Hold Me Closer (Sea Island Brides Book 1) (3 page)

“I
just got off the phone with our lovely sister. Want to guess what
incredible news she had to share?”

Jack
was never one for small talk. He liked to get straight to the point.

“I
should have known Scarlett would call you,” Hudson said. “Look,
I’m sure I don’t have to explain myself, but this
photograph has been taken completely out of context.”

“So,
you aren't standing beside the pool in your own back yard with a
half-naked woman pressed against your body?”

Hudson
looked down at the image that had been swimming around in his mind
all weekend, now printed for the whole world to see. Annabelle was
pressed against his bare chest wearing nothing more than that
dangerously skimpy white bikini.

To
the press, this wouldn’t look like a reporter who had been
about to fall into the pool. She looked like a girl he was dating. Or
worse.

And
the fact that the sight of her picture made his blood pump a little
faster wasn’t helping.

“Believe
it or not, it was completely innocent,” he explained. “She
fell and I caught her. Simple as that.”

“What
was she doing by our pool in a bikini in the first place?” Jack
asked. His voice had taken that hard edge to it that reminded Hudson
so much of their father. As the oldest, Jack was the one everyone
expected to run the company and make it better, an expectation Jack
took very seriously these days.

“She's
a reporter from Southern Style Magazine. Her name is Annabelle. She
was here this weekend writing an article about the plantation,
remember?”

“She
was giving an interview in a bikini?”

“I
was late,” he said. “When I got here, she was alone in a
bikini by the pool. She said she’d assumed I wasn’t
coming and decided to make the most of the day.”

“She
was trying to seduce you,” Jack said.

“Of
course,” Hudson said, trying to hide his smile even though Jack
couldn’t see him through the phone.

“And
it worked.”

“Absolutely
not,” he said.

Jack
sighed.

“I
asked her to leave and she slipped on the wet tiles. I acted on
instinct and saved her from falling into the pool. How was I supposed
to know there was a photographer in the bushes snapping our picture?”

“Next
time a reporter shows up wearing a bikini to an interview, assume
there’s a photographer hanging out nearby,” Jack said. He
sighed again, sounding older than his thirty-five years. The stress
of father’s will was really getting to him.

Hudson
hated himself for adding to that, but he was starting to get an idea
about how to make things right.

“I’m
sure you understand this puts the entire acquisition in danger,”
Jack said. “I don't think Mr. Takahashi has seen this article
yet, but you can believe that when he does, it's going to put a
serious wrinkle in our plans. Honestly, this scandal couldn't come at
a worse time.”

“You
don't have to remind me of that, Jack. I'm fully aware of our
situation here.” Hudson knew he sounded defensive, but he
sometimes felt that his siblings had been waiting on him to screw
this whole thing up. “I’ll deal with it, I promise.”

“You’d
better,” Jack said. “Look, I have to go, but call me
later with news about how, exactly,
you plan to deal with it. And it had better
be good. I won’t allow the whole family to go down just because
you couldn’t keep it in your pants.”

Hudson
tightened his jaw and slammed the phone down.

Jack
always thought he knew better than everyone. He was always the best,
never making a false move. It was annoying, especially after how hard
Hudson had worked to change his lifestyle.

He
wasn’t about to let Annabelle Day mess that up for him.

He
started to stand, but sat back down when the door flew open and his
twin brother Harlan waltzed into the office.

“I
just can't believe you let this happen when we're only a couple
of months away from closing this deal, Hudson,” Harlan
said, doing a damned fine job of mimicking Jack’s voice. “Next
time you feel the urge to kiss a beautiful woman in a bikini, for
God’s sake, do it in the privacy of
your own home.”

Hudson
threw a stress ball at his brother and Harlan treated it like a
bullet, clutching his chest and falling, eyes-closed, onto the couch.

“This
is all just one big misunderstanding,” Hudson said.

Harlan
opened his eyes and sat up, smiling. “Of course it is,”
he said. He picked up the crumpled newspaper Hudson had thrown to the
floor and raised his eyebrows. “This looks completely innocent,
I’m sure.”

“You're
one to talk,” Hudson said. He walked around his desk and
snatched the paper from his twin’s hand.

“What’s
that supposed to mean?” Harlan asked. “I’ve been
the picture of self-control and decorum.”

“Oh,
yeah? A couple of weeks before you got back
from wrapping up that last movie shoot in Alaska, some woman came in
here asking about you. She said the two of you met at some bar in St.
Simons Island and had a hot one-night fling.”

Harlan
was silent for a few beats too long, which got Hudson’s blood
boiling even hotter. “Harlan? Please reassure me that she
wasn't telling the truth?”

“Of
course she wasn't,” Harlan finally said, the color returning to
his face. “I mean, we promised each other no bars or parties or
women until this merger thing was finalized, right?”

Hudson
heaved a sigh of relief. His brother's silence had scared him for a
moment. The young woman who came here looking for Harlan claimed to
be pregnant with his child, but Hudson refused to believe that his
brother would go against their promise. Besides, he’d never
even been to St. Simons Island. At least not that Hudson knew of.

Still,
that extra beat of hesitation put a sliver of doubt in Hudson's mind.
Should he tell Harlan the woman had claimed to be pregnant?

“What
did you tell her?” Harlan asked, pulling Hudson out of his
thoughts.

“I
wrote her a check for ten grand and told her I never wanted to see
her again,” he said.

Harlan’s
eyes grew wide. “Did she take it?”

Hudson
shook his head. The girl had not taken the money.

And
they always took the money. At least that’s what his father had
told him.

