by Robyn Grady
The baby squirmed, but Leeann propped Meg upright against her shoulder, facing her away from the couple she was obviously seeing more clearly as a threat. When Meg mewled, Leeann rubbed the back of her pink playsuit a little too vigorously. The truly tragic part was that Jenna knew how genuinely Leeann wanted to keep the baby, too. Leeann thought Meg could fill that empty place inside of her—the part that hadn’t received or learned how to love. If Jenna hadn’t experienced Leeann’s narcissism firsthand growing up, she might even feel sorry for her.
“You’ll both be living in Melbourne?” Leeann asked, her eyes assessing the two of them.
Jenna’s mind went blank. Now that she was back, she had no intention of leaving Sydney again; this had been Amy’s home. It would be Meg’s home too. But Leeann would be aware that Gage’s headquarters were down south.
As if reading her thoughts, Gage came up with the perfect response. “Jenna would like to stay in Sydney, and I already had plans to relocate my head office here.”
His arms circled Jenna’s waist and brought her closer. As he smiled down into her eyes, her heartbeat tripped over itself. He was so convincing. She had to remind herself that these simmering looks were merely for show.
Leeann cleared her throat; their display obviously irritated her. “I read in this morning’s business section that you were wrapping up a secret negotiation.” The baby whimpered and Leeann began to jiggle her. “I’d have thought your time would be needed in Melbourne twenty-four seven.”
When the baby cried, Leeann shh’ed louder and jiggled faster, and Jenna’s paper-thin patience tore down the middle.
She couldn’t do it. Legal guardian or not, how could she leave Amy’s baby here even one minute longer?
She was about to lever Meg from Leeann’s arms when a young woman rushed into the room.
“I’ll take her if you’d like, Mrs. Darley.”
The woman’s glasses sat crookedly above the bump of her nose, but her bearing, as she held out her hands for the baby, was firm and confident. Although she didn’t want to, Jenna took a step back and let the woman—Meg’s nanny, she presumed—take her niece.
Behind small oval lenses, the younger woman’s large dark eyes appraised her, but Jenna couldn’t quite decide whether it was with approval or mistrust.
“You must be Meg’s aunt.” The nanny smiled down at the quieting baby and tickled her chin. “I can see the resemblance.” She turned to Leeann. “I had trouble finding the right formula. I’ll make a bottle then put her back to sleep.”
Leeann’s chest expanded with a shuddering breath as she set a hand to the bodice of her raw silk jacket and visibly composed herself. “Thank you, Tina. We’ll leave you both alone. My guests were about to leave.”
Gage drew a card from his jacket’s top pocket. “My lawyer’s number.” His grin was cold. “In case you need to contact us.”
Traveling down in the lift a moment later, Jenna couldn’t stop quaking. She crossed her arms, raised a fist, and tried to find a finger with any nail left to bite. She hadn’t chewed her nails since ninth grade when Amy had bought a DIY French tip set to help her quit the habit. Amy had said there was no excuse for biting nails…she had to be strong…had to take it one day at a time…
Tears thickened in her throat.
Meg crying, the nanny’s judgmental gaze, Leeann pushing them out…She should have taken her father’s bonsai and smashed it against the window of that damn million-dollar view! Or better yet, she should have brought it back home where it belonged.
She closed her eyes.
Oh, Meg…
Gage wound an arm around her bent shoulders and brought her close. But the swelling bank of tears only rose higher. He felt so strong and sturdy, a pillar she could lean on. Lord in heaven, she needed that so much.
Releasing a breath, she relented and buried her face against a chest carved from warm granite.
“This is so wrong,” she groaned against his lapels. “Meg doesn’t belong there.”
Gage’s large hand stroked her hair.
The sheer strength of him…the smell. How easy it would be to forget the past and believe this incredible man truly wanted to marry her, and not merely for pragmatism’s sake.
Her hands curled, fisting in his jacket.
Oh, I really am in a bad way, she thought.
