He laughed, straightening to his feet. “That’s what you get for letting yourself into my home and throwing cold water on me.”
“Do you really sleep in those?” Disbelief filled her voice.
“Only when I suspect my sister is going to do something annoying.” He shot his Batman boxer shorts a frown. “What’s wrong with them?”
Lindsey shook her head, hand still plastered to her eyes. “Wanker. Tell me when you’re dressed so I can drill you about Sienna Roberts.”
She pivoted on her heel—how that was even possible, given she wore her customary five-inch stilettos—and hurried from his bedroom.
He sighed. Drill him. She was going to drill him. About Sienna. Excellent. Was he ready to give her any answers yet?
Lindsey arched an eyebrow at him when he entered his kitchen. “Took you long enough.”
“I showered. And dressed. You’re welcome.”
She huffed. “I want details.”
“The water was hot, the soap—”
“I will hit you.” She glared. “I want details about Sienna Roberts. Now.”
He ignored her, crossing to his coffee machine. Heart racing, he selected an espresso pod. Confrontation never bothered him before, even confrontation with family. But this…
“Talk to me, brother.” Lindsey appeared at his side, sliding her butt along the edge of the counter until she wedged herself directly in front of him.
He scowled.
She arched an eyebrow at him.
Accepting coffee was out of the question until he talked, he tossed the pod onto the counter and made his way into the living room.
Lindsey followed. “I know you told me you had a plan for her,” she said, dropping into an armchair with a frown. “But what I saw last night didn’t look like revenge.”
He didn’t take a seat. Instead, he crossed to the window to study the sweeping view of Sydney Harbor beyond it. His heart continued to behave like a goddam runaway freight train. “What did it look like?”
Her stare razed his back in an itchy heat. Silence stretched through the room.
Finally, his sigh ragged, he turned.
“It looked like love.” She crossed her legs and swung one designer-clad foot. “What with the smiling and goo-goo eyes and touching, and the way you scowled at any guy looking at her. But that can’t be right, can it? Given who she is and what she did to Clint?”
Hell, this wasn’t going to be fun. “Sienna really isn’t who Clinton led us to believe.”
Lindsey stiffened.
He swallowed. He loved his sister. A lot. But he recognized in her now the Dyson stubbornness so famous in their family.
“What do you know of her?” He crossed to the chair opposite where she sat, studying him with forced calm.
“Only what Clint told me.” She waited for him to lower himself into the chair before continuing. “She was his muse, his inspiration. When Dad told him to stop his ridiculous fantasy of being an artist and return to his business degree, she told him to follow his heart. Of course, his heart meant he would follow her, so she got what she wanted when he stayed at art school.”
“Do you know she turned her back on her own family’s fame and money?”
“Platinum Joe doesn’t have any money.” A frown creased her forehead. “And I think you mean infamy, rather than fame.”
“Before he was charged and imprisoned for embezzlement,” James clarified. “She left home and went at it completely alone at eighteen. Without any help from her father.”
“All the more reason for wanting the Dyson money.”
He shook his head. “No. She’s not interested in money. Not the kind of money we have, at least. Money to pay the bills, yes. And to care for her younger brother, sure. But wealth like our family has? No.”
“And you know this because she told you?” Lindsey scoffed. “Me thinks she’s beguiled your brain via your dick, big brother.”
“I know this because for the last six months, I’ve had her investigated. I’ve researched her. Her career, her circle of friends, her bank accounts.”
Christ, what a piece of work I am.
“I know more about her than she probably knows about herself,” he continued, throat tight. “I’ve read the reports on her life, her incoming finances and outgoing expenses. I’ve watched the footage of her buying clothes at op-shops. I know—for a fact—she hasn’t spent the last six months beguiling another wealthy, gullible man. She’s spent those last months raising her teenage half brother as she continues to live an almost reclusive existence.”
“Teenage half brother?” Lindsey’s frown deepened. “The kid with the smart mouth I met at her place? She’s his sole carer?”
