Resisting Nick (Wicked in Wellington) (3 page)

Talk to his ‘parents’? What a joke. Right now he wanted nothing to do with them—had even included a note on his new P.A.’s task-sheet he wouldn’t accept their calls. Not that they were likely to contact him. They rarely did.

Last Friday afternoon had torn him to bloodied shreds.
 

He’d spent half the weekend on the internet, searching for help.
 

Found
iwasadopted.com
and gone as far as possible there, but someone needed to be searching for him before he could be matched up with them. The same with the Jigsaw people.

No-one was searching for Nicolas David Sharpe.

No-one missed their son enough to try and re-establish contact.

Just when everything had been coming right—the expansion of his fitness center empire, the refurbishment of the big old house by the sea—life had shot him yet another lightning-bolt.

Sammie jogged into the alley brandishing the keys. Surely if she beeped the remote, something would light up and identify itself? She surveyed the line of vehicles in the big parking lot and knew instantly it would be the low-slung black Ferrari.
 

 
‘Hi there honey,’ the beautiful old car whispered back. She clenched her teeth. How difficult was that going to be to drive after her mild-mannered hatch?

She found it needed almost no accelerator and a very firm hand, but she made it to the liquor store without incident. Beers on board, she collected the mail and food and carried everything back into BodyWork in time to find Nick bent over the reception desk, pants stretched taut around the best butt she’d ever seen, long legs showing hints of the strong muscles his shorts had displayed earlier that morning. Who’d have thought Nicky would turn out so hot?

Well, maybe her if she was honest. Because there’d been something earthy and dangerously attractive about him, even as a boy. That last summer when she’d been a shy thirteen and he a surly sixteen had been both paradise and agony. She’d wanted constantly and desperately to see him, and then been embarrassed whenever she had.

Now she somehow managed to ignore him and breezed on by to the staffroom to set her load down. A couple of the others were there, grabbing a bite before the busy lunchtime rush of clients.

“For me?” Jarrod suggested, making a playful swat at the beer.

“Sushi—my favorite,” Heidi teased.

“You should be so lucky. Where will I put this?”

“There’s a bar-fridge in Nick’s office.” Jarrod eyed the bottles again. “He wouldn’t miss just one, would he?”

“Yes he would,” Nick said, far too close behind her. Sammie froze for a moment but then swung around and faced him. He looked relaxed and too darn gorgeous—not at all worried about his beers being under siege. He lifted the heavy pack as though it weighed a few ounces. “Bring the food through as well Samantha, you can’t trust these vultures,” he said, switching on the charm he seemed to have such unnerving control over.

Once again, she found herself in his office, this time with the door closed so he could open the fridge properly.

He squatted to peer inside it, and Sammie swallowed as the fabric of his pants pulled tautly around the serious strength of his long thighs. He reached in to move a carton of juice. His shoulders flexed under the thin charcoal shirt. Big shoulders, now so much more defined and powerful than when he’d been a boy.
 

It was hard to rip her eyes away, and when she did, it was to admire the length of his back, all the way down to the black leather belt cinching his hips. He looked much leaner around the waist now his adolescent body had grown to manhood. She conjured up a present-day flash of him skinny-dipping at Grandpa’s old orchard property. She wouldn’t stay hiding in the bushes and spying this time around!

Nick pulled the beer pack open and began stacking bottles inside the fridge.

Sammie dragged her brain back to the food. “Leave room for the sushi. The sandwiches don’t matter as much.”

He turned and grinned over his shoulder. She tried to tamp down the attraction by reminding herself of his sulky insistence as a boy, his arrogant lack of thanks earlier in the morning.
 

“Yeah, we won’t get through the whole dozen beers,” he said. “Or if we do, we won’t get much work done.”

“So what’s your meeting about?” she asked, trying for businesslike interest.

“Probable locations. Franchising versus outright ownership. There are pros and cons for both.”

“In Sydney?”

