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The Australian Tycoon's Proposal
Margaret Way
Bronte's had enough of rich, ruthless men - she's just narrowly escaped marrying one! Now she's wary of all men, especially when six feet two inches of pure Australian male arrives on her doorstep with a business proposal….The chemistry between her and tycoon Steven Randolph is explosive - Bronte finds him impossible to resist, and begins to dream of a future with him. Only then does she discover Steven is not all he seems….
“So you don’t want an affair?”
“No.”
“What a pity!” Steven laughed. “You mightn’t be tough, Bronte, but you’re a great kisser.” He lifted a hand and gently caressed her cheek.
“And that’s the only one we’re going to share,” she told him crisply.
“Don’t panic. What a prickly, touchy person you are.” He slid his arm companionably through hers. “It’s a miracle I’ve warmed to you so quickly.”
Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family at weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.
The Australian Tycoon’s Proposal
Margaret Way
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
VOLCANIC red dust puffed up under Bronte’s every step. It found its way into her expensive sandals, irritating her toes and the soles of her feet. Obviously her feet had grown tender since she had last left the jungle. Grit the colour of dried blood, she thought mawkishly, coated the fine leather. But then who in their right mind wore high heeled sandals to trudge down a bush track?
“Damn!” She tottered to a stop, in the process wrenching her ankle. Moans gave way to muttered curses. She was about as irritable as she could get. What she should be wearing was lace up boots or at least a pair of running shoes. She set down her shoulder bag that had cost an arm and a leg. Never featherlight even when empty it had been growing heavier at every step. Her small suitcase followed. It weighed over a ton. Now she was able to shake the dust and grit first from the sole of one foot, then the other.
Ah, the relief! She gulped in hot scented air.
One of her bra straps had slipped off her shoulder. She fixed that. Her sunglasses needed propping back up her nose, a water slide of sweat. She was wearing a big wide-brimmed hat, yet the blazing tropical sun was burning a hole through the top of her head. Boiling and bothered she yanked at her designer label tank top. It was wet under the arms and glued to her back. She just knew her face was the colour of a ripe plum.
“No wonder you’re so darned unhappy. You’re a fool, Bronte.” She often talked to herself. She’d grown into that habit as a lonely and isolated little girl. She’d even had imaginary friends. Great friends they were, too. There was a girl called Em who grew along with her. A boy called Jonty who was a very gentle person and lived in the rain forest. Once Gilly claimed she saw Em and Jonty playing tag around a giant strangler fig. Gilly always spoke to her as if she were an equal even when she was seven! Of course Gilly was having a little joke. Bronte knew her friends existed only in her powerful imagination.
A whirlwind of dust blew up, rousing her to move off the track until it passed. It was her own fault that she had to walk. Death before dishonour was her motto. She was stuck with it. She hadn’t learned it. It had been passed out at birth. It got her into a lot of trouble, that’s all.
It wasn’t right for the taxi driver to call Great-Aunt Gillian with a hard G “a crazy old bat!” accompanied by hoots of laughter she was expected to join in. That had made her hopping mad. Not that Gilly of the copious snow-white hair, once blue-black like her own, black eyes and wicked grin didn’t communicate with their dead ancestors on a regular basis. As an imaginative child Bronte, actively encouraged in her psychic powers by Gilly, had sensed long dead members of the McAllister family hanging around the place. They spent their time wandering the old sugar plantation and the big patch of virgin rain forest bordering McAllister land. They’d even been seen up on the main road, scaring the tourists. The locals took no notice whatsoever.
Gilly, despite her solitary, secluded life, was right up there as a local character in an area that was legendary for its “characters.” Gilly was the Bush Medicine Woman. The plantation, the two hundred acres that remained from the original selection, would attract a lot of developers if it were ever put on the market, but Gilly lived a frugal life. Most of her inherited money had gone. “I’ve lived too long!” She supplemented what was left, by running a profitable little side-line selling herbal potions, concoctions, the odd aphrodisiac—said to work—facial and body creams guaranteed to alleviate the symptoms of every discomfort known to woman including the “infernal itches”. Gilly having been stood up at the altar fifty odd years ago didn’t give a hang what happened to the men. They could look after themselves.
Bronte didn’t love men either. She was amazed anyone did! Most of them turned out to be bitter disappointments. Not that she’d been stuck on her lonesome in front of the altar. She was the one who found commitment darn near impossible. To prove it, with one week to the Big Day, she’d recently called off her much publicised society wedding, bringing her mother’s and her demented stepfather’s fury down on her head. She’d made a fool of them but she had learned that she was a fool already. Her actions, apparently, put her on a par with some sort of a criminal. A mass swindler perhaps? The humiliation was not to be borne. The disgrace! Worse, it was bad for business.
