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“I heard you,” she said in a small voice. “Last night at the restaurant. Talking about selling your shares in Blackstone.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed in the dim room. Scratch all those nice thoughts about waking up with the same woman. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. Who the hell did she think she was? “Eavesdropping, Danielle? If you heard us, you’d know I turned him down.”
She lifted her head and looked him right in the face. And it hit him: she was serious.
The urge to laugh disappeared. “A company takeover,” he said, twisting his finger around a springy red curl, “is very complicated. It needs the support of the board and the requisite number of shares. I’m Little League in Blackstones, Dani.”
That was the truth. He had very few shares himself. But he knew Matt was in for more than the Blackstones knew about—and climbing. And Quinn knew who else had a substantial portfolio.
“But if Jake Vance asks you to sell …?”
Quinn stilled. She had heard everything. And she was right out of line. He was not in the habit of justifying himself to anyone, let alone a woman he’d known for a week or so, even if the sex was amazing.
He injected plenty of cool in his reply. “Yes, if he gave me a good enough reason, then I’d sell.”
Disappointment darkened her eyes, and just the fact that he recognised that pissed him off. There was no room for emotion in business. That was the dictum that Jake Vance, corporate raider, believed in, and Quinn agreed wholeheartedly, damn it!
“Quinn, what hurts the Blackstones hurts me, you do get that, don’t you?”
Time to remind both of them this was just a fling. “Just because we’re sleeping together, Danielle,” he said coldly, “doesn’t give you the right to ask about my business dealings.”
She flinched. He knew that because he felt it in his chest and stomach, which lay under her torso, in between his legs where she’d squeezed her thigh, over his shoulder where she’d draped one of her arms.
But he held her gaze. He wouldn’t negotiate on overstepping boundaries. After a long moment, he nudged her, indicating he wanted to get up. She moved over to her side of the bed. When the hell did they get into his-and-her sides of the bed anyway?
His refection stared balefully back in the bathroom mirror while he wondered what had suddenly happened, what had changed. One minute, he was savouring the delights of a very sexy body. The next, he was wallowing in guilt, thinking about someone else, considering someone else’s feelings. Just how deep was he getting here?
Somewhere out on that boat, she’d stirred up some long-buried need to protect. His parents, his childhood home had always been a port in a storm, a harbour for lost and needy souls. Quinn had forgotten what it felt like, until now. Was that what Danielle saw in him? Was she searching for such a port?
He ran the tap and splashed his face, making sure it was good and cold.
This was supposed to be a brief fling, a bit of fun to while away the heat of the day while he was stuck up here in the middle of nowhere. Wanting her every minute of the day in the limited time they had together was acceptable. Thinking about waking up to her every morning was probably teetering on the edge and would have to be addressed—and soon. It had been years since he’d considered relationships and he was perfectly happy with his life just as it was.
But justifying himself to her was definitely off limits.
Steve called at breakfast to ask if Dani could mind the shop for a few hours; he and his partner had an ultrasound to attend. Quinn went into town with her. She was quiet but not snippy, and he had some ideas for marketing he’d been thinking about. He pushed aside the feeling that giving her some decent advice may assuage his guilt somewhat.
“What are you doing here, Dani?” he asked, after a customer walked out with a very nice pair of pearl earrings that she’d gotten for a bargain, he noticed.
Dani looked up from locking the cabinet. “Making a living. Just.”
Quinn paced out the tiny interior. The display was funky without being crafty; the quality of her jewellery was too high for that. But the premises were second-rate, security was inadequate and the whole place needed a complete overhaul. “Is it success or failure you’re afraid of?”
Dani ran her eye slowly around the shop. “It could use some attention, I know.”
“How did you end up here, anyway? Why Port?”
She scratched her neck and shrugged. “It’s where I stopped.” She picked up a cloth and bottle of glass cleaner and walked out from behind the counter. Today she was almost conservative in below-the-knee tights, high-heeled sandals, a mushroom-coloured tunic with voluminous sleeves and a huge orange silk rose pinned to her lapel.
Why he always noticed her attire was beyond him. He questioned her again. “What were you running from?”
Dani walked to the display cabinet on the other side of the shop and turned her back on him. He heard the hiss of the spray cleaner, saw the sleeves of her creamy shirt rippling as she rubbed and polished. “I was engaged.”
As soon as she said it, he remembered a couple of sketchy details. Actually, what he remembered was watching it on a TV news programme and wondering how it qualified as news.
“I was engaged to someone who was convinced, even though I denied it repeatedly, that I was Howard’s daughter and, therefore, a Blackstone heiress.”
