Tycoon's One-Night Revenge (7 page)

Once on firm land, she realised just how shaky her sea legs were, so when Donovan suggested they stroll down to the beach, she had no objection. After a short distance her legs started to feel more normal and so did her head. “This is why you came back,” she mused.

She felt his glance on her face. “Here?”

“To Stranger’s Bay. If you’d only wanted to apply pressure about the deal, you could have landed on my doorstep in Melbourne or gone straight to Alex.”

“I needed to come back here. To see if I remembered.”

Retracing his footsteps, recreating the past weekend.
Last night’s anxiety over that endeavour resurfaced in a slither of unease that travelled the length of Susannah’s spine and tingled in the palm of her hand. Where he’d held it, she realised, last night and again leaving the boat just now.

It should have seemed small, insignificant, compared to all the intimacies they’d shared already. But it didn’t. Perhaps because they’d skipped the preliminaries and landed straight in bed the first night, perhaps because he’d returned as a virtual stranger with no memory of those intimacies, perhaps because beyond the innocent touch she felt every memory in vivid, visceral detail.

She pushed both hands deep into the pockets of her trench coat and forced her focus back to his words. “You needed to come out here, to Charlotte Island, to see if you remembered that first visit?”

He didn’t respond immediately, pausing instead to help her down a rocky section of path. They’d come quite a distance from the boat—far enough for her peace of mind. She glanced back to where it sat, rocking peacefully to sleep in the deep-blue water.

“You said I mentioned Mac.”

Susannah’s attention shifted back to his face, the boat instantly forgotten. “Only in passing, when I asked who the MacCreadie was in the Keane MacCreadie business name.”

“Elaine MacCreadie,” he supplied now. He started to move as he talked, and she kept pace beside him, her eyes trained on his face. “She was a client when I worked on Wall Street, a businesswoman with a boatload of investments and a steel-trap brain. She said she appreciated my low BS quotient, and when I was shafted by one of the big bosses, she encouraged me to go it alone. She provided the start-up capital and the smart advice. I provided the man hours.” He cut her a look. “Did I tell you she’s an Aussie?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“From here,” he said, indicating
right here
with a sweep on his hand. “Born and raised on Charlotte Island.”

Susannah stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re buying the place on her behalf.”

“I’m buying it
for
her,” he said, making the distinction with subtle emphasis as his eyes locked on hers. “Is there anyone in your life you would do anything for?”

“There was,” she replied without hesitation. “My grandfather. Pappy Horton.”

“Then you understand.”

“I’m not sure that I do,” she said slowly. “There is a wealth of difference between doing something and buying something.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing? Making an expensive gesture?” He expelled a rough breath and turned to stare fixedly out to sea for a long moment. And when he continued, there was a raw note to his voice she’d never heard before. A note that ripped straight to her heart. “Mac’s not well. Hasn’t been for a while now. This is probably my last chance to do something for her, and the one thing that would have any damn meaning would be seeing this place back in MacCreadie ownership.”

“Does she have family?”

“A grandson.”

And this would be her legacy to him, a link to his heritage in Australia.

“So, you understand why I won’t give this up without a fight?” he asked.

“Mostly,” Susannah said huskily, forcing the words past the thick ache at the back of her throat. “Although I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about Mac before.”

“It’s not something I talk about,” he said, and the shutters had come down on his eyes, just as they had done in the past when she’d asked anything too personal.

“Then why now?” she persisted, wanting to batter down the barriers. Wanting, God help her, a piece of the man inside.

“I had to do something. You were leaving.”

She was achingly aware of his meaning. She was leaving, she was marrying another man, he would lose this last tenuous toehold on his quest to repay Mac. But her heart imagined another meaning in his words, in the quicksilver flame of his eyes.

“It will make no difference,” she said. “I can’t change what’s been set in motion.”

“You can. If you don’t marry Carlisle.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “Stay, Susannah. Convince me that this marriage is what you really want.”

This is what she’d expected last night and she’d armed herself against the assault. Now he’d caught her unprepared. She needed to breathe, to ease the swell of emotion in her chest, to think. “I can’t stay, Donovan. I can’t.”

“I’m afraid you have no choice.”

“I don’t know…” Her voice and her thoughts trailed off as she detected a new determination in his expression. She turned quickly, eyes drawn to the empty jetty and then to the gleam of white speeding away from the island.

Van knew she wouldn’t be happy. He was ready to face the heat of her anger, to answer all accusations, but the disenchantment burning at the back of her eyes caught him low and hard.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I had reasons.”

Giving in to the temptation to touch her, to soothe her, to hold her, he started forward, but she backed away as far as the water’s edge, both hands raised with the same warning that flashed in her eyes.

“Last night I spent half the night worrying over why you’d left so easily. That was so out of character for a man who always pursues what he wants without compromise. Now I see. You were already planning this. You teased me about restraint and force and abduction—”

“Hang on just a second,” he cut in.

