Kitabı oku: «One Night Of Consequences Collection», sayfa 12
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CLARA had looked at nine buildings in the space of four hours. She’d hated them all. The idea of having her own bakery … it had been so great before. But she realized now that when she pictured it, when she saw the image of a shop filled with people enjoying her cupcakes, Zack was there. At a table that she knew, in her imagination, anyway, was the one he sat at every day.
And she would come and sit with him when she took a break. And ask him what his favorite confection was. How his day had been. If he’d run in to any mimes. Because in her mind, in her heart, she’d never truly thought he would be gone from her life altogether.
The truth was, a life without him had been impossible to imagine.
In the three days since she’d walked out of Zack’s office, it had changed. She didn’t have a vision when she viewed the potential bakery locations. She saw nothing more than brick and wood. There were no visions. No warmth.
There was no Zack.
When he’d handed her the ring … the temptation to say yes had been there, and it had sickened her. That she would continue to be the void filler in Zack’s life, while she let him be her everything. It was wrong. And she knew it.
Still, a part of her wished she could go back and say yes. She despised that part of herself.
She sighed and walked up the narrow staircase that led to her apartment. She hadn’t taken the elevator in three days, either. Because it reminded her of the elevator rides with Zack, the ones rife with sexual tension. It was almost funny now.
Almost. She’d discovered a broken heart made it mostly impossible to find things funny.
When she reached her floor she walked slowly down the hall. She was exhausted, but going back to her apartment wasn’t a restful thought. Because he was everywhere there. Memories of him. On her couch, in the kitchen, most recently, in her bed.
She stopped midway down the hall, her eyes locking on the small pink and brown box placed in front of her door. She eyed it for a moment before making her way to it, kneeling down and lifting the lid.
Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the contents. Cupcakes.
The ugliest cupcakes she’d ever seen. The frosting was a garish orange, the cake a sort of sickly pale gray. There was a note tucked into the side and she took it out and unfolded it.
I know I said I don’t bake. I did, though. For you. Because it means something to you and I wanted to try it. It made me feel close to you to do it. Please don’t eat them, they’re terrible. I miss you.
Zack
She traced the letters with her fingertips, his handwriting so familiar. So dear to her. The note was scattered, funny. Sweet. She could hear him reading it to her.
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I miss you, too,” she said. “But I couldn’t let things stay the same.”
“Don’t cry. I know they’re awful, but they aren’t that bad are they?”
Clara looked up and saw Zack standing in the doorway of the elevator. He looked tired, the lines around his mouth deeper.
She wiped her cheeks. “They’re pretty bad.”
“Almost as bad as their creator.” He took a step toward her. “I’m sorry. About the other day. About the past few weeks.”
“Zack can we not do this? I don’t think. I don’t think I can.”
“Well, I can’t walk away. I won’t. So if you don’t mind me camping out here in front of your door until you’re ready, then I can wait.”
Clara crossed her arms beneath her breasts, curling her hands into fists, trying to disguise that she was shaking, trembling from head to toe. “What is it?”
“I told Amudee that I lied.”
“And?”
“We still have a deal, but not based on how he feels about me as a human being. More about my corporate track record.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I had to clean this up. I used you. I didn’t want to gain anything from that.”
Clara tried to smile. “I appreciate that, Zack, but …”
“I’m not finished.”
She blinked and tried not to cry. She wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for him to try to repair their friendship, not when she needed more.
“You were right. About me,” he continued. “I have been trying to control everything in my life, including you. Because I felt like there was safety in control. I felt like it was responsible, and I never wanted to deal with the consequences of a lack of control again.”
He took a step toward her, put his hand on her cheek, and her heart stopped. “Clara, from the moment I met you I felt a connection with you. And I had to make a very quick decision about where to put you in my life. It was conscious. It was controlled. So I decided you would be my friend, my employee, but never anything more. Because I think part of me knew that if I let you, you could mean everything to me. If I didn’t keep you in your place you would fill my life, every part of me. That I would love you. But then in Chiang Mai, being near you like that, I couldn’t deny it anymore. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t want you. And we gave in. I lost control. So then, I thought maybe if I put you in that same place in my head I put my lovers, I could have you in my bed, without risking anything more. Without things getting deeper.”
