Beneath the Veil of Paradise
Kate Hewitt
Having a passionate affair on a desert island was not something Millie Lang ever thought she’d do… Since tragedy struck her life, Millie has cocooned herself in her work, leaving no time to think or feel. Chase Bryant has his own reasons for escaping it all. As long as they both know this paradise is just for one week with no messy emotions all should be fine.But neither of these two damaged souls is ready for the Pandora’s Box of emotions that their intense passion unleashes…‘Wow! Kate Hewitt writes heroes worth reading about. Love it.’ – Catherine, Teacher, South Wales
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www.millsandboon.co.uk/ebookxmas (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/ebookxmas)
‘You’re not the only one who can read people, you know.’
‘You can read me?’ Chase leaned forward, his eyes glinting in the candlelight.
She saw the golden-brown stubble on his jaw, could almost feel its sandpaper roughness under her fingers. She breathed in the scent of him: part musk, part sun, pure male.
‘What am I thinking now?’ he asked—a steely, softly worded challenge.
Millie didn’t dare answer.
She knew what she was thinking. She was thinking about taking that hard jaw between her hands and angling her lips over his. His lips would be soft but firm, commanding and drawing deep from her. And she would give—she would surrender that long-held part of herself in just one kiss. She knew it—felt it bone-deep. Soul-deep. Which was ridiculous, because she barely knew this man. Yet in the space of an hour or two he’d drawn more from her than anyone had since her husband’s death, or even before. He’d seen more, glimpsed her sadness and subterfuge as no one else could or had. No one had seen through her smoke and mirrors. No one but Chase.
And he was a stranger.
A stranger who could kiss her quite senseless.
About the Author
KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon
romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit.
After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog.
Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com
Recent titles by the same author:
THE HUSBAND SHE NEVER KNEW
THE DARKEST OF SECRETS
KHOLODOV’S LAST MISTRESS
MR AND MISCHIEF (The Powerful and the Pure)
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Beneath the
Veil of Paradise
Kate Hewitt
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
WAS she ever going to start painting?
The woman had been sitting and staring at the blank canvas for the better part of an hour. Chase Bryant had been watching her, nursing his drink at the ocean-side bar and wondering if she’d ever actually put brush to paper, or canvas, as the case might be.
She didn’t.
She was fussy; he could see that straight off. She was in a luxury resort on a remote island in the Caribbean, and her tan capris had knife-edge pleats. Her pale-blue polo shirt looked like she’d ironed it an hour ago. He wondered what she did to relax. If she relaxed. Considering her attitude in their current location, he doubted it.
Still, there was something intriguing about the determined if rather stiff set of her shoulders, the compressed line of her mouth. She wasn’t particularly pretty—well, not his kind of pretty anyway, which he fully admitted was lush, curvy blondes. This woman was tall, just a few inches under his own six feet, and angular. He could see the jut of her collarbone, the sharp points of her elbows. She had a narrow face, a forbidding expression, and even her hairstyle was severe, a blunt bob of near black that looked like she trimmed it with nail scissors every week. Its razor-straight edge swung by the strong line of her jaw as she moved.
He’d been watching her since she arrived, her canvas and paints under one arm. She’d set her stuff up on the beach a little way off from the bar, close enough so he could watch her while he sipped his sparkling water. No beers for him on this trip, unfortunately.
She’d been very meticulous about it all, arranging the collapsible easel, the box of paints, the little three-legged stool. Moving everything around until it was all just so, and she was on a beach. In the Caribbean. She looked like she was about to teach an evening art class for over-sixties.
Still he waited. He wondered if she was any good. She had a gorgeous view to paint—the aquamarine sea, a stretch of spun-sugar sand. There weren’t even many people to block the view; the resort wasn’t just luxurious, it was elite and discreet. He should know. His family owned it. And right now he needed discreet.
She finished arranging everything and sat on the stool, staring out to the sea, her posture perfect, back ramrod-straight. For half an hour. It would have been boring except that he could see her face, and how emotions flickered across it like shadows on water. He couldn’t exactly decipher what the emotions were, but she clearly wasn’t thinking happy thoughts.
The sun had begun its languorous descent towards the sea, and he decided she must be waiting for the sunset. They were spectacular here; he’d seen three of them already. He liked watching the sun set, felt there was something poetic and apt about all that intense beauty over in an instant. He watched now as the sun slipped lower, its long rays causing the placid surface of the sea to shimmer with a thousand lights, the sky ablaze with myriad streaks of colour, everything from magenta to turquoise to gold.
And still she just sat there.
For the first time Chase felt an actual flicker of annoyance. She’d dragged everything out here; obviously she’d intended to paint something. So why wasn’t she doing it? Was she afraid? More likely a perfectionist. And, damn it, he knew now that life was too short to wait for the perfect moment, or even an OK moment. Sometimes you just had to wade into the mire and do it. Live while you could.
Pushing away his drink, he rose from his stool and headed over to Miss Fussy.
Millie did not enjoy feeling like a fool. And it felt foolish and, worse, pathetic, sitting here on a gorgeous beach staring at a blank canvas when she’d obviously come to paint.
She just didn’t want to any more.
It had been a stupid idea anyway, the kind of thing you read about in self-help books or women’s magazines. She’d read one on the plane to St Julian’s, something about being kind to yourself. Whatever. The article had described how a woman had taken up gardening after her divorce and had ended up starting her own landscaping business. Lived her dream after years of marital unhappiness. Inspirational. Impossible. Millie turned away from the canvas.
And found herself staring straight at a man’s muscled six-pack abs. She looked up and saw a dark-haired Adonis smiling down at her.
‘I’ve heard about watching paint dry, but this is ridiculous.’
Perfect, a smart ass. Millie rose from her stool so she was nearly eye-level. ‘As you can see, there’s no paint.’
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Inspiration,’ she answered and gave him a pointed look. ‘I’m not finding any here.’
If she’d been trying to offend or at least annoy him, she’d failed. He just laughed, slow and easy, and gave her a thorough once-over with his dark bedroom eyes.
Millie stood taut and still, starting to get angry. She hated guys like this one: gorgeous, flirtatious, and utterly arrogant. Three strikes against him, as far as she was concerned.
His gaze finally travelled up to her face, and she was surprised and discomfited to see a flicker of what almost looked like sympathy there. ‘So really,’ he asked, dropping the flirt, ‘why haven’t you painted anything?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Obviously. But I’m curious. I’ve been watching you from the bar for nearly an hour. You spent a long time on the setup, but you’ve been staring into space for thirty minutes.’
‘What are you, some kind of stalker?’
‘Nope. Just bored out of my mind.’
She stared at him; tried to figure him out. She’d taken him for a cheap charmer but there was something strangely sincere about the way he spoke. Like he really was curious. And really bored.
Something in the way he waited with those dark eyes and that little half-smile made her answer reluctantly, ‘I just couldn’t do it.’
‘It’s been a while?’
‘Something like that.’ She reached over and started to pack up the paints. No point pretending anything was going to happen today. Or any day. Her painting days were long gone.
He picked up her easel and collapsed it in one neat movement before handing it back. ‘May I buy you a drink?’
She liked the ‘may’, but she still shook her head. ‘No thanks.’ She hadn’t had a drink alone with a man in two years. Hadn’t done anything in two years but breathe and work and try to survive. This guy wasn’t about to make her change her ways.