But she wasn’t hanging on for even half that time. She continued down that same path, her eyes growing more disillusioned with each word. “But you didn’t have to resort to force, did you? Not when you could manipulate my emotions so easily. Sending me the seasick medication, your solicitous attention on the boat and then you crown it all with Mac. You know what? I would have preferred if you
had
brought me here by force. At least that would have been honest.”

“You think I lied to you?”

“I think you manipulated me.”

Van’s eyes narrowed at that accusation. At the implication that he’d bent the truth, that he’d used Mac’s illness in an underhanded way. “After the way you and your mother manipulated Carlisle on this deal, I’d be careful which stones you sling from that glass house, Susannah.”

For a beat of time, that softly spoken counterstroke hung between them. Then she lifted her chin and he noted that the earlier swirl of disappointment had turned to cool disdain. “How long are you holding me hostage?” she asked.

“As long as it takes.”

“To?”

“Stop you marrying Alex Carlisle.”

“Ever been out here before?” Van asked, joining Susannah on the long veranda. The sweeping vista of water added to the sense of sitting in majestic isolation, alone in the middle of the wild and rugged southern ocean.

When she didn’t answer his question, he let it slide. He figured she would get over her huff soon enough—possibly when he divulged why he’d sought her out. “I have a small favour to ask.”

Her fingers curled around the railing, as if to consolidate her grip. “A favour?” She might as well have said, “A slimy toad?” She employed the same level of distaste.

“I’m heading out to take some photos,” he told her.

“Have fun.”

At least she was talking, Van decided. He much preferred these snooty comebacks to the frosty silence of their walk up from the beach. “It’s not a sightseeing stroll. I want photos for Mac.”

“You didn’t think of that last time?” She favoured him with an incredulous look. “You had a camera with you the morning you came out here.”

“Yeah, I had a camera. I had photos. Past tense.”

Realisation flitted across her expression and her gaze snapped to his. “They stole your camera?”

He didn’t answer. He just held her gaze a moment longer before asking again, “Will you help me out with the pictures?”

“Why do you need my help?”

“Mac wants a shot of me, at the cottage.”

“I’ll help,” she said. “But just so you know, I’m doing it for Mac, not as a favour to you.”

“I think you have more than enough pictures of yourself,” she said. “I’m not a mountain goat. I’m not dressed for hiking. I’m going back to take a shower.”

Two hours later, Van knocked on the door of her bedroom—on arrival, he’d offered her the upstairs master, and after a suspicious moment’s deliberation, she’d accepted. Now he gave her ample time to make herself decent or to tell him to go to hell, but beyond the door he heard nothing.

With her fear of boats, surely she wouldn’t attempt to escape. Still, a tinge of worry clawed at his gut. He’d brought her here and he would keep her safe.

He knocked again, and when she didn’t answer this time, he opened the door. Perhaps she was out on the balcony, out of earshot…

She wasn’t.

Wrapped in a bath towel, she sat in the middle of the king-size bed, legs long and bare, hair a wet tangle of curls, her face turned toward the stunning view of treetops and ocean beyond the wall of louvred windows. Van paid scant attention to the backdrop. There was something in the picture she painted—not her unenhanced beauty, nor the knowledge of all that skin warm and scented from her shower, but the fragility of her expression—that stirred a world of yearning inside Van.

It echoed the moment down at the beach when she’d looked at him with naked disappointment; when he’d reached for her and she’d slapped him down. This time he forced himself not to reach. He sucked up that desire and waited a patient count of five for her to acknowledge his presence.

When she didn’t, irritation ate away at his patience. “Still sulking?”

“Thinking, actually.”

“About?”

“Our conversation down at the beach.” She turned her head a fraction, enough that the angled rays of the sun caught her hair with fire. His breath caught with the same hot burn when he saw the hint of moisture on her lashes, the uneven redness in her cheeks.

She’d been crying.

“When you asked me if there was one person I would do anything for, I answered reflexively. There are others I’d also walk on hot coals for. Zara says I need to cultivate a little healthy selfishness. She thinks I’m a sap.”

“Zara is your sister?” he guessed.

She nodded in silent assent. “She is also on my list of people I would do anything for, but Pappy came to mind instantly even though he’s been gone ten years. Probably because I didn’t have a chance to do any last things for him. He was gone too quickly.” Her gaze lifted and locked on his. “She’s dying, isn’t she?”

The frankness of her question knocked the remaining air from Van’s lungs. He couldn’t answer. Ultimately he didn’t have to because the sudden sheen of understanding in her eyes reflected his answer.

“That’s what I thought.” Lips pressed hard together, she turned away. “Did you only come up here to enquire about my sulking, or was there something else?”

“I brought you some clothes. I thought you might appreciate something clean to change into for dinner.”

He put them down on the dresser beside the door, and prepared to leave before he said any more. Before he revealed the tenuous thread of emotion unravelling inside. He was halfway out the door when she spoke again.

“Mac’s your grandmother, isn’t she? You’re the grandson.”

Sucker punched by her perceptiveness, Van didn’t answer. He didn’t turn around. He kept on walking.