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Just what are you playing at, mate? First that thing in the plane, then the flirting. Now you’ve moved in. Next, you’ll be kissing, and you know where that’ll lead.
He swiped back his hair with a quick jerk. No. She had told him loud and clear she wasn’t interested. Except … he found himself wanting to believe that the surprised desire in those expressive eyes wasn’t just his imagination.
He thought about her mouth, how soft it had looked. How her skin felt, as smooth and unlined as the downy softness of a newborn. And how those mossy-green eyes had tugged at his common sense, dragging him under like a floundering swimmer at the beach.
Luke shoved those thoughts away and went to the foot of the stairs. Work and career had always been his prime objective, even before this mess. Even before he’d entertained the thought that he might make VP one day.
Before Gabrielle?
The faint twinge twisted low before he forced it away. Yeah, even before then. His brief disastrous marriage just proved his theory: you couldn’t have a demanding career and keep a relationship alive. One always had to suffer.
No, he liked his life just the way it was. And if he needed sex, he could always rely on a few willing female colleagues who were just as focused on their careers.
No-strings sex. Yep. Nothing like it.
If Luke had been looking in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, he would’ve been surprised to see a dark scowl blooming across his face.
Now he stood in the middle of the living room, casting an eye over the spread and cataloguing the details. There were two entrances: one from the short hallway and one via the kitchen. The faint aroma of coffee lingered, mingling with some fresh lemony, floral fragrance. Sunshine streamed through the huge bay window ahead, illuminating sunflower-yellow walls, two overstuffed couches and a coffee table in the center of the room. A small TV, open fireplace, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and an exposed-beam ceiling completed the comfy look, with colorful rugs spread on polished wooden floors.
This place held nothing of Gino and everything of Beth, which made his mistress theory an even longer stretch.
Luke went over to the photos he’d noticed on a bookcase yesterday. Beth and another female grinning outside a storefront. A shot with beach scenery. And an old black-and-white studio portrait of an icy blonde with a come-hither smile.
In thoughtful silence he picked up an unusually shaped candle in a blue glass holder and sniffed. Beth. Quickly, he replaced it.
He’d left his high-rise Brisbane apartment—a three-bedroom homage to every technological advancement—for this. Despite his perfectly decorated rooms, the massive plasma-TV screen and the appliance-ridden kitchen he only used for entertaining clients, there’d been no soul to the place. No warmth, no garden, and now, thanks to the reporters camped on the block, no privacy.
And for the second time in his life he was in a house Uncle Gino had provided.
But you’re not fifteen anymore. Not an angry, sullen teenager torn apart by the fury of his parents’ pointless struggle and the guilt of hating them for it.
He tilted his head and read the book titles on the shelves. Handbook of Aromatherapy, The Healing Body, The Small Business Owner’s Guide. The Complete History of Cartoons. And a bunch of sci-fi novels, their spines bent and cracked from use.
He cast another eye around the room and a vague, warm feeling settled over his shoulders. This was a home. A lived-in, occupied home. If all his stuff went up in smoke tomorrow, it could all be replaced by day’s end.
Disturbed, he let that uneasy feeling sit there for a second before shucking it off. It wouldn’t do any good to start getting off track. This was just a place to lay low until he met with the investigators next month. The situation would be resolved and he’d be back at work. Simple.
He wandered from living room to kitchen. He never let emotion distort his decisions, yet he’d chosen to share his space with a woman who was full of emotion, who had let an abundance of it shape and change her life. Case in point—her can’t-get-away-from-you-quick-enough dash when they’d got out the car.
He walked outside and sat on the porch swing. All around, the air was still and warm, no traffic, no urban noise to pierce the silent bubble of the perfect spring day.
Peace. Quiet. Stillness.
He breathed in deep and closed his eyes. Grass. Salty sea. The lemon tree at the end of the driveway.
Beth.
The moment stretched into a handful, until he finally opened his eyes and glanced at his phone.
Thirty minutes had gone by. Thirty minutes in which he hadn’t been making a deal or negotiating with clients or worrying about what Gino would do next to screw up his life.
