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There was something here for all the senses, she realized. Even on the balcony, the decadent cream cashmere couch felt like heaven against her bare calves, just like the expensive cotton sheets on her guest room bed. The briny ocean breeze left a salty tang on her lips, tainted warmly by the patio heater glowing in the far corner. And through the double glass patio doors floated the soft strains of James Taylor on the CD player, mingling with the faint bustle of Circular Quay below. All that marred the perfection was the absence of an active kitchen. Something simmering on the stove…a lamb roast, she mused, some garlic potatoes, fresh carrots and green beans. Or a Greek salad. Her stomach rumbled in agreement and a small grin tugged at her lips.
Her good humour faltered as Cal appeared at the door with two wine glasses. He’d changed into a dark navy suit, light-blue shirt and a precisely knotted sapphire silk tie, while she had to be content with the cherry-red dress he’d first seen her in. It was a little snug across the breasts but the best she could do on short notice.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” His quiet confidence made it sound like he’d painted the harbour view himself, and she couldn’t help but smile.
“Yes.”
He studied her, almost as if assessing her against some unspoken criteria. She must have finally passed muster when, with a glint of remembrance in his eyes, he said, “Nice dress.”
“My only dress,” she replied and recrossed her legs. The floaty chiffon hem slid over her skin, baring a long expanse of thigh. Surreptitiously, she rearranged the fabric, but when his shrewd gaze followed her hands, the warmth began to rise again.
To fill the uncomfortable void, she took a grateful swallow of the bubbly lemon, lime and bitters, then grabbed up the paper he’d shoved across the glass table.
It was a briefing paper, not only outlining his business deals but some personal details, details she’d be expected to know as his fiancée. She scanned down the page, unable to stop that rush of morbid curiosity. She knew nothing of him—at least, not the things that really mattered. Deep, personal things she always thought you should know about your husband-to-be. Little intimacies that indicated you were a couple, in love and happy to spend the rest of your lives together.
“You’ll be thirty-four on New Year’s Day.” At his nod, she asked half to herself, “What do you get a man who can afford to buy anything?”
“Something simple. My mother bought me the fish tank last year.” At her raised eyebrow, he added, deadpan, “But I can always use a tie or a nice bottle of Scotch.”
“A pair of socks?”
She returned his grin with one of her own and for the first time since arriving in Sydney, Ava felt his full and complete attention. The gentle tug of desire unfurled inside, but with ruthless efficiency, she shoved it back.
On his private jet he’d been engrossed in paperwork and phone calls. The journey to his apartment hadn’t been much better. She should have enjoyed the decadent opulence of driving in his shiny black hybrid Maserati Coupé, blanketed in the luxurious smell of leather seats, the throaty purr of the powerful engine as they smoothly glided along Anzac Parade. Yet she couldn’t shake the awful thought that this was a premonition of things to come—she silent and immaculately groomed and he the workaholic with always one ear to the phone, one eye on a business deal.
She didn’t want to be the wife who paraded about in designer dresses and jewels, a perky, dolled-up hostess serving only to entertain her husband’s business colleagues. She shuddered at the thought of putting on makeup day after day, having her hair teased and primped, dressing up like Corporate Wife Barbie.
And stupid, stupid her—she was going to sign a contract that gave him carte blanche.
You have to remember this is just temporary. She’d be at Jindalee most days, focusing on her business. She’d be with Cal only when he needed to show her off and make a good impression. He’d said so himself.
His own personal show pony.
With self-anger dogging her thoughts, she glanced away, back to the darkening sky.
Instead of taking a seat next to her, he sat on the couch directly across the coffee table, thankfully on the outer edges of her personal space. Yet anything short of another city was still way too close. He was simply too commanding to ignore, let alone be comfortable with. It was a combination of the dark, knowing look in his eyes, the sensual flow of his voice and the annoying memories that surged up to goosebump her skin.
She quickly returned her attention to the paper. “You started working for Victor at seventeen and now you’re a managing director. Did you…” she paused, mentally rephrasing the question. “You never felt the urge to start your own business?”
“VP Tech is my business.”
