Moonlight Mirage: Bandicoot Cove 2 (3 page)

“Your company is the most important thing in the world to you.”

He stared at her, clearly surprised. “That’s not true.”

“It keeps you from doing so many other things.”

He arched a brow. “Like?”

“Like traveling. And you used to talk about taking time off to learn to sail and scuba dive, but you never did it.”

“I will.” A note of defensiveness crept into his voice. “One day, when the business is rock solid.”

Mitch’s hotel development company was thriving, even in this economy. Hayley knew because she hadn’t been able to resist checking up on him any time she’d come across an internet cafe on her travels, even as she called herself every kind of fool for being unable to quit the habit.

“It keeps you from having a meaningful relationship.”

Hayley made the accusation before she could think better of it. It brought them too close to dangerous, familiar ground. It had kept him from pursuing a relationship with
her
, because protecting the business from scandal had been more important than exploring what existed between them.

Or perhaps Mitch had merely used their working relationship and her history as Mack’s friend as convenient excuses. Perhaps he hadn’t burned for her as hotly as she had for him and he hadn’t known how else to let her down.

Blandly, Mitch stated, “I have a perfectly adequate social life.”

“So who is the flavor of the month right now, Mitch? Is it a Miranda, a Vanessa, or perhaps Samantha? Have you ever noticed how most of your girlfriends’ names end in
a
?” In the twelve months she’d worked for him, Mitch had dated six different women. It wasn’t difficult to work out that two months in was when they started to push for a bigger commitment, one that Mitch wasn’t prepared to give. “I guess that’s why I didn’t get a look-in.”

“
Hayley.
” Her name was a pained sound wrenched from his throat. “When you were in a room, I could barely
stop
looking at you. It made work almost impossible.”

“And we couldn’t have anything getting in the way of your work, right?”

“What would you have had me do? Fire you so we could see each other?”

“You would never have done something so unprofessional,” she snarled. “And I wouldn’t have wanted to be one of your two-month wonders, anyway.”

“Hayley, stop it. You were never a
flavor of the month
.” His voice hissed with suppressed vehemence. “I could never have dated you, could never have made love to you and then walked away.”

“Right. Because when a relationship with the boss goes sour, harassment suits might be filed. I remember.”

Mitch muttered a foul curse, one Hayley had never heard come out of his mouth before. Mitch was Mr. Controlled, the consummate professional.
Business Review Weekly
’s young businessman of the year two years running did not drop F-bombs around the boardroom table. It wouldn’t be fitting.

He didn’t appear in control now. His blue eyes flashed, fire raging in their depths. His mouth was set in a grim line. The tension radiated from his body in waves of heat that engulfed Hayley. She sensed frustration, anger and something far more difficult to define in his stance.

“Thank you for the dance, Mitch.” Hayley stilled as the song ended. “But I think our time is up.”

When she made to extricate herself from his embrace, Mitch surprised her by tightening his hold. The hand that had rested on the small of her back throughout the dance was a hot brand as it drew her closer, until her lower body rested intimately against his. The rigid length that pressed into her abdomen made Hayley gasp. His chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, but he never lost that grim expression.

“You don’t understand. I could never have made love to you and walked away.” He ground into her, a subtle flex of his hips that sent a very unsubtle message. He wanted her. The turgid bulge in his cargo pants was no accident. He was hard—hot and hard—for
her
. “Don’t you know what losing you has done to me?”

“Mitch, you never had me. You wouldn’t allow it.”

“And you hated me so much for trying to protect you that you ran off for two years?”

“Protect me?” Hayley was incensed. “I’m not a child. I wasn’t one then, either. I knew what I wanted, and it wasn’t your protection.”

“Hayley, you don’t know me as well as you think you do. Having an affair with me wouldn’t have made you happy.”