As the doors parted, he gently drew her away and gazed deeply into her eyes, reassuring her. “The nanny seems nice.”
Wishing away the hollow ache in her chest, Jenna accepted the handkerchief he offered and dabbed her wet eyes; she could imagine the puffy smudges partially covering her hideous dark circles. God, she needed sleep.
She sniffed. “I guess things could be worse.”
But not much.
After she returned the handkerchief, Gage took her hand and, with a determined stride, marched one step ahead out of the lobby and into the street.
Behind his striding size twelves, her heels clacked on the sandstone. “Where are we going?”
“You weren’t listening earlier?”
Her mind rewound and a wave of butterflies released in her stomach. “We’re going to buy a ring?”
“A diamond so outrageously large that no one, including Leeann, can miss it. Then we have another stop to make.”
He swung open the car door and indicated that she should take the passenger seat. She eased in and peered up at him. “Another stop? Are you going to tell me?”
Before shutting her door, he winked. “You know how I like surprises.”
Four
Jenna gazed at the glamorous, princess-cut, white diamond ring Gage had slipped on her finger an hour ago and swallowed a great lump of nerves.
“Gage, maybe we’re moving too fast.”
Sitting across from her at a city mall café, her companion’s gaze slid from the waiter delivering his coffee directly onto her.
“You heard my lawyer this morning,” he said, a line cut between his brows. “Our best chance of claiming your niece means moving forward now. That translates into getting married immediately.”
Jenna propped her pounding head in her hand.
One week, two tops, and I’ll be Gage Cameron’s bride, she thought. The scenario was surreal. So much had happened lately—the accident, the fallout from the wills, Gage showing up out of the blue. Her poor mind could barely keep up.
Jenna pushed three travel brochures around the tabletop while the diamond sparkled up, dazzling enough to hypnotize.
The Beauty of Bermuda.
New Zealand Honeymoon Retreats.
Marry in Las Vegas!
Time was of the essence, so Gage had suggested countries whose marriage laws required less lead time than Australia’s one-month proviso, yet were still recognized here. It made perfect sense. Yet it all felt so…rushed.
Her fingertip trailed down a bright Bermuda beach. The pamphlet featured a couple kissing, their embrace framed by the halo of an orange setting sun. She pictured herself and Gage in that shot and the frazzled knot in her stomach pulled tighter.
“I know this marriage is all for show. I mean, I know this isn’t for real.” It certainly wasn’t for forever.
Although his face was set, the assuring slant of his mouth was still killer sexy. Darn the man.
“You shouldn’t look at this in terms of a conventional union,” he told her.
Jenna sighed. “That’s my problem. I’m scared to death no one will see it as conventional. Just phony.”
“You’re forgetting our chemistry.” His gaze rested on her lips, making them tingle, before his attention drifted toward finding his coffee cup and spoon. “If we let that chemistry work for us—”
“Then I could be in even deeper trouble,” she muttered under her breath.
He dropped in sugar and stirred. “I don’t see how.”
Well, she could start with how he’d described her hair when they’d stood outside that lift earlier today…the way his graveled confession of how he prefe
rred it wild and tangled had made her heartbeat race and palms grow damp. He was trouble…trouble with a capital T.
The last thing she needed was to fall in love with Gage Cameron again, particularly when she felt more vulnerable than ever before. She needed to be strong, shore up her defenses, and remember he was here only for the short term. She couldn’t handle another dose of heartache—not on top of everything else.
“I don’t want this…relationship to do more harm than good,” she explained. “I don’t want it to get out of hand.”
“Out of my hands, Jenna, or yours?”
As he sipped his coffee, the power of his lidded gaze seemed to rope around her and tug her in. The awareness glittering in his eyes was so magnetic, so intense, he might as well have thrown a lasso.
She slowly sat back.
Twelve years ago he’d left without a word. Yesterday he’d made it clear he didn’t want a family. So, why say in one breath that he wouldn’t take advantage of this situation then openly flirt with her the next? He didn’t make sense.