She remained silent at his cryptic statement until he elaborated with a small shrug. “I dropped out of school to work in Victor’s software development division. A few years later I had the idea for One-Click and Victor supplied technical staff and financial backing. Today we’re the only Australian company with integrated Internet, phone and software technology in the one office program. It brings in billions.”
After a brief second she changed gears. “What’s your mother like?”
His reply was instantaneous. “Loyal. Generous. Supportive.”
“And your stepfather?”
Cal paused, allowing himself the opportunity to study her features, the uptilted nose, the elegant sweep of her cheek. The way she looked genuinely interested in his answer. “Commanding. Immovable. Astute.”
“And he won’t figure out our newly engaged bliss is a front? Or are you planning to tell them the truth?” she said, her voice in complete control. Yet her eyes gave her away, deep pools of turmoil. Abruptly she glanced down, breaking contact.
“Are you worried about what people will think?” he asked slowly. The small crease between her eyes indicated he’d hit the truth.
“About what your parents will think, yes.”
Despite that ever-present distrust that lingered like an early morning fog, the air suddenly shifted, stirred by a gentle wave of something Cal didn’t want to explore, let alone acknowledge. Not even to himself.
He barely heard the catch in her breath, but he couldn’t miss the struggle etched in the gentle curves of her face. Shoving down that sliver of unfamiliar guilt, he instead focused on his purpose. He’d had one moment of weakness, and it was his responsibility to make it right. He’d learnt that from Victor. He didn’t welcome this deep, burning need to have her skin on his, to have her body hot and writhing beneath him.
Yet for the first time in months, he simply wanted.
He ground his teeth together. Christ. Now he was hard.
With a determined slant to his jaw, he refocused. Things with Ava were business. They had to be.
The silence stretched until the need to fill it with something, anything, became unbearable. Cal finally broke it.
“If they ask, you can just say we met over cocktails at the Shangri-La, kept in touch and met up again recently.”
“But isn’t a sudden engagement out of character for you?” she pressed.
“Trust me, they won’t ask. At least, my mother won’t.”
“And Victor?”
He paused, twirling the glass in his hand. “It’s none of his business whom I chose to marry. Let me handle him.” As his firm command lingered, their gazes clashed, one curious and bright, the other shadowed and dark.
Ava severed it and reached for her glass. “So we’re going to fake it.”
The unintentional double entendre curved his mouth. “That a problem?”
She looked discomforted by his scrutiny. “I’m not good at deception.”
Interesting. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage. Just think of the money.”
He could’ve kicked himself when an injured shadow passed over her face. But then she turned back to the view and it vanished.
What was with him? He preferred women who understood the demands of his lifestyle, women who were polished, sophisticated, who weren’t looking for promises or commitment. Women who could elegantly fake a parental inspection with ease. They’d graced magazines, television, catwalks. They met his needs sexually, socially and mentally, although not one woman had met them all.
But Ava…what was it about her and just her that compelled him?
Sure, she was a hot package. Their one encounter still haunted his memory. His eyes dipped to her neckline, to the silky material stretched taut across her breasts. Ava Reilly was also stubborn and proud, qualities that alternately fascinated and frustrated him.
Don’t forget she bargained her baby to save her business.
That should be enough to extinguish his craving, but inexplicably, it still simmered. And below that, an unfamiliar urge to know more about her, to unravel the pieces of what his brief report had missed, surged up.
“How long have you been at Jindalee?”
His sudden question snapped her gaze back to him.
“Pretty much my whole life.” At his frown she added, “Don’t you have all this in a report?”
“No.”
She held his gaze, as if trying to work out if he was telling the truth or not. Finally she gave a small sigh. “Jindalee used to be a sheep station, built by my father in the late forties.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty in December. My parents tried for ages to have kids, then they had two girls barely a year apart.” She clicked her mouth shut and looked away, indicating that line of questioning was closed.
He frowned. When they married, he’d get sole control of VP Tech, everything he’d ever wanted. He should be focusing on that and only that, not sharing intimate details of their lives. She was just a convenient means to that end. He’d done the right thing, the only thing by claiming his child. He didn’t need to know the intricacies of her past—just like she didn’t need to know about Victor’s ultimatum.
