WHAT WAS SHE doing in this vehicle? Why hadn’t she stayed in Radd’s villa and given them both some time apart and space to cool down?
Brinley pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and shook her head at her behavior. While she didn’t believe she had been completely in the wrong to defend Mari, she shouldn’t have jumped feet first into Radd’s business. And Mari, smart and independent, didn’t seem the type to need defending. But Naledi just pushed every button Brinley had...
And what had she been thinking, allowing her fight with Radd to reignite after she finally had found the courage to apologize? And what was she doing here? Was she just a glutton for punishment?
But the heart of the matter was that, despite the fact she was still irritated with Radd, she didn’t want to miss out on one moment she could be with him. She would leave his life the day after tomorrow and, annoyingly, wherever he was, was where she wanted to be.
He was arrogant and irritating and implacable and annoying and sexy and...
Brin shook her head and noticed that Radd was finally, after an hour of driving in silence, slowing down. He braked and switched off the ignition.
“We’re here.”
All she could see was rocks. Confused, Brinley exited the vehicle at the base of a massive set of boulders towering above her. Pulling her overnight bag over her shoulder, she followed Radd as he stepped onto a walkway made of anchored wooden planks climbing in a zigzag pattern up the rocks. Radd easily carried a huge picnic basket and his own small rucksack. A two-way radio was tucked into the back pocket of his cargo shorts and he had a rifle slung over his shoulder.
Brin turned the corner and looked across the walkway spanning two boulders, and her mouth dropped open. To the left was a rolling carpet of open savanna, dotted by the occasional tree. To the right were more boulders, some of which had tree roots clinging to their mottled surface. Stopping, she pushed her fist into her sternum and looked at the structure in front of her, sophisticated and simple.
At its core, The Treehouse was a wooden deck, encircled with a wire-and-wood railing, thirty feet off the ground. A reed roof covered half of the area and beneath it was an enormous bed dressed in white linen, piled high with pillows and surrounded by a heavy mosquito net, sumptuous and sexy and sensual.
A small table sat in one corner of the deck overlooking the rolling savanna. In the other corner sat a pile of thick, huge cushions, suitable for a sultan’s tent. Numerous old-fashioned lamps were placed at strategic intervals along the outside of the deck, providing light when night fell.
Man, it was romantic. All that was missing was an icy bottle of champagne in a silver bucket and blood-red rose petals.
Brin followed Radd across the walkway onto the main deck and watched as he set the picnic basket down next to the small table. He tossed his rucksack in the general direction of the bed and gripped the railing, shoving his sunglasses onto the top of his head. He scanned the bushveld, and Brin saw the tension ease in his shoulders and the hard line of his jaw soften.
He loved every inch of Kagiso, but this place obviously held a special place in his heart.
Brin dropped her bag onto the bench seat at the end of the bed and, slipping out of her shoes, walked barefoot across the smooth planks to peek behind the screen that formed the headboard of the bed. Her breath hitched again with delight; she’d expected rustic and basic, yet the bathroom was anything but. Instead of a shower, an antique cast-iron slipper bath took pride of place in the center of the space and his and hers sinks covered a reed wall. Pulling open a door made from reeds, she smiled at the private toilet, one of her biggest worries about sleeping in the bush alleviated.
Brin left the bathroom area and walked back toward Radd. By now it was late afternoon and, with the setting sun, the temperature had dropped, too. Rubbing her arms, she sank to sit cross-legged on one of the huge cushions, her eyes bouncing over the incredible landscape.
An eland bull drifted across the savanna and a warthog scampered past him. With the sun setting, the light turned ethereal and magical, a time for fairies and pixies, pure enchantment.
Pity she and Radd weren’t currently talking.
She’d expected him to tear strips off her for being rude to Naledi. She kept waiting for the hammer to fall, for him to say something about her behavior, to castigate her for injecting herself into a situation that had nothing to do with her. But hours had passed and he’d said nothing and, maybe, he didn’t intend to.
Why? Was he trying to lull her into a false sense of complacency? When she relaxed, would he rant and rave? It was a favorite tactic of Kerry’s, which she’d learned at their mom’s knee.
“Will you please just tell me that I was out of line earlier so that we can move on?” Brin demanded, frustrated.
Radd handed her a small frown. “But you weren’t wrong, I was,” Radd said, balancing on his haunches as he inspected the picnic basket. He rested his arm on his thigh as he looked at her. “You were right earlier, Naledi was being a class-A bitch. But I can’t afford to piss her, or her father, off. But, you’ll be happy to know, I did apologize to Mari, and promised her and the staff a massive bonus when the Radebe party leaves.”
Brin’s eyes widened at his admission. Really? Wow. For the first time, her angry outburst hadn’t been met with derision or payback, sarcasm or delayed mental punishment.
