Island Road: The Billionaire Brothers (8 page)

“What did I tell you,” he said. “You don’t have to do this alone. Hell, you don’t have to do it at all—but since you’re determined, I’m right here with you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I want to look over the edge.” Determination hummed in her low voice, threading steel through her limbs, and once again, Miles could only marvel at her.

Instead of arguing, the way he knew she half-expected him to, Miles silently nudged her forward and slid his body behind hers. Bracing his feet securely against the buffeting of the wind, he clasped his hands around her narrow waist.

“Go ahead,” he told her. “I’ll be your anchor.”

Greta folded her hands over his, shooting him a smile full of nerves, thrill, and the incandescent joy of doing something crazy for once in her sheltered life. And then she leaned out, trusting him to hold her securely.

Miles was ready to pull her back against him the instant he felt her stiffen in fear or panic, but she didn’t. She laughed. Wild and carefree, with her arms stretched out to the sides like wings that would catch the wind and let her soar off into the night, Greta laughed.

And Miles fell in love.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this!” she called over her shoulder, eyes glittering and hair flying in tendrils around her shoulders. “Look, you can see all the way to … gosh, there are three bridges all lit up. Is one of them the Brooklyn Bridge?”

“That one.” Miles risked letting go of her with one hand just long enough to point.

“Beautiful.” Her sigh was lost in the breeze, but he felt the way the breath pushed out of her rib cage. She leaned back against his chest, and Miles crossed his arms over her torso to hold her close.

“This is
my
island,” he said into the delicate pink shell of her ear. “I’m glad you got to see it like this. Thank you for coming here with me.”

“I’ll never forget today, as long as I live. I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

Guilt scoured out his insides with a merciless hand. “You don’t owe me anything, Greta Hackley. Today was for me as much as for you. I’ve lived in this city my entire adult life, and I guess I take the sights and sounds and smells of it for granted. You brought them back to life for me.”

He paused, everything he wanted to say getting stuck behind the giant ball of emotion in his throat. But this was too important, he had to get it out.

Dredging his voice up from deep in his chest, he rumbled, “You brought
me
back to life. I was dead inside, and didn’t even know it.”

Miles felt, more than heard, the broken noise Greta made before she turned to wrap her arms around his neck.

Right there, at the top of the world, Greta kissed him. And as Miles snugged her in tight and tried his best to breathe in her essence, he knew he had to do whatever it took to keep this woman in his life.

From here on out, Miles would be honest and open with her. He wanted a relationship, a future, a chance to make Greta fall in love with him for real. He’d started this campaign of seduction for all the wrong reasons, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t work. He’d just keep it up until Greta was as head over heels, crazy in love as he was.

And he’d make damn sure she never, ever found out the truth about how this all started.

*   *   *

Jittery anticipation made Greta fumble as she slipped off her heels and kicked them across the marble-floored foyer of Miles’s penthouse. She caught herself against a sleek, glass-topped display case that held what looked like an ancient family Bible and several framed photos.

Greta nudged the spindly legged table back into place with a guilty glance over her shoulder at Miles, who was distracted by a phone call to check in with Cleo, who’d been gone by the time they came down from the secret deck.

The baritone hum of his low voice behind her sent pleasurable vibrations into her stomach and chest. Her heart rate, which had finally slowed to something resembling normal on the car ride uptown, ticked up again.

To distract herself while she waited for Miles, Greta leaned down to study the pictures in the display case. Several were old, sepia-tinted shots of people staring straight at the camera without smiling, and there were a few soft-focus baby pictures.

But the one that caught her eye was of a bright, smiling woman with her head leaning on the broad shoulder of a tall, handsome man with Miles’s stern jaw and electric blue eyes. Ranged in front of them was a toddler waving a wooden bulldozer and an older kid with a bored expression and a book clutched to his chest. A tall, teenaged boy stood beside his father, mimicking his straight-backed posture and the gleam of pride as he gazed at his family.

Eyes and nose stinging, Greta blinked quickly to stop any tears as Miles stepped up beside her. She pointed at the photo. “I love this one.”