Unless…
Gage lowered his cup and scraped back his chair. “We won’t waste time arguing the point. If you’re unhappy, I’ll tell the travel agent to nix the Las Vegas itinerary.”
Words sat on the tip of her tongue, but before she could call him back and blurt out heaven knew what, he moved off. Two seconds later, his cell rang.
He’d left the phone on the table when his office had called earlier. He hadn’t been pleased at the interruption. In fact, he’d seemed hard-pressed not to hurl the phone at the floor.
Jenna willed the hot-wired tension from her body. Gage was already passing through the travel agency doorway. Whoever it was could leave a message. With Gage gone, she had a little time to mull over her earlier assumption.
Setting her chin in her palm, she fingered the corner of the New Zealand pamphlet.
If it meant getting Meg back, of course she would marry Gage. She was grateful for his help. And if she had to choose, New Zealand’s Mt. Ruapehu, with its fairy-tale top-of-the-world chateau, would’ve been her pick. But from the moment he’d suggested a wedding, a question had sprouted and grown until finally the answer pushed its way into the light.
He’d said he wouldn’t take advantage of this situation. That didn’t mean he would object if his bone-melting magnetism worked its inevitable charm and she ultimately threw herself at him, either to show her appreciation for his help, or for even more fundamental reasons than that.
Sexual attraction.
Carnal satisfaction.
Gage had found tremendous material success; there were few people to rival his seemingly effortless ascent in the business world. Yet somehow she got the impression that he was secretly looking for a different kind of challenge. Perhaps something over which he’d contemplated as often as she had.
Maybe he did want to help an old friend.
But maybe he also wanted to help himself.
His cell phone beeped, and Jenna’s heart leapt to her throat. A message flashed on the miniature screen…and kept flashing. Her gaze snapped over to the travel agency. No Gage yet. When the cell phone beeped again, then beeped louder, an elderly man at the next table frowned at her over his bifocals.
Smiling an apology, Jenna rested her hand over the cell, hoping to muffle the sound. But the buzz vibrated up through her hand; it simply wouldn’t be ignored.
More heads turned. Desperate, she swept the phone up. Which button of so many would stop the noise?
About to stab a red key, she froze. A word in the text message caught her attention.
Progress on the Darley bid?
Her world tilted and she almost slid off her chair. Head spinning, she read it again. She held her breath as another message flashed.
Need projection figures for next quarter if proceeding with purchase.
“Anything wrong?”
She tossed the phone as if it were a hot coal. It spun in a wild circle and landed in front of Gage as he joined her again at the table.
Drawing in his chair, he glowered at the phone then at her. “You look as if you’d seen ten ghosts.”
“That message…” she managed. “It’s about Darley Realty.” Trying to make sense of it, her next words squeaked out. “Had you been speaking with my father about his company before the accident? About taking it over?”
The corners of that sensual mouth pulled down as he scanned the message. Then that faint scar twitched. She heard the rasp of his beard as he rubbed his jaw, then growled and thumbed a button.
Gage, answer me, damn it! “Was Darley Realty the secret takeover Leeann read about in the paper?”
Had she been mistaken about the kind of challenge Gage was chasing? Was taking over her father’s company Gage’s true secret agenda?
After a strained moment, he loosened his tie and nodded. “Your father was interested in selling.”
Jenna expelled a lungful of pent-up air.
Her father had been tight-lipped about his business dealings at the best of times. Given their strained relationship, there was no reason Jenna should have known about a possible sellout. But Leeann might have known. More to the point…
“Why didn’t you tell me?” As her pulse thudded in her temples, she narrowed her gaze and tried to decipher the truth behind the pale shadows in his eyes. “Is it because you still want Darley Realty in your portfolio?” Pain stabbed low in her throat. “Were you planning on seeing Leeann about that, too?”
Gage cursed and looked away. “Of course not.”
