Tycoon's Valentine Vendetta Read online

  A loud knock at the front door made her jump. Lily dropped her towel to pull a flimsy rose-pink satin robe from the top of her open suitcase and tied it around her as she trotted down the stairs to the front entrance. A glance at the grandfather clock guarding the tiled area confirmed it was getting late. She hoped whoever was at the door wasn’t in a talkative mood. With a smile pasted firmly on her face, Lily flung open the front door.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  Her smile died an instant death as Jack filled the door frame. Dressed only in her robe, she suddenly felt painfully vulnerable. Lily grabbed the lapels closer together.

  “What do you want?” She pitched her voice to be as cool and unwelcoming as the night air that swirled around her bare legs.

  “You’ll freeze like that.” Jack stepped through the doorway, forcing Lily to back up rapidly.

  She’d felt at a disadvantage before, at the petrol station, but this was much worse. Jack loomed over her, tall and dark. His crisp white shirt, accented with a silk tie the colour of spun gold, and charcoal suit emphasised his even tan. He always had tanned well, and exploring how far that rich caramel colour extended had kept her enticed for hours. She clutched the edges of the robe tight to try to rid herself of the sensation. The memory of the texture of his skin left an intangible tingle in its wake.

  Jack turned and shut the front door behind him. In that instant the entrance, which had always felt so airy and spacious, closed in.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  Lily huffed in frustration. Obviously he wasn’t planning on making this a short visit.

  “Look, Jack, can we take a rain check on whatever it is you have to say? My flight in from L.A. was delayed, and the drive down from Auckland has left me absolutely whacked. I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.”

  He lifted a finger to gently stroke the hollow underneath one eye. Lily forced herself to stay still, not to flinch back in shock at the tenderness of his touch, or the sudden flare of his pupils.

  “I won’t keep you long.”

  Ignoring her gasp, he walked through the foyer and toward the back of the house, to the kitchen and family room situated away from the formal rooms on this floor. With no other option, she followed him down the hall.

  Lily hadn’t been in the newly refurbished family room yet. Her father had spoken to her on the phone about what he’d done, knocking out a couple of walls to create a more casual lounge for him to use when he wasn’t entertaining for business. As usual the room was a picture of perfection—almost as if it had come straight from the pages of a home and lifestyle magazine. A cluster of photographs sat on a table to one side, mostly studio shots of her, she noted, and roomy couches faced one another in front of a creamy-white Hinuera-stone-framed gas fireplace. Whatever his reasons for creating such an elegant room, he certainly didn’t spend any time in here. The couches were pristine, not so much as a dented cushion to show where anyone had sat, and the coffee table coasters were stacked in their holder as if redundant.

  Taking a wide berth around Jack she went into the kitchen, letting her fingertips trail on the cool black-granite countertops before she filled the jug with water and set it to boil.

  “Since you’re here, d’you want a coffee?” she asked as she retrieved mugs from the cupboard and a jar of freeze-dried coffee from the pantry.

  “Sure. No milk, thanks.”

  So he hadn’t changed that much, she thought as she went through the motions. For all that Jack had bowled his way in here tonight, he didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to talk. The jug seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to come to the boil and she fidgeted uncomfortably.

  Across the room Jack lifted a hand to gently finger the fronds of a bird’s nest fern in a colourful ceramic pot on the wooden casual dining table. Her body tightened. His hands, his fingers, his lips, his mouth. He’d always been gentle. But that wasn’t who he was now, she reminded herself sternly. There was no softness in the man who stood before her.

  “So, what did you want, Jack?” Her sharp query echoed in the quiet room.

  He turned his head to face her, a faint curl to his lips, and for the briefest moment she saw the heated spark in his golden eyes before it was ruthlessly snuffed out. He casually flicked open the buttons on his jacket, letting the fabric swing away to expose the breadth of his chest rising and falling beneath the fine, crisp, cotton of his shirt. Unbidden, visions flooded her mind—of her fingers tangled in the sprinkling of darkly curled hair on his chest. Her lips pressed against him. The warm taste of his skin against her tongue.

