The Costarella Conquest

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‘The gardener and handyman Dad employs to maintain everything, but he actually does more than maintain.’

‘Like what?’

‘He thinks about what will delight Mum and does it. Like the solar lights he’s just put around the rockpool. I’ll show you. It’s over this way.’

He strolled beside her, apparently content to bide his time, ensure she was relaxed with him. Which was totally impossible, but at least he didn’t know it and wouldn’t know it until he made a move on her.

‘A waterfall, too,’ he remarked as they came to the pool.

‘Yes. It makes a soothing sound. Most people enjoy sitting near falling water … fountains in a park. Also reflections in water. The lights placed around the pool shimmer in it when it’s dark.’

‘Does your mother come out here at night?’

‘Sometimes. Though she can also see this part of the garden from her bedroom window. What’s really special is how Nick lit up the figurines of the Chinese water-carriers coming down the rocks at the side of the waterfall. There’s another light at the back of the pot-plant below them. It bathes them in a ghostly glow. Quite a wonderful effect.’

‘Landscape architecture,’ he said, slanting her a rueful smile. ‘I’ve never thought about it but I can see why it should be appreciated.’

‘I guess in the career you’ve chosen, you don’t take the time to smell the roses,’ she shot at him.

‘True. I haven’t,’ he conceded readily enough, as though it didn’t matter to him.

It niggled Laura into asking, ‘Is it worth it?’

There was a subtle shift of expression on his face, a hardening of his jaw, a determined glint in his eyes. ‘Yes, it is. To me,’ he answered in a tone that didn’t allow for a different point of view.

Laura couldn’t leave it alone. ‘You like working for my father?’

‘Your father is part of a system that interests me.’

It was a clever sidestep, depersonalising her question.

‘The system,’ she repeated, wanting to nail down his motivation. ‘I can’t imagine any pleasure in dealing with bankruptcy.’

‘No, it can be very traumatic,’ he said quietly. ‘I would like to make it less so.’ The dark brown eyes drilled into hers. ‘Not even the most beautiful parks in the world resonate with people in that situation, Laura. All they see is their lives crumbling, their jobs gone, their plans for the future shattered. It can lead to divorce, suicide, violence, depression so dark there is no light.’

She shivered at the intensity of feeling coming from him, a depth of caring she hadn’t expected in this man. It didn’t sit with coldly calculated ambition.

Not only that, but he’d also somehow turned the tables on her, making his job much more seriously special than hers.

‘I know that people going through trauma do find some solace in a pleasant environment,’ she argued with conviction. Her mother, for one.

‘I didn’t mean to undervalue it.’ He gestured an appeal. ‘I’m not your father, Laura. Perhaps we can both work on having open minds about each other.’

‘Why did you come here today?’ she asked pointblank.

‘Your father wanted me to meet you and I was curious enough to accept the invitation,’ he answered, his eyes gently mocking the hard challenge in hers.

She planted her hands on her hips, sick of how he was churning her around and wanting open confrontation. ‘So what do you think of me?’

His mouth moved into a very sensual smile. ‘I think you’re very sexy.’

A tidal wave of heat rushed through Laura. She snatched at his own words to her and threw them back at him. ‘That doesn’t have much currency with me.’

He laughed and stepped forward, sliding an arm around her waist and scooping her into body contact with him, his eyes glittering with reckless intent. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this from the moment we met, so I’ll do it, and you can slap me down afterwards.’

There was time—a few seconds—for her to slam her hands against his shoulders and push away. His mouth didn’t crash down on hers. It seemed to her he lowered his head in slow motion, moving his free hand to tilt her face upwards. She did nothing, waiting for the collision of the kiss, wanting it, wanting to know if it would be better than any other kiss a man had given her.

A weird exhilaration was buzzing through her at being held in his embrace, as though he was the right man for her, the perfect man—a sensation she’d never felt until now. Whether it was his intense maleness, his strength, his aggressive confidence, his sexy physique … Laura couldn’t pin it down, but curiosity held her totally captive.

His lips brushed over hers with surprising gentleness, tantalising her, exciting her with a sensuality she had not expected. She did move her hands to his shoulders, but not to push away, to touch, to feel, to slide around his neck and hold his head to hers. She liked the shape of it, liked the clean, bristly thickness of his short hair—no gel.

He started tasting her, little flicks of his tongue slipping seductively between her lips, and she responded with her own provocative probing, wanting to taste him, a pulsing primitive streak urging her to goad him into less control. It was as though he was testing how good she was for him, whether she would be worth pursuing beyond today, and everything female in her wanted to blow him out of his mind.

A wild exultation zinged through her when he plunged into a far more passionate kiss. No more holding her face. Both arms were around her, pressing her into intimate contact with him and she revelled in the hard evidence of her desirability. He was very definitely aroused, and so was she, as fiercely passionate as he was in the meshing of their mouths, seeking and driving for more and more excitement.