“It was taken a few years before our parents died. Car crash, very sudden,” he said, sounding totally matter of fact. But the slow, tender way he took out his silk pocket square and wiped at the fingerprints she’d left on the glass told another story.

She’d seen it over and over in the short time she’d known Miles Harrington. From the outside, he appeared so buttoned up and focused, nothing but will, arrogance, and pride. But that wasn’t who Miles was inside.

Greta believed the real Miles was the one who knew the name of every person who worked for him, and freely showed them his appreciation for all that they did. The real Miles was the man who invited his assistant along on their date as a thank-you, and then called to make sure she’d made it home safely.

The real Miles was the man who met a woman who’d always longed to see the world … and gave her a view of it that would be seared into her memory for the rest of her life.

“I never knew my father, and I still miss him,” Greta said, feeling her way. “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you, to lose both your parents so young.”

Miles shrugged heavily, and Greta could almost see the weight that had dropped onto those shoulders along with that tragic loss. “It was worse for Dylan. Poor kid was on his own, had to go live with our grandparents. At least Logan and I could escape to school. I was almost done with college, and once I finished, I always planned to ask Dylan if he wanted to come live with me instead. But by then, he was settled with Nana and Gramps, and the board of directors was pressuring me to pick up the reins at Harrington International. I got my MBA at Columbia, working weekends and nights while trying to make sense of the chaos the company had fallen into without a Harrington at the helm. Dylan was better off where he was.”

Greta swallowed, not sure what to say. “I’m sure Dylan was fine with your grandparents. But Miles, he would have been fine with you, too. You know that, don’t you?”

He glanced away, into the dark interior of the spacious living room. “Maybe.”

Grabbing for his hand to keep him from walking away, Greta insisted, “No maybe about it. I’m not saying you did the wrong thing by concentrating on the company—that’s your family’s legacy, it’s important to all three of you. But if you’ve been thinking all along that you couldn’t have taken care of Dylan when he was a teenager, I just have to tell you, I think you’re completely wrong. I’ve never known anyone to take care of people the way you do, Miles. It’s part of your nature, it’s who you are. The way you treat the people who work for you, the things you’ve done for me—even how you fight with your brothers! All that tells me you have a whole lot of love to give. Don’t ever think different, okay?”

Even in the muted golden glow of the backlit display case, Greta could see Miles’s throat work silently for a long moment before he shuddered and reeled her in for a deep, drugging kiss. Greta’s knees wobbled, and with a few short, sure steps he’d backed her against the foyer wall and pinned her there.

Need, hot and urgent, raced through Greta’s body with every beat of her fast-pounding heart. She made a muffled moan, the noise trapped between their lips, and wrapped one leg as high as she could around Miles’s lean hip. There was an achy emptiness at the core of her that made her restless and fretful, unable to simply dissolve into the kiss and let Miles set the pace.

Greta wanted him. And now she knew he wanted her back, despite his earlier assurances of her own guest bedroom.

“Shh,” he whispered against her lips when she whimpered again. “God. We need to slow down, sweetheart.”

Clutching at his shoulders to feel the line of his hard muscle under the stiff structure of his suit jacket, Greta shook her head. “Don’t want to go slow. Please. I know you’ve already given me everything I asked for today—but I’m greedy. I want this, too.”

Groaning, Miles fell on her mouth again, licking into her voraciously. She could feel each separate imprint of his fingers where they shaped the curve of her waist. When he came up for air, shaking his head as if he were attempting to shake some sense into himself, Greta panicked.

Reaching for the concealed side zipper, she whisked it down and shrugged out of the black sequined dress before she had time to think it through or get nervous. The light was perfect, a low glow that gilded the skin and minimized the faded line scored above her hip. The look in Miles’s wide, stunned eyes as he took in the sight of her small breasts cupped in black lace and the matching lacy undies, made Greta feel beautiful. Womanly and desirable, for the first time in her life.

“Come on, Miles.” Her voice was a low, husky whisper in the darkness. “I want the whole fairy tale.”