  Her breath caught and her mouth dried before she regained a tenuous grip on her control. It was the jet lag. It had to be the jet lag. It’d been far too long for him to still have this mesmerising power over her. She had spent most of the past ten years working hard to forget him. She was a woman of the world. Well-versed in the intricacies of social interaction. Allowing herself to be turned on, like a cheap light bulb, because of a few memories was not on the cards.

  Her eyes riveted on his implacable face as he started to walk toward her. She took a step back on legs that had begun to tremble. He stopped within inches of her, but she was determined to stand her ground this time. Heat emanated from his body, bringing with it the scent of his aftershave. The spice and tangy citrus fragrance tantalised and teased at her nostrils. Lily drew in a shuddering breath. Jack slowly raised his hand.

  Oh no, please no. Don’t touch me again. Her heart rate accelerated, suffusing her body with heat. As much as she dreaded the sensation of his touch she felt herself lean forward ever so slightly.

  His hand hesitated then dropped back to his side.

  “What’s your thing these days, Lily?” His voice was deep, enquiring. “Still toying with a trip on the wild side?”

  She stiffened her spine in reaction to his words. There was no way on this earth she’d let him know how much his barb stung. While they’d been going out together all her friends had teased her about Jack’s family being from the “wrong side” of town, and how going out with him in the face of her father’s distinct disapproval was taking a trip on the “wild side.” Lily shook her head slightly, her tone surprisingly level when she spoke.

  “You don’t know me anymore. Times change.”

  “Sure, time does, but people don’t. Not really, not deep inside.”

  He expelled a sigh of disgust and she felt his breath, warm and moist, against her throat. Her pulse throbbed in a crazy tattoo.

  “Look, forget the coffee. Just say what you came to say, then go.” Her voice was but a whisper, a plea.

  Jack regretted the move to stand so close to Lily the moment he came to a halt in front of her, but the scent of her—freshly washed and still dewy-damp—filled his nostrils and kept him captive where he was. He fisted his hands to stop himself from reaching for her again—his instinctive touch to her face when he arrived, an action he already regretted deeply. An indistinct growl murmured from his throat. Lily’s lips parted on a breath and his senses clouded with the almost irresistible urge to drop his lips to hers. To taste her again. To see if she still responded like a flame on dry kindling. To sink against her soft mouth, to lose himself in it and find…what?

  Heat rose within him as he dropped his gaze from her lips to where her robe had parted slightly, tiny creases marred the fabric where she’d gripped it with those slender, elegant hands. Hands that had never done an honest day’s work in her life. A stray droplet of water from her wet hair trickled across her collarbone before dipping into the shadowed valley of softly rounded flesh—flesh that barely moved, as if she were holding her breath. Waiting for his next move.

  His groin tightened as he watched her nipples constrict into tight twin buds that pressed against the satin fabric of her robe. A gentle flush of warm colour suffused her chest and spread up her neck. Arousal. Jack’s mouth dried as the rest of his body answered the call of hers. Slowly, he bent his head.

  What the he
ll was he doing? Icy reality sluiced through him and he stepped away. Lily staggered slightly as if her balance had shifted, and he shot out his hands to steady her. The brief contact burned like a brand across his palms. Bad move, he told himself as his hands brushed heated skin through sensuously slippery material. A sharp jolt of desire jarred his body.

  Very bad move.

  Where was that famous boardroom cool now? It was as if the teenage hormones that had drawn him to Lily in the first place still drove him—and he didn’t like it one bit. With slow deliberation he removed his hands, shoved them deeply into his pockets, and took a few steps back.

  Lily knew the instant he had himself under control. If was as if a shutter had crashed down, hiding the unleashed passion that had flared in his leonine eyes and left a cold shell in its place. She should hate him for that—the remote and indifferent expression, so at odds with the Jack Dolan of her youth. The Jack Dolan who had let her down in the worst kind of way, she reminded herself bitterly. But even so, her lips still throbbed in anticipation, her entire body hummed with expectancy.