‘You sure?’
She turned to him and folded her arms as she surveyed him. He really was annoyingly attractive: warm brown eyes, short dark hair, a chiseled jaw and those nice abs. His board shorts rode low on his hips, and his legs were long and powerful. ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘are you even asking? I’d bet a hundred bucks I’m not your usual type.’ Just like he wasn’t hers.
‘Typecast me already?’
‘Easily.’
His mouth quirked slightly. ‘Well, you’re right, you’re not my usual type. Way too tall and, you know—’ he gestured around her face, making Millie stiffen ‘—severe. What’s with the hair?’
‘The hair?’ Instinctively and shamefully she reached up to touch her bobbed hair. ‘What about it?’
‘It’s scary. Like, Morticia Addams scary.’
‘Morticia Addams? Of the Addams Family? She had long hair.’ She could not believe they were discussing her hair, and in relation to a television show.
‘Did she? Well, maybe I’m thinking of someone else. Somebody with hair like yours. Really sharp-cut.’ He made a chopping motion along his own jaw.
‘You’re being ridiculous. And offensive.’ Yet strangely she found herself smiling. She liked his honesty.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘So, dinner?’
‘I thought it was a drink.’
‘Based on the fact that you’re still talking to me, I upped the ante.’
She laughed, reluctant, rusty, yet still a laugh. This annoying, arrogant, attractive man amused her somehow. When was the last time she’d actually laughed, had felt like laughing? And she was on holiday—admittedly enforced, but she had a whole week to kill. Seven days was looking like a long time from here. Why not amuse herself? Why not prove she really was moving on, just like her boss Jack had urged her to do? She gave a little decisive nod. ‘OK, to the drink only.’
‘Are you haggling?’
Interest flared; deals she could do. ‘What’s your counter offer?’
He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping slowly over her once more. And she reacted to that gaze, a painful mix of attraction and alarm. Dread and desire. Hot and cold. A welter of emotions that penetrated her numbness, made her feel.
‘Drink, dinner, and a walk on the beach.’
Awareness pulsed with an electric jolt low in her belly. ‘You were supposed to offer something less, not more.’
His slow, wicked smile curled her toes—and other parts of her person, parts that hadn’t curled in a long time. ‘I know.’
She hesitated. She should back off, tell him to forget it, yet somehow now that felt like failure. She could handle him. She needed to be able to handle him.
‘Fine.’ She was agreeing because it was a challenge, not because she wanted to. She liked to set herself little challenges, tests of emotional and physical endurance: I can jog three miles in eighteen-and-a-half minutes and not even be out of breath. I can look at this photo album for half an hour and not cry.
Smiling, he reached for the canvas she clutched to her chest. ‘Let me carry that for you.’
‘Chivalrous of you, but there’s no need.’ She strode over to the rubbish bin on the edge of the beach and tossed the canvas straight in. The paints, easel and stool followed.
She didn’t look at him as she did it, but she felt herself flush. She was just being practical, but she could see how it might seem kind of … severe.
‘You are one scary lady.’
She glanced at him, eyebrows raised, everything prickling. ‘Are you still talking about my hair?’
‘The whole package. But don’t worry, I like it.’ He grinned and she glared.
‘I wasn’t worried.’
‘The thing I like about you,’ he said as he strolled towards the bar, ‘is you’re so easy to rile.’
Millie had no answer to that one. She was acting touchy, but she felt touchy. She didn’t do beaches, or bars, or dates. She didn’t relax. For the last two years she had done nothing but work, and sunbathing on the beach with a paperback and MP3 player was akin to having her fingernails pulled out one by one. At least that wouldn’t take a whole week.
The man—she realised she didn’t even know his name—had led her through the beach-side bar to an artful arrangement of tables right on the sand. Each one was shaded by its own umbrella, with comfortable, cushioned chairs and a perfect view of the sea.
The waiter snapped right to attention, so Millie guessed the man was known around here. Probably a big spender. Trust-fund baby or bond trader? Did it matter?
‘What’s your name?’ she asked as she sat across from him. He was gazing out at the sea with a strangely focused look. The orange streaks were like vivid ribbons across the sky. He snapped his attention back to her.
‘Chase.’
‘Chase.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Sounds appropriate.’
‘Actually, I don’t generally do much chasing.’ He gave her a slow, oh-so-sexy smile that had annoyance flaring through her even as her toes—and other parts—curled again.
‘Charming, Chase. Do you practise that in the mirror?’
‘Practise what?’
‘Your smile.’
He laughed and leaned back in his chair. ‘Nope, never. But it must be a pretty nice smile, if you think I practise.’ He eyed her consideringly. ‘Although, the more likely possibility is that you just think you I’m an arrogant ass who’s far too full of himself.’
Now she laughed in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to be so honest. ‘And I could probably tell you what you think of me.’
He arched one eyebrow. ‘And that is?’
‘Uptight, prissy know-it-all who doesn’t know how to have a good time.’ As soon as she said the words, she regretted them. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have.
‘Actually, I don’t think that.’ He remained relaxed, but his gaze swept over her searchingly, making Millie feel weirdly revealed. ‘Admittedly, on the surface, yes, I see it. Totally, to a tee. But underneath …’ She rolled her eyes, waiting for the come-on. Everything was a chat-up line to a guy like this. ‘You seem sad.’
She tensed mid-eye-roll, her gaze arrowing on him. A little smile played around his mouth, drawing attention to those full, sculpted lips. Lips that were lush enough to belong to a woman, yet still seemed intensely masculine. And it was those lips that had so softly issued that scathing indictment.
You seem sad.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ As far as comebacks went, it sucked. And her voice sounded horribly brittle. But Millie didn’t have anything better. Averting her eyes, she slipped out her smart phone and punched in a few numbers. Chase watched her without speaking, yet she felt something from him. Something dark, knowing and totally unexpected.
‘What’s your name?’ he finally asked and, knowing she was being rude, she didn’t look up from her phone.
‘Millie Lang.’ No work emails. Damn.
‘What’s that short for? Millicent? Mildred?’
She finally glanced up, saw him still studying her. ‘Camilla.’
‘Camilla,’ he repeated, savouring the syllables, drawing them out with a sensual consideration that didn’t seem forced or fake. ‘I like it.’ He gestured to her phone. ‘So what’s going on in the real world, Camilla? Your stock portfolio sound? Work managing without you?’
She flushed and put her phone away. She’d just been about to check NASDAQ. For the fifth time today. ‘Everything ship-shape. And please don’t call me Camilla.’
‘You prefer Millie?’
‘Clearly.’
He laughed. ‘This is going to be a fun evening, I can tell.’
Her flush intensified, swept down her body. What a mistake this was—a stupid, stupid mistake. Had she actually thought she could do this—have dinner, have fun, flirt? All ridiculous.
‘Maybe I should just go.’ She half-rose from her chair, but Chase stopped her with one hand on her wrist. The touch of his fingers, long, lean and cool against that tender skin, felt like a bomb going off inside her body. Not just the usual tingle of attraction, the shower of sparks that was your body’s basic reaction to a good-looking guy. No, a bomb. She jerked her hand away, heard her breath come out in a rush. ‘Don’t—’
‘Whoa.’ He held his hands up in front of him. ‘Sorry, my mistake.’ But he didn’t look sorry. He looked like he knew exactly what she’d just experienced. ‘I meant what I said, Millie. It’s going to be a fun evening. I like a challenge.’