“The thought didn’t cross your mind?”
He collected his teaspoon and tapped it against the table. “That’s not the point.”
“You know, Gage, it really is the point.”
A very sharp, potentially ugly point. She needed to know what this was about. These last few days, she’d had more than enough of being set aside.
“You realize that marriage to me and guardianship over Meg won’t give you control of my father’s firm. Leeann still gets to keep all the assets, no matter who wins custody of Meg.”
He swept his spoon away and growled. “You’re blowing this out of proportion. Your father’s business doesn’t even come close to other businesses I control.”
“Then why did you want it?”
Heck, maybe his cronies had learned her father’s Western Australia property was riddled with gold. Maybe Gage had some twisted megalomaniacal wish to absorb everything that had belonged to the man who’d once offered him charity—food, an education, a roof over his head.
He didn’t meet her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Just because you say so?”
His gaze snapped up. “We have more important things to discuss—like guardianship hearings.”
She wasn’t finished with this hearing yet. Gage had been after her father’s business. He couldn’t sweep that under the mat. She knew there had to be more to it…something to do with her and Meg.
“I want to know, Gage. I deserve to know.”
His cup, almost at his lips, clattered back down, splashing coffee into its saucer. His expression hardened. “Your father…” He seemed to search for words. “He helped me.”
Holding her breath, she waited for him to go on and pushed when he didn’t. “Helped you? You mean after you left Sydney?”
His voice lowered. “This is complicated.”
She crossed her legs and pretended to get comfortable. “I’m sure you’ve faced worse.”
He exhaled and finally nodded. “You remember how we got…close that summer.”
Heat scorched her cheeks. She wasn’t that naive teenager anymore, the college girl heartsick for the hired help’s son, yet the mere thought of how they’d held each other that last time, with the warm air drifting in through the open pool house, sent blood coursing through her veins like molten lava.
She lifted her chin. “I remember.”
“Someone else had her heart set on a little clandestine f
un, too.”
As understanding slowly dawned, her legs un-crossed and her hands gripped the chair. “I don’t believe you,” she growled. “Amy wasn’t even home that summer—”
“Not Amy. Leeann.”
Her head kicked back. The sting was so sharp, he might have physically slapped her.
“Leeann made a pass at you?” The idea was so off, so ridiculous, she almost gagged. But then she remembered the way Leeann had looked at Gage today, as if all her lewd Christmases had come at once, and her heart hit the ground.
Dear Lord, it was true. Her father’s wife had propositioned the bad boy next door.
She found a thready voice. “What did she say?”
What did she do?
“My mother was out. I was in the backyard, working on my car. Leeann called in on the pretence of discussing requirements for a special dinner for some of your father’s business associates. She said she wanted to leave a note. I led her to the kitchen, turned back to find a pen…”
When his words trailed off, Jenna finished for him.
“She kissed you.”
He rubbed his temple. “I froze, then she snaked her arms around my neck…”
Uneasiness rolled through her, and Jenna waved her hands. “That’s enough. I get the picture. But what does that have to do with my father helping you? With you being here now?”
“Leeann’s first pass wasn’t her last. But I was prepared when she came knocking again. I was inside and didn’t let her through the front door. She got annoyed.” His bristled jaw shifted. “You know what they say about a woman scorned.”
Leeann had known about her crush on Gage, as had her father. Jenna remembered how particularly snide Leeann had been that summer before Gage had vanished and the pieces fell into place.
She’d been jealous.
Gage went on, “Leeann said if I didn’t comply she would tell her husband that I’d cornered her in the grounds and forced myself on her.”
Jenna’s lip curled as she muttered, “And my father loved this woman.”
“She kept her word and the next day your father confronted me. Said Leeann had told him everything. I could see in his eyes he didn’t believe her. Nevertheless, as her husband, he had no alternative but to act. He told me to pack and be gone within the hour. Along with that, he gave me a good deal of cash and said not to come back unless I could prove my worth.”