Now, it appeared, he’d given her a platform from which to reject him again. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth. One he had every intention of overruling at the earliest opportunity.
“Don’t bother putting them down in here, Sandy. Take them home or throw them out, I don’t care.”
“But, Jack, they’re addressed to you.” Her smile grew impossibly even wider.
“What are you talking about?” He’d written the card and envelope himself, even tucked the flap inside the envelope to close it before handing it to the florist.
“Here.” Sandy pulled the card from the arrangement and handed it to him. “Read it yourself.”
Jack took the small envelope from her. Sure enough, his handwriting listing Lily’s address had been neatly crossed out and his office address written in its place. No wonder Sandy was just about shaking with barely concealed laughter. A flash of irritation swept through him.
“That’ll be all, thank you, Sandy.” His voice was clipped, his instruction clear in its tone.
“And the flowers?”
“Leave them here for now. They will be going back out again shortly. Call the courier and—” He broke off, a grim smile curving his lips. “Forget the courier. I’ll take them myself. I’ll be back in about an hour.”
Jack drew his Crossfire SRT-6 Roadster to a halt in front of Charles Fontaine’s house with a spray of fine gravel from under the low-profile tyres. He hooked up the arrangement from the floor of the passenger side of the car and stalked to the front door.
No one refused to accept an apology from Jack Dolan, especially not Lily Fontaine. The fact that his attempt at apology hadn’t exactly been driven by sincerity challenged his sense of honour. He’d never apologised and not genuinely meant it before, but Lily had a way of making him walk outside his firmly drawn lines and he didn’t like it one bit. Eschewing the doorbell, Jack hammered a clenched fist on the heavy wooden front door.
His heart did an uncomfortable flip in his chest as the door opened, revealing a version of Lily that put him more in mind of the girl he’d lost his heart to as a hormone-driven teenager. Her hair was loose today, much shorter than it used to be, and barely touched her shoulders in a swathe of soft curls. She was barefoot and for some reason the sight of her pearl-pink-painted toenails lent her a vulnerability that spoke to him at his basest caveman level. Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his face because he was suddenly arrested by the expression in her eyes, which flashed like blue flame.
“These are yours.” He thrust the flowers in her arms. “Don’t send them back again.” He strode back to the car, crunching the gravel underfoot with a satisfying sound.
“Jack?”
He halted at the door of his car. “What?”
“Did you read the card?”
“Of course I read the card. I wrote it. You sent it back.” He crossed his arms in front of him.
Lily slipped the card out of the arrangement and put the flowers down on the tiled floor. The action made her denim skirt ride further up the back of her thighs, exposing a length of leg that sent a message of considerable demand from his groin to his head. She straightened and walked toward him, the rough texture of the driveway obviously causing discomfort to her unclad feet.
“Here, read it.”
In bristling silence Jack took the envelope from her and slid his finger under the sealed flap to rip it open. For a brief moment he allowed himself to imagine her tongue as it might have caressed the edge of the flap, moistening it to close it down. He quickly scanned the contents.
“Couldn’t you have just rung me and said yes?”
A small smile played around her lips, a teasing smile—one he had the almost overwhelming urge to control with his kiss.
“I suppose I could have, but I thought this would probably say it better. I had no need to accept your apology, you were due one from me. I behaved childishly last night, Jack. You were right, I do run away from things when it gets rough.” The smile slipped from her face and her expression was replaced with a far more sombre look.
Was she thinking about when she’d left him the first time? About their child? Since he’d found out about the private adoption Charles Fontaine had arranged, and which Lily had countersigned in agreement, he’d barely been able to think of anything else. Somewhere out there a stranger was raising his child—a stranger his son or daughter called Dad. His stomach knotted painfully. That’s why you’re here, he reminded himself. Revenge with benefits.
“I’ll take that as an acceptance of my invitation?” he pressed. He fought to keep his tone even, determined not to betray the direction of his thoughts, and watched her eyes carefully for any sign of duplicity.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I won’t run away again. I’d love to spend the day out with you on your boat. It would be great.”
Yes! Jack allowed her answer to wash over him in exultant waves.
“I’ll pick you up on Friday at 9:00 a.m. then.” He opened his car door and dropped into the seat.
“Could I meet you at the marina?”
Her voice sounded uncertain and he guessed her concern straight away.
“Afraid of what your father will say, Lily?”
“Let me take this in baby steps, Jack. While I’m under his roof I don’t want to antagonise him any more than necessary. He’s already under a lot of strain.”
Sure he was, Jack thought grimly. The strain of trying to hold together a business that was overstretched fiscally and had steadily diminishing staff resources. He could afford to let Lily take baby steps with this one although the analogy was anathema to him—ultimately the prize would be his.
“Okay, there’s parking at the marina for visitors. Meet me on Pier 23, berth 7. Same time.”
“I’ll be there,” she promised.
“And don’t have breakfast. We’ll have something while we’re out, okay?”