‘Oh, please.’ His stupid comment made her feel safe. She wanted this Chase to be exactly what she’d thought he was: attractive, arrogant and utterly unthreatening.
Chase grinned. ‘I knew you’d expect me to say that.’ And, just like that, she was back to wondering. Millie snatched up a menu.
‘Shall we order?’
‘Drinks first.’
‘I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay with ice, please.’
‘That sounds about right,’ he murmured and rose from the table. Millie watched him walk to the bar, her gaze glued to his easy, long-limbed stride. Yes, she was staring at his butt. He looked good in board shorts.
By sheer force of will she dragged her gaze away from him and stared down at her phone. Why couldn’t she have one work crisis? She’d had a dozen a day when she was in the office. Of course she knew why; she just didn’t like it. Jack had insisted she take a week’s holiday with no interruptions or furtive tele-commuting. She hadn’t taken any in two years, and new company policy—supposedly for the health of its employees—demanded that you use at least half of your paid leave in one year.
What a ridiculous policy.
She wanted to work. She’d been working twelve-, fourteen- and sometimes even sixteen-hour days for two years and screeching to a halt to come here was making her very, very twitchy.
‘Here you go.’ Chase had returned to the table and placed a glass of wine in front of her. Millie eyed his own drink warily; it looked like soda.
‘What are you drinking?’
‘Some kind of cola.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s cold, at least.’
‘Do you have a drinking problem?’ she asked abruptly and he laughed.
‘Good idea, let’s skip right to the important stuff. No, I don’t. I’m just not drinking right now.’ He took a sip of his soda, eyeing her thoughtfully. Millie held his gaze. All right, asking that had been a bit abrupt and even weird, but she’d forgotten how to do chit-chat.
‘So, Millie, where are you from?’
‘New York City.’
‘I suppose I should have guessed that.’
‘Oh, really?’ She bristled. Again. ‘You seem to think you have me figured out.’
‘No, but I tend to be observant. And you definitely have that hard city gloss.’
‘Where are you from, then?’
He gave her one of his toe-curling smiles. His eyes, Millie thought distantly, were so warm. She wanted to curl up in them, which was a nonsensical thought. ‘I’m from New York too.’
‘I suppose I could have guessed that.’
He laughed, a low, rich chuckle. ‘How?’
‘You’ve got that over-privileged, city-boy veneer,’ she responded sweetly, to which he winced with theatrical exaggeration.
‘Ouch.’
‘At least now we understand each other.’
‘Do we?’ he asked softly and Millie focused on her drink. Sip. Stare at the ice cubes bobbing in the liquid. Don’t look at him. ‘Why are you so prickly?’
‘I’m not.’ It was a knee-jerk response. She was being prickly. She hadn’t engaged with a man in any sense in far too long and she didn’t know how to start now. Why had she agreed to this? She took another sip of wine, let the bubbles crisp on her tongue. ‘Sorry,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m not usually quite this bitchy.’
‘I bring out the best in you?’
‘I suppose you do.’ She met his gaze, meaning to smile with self-deprecating wryness, but somehow her lips froze in something more like a grimace. He was gazing at her with a sudden intentness that made her breath dry and her heart start to pound. She wanted him to be light, wry, shallow. He wasn’t being any of those things right now. And, even when he had been, she had a horrible feeling he’d simply done it by choice.
‘So why are you on St Julian’s?’ he asked.
‘Holiday, of course.’
‘You don’t seem like the type to holiday willingly.’
Which was all too true, but she didn’t like him knowing it, or knowing anything. ‘Oh?’ she asked, glad to hear she was hitting that self-deprecating note she’d tried for earlier. ‘And you know me so well?’
He leaned forward, suddenly predatory. ‘I think I do.’
Her heart still pounding, Millie leaned back as if she actually felt relaxed and arched an eyebrow. ‘How is that?’
‘Let’s see.’ He leaned back too, sprawled in his chair in a manner so casually relaxed and yet also innately powerful, even in an ocean-side bar wearing board shorts. ‘You’re a lawyer, or else you’re in finance.’ He glanced at her, considering, and Millie froze. ‘Finance, I’d say, something demanding but also elite. Hedge-fund manager, maybe?’
Damn it. How the hell did he know that? She said nothing.
‘You work long hours, of course,’ Chase continued, clearly warming to this little game. ‘And you live in a high-rise building, full-service, on— Let’s see. The Upper East Side? But near the subway, so you can get to work in under twenty minutes. Although you try to jog to work at least two mornings a week.’ Now he arched an eyebrow, a little smile playing about his mouth. ‘How am I doing so far?’
‘Terrible,’ Millie informed him shortly. She was seething inside, seething with the pain of someone knowing her at all, even just the basics. And she hated that he’d been able to guess it, read her as easily as a book. What else could he find out about her just by his so-called powers of observation? ‘I run to work three mornings a week, not two, and I live in midtown.’
Chase grinned. ‘I must be slipping.’
‘Anyway,’ Millie said, ‘I could guess the same kinds of things about you.’
‘OK, shoot.’
She eyed him just as he had her, trying to gain a little time to assemble her thoughts. She had no idea what he did or where he lived. She could guess, but that was all it would be—a guess. Taking a breath, she began. ‘I think you work in some pseudo-creative field, like IT or advertising.’
‘Pseudo-creative?’ Chase interjected, nearly spluttering his soda. ‘You really are tough, Camilla.’
‘Millie,’ she reminded him shortly. Only Rob had called her Camilla. ‘You live in Chelsea or Soho, in one of those deluxe bachelor loft apartments. A converted warehouse with views of the river and zero charm.’
‘That is so stereotypical, it hurts.’
‘With a great room that’s fantastic for parties, top-of-the-line leather sofas, a huge TV and a high-tech kitchen full of gadgets you never use.’
He shook his head slowly, his gaze fastened on hers. He smiled, almost looking sorry for her. ‘Totally wrong.’
She folded her arms. Strange how her observations of him made her feel exposed. ‘Oh? How so?’
‘All right, you might be right about the loft apartment, but it’s in Tribeca—and my television is mid-size, thank you very much.’
‘And the leather sofas?’
‘Leather cleans very easily, or so my cleaning lady tells me.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And I’ll have you know I do use my kitchen, quite often. I find cooking relaxing.’
She eyed him uncertainly. ‘You do not.’
‘I do. But I bet you don’t cook. You buy a bagel on the way to work, skip lunch and eat a bowl of cereal standing by the sink for dinner.’
It was just a little too close to the truth and it sounded unbelievably pathetic. Suddenly Millie wanted to stop this little game. Desperately. ‘I order take-out on occasion as well,’ she told him, trying for breezy. ‘So what do you do, anyway?’
‘I’m an architect. Does that count as pseudo-creative?’
‘Definitely.’ She was being incredibly harsh, but she was afraid to be anything else. This man exposed her in a way that felt like peeling back her skin—painful and messy. This date was over.
