THE ASSAULT ON Audra’s senses the moment Finn’s lips touched hers was devastating. She hadn’t realised she could feel a kiss in so many ways, that its impact would spread through her in ever-widening circles that went deeper and deeper.
Finn’s warmth beat at her like the warmth of the sun after a dip in the sea. It melted things that had been frozen for a very long time.
His scent mingled with the warm tang of the trees and sun-kissed grasses, and with just the tiniest hint of salt on the air it was exactly what a holiday should smell like. It dared her to play, it tempted her to reckless fun...and...and to a youthful joy she’d never allowed herself to feel before.
And she was powerless to resist. She had no defences against a kiss like this. It didn’t feel as if defences were necessary. A kiss like this...it should be embraced and relished...welcomed.
Finn had been angry with her, but he didn’t kiss angry. He kissed her as though he couldn’t help it—as though he’d been fighting a losing battle and had finally flung himself wholeheartedly into surrender. It was intoxicating.
Totally heady and wholly seductive.
She lifted her hands, but didn’t know what to do with them so rested them on his shoulders, but they moved, restless, to the heated skin of his neck, and the skin-on-skin contact sent electricity coursing through both of them. He shuddered, she gasped...tongues tangled.
And then his arms were around her, hauling her against his body, her arms were around his neck as she plastered herself to him, and she stopped thinking as desire and the moment consumed her.
It was the raucous cry of a rose-ringed parakeet that penetrated her senses—and the need for air that had them easing apart. She stared into his face and wondered if her lips looked as well kissed as his, and if her eyes were just as dazed.
And then he swore, and a sick feeling crawled through the pit of her stomach. He let her go so fast she had to brace herself against the trunk of the tree behind her. She ached in places both familiar and unfamiliar and...and despite the myriad emotions chasing across his face—and none of them were positive—she wished with all her might that they were somewhere private, and that she were back in his arms so those aches could be assuaged.
And to hell with the consequences.
‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he bit out. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t want an apology.’
The words left her without forethought, and with a brutal honesty that made her cringe. But they both knew what she did want couldn’t happen. Every instinct she had told her he was hanging by a thread. His chest rose and fell as if he’d been running. The pulse at the base of his throat pounded like a mad thing. He wanted her with the same savage fury that she wanted him. And everything inside her urged her to snap his thread of control, and the consequences be damned.
It was crazy! Her hands clenched. She couldn’t go on making romantic mistakes like this. Oh, he was nothing like Thomas. He’d never lie to her or betray her, but...but if she had an affair with Finn, it’d hurt her family. They’d see her as just another in a long line of Finn’s women. It wasn’t fair, but it was the reality all the same. She wouldn’t hurt her family for the world; especially after all they’d been through with Thomas. She couldn’t let them down so badly.
If she and Finn started something, when it ended—and that was the inevitable trajectory to all of Finn’s relationships—he’d have lost her family’s good opinion. They’d shun him. She knew how much that’d hurt him, and she’d do anything to prevent that from happening too.
And yet if he kissed her again she’d be lost.
‘I’m not the person I thought I was,’ she blurted out.
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Anger came to her rescue then. ‘You wanted me to lose control. You succeeded in making that happen.’ She moved in close until the heat from their bodies mingled again. ‘And now you want me to just what...? Put it all back under wraps? To forget about it? What kind of game are you playing, Finn?’
The pulse in his jaw jumped and jerked. ‘I just wanted you to loosen up a bit. Live in the moment instead of overthinking and over-analysing everything and...’
She slammed her hands to her hips. ‘And?’ She wasn’t sure what she wanted from him—what she wanted him to admit—but it was more than this. That kiss had changed everything. But she wasn’t even sure what that meant. Or what to do about it.
‘And I’m an idiot! It was a stupid thing to do.’ His eyes snapped fire as if he were angry with her. ‘I do flings, Audra. Nothing more.’ Panic lit his face. ‘But I don’t do them with Rupert’s little sister.’
The car keys sailed through the air. She caught them automatically.
‘I’ll see you back at the villa.’
She watched as he stormed down the hill. He was running scared. From her? From fear of destroying his friendship with Rupert? Or was it something else...like thoughts of babies and marriage?
Was that what he thought she wanted from him?
Her stomach did a crazy twirl and she had to sit on a nearby rock to catch her breath. She’d be crazy to pin those kinds of hopes on him. And while she might be crazy with lust, she hadn’t lost her mind completely.
She touched her fingers to her lips. Oh, my, but the man could kiss.