“She is. And given the life Zach used to live before Platinum Joe went to jail, she’s had her hands full. And she’s doing an amazing job of it.”
Lindsey leaned forward, her stare intent. “See? There you go again. You’re talking like a man in love, James. Not a man out to destroy an enemy.”
He held her gaze. “She’s not my enemy, our enemy. I was wrong about that.”
Lindsey’s mouth fell open. “Did you just admit to being wrong about something?”
“I did. And I’m not out to destroy her anymore. In fact, I’m hoping we’ll have a future together.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Say that again?”
“I want Sienna in my life.”
A shaky breath burst from Lindsey, and she slumped back into the chair. “So you are in love. With her? The woman who rejected Clinton? Is there a brother version of the Oedipus complex?”
“That’s not it, Linds.” He let out his own ragged breath. “I’ve spent the last week with her. Not just last night. I’ve seen her with Zach. I’ve spent time with her. Talking. Chatting.”
“Fucking?”
“Yes.” A tight band wrapped his chest. “But what I feel for her is more than just lust. I like being with her. In the time I’ve spent with her, I’ve accepted the Sienna on paper, the one I spent the last six months learning about, is the real Sienna, not the manipulative prick-tease Clinton convinced me she was. I’ve been an idiot. Blinkered by my love for our brother, by my guilt for how we all treated him when he said he wanted to be an artist. I’m not blinkered anymore. I’m seeing things as they really are. I’ve seen her for who she really is, and, yes, I am in love with her.”
Love.
A warmth spread through him. A smile tugged at the side of his mouth. Truth was out. He loved her. He really did.
Lindsey didn’t say a word. Her gaze searched his. Was she waiting for him to say “gotcha”?
His pulse kicked up a notch. Telling her they’d both been wrong about Sienna had been easier than he expected. And cathartic. What was she going to do about it? How was she going to react? “Thoughts?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I guess that explains why I’ve never seen you look as happy as I did last night. To be honest, I didn’t think you actually knew how to feel anything apart from cold, calculating ruthlessness until I saw you with her. It’s weird.”
“Weird?”
She chuckled, her eyes dancing. “Seeing you happy. Far be it for me to say I like seeing you this way, but…I do. Like it. You should be happy. And with her, you clearly are.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
Lindsey smiled back at him. “Oh, don’t thank me yet. Dad rang this morning wanting to know what the fuck you were doing at the art gallery with—and I quote, ‘that arty-farty chick who Clinton shacked up with for a while’. I don’t think he’s going to take this well.”
Settling back in his chair, he grinned. “Do I look like I give a flying fuck?”
She burst out laughing. “Oh boy. You’re a braver man than I, big brother.”
“Last I knew, you weren’t a man. Or is there something you’re wanting to tell me.”
“Blow me.”
“Now.” He pushed himself to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a breakfast date with t
he woman I love. Feel free to unpack the dishwasher before you let yourself out.”
…
“Hi, Mr. Dyson. Come in.” Zach’s voice floated through the quiet warehouse to where Sienna stood at her easel, paint-loaded brush in hand. “You’re early. Are they croissants?”
“They are,” James’s deeper voice caressed her senses. The smile in the two words sent a flurry of something very close to happiness through her.
“Si’s in the studio,” Zach shouted. “I think she’s pretending to be working.”
She rolled her eyes. Great. Let’s embarrass the older sister. “At least he didn’t say I was naked this time,” she muttered, placing her brush into the jar of murky linseed oil.
“Do you often paint naked?” James’s question teased her from behind and she gasped, spinning around to face him. “And if so, can I be here next time you do?”
Her lips curled into a smile before she could stop them. “I work naked quite often. But only when I’m alone.”
Oh wow, flirting? Her?
He drew closer, far too sexy for her peace of mind in a black polo shirt and well-cut chinos. “Alone?”
“Alone.” She touched her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. Flirting. Who knew she had it in her? “Unless I’m doing a life drawing, that is. Then it’s me and the model naked.”