He clutched her bottom, grinding her even closer, and she was so hot for him she didn’t care how intimate they were. Her heart was pounding, her thighs were quivering, and the only thought she had was yes, yes, yes. It was powering through her. More than desire. Need that craved instant satisfaction. Urgently.

It was he who pulled back, breaking the kiss, lifting his head, sucking in air like a runner at the end of a marathon. She gulped in oxygen, too, the dizziness in her head demanding it. Her breasts were still crushed against his chest and she could feel his heart thumping in unison with hers. Then his cheek was rubbing against her hair and his voice vibrated in her ear.

‘I want you, Laura, but it can’t be here.’

Here … in the garden … in open view of anyone who wandered outside. Madness. She couldn’t take him inside, either. Everyone would know. She recoiled from giving her father the satisfaction of thinking his plan was working. It would worry her mother. Eddie, too. It couldn’t be done. The time and place wasn’t right. But the man was. Which was very confusing because he shouldn’t be.

‘I need to sit down,’ she said, acutely aware of how shaken she was. ‘There’s a garden bench …’

‘I see it.’

He shifted, tucking her tightly against him, walking her to the bench. Laura had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. He saw her seated then sat beside her, leaning forward, elbows on knees, still recovering himself from the rage of desire that had swept through both of them.

Laura breathed in the scent of the nearby lavender bush. It was supposed to be calming. It did help to clear her head to some extent. Jake Freedman might be his own man but he was closely connected to her father. However right he might feel to her, she couldn’t overlook that situation.

‘If you think this means I’m a pushover for the taking, it doesn’t,’ she blurted out. ‘The chemistry between us is just chemistry and I won’t be losing sight of that, so don’t imagine it gives you any power over me.’

He nodded a few times, then shot her a wry smile. ‘Well, you’ve certainly slapped me down.’

Not for the kiss. For the possible motive hidden behind it because the kiss had got to her, more powerfully than she cared to admit. She tore her gaze away from his tantalising little smile and stared at the waterfall, wishing it could soothe the deep disturbance this man had caused.

‘Not so much a slap, Jake,’ she said more calmly. ‘Just letting you know how I feel about it. My father is obviously pushing me at you. Maybe he wants you as his son-in-law. No way will I be used as a step up your career ladder.’

No comment from him.

His silence went on for so long it began to shred her nerves. ‘Sorry if I’ve dashed your hopes,’ she said bitingly.

‘Not at all.’ He sat up, hooking his arms on the backrest of the bench in a totally relaxed manner, smiling at her as though he was perfectly at peace with her decision. ‘I’m not looking for a wife at this point in my life and you’re not looking to fill that position. With that understood, do you want any part of me, Laura?’

Which put her right back on the spot.

His eyes glittered with the knowledge that she did, but wanting and taking were two different things. As Eddie said, she’d be better off not going there. Jake could be lying, secretly thinking he could seduce her into becoming his wife. Not that he’d be able to, but if she entered into any kind of relationship with him, he could report to her father that everything was sweet between them, and she’d hate that.

Yet looking at him, remembering how it had felt with him, the thought of not experiencing more of him actually hurt. Which was probably another danger signal. He did have power over her.

‘I want you,’ he said quietly, seeing her struggle with his question. ‘Not because you’re your father’s daughter. I think the chemistry between us makes that totally irrelevant. I want you because I can’t remember wanting any other woman quite as much.’

It echoed her response to him. Jake Freedman was definitely the ultimate ten out of ten. But he could be saying those words because they were what any woman would like to hear. He was such a sexy man, he might affect every woman this way and she was no exception at all to him. Clever, playing all sides, Eddie had said.

She eyed him sceptically. ‘Is that the honest truth, Jake?’

‘Much to my own dismay, yes,’ he said with a rueful grimace.

It was an odd thing to say and she looked at him in puzzlement. ‘Why to your dismay?’

The riveting brown eyes bored into hers with heart-stopping intensity. ‘Because I don’t want to want you, Laura. Any more than you want to want me. And with that said, why don’t we both take time to think about it?’

He rose from the garden bench, apparently preparing to leave her. Laura was so startled by the action, she simply stared up at him.

‘Do you have a mobile phone?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Give me your number. I’ll call you at the end of the week if I’m still thinking of you and you can then say yes or no.’

It was so abrupt, hard, cut and dried, and the turbulent feelings it set off inside her made it difficult to think. Time … yes … time to decide if she couldn’t bear not to know more of him … or time to have his impact recede to something less significant.

He took a slim mobile phone out of his shirt pocket and she rattled out her number for him to enter it in his private file.

‘Thank you,’ he said, pocketing the phone again and flashing an ironic smile at her. ‘I’ve seen enough of the garden. You might like to join Eddie and your mother playing Scrabble. I’ll say goodbye to them and then to your father on my way out.’

Relief poured through her. No more stress today. Decision-making could wait. She returned his smile as she rose from the bench. ‘I didn’t have you pegged as a garden man.’