* * *
Audra glanced up from her spot on the sofa when Finn finally came in. She’d had dinner a couple of hours ago. She’d started to wonder if Finn meant to stay out all night.
And then she hadn’t wanted to follow that thought any further, hadn’t wanted to know where he might be and with whom...and what they might be doing.
He halted when he saw her. The light from the doorway framed him in exquisite detail—outlining the broad width of his shoulders and the lean strength of his thighs. Every lusty, heady impulse that had fired through her body when they’d kissed earlier fired back to life now, making her itch and yearn.
‘I want to tell you something.’
He moved into the room, his face set and the lines bracketing his mouth deep. She searched him for signs of exhaustion, over-exertion, a limp, as he moved towards an armchair, but his body, while held tight, seemed hale and whole. Whatever else he’d done—or hadn’t done—today, he clearly hadn’t aggravated his recent injuries.
She let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. ‘Okay.’ She closed her book and set her feet to the floor. Here it came—the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ speech, the ‘I care about you, but...’ justifications. She tried to stop her lips from twisting. She’d toyed with a lot of scenarios since their kiss...and this was one of them. She had no enthusiasm for it. Perhaps it served her right for losing her head so completely earlier. A penance. She bit back a sigh. ‘What do you want to tell me?’
‘I want to explain why it’s so important to me that I don’t break Rupert’s trust.’
That was easy. ‘He’s your best friend.’ He cared more for Rupert than he did for her. It made perfect sense, so she couldn’t explain why the knowledge chafed at her.
‘I want you to understand how much I actually owe him.’
‘How you owe him?’ Would it be rude to get up, wish him goodnight and go to bed?
Of course it’d be rude.
Not as rude as sashaying over to where he sat, planting herself in his lap, and kissing him.
She tried to close her mind to the pictures that exploded behind her eyelids. How many times did she have to tell herself that he was off limits?
‘I haven’t told another living soul about this and I suspect Rupert hasn’t either.’
Her eyes sprang open. ‘Okay. I’m listening.’
His eyes throbbed, but he stared at the wall behind her rather than at her directly. It made her chest clench. ‘Finn?’
His nostrils flared. ‘I went off the rails for a while when we were at school. I don’t know if you know that or not.’
She shook her head.
‘I was seventeen—full of hormones and angry at the world. I took to drinking and smoking and...and partying hard.’
With girls? She said nothing.
‘I was caught breaking curfew twice...and one of those times I was drunk.’
She winced. ‘That wouldn’t have gone down well. Your boarding school was pretty strict.’
‘With an excellent reputation to uphold. I was told in no uncertain terms that one more strike and I was out.’
She waited. ‘So...? Rupert helped you clean up your act?’
‘Audra, Audra, Audra.’ His lips twisted into a mockery of a smile. ‘You should know better than that.’
Her stomach started to churn, though she wasn’t sure why. ‘You kept pushing against the boundaries and testing the limits.’
He nodded.
‘And were you caught?’
‘Contraband was found in my possession.’
‘What kind of contraband?’
‘The type that should’ve had me automatically expelled.’
She opened her mouth and then closed it. It might be better not to know. ‘But you weren’t expelled.’ Or had he been and somehow it’d all been kept a secret?
‘No.’
The word dropped from him, heavy and dull, and all of the fine hairs on her arms lifted. ‘How...?’
‘Remember the Fallonfield Prize?’
She snorted. ‘How could I not? Rupert was supposed to have been the third generation of Russel men to win that prize. I swear to God it was the gravest disappointment of both my father’s and grandfather’s lives when he didn’t.’
Nobody had been able to understand it, because Rupert had been top of his class, and that, combined with his extra-curricular community service activities and demonstrated leadership skills...
Her throat suddenly felt dry. ‘He was on track to win it.’
Finn nodded.
Audra couldn’t look away. The Fallonfield Prize was a prestigious award that opened doors. It practically guaranteed the winner a place at their university of choice, and it included a year-long mentorship with a business leader and feted humanitarian. As a result of winning the prize, her grandfather had gone to Chile for a year. Her father had gone to South Africa, which was where he’d met Audra’s mother, who’d been doing aid work there. The Russel family’s legacy of social justice and responsibility continued to this very day. Rupert had planned to go to Nicaragua.
‘What happened?’ she whispered, even though she could see the answer clear and plain for herself.
‘Rupert took the blame. He said the stuff belonged to him, and that he’d stowed it among my things for safekeeping—so his parents wouldn’t see it when they’d come for a recent visit.’
She moistened her lips. ‘He had to know it’d cost him the scholarship.’