‘As entertaining as this has been, I think I’ll go.’ She drained her glass of wine and half-rose from her chair, only to be stopped by Chase wrapping his fingers around her wrist, just as he had before—and, just as before, she reacted, an explosion of senses inside her.
‘Scared, Millie?’
‘Scared?’ she repeated as contemptuously as she could. ‘Of what—you?’
‘Of us.’
‘There is no us.’
‘There’s been an us since the moment you agreed to a drink, dinner and a walk on the beach,’ he informed her with silky softness. ‘And so far we’ve just had our drink.’
‘Let me go,’ she said flatly, her lips numb, her whole body buzzing.
Chase held up both hands, his gaze still holding hers as if they were joined by a live wire. ‘I already did.’
And so he had. She was standing there like a complete idiot, acting as if she were trapped, when the only thing imprisoning her was her own fear. This man guessed way too much.
She couldn’t walk away now. Admitting defeat was not an option. And if she could handle this, handle him as she’d assured herself she could, then wouldn’t that be saying something? Wouldn’t that be a way of proving to herself, as well as him, that she had nothing either to hide or fear?
She dropped back down into her chair and gave him a quick, cool smile. ‘I’m not scared.’
Something like approval lit his eyes, making Millie feel stupidly, ridiculously gratified. Better to get through this evening as quickly as possible.
‘So shall we order?’
‘Oh no, we’re not eating here,’ Chase informed her. Millie stared at him, nonplussed. He smiled, slow, easy and completely in control. ‘We’ll eat somewhere more private.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘MORE private?’ Millie’s voice rose in a screech as she stared at him, two angry blotches of colour appearing high on her cheeks. He should be annoyed by now, Chase mused. He should be way past annoyed. The woman was a nutcase. Or at least very high-maintenance. But he wasn’t annoyed, not remotely. He’d enjoyed their little exchange, liked that she gave as good as she got. And he was intrigued by something underneath that hard gloss—something real and deep and alive. He just wasn’t sure what it was, or what he wanted to do with it.
But first, dinner. ‘Relax. I’m not about to about to abduct you, as interesting as that possibility may be.’
‘Not funny.’
She held herself completely rigid, her face still flushed with anger. He’d had no idea his change of dinner plans would provoke such a reaction—no; he had. Of course he had. He just hadn’t realised he’d enjoy it so much. Underneath the overly ironed blouse her chest rose and fell in agitated breaths, making him suspect all that creaseless cotton hid some slender but interesting curves. ‘You’re right, it’s not funny,’ he agreed with as much genuine contrition as he could muster. ‘We barely know each other, and I didn’t intend to make you feel vulnerable.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘We’re not on some mandatory course for creating a safe work environment, Chase. You can skip the PC double-speak.’
He laughed, loving it. Loving that she didn’t play games, not even innocent ones. ‘OK. Fine. By more private, I meant a room in the resort. Chaperoned by wait staff and totally safe. If you’re feeling, you know, threatened.’
‘I have not felt threatened by you for an instant,’ Millie replied, and Chase leaned forward.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked softly, knowing he was pressing her in ways she didn’t want to be pressed. He’d seen that shadow of vulnerability in her eyes, felt the sudden, chilly withdrawal as her armour went up. He knew the tactics because he’d used them himself.
It’s not good news, Chase. I’m sorry.
Hell, yeah, he’d used them.
She stared at him for a moment, held his gaze long enough so he could see the warm brown of her eyes. Yes, warm. Like dark honey or rum, and the only warm thing about her. So far.
‘Threatened is the wrong word,’ she finally said, and from the starkness of her tone he knew she was speaking in total truth. ‘You do make me uncomfortable, though.’
‘Do I?’
She gave him a thin-lipped smile. ‘I don’t think anyone likes being told that it’s obvious she eats a bowl of cereal by the sink for dinner.’
Ouch. Put like that, he realised it was insulting. ‘I wouldn’t say obvious.’ Although he sort of would.
‘Only because you’re so perceptive, I suppose?’ she shot back, and he grinned.
‘So shall we go somewhere more private so you can continue to be uncomfortable?’
‘What an appealing proposition.’
‘It appeals to me,’ he said truthfully, and she gave a little shake of her head.
‘Honestly? What do you see in me?’ She sounded curious, but also that thing he dreaded: vulnerable. She really didn’t know the answer, and hell if he did either.
‘What do you see in me?’ he asked back.
She chewed her lip, her eyes shadowing once more. ‘You made me laugh for the first time in—a long time.’
He had the strange feeling she’d been about to give him a specific number. Since when? ‘That’s a lot of pressure.’
Her eyes widened, flaring with warmth again. ‘Why?’
‘Because of course now I have to make you laugh again.’
And for a second he thought he might get a laugh right then and there, and something rose in his chest, an airy bubble of hope and happiness that made absolutely no sense. Still he felt it, rising him high and dizzily higher even though he didn’t move. He grinned. Again, simply because he couldn’t help it.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not that easy.’
‘This conversation just took a very interesting turn.’
‘I meant laughing,’ she protested, and then she did laugh, one ridiculously un-ladylike hiccup of joy that had her clapping her hand over her mouth.
‘There it is,’ Chase said softly. He felt a deep and strangely primal satisfaction, the kind he usually only felt when he’d nailed an architectural design. He’d made her laugh. Twice.
She stared at him, her hand still clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide, warm and soft—if eyes could even be considered soft. Chase felt a stirring deep inside—low down, yes, he felt that basic attraction, but something else. Something not quite so low down and far more alarming, caused by this hard woman with the soft eyes.
‘You changed the deal,’ she told him, dropping her hand, all businesslike and brisk again. ‘You said dinner here, in the restaurant.’
‘I did not,’ Chase countered swiftly. ‘You just didn’t read the fine print.’
He thought she might laugh again, but she didn’t. He had a feeling she suppressed it, didn’t want to give him the power of making her laugh three times. And it did feel like power, heady and addictive. He wanted more.
‘I don’t remember signing,’ she said. ‘And verbal agreements aren’t legally binding.’
He leaned back in his chair, amazed at how alive he felt. How invigorated. He hadn’t felt this kind of dazzling, creative energy in months. Eight months and six days, to be precise.
‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘You can go.’ He felt his heart thud at the thought that she might actually rise from the table and walk down the beach out of his life. Yet he also knew he had to level the playing field. She needed to be here because she wanted to be here, and she had to admit it. He didn’t know why it was so important; he just felt it—that gut instinct that told him something was going on here that was more than a meal.
She chewed her lip again and he could tell by the little worry marks in its lush fullness—her lips were another soft part of her—that this was a habit. Her lashes swept downwards, hiding her eyes, but he could still read her. Easily.
She wanted to walk, but she also didn’t, and that was aggravating her to no end.
She looked up, eyes clear and wide once more, any emotion safely hidden. ‘Fine. We’ll go somewhere more private.’ And, without waiting for him, she rose from the table.
Chase rose too, anticipation firing through him. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking forward to—just being with her, or something else? She was so not his type, and yet he couldn’t deny that deep jolt of awareness, the flash of lust. And not just a flash, not just lust either. She attracted and intrigued him on too many levels.
Smiling, he rose from the table and led the way out of the beach-side bar and towards the resort.