Clara’s entire body trembled as she looked up at Zack, as she watched his face, so tired and sad. Mirroring her own, she knew.
“But they got deeper,” he said, his voice rough. “And I couldn’t stop it. Then I tried to reset things, and that didn’t work, either. Not just because you told me where to stick it, which I absolutely deserved, but because things changed too much. Because knowing what it is to be skin to skin with you, has changed me. And it terrified me to admit that, even to myself.”
“Zack …”
“You have every right to be angry at me. To hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“That’s good, because it makes this next part easier. Because as terrified as I was the first time we kissed, I’m even more afraid now.” He took a deep breath, his nerves visible, his control absent. “You’re right, Clara Davis, you do make me tremble. You have been my friend, my partner, my lover. I want you to be all of those things to me for the rest of my life. I’ll understand if you don’t want the same from me. But no matter what, you have to know that I love you.”
Clara felt dizzy, her fingertips numb. “You … you love me?”
“With everything. After we made love at my house, the last time, I felt like I could breathe again for the first time in fourteen years. For the first time since I lost Jake, I felt something real, something bigger than myself. Do you have any idea how much that scared me? But I realized something, the other day as I was reaching for a bottle of alcohol, to drink away the pain for the first time in fourteen years. That love can make you strong. I’ve always thought of it going hand in hand with loss, with weakness. But being with you … it makes me better. That’s just one reason I love you so much. One of the reasons I had to tell you. Because all of my control, all of my pride, was just to cover up how scared I was. How weak I was. You’ve made me stronger. You’ve made me stop hiding.”
A sob worked its way up her throat. “Zack, I thought I knew you. For seven years I thought I knew you. I thought you were this suave, together guy who had an unshakable calm that I really, really envied. And then I found out how broken you were, how messed up. I loved you before. I loved that guy I thought I knew. His jokes, his company, everything.”
She pressed on, her voice cracking. “But do you want to know something? I love this man more.” She stepped forward and put her palm flat on his chest, her hand unsteady. “Because this is you, and this is real. And I know you’ve been hurt. I know you’ve hurt in ways I can’t imagine. And I know you aren’t perfect. But you’re perfect for me.”
And then he was kissing her, his lips hot and hungry on hers. Her chest expanded, love, hope, filling every fiber of her body. When they parted, they were both breathing hard.
“Do you really love me?” he asked, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized were on her cheeks.
“From the moment I met you.”
“What a fool I was.”
“I wouldn’t trade the time, Zack. I wouldn’t give back those years of friendship, not for anything. They made us who we are. They made us right for each other.”
“I don’t know if you can ever know how much your friendship has meant to me, how much your love means to me now. You’re the only person I’ve shared myself with in so long, the only person I’ve wanted to share with. Without you … there would have been nothing in my life but work. You brought color, flavor.”
“Cupcakes.”
“That, too. And as you can see, I need someone to provide them for me because I’m useless at doing it myself. You make my life worth living, Clara. You make me better.”
“I can say the same for you. I never felt beautiful, never felt special, until you.”
“You’re all those things. Never doubt it.”
“I never will again.”
“I have something for you,” he said.
She smiled through a sheen of tears. “I love presents.”
“I know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box. This one wasn’t black and velvet. It was pink silk with orange blossoms. “Because you like flowers. And pink.” This was for her. Only for Clara.
“I do,” she said, opening the lid with shaking fingers. The ring inside was an antique style, a round diamond in the center and smaller diamonds encircling the band.
“It reminded me of you,” he said. “Mostly just because it’s beautiful. And so are you.”
She laughed through new tears and held her hand out. “That’s so lame, Zack.”
“I know. It is. It’s really lame. I make bad jokes sometimes, but you know that. You know everything there is to know about me, and if you can do that and love me anyway, I consider myself the luckiest man on earth.”
“I do,” she whispered. “Put it on me.”
He took the ring out of the box and got on his knee in front of her. “Will you marry me? Clara Davis, will you be my wife, in every way. Will you understand that you are first for me, in every way. Will you love me, and let me love you?”