Nat, her fiancé, had been angry enough to call her names, grinding his teeth as he did so. He wore not so much a devastated as totally baffled expression. What girl in her right mind would give him up? A girl could get tramped to death standing in line to meet Nathan Saunders.
Nat’s mother had been livid! In fact she’d been astoundingly crude. Bronte hadn’t realized Nat’s mother knew let alone used four letter words. “No breeding!” sniffed Gilly when she heard. Nothing like scorning a son to bring out the worst in a mother. No one stood up Thea Saunders’s—one of society’s leading lights—wonder boy. She had demanded the 3 carat diamond solitaire back, not that Bronte had ever intended to keep it. Her finger felt a whole lot lighter without it. Bronte had consoled herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t the first girl to have second thoughts about tying the knot. The big problem was she hadn’t been able to work up the courage to voice her concerns until the last minute. Pathetic really! For that, she despised herself but she knew the turbulence her decision would create.
Turbulence. Chaos. A tongue-lashing from the stepfather she detested. Nat had been hand-picked for her. She was ashamed to admit she was still trying to please her mother when let’s be straight about it, she never had. Her rejection of Nat Saunders had caused a huge scandal. Few of her so-called friends had sided with her. She was scolded and marvelled at at every turn. She had everything going for her and she blew it! What an idiot! The word had become an alternative to fool. Her mother had ended most sentences with one or the other.
The handsome and popular Nat was the scion of media mogul Richard Saunders, a close friend and partner in various enterprises—probably dodgy—of her stepfather Carl Brandt. Of course she lost her budding career. A swift retribution that did nothing to raise her spirits. Over the past year she’d swum into the limelight as a popular character in the award winning TV police drama Shadows. Two weeks ago she had met with a very bloody end. A shoot-out. Officer down. It had blitzed the ratings and caused a storm of protests from her fans—she never knew she had so many—but she wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with shaming two outstandingly rich families.
Her mother had given her hell, like it was her main aim in life to make Bronte’s existence intolerable.
“How can any of us hold up our heads?” Miranda had exploded. “After all Carl has done for you, you ungrateful little fool!”
What exactly had Carl done for her? He hadn’t adopted her. Her own father had left her enough money to cover her education through university, pay for her upkeep and her clothes. Her mother still beautiful and sexy at forty-five—never mind she had celebrated that birthday twice already—had not been her first husband’s beneficiary. Bronte had been that, her inheritance administered by her late father’s lawyer as executor of his will. Apparently Ross McAllister hadn’t trusted his wife to do that. Bronte found out years later her father had changed his will on the very day of his death. Her mother had got away with the family home, all the contents and her cache of jewellery, a veritable Aladdin’s Cave, otherwise she’d been cut out entirely. There was a story there, with in all probability grave implications, but nothing could bring her father back. She had loved him so much! She could still feel his hand patting the top of her head.
Her remarried mother sided with her new husband on everything. Perhaps she had no alternative? Bronte understood it was easier on her mother that way. Carl Brandt was a big shouldered, imposing looking man with heavy lidded, obsidian eyes and a very loud voice. No one would ever have to ask her stepfather to repeat himself. Yet for reasons totally beyond Bronte, her stepfather was positively magnetic to women who liked a touch of the brute. On the proviso, of course, he was powerful and had lots of money. Even age didn’t seem to come into it. Such men retained their attractions at over ninety unlike women who some believed started the downhill slide once they hit thirty.
Her mother had always been attracted to money and power. Never mind that Carl Brandt was a tyrant, with a tongue like a chain saw. Bronte’s own gentlemanly father had doted on her but he had been taken from her when she was only seven. Killed when his high powered sports car crashed into a tree. Her mother thereafter maintained Ross McAllister was a reckless driver with a thirst for speed. An opinion rejected by his many friends.
Bronte’s life had changed dramatically after that. Her mother had acted deranged for a couple of days, a tragic figure on the verge of a breakdown. Bronte had been sent to live with her maternal grandparents, an arrangement that lasted only a few months. Her grandmother—not the kindest granny in the world—decided she couldn’t tolerate Bronte’s “tantrums” any longer. Children should be seen, but not heard whereas Bronte had been given to creating disturbances. That’s when Gilly McAllister had come to the rescue. Gilly had offered to look after her. Good old “crazy” Gilly. Thank goodness for her! Gilly who privately called Miranda “shallow and egotistical.” Bronte was meant to stay with her great-aunt until Miranda felt more able to cope after her tragic loss.