  Breathe, she told herself, and inhaled a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Tiny tremors rocked her body. Temptation and torture. It had always been the same with him.

  They’d been worlds apart—she, the indulged daughter of the richest man in town. Jack, the son of one of her father’s employees and a tearaway from the wrong side of the tracks. When she’d started at the local high school, after she’d begged her father to be freed from the boarding school she’d suffered at for two miserable years, Jack had been a senior. Their attraction, their connection, had been instant and intense—and she’d been innocent enough to think they could overcome the differences in their lives. They’d had the same dreams for success, the same goals to reach together—until the night she’d been forced to leave without him and he’d chosen not to follow.

  As tired as she was, there was nothing Lily wanted to do more right now than to climb into her rental car and drive back to the airport and hop on the first plane out of New Zealand. But she’d made a promise to herself. No more running away.

  “I’ve planned a barbecue tomorrow night. I thought you might like to come along. Reacquaint yourself with some of the old gang.”

  Jack’s invitation was the last thing she expected. Sounded like it was bound to be bags of fun—not.

  “Look, I’ve only just arrived back…” she started to say.

  “And here I thought you were the queen of the social circuit. Scared, Lily?”

  “Of course not. I don’t even know what Dad has organised for me. I can’t say for sure if I can come.” The words blustered past her lips. Lord, she sounded like a total fool.

  “Ah, yes. Your father. How was the family reunion?”

  “Fine,” Lily replied through gritted teeth. There was no way she was letting Jack know her father hadn’t so much as called to welcome her home yet. “Give me your details and if I can make it, I will. Okay?”

  Jack gave her a narrow-eyed stare before slipping a business card holder and a pen from his breast pocket and flicking out a card. His pen strokes were swift slashes across the small white rectangle. He held it out to her.

  “Seven o’clock, Lily. I’ll look forward to seeing you there. Dress casual, hmm? There won’t be any paparazzi to distract you.”

  The scathing look on his face as he made reference to the photographers and journalists who’d highlighted her rise to fame and her slide back down again told her quite clearly what he thought. But he also told her far more than he probably realised. He might not have followed her that night, but he’d followed her career since. Somehow, the knowledge didn’t give her the satisfaction she thought it would.

  Three

  Lily woke with the grogginess that comes from having slept the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. Her father had arrived home shortly after Jack’s departure and he’d been brusque at best. Distracted, he’d given her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and suggested they talk in the morning. She tried to convince herself it was no more than she’d expected, but a small part of her felt like the little girl at a school recital futilely waiting for her daddy to turn up to watch her dance.

  Lily stretched out on the cotton sheets of her bed and listened to the nearby crash of waves on the shore and the cries of seagulls as they swooped across the sand. The beach called to her, as it had every morning before she’d been sent away. Lily quickly freshened up then dragged sweatpants and a T-shirt from her suitcase on the floor and scrabbled deeper in the mess of luggage for her running shoes. She should think about unpacking when she got back from her run but somehow the idea of putting her clothes away implied a level of permanence she wasn’t ready for—not yet.

  As she ran lightly down the stairs she realised how silent the house was. It was unusual for her father to still be asleep at this time of the day, weekday or not. A brief note left on the kitchen bench informed her he’d had to go into work early but invited her to drive out to meet him at his office for lunch.

  Lily scrunched the note into a tight ball in her hand and let it drop onto the countertop. After all this time he still hadn’t forgiven her. That much was patently clear.

  Stifling her disappointment, Lily let herself out the sliding-glass door and onto the patio that led to stairs that took her down onto the beach. Within seconds she was stretching out her legs in a leisurely lope along the hard-packed sand. The sun was only just beginning to dispel the grey gloom of dawn. A trickle of something filtered through her mind—of rightness, of belonging. Lily shook her thoughts free before they could take a firmer hold. At this stage she wasn’t certain she could stay here for the long term. But then again, what choice did she have?