Millie followed Chase into the resort, the soaring space cool and dim compared to the beach. She felt neither cool nor dim; everything inside her was light and heat. It scared her, feeling this. Wanting him. Because, yes, she knew she wanted him. Not just desire, simple attraction, a biological response or scientific law. Want.
She hadn’t touched a man in two years. Longer, really, because she couldn’t actually remember the last time she and Rob had made love. It had bothered her at first, the not knowing. She’d lain in bed night after endless nights scouring her brain for a fragment of a memory. Something to remind her of how she’d lain sated and happy in her husband’s arms. She hadn’t come up with anything, because it had been too long.
Now it wasn’t the past that was holding her in thrall; it was the present. The future. Just what did she want to happen tonight?
‘This way,’ Chase murmured, and Millie followed him into a lift. The space was big enough, all wood-panelled luxury, but it still felt airless and small. He was still only wearing board shorts. Was he going to spend the whole evening shirtless? Could she stand it?
Millie cleared her throat, the sound seeming as loud as a gunshot, and Chase gave her a lazy sideways smile. He knew what she was thinking. Feeling. Knew, with that awful arrogance, that she was attracted to him even if she didn’t like it. And she didn’t like it, although she couldn’t really say why.
It had been two years. Surely it was time to move on, to accept and heal and go forward?
She shook her head, impatient with herself. Dinner with someone like Chase was not going forward. If anything, it was going backwards, because he was too much like Rob. He was, Millie thought, more like Rob than Rob himself. He was her husband as her husband had always wanted to be: powerful, rich, commanding. He was Rob on steroids.
Exactly what she didn’t want.
‘Slow down there, Millie.’
Her gaze snapped to his, saw the remnant of that lazy smile. ‘What—?’
‘Your mind is going a mile a minute. I can practically see the smoke coming out of your ears.’
She frowned, wanting to deny it. ‘It’s just dinner.’
Chase said nothing, but his smile deepened. Millie felt a weird, shivery sensation straight through her bones that he wasn’t responding because he didn’t agree with her. It wasn’t just dinner. It was something else, something scary.
But what?
‘Here we are.’ The lift doors swooshed open and Chase led her down a corridor and then out onto a terrace. A private terrace. They were completely alone, no wait staff in sight.
Millie didn’t feel vulnerable, threatened or scared. No, she felt terrified. What was she doing here? Why had she agreed to dinner with this irritating and intriguing man? And why did she feel that jolt of electric awareness, that kick of excitement, every time she so much as looked at him? She felt more alive now than she had since Rob’s death, maybe even since before that—a long time before that.
She walked slowly to the railing and laid one hand on the wrought-iron, still warm from the now-sinking sun. The vivid sunset had slipped into a twilit indigo, the sea a dark, tranquil mirror beneath.
‘We missed the best part,’ Chase murmured, coming to stand next to her.
‘Do you think so?’ Millie kept her gaze on the darkening sky. ‘This part is more beautiful to me.’
Chase cocked his head, and Millie turned to see his speculative gaze slide over her. ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,’ he said, and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Millie felt as if he’d just dusted her with sparks, jabbed her with little jolts of electricity. Her cheek and ear throbbed, her physical response so intense it felt almost painful.
Did he feel it? Could it be possible that he reacted to her the way she did to him? The thought short-circuited her brain. It was quite literally mind-blowing.
She turned away from him, back to the sunset. ‘Everybody likes the vibrant colours of a sunset,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. ‘All that magenta and orange—gorgeous but gaudy, like an old broad with too much make-up.’
‘I’ll agree with you that the moment after is more your style. Understated elegance. Quiet sophistication.’
‘And which do you prefer? The moment before or after?’
Chase didn’t answer, and Millie felt as if the very air had suddenly become heavy with expectation. It filled her lungs, weighed them down; she was breathless.
‘Before,’ he finally said. ‘Then there’s always something to look forward to.’
Millie didn’t think they were talking about sunsets any more. She glanced at Chase and saw him staring pensively at the sky, now deepening to black. The sun and all its gaudy traces had disappeared completely.
‘So tell me,’ she said, turning away from the railing, ‘how did you arrange a private terrace so quickly? Or do you keep one reserved on standby, just in case you meet a woman?’
He laughed, a rich, throaty chuckle. This man enjoyed life. It shouldn’t surprise her; she’d labelled him a hedonist straight off. Yet she didn’t feel prissily judgmental of that enjoyment right now. She felt—yes, she really did—jealous.
‘Full disclosure?’
‘Always.’
He reached for a blue button-down shirt that had been laid on one of the chairs. He’d thought of everything, and possessed the power to see it done. Millie watched him button up his shirt with long, lean fingers, the gloriously sculpted muscles of his chest disappearing under the crisp cotton.
‘My family owns this resort.’
She jerked her rather admiring gaze from the vicinity of his chest to his face. ‘Ah.’ There was, she knew, a wealth of understanding in that single syllable. So, architect and trust-fund baby. She’d suspected something like that. He had the assurance that came only from growing up rich and entitled. She should be relieved; she wanted him to be what she’d thought he was, absolutely no more and maybe even less. So why, gazing at him now, did she feel the tiniest bit disappointed, like he’d let her down?
Like she actually wanted him to be different?
‘Yes. Ah.’ He smiled wryly, and she had a feeling he’d guessed her entire thought process, not for the first time this evening.
‘That must be handy.’
‘It has its benefits.’ He spoke neutrally, without the usual flippant lightness and Millie felt a little dart of curiosity. For the first time Chase looked tense, his jaw a little bunched, his expression a little set. He didn’t smile as he pulled out a chair for her at the cozy table for two and flickered with candlelight in the twilit darkness.
Millie’s mind was, as usual, working overtime. ‘The Bryant family owns this resort.’
‘Bingo.’
‘My company manages their assets.’ That was how she’d ended up here, waiting out her week of enforced holiday, indolent luxury. Jack had suggested it.
‘And you have a rule about mixing business with pleasure?’
‘The point is moot. I don’t handle their account.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He spoke with an edge she hadn’t heard since she’d met him. Clearly his family and its wealth raised his hackles.
‘So you’re one of the Bryants,’ she said, knowing instinctively such a remark would annoy him. ‘Which one?’
‘You know my family?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ The Bryants littered the New York tabloids and society pages, not that she read either. But you couldn’t so much as check your email without coming across a news blurb or scandalous headline. Had she read about Chase? Probably, if she’d paid attention to such things. There were three Bryant boys, as far as she remembered, and they were all players.
‘I’m the youngest son,’ Chase said tautly. He leaned back in his chair, deliberately relaxed in his body if not his voice. ‘My older brother Aaron runs the property arm of Bryant Enterprises. My middle brother Luke runs the retail.’
‘And you do your own thing.’
‘Yes.’
That dart of curiosity sharpened into a direct stab. Why didn’t Chase work for the family company? ‘There’s no Bryant Architecture, is there?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Definitely not.’
‘So what made you leave the family fold?’
‘We’re getting personal, then?’
‘Are we?’
‘Why did you throw out your canvas?’
Startled, she stared at him, saw his sly, silky little smile.
‘I asked you first.’
‘I don’t like taking orders. And you?’
‘I don’t like painting.’
He stared at her; she stared back. A stand-off. So she wasn’t the only one with secrets. ‘Interesting,’ he finally mused. He poured them both sparkling water. ‘You don’t like painting, but you decided to drag all that paraphernalia to the beach and set up your little artist’s studio right there on the sand?’