She wiped a tear away that was sliding down her cheek. “I will.”
“And will you bake me cupcakes for as long as we both shall live?”
A watery laugh escaped her lips. “Without a walnut in sight.”
He stood and kissed her on the lips. “I love you. As my friend, my future wife, my everything.”
“I love you, too.” She kissed him again.
“Would you mind if I stayed the night with you?” he asked, his lips hovering near hers.
“One night only?” she said, turning to him.
“No. It would never be enough. I want you every night for the rest of our lives, does that work for you?”
“Yes, Zack. I think a lifetime sounds about right.”
EPILOGUE
CLARA Parsons looked at the mostly uneaten cake. Three tiers of blue frosting that had been perfectly smooth just a few hours earlier, before two, chubby hands had taken some fistfuls out of the side.
“That was the most extravagant cake I’ve ever seen at a one-year-old’s birthday party,” Zack said, looking down at the crumbs all over the kitchen floor. “And I don’t think Colton ate half of it. He mostly just spread it around.”
“That’s what kids do, Zack.”
“He’s asleep. I think we put him in a sugar coma. Anyway, you only get one first birthday, I suppose. You might as well live it up.”
Clara looked at the cake again. “This reminds me of another cake I made that didn’t really get eaten. A wedding cake.”
“I’m still very thankful that one didn’t end up being used for its intended purpose.”
“Oh, so am I. Because then we wouldn’t have had our wedding cake, or our wedding.”
“Or our son,” Zack said.
“So, all things considered, it was a pretty important uneaten cake.”
Zack advanced on her and pulled her up against his body, resting his forehead against hers. Her heart stopped for a moment, like it always did when she looked at him. Like it had from the moment she’d first met him.
“A lot has changed since that day,” he said, dropping a kiss on her lips.
“A whole lot,” she agreed.
“Do you know what’s stayed the same?”
“What’s that?”
“You’re still my best friend.”
She kissed him, deeper this time, love expanding her chest. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby
Janette Kenny
For as long as JANETTE KENNY can remember, plots and characters have taken up residence in her head. Her parents, both voracious readers, read her the classics when she was a child. That gave birth to a deep love of literature, and allowed her to travel to exotic locales – those found between the covers of books. Janette’s artist mother encouraged her yen to write. As an adolescent she began creating cartoons featuring her dad as the hero, with plots that focused on the misadventures on their family farm, and she stuffed them in the nightly newspaper for him to find. To her frustration, her sketches paled in comparison with her captions.
Though she dabbled with articles, she didn’t fully embrace her dream to write novels until years later, when she was a busy cosmetologist making a name for herself in her own salon. That was when she decided to write the type of stories she’d been reading – romances.
Once the writing bug bit, an incurable passion consumed her to create stories and people them. Still, it was seven more years and that many novels before she saw her first historical romance published. Now that she’s also writing contemporary romances for Mills & Boon she finally knows that a full-time career in writing is closer to reality.
Janette shares her home and free time with a chow-shepherd mix pup she rescued from the pound, who aspires to be a lap dog. She invites you to visit her website at www.jankenny.com and she loves to hear from readers – e-mail her at janette@jankenny.com
CHAPTER ONE
KIRA MONTGOMERY pressed her forehead against the massage table’s padded face cradle and shifted again to loosen the tension knotting her shoulders and neck. Impossible.
Her masseuse had “stepped out for a moment.” The term obviously meant something different to her than it did to Kira. Leaving a client waiting fifteen minutes was unsuitable.
Chateau Mystique couldn’t afford more bad press. The tragic deaths and ensuing scandals associated with the five-star hotel on the Las Vegas strip had hurt business. Hurt her in ways she’d never imagined.
To make her life more of a jumble, her doctor had confirmed the one thing she’d never anticipated. She was pregnant.
Her insides quivered and she took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out slowly. It didn’t help. Nothing helped.
Ever since she’d heeded her solicitor’s advice and traveled to the Caribbean island of Petit St. Marc for a closed meeting with André Gauthier, her life had tumbled into a chaotic nightmare. The devastatingly handsome billionaire had denied ever knowing of their meeting, and had refused to divulge how he’d gained stock in her hotel. Though she’d been frustrated and angry, she’d been captivated by the sheer power of his persona and his rapier-quick ability to debate an issue.