“That wasn’t for you to decide.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he surprised her by conceding. His small smile tripped her heart. “You were always as smart as a whip. It was one of the things I liked most about you. That and your easy smile, your positive outlook, your pretty green eyes and your—”

“Mitch, don’t.”

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “God, I’ve missed you, Hayley. Every day, every hour since you left, I’ve missed you.”

Hayley melted. She’d missed him too, missed the promise in his blue gaze, the potential in the heat that throbbed between them whenever they were together. It should have diluted during the time she’d been away but it hadn’t. Her body still sang because he was close. Her heart still galloped. She still wanted him with every part of her that was feminine.

“There’s no one in my life, Hayley. No one whose name ends in
a
or
e
or any of the other vowels. I haven’t brought a plus one.”

His lips caressed her ear. Lust thickened his words, turning them from a mere statement of fact to a promise. A shiver raced over her body and desire, explosive desire, bloomed inside her. But the words
plus one
niggled at Hayley’s memory. There was something she was forgetting in the ordeal of seeing Mitch again.
Plus one, plus one…

Warm lips caressed the ear Mitch wasn’t whispering in just as Hayley remembered what she was supposed to remember—or
who
she was supposed to remember. “Hey there, Hales. You trying to replace me?”

“Ty!”

His name came out as a surprised sound. Hayley turned toward Ty, who stood behind her with an amused smile lifting lips used to that position. One brow arched, disappearing into his shaggy, light brown fringe. Eyes the warmth and hue of single malt whisky sparkled with devilment. Although he’d gone out of his way to make his presence known, there was no hostility in his interruption.

Not so in Mitch’s case. His voice was laced with aggression as he faced Ty. “Something I can do for you?”

“Yeah,” Ty responded breezily. “You can let me cut in. You don’t mind me dancing with my date, do you?”

With that, Ty looped an arm around Hayley’s waist, drawing her out of Mitch’s suddenly lax embrace and into his. Ty Butler—champion pro surfer, rock-climbing enthusiast and experienced skydiver—never did anything by halves. He not only spun Hayley out of Mitch’s arms, but lifted her hard against his body and gave her a resounding slap on the rear that caused a squeal to tumble out of her.

Ty Butler.

Her plus one.

Chapter Three

“You’re not telling me that was
the
guy, are you?”

Right now, Hayley heartily regretted that vodka-soaked night back in Bali when she’d told Ty about Mitch. When she’d practically begged him to come to Bilby Island as her date for Mack’s wedding so she wouldn’t have to face her ex-boss and one of his sophisticated girlfriends by herself. Turned out she needn’t have worried about that. Mitch had come alone.

Trying not to acknowledge the relief Mitch’s single status generated within her, Hayley narrowed her gaze at Ty’s dubious expression. “What’s so unbelievable?”

Ty let out a wry chuckle. “He’s not your type.”

“He
was
. Once.”

Still is
, Hayley silently admitted. Her blood continued to buzz with the effects of the closeness they’d shared while dancing. She might be walking lazily along the shore with Ty, but Hayley’s mind was stuck back in Bar Evoke. She could see Mitch’s hard expression following her every move as she danced and laughed with Ty, perhaps a little more loudly than she needed to. She’d downed shots and followed them up with tequila sunrise chasers, chatted with all her old friends and generally tried to act like she could care a jot that Mitch was on the other side of the room, looking like he wanted to murder her plus one and dismember the body.

“I don’t see the two of you together. You and me, on the other hand…”

Ty’s gaze coasted over her short green dress. The balmy night had cooled as a breeze came in off the ocean. The slight temperature drop mixed with the male appreciation in Ty’s eyes sent hot chills racing over Hayley’s skin, raising goose bumps. The wind whipped the silky dress against her frame, and Ty’s gaze lingered on her chest meaningfully.

Hayley glanced down to see her pebbled nipples were clearly visible against the silk. She gave Ty’s shoulder a shove. “Perv.”

“Something wrong with perving on my hot date?”

“You’re not my date…exactly.”