One eyebrow lifted.
 

Maybe it was none of her business? “Tyler mentioned it.”

“Sydney for starters. Then Melbourne and Brisbane, all going well. Followed by some of the smaller centers.”

“And after that, the world?”

“West coast of the U.S. anyway. We’ve got the formula right, so why not?”

Sammie saw the blaze of ambition and determination in his eyes. She handed him the trays of sushi and he slid them onto a shelf. His strong forearms flexed as skin moved over muscle.
 

She sighed. The annoying boy from her childhood still held a dangerous fascination for her. But she wanted no romantic entanglements, no other person intruding on the life that had finally become all hers after Grandpa’s sad, slow passing.
 

At last she had no-one to be responsible for, no-one to answer to. She’d longed for freedom during the last six years. Now her brain fizzed with possibilities for the future.
 

Those possibilities didn’t include Nick Sharpe. The moment her passport arrived, she’d be off to see some of the places her parents had ripped out of the travel magazines and pinned to the walls at home. The Greek Islands. The Nile. Paris. New York where she had contacts through Ray. Sweden, to meet Grandpa’s cousins. Brazil. Uruguay. To wherever in the world called her most strongly.
 

There was money from her parents’ home, invested by her financially-savvy brother for their mutual benefit, and now a share from Grandpa’s estate as well. Enough for a couple of years of blissful independence and still some for a deposit on a house when she returned. She’d promised herself this for so long, fuelled by her parents’ early travel ambitions, and reinforced by her own itching need to get away from New Zealand and see what the rest of the huge world had to offer.

The last thing she needed was a lover, and Nick was the last man it could possibly be—a bad-tempered flirt who expected everyone to ask ‘how high?’ when he said ‘jump’.

“Shall I bring the plates in?” she asked.

“Yeah, fine.”

Okay, so he was all business again. Relief flowed over her and she relaxed a little. That was good. That was excellent, because for a few minutes there her determination had been wavering.

She opened the door and fled.

Jarrod and Heidi sauntered away from the staffroom as she returned. Both about her own age. Jarrod stood very tall—an ideal basketball player. Heidi’s more muscular build came from the aerobics classes she regularly led. Sammie had watched through the glass wall as Heidi put a group of panting, glistening housewives through a punishing mid-morning routine.

A rummage through the cupboards under the counter produced a respectable-looking tray. Sammie remembered how she used to take Grandma a lunch tray to her room sometimes. Poor Grandma, who’d never seemed really well. The housekeeper, Silvia, fussed over her incessantly, preparing special foods with strange-sounding names, muttering soft encouragement to her to eat more, eat more.

She set the tray down and searched for plates. She stacked four matching white ones on it, thinking again of the orchard days when she used to spend school vacations there. The last time she’d seen Nicky—
Nick
, she corrected herself—had been thirteen years ago. Half her life. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her.

The blue paint on the implement shed door had faded almost to grey in the sunlight. She showed him shyly how the numbers on the padlock turned around until they told her birthday—and then how it magically opened. She knew they were out of sight from the house and the packing shed. Feeling like a clever thief, she pushed the door and they slid in, quiet as shadows, closing it with care behind them again.
 

She wasn’t being bad.
 

It was always dark and quiet inside, a mysterious place full of machinery smells. The corrugated iron walls and roof creaked and crinked in the wind and sun.
 

They roamed among the hydraladders, mowers, tractors and other machinery. Hid and found each other, laughing quietly, talking in muffled voices because it felt like a secret.
 

Birds nested in the rafters, and their babies set up a furious hopeful cheeping when the mothers rustled in through the gaps with food.

“I wish I was up higher so I could see them,” she said. Without warning, Nick grabbed her under the arms and lifted her, setting her down on one of the big tractor tires so she was taller than he was. How amazing he was strong enough to do that.

He held her there until she was steady, and pulled his hands away slowly, brushing them across her chest as he removed them.

“You’re starting to grow...breasts.”