His nostrils flared. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “You’re teasing me now, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “A little. Sometimes I have my models keep their clothes—”
He didn’t let her say on. Instead, he curled his arm around her waist, flattened his palm to the small of her back and yanked her to his body, his lips capturing hers with a hunger she understood all too well.
All morning that same hunger had gnawed at her. She’d ached for him from the second she’d opened her eyes after a night’s sleep consisting of highly erotic dreams involving him and numerous activities even she would be hesitant to paint.
His hard body pressed to hers now, solid and warm and so very there. With her. He swept his tongue into her mouth, finding hers with demanding purpose. She whimpered, her body reacting to the possessive ferocity of his touch, his kiss.
Oh God, if she wasn’t careful, she’d do something embarrassing like strip his clothes from his body and impale herself on his—
He tore his lips from hers and gazed down into her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He smoothed his palm slowly up her back. “I didn’t mean to get quite so carried away.”
She laughed out a shaky breath. “I’ll forgive you. As long as I heard correctly that you did bring croissants?”
He grinned. Devilish delight glinted in his eyes. “Croissants are your sexual weakness? Good to know.”
“No, you are my—” She smacked her palm to her mouth. Crap, why did she go and blurt out something like that?
He chuckled and brushed his lips over hers. “Let’s go eat before Zachary comes looking for us.”
“Not going to do that,” Zachary shouted from somewhere nearby.
Heat flooded Sienna’s cheeks. James laughed.
“You are so going to get it, Zachary Francis Cornwell,” she shouted back, disengaging herself from James’s embrace.
An undeniable sense of loss and disappointment flowed through her at the lack of contact with his body. She drew a deep breath. She had to rein it in. One night. They’d only shared one night together—not even that. That didn’t make for a romantic, fairy-tale happy ever after. She had to remember that.
He’d also worked very hard at keeping her away from his sister last night at the gallery, which meant while he may want her sexually, he didn’t want her interacting with his family.
Yeah, so not the behavior of a man ready for a relationship. Sex with him was one thing. But anything other than that? Totally outside the realm of possibility.
They walked different paths with different ideals and goals.
Enjoy the sex and leave the fantasy for the art. No pain that way.
“C’mon.” She tempered the rapid beat of her heart. Well, tried to. “Let’s go eat. I baked muffins this morning. And Zach is cooking bacon and eggs.” She parted the curtain separating her studio from the rest of the warehouse, and raised her voice. “It’s not too late to run away now.”
“Bite me, sis,” Zach tossed over his shoulder from the kitchen without turning to face her. The smell of butter and bacon frying in a pan filled Sienna’s nose, and she smiled. Who would have thought Zach would actually be making breakfast? Contrary to everything she’d first believed, James was good not just for her, but her little family of two.
“Wow.” A tingling charge of electricity shot through her at the realization.
“Wow what?”
She caught her bottom lip with her teeth and shook her head, flicking him a quick look. “Nothing. Hungry?”
The light in his eyes told her he was. Just not for food.
“C’mon,” she said, not letting him answer.
She led him into the living area to where Zach had already laid out the table for breakfast. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled her nose, along with the delicious smell of hot buttered toast. Her mouth watered and a smile stretched her lips. In the middle of the table sat a plate piled high with croissants clearly from a bakery and not the supermarket down the road.
“You soft or hard?” Zach asked, grinning at James.
Crap, had Zach really asked that?
“Soft,” James answered, moving to the table. “Anyone eating hard eggs needs their head examined.”
Heat flooded Sienna’s cheeks. It seemed her mind was in the gutter while everyone else’s was on food. Oh boy, she really was in trouble.
“Soft it is.” Zach turned back to the fry pan.
She cast James an askew grin. “Can you come for breakfast every morning?”
“Absolutely.” He dropped his head to brush his lips over hers.
“I heard that,” Zach complained, a chuckle in his voice. “No kissing in the eating area.”