Jack slid his sunglasses onto his face and gave her a smile in farewell before putting his car into gear and driving carefully around the turning bay and out up the drive. Anticipation swelled deep inside. A day. A whole day. The possibilities were endless.
Six
Friday morning dawned with one of those crystal-clear summer days where you felt as if you could see forever. The heat was already building and Lily dressed carefully, wary of the southern hemisphere’s heightened risk of UV damage. The white muslin blouse she wore over her bikini would provide some additional protection to the sunblock she’d already liberally coated herself with.
Into a large beach bag she shoved her towel and a change of clothing, then pulled on a pair of denim cutoffs she’d found in her old dresser drawer and slid her feet into rubber-soled shoes.
Since her altercation with her father two days ago she’d barely seen him. He’d arrived home each evening, collected the meal that Mrs. Manson had cooked and left for him in the oven, then secreted himself away in his office. Most nights Lily hadn’t even heard him come upstairs to bed.
For herself she’d started to get into a wellness routine to get back in shape, which began each morning with a run along the beach—half the time expecting to see Jack on his deck as she had earlier in the week. But she hadn’t seen him again since the day he’d come over with the flowers.
She smiled to herself as she lifted the beach tote. He’d been so insulted that she’d returned them. At the time she’d thought it was a nifty idea. Her pulse quickened in anticipation of seeing him today. She hesitated a moment while she checked her reflection in the mirror. It had been one of her deepest fears, bumping into him again. He’d been the major reason why she’d chosen to stay away for all this time, and here she was, planning to spend a whole day with him. Anyone else would think she was certifiable.
Maybe she was, Lily decided as she went through to the garage and got into her car. She’d never in a million years have imagined she’d be like this—looking forward to seeing Jack with an eagerness that had her blood bubbling in
her veins with excitement.
She was early at the marina and as she alighted from her car she looked around. Progress had certainly not bypassed Onemata if the rows of boats and the wealth of water-going craft were anything to go by. She counted along the piers, finding number twenty-three, and walked along until she reached berth seven where a huge, luxury power boat nestled between two fingerlike jetties.
She hitched her tote higher on her shoulder, suddenly assailed with nerves. She knew Jack was successful, she’d even read articles about him in the States, about his Midas touch in business management strategies, but this, like his home, was a bold physical statement of his wealth and standing.
She had grown up with money and lived a very moneyed lifestyle at the peak of her career. She recognised serious financial accomplishment when she saw it.
“Hey, come aboard.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest as she heard Jack call out to her from the flybridge. In an instant he’d come down the gently curved stairs and was on the main deck. Lily jumped lightly from the jetty to the transom at the back of the boat, skirting the small inflatable dinghy secured there.
“I think this one is more my size,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“Really, I thought you’d be blasé about this kind of thing by now.” Jack crossed his arms and her eyes were drawn immediately to the sprinkling of dark hair across his strong forearms and the way his navy polo shirt stretched across his shoulders. A light wind tugged at his hair, tousling the controlled and highly groomed look he favoured these days, and reducing him to more like the young man she’d known.
“Blasé? No, not about this.” Lily gestured to the dinghy. “So, what’s the little one for?”
“To get us to the beach.”
“Beach? Which one?”
“It’s a surprise. Relax, you’ll enjoy it. Go stow your things inside and come up top with me.”
Lily did as he bade, taking a moment to appreciate the plush interior of the boat and the modern fittings in the galley. It really was a home away from home. He certainly had come up in the world. She put her bag on one of the deep comfortable seats fitted against the hull and climbed up to the flybridge where Jack waited.
“She’s beautiful,” Lily commented, trailing a hand over the highly polished railing. “Do you get out much?”
“Not as often as I’d like lately, but that’s about to change. I’m reaching the end of a time-consuming project. Once that’s all done, I’ll be able to kick back and relax a bit more.”
He smiled at her, but Lily noticed some strain around his eyes and his smile seemed forced. Brushing it off as her being oversensitive, she settled back in the seat next to Jack’s and resolved to stop looking for trouble. It was a glorious day and she was out on a spectacular boat with a handsome man. What more could a woman want? Butterflies fluttered in her tummy as she watched Jack expertly manoeuvre the large vessel from its berth and out of the marina. His hands were large and capable on the controls and a frisson of expectation shivered down the length of her spine as she remembered the feel of those hands as he’d caressed her body only a couple of nights ago.
Since then she’d found herself thinking of Jack at odd moments of the day—each thought, each memory winding the knot of tension inside her tighter and tighter. A tension she recognised all too well as being powerfully physical in its demand. She forced her gaze away from him, to the vista of the ocean in front and the coastline that sped away to the side of them.
She wasn’t stupid. The time would come again when they came together. With the way they had all but fused together with the heat of their passion the other night, it was inevitable. And when they did, maybe—just maybe—it’d heal the hollow that echoed deep inside and allow her to effectively move on with her life.