Finn nodded. He’d turned pale in the telling of the story and her heart burned for him. He’d lost his father when he was far too young, and then he’d watched his mother die. Who could blame him for being angry?
But... ‘I’m amazed you—’ She snapped her mouth closed. Shut up!
His lips twisted. ‘You’re amazed I let him take the rap?’
She swallowed and didn’t say a word.
‘I wasn’t going to. When I’d found out what he’d done I started for the head’s office to set him straight.’
‘What happened?’
‘Your brother punched me.’
‘Rupert...’ Her jaw dropped. Rupert had punched Finn?
‘We had a set-to like I’ve never had before or since.’
She wanted to close her eyes.
‘We were both bloody and bruised by the end of it, and when I was finally in a state to listen he grabbed me by the throat and told me I couldn’t disappoint my uncle or your parents by getting myself kicked out of school—that I owed it to everyone and that I’d be a hundred different kinds of a weasel if I let you all down. He told me I wasn’t leaving him there to cope with the fallout on his own. He told me I wasn’t abandoning him to a life of stolid respectability. And...’
‘And?’ she whispered.
‘And I started to cry like a goddamn baby.’
Her heart thumped and her chest ached.
‘I’d felt so alone until that moment, and Rupert hugged me and called me his brother.’
Audra tried to check the tears that burned her eyes.
‘He gave me a second chance. And make no mistake, if he hadn’t won me that second chance I’d probably be dead now.’
Even through the haze of her tears, the ferocity of his gaze pierced her.
‘He made me feel a part of something—a family, a community—where what I did mattered. And that made me turn my life around, made me realise that what I did had an impact on the people around me, that it mattered to somebody...that what I did with my life mattered.’
‘Of course it matters.’ He just hadn’t been able to see that then.
‘So I let him take the rap for me, knowing what it would cost him.’
She nodded, swiped her fingers beneath her eyes. ‘I’m glad he did what he did. I’m glad you let him do it.’ She understood now how much he must feel he owed Rupert.
‘So when Rupert asks me to...to take care with his little sister, I listen.’
She stilled. Her heart gave a sick thump.
‘I promised him that I wouldn’t mess with you and your emotions. And I mean to keep my word.’
She stiffened. Nobody—not Rupert, not Finn—had any right to make such decisions on her behalf.
His eyes flashed. ‘You owe me a “truth or dare” question.’
She blinked, taken off guard by the snap and crackle of his voice, by the way his lips had thinned. ‘Fine. Ask your question.’
‘Knowing what you know now, would you choose to destroy my friendship with Rupert for a quick roll in the hay, Squirt?’
* * *
He knew he was being deliberately crude and deliberately brutal, but he had to create some serious distance between him and Audra before he did something he’d regret for the rest of his life.
She rose, as regal as a queen, her face cold and her eyes chips of ice. ‘I’d never do anything to hurt your friendship with Rupert. Whether I’d heard that story or not.’
And yet they’d both been tempted to earlier.
‘So, Finn, you don’t need to worry your pretty little head over that any longer.’
He had to grind his teeth together at her deliberately patronising tone.
She spun away. ‘I’m going to bed.’
She turned in the doorway. ‘Also, the name is Audra—not Squirt. Strike Two.’
With that she swept from the room. Finn fell back into his chair and dragged both hands through his hair. He should never have kissed her. He hadn’t known that a kiss could rock the very foundations of his world in the way his kiss with Audra had. Talk about pride coming before a fall. The gods punished hubris, didn’t they? He’d really thought he could kiss her and remain unmarked...unmoved...untouched.
The idea seemed laughable now.
He’d wanted to fling her out of herself and force her to act on impulse. He hadn’t known he’d lose control. He hadn’t known that kiss would fling him out of himself...and then return him as a virtual stranger.
If it’d been any other woman, he’d have not been able to resist following that kiss through to its natural conclusion, the consequences be damned. His mouth dried. Whatever else they were, he knew those consequences would’ve been significant. Maybe he and Audra had dodged a bullet.
Or maybe they’d—
Maybe nothing! He didn’t do long term. He didn’t do family and babies. He did fun and adventure and he kept things uncomplicated and simple. Because that was the foundation his life had been built on. It was innate, inborn...intrinsic to who he was. There were some things in this world you couldn’t change. Leopards couldn’t change their spots and Finn Sullivan couldn’t change his freewheeling ways.
* * *
Finn heard Audra moving about in the kitchen the next morning, but he couldn’t look up from the final pages of his book.
He read the final page...closed the cover.
Damn!