“So when is the happy day?” Ava said.
For a second, Cal remained wrapped up in his thoughts, in the remnants of anger still clinging to him like ethereal cobwebs. That anger was a constant confirmation never to fully trust anyone, never to let his guard down. But when he snapped his eyes to Ava’s, he felt those spidery webs slowly evaporate.
Quickly he gained control. “As soon as possible. How long does it take to organize a wedding?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Isn’t it something women always obsess about?”
She gave him a look. “Sorry, I missed the memo.”
She took a slow sip of her drink and his attention zeroed in on those cherry-painted lips as they met the rim of the glass, the small ripple under her smooth skin as she swallowed.
“Money’s no object,” Cal added with more calm than he felt. “If you want a particular place, a certain church—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He studied her with interest. “If you could get married anywhere, where would you choose?”
“I haven’t given it much thought.”
“Okay.” He placed his glass on the table with firm decisiveness. “St Mary’s Cathedral for the ceremony,” he said, naming Sydney’s most prominent historical church. “Then my private cruiser on Sydney Harbour for the reception. How does August the first suit you?”
“That’s less than…” she calculated in the pause, “two months away. Why the rush?”
“You have a problem with that?” He eyed her stomach, then nodded. “You’ll be five months pregnant, obviously showing…”
“That’s not the point,” she said tightly. “Aren’t there waiting lists?”
“Probably.” He quirked up an eyebrow. “I can organize a wedding planner.”
That threw her. “No! Okay, August the first it is,” she finished lamely. “So, getting back to tonight. Tell me more about your parents.”
He let her change direction without comment. “My mother, Isabelle, lived in the Hunter Valley. She met Victor when I was eleven and they married a year later.”
“You have a brother,” she said.
“Stepbrother. Zac.” With all traces of amusement gone, he felt the sudden need for distance. He rose, went to the railing, then turned to face her, his back against the cold metal. “He’s three years younger than me and Victor’s real son.”
She smiled tentatively. “I’m sure your stepfather thinks you’re just as—”
“Don’t.”
Her smile slowly faded. “I’m just trying to—”
“You don’t read the tabloids, do you?”
Mutely she shook her head.
“Zac left VP Tech a few years back,” he said less harshly. “From what I hear he started up his own company on the Gold Coast.”
I stayed. I remained loyal. And yet Victor still insists on playing this stupid game with the future of the company.
“Have you spoken to him?”
“What?” He shook his head, trying to dislodge the remnants of bitterness.
“Have you spoken to Zac since he left?” She studied him way too closely, a thread of concern in her bright blue eyes. “You’re brothers. Don’t you—”
“No. We need to get going if we’re to make our reservation,” he said gruffly, glancing away with an odd sense of guilt.
Ava hesitated for a brief second as he held out his hand. When she finally took it and he gently pulled her to her feet, she sucked in a breath. There it was again—the jolt of heat, the quickening of her heartbeat, the low ache of desire in her belly. When she instinctively placed a hand on her stomach, his eyes followed.
“Can you…feel anything?”
The sudden flash of wonder in his face was a low, primeval blow, leaving her breathless. What she felt had nothing yet everything to do with the life growing inside her. Her body was changing, growing, and hot, dark need throbbed through her veins. Her skin itched to be touched, to be kissed. By this man.
And there was no way she’d admit that, not when it’d taken all the control she possessed to recover from that near kiss.
“Just a few…flutters,” she managed. “It’s normal in the first trimester.”
“Do you need anything?”
You. “No.”
Ava swallowed thickly as he placed a hand on her back, guiding her into the apartment. Great. Just great. How on earth was she going to survive another thirty-one weeks of this?
“Do you have a special diet?”
She closed her eyes briefly as the warm brand of his palm seared through her thin dress. “No caffeine or shellfish. Lots of greens, water. And sleep. I’ve been spending a lot of time in bed…”
She glanced up, caught his flash of amusement and felt her skin prickle hotly.
