скачать книгу бесплатно
You should have thought of that, Lily admonished herself.
She knew that Kyle was here because Nathan worked in Kyle’s family’s law firm. Nathan loved his job, and hadn’t wanted to upset the prestigious Van der Rosses by not inviting the man who would one day become his boss. Caitlyn had assured her it was the only reason Lily’s ex-fiancé had been invited.
‘Yes, we’re dating.’
The smooth baritone of Jacques’s voice sent shivers down Lily’s spine, and she struggled to shake the feeling.
‘For how long?’ Kyle said, and she turned back to see the smugness disappear.
It bothered him, she thought, her heart accelerating in an instinctual response to Kyle’s anger. But then she paused, and told herself she didn’t have to be worried about him lashing out.
She didn’t have to worry about him at all any more.
‘Almost six months now,’ she said as Jacques moved down a step to stand beside her. He was a full head taller than she was, and she tried to ignore the awareness that realisation brought.
‘Six months?’ Kyle repeated, and she saw his eyes flash.
They’d broken up a year ago, and clearly he thought six months was too short a time for her to mourn for him.
‘It doesn’t feel like six months, though,’ Jacques said, and she shifted her gaze to him. ‘I barely feel like I’ve scratched the surface with you.’
So he did have a sense of humour, she thought, and smiled. When he responded with a smile of his own her breath caught and she thought something crackled between them. Her heart thudded when Jacques wrapped an arm around her waist, and for a moment she forgot that it was all a game and lifted her hand to brush at a piece of his hair.
‘How did you two meet?’
Kyle’s voice punctured the tension in the air and she looked at him with a foggy mind. It took her a minute, but when she came out of her Jacques-induced haze she noted the grim set of Kyle’s lips. He really didn’t like this, she thought, and waited for the panic. For that quick rush of trepidation that anticipated that she was about to be put in her place.
But nothing came. And somehow she knew it was because of the easy strength exuded by the man at her side.
‘I’d love to tell you all about it, Kyle, but we were up there for far too long.’
Lily shot a flirtatious glance at Jacques, and briefly wondered how deep a hole she was digging when she saw a flash of heat in Jacques’s eyes.
‘We should probably spend some time with the happy couple. Enjoy the rest of your evening.’
Taking Jacques’s hand, she hurried down the stairs, weaving her way through the guests. She only stopped once they were outside on the balcony, and then she immediately let go.
‘I’m so sorry about that,’ she said hurriedly, her chest suddenly tight.
Just breathe, Lily, it’s over now.
‘Care to explain?’
There was a slight breeze in the air and Lily walked to the edge of the balcony, turning her face towards the wind. It helped steady her, and when she opened her eyes—when she saw the view in front of her—that did, too.
Nathan’s new house stood at the top of the Tygerberg hills in Cape Town, and she could see Table Mountain and most of the city from where she was. It reminded her of how small her problems were.
Even the after-effects of a bad relationship.
‘How about we start with an introduction?’
Her words were said a little breathlessly, and she cleared her throat. Nerves had replaced panic, and she glanced around. No one was paying attention to them. That helped.
‘Lily Newman—best friend to the bride-to-be.’ She offered a hand.
‘Jacques Brookes—brother of the groom-to-be.’
He took her hand and it was like touching the coals of a fire. It made her want to break the contact immediately, but he held on, shaking her hand slowly. The heat went up her arm, through her chest...
Before it could move any further she pulled her hand away. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, and folded her arms, constraining the hands that suddenly wanted more of the fire. ‘It probably would have been better if that had happened before the whole debacle inside.’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered with a sly smile. ‘It was much more interesting than the way I usually meet girls.’
‘I’m sure you must mean women, because clearly...’ She gestured to herself, and then flushed when she saw appreciation in his eyes.
But he only said, ‘Touché,’ and made her wonder why she’d said those words.
They’d made her sound sassier than she was. As if she was in his league. As if she was used to playing the cat-and-mouse game of flirtation. She almost laughed aloud at the prospect of being in any league.
No, she thought as she took in how effortlessly Jacques’s muscular body wore his suit. He was way too attractive to be interested in her. Someone who looked like him spent time with models and actresses—definitely not with women who had more than twenty-five per cent body fat.
She distracted herself by offering the explanation he’d asked for earlier. ‘Kyle’s my ex-fiancé—’
She broke off when he lifted a hand, and she saw that his ring finger was a little crooked.
‘The one who dumped him a month before the wedding?’
‘Yes.’
‘I always thought the woman who did that had some balls.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks.’
‘It doesn’t explain why you dated him in the first place.’
It was the same thing she’d asked herself when she’d realised how poorly he’d treated her. But that realisation had only come at the end—when she’d been forced to see the truth. She’d been blinded by how charming, how handsome he was at first. And at all the times when he’d switched it on again sporadically throughout their relationship.
But the simple truth was that the blinkers had been kept in place because he’d been interested in her. It had been intoxicating—until it hadn’t been. And then she’d found him with a naked woman and regained the gift of sight. It had grown clearer with each hour that had passed after she’d ended it. With each phone call Kyle had made. With each threat...
She was ashamed that she’d dated a bully—that she would have married him—just because she didn’t think enough of herself. She’d dealt with bullies her entire life—she should have known better. And then there was the guilt, the indignity of her actions after the break-up...
‘Some things you only realise with time,’ she finally answered Jacques.
‘Touché,’ he said again.
She watched him shift his weight from one leg to the other and frowned. The movement was so out of place for a man who clearly had an abundance of confidence. She thought of the conversation she’d overheard, wondered if what she saw was vulnerability, and felt it hit straight at her heart.