He stormed out into the kitchen and slammed the book to the counter. The split second after he’d done it, he winced and waited for her to jump out of her skin—waited for his stomach to curdle with self-loathing. He was such an idiot. He should’ve taken more care, but she simply looked at him, one eyebrow almost raised.
He nodded. ‘Keep practising, it’s almost there.’
She ignored that to glance at the book. ‘Finished?’
He pointed at her and then slammed his finger to the book. ‘That was a dirty, rotten, low-down trick. It’s not finished!’
‘My understanding is that particular story arc concludes.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t know if he gets his kingdom back. I don’t know if she saves the world and defeats the bad guy. And...and I don’t know if they end up together!’
Both her eyebrows rose.
‘You...you tricked me!’
She leaned across and pointed. ‘It says it’s a trilogy here... And it says that it’s Book One here. I wasn’t keeping anything from you.’
Hot damn. So it did. He just... He hadn’t paid any attention to the stuff on the cover. He rocked back on his heels, hands on hips. ‘Didn’t see that,’ he murmured. ‘And I really want to know how it ends.’
‘And you feel cheated because you have to read another two books to find that out?’
Actually, the idea should appal him. But... ‘I, uh...just guess I’m impatient to know how it all works out.’
‘That’s easily fixed. The bookshop in the village has the other two books in stock.’
He shoved his hands into his back pockets. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have gone off like that. Just didn’t know what I was signing up for when I started the book.’
‘God, Finn!’ She took a plate of sliced fruit to the table and sat. ‘That’s taking commitment phobia to a whole new level.’
He indicated her plate. ‘I’m supposed to do breakfast. That was part of the deal.’
‘Part of the deal was calling me Audra too.’
She lifted a piece of melon to her lips. He tried to keep his face smooth, tried to keep his pulse under control as her mouth closed about the succulent fruit. ‘So...what’s on the agenda today?’
She ate another slice of melon before meeting his gaze. ‘I want a Finn-free day.’
He fought the automatic urge to protest. An urge he knew was crazy because a day spent not in each other’s company would probably be a wise move. ‘Okay.’
‘I bags the beach this morning.’
It took all his strength to stop from pointing out it was a long beach with room enough for both of them.
‘Why don’t you take the car and go buy your books, and then go do something you’d consider fun?’
Lying on a beach, swimming and reading a book, those things were fun. He rolled his shoulders. So were jetskiing and waterskiing and stuff. ‘Okay.’ He thrust out his jaw. ‘Sounds great.’
She rose and rinsed her plate. ‘And you’ll have the house to yourself this evening.’
Her words jolted him up to his full height. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m going into the village for a meal, and maybe some dancing. Not that it’s any of your business.’
She wanted to go dancing? ‘I’ll take you out if that’s what you want.’
‘No, thank you, Finn.’
‘But—’
Her eyes sparked. ‘I don’t want to go out to dinner or dancing with you.’
‘Why not?’ The words shot out of him and he immediately wished them back.
She folded her arms and peered down her nose at him. ‘Do you really want me to answer that?’
He raised his hands and shook his head, but the anger in her eyes had his mind racing. ‘You’re annoyed with me. Because I kissed you?’ Or because he wouldn’t kiss her again?
Stop thinking about kissing her.
‘Oh, I’m livid with you.’
He swallowed.
‘And with Rupert.’
He stiffened. ‘What’s Rupert done? He’s not even here.’
‘And with myself.’ She folded her arms, her expression more bewildered than angry now. ‘You really don’t see it, do you?’
See what?
‘Between you, you and Rupert decided what was in my best interests. And—’ the furrow in her brow deepened ‘—I let you. I went along with it instead of pointing out how patronising and controlling it was.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’m a grown-up who has the right to make her own choices and decisions, be they wise or unwise. I’m not a child. I don’t need looking after, and I do not have to consult with either of you if I want to kiss someone or...or start a relationship. And that’s why I’m going into the village this evening on my own without an escort—to remind myself that I’m an adult.’
She swept up her beach bag and her sunhat and stalked out of the door.
I do not have to consult...if I want to kiss someone...
Was she planning on kissing someone tonight? But...but she couldn’t.
Why not?
Scowling, he slammed the frying pan on a hot plate, turned it up to high before throwing in a couple of rashers of bacon. He cracked in two eggs as well. Oops—fine, he’d have scrambled eggs. He ground his teeth together. He loved scrambled eggs.