She shrugged. ‘I used to like it, when I was younger.’ A lot younger and definitely less jaded. ‘I thought I might like to try it again.’
‘What changed your mind?’
Another shrug. She could talk about this. This didn’t have to be personal or revealing. She wouldn’t let it be. ‘I just wasn’t feeling it.’
‘You don’t seem like the type to rely on feelings.’
She smiled thinly. ‘Still typecasting me, Chase?’
He laughed, an admitted defeat. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I play to type.’
‘On purpose.’
She eyed him uneasily. Perhaps this was personal after all. And definitely revealing. ‘Maybe.’
‘Which means you aren’t what you seem,’ Chase said softly, ‘are you?’
‘I’m exactly what I seem.’ She sounded defensive. Great.
‘You want to be exactly what you seem,’ he clarified. ‘Which is why you play it that way.’
She felt a lick of anger, which was better than the dizzying combination of terror and lust he’d been stirring up inside her. ‘What did you do, dust off your psychology textbook?’
He laughed and held up his hands. ‘Guilty. I’m bored on this holiday, what can I say?’
And, just like that, he’d defused the tension that had been thickening in the air, tightening inside her. Yet Millie could not escape the feeling—the certainty—that he’d chosen to do it, that he’d backed off because he’d wanted to, not because of what she wanted.
One person at this table was calling the shots and it wasn’t her.
‘So.’ She breathed through her nose, trying to hide the fact that her heart was beating hard. She wanted to take a big, dizzying gulp of air, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t. ‘If you’re so bored, why are you on holiday?’
‘Doctor’s orders.’
She blinked, not sure if he was joking. ‘How’s that?’ ‘The stress was getting to me.’
He didn’t look stressed. He looked infuriatingly relaxed, arrogantly in control. ‘The holiday must be working.’
‘Seems to be.’ He sounded insouciant, yet deliberately so. He was hiding something, Millie thought. She’d tried to strike that note of breeziness too many times not to recognise its falseness.
‘So are we actually going to eat?’ He hadn’t pressed her, so she wouldn’t press him. Another deal, this one silently made.
‘Your wish is my command.’
Within seconds a waiter appeared at the table with a tray of food. Millie watched as he ladled freshly grilled snapper in lime juice and coconut rice on her plate. It smelled heavenly.
She waited until he’d served Chase and departed once more before saying dryly, ‘Nice service. Being one of the Bryant boys has its perks, it seems.’
‘Sometimes.’ Again that even tone.
‘Are you staying at the resort?’
‘I have my own villa.’ He stressed the ‘own’ only a little, but Millie guessed it was a sore point. Had he worked for what he had? He was probably too proud to tell her. She wouldn’t ask.
She took a bite of her fish. It tasted heavenly too, an explosion of tart and tender on her tongue. She swallowed and saw Chase looking at her. Just looking, no deliberate, heavy-lidded languor, and yet she felt her body respond, like an antenna tuned to some cerebral frequency. Everything jumped to alert, came alive.
It had been so long.
She took another bite.
‘So why are you on holiday, Millie?’
Why did the way he said her name sound intimate? She swallowed the fish. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, no. Boss’s. I haven’t taken any holiday in a while.’ ‘How long?’
That bite of fish seemed to lodge in her chest, its exquisite tenderness now as tough as old leather. Finally, with an audible and embarrassing gulp, she managed, ‘Two years.’
Chase cocked his head and continued just looking. How much did he see? ‘That’s a long time,’ he finally said, and she nodded.
‘So he told me.’
‘But you didn’t want to take any holiday?’
‘It’s obvious, I suppose.’
‘Pretty much.’
She stabbed a bit of rice with her fork. ‘I like to work.’
‘So are you a hedge-fund manager?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘And you like it?’
Instinctively ‘of course I do’ rose to her lips, yet somehow the words didn’t come. She couldn’t get them out, as if someone had pressed a hand over her mouth and kept her from speaking. So she just stared and swallowed and felt herself flush.
Why had he even asked? she wondered irritably. Obviously she liked it, since she worked so hard.
‘I see,’ Chase said quietly, knowingly, and a sudden, blinding fury rose up in her, obliterating any remaining sense and opening her mouth.
‘You don’t see anything.’ She sounded savage. Incensed. And, even worse, she was. Why did this stupid man make her feel so much? Reveal so much?
‘Maybe not,’ Chase agreed. He didn’t sound riled in the least. Millie let out a shuddering breath. This date had been such a bad idea.
‘OK, now it’s your turn.’
She blinked. ‘What?’
‘You get to ask me a personal question. Only fair, right?’
Another blink. She hadn’t expected that. ‘Why do you hate being one of the Bryants?’
Now he blinked. ‘Hate is a strong word.’
‘So it is.’
‘I never said I hated it.’
‘You didn’t need to.’ She took a sip of water, her hand steady, her breath thankfully even. ‘You’re not the only one who can read people, you know.’
‘You can read me?’ Chase leaned forward, his eyes glinting in the candlelight. She saw the golden-brown stubble on his jaw, could almost feel its sandpaper roughness under her fingers. She breathed in the scent of him, part musk, part sun, pure male. ‘What am I thinking now?’ he asked, a steely, softly worded challenge. Millie didn’t dare answer.
She knew what she was thinking. She was thinking about taking that hard jaw between her hands and angling her lips over his. His lips would be soft but firm, commanding and drawing deep from her. And she would give, she would surrender that long-held part of herself in just one kiss. She knew it, felt it bone-deep, soul-deep, which was ridiculous, because she barely knew this man. Yet in the space of an hour or two he’d drawn more from her than anyone had since her husband’s death, or even before. He’d seen more, glimpsed her sadness and subterfuge like no one else could or had. Not even the parents who adored her, the sister she called a best friend. No one had seen through her smoke and mirrors. No one but Chase.
And he was a stranger.
A stranger who could kiss her quite senseless.
‘I don’t know what you’re thinking,’ she said and looked away.
Chase laughed softly, no more than an exhalation of breath. ‘Coward.’
And yes, maybe she was a coward, but then he was too. Because Millie knew the only reason Chase had turned provocative on her was because he didn’t want to answer her question about his family.
She pushed her plate away, her appetite gone even though her meal was only half-finished. ‘How about that walk on the beach?’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘You’re done?’
She was so done. The sooner she ended this evening, the better. The only reason she wasn’t bailing on the walk was her pride. Even now, when she felt uncomfortable, exposed and even angry, she was determined to handle this. Handle him. ‘It was delicious,’ she said. ‘But I’ve had enough.’
‘No pun intended, I’m sure.’
She curved her lips into a smile. ‘You can read into that whatever you like.’
‘All right, Millie,’ Chase said, uncoiling from his chair like a lazy serpent about to strike. ‘Let’s walk.’
He reached for her hand and unthinkingly, stupidly, Millie let him take it.
As soon as his fingers wrapped over hers, she felt that explosion inside her again and she knew she was lost.
CHAPTER THREE
CHASE felt Millie’s fingers tense in his even as a buzz travelled all the way up his arm. Her fingers felt fragile, slender bone encased in tender skin. A sudden need to protect her rose in him, a caveman’s howl. Clearly it was some kind of evolutionary instinct, because if there was one woman who didn’t need protecting, it was Camilla Lang.