No! she commanded herself. She had her hands full with her own problems. Like the store she’d wanted all her life—had sold a piece of herself to start—which was failing. She needed to focus on fixing that—on fixing herself—before she could even think of getting involved with someone else’s problems.
And yet when she looked at the sexy man in front of her the resolutions that she’d thought were firmly in place seemed hazy.
‘Kyle didn’t seem to like you,’ Lily said to distract herself. ‘Why is that?’
Jacques moved closer, and the breeze brought his fresh-from-the-shower scent to her nose. Her insides wobbled as attraction flowed through her, but she chose to ignore it.
Or tried to.
‘We have history.’
Lily waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she said, ‘That’s all you’re going to tell me?’
He chuckled. ‘Apparently not.’
He leaned against the balcony’s railing.
‘Our families run in the same circles, so I’d met him a few times before Nathan started to work for him. Because I knew he was a—’ He looked at her, as though checking what her reaction would be, and then continued with a grin. ‘Because I knew he wasn’t a very nice person, I used to make a game out of stealing his dates.’
Her heart raced. ‘But you stopped?’
Something sparked in his eyes. ‘A while before you, yes. Unfortunately.’
Her face heated and she leaned against the railing as well, looking away from the view he was facing towards. She didn’t want him to see how uncomfortable he made her. And heaven only knew why she was staying there with him so that he could make her uncomfortable.
‘Why?’
‘Why did I stop?’
She nodded, and he sighed.
‘Because Nathan started working for Kyle’s firm. Because I stopped going to events he would be at.’
Jacques fell silent, and Lily wondered if he was remembering why he’d stopped going to those events. Had it been because he’d started playing rugby? Because he’d stopped? Had it been during the year after he’d stopped?
She folded her arms again when guilt nudged her at the way she’d got the information to wonder those things at all.
‘And,’ Jacques said after a while, ‘because I didn’t have time to deal with the punches he tried to throw at me.’
Surprise almost had her gasping. ‘Kyle tried to hit you?’
His lips curved and her pulse spiked.
‘Tried being the operative word. It was entertaining for me...painful for him, I imagine.’
‘You hit him back?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. I was defending myself.’
It took her a moment to process that, and then she laughed. ‘I would have paid to see that.’
He smiled. ‘You could still see it.’
She gave him a look. ‘I’m not actually going to pay you to hit my ex.’
Jacques laughed. ‘It wouldn’t cost you much if you wanted me to, but I wasn’t talking about that. I saw the way he looked at us when he heard we were together. He hated it. So I bet if you and I go into that party right now and pretend to be a couple for a while longer his reaction would pretty much be the same as a punch in the gut.’
She’d barely had enough time to consider his proposal before he’d pushed up from where he was leaning and moved closer to her, sliding an arm around her waist. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as she drew a quick breath. She watched his eyes lower to it. He only needed to dip his head—it was barely five centimetres away—and she would know if she could really feel that scar during a kiss...
He moved his mouth until it was next to her ear and whispered, ‘Kyle’s watching, so you might want to make that decision quickly.’
CHAPTER TWO (#u4251f1d2-486d-519b-9800-37c01c75f833)
JACQUES COULDN’T DENY enjoying the way the woman he’d only just met shivered in his arms. Or the look her ex—a man he had a very low opinion of—was aiming at him. But those things were irrelevant to him at that moment. What was relevant was an opportunity to do just as his PR firm had advised. An opportunity that had just fallen into his lap, and would get him exactly what he wanted if he used it properly.
Lily shifted, reminding him that the opportunity wasn’t an it but a who.
‘If I say yes, will you let go of me?’
She asked it in a shaky tone, and he looked down into uncertain eyes. They became guarded a moment later, and he frowned, wondering where the spirit he’d admired earlier had gone.
‘I’ll let go of you regardless, Lily.’
He spoke softly, but forced his heart to harden. He couldn’t feel anything for her—including empathy. It would make using her a lot more difficult.
It sounded harsh, even to him, but he knew he would do it if it meant he could redeem himself from the mistakes he’d made in the past. He’d been trying to do that since he’d realised he was only proving people right—specifically his father—by acting the way he had during the year after his suspension.
The realisation had had him channelling the ‘I’ll do whatever it takes’ motto he’d been known for during his rugby days into building a sporting goods company. Into making it a success.
Now it was. And yet people still thought of him as the bad boy who’d beaten up his opponent seven years ago, and it grated him. So when he’d heard that his old rugby club was being sold, he’d known it was an opportunity. He could go back to the root of it all—to where his problems had started.
The irony was that he needed a better reputation to get the club he believed would change his poor reputation. And Lily was the key to that.
‘Let’s do it.’
The words were said firmly, surprising him after the brief moment of vulnerability he’d just seen, but he simply asked, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
She gave a quick nod, and then moved her mouth so that it was next to his ear, just as he had done to her earlier. It made it seem as if she was responding to his question—something her action made seem suggestive—and he would have appreciated the strategy if a thrill hadn’t gone through his body, distracting him.
‘We’ll have to tell Caitlyn about this. If she sees us and thinks we’re together she’s going to freak out.’
She pulled back and laid a hand on his chest—an intimate gesture that had his heart beating too hard for his liking.
‘That would probably be best,’ he answered stiffly.
It took him a moment to figure out whether his tone came because of the effect she had on him or the prospect of speaking to his brother.
A fist clenched at a piece of his heart as it always did when he thought of Nathan, but he tried to focus on his task. He took Lily’s hand and led her through the crowd of people he no longer cared enough about to know to where his brother and Caitlyn were standing.