He’d mentally stimulated her and physically aroused her more than any man she’d ever met. But she wouldn’t be swayed by his staggering offer to buy out her shares. He owned minority stock, and that was all he’d ever have.
The Chateau was her home. Her dream. Her legacy. There’d been no reason to tarry on the island any longer.
No reason except desire. She hadn’t been able to deny the passion blazing between them and the raw hunger he stirred in her. And why should she?
She was an adult. Surely she could engage in a brief affair and walk away?
But thirteen weeks later she hadn’t been able to forget their stolen night of passion. Or the scandal that had erupted the following morning to rip them apart. Or André Gauthier, the father of her child, the man who’d recently made headlines with his ruthless attempt to break Bellamy Enterprises.
Would the shareholders force Peter Bellamy to sell his father’s empire? Would they decide to defy André and set the stage for a hostile takeover?
Perhaps they’d agree to a merger. Yes, a nice peaceful working arrangement, like the one she’d thought to forge with André before she learned of his perfidy.
How naïve she’d been. Where she’d only worried about dealing with André over the Chateau, she now fretted over the merger of them as parents. How did one tell a chance lover that he’d soon be a father—a chance lover she’d parted with on hostile terms?
The nausea that had been her constant companion the past few weeks threatened to return. She concentrated on the doctor’s instructions instead of dwelling on ringing up André again to relay her news.
One dragon at a time. That was the only way she’d come out of this debacle intact. She’d left a message for him to contact her. And if he didn’t. If he chose to ignore her…
The door opened behind Kira, and she quickly pushed her worries about André to the back of her mind to confront the tardy masseuse. “I trust you have a good excuse for leaving me here waiting for so long?”
Silence answered her.
Kira frowned at the floor, willing away the dark premonition that crept into the room like a cold London fog roiling off the Thames. But her trepidation only grew, because she knew someone stood in the doorway, watching her.
Someone, she sensed, who shouldn’t be here.
She stilled, her breath catching in her throat as a wedge of light arrowed across the plush carpet and darted beneath the table to inch up the wall.
A chill born of anxiety hopscotched up her spine, and she shivered despite the luxurious blanket draped over her bare body. “Who’s there?”
“Bonjour, ma chérie,” he said, his deep, rough-edged voice causing her heart to race so fast her head spun.
André Gauthier! Instead of returning her call, he’d come to her. Her first impulse was to scramble off the table and launch herself into his arms, just to assure herself this wasn’t a dream. Just to touch him, kiss him.
“I suggest we wait to talk until later, when I’m presentable,” she said, in an effort to gain control of her rioting emotions.
“I didn’t come here to chat.”
A pair of obscenely expensive men’s loafers stepped into the view afforded her through the face cradle, the hem of his charcoal trousers breaking perfectly on his vamps.
He splayed a hand on the small of her back, the heat of his palm sensuously electric, branding her, reminding her that the last time he’d touched her thusly she’d been awash with passion. Not that she needed a reminder.
But where she’d sensed his ardor before, she perceived his antagonism now. All directed at her.
His anger didn’t bode well for what she must tell him.
“Then why are you here?” The tremor in her voice conveyed her trepidation and confusion.
“To claim what is mine.”
She dug her fingernails into the armrest, likely scoring the butter-soft leather. Of course. He was here to haggle with her over the Chateau again.
Kira had expected this quarrel. Yet in her imaginings she’d been dressed and in control of her emotions, at the board meeting scheduled two weeks from now, not naked and quivering with apprehension and need. Surely she didn’t wish to feel sexually receptive to him? But his presence commanded all her senses.
He glided a hand up her spine, sliding the blanket over her sensitized skin slowly, and the desire churning to life within her silenced the protests in her head. She gritted her teeth, fighting the feelings erupting in her: annoyance, desire, need.
It was a losing battle.
From the very first time they’d met she’d been in tune to his every breath, to the way he filled a room with his intensity. To the way his unique scent of spice tempered with the tang of the sea called to her, stripping her inhibitions bare.