She moved around the cabinet, rubbing intently, but didn’t look at him.
“I remember,” Quinn murmured, noticing two distinct spots of colour on her cheeks.
“You remember the scandal.”
She did look at him then and he saw that it wasn’t so much pain setting her mouth into a thin line and colouring her cheeks. It was embarrassment.
“The media had a field day.” She gave a tight laugh. “There were some really funny headlines. I would have laughed myself if …” Her eyes slid away and she moved to another glass-topped cabinet. “Do you know, he even demanded his ring back, until Ryan paid him a visit on Howard’s orders.”
Quinn exhaled. “I’d say you had a lucky escape.”
She rolled her eyes and the smile she had forced disappeared. “I just got tired of it. I’m either the illegitimate love child, the scheming gold digger or the poor stupid fool whose fiancé got caught with his pants down. Just one more brush to tar me with.”
She fell silent and continued to rub vigorously at some imaginary mark.
“Why here?”
She raised her shoulders. “I love the beach and the climate. It’s far enough from Sydney that most people don’t even know I’m related to the Blackstones.” She glanced at him briefly and grinned. “And I’ll admit to a bit of poetic license. The population is pretty transient here. I can be whoever and whatever I want.”
Images of a wan face, tamed hair and indeterminate clothing flitted through his mind. He’d seen her featured several times in newspaper spreads or television reports. But he’d never noticed her beauty, her animated smile and sparkle, until he’d met her up here. Now he found himself consciously holding his breath when he heard her come downstairs in the mornings, wondering what jaw-dropping mishmash of colours and textures she would amaze him with today.
Quinn put his hand out. “Come here.”
He led her outside and then turned her and gestured to the faded lettering above the door. “What does that say?”
“Dani Hammond. Fine Jeweller of Port Douglas.”
“Fine Jeweller,” he repeated. “We both know how much study and work experience it takes to be able to put those two words after your name.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Is this what you envisaged while you were putting in the work?”
Her head dropped a little. “Not really.”
“What did you see?”
“What does anyone see just starting out? I wanted to be the best.”
“Didn’t you want important people to come to you, celebrities and royalty and private collectors?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. “I suppose …”
“Would Howard Blackstone have put his money up if he thought this was as far as you’d go?”
“Ouch!” Her eyes flashed and Quinn wondered if there might be a little residual anger from this morning.
“This,” he said as he turned his palm up to indicate the shop front, “isn’t good enough. Not the shop or the location.”
He showed her back inside. “You have the connections, Dani. If the Blackstones won’t help, invest in a marketing company. Maybe my people can point you in the right direction.”
Dani frowned, not convinced. “Listen, I have so many orders from the February launch, I can barely keep up.”
But Quinn was pacing again. “You need to move. Sydney …” He caught the negative set of her mouth. “Melbourne, then. Hell, why limit yourself? You’re good, Dani, great, even. Why not New York or Europe?”
She put up a hand. “I was thinking of a couple of doors down, actually.”
Quinn stopped and looked at her, put off his stride.
“The vacant shop two doors down,” she repeated patiently. “It’s nearly on the corner of the mall, so there’s lots of foot traffic. It’s twice the size and very modern.”
His head went back and he stared down his nose at her. Why wasn’t she getting this? “You want to be the best? The best in Port Douglas?”
“Yes, I do remember the one-horse-town comment,” she said testily, her cheeks firing up.
“Hey, it’s your career. But no one will ever know you if you don’t give your profile a kick up the backside.”
She stepped up to him, head thrown back, fingers curled into her palms, those golden eyes positively steaming. And Quinn realised, too late, that yes, she really was still sore about this morning.
“I can’t be too bad,” she said hotly, “since you practically begged me to design the necklace for you.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my idea,” he retaliated. “In fact, I argued against you being allowed within ten feet of that diamond.”
It was like a blow to her gut.
This morning he’d inflicted a neat cut, chosen his words carefully to put her in her place. She wasn’t to question him, wasn’t to expect anything from him.
This was punchier, without preamble or foresight. She realised from the stunned look on his face that he hadn’t intended to tell her.
A deathly hush descended. So Quinn Everard wasn’t here on the pretext that she was the best designer around. Crushed, she felt the blood drain from her face.
What did she expect? He had only just finished belabouring the point. The best—hah! Who was she kidding? He’d been right, again and again. This wasn’t what she’d imagined for herself. Her shop was pathetic, and Howard had given her the loan but never stopped harping on her about moving back to Sydney and getting serious about her career.