Had Marco’s little psych evaluation at Gino’s funeral been right? “You care too much about what’s past and what you can’t change, Luke. You hold a grudge for way too long. Take it from someone who’s been there—you’re on the fast track for a spectacular crash if you don’t slow the hell down.”
And as he delved into the waters of self-doubt, he didn’t like what he saw.
With a soft sigh, he reached for his phone and started to make the first of a handful of calls.
Beth didn’t run because she enjoyed it, although sometimes she actually did. She ran because exercise effectively cleared her head like nothing else. And today, she needed the clarity of movement, the pure and honest motion of running.
Even though the afternoon heat embraced her like an exuberant relative’s hug, she picked up the pace. She ran all the way to the end of the street then turned east. Trees flashed by; she noted her progress by counting the cats’ eyes hammered onto the white guideposts flanking the road. When she got to the small park with the duck lake, she pounded over the footbridge. The sun sparkled off the water in blinding shafts, the air hummed with the noise of the distant highway. Eventually all she could hear was her heaving lungs.
Nearly an hour later, when she finally turned back, her whole body ached from exertion. Sweat pooled in the small of her back, her scalp itched, her T-shirt clung and her legs sang. But the effort had been worth it. Her thoughts had been Luke free.
She got to the top of her street and stopped long enough to stretch her hamstrings, then continued at a brisk walk before pausing at the end of the driveway.
The lawn edges needed trimming. The orange trees were begging for a good prune, too. The porch also had to be swept and that second step was in sore need of a nail or two.
She breathed in a deep sigh, reveling in the warm, perfect stillness of the day. After drifting from one impersonal crowded city to another, this was heaven on earth. Solitude and independence had brought that to her life.
A breeze interrupted the air, tickling along her damp skin.
She loved this place. Giving up and walking away would be like wrenching off a vital piece of herself. It would be like erasing every good memory she had made these last ten years.
If Luke wanted to do that, he was in for a fight.
Determination added steel to her step as she walked in the front door. She didn’t have much time on her side, but Luke was obviously not a patient man. After a week or two, he’d get sick of waiting and take her up on her offer. They’d agree on a price, sign on it, and she’d eventually work off her debt.
She was extremely good at waiting.
“Hey.”
Beth jumped as Luke appeared from the kitchen. “Can’t you make some noise instead of sneaking around?” At his look, she sighed. “What?”
He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. “We need to talk.”
Beth’s flushed face suddenly felt like a thousand burning knives. “I have to shower first. I’ll be down in fifteen.”
“If you’re not, I’m coming up to get you.”
Beth turned and practically ran up the stairs. He wouldn’t dare barge into her bathroom. Would he?
Seven (#u7080c6c7-d924-5cea-a4ac-9523f5811dca)
Ten minutes later Beth stood in the kitchen in a T-shirt and army-green cargo pants, her hair slicked back into a damp ponytail. Luke watched her refill her glass from the kitchen sink, glance across at him then gulp down the water.
Still, he let the silence do all the talking, a technique that not only allowed him to observe her under pressure but also showed she was extremely uncomfortable with his singular scrutiny.
“Is the room okay?” she finally asked.
“Yes. Thanks.” Then he added, “Nice house. Lots of space.”
She nodded with a small smile. “That’s why I chose it. It’s the first place I’ve actually felt at home.”
A small pang of guilt twisted in his gut. Not a good sign, considering the snooping he’d done minutes before.
He’d rummaged through her filing system, her desk and behind the books in her living room, before quickly going through her bedroom. With reluctance dogging every step, he’d been about to give up until he’d hit the back of her wardrobe.
Just who was Taylor Stanton and why did Beth have her birth certificate buried in an old shoe box?
Before he could change his mind, he’d called his P.I. Dylan and relayed the details. Now, with Beth sitting across the table, his conscience took that moment to flare.
That’s stupid. It could mean nothing—in which case, she’d never have to know.
His neck began to ache again, sharp darts of pain stabbing his muscles.
First, he’d been suspended from his job then hounded from his apartment. He’d been rendered ineffective, like an illegal vehicle banned from the road. And now he’d resorted to spying. Unease sliced across his chest, but he clamped a lid on it, wrapping his fingers around the cup of coffee he’d prepared moments ago. The scalding heat was a welcome distraction.