His long fingers danced over her bared back in a silken caress, flooding her with unbidden memories of the intoxicating kisses that she’d craved, of masterful hands that had brought her to the pinnacle of pleasure and beyond, and lovemaking that had been more intense, more consuming than anything she’d experienced in her life.
That firm, yet gentle caress muddled her thinking. Her body reacted to him with shocking welcome, her breasts growing heavy, the sensitive nipples peaking.
She bit back a sigh of pleasure, her emotions roiling in utter turmoil. A heavy ache of want converged at the apex of her thighs, spreading upward, making her quake with desire. Damn him!
One caress had reduced her to a quivering wanton, sweeping her away on a wave of raw need. She detested his power over her. Hated the magnetism that drew her to the powerful throb of his touch.
Kira forced her voice to remain steady when her emotions were anything but. “This isn’t the place to discuss business.”
“I disagree.”
The crackle of paper echoed in the tense stillness. A pristine white sheet was thrust beneath the face cradle.
She huffed out an annoyed breath, expecting another decadently outlandish offer for the Chateau. Her gaze skimmed the header, and her stomach plummeted as her world tipped on its axis.
No! This couldn’t be! She read each damning word, her racing heart nearly stopping as the meaning sank into her soul. How could she have believed her future was safe from his power, from his dominance?
“What trickery is this?” she asked.
“No tricks, ma chérie. I own majority shares in Chateau Mystique.”
Impossible! Edouard’s shares were to pass into her hands after his will was read in two weeks. He’d promised she’d have majority control of the hotel then.
Yet the document proved Edouard’s shares had fallen into this arrogant billionaire’s hands. She doubted its validity, even though her solicitor’s signature was there, a signature she’d seen countless times. This couldn’t have happened, yet it had.
She felt betrayed. Used. Abandoned all over again.
André controlled her hotel. Her home. And he’d control her if she let him.
His hand glided over her shoulders in a mock caress, the fingers playing her skin like a fine instrument. Only the dirge sang her doom. She trembled, her mind reeling, more furious than she’d ever been in her life.
He laughed, no doubt gloating over his conquest and her reaction to him, and her humiliation was absolute. “Get up.”
Kira sprang up so fast the room spun. She clasped the blanket around her heaving chest and shook her head to toss her heavy hair away from her face, too gripped with shock and anger to feel satisfaction when his eyes flared with sensual awareness, with masculine appreciation.
At least they were alone. She’d read that whenever André left his island compound his trusted guard accompanied him. The brute was undoubtedly in the hall, making sure nobody interrupted his decadently wealthy employer.
Her gaze climbed André’s tall, muscular form, clad in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit that shimmered in the artificial light. French, of course, the cut emphasizing his long powerful legs, lean hips and broad shoulders.
His snow-white shirt was a startling contrast against his darkly tanned skin, and his silvery tie complemented his platinum watchband that had probably cost more than what she earned in a year. His thick black hair was combed off his brow, his clothing meticulous, his bearing indomitable.
Her heart did a traitorous flutter as she remembered how much she’d savored having his powerful body molded to hers, those elegant hands bringing her to pleasure again and again. Drowning in the passion in his eyes as they’d made love.
It had been this way from the start. Less than two hours after she’d met him they’d had sex: hot, wild, urgent. There had been no love involved, only an overpowering attraction and an intense demanding need.
She’d never behaved so recklessly in her life. Never thought of the consequences of falling into André’s bed.
Tell him the result of the affair, her mind screamed. Get it out in the open now.
Hands trembling, she dug her cold fingers into the blanket and met his eyes, such an intense dark brown they gleamed black. A dizzying rush of emotions slammed into her, staggering her with their strength. No, now wasn’t the time.
“Get dressed,” he said.
Kira turned her back to him and slipped a blue silk sundress over her flushed body, hating the way her hands shook and how her body pulsed and quivered with awareness of him. Though the garment she donned was modest, she felt exposed under his knowing stare. Vulnerable.
“I assume you expect to buy my shares now?” she said.
“Oui.”
“They aren’t for sale.”
“You haven’t heard my offer.”