He gathered up the litter to throw into the bin, pushed open the lid...and then stilled. Setting the litter down on the counter again, he pulled out three A4 sheets of paper from the bottom of the bin, wiped off the fruit skins and let forth a very rude word. These were his designs for Audra’s shop. He glared out of the glass sliding doors, but Audra had disappeared from view. ‘That’s not going to work, Princess.’
He pulled the frying pan from the heat, went to his room to grab his laptop and then strode into Rupert’s office, heading straight for the printer.
He placed one set of printouts on the coffee table. The next set he placed on the tiny hall table outside her bedroom door. The third set he put in a kitchen drawer. The next time she reached for the plastic wrap, they’d greet her. The rest he kept in a pile in his bedroom to replace any of the ones she threw away.
* * *
‘You’re not taking the car?’
Audra didn’t deign to answer him.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Six thirty is a bit early for dinner, isn’t it?’
She still didn’t answer him. She simply peered at her reflection in the foyer mirror, and slicked on another coat of ruby-red lipstick. Utter perfection. She wore a sundress that made his mouth water too—the bodice hugged her curves, showing off a delectable expanse of golden skin at her shoulders and throat while the skirt fell in a floaty swirl of aqua and scarlet to swish about her calves. His heart pounded.
Don’t think about messing up that lipstick.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Why aren’t you taking the car?’
She finally turned. ‘Because I plan to have a couple of drinks. And I don’t drink and drive.’
‘But how will you get home?’
She raised an eyebrow.
He raised one back at her. ‘You’ve almost got that down pat.’
She waved a hand in front of her face. ‘Stop it, Finn.’
‘What? It was a compliment and—’
‘Stop it with the twenty questions. I know what time I want to eat. I know how to get home at the end of an evening out. Or—’ she smiled, but it didn’t reach eyes that flashed and sparked ‘—how to get home the morning after an evening out if that’s the way the evening rocks.’
She...she might not be coming home? But—
And then she was gone in a swirl of perfume and red and aqua skirt as the village taxi pulled up in the driveway and tooted its horn.
Finn spent the evening pacing. Audra might be a grown woman, but she’d had fire in her eyes as she’d left. He knew she was angry with him and Rupert, but what if that anger led her to do something stupid...something she’d later regret? What the hell would he tell Rupert if something happened to her?
He lasted until nine p.m. Jumping in the car, it felt like a relief to finally be doing something, to be setting off after her. Not that he knew what he was going to do once he did find her.
She was in the first place he looked—Petra’s Taverna. The music pouring from its open windows and doors was lively and cheerful. Tables spilled onto the courtyard outside and down to a tiny beach. Finn chose a table on the edge of the scene in the shadows of a cypress with an excellent view, via two enormous windows, inside the taverna.
Audra drew his eyes like a magnet. She sat on a stool framed in one of the windows and threw her head back at something her companion said, though Finn’s view of her companion was blocked. She nodded and her companion came into view—a handsome young local—as they moved to the dance floor.
Beneath the table, Finn’s hands clenched. When a waiter came he ordered a lemon squash. Someone had to keep their wits about them this evening! As the night wore on, Finn’s scowl only grew and it deterred anyone who might’ve been tempted from coming across and trying to engage him in conversation.
And the more morose he grew, the merrier the tabloid inside became. As if those two things were related.
Audra was the life of the party. He lost track of the number of dance partners she had. She laughed and talked with just about every person in the taverna. She alternated glasses of white wine with big glasses of soda water. She snacked on olives and crisps and even played a hand of cards. She charmed everyone. And everything charmed her. He frowned. He’d not realised before how popular she was here in Kyanós. His frown deepened. It struck him that she was more alive here than he could ever remember seeing her.
And at a little after midnight, and after many pecks on cheeks were exchanged, she caught the taxi—presumably back to the villa—on her own.
He sat there feeling like an idiot. She’d had an evening out—had let her hair down and had some fun. She hadn’t drunk too much. She hadn’t flirted outrageously and hadn’t needed to fight off inappropriate advances. She hadn’t done anything foolish or reckless or ill-considered. She hadn’t needed him to come to her rescue.
I’m a grown-up who has the right to make her own choices.
And what was he? Not just a fool, but some kind of creep—a sneak spying on a woman because he’d been feeling left out and unnecessary. And as far as Audra was concerned, he was unnecessary. Completely unnecessary. She didn’t need him.
He could try to dress it up any way he liked—that he’d been worried about her, that he wanted to make sure she stayed safe—but what he’d done was spy on her and invade her privacy.
Why the hell had he done that? What right did he think he had?
Earlier she’d accused him and Rupert of being patronising and controlling, and she was right.
She deserved better from him. Much better.