Jack watched Lily as she relaxed in her seat. With her hair blown back by the breeze and her face tilted to the sun, she could have been posing for a photo shoot. The thin material of her blouse hinted at the shadows and valleys of her body, in its own way revealing more than it covered as the wind plastered it against her slender form, accentuating her feminine curves. He could almost fool himself that he was growing accustomed to his body’s instant reaction to hers. The discomfort of walking around in a semi-aroused state while he was around her was a small price to pay for the satisfaction that was his due.
He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he’d be spending more time on the boat once he’d completed his “project.” In fact he looked forward to that moment with increasing anticipation. In a few weeks it would be the tenth anniversary of his father’s death—Jack’s self-appointed deadline to exact the revenge that was due against Charles Fontaine.
Yes, today was going to be productive in its own way. Wooing Lily, removing the last of the barriers she may have between them so he could fulfil this additional yet incredibly sweet reprisal, would be deeply satisfying. His body tightened. The countdown had begun.
After about half an hour’s ride down the coast Jack slowed the engines and turned inland, guiding the boat into a sheltered bay that nestled in a golden semi-circle at the bottom of a steep cliff. Access to the beach appeared only to be from the water, although they’d traversed the rocks once, many years ago, to reach this destination once before. He wondered if she remembered.
Little had changed since their first visit here, except, perhaps, for their mode of transport to get there. Back then they’d ridden miles on the coast road on his motorbike, then clambered over the rocks on the outgoing tide to the tiny private bay. Jack shot her a glance, gauging to see if she recognised the beach.
Dawning realisation sent a blush of colour into her cheeks. Yeah, she remembered, all right. Jack savoured the satisfaction. The memories would serve as an effective seasoning to his plans for the day. He set the engines to idle while the anchor lowered and he checked to make certain the boat was secure before shutting the engines off completely.
“Come on down. I promised you breakfast, you must be starving.”
He shot down the stairs before her, turning to watch as she descended behind him. His eyes devoured her long tanned legs as she made her way slowly down the stairs and his body hardened. Today was going to be torture. It would be worth it, he reminded himself. Nothing in his life had come easily so far and he didn’t expect that to change anytime soon. He reached out strong hands to her waist and lifted her down the last of the stairs, letting his hands slide up her rib cage, his palms heated by the texture of her skin through her flimsy blouse before he let her go.
“Thank you.” She smiled and ducked her head as if she was suddenly shy.
“Any time,” he murmured, his voice low, his hands tingling from the contact.
Her body’s reaction didn’t go unseen by his sharp gaze and he smiled to himself as he recognised the tight beading of her nipples beneath the lycra top of her bikini. Perfect. At least he wasn’t the only one experiencing a little discomfort.
They walked into the cabin and Jack went down the few carpet-covered stairs that led to the galley.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Lily asked.
He could feel her, standing close behind him. If he turned he’d likely be able to take her in his arms without a single protest. But then, where would the fun of the chase be, the cat and mouse, the delight of suspenseful expectation?
“There’s a sideboard built in over there.” He gestured toward a gently curved wooden cupboard hugging the interior wall of the boat. “Grab a couple of trays, placemats and knives and forks. I’ll do the rest.”
By the time he’d whipped up a couple of Spanish omelettes Lily had the trays ready and was standing on the rear deck looking out at the sparkling ocean. From the back she still looked like she had as a teenager. Long slender legs, delicate shoulders and an impossibly long neck supporting her blond head. It wasn’t until you got closer, he acknowledged, that you saw just how the past ten years had changed Lily. There was a wariness in her eyes that she’d neve
r had before, a reticence that implied she wasn’t quite as impulsive as the girl she’d been. It was that same caution that had seen her break away from him the other night and that had alerted him to the fact he needed to tread carefully if he was going to achieve his goal.
Today was going to be approached from an entirely different angle. Softly. Enticingly. He was going to make sure she wanted him with a hunger and a burning need that would play her straight into his hands.
“Breakfast’s up,” he called as he put the two warmed plates on the waiting trays and lifted the trays to carry them out. “I hope you still like mushrooms.”
Lily spun around with a smile to accept her tray. “Yeah, I do, thanks.”
They sat at the back of the boat, barely moving in the calm bay.
“Oh, this is good!” she exclaimed after taking a forkful of the fluffy mixture into her mouth. “Where on earth did you learn to cook like this?”
“I picked up a lot from Mum, after Dad died, but for the most part it’s been trial and error. I never wanted to be one of those men who relied on take-out or TV dinners.”
“Well, you’ve definitely graduated beyond those. This is divine.”
Jack watched as Lily took another mouthful, her lips glistening slightly in the morning light and the smooth muscles in her throat working rhythmically as she swallowed. The urge to press his mouth to her skin, to feel the movement of her throat, to taste her lips, swelled from deep inside him. Suddenly aware of his intent gaze, Lily stopped, fork midair, before taking another bite.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice breathless, her eyes flaring as she met his gaze.
For a moment he could say nothing but then rational thought kicked back in.
“Nothing. It’s good to see you’re enjoying the meal.” And that’s all, he censured himself. For now.
Tycoon's Valentine Vendetta Page 5