Bronte stayed five years. She saw her mother rarely. As her husband’s property—Brandt owned people—Miranda had to be on hand at all times. Her grandmother she saw not at all. “I can’t believe our luck!” Gilly chortled. Neither of them were asked to Miranda’s and Brandt’s society wedding which took place an unseemly month or so after Ross McAllister’s tragic death. So much for the tragedy queen and the nervous breakdown that never was. Then again, perhaps it illustrated Miranda’s extraordinary resilience.
A suspiciously short period of time later Bronte’s half brother Max—poor little victimised Max—made his much gossiped about entry into the world though Bronte and Gilly locked away in the deep Far North didn’t get to hear about that happy event until at least a year later when Gilly read about Max’s existence in the newspaper.
On her twelfth birthday Bronte’s mother—no one saw it coming—made the decision to send Bronte to an exclusive boarding school back in Sydney. “We have to get you away from this primitive place!” Miranda had cried, accelerating away from the plantation so fast she sent up a dust storm. “You’re nothing but a savage. I was a fool to let Gilly look after you. She can’t even look after herself.” Miranda had appeared genuinely shocked at the run-down condition of the old plantation gone back to jungle and Bronte’s appearance which even Bronte had to admit in retrospect must have been a little on the wild side. With Gilly for a mentor Bronte had gotten used to wearing a sort of safari outfit—boy’s shirts and trousers with a thick belt and good stout boots. She’d have worn that outfit to school, where she shone academically, only the headmistress, Miss Prentice, wouldn’t have let her through the front gate.
The day Bronte left, her darling Gilly had cried, her tall, vigorous body bent over and shaking like she had a tropical fever.
Gilly who was as brave and fierce as the general in the family. General Alexander “Sandy” McAllister who’d risen to fame in India fighting for the British in the Afghan wars. “Sandy” was one of Gilly’s favourites from the family spirit world. After his long stint in India Sandy’s spirit had settled in well to the humid heat of the rain forest, unfazed by the cyclones that blew in from time to time.
Feeling a little rested Bronte slung her bag back over her shoulder then picked up her expensive suitcase. It was one of her mother’s discards. Her mother enjoyed enormously being the wife of a very rich man. Rich men ran the world! Wealth defined the man! Brandt pampered her mother for a good reason. Miranda was always on show as his wife. Her beauty and elegance were legendary and she had a wonderful flair for dressing. Why else would Brandt have married her? It all reflected wonderfully well on his taste.
Otherwise he was far from being a generous man. He had never been generous to Bronte. She would have been walking around in rags, uneducated, if not for the inheritance her own darling father had left her. Her mother didn’t believe in spoiling her either. Worse Brandt was downright mean to his own son. Poor Max who hadn’t inherited any of his father’s abominable skills and bully boy nature. The endless criticisms, the cutting sarcasm, the scorn the two of them had endured. It had been tough to leave fifteen-year-old Max behind, but at least Max had respite at boarding school. He’d even dug in his heels to stay at school through vacations. Something that had affronted their mother who laboured under the monstrous delusion she was a good mother.
My sad, dysfunctional family! Bronte thought. There was a crisis every day of the week. She was always amazed she could look so much like her mother yet be nothing like her in her nature and behaviour. It was Gilly who had taught her values, shown her love and understanding. Gilly was the woman of substance not her own mother whom she continued to love even as she despaired of ever having her love returned. Beautiful Miranda who at the drop of a hat—for instance a broken engagement—could turn into a shrieking virago. If Brandt was famous for his lung power, he could on occasion be equalled by her mother.
Bronte staggered on bravely, remembering how Gilly had always called her “plucky.” As a child it had made her laugh. Plucky. For some reason—the obvious clucky—she associated it with Gilly’s chooks. Despite Bronte’s multiple discomforts she was drinking in her surroundings. She loved this place. It was the Garden of Eden complete with the snakes. The countryside was glorious. The coastal corridor north of Capricorn was as lush and bountiful as the Interior across the Great Divide was arid. She adored the rampant blossoming of the tropics. The brilliantly plumaged birds. The colour!
Bougainvillea ran like wildfire on either side of the private track. You could hardly call it a road. It was near impassable in heavy rains. The magnificent parasite covered fences, climbed trees, old water tanks. Orange. Cerise. Scarlet. Pink. Blue-violet morning glories “the colour of your eyes, Bronte” Gilly had told her as a child, cascaded over the sides of one of those old water tanks that stood in an abandoned field.
Once these fields had been under sugar, at maturity towering higher than a man, but production had stopped on Oriole long before she’d been born and Gilly had inherited the old plantation that once had been a prolific money spinner. McAllister land bordered onto the gallery rain forest where the Yellow Orioles built their deep nests and sent their incessant choom-chalooms floating sheer across the forest. It was after these rain forest birds the plantation had been named in the late 1880s.
