Island Road: The Billionaire Brothers (2 page)

Incandescent rage filled Greta like helium in a party balloon. “Listen here. You might be a big man back in New York, but on Sanctuary Island, you’re nothing but a bully with an inflated sense of his own importance.”

She took a step back before she could give in to the urge to take a swing at his perfectly smooth jaw, but from the gleam in his shockingly blue eyes, Miles took it as a retreat. “Oh, now, Ms. Hackley. That’s not fair. We only just met. I promise when you get to know me better, you’ll realize there’s nothing inflated about me.”

The low, caressing tone of his silky voice made Greta shiver unwillingly. Suddenly uncaring of whether he thought she was retreating or not, she took another step back. All that mattered was getting a little distance between their bodies.

“You know what? I feel sorry for you,” she said. “Going through life always believing the worst of people, that the only reason anyone could be interested in you or your brothers is your money. That’s awfully sad.”

He shrugged, a negligent motion that made her very aware of the strength in his broad shoulders. “Based on past experiences, I can only assume I’m right. But maybe you’re here to teach me how wrong I am, that there are people out there who care nothing for the billions of dollars and incalculable power my family wields in the business world. Right here, on Sanctuary Island, my brothers have been lucky enough to find real love, true love, unsullied by thoughts of money and influence. Is that right?”

“Don’t mistake sympathy for weakness,” Greta snapped. “I’m not here for you at all. The only reason I’m wasting breath talking to you is to warn you that nothing is going to stand in the way of Penny marrying the man of her dreams.”

At least one of us will have a happily ever after,
Greta vowed silently.
And no one deserves it more than Penny.

Shoving down her own soft, silly tendency to wonder if the man of her dreams was out there somewhere, Greta turned on her heel to stalk away, confident she’d made her point.

A big, warm hand closing around her bare wrist stopped her in her tracks. Electricity shot up her arm and raised every hair on her body. Breathless, she tugged against Miles’s grip, but he pulled her gently, inexorably closer until the tips of her breasts brushed his chest through layers of fabric.

Sparing a brief instant to be grateful that the man was walking around a tiny island town dressed for a formal business meeting in shirt, vest, and suit coat, Greta ignored the tight tingling points of contact. “I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Harrington.”

She was surprised to see a flicker of chagrin in his cool blue eyes. But even that didn’t prepare her for the shock of hearing him say smoothly, “I apologize. This is … an emotional time for my family, and if I offended you, I’m sorry. I appreciate your position, and the fact that you gave me fair warning of your intentions. I was all set to head back to New York this afternoon…”

Hope flickered in Greta’s chest. “Whatever your concerns are with Penny, forget them. Your brother is lucky to have found her. She may not have a fancy diploma from an Ivy League school or a cushy trust fund, but she’s a truly good person.”

The way he studied her made Greta feel naked, as if he had the ability to strip away not just her clothes, but every layer of invisible protection she’d wrapped around herself after her surgery. She licked her lips nervously, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.

Heat surged between them, sudden and shocking. Dipping his head slightly, until Greta’s heart pounded with a jittery will-he-or-won’t-he anticipation, Miles said, “Maybe I should stick around a little longer, try to understand what’s really going on between my brother and his fiancée. Approach the situation with an open mind, as you suggested.”

Greta sucked in a deep breath, sparking a flash of lightning behind her eyes as the tips of her breasts pressed into his jacketed chest. “An open mind. You mean you might be willing to give the marriage your blessing?”

Penny and Dylan were adults, independent and sure of what they wanted—they didn’t technically need Miles’s blessing. But as someone with an intensely close bond with her family, Greta understood that Dylan might hope for Miles’s approval, just the same.

“That depends,” Miles murmured, bending his head until the words puffed out against her lips.

“On what?” she breathed.

“On you.” A slow, predatory smile spread Miles’s perfect lips. Open, frank appreciation warmed his ice-blue eyes to the color of the summer sky. “I’ll agree to keep an open mind about my brother’s fly-by-night engagement if you agree to show me around the island that appears to have captivated my entire family. Show me what’s so special about this place, that Dylan and Logan would get addicted to it after a matter of days.”