His eyes went hot and wild, but when he reached for her, his touch was soft, tender, careful. He slid his hands into the tumbled mess of her hair so gently, his fingers never snagged on a tangle. Framing her face, Miles’s thumbs drew lines of fire over the fragile skin below her eyes, the blood-warmed flush of her cheeks.

Greta stood there, stripped down to her underwear while Miles still wore his three-piece suit, and smiled. She ought to feel naked or embarrassed, she thought dimly—but instead, clothed in nothing but wisps of lace and the heat pouring off of Miles’s big body, she’d never felt safer.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his gaze searching her face intently.

In answer, Greta stepped close enough to feel the brush of fine wool suit cloth over every inch of her bared skin. She pushed her hands into the open jacket and wound her arms around him until they were pressed heartbeat to heartbeat.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” The words were a throaty whisper against the salty delicious skin of his neck, and they had the exact effect Greta had been hoping for.

Miles groaned, then all of a sudden, bent at the knees to sweep Greta off her feet and up into his arms. “You want the fairy tale? You got it,” he muttered as he carried her down the hall toward the sumptuous master bedroom.

Laughing into his shoulder, Greta hung on tightly and surrendered to the magic of the moment. Her last coherent thought before Miles laid her on his Egyptian cotton sheets and proceeded to slowly, tenderly take her apart with pure pleasure, was to send a fervent prayer of gratitude up to heaven.

After years of wondering what the fuss was all about, years of looking at herself in the mirror and wondering what was so wrong with her that no man on Sanctuary Island ever seemed to glance at her twice, Miles came along and made her glad she’d never caught those boys’ eyes.

Thank you,
she breathed silently as stars burst behind her closed eyelids.
I’m glad you made me wait.

Miles Harrington was worth waiting for.

Chapter 9

Greta pushed open the door to Hackley’s Hardware, twitching her hips to the familiar tinkle of the entry bell, and flipped the sign from Closed to Open.

“Good morning,” she called out, sashaying down the aisle toward the back. It was all she could do not to skip.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Esther poked her head out of the back office. From the ink smudges on her fingers, she’d been doing her morning crossword before settling in to checking inventory.

Brimming with affection for her hardworking mother, Greta rounded the counter and planted a loud, smacking kiss on Esther’s powdered cheek. “Isn’t it a glorious day? I don’t know when I’ve ever seen Sanctuary looking prettier.”

After a long night of passion, she’d slept through most of the predawn helicopter flight back home, but Miles had kissed her awake in time to appreciate the aerial view of the sun bursting over the horizon to shine down on Sanctuary Island.

Esther’s silvery-blond brows climbed toward her hairline. “My, my. Someone’s in a good mood.”

Hiding a small, secret smile, Greta went to power up the cash register and flip through the change drawer to check if they needed to make a run to the bank. “I had a good night, is all.”

“Oh? Care to share?”

Greta hesitated. She’d always told her mother everything, but this … she wanted to hug the memory of last night to herself for just a little longer. Plus, she decided, she wasn’t at all in the mood to deal with Esther freaking out over the helicopter ride, and she could only imagine her mother’s horrified reaction to the death-defying trip to the top of the Empire State Building.

So all she said was, “I spent some more time with Miles Harrington.”

“Hmm.” Esther sounded amused. “I figured.”

With a sudden jolt, Greta wondered if she actually looked different today than she had yesterday. Could her mother tell she’d been with Miles?

But before she could spin out too wildly into embarrassment, Esther tugged lightly on Greta’s sleeve. Pinching the fine Italian wool between two fingers, she smirked a little.

“Is this the billionaire CEO version of giving you his varsity letterman’s jacket?” Esther asked.

Relief washed through Greta’s body, the sudden relaxation of tensed muscles making her vividly aware of the unusual ways she’d strained and stressed those muscles the night before. “I forgot I was wearing it,” she admitted, hunching her shoulders to inhale the complicated scent of Miles still clinging to the material of his suit jacket.

She wondered if she should tell him that the cologne he no doubt paid big bucks for smelled exactly like fresh cuts of the expensive cedar wood her brother bought to redesign their mother’s closet as a birthday gift.