He thought she might jerk her hand away from his, and he was pretty sure she wanted to, but she didn’t. Didn’t want to show weakness, most likely. He smiled and took full advantage, tightening his hold, drawing her close. She tensed some more.
This woman was prickly. And Chase had a sneaking suspicion she had issues, definitely with a capital I. Bad relationship or broken heart; maybe something darker and more difficult. Who knew? He sure as hell didn’t want to. Didn’t he have enough to deal with, with his own issues? Those had a capital I too. And he had no intention of sharing them with Millie.
Even so he drew her from the table, still holding her hand, and away from the terrace, down the lift, through the resort, all the way outside. He threaded his way through the tables of the beach-side restaurant and bar, straight onto the sand. She held his hand the whole time, not speaking, not pulling away, but clearly not all that pleased about it either.
There they were, holding hands alone in the dark.
The wind rattled the leaves of the palm trees overhead and he could hear the gentle shoosh of the waves lapping against the shore. The resort and its patrons seemed far away, their voices barely a murmur, the night soft and dark all around them. Millie pulled her hand from his, a not-so-gentle tug.
‘Let’s walk.’
‘Sounds good.’
Silently they walked down the beach, the sand silky and cool under their bare feet. Lights of a pleasure yacht glimmered in the distance, and from far away Chase heard the husky laugh of a woman intent on being seduced.
Not like Millie. She walked next to him, her back ramrod-straight, her capris and blouse still relentlessly unwrinkled. She looked like she was walking the plank.
He nearly stopped right there in the sand. What the hell was he doing here, with a woman like her? Didn’t he have better ways to spend his time?
‘What?’ She turned to him, and in the glimmer of moonlight he saw those warm, soft eyes, shadowed with a vulnerability he knew she thought she was hiding.
‘What do you mean, what?’
‘You’re thinking something.’
‘I’m always thinking something. Most people are.’
She shook her head, shadows deepening in her eyes. ‘No, I mean …’ She paused, biting her lip, teeth digging into those worry marks once more. If she didn’t let up, she’d have a scar. ‘You’re regretting this, aren’t you? This whole stupid date.’
He stopped, faced her full-on. ‘Aren’t you?’
She let go of her lip to give him the smallest of smiles. ‘That’s a given, don’t you think?’
Did it have to be? How had they fallen into these roles so quickly, so easily? He wanted to break free. He didn’t want to be a flippant playboy to her uptight workaholic. He had a sudden, mad urge to push her down into the sand, to see her clothes wrinkled and dirty, her face smudged and sandy, her lips swollen and kissed …
Good grief.
Chase took a step back, raking a hand through his hair. ‘We’re pretty different, Millie.’
‘Thank God for that.’
He couldn’t muster a laugh. He had too many emotions inside him: longing and lust, irritation and irrational fear. What an unholy mix. He’d asked her out because it had seemed fun, amusing, but it was starting to feel way too intense. And he didn’t need any more intense. He took a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Maybe we should call it a night.’
She blinked, her face immediately blanking, as if her mind were pressing delete. Inwardly Chase cursed. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he knew in that moment he had.
‘Millie—’
‘Fine.’ Her back straighter than ever, she started down the beach away from the resort. He watched her for a second, exasperated with her stubbornness and annoyed by his own clumsy handling of the situation.
‘Aren’t you staying at the resort?’
‘I’m finishing our walk.’
He let out a huff of laughter. He liked this woman, issues and all. ‘I didn’t realise we’d set a distance on it.’
‘More than ten seconds.’ She didn’t look back once.
She was far enough away that he had to shout. ‘It was more like five minutes.’
‘Clearly you have very little stamina.’
There was more truth in that then he’d ever care to admit. ‘Millie.’ He didn’t shout this time, but he knew she heard anyway. He saw it in the tensing of her shoulders, the half-second stumble in her stride. ‘Come back here.’
‘Why should I?’
‘On second thought, I’ll come to you.’ Quickly he strode down the beach, leaving deep footprints in the damp sand, until he reached her. The wind had mussed her hair just a little bit, so the razor edges were softened, blurred. Without even thinking what he was doing or wondering if it was a good idea, Chase reached out and slid his hands along her jaw bone, cupping her face as he drew her to him. Her skin felt like cool silk, cold silk, icy even. Yet so very, unbearably soft. Eyes and lips and skin, all soft. What about her, Chase wondered, was actually hard?
She was close enough to kiss, another inch would do it, yet he didn’t. She didn’t resist, didn’t do anything. She was like a deer caught in the headlights, a rabbit in a snare. Trapped. Terrified.
‘Sorry,’ he breathed against her mouth, close enough so he could imagine the taste of her. She’d taste crisp and clean, like the white wine she’d drunk, except it would be just her. Essence of Camilla.
She jerked back a mere half-inch. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘For acting like a jerk.’
Her lips quirked in the tiniest of smiles. ‘To which point of the evening are you referring?’
‘All right, wise-ass. I was talking about two minutes ago, when I said we should call it a night.’ He stroked his thumb over the fullness of her lower lip, because he just couldn’t help himself, and felt her tremble. ‘I don’t think I was too much of a jerk before that.’
Millie didn’t answer. Chase saw that her lips were parted, her pupils dilated. Desire. The brief moment of tenderness suddenly flared into something untamed and urgent. Chase felt a groan catch in his chest, his body harden in undeniable and instinctive response. His hands tightened as they cradled her face, yet neither of them moved. It was almost as if they were paralysed, both afraid—no, terrified—to close the mere inch that separated them, cross that chasm.
Because Chase knew it wouldn’t be your average kiss. And he was in no position for anything else.
With one quick jerk of her head, Millie slid out of his grasp and stepped backwards. ‘Thanks for the apology,’ she said, her voice as cool as ever. ‘But it’s not needed. It was interesting to get to know you, Chase, but I think we’ve fulfilled both sides of the deal.’ She smiled without humour, and Chase couldn’t stand the sudden bleakness in her eyes. Damn it, they were meant to be soft. ‘Good night,’ she said and headed back down the beach.
Millie walked without looking where she was going or caring. She just wanted to get away from Chase.
What had just happened?
He’d almost kissed her. She’d almost let him. In that moment when his hands had slid along her skin, cradling her face like she was something to be cherished and treasured, she’d wanted him to. Desperately. She would have let him do anything then, and thank goodness he hadn’t, thank God he’d hesitated and she’d somehow found the strength to pull away.
The last thing she needed was to get involved with a man like Chase Bryant.
She left the beach behind and wound her way through the palm trees to the other side of the resort. She’d go in the front entrance and up to her room, and with any luck she wouldn’t see Chase again all week. It was a big place, and he’d told her he was staying at his villa.
So why did that thought fill her with not just disappointment, but desolation? It was ridiculous to feel so lost without a shallow stranger she’d met a couple of hours ago. Absolutely absurd.
Clearly what this evening had shown her, Millie decided as she swiped her key-card and entered the sumptuous suite Jack had insisted she book for the week, was that she was ready to move on. Start dating, have some kind of relationship.
Just not with a man like Chase Bryant.