Ty brought his hands up to his chest, cupping his heart as though it was broken. “You wound me, fair lady.”

Hayley laughed at such words forming on Ty’s broader-than-broad Australian accent. “You do have your qualities, Ty. I’m sure you’ll find some nice young girl to appreciate them, breed a few Butler babies in your image.”

“Stop it, you’ll jinx me.” The very idea of marriage was anathema to Ty, as Hayley well knew. “This is no way to speak to the friend who agreed to be your buffer for this week.”

“Yes, and a hard job it is too.” Hayley glanced around at the isolated stretch of beach, the softly lapping waves gilded by the moon and giving off the faint aroma of salt. To the right the lights of the resort twinkled, warm and inviting. “A trip to one of the most idyllic spots in the world, and you have to act like you like me. Must be torture.”

“Come on, Hales.” He wound his arm around her shoulders and brought her in close. His lips were warm, the stubble that always graced his jaw pleasantly rough against her temple. “I do like you.”

Hayley smiled, warmed by his statement. She liked him too. “You smell like rum.”

“You like rum. You got plastered on mai tais that night in Hawaii.”

And hadn’t that led her to do the craziest, wildest thing she’d ever done? “Precisely why I don’t like rum anymore.”

Ty’s chuckle vibrated against her ear as his lips became mobile. “You’re not going to let that deter you…right?”

Ty’s hand slid down her arm, moving up and down as he ran his tongue over the shape of her ear. Hayley shivered, responding to his familiar caresses and the enveloping heat of his body. “I haven’t decided,” she teased.

Ty pouted, letting her feel the movement of his lips against her cheek. “I was promised sex, Hales.”

“I don’t recall that conversation.”

“Five nights in the beautiful Australian tropics, sharing a room with my good buddy, a fox of a girl with whom I occasionally do the bump and grind. Sex was implied.”

Of course Hayley had intended to have sex with Ty while she was here. They were, for want of a better term, friends who enjoyed a full range of benefits. She’d first met Ty eighteen months ago in Canada when she’d been bartending at a ski resort and he’d been trying out snowboarding in his usual, take-no-prisoners fashion. They’d bonded immediately the way that fellow Australians in foreign lands tended to do, and Hayley had landed in bed with him within three hours of their initial meeting.

It was the first time Hayley had ever done anything like it—sex as recreation. It was a revelation for someone who’d waited until university to lose her virginity to a long-term boyfriend. Who always waited at least five dates before letting a man remove even a stitch of her clothing. Who’d waited for almost a year for Mitch to notice her, like some pitiable creature in a 1970s romance novel.

With Ty, she hadn’t waited, and it had liberated her from the rules she’d always followed. He wasn’t the only man she’d gone to bed with over the past two years, but he had been the most regular. With Ty, everything was an adventure, and Hayley had learned to go along for the ride without expecting it to last. According to Ty, the wildest rides never did.

“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

Ty had stopped walking and now looked down at her with a serious expression. Ty’s gaze was so rarely serious that Hayley caught her breath. “That would be pretty silly of me, wouldn’t it?”

Ty’s breath fanned her face as he sighed. He lifted a hand to her cheek and cupped it. “You’re not silly, Hales. You’re one of the smartest, sassiest girls I’ve ever met.”

Hayley had to swallow a lump that formed in her throat. “Thanks.”

“And I…” He held her gaze so steadily that Hayley froze. Oh no, surely Ty wasn’t going to say… “I really,
really
need to get into your pants. Like now. Ten minutes ago, in fact.”

“Oh…you dork!” Hayley gave his chest an almighty shove, sending Ty careening backward. There was no way she could have bested him had he been completely sober, but already unbalanced from too many rum cocktails, he was a…well, a pushover. He landed with a splash in the shallow water.

Hayley tried not to show how hard she was laughing when Ty glared at her. “You’ll pay for that.”

“Who’s going to make me?”