A frisson of danger skittered down Greta’s spine. It would mean spending more time in Miles’s company. Touring him around Sanctuary, just the two of them and the long sunny days and hot humid nights …

As many romance novels as she’d read, Greta could recognize the clear signs of masculine desire in every line of the hard body pressed against hers. Miles Harrington wasn’t shy about letting her know he wanted her … but a man like him wanted only one thing from a woman like Greta.

She might not have much hands-on experience with men, but she wasn’t a fool. There was no way Mr. Billionaire CEO was going to give up the reins of his company to move to Sanctuary Island and run Hackley’s Hardware with her.

And Greta could never leave the island behind, no matter how much she sometimes yearned after the endless mysteries beyond the horizon of her small world. But Miles Harrington wasn’t her fantasy Prince Charming, here to sweep her away to a life of adventure and faraway lands. So what was the point?

The point, she realized, was that this was her chance to make Miles see that Penny had no designs on anything other than Dylan’s heart.

Even though every self-preservational instinct she possessed was clamoring for Greta to get away from Miles Harrington as quickly as possible, she knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help Penny. After everything her best friend had been through with her ex-husband, Penny had more than earned a fairy tale ending.

The fact that it wasn’t in the cards for Greta only made her more determined to see her friend settled happily. Even if it meant spending time with the first man in years to both tempt her and infuriate her in the space of a single conversation.

With a sense of sealing her own fate, Greta said, “Fine. I’ll be your tour guide to the wonders of Sanctuary Island. And you’ll see that no one here cares about your money or whatever power you think you have.”

Something flared deep in Miles’s eyes, and he finally let go of her captured wrist only to wrap both muscular arms around her. “I have one more condition. You think you don’t like me—but sweetheart, chemistry like this doesn’t happen every day.”

Gasping at the searing heat of all the muscle he concealed under his perfectly tailored suit, Greta said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?”

Her only warning was the gleam of challenge in his seductive smile before he pressed those lips to hers. Greta opened her mouth to … she didn’t know what, to protest? To moan? But she didn’t have a chance to do either, because Miles immediately pressed his advantage and took her mouth in a deep, searing kiss that wiped every thought of protest from Greta’s mind.

She melted against him automatically, reveling in the fact that he was actually taller than she was so that their bodies lined up perfectly, but Miles drew back.

Staring down at her with wide, almost surprised eyes, he blinked once—and then the expression was gone, buried under a smooth, practiced smile. “I’ll keep an open mind about your friend and my brother,” he purred. “If you keep an open mind about me.”

Greta drew in a shuddery breath. “Okay,” she said, blushing at the hoarse rasp of her own voice. “I’ll try.”

Miles Harrington was judgmental, controlling, full of himself—he was no Prince Charming. But as Greta touched a fingertip to her lips, still buzzing with pleasure and plump from his kiss, she realized that even though she had no future with him … she had the present. And, as Miles pointed out, they had chemistry.

An exploding high school lab experiment’s worth of chemistry. Yowza.

Could she really afford to let this opportunity pass her by, on the off chance that Prince Charming might show up one day and wish she’d waited? Especially when she was uncomfortably aware of exactly how big a fantasy that was, anyway.

Maybe it was time to take a break from dreaming and live, even if only for a little while.

Chapter 3

Maybe some people would find it awkward to spend the night as a guest in the house of a woman they had all but accused of being a gold digger. Luckily, Miles was made of sterner stuff.

He was a pragmatist, at heart, and there was no suitable alternative to staying at the house on Island Road—which belonged to his family, incidentally, so Miles refused to give in to the awkward. In fact, before there was ever a town called Sanctuary, the entire island was owned by Silas Harrington, Miles’s however-many-greats great grandfather, who founded the company that eventually became the legacy Miles had dedicated his life to continuing.

But the Harringtons no longer owned any part of the island but the property on Island Road, and whoever was running things now hadn’t seen fit to establish a single hotel or inn. There wasn’t even a crappy motel or a kitschy bed-and-breakfast.