James straightened. His eyes danced with mirth. “Sorry.” He dropped her a wink and then joined Zach in the kitchen. “Can I help with breakfast?”
“I’m going to go wash up,” Sienna announced before heading for the bathroom.
Washing the oil paint and linseed residue from her hands, she allowed herself a moment to study her reflection in the mirror.
No matter how much she tried to keep her expression composed, a smile kept breaking out on her face. She wished it wouldn’t. With every smile, the fact she was falling hard for James became more and more impossible to deny.
And still, her lips curled in a grin and her heart fluttered with a happy beat.
“Oh, woman.” She stared hard at her reflection. “You need to get a grip and get this sorted out. Now. Before he hurts you.”
Her reflection didn’t answer. Or argue.
With a shaky breath, she turned from the mirror, wiped her hands, and exited the bathroom.
James and Zach were laughing when she joined them at the table.
“No, no, no.” Zach shook his head, a grin plastered over his face. “The shark tried to eat me after I hit on the lifeguard’s wife, not before.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry? What?”
“Fuck.” Zach ducked his head and scrambled from the table, as if he desperately needed the bottle of ketchup ASAP. “You weren’t meant to hear that.”
She blinked at his back, trying to suppress her smile as he shot her a harried look over his shoulder.
“We were swapping stories about the life of the celebrity,” James clarified. “Your brother won with his unplanned and rather auspicious television appearance on Bondi Rescue last year.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you own that show?”
He laughed. “God, no. I own Sydney Harbor Water Cops. Infinitely better. And with more boats.”
“I love that show.” Zach returned to the table, flicking Sienn
a a sheepish smile before plucking a croissant from the pile. “And boats. We’ve got a boat and Dad sometimes…” He stopped, a frown tugging at his eyebrows.
Sienna leaned forward and reached for his hand.
Opposite her, James caught her eye and shook his head. Wait, he mouthed.
Throat tight, she sat back in her seat.
“I mean, we had a boat.” Zach studied the pastry in his hand. “I guess the bank has the boat now. Still…” He looked up at Sienna and her smile wobbled. “I don’t need a boat. And I’ve got a sister, so that’s something.”
She wanted to hug him. Instead, she arched her eyebrow with playful sarcasm. “Something? I would suggest that’s the best thing ever.”
He rolled his eyes. “Geez, Si. Ego much?”
James burst out laughing, making both Sienna and Zach jump. “Can’t half tell you two are related. I remember Sienna saying those very words to me only a few short days ago.”
“And I stand by them.” She chose a croissant for herself from the stack.
James flashed a grin at her.
Her heart leaped into delightful flight. Could breakfast be any more wonderful?
“So, Zachary?” James scooped two fried eggs from the platter and deposited them on the plate in front of him. “Tell me about school. You go to The Point, correct? Is Mr. Dee still teaching history there? I don’t know how many times he put me on detention for not wearing my tie straight.”
“He is.” Piling his plate high with food, Zach pulled a face. Sienna didn’t know how he was going to fit it all in. “And he put me and Ricco—my best mate—on detention last week for the same reason. Then, during lunch, proceeded to give us lessons on how to tie a Windsor knot.”
James grunted out a laugh. “Same old Mr. Dee, it seems. Next time you have his class, knot your tie in a Cavendish knot and watch him go ballistic.”
She directed a pointed look at James. “Do you need to encourage him?”
“Hell, yeah.” He took a bite out of a piece of toast, his eyes twinkling.
There. Right there. That’s how she wanted to capture him on canvas. A man the country viewed as one of the most influential and powerful, one with a reputation for being fiercely serious and arrogantly brooding, sitting not at an immaculate office desk, but at a cluttered dining table, relaxed and laughing. There were a few crumbs of toast on his bottom lip, and she would include them in the painting. Those crumbs, the slightest hint of stubble on his jaw, the tumbled mess of his hair, and clothes more suited to a soccer dad than a media mogul.
The Stubborn Billionaire (a Muse novel) Page 15