“I’m not!” Her face went all hot and embarrassed.

“Yes, look.” He pointed to the soft buds, and then touched.

Sammie gazed at him in agony. She wasn’t! She couldn’t be. Her mother said she didn’t need a bra yet. “I’m not,” she quavered. “Not like some of the girls at school.”

“Maybe not, but they’re starting. Can I see?”

“Noooooo...”

“Let me look.” His eyes were big and dark in the dim light. If the birds were making any noise, she couldn’t hear it now because she could see and hear only Nicky.
 

He stood so close that the front of his body pressed her feet against the tractor wheel. Soft denim brushed against her bare legs.

He reached down and pushed at his jeans, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Then she could feel more than just denim. He’d gone lumpy, and his breathing was funny.

“Let me look,” he asked again, hands hovering close, but not quite touching her as though he knew it was wrong.

Overcome with confusion she leaned forward the tiny distance until her old pink T-shirt pressed against his palms.
 

All manner of thoughts ricocheted around her brain. ‘This is what men and ladies do.’ ‘This is what pop-songs are about.’ ‘This is what Marilyn Strang’s sister did, and now she’s having a baby.’

She jerked back.

“No. We mustn’t.”

“Let me see them.” His thumbs bridged the small gap again and he rubbed softly. He smelled of dry grass and salty perspiration and fruit candy.
 

She would have leaned away but she might have overbalanced, and his touch was the nicest feeling, and...

“Look.” He was smiling, and Nicky never smiled.

She glanced down, and even though it was a scorching hot day, she now had little peaks like in wintertime.

“Let me kiss them.”

The big main door gave a sudden rattle and the electric motor switched on. In an instant he had his hands around her waist, had lifted her down, and they were both rushing to the side door before the main one crawled up far enough to reveal them. In the bright blinding daylight, Nicky somehow threaded the padlock back into the latch and twirled the numbers around as the big door continued its noisy climb.

He pressed himself against the wall, swearing, and pushing her away.

After a few seconds of being ignored, Sammie walked around the corner of the shed.

“Hi Grandpa. What are you doing?”

“Getting the mower out so Nicky can make a start between the trees. Have you seen him anywhere?”

“Not for a while.” She scuffed at the gravel with her sandal, unable to look him in the eye. All she could think of was how desperately she wanted to be back in the implement shed, doing more exciting exploring with Nicky.

CHAPTER THREE

Sammie leaned against the staffroom table, remembering how the games had slowly escalated. Yes, she’d eventually shown him her newly-budding breasts. Let him touch them and rub her bare skin so they could both watch the tiny pink nipples stand up. Allowed him to kiss them, and once to try sucking.
 

She’d finally given in to his insistent coaxing and felt him through his jeans on the last day of his vacation, marveled at the big shape he kept hidden there, rubbed her fingers up and down to work out what he looked like, and then not understood when he’d gasped and pushed her hand away, and sworn a lot, and dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it down inside his waistband. What had she done?
 

No way would she admit to being Sammie from the orchard. How could they work together if they had those strange games hanging between them? The only option was to ignore the whole thing, complete her one-month contract, and slip quietly away.

She set four tumblers, some forks and a stack of paper napkins on the tray, and carried it through to his office.

“Will you be okay if I take the first lunch-break?” Tyler asked. “I need to put my feet up for a while.” She glanced down to her swollen ankles.

Sammie’s gaze followed, and she felt instantly contrite. Between discovering who Nick really was, driving his daunting car, and scrambling to learn as much as she could about the fitness center, she’d not given Tyler’s welfare enough thought.

“Fine,” she insisted, embarrassment no doubt showing on her face. “Is there anywhere here you can rest?”

“Rich has a really nice recliner chair in his room, one with a pop-up footrest. He won’t mind me taking it over for a while. I know he’s going to be number-crunching in with Nick until the Aussies turn up.” She heaved herself to her feet and waddled away.