“I don’t need to.” She faced him, head high, her insides tangled in a riot of emotions. My God, he was an extraordinarily gorgeous man—tall, bronzed, strong, like a god come to life. And he was just as arrogant, just as domineering.
“I’m not selling,” she said.
One dark eyebrow lifted, as if challenging her statement. “Everyone has a price.”
“I don’t.”
“We shall see.” André nodded to the door. “After you.”
“I’ll say my goodbye to you here, and see you at the board meeting in two weeks.”
His smile was glacial. “You’re coming with me, ma chérie.”
Her skin pebbled as a cloying sensation settled over her. “In your dreams,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice.
A muscle pulsed madly in his cheek. “I’ll carry you if I must, but we are returning to Petit St. Marc.”
The island? Her heart stuttered, then began racing. “Why?”
“To trump your lover, ma chérie.”
Had he gone mad? “Then you are wasting your time, because I don’t have a lover.”
“I know you’ve been doing Peter Bellamy’s bidding from the start. Now it stops.”
“Peter?” A hysterical laugh bubbled from her. “I assure you that I’m not his lover.”
“Spare me your lies. I know the truth.”
No, he couldn’t be more wrong. But she realized that if he didn’t believe her in this, he’d never believe he was the father of her child.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Leave now or I’ll—”
He snapped his fingers and she jumped, slamming her back against the wall. “That’s all it would take to have this hotel razed. Your shares would be worthless. Is that what you want?”
This was blackmail. Kidnapping at the very least! But to balk would bring about the destruction of her hotel.
“No,” she said, knowing he wasn’t bluffing. “But I can’t leave the Chateau without making arrangements.”
“You can and you will.” His long fingers curled around her bare arm and he guided her out the door, his touch surprisingly gentle.
Yet she felt the underlying steel and rage in him and knew fighting was futile. And she was so weary already.
André was a man who took what he wanted, when he wanted. He’d proved that when he’d seduced her on Petit St. Marc. Proved it again when he’d swum in from the Caribbean like a great white shark and gobbled up control of the Chateau.
Yet she’d glimpsed another side of him on the island—a tenderness that had called to her heart, and a vulnerability she hadn’t understood.
Yes, for now she’d return to the island with him. Perhaps there she’d find the right time to tell him about their child. Perhaps there she’d be able to reason with him about the Chateau—convince him she’d been robbed of her birthright. Perhaps in time they’d be able to start over.
André Gauthier stared at the deceptive woman walking down the corridor before him, her rounded hips rocking in an invitation that any red-blooded man would accept. No wonder Bellamy had given her forty-nine percent of Chateau Mystique.
Kira Montgomery was sex personified. She had certainly beguiled him with the oldest trick in the book.
He’d prided himself on his cool control under duress, nurtured it until it was second nature. It had never let him down—until Kira had invaded his island three months ago.
André hadn’t been surprised when Bellamy had sent a female employee to Petit St. Marc to charm him after his last offer to buy the Chateau had been turned down. The excuse that she’d come for a prearranged meeting had been a lie.
The old man had banked on Kira’s charms and André’s moment of grief to alter his ultimate goal. Or so André had believed.
It had worked. For that one night. Kira had pleaded her case with passion, and André had found himself caught up in the most stimulating debate of his life.
He hadn’t realized the extend of her deceit until much later. The elder Bellamy hadn’t sent her—his son had. Peter. His most fierce rival. Peter—the man he now suspected had set in motion events that had brought about the accident that had killed Edouard’s mistress and landed Edouard in a hospital.
Kira was not only Peter’s mistress, she was his accomplice as well. Oui, she was the brains of the maneuver that had ultimately eliminated the old man—that had earned her control of Chateau Mystique.
But her treachery had robbed André of something far more valuable than property. She’d had a hand in destroying the last of his family.
Kira had deceived him in the worst possible way.
She deserved no less in return.
Retribution coursed through his blood like a molten river.
Peter Bellamy would chaff, knowing that André held Kira on Petit St. Marc. She in turn wouldn’t be able to contact her accomplice—her lover.
She’d be at his mercy when he launched the final takeover of Bellamy Enterprises.
His revenge wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d bested Bellamy’s conniving son at his own game—until he’d made Kira regret that she’d set out to destroy him.
