next time. She believed Zach wasn’t kidding when he said he’d hired security to case the perimeter of the resort, so he’d probably already commissioned twenty-foot-high fences around the house as well.
If she were in Zach’s shoes she’d keep his kid as far away from her as she possibly could.
Still, the thought of never seeing Ruby again made her heart give an all too familiar little twinge. But this wasn’t about her. Then again, maybe, just maybe, as a nice little side effect, if she helped Zach get Ruby on track then she could stop those darned heart twinges for good.
He watched her with those clever dark eyes that made her feel as if she were melting from the inside out and he rowed.
She merely sat there and waited.
It paid off.
He took a deep breath, narrowed his eyes, then with all the enthusiasm of a man with a knife pressed to his ribs to make him talk, he said, ‘She rang Felicia this morning, claiming a sore throat. Felicia called a cab to bring her home. When I heard my first thought was that it was a ruse. Then I wasn’t sure. Do you think…?’