This
girl—a hauntingly beautiful brunette with dark brown eyes to
match—had torn the check into a dozen pieces and thrown it in
his face. Maybe he should have mentioned it to his brother earlier?
What if the girl really was pregnant?

“You
sure you never went to St. Simons and slept with some bartender?”
he asked his brother again.

“I
think I’d remember something like that,” Harlan said,
clearing his throat. “Besides, today’s all about your
scandalous behavior, not mine.”

“Don’t
remind me,” he groaned.

“What’s
the plan?” Harlan asked. “Is there anything I can do to
help? Mr. Takahashi was pretty clear about not wanting to sell his
company to a group of kids who didn’t know how to do anything
but party and spend money. Or at least I think those were his exact
words.”

“Don’t
remind me,” Hudson said. He didn’t need to be told how
important this acquisition was, or how traditional and strict Mr.
Takahashi was. He just needed to come up with some way to spin this
whole thing in his favor. To make it look like he wasn’t the
playboy the media made him out to be.

“I
can try to smooth things over once I get to Japan tomorrow, but it’s
going to be rough,” Harlan said. “Even with my smile.”

Hudson
shook his head and threw another stress ball at his brother.

“I’m
sure you’ll do what you can with your fine acting skills, but
don’t count me out just yet. I'm not going to let this deal
fall apart,” Hudson said, making up his mind about the issue.
“If it's stability they want, I'll just have to show them that
I can be a stable family man just like Mr. Takahashi himself.”

“The
man’s been married for thirty-five years and has five children.
I don’t think you can compete with that,” Harlan said
with a laugh, throwing the ball up and catching it.

“I’m
not going to compete with him,” Hudson said. “I’m
simply going to take his advice and shining example to heart.”

“I’m
not following,” Harlan said, sitting up.

Hudson
looked down at the picture again, Annabelle’s picture sending a
wave of remembered heat through his body even now.

He
smiled. “I’m going to get engaged,” he said.

Damn,
the things he had to do in the name of family duty.

“You're
firing me?”

Annabelle
Day stood in the office of her senior editor at Southern Style
Magazine with her mouth wide open.

“Annabelle,
please, sit down so we can talk about this.” The dark circles
under Barry Johnson's eyes, and the way he
sighed when he looked at her, sent her
heart plummeting to the basement.

This
can't be happening to me. Not now.

“Look,
Barry, if this is about what happened with Harrison Peavy, I can
explain,” she managed, feeling every muscle in her body tense
as she waited for the guillotine to fall.

“Well,
now that you mention it, this morning I had to send Harrison Peavy a
check for two thousand dollars. That covers the antique vase you
broke last month when you were sent to deliver flowers to the photo
shoot at his apartment.”

Annabelle
took a deep breath to calm the panic rising within her. Losing her
job now would be a complete catastrophe. She was already late on the
rent for her apartment.

Julia's
going to kill me...

Annabelle
shuddered. She didn't want to even think about having to move in with
her cousin Julia again. Especially now that there was a baby on the
way.

“It
wasn't my fault, Barry,” she started, leaning over the top of
his desk. She was hoping the photo shoot was the only issue here. As
long as he didn’t know about Sea Island, she was sure she could
talk him into giving her one more chance. “I told you what he
did to me when I was there. Surely you aren't planning on firing me
because one of the magazine's rich clients couldn't keep his hands to
himself during a photo shoot?”

“Rich
married clients, by the way,” Barry pointed out. “And I
believe you about what happened. Harrison and I go way back, and he's
not exactly known for being a faithful and loving husband, if you
know what I mean. I should have never sent a young single woman out
to his apartment when his wife wasn't there to babysit him, which is
why I’m not firing you over the vase.”

“Oh,
thank God,” she said.

Relief
spread through her body and she relaxed for the first time since
she’d heard the giggles in the lounge that morning. She wanted
to climb over the desk and kiss him on the cheek.

But
something about the way he sighed turned her blood cold. “Annabelle,
wait,” he said when she turned to leave. “I’m not
firing you over the vase, but I am firing you for the stunt you
pulled at the Montgomery’s this weekend,
on Sea Island.”

Slowly,
she turned back to her boss, tears stinging the corner of her eyes.

“You
found out about that?” she said, no easy excuses coming to
mind. Nothing could truly excuse her behavior and she knew it.

Barry
slammed his hand down on the desk causing her to nearly jump out of
her skin.

“Found
out?” he said. “How could I have missed it?”

Confused,
Annabelle’s eyebrows crumpled together. She searched his eyes
for some kind of explanation that made sense. What on earth was he
talking about?

Barry
leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand across his beard. “You
haven't seen it yet, have you?”

“Seen
what?” Annabelle shook her head in confusion. A knot had formed
in the pit of her stomach and was starting to make her feel
physically ill.

Barry
tossed something toward her and it landed upside down at the edge of
her desk. Annabelle turned it over with trembling hands. There, on
the cover, was a picture of her wrapped in Hudson Montgomery’s
arms beside a sparkling swimming pool. For a moment, she was afraid
she was going to pass out.

“Oh,
my God,” she said, bringing her hand to her chest as she gasped
for air. It felt as if the room around her was getting smaller and
smaller. How could this have happened? The only person who even had
access to the photos was Mark. He was supposed to meet her at the
coffee shop down from her house yesterday afternoon, but he hadn’t
shown up. She’d been trying to call him, but just figured
something had come up and she’d see him this morning at work.

Annabelle
sat down, trying to process what must have happened.

He’d
sold the photos out from under her. Sweet, nerdy Mark had totally
screwed her.

“Well,
judging by your reaction, I'm assuming you are not the one
responsible for leaking these photos to the tabloids?”