The words echoed through her, making her pause in stripping off her clothes and turning on the shower. A man like Chase Bryant. She’d pigeon-holed Chase from the moment she’d met him, yet he’d surprised her at every turn. Just what kind of man was he?
A man who asked pressing questions and told her things about herself nobody else knew. Who turned flippant just when she needed him to. Whose simple touch set off an explosion inside her, yet who kept himself from kissing her even when she was so clearly aching for his caress.
A man who made her very, very uncomfortable.
Was that the kind of man she didn’t want to get involved with?
Hell, yes.
She wished she could dismiss him, as she’d fully intended to do when she’d first met him: spoiled and shallow playboy, completely non-threatening. That was the man she’d agreed to have dinner with, not the man he was, who had set her pulse racing and tangled her emotions into knots. A man who touched her on too many levels.
Was that what she didn’t want? Getting involved with someone who had the power to see her as she really was, to hurt her?
Well, duh. Obviously she didn’t want to get hurt. Who did? And surely she’d already had her life’s share of grief Millie stepped into the shower, the water streaming over her even as her thoughts swirled in confusing circles.
Her mind was telling her all that, but her body was singing a very different tune. Her body wanted his touch. Her mouth wanted to know his kiss. Every bit of her ached with a longing for fulfilment she thought she’d forever suppressed.
She let out a shudder and leaned her head against the shower tile as the water streamed over her.
She could stay analytical about this. So she didn’t want to get hurt. She didn’t have to. How much she cared—how much she gave—was in her control. And here she was—and Chase was—on a tropical island for a single week, neither of them with very much to do …
Why not?
Why not what?
She dumped too much shampoo into the palm of her hand and scrubbed her hair, fingernails raking her scalp as if she could wash these tempting and terrible thoughts right out of her mind.
Just what was she contemplating?
A week-long affair with Chase Bryant. A fling. A cheap, sordid, sexual transaction.
She scrubbed harder.
She didn’t do flings. Of course she didn’t. Her husband had been her only lover. Yet here she was, thinking about it. Wondering how Chase would taste, how he would hold her. What it would feel like, to be in his arms. To surrender herself, just a little bit of herself, because even if he sensed she had secrets she wasn’t going to tell them to him. She just wanted that physical release, that momentary connection. The opportunity to forget. When Chase had been about to kiss her, she hadn’t been able to think about anything else. All thoughts and memories had fled, leaving her nothing but blissful sensation.
She wanted that again. More.
Millie rinsed off and turned off the shower. She could control this. She could satiate this hunger that had opened up inside her and prove to herself and everyone else that she’d moved on.
She just needed to tell Chase.
Chase watched the poker-straight figure march down the beach as if in step with an invisible army and wondered why on earth Millie was looking for him. For there could be no mistaking her intent; she’d arrowed in on him like a laser beam. What, he wondered, was with all the military references going through his mind?
Clearly Millie Lang was on the attack.
And he was quite enjoying the anticipation of an invasion. He sat back on his heels on the deck of his sailboat, the water lapping gently against its sides, the sun a balm on his back. Millie marched closer.
Chase had no idea what she wanted. He’d stopped trying to untangle his thoughts about their date last night, from the almost-kiss he hadn’t acted on, to the hurt that had flashed in her eyes to the fact that it had taken him three hours to fall asleep, with Millie’s soft eyes still dancing through his mind. Definitely better not to think about any of it.
‘There you are.’
‘Looking for me?’
She stood on the beach, feet planted in the sand, hands on hips, a look of resolute determination on her face. ‘As a matter of fact, I am.’
‘I’m intrigued.’ He stood up, wincing a little at the ache in his joints. He couldn’t ignore the pain any more. She watched him, eyes narrowed, and he smiled. He could ignore it. He would. ‘So, what’s on your mind, scary lady?’
Her mouth twitched in a suppressed smile, and then she was back to being serious. ‘Is this your boat?’
He glanced back at the sailboat, doing an exaggerated double-take. ‘What—this?’
‘Very funny.’
‘Yep, it’s my boat.’
‘Did you sail here?’
He laughed, reluctantly, because once he might have. Not any more. He didn’t trust himself out on the sea alone. ‘No, I flew in a plane like most people. I keep the boat moored here, though.’
‘I suppose the Bryants are a big sailing family and you started at the yacht club when you were a baby.’
He heard an edge to her voice that he recognised. She hadn’t grown up rich, suspected the proverbial silver spoon. ‘More like a toddler,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Do you sail?’
Lips pressed together. ‘No.’
‘You should try it.’
She glanced at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘Because it’s fun. And freeing. And I’d like to see you out on the water, your hair blowing away from your face.’ She’d look softer then, he thought. Happier too, maybe.
‘You would, huh?’
‘Yeah. I would.’
‘Well, you already told me how you felt about my haircut.’
He chuckled. ‘True. Feel free to let me know if there’s anything you don’t like about my appearance.’
She eyed him up and down deliberately, and Chase felt a lick of excitement low in his belly. He liked that slow, considering look. Millie Lang was checking him out. ‘I will,’ she said slowly, ‘but there isn’t anything yet.’
‘No?’ He felt it again, that licking flame firing him up inside. Was Millie flirting? What had changed since last night, when she’d been as sharp and jagged as a handful of splinters? When he’d let her walk away because he told himself it was better—or at least easier—that way.
And then hadn’t stopped thinking about her all night.
‘Come aboard,’ he said, and stretched out a hand. She eyed it warily, and then with a deep breath like she was about to go underwater she took it and clambered onto the boat.
It was a small sailboat, just thirty-two feet long with one cabin underneath. He’d bought it with his first bonus and sailed halfway around the world on it, back when he’d been a hotshot. Now he cruised in the shallows, like some seventy year old pensioner with a bad case of gout and a dodgy heart. No risks. No stress. No fun.
‘It’s … nice,’ Millie said, and he knew she didn’t know a thing about boats. Who cared? He liked seeing her on deck, even if her clothes were still way too wrinkle-free. Today she wore a red-and-white-striped top and crisp navy-blue capris. Very nautical. Very boring. Yet he was intrigued by the way the boat-neck of her top revealed the hard, angular line of her collarbone. He wanted to run his fingers along that ridge of bone, discover if her skin was as icily soft as it had been last night.
‘I could take you out some time,’ he said. ‘On the boat.’ Why was she here? He stepped closer to her, inhaled the scent of her, something clean and citrusy. Breathed deep.
She turned to him, her hair sweeping along her jaw, and his gaze was caught by the angles of her jaw and shoulder, hard and soft. Her top had slipped a little, and he could see the strap of her bra: beige lace. No sexy lingerie for this lady, yet he still felt himself go hard.
‘You could,’ she said slowly, and he knew she was gearing up to say something—but what?
He folded his arms, adopted a casual pose. ‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘Why are you here, Millie?’
Again that trapped look, chin tilted with defiance. This woman was all contradiction. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not a bit.’ And that was the truth.
She turned away, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. ‘How long are you on this island, anyway?’
‘A week, give or take.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘I’m being flexible.’
‘And then you go back to New York?’
‘That’s the plan.’ This was starting to feel like an interrogation. He didn’t mind, but he wondered what she was getting at.
‘I’ve never come across you in New York,’ she said, almost to herself, and Chase just about kept himself from rolling his eyes.
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