Quinn inhaled and opened his mouth to speak, but she had to get in first, before she crumpled. “Who is your client?” she asked quickly.
“Dani, for what it’s worth, I now have complete confidence in you.”
Fine jeweller, indeed. Somehow she managed to keep her chin steady. “Am I not to know who hired me?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
She should have learned by now never to get ideas above her station. She was second best. Always had been. The stigma of illegitimacy. Nick. Hell, even Quinn Everard with his designer awards and chain-store quips.
She now felt justified to ask about the woman she was supposedly making the necklace for, a subject she had conveniently put to one side once he started blowing her mind in bed. “The diamond isn’t for your girlfriend?”
Quinn looked away. “That was your assumption, one I chose not to correct.”
She’d been feeling guilty for an imaginary girlfriend—not that the thought of wrecking someone’s life had stopped her, or him. She was just some floozy to while away the hours with up here in the middle of nowhere. He was bored, he was hot. She was available.
Her mother always told her it was okay to make a mistake as long as you learned from it. Obviously Nick’s betrayal was no deterrent for making huge lapses of judgement where men were concerned. She had known Quinn a bit over a week, a record time for her to sleep with someone. And that would reflect badly on her, she suspected.
But was she strong enough to keep away from his bed?
The next few days dragged by. The necklace progressed well, even without Quinn’s encouraging presence. It was as if all her frustrations poured out into the design. Without consulting him, she altered the model she’d supplied for his approval—that is, his client’s approval—and worked fifteen-hour days. Ryan and Jessica’s wedding arrangements were well in hand.
Quinn kept to himself and a kind of polite peace enveloped the house.
But by night, it was a different story. Dani was her own worst enemy, reliving their lovemaking over and over. He was a drug she was addicted to. To stop herself from marching into his bedroom, she began justifying his actions. After all, she was being paid an enormous amount of money and an enormous compliment to design a necklace for the most beautiful and valuable stone she was ever likely to see. What did it matter that it was for a client and not him?
And it wasn’t like he had tricked her into bed, either. She’d practically ambushed him while he sat at his desk, conducting his business. She couldn’t blame him for that.
Had she really expected that something more could come of this “situation” she had rushed headlong into? She was out of his league, not even in the same stratosphere.
One night he told her that Jake Vance’s mother had passed away. “The funeral is Friday. Come to Sydney with me and catch up with your family.”
She considered it dubiously. “It will put me back on the necklace. I wanted to finish it before the wedding on the twentieth.”
“Relax. I’ll put it in a bank vault here. I’ll charter a flight for Thursday afternoon and we’ll return Saturday.”
It was the excuse she needed to keep away from him. She went all out for the next few days and made good progress, barely sleeping at all.
And that’s probably why she fell asleep on the private plane.
She awoke slowly, fuzzily, dreaming of Quinn, so it was no surprise at all when she saw his face mere inches away. And when he leaned even closer and brushed her mouth with his, she closed her eyes again, didn’t even think of resisting. After all, that was how the dream was supposed to go. Reliving their lovemaking was how she’d spent every night since the fight.
She stretched toward him, allowed the dream to part her lips, to feel the tip of his tongue seek and find hers. She combed her fingers through his thick hair and her heartbeat quickened and banged loudly in her ears. But she wouldn’t open her eyes just yet. She didn’t want this to stop, didn’t want him to disappear.
His hand moved on her thigh, skimming her silk underskirt over her heated skin. Each stroke lengthened, higher and higher until she shifted restlessly, craving more. Another hand caressed her neck and face as they kissed. The seat belt dug into her hips, making her wriggle against it. Every part of her strained toward him, this faceless lover, this man with his tongue in her mouth, one hand moving down over her blouse to cup and stroke her breast, the other moving ever higher, scorching her thigh. Her arms were trapped against his chest, unable to move far with his weight leaning into her, but she moved toward him, trying to touch him, to inflict some of the same torture on him.
Breathing heavily, he grasped her wrists and stilled her.
“Open your eyes, damn it!”
She did and almost quailed at the tortured desire in his. Desire and regret.
Regret for wanting her or for hurting her?
Wide awake now, she gave a shuddering breath, laid her head on the rest and just looked at his face. The heat of passion still smouldered sullenly in the pulse beat on her wrist where he gripped her, and in the aching tips of her breasts and deep inside her centre. But her breathing slowed and she searched his scowling, troubled face, trying to read what he was thinking and feeling.
His breathing had calmed. Gradually the grip on her wrists eased and became more of a caress. He, too, leaned back in his seat facing her, watching her.
Finally his eyes softened and he spoke. “You’ll stay with me tonight.”