  Lily forced her legs to work harder, faster, and she ate up the distance along the sand. She was determined to regain her fitness one way or the other, but breathlessness forced her to slow slightly as she neared the end of the strand of shoreline. There were more houses along the beachfront than there had been when she left Onemata, holiday homes for the most part, by the look of them. That kind of progress was only to be expected, but she couldn’t help but feel a pang of loss for the encroachment of civilisation on her childhood playground. She slowed to a stop as she drew level with a huge new house facing the beach. It certainly had a presence many of the holiday homes lacked.

  Nestled in the curve of the bay where the towering cliff side tapered down to the beach, the house looked solid and permanent. Massive retaining poles supported a wide deck that was bound to give spectacular views out over the sea and up the sweeping line of the beach toward the point. Twin staircases at either end of the deck burrowed down to the beach and full-length, one-way-mirror-glass windows faced the entire frontage of the building. A large balcony off the top floor provided a deep porch underneath—a haven, no doubt, from the hot summer sun. While essentially modern in design, the house still held an aura of Colonial influence, an echo of the older buildings in town that harked back a hundred years or more. It was in total contrast to the Mediterranean-style whitewashed villa her father had erected many years ago, and seemed to fit the landscape as if it had been here for years.

  A solitary figure stood at the edge of the deck railing, his forearms resting on the top rail and his all too familiar face turned to the rising sun. Lily’s stomach sank. It figured it would be Jack. She did a wide turn and faced back the other way down the beach, back to where she’d come from. The irony of that symbolism wasn’t lost on her. Back to where she’d come from. Ha! The short bitter laugh held no humour for her at all.

  “Lily!”

  She increased her pace. She could pretend she hadn’t heard the strong male shout that coasted on the wind.

  Her chest was getting tight. She’d pushed herself too hard this morning. It’d been far too long since she’d stretched her physical limits like this and the doctor had warned her not to expect too much too soon. The muscles in her thighs and calves began to burn, a stitch started in her si
de.

  The steady pounding of heavier feet caught up behind her and Lily tried with all she had to push herself the final short distance to the stairs that led to her father’s property.

  “Hold up before you kill yourself.”

  Strong hands caught at her shoulders, forcing her to draw to a close. He must have sprinted the distance between them; she thought as her breath came in ragged spurts and, curse him, he hadn’t even raised a sweat.

  “Why—why did you stop me?” She bent at the waist, dragged in one heaving breath after another.

  “Just being neighbourly.”

  His short dark hair was tousled by his run, a few strands slipping across his broad forehead. Her fingers itched to smooth them back but she maintained her grip on her trembling thighs.

  “Neighbourly?” She barked out a short laugh. “Yeah, right.”

  “Are you coming tonight?” he asked, direct and to the point.

  “I told you, I need to see if Dad has any plans for me.”

  Jack just looked at her. Was that pity in his eyes? She couldn’t bear it. Not from him.

  She straightened and met his gaze. “Look, I’ll probably be there. He’s tied up a lot with work by the looks of things, so yeah. I’ll be there.”

  A glimmer of a smile played around his lips and, despite herself, Lily found herself answering in kind.

  “Seven o’clock, remember.”

  “Fine.” Lily turned and started up the stairs to the house. “Is there anything you’d like me to bring?”

  “Just yourself. I believe I can provide everything else.”

  “My, how times have changed.” Lily couldn’t stop the words from tumbling from her mouth.

  Jack’s jaw firmed and his lips pressed tight together before he answered. “Don’t be more of a bitch than you can help, Lily. It won’t win you any new friends.”

  “And the old ones?” she asked without hesitation. What about them? Had they shucked her off as easily as Jack had? It wasn’t as if she’d made any particularly close female friends. Coming as she had from boarding school, she’d been an outsider from the start of her time at Onemata High. The only person she’d been close to had been Jack; he hadn’t left any room for anyone else.