And Logan, damn him, was happily ensconced in the summer cottage with Jessica Bell.

That was a problem for another day, Miles told himself as he straightened his tie in the antique silver-framed mirror hanging over the porcelain pedestal sink in the guest bathroom. For now, he needed to focus on his plan to get the full story on Penny Little and her motives for marrying his youngest brother.

A plan that was going fairly well, if he could force himself to focus a bit more tightly on the goal. That kiss, yesterday …

Miles’s fingers paused in the act of checking his collar stays. Staring at himself in the mirror, all he could see was an image of Greta Hackley’s unpracticed, questing mouth, the unconscious sensuality of her body as she abandoned herself to the pleasure of the moment.

Caught up in his own seductive web, Miles admitted to himself that he’d taken it further than necessary to test the waters of Greta’s attraction to him. Greta Hackley, with her tomboyish, casual clothes and messy golden-blond braid, was surprisingly tempting.

Well, he’d have to resist the temptation. That was all there was to it. He was willing to seduce her a little, in order to get her softened up to the point of telling him the truth about her best friend, but there was a line Miles certainly wouldn’t cross.

He stared into his own blue eyes in the mirror and swallowed the knowledge that the line had already shifted a couple of inches.

After a breakfast of stilted conversation during which Miles made no attempt to probe Penny’s background while Dylan hovered over her, growling like a suspicious pit bull, Miles chose to wait on the front porch for his tour guide.

According to the weather app on his smartphone, it was going to be yet another hot, cloyingly humid day in paradise. It was barely nine o’clock, and he already regretted the tie. Loosening the knot with absent fingers, Miles sauntered over to the love seat swing hanging at the end of the wraparound porch and dropped into it.

He’d braced slightly for the motion of the swing, but when the chain attaching it to the porch ceiling gave way with a loud crack, Miles shouted in surprise as he crashed to the floorboards.

Sitting in the wreckage of the swing, Miles winced and shifted. The thin seat cushion hadn’t been enough to protect him from bruising. Drawing his knees up, he rested his elbows on them and stared contemplatively up at the jagged hole in the porch ceiling where the swing’s hook used to be anchored.

“Need a little help?”

Miles closed his eyes briefly. “Your timing is amazing. How do you always manage to show up when I’m in the midst of making an idiot of myself?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Greta said. He could hear the smile in her voice before she vaulted up the porch steps to give him a hand.

“I promise you, it’s an unusual occurrence back in New York.” Miles accepted her help, a little surprised by how easily she set her weight against his to pull him to his feet. “My assistant would never believe this.”

“So you’ve got everyone who works for you fooled into thinking you walk on water, make no mistakes?”

Tensing against the implication that he considered himself godlike, Miles said, “What happened to you keeping an open mind about me? Already going back on our deal?”

Eyes widening, Greta’s mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Sorry, and no. I was actually thinking that it sounded like a hard way to live.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged, the motion apparently making her aware that she was still clasping Miles’s much larger hand between her palms. Dropping her hands with a sweet flush, Greta said, “Oh, you know. The expectation level you live with—it must be brutal. To be expected never to make a silly mistake? You’re only human.”

Miles tilted his head, amused, as he straightened his suit. “It comes with the territory. When you’re responsible for hundreds of people’s livelihoods, their careers and their futures, you learn never to show fear. Never show weakness. Your employees take their cues from you, everything flows from the top down. Be confident and competent, and they’ll strive for that in their roles, as well.”

“I wish I’d brought a notebook so I could record all these pearls of wisdom.”

Casting her an irritated glance, Miles gave in to the heat and unknotted his tie completely. Sliding it free of his collar, he rolled it up and stuffed it in his pocket. The temperature seemed to have risen ten degrees in the last few minutes. “You know, plenty of people would think this is a great opportunity to pick the brain of a successful CEO.”

She snorted. “Oh sure, for when I try to take the hardware store public and turn it into a Fortune 500 company.”