Once I knew this land like the back of my hand, Bronte thought. Gilly had taken her everywhere with her. Into the forest where she found the magical ingredients for her potions, to the river that had “salties” in it, big man-eating estuarine crocodiles, to the beautiful beaches with their white sand and turquoise waters, to the islands of one of the great wonders of the natural world, The Great Barrier Reef where they’d gone swimming and snorkelling and exploring the coral. Gilly had taught her to ride a horse—“you just hold on, Bronte! Show ’im who’s boss.” How to handle a .22 rifle. “Just in case!” Bronte really hoped Gilly had turned in her guns. She wouldn’t put it past her to have hidden one beneath the floor boards.
“By the time I reach the homestead I’ll be a wreck,” Bronte grumbled to herself. “Ready to throw myself head first into the lily lagoon, maybe cavort naked.” There was never anyone around. The homestead was at the far end of the track. She could see the tall vine-bedecked wall around the home grounds. The massive wrought-iron gates bore an elaborately scrolled Oriole picked out in bronze. Gilly wouldn’t be home until late. She had an appointment with a visiting eye specialist at the town clinic. Bronte worried about that. Was Gilly’s wonderful eyesight failing despite her disclaimers? Such things happened with age. Who needed to get old? Bronte had refused to let Gilly cancel her appointment. She wouldn’t get another for at least six weeks.
“A bad day, lovey, for me to have to go.”
Bronte had soothed her great-aunt by saying she’d catch a cab from the train station. She’d flown from Sydney to Brisbane, but decided to take “The Queenslander” north instead of continuing by air. She wanted a long time to think. The train was great for that. It was a long scenic trip through increasingly beautiful country as one crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. The Queenslander was comfortable. They served lovely meals and the sleeping arrangements were excellent. Lots of gazing out the window. Of course she’d fully expected to be dropped at the door until that crack about the “old bat!” She couldn’t let anyone get away with saying that about Gilly.
A bead of perspiration trickled into her eyes. It stung.
“Damn!” She dropped the suitcase so she could shove her straw hat further down on her head.
It was then she became aware of a car engine. She turned in time to see a vehicle turn off the bitumen road and head down Oriole’s private track.
Gilly! Her lifesaver! Wouldn’t she give her a great big hug! But why so early?
Bronte stood quite still, watching the 4WD approaching in a cloud of red dust. The problem was, Gilly didn’t have a 4WD. As far as she knew, Gilly still drove an ancient utility that had never broken down in twenty years. All Gilly ever had to do was kick the tyres. The 4WD was coming straight for her, insisting on right of way. Could you beat that? She was a McAllister. She wasn’t about to get off her own road. This would be her place when her darling Gilly was gone. She’d live up here and turn into a feisty self-sufficient medicine woman, like her great-aunt. Historically there had always been such women.
The driver of the vehicle, seeing her standing so confrontationally in the middle of the road, had the sense to detour onto the thick grassy verge. It was a godsend because the red dust settled before it could envelop her. Was it deliberate? Could the driver be considerate? On rainy days in the city as a pedestrian waiting at the lights she’d often been splashed by inconsiderate drivers who perversely picked up speed instead of slowing down in the grey conditions.
The driver was a man. A young man which greatly surprised her. What was he doing on McAllister land? Especially when Gilly wasn’t at home. In that instant Bronte thought of Gilly’s .22. For all she knew this man could be dangerous, on the run from the police. He was certainly trespassing and the plantation was very isolated. Bronte planted her sandalled feet with their ridiculous high heels firmly on the track. She was determined not to budge even if her self-esteem was stretched to twanging point.
Straighten your back, Bronte. Look right at him. Men sensed natural born victims. She’d learned that from life with her horrible stepfather.
The driver swung out of the vehicle, loping around the bonnet. Bronte watched him like she’d watch an approaching tiger.
Twenty-eight, maybe thirty. He was tall; a good six-two. Wide in the shoulders. Lean. A splendid body really. He had to be a fitness freak. He wore the kind of gear she used to wear herself. Jungle greens. A crocodile hunter, maybe? Even at a distance she noted the green, green eyes. His skin was a tawny gold. He looked just the sort of guy who could handle himself anywhere, anytime. Boldly, aggressively male. The sort of guy who considered male domination the natural order. He probably had a grip to fracture her hand.