“You know you’ll have to make a formal statement to the bank eventually,” he said.
She sighed. “I know.”
“And I made a few calls,” he said. “Unless we get the police involved, the real estate agent isn’t legally obliged to pursue this any further. So I’m getting a copy of the deed from the titles office, which should take a few days. In the meantime, I need to talk to my aunt.”
Beth made a noncommittal sound to cover up her nervousness. This would not do. As badly as she wanted him gone, he was equally determined to keep digging until everything was wrapped up to his satisfaction. But as she watched him brush back his hair with stiff fingers, a wave of reluctant sympathy swelled at the expression on his face. Something was going on here.
“You’re not happy about that.”
“Gino’s investigation may be over but not the fallout,” he said slowly. “Everyone’s running crazy—the lawyers, investors, my family. I’m not exactly Australian of the Year right now.”
“But you are innocent.”
His expression remained impassive. “So you don’t think I colluded to launder drug money from the casino through Jackson and Blair.”
She snorted. “No.”
Skepticism riddled his frown. “Why not?”
“Because of what I’ve seen today. You may be a pushy, overconfident alpha male—” she smothered a grin at his scowl “—but ironically, your ethics work in your favor. There’s no way you’d knowingly sabotage your reputation.”
If that brief look of surprise hadn’t spoken volumes, his silence did. She couldn’t help smiling now.
“I see,” was all he said.
Then he shook his head and swept a hand through his hair again, a gesture Beth was beginning to equate with pent-up frustration. The coal-black strands stuck up in spikes and she had the urge to smooth them down. Especially when she saw that flash of emotion in his eyes.
In that instant, Beth realized she’d just caught a glimpse of the real man behind the veneer—how his perceived failures ate at his pride, how much his status meant. How totally ineffective he must be feeling.
No wonder his reputation was perfect. He was a driven man and driven men often set impossibly high standards for themselves. And when they failed to live up to them, they frequently crashed to earth.
Something inside her shifted. She had to help him, even though he had something she so desperately wanted. Her compassion, her training, demanded no less.
“I can stop that ache in your neck, you know.”
He barely gave her a glance. “Can you?”
There it was again. More than anyone, Beth could understand his frustration. But right now he didn’t need empathy—he needed stress relief. She ticked off the telltale signs one by one and knew she couldn’t ignore his discomfort any longer.
She stood, reached over and firmly removed his hand from his nape. “Let me help you.”
The sudden heat flaring in his eyes disappeared as quickly as it started, yet despite that, it still had the power to warm her belly.
“It’s my job,” she clarified. “You’re no good to anyone burned-out, and I can help you relax.”
“You don’t need to—”
“Yes, I do. Let me do this, Luke. Please.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds before Luke glanced away with a shrug. “Okay.”
And, dammit, her pulse began to pick up the pace.
“Go into the living room,” she said in a too-thick voice. “I’ll get my things.”
She hurried up to the spare room, determined to outrun the doubt dogging her footsteps. Right now was not the time to take a close look at her reasons for offering her help. She was a professional and she could do this, no matter that the body she was about to lay her hands on was six foot four inches of hard, warm male.
Beth returned with her oils and pulled the curtains closed, casting the room in half shadows, then pulled out a massage table from under the stairs and unfolded it.
He watched it all in silence.
“So I take it you’ve never had a therapeutic massage,” Beth said.
“Once, ages ago. Now I don’t have the time.”
“You should make time.”
“Before or after I solve world hunger?”
Her mouth tilted. “Take off your shirt and lie facedown.”
He did as he was told, settling his face into the cutout oval of the padded table. Now that his body was within her grasp, she would get to feel every contour, every crevice. A deep breath was needed.
Maybe another.
Pouring some oil onto her palms, she rubbed them together and began.
Her thumbs started gently at his lower back and Luke nearly leaped off the table. “What the hell …?”
He twisted, but Beth placed a restraining hand on his back. “Lie still.” She stifled a smile.