He was also devilishly handsome. She wasn’t so blinded by the sweat in her eyes, she couldn’t see that. Straight nose, high cheekbones, curly mouth, determined jaw. If she’d been more impressionable she’d have fainted. As it was every instinct shrieked a warning. She stood ramrod straight even when her back was breaking. Her antagonism to the dominant male was deeply entrenched. It was one reason she had taken up with Nat, who, at bottom, was as soft as a marshmallow.
“Hi there!” Action Man’s smile was so warm and friendly it took her aback. That smile lit up his entire face.
Bronte stared in disbelief. She didn’t reply. She waited for him to come up to her, frowning darkly just in case he got any ideas.
“Steven Randolph. I’m a friend of your great-aunt’s.” He introduced himself, taking in every detail of her overheated appearance. Little sparks seemed to be flying around her tallish delicate frame.
Bronte stood her ground. Height was one of the assets Mother Nature had bestowed on her. His voice, at least, was something in his favour. It wasn’t loud. In fact it was smooth and mellow. Most women would find it a real turn-on. It struck her it was also the voice of money and education. His stance wasn’t arrogant, more an elegant slouch. There was no doubting he was very comfortable in his own skin.
“I know the names of my great-aunt’s friends,” she said, as coolly as she could in the blistering heat. “I’ve never heard of a Steven Randolph.”
“Perhaps Gilly was waiting to surprise you,” he suggested and smiled as though amused by her antagonism. Very white teeth. Straight. Strong. Why was he making her so angry? He was trying to be pleasant, while she was bristling like a porcupine.
“You’re Bronte, aren’t you.” It was a statement not a question.
“Congratulations.” It suddenly struck Bronte her stepfather’s abrasive manner might have brushed off on her. How terribly distressing!
Another smile. An engaging quirk of the mouth. “Gilly has photographs of you all over the house. Occasionally I even got to see you on the television. Very good you were, too. The shoot-out nearly broke my heart.”
Bronte winced. “Can we leave my ex-career out of the conversation?”
“Certainly. Could I say first what they did to you was rough. I expect you don’t want to talk about your broken engagement, either?”
She shielded her eyes with her hand. She was getting a crick in the neck just looking up at him despite her own height. “Are you trying to be cruel or does it just come naturally?”
He appeared surprised. “I thought you were the one to opt out. Did I get that wrong? If I did, I’m very sorry.”
“You’re not sorry at all,” she fired up.
“Of course I am. I’m not sorry for Saunders not that you’d have made him the perfect wife.”
Bronte almost choked. “Really? How can you tell?”
“I know of the family. You wouldn’t want to move in with them.”
Bronte frowned at him fiercely. “Thanks for the tip but you’re already too late. Anyway, I can save you a trip. Gilly isn’t home.”
“I know that, she’s at the eye specialist. I’ve brought her supplies home. They’re in the car. You look hot. You really ought to get out of the sun. What are you doing walking anyway? And in those high heels!” He all but clicked his tongue.
“I like the exercise,” she snapped.
Suddenly his demeanour changed from friendly to grim. “Don’t tell me the taxi driver left you at the road? Who was it? Describe him.”
“So you can beat him to a pulp?” she only half joked.
“Why ever would you say that? I can get my message across without violence. Please. Get into the car. I’ll drive you up to the house. Let me take your things.”
She wanted to be in the position to ignore him but sad to say she wasn’t. She had the feeling he wouldn’t take any notice anyway. Already he had her heavy suitcase in hand, stowing it in the back of the vehicle like it was a paper bag.
“Come along,” he coaxed. “Much more of this and you’d be badly sunburnt.”
“I don’t burn,” she told him, when she was seated in the vehicle and he was driving back onto the track. “I have olive skin. I spent years up here.”
“I know.” He grinned. “Bronte on horseback. Bronte feeding a joey that had lost its mother. Bronte holding a rifle of all things. You must have been ten?” He gave her a half amused half disproving glance. “Bronte in the rain forest amid the ferns. Bronte at speech night where she collected all the prizes.”
“Why would you bother to look at old photographs of me?” The air-conditioning was heaven! She closed her eyes briefly and arched her neck.
“They were kinda cute actually.” He allowed his eyes to rest on her. She was even more beautiful, more sensuous in the flesh than she was on television. And those eyes! What colour were they? The lilac-blue of the sacred lotus? The morning glories that decked Oriole’s fences? A crush of jacaranda blossom? “Gilly adores you,” he said.
“I adore Gilly.” She answered with a touch of belligerence as if he’d expressed doubts about her affection. “I would never have survived without her.” Immediately she made it she regretted the confidence.
“That’s a sad thing to say.” His voice, however, conveyed only empathy and genuine concern.
She didn’t need it. “I’m sorry I said it.”
“What is it about me you don’t like?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to get to the bottom of her antagonism.