Annoyance crossed Radd’s face, but Brin sensed it wasn’t directed at her. “Vincent Radebe now owns what used to be a Tempest-Vane mine, one of the most productive diamond mines in the world,” Radd said as he stood up, two crystal glasses and a bottle of red wine in his hand. “Over the past ten years, Digby and I have made it a mission to purchase back all the companies that our father inherited and then discarded, including The Vane, Kagiso and other properties and businesses.”
“Did you have to buy back the family home and vineyard?” Brin asked, curious.
Radd shook his head. “That was in a separate trust, and my parents couldn’t sell it. It’s handed down through the generations from oldest son to oldest son.”
“Wow, your ancestors didn’t much value girls, did they?”
“Sadly, no.”
Brin hadn’t expected him to talk and definitely hadn’t expected him to open up. Not wanting to stem the flow of words, she wrapped her arms around her bent knees and waited for more. When he didn’t speak, she rolled her finger in the air. “You were talking about Vincent...”
“Yeah. Vincent’s a canny operator. He quickly sussed out how much we want the mine and made us jump through hoops to get it. He also made us pay over the odds and jerked us around because he lost a pile of money on a deal my father screwed up.
“The mine is productive, well run and profitable, and he wanted to exact a little revenge on Gil through us. We had to work so damn hard to get him to consider selling.” Radd dropped down to sit on the cushion opposite her, his navy eyes frustrated. He glanced from her to the picnic basket and waved his glass in its direction. “If you are hungry, there’s hummus and red pepper dip and crackers. We’re having a cold lobster, crab and prawn salad and crusty bread for dinner, followed by handmade Belgian chocolates.”
It sounded delicious, but she was hungry for conversation, for an explanation.
Radd sipped his wine before setting it down next to his cushion and draping his forearms over his bended knees. She could barely remember the well-dressed man in the designer clothes she’d met on that beachfront in Camps Bay, the one driving a super expensive car and looking like a modern-day hero billionaire. This Radd, dressed in an expensive but lightweight cotton shirt and expensive cargo shorts, looked far more disreputable and, in a strange way, more human.
More approachable.
“Vincent tied the purchase of the mine to certain favors he knew I could grant him,” Radd explained. “Naledi is his only daughter and she has him firmly wrapped around her little finger. She wanted the biggest, shiniest, brightest, most noteworthy wedding in the country and that meant having it at The Vane. Her wedding at The Vane and a week at Kagiso for the wedding party were sweeteners I had to throw in before Vincent would start negotiations to sell the mine.”
Ah, now his pandering to those impossible people made sense. Brin swallowed some more wine before resting the foot of her glass on her knee. “So, when this is over, you’ll own the mine?”
Radd nodded. He looked down at his feet, then past her shoulder and then back to his feet. Brin tipped her head to the side, wondering why he was avoiding her gaze.
“There’s something else you’re not telling me. I mean, you don’t have to but...”
He took a long time to answer and, for a minute, Brin didn’t think he would. “When we have the mine, we are going to launch a massive PR campaign and rebranding exercise to, hopefully, rehabilitate the family name.”
“Because of your parents?”
Radd nodded. “Their reputation is like a bad smell that won’t go away.” He stared down at the wine in his glass, his expression thoughtful. “Dig and I have worked so damn hard and there are things we want to do, projects we want to explore, but we can’t do everything alone. And certain business people won’t touch us because there’s a belief that we are as dishonest as our father, as out of control as both our parents.”
“And you think a PR campaign will change that?” Brin asked.
“Maybe not. But it’s worth a shot. I also intend on giving some personal interviews explaining our rationale, highlighting our commitment to good governance and community involvement. Make it clear that we are tough negotiators but fair, and that we say what we mean and mean what we say.”
Brin couldn’t imagine what living with his parents had been like, but it was obvious it had damaged Radd to an extent. She wasn’t sure his expensive campaign would change anything, though. She’d begged her sister and mother to change, but nothing she said could sway them. “Sometimes people believe what they believe and always will, Radd. Some minds will never be changed.”
“But I still feel the need to try. I need to do it for Jack, for my grandfather, the grandfathers that came before him. They were good men.”
“That’s a lot of pressure from dead people,” Brin pointed out.
“What do you mean?”
Brin shrugged. “I think that if you had to have a conversation with Jack and your grandfather, with all the grandfathers, I’m pretty sure they’d tell you to stop thinking so much and be happy. To stop worrying so much about what people think about you and start living life, on your terms.”
Radd looked like she’d slapped him, and Brin cursed her tongue. She waved her words away. “But hell, what do I know? I ran away from a bossy sister and an impossible-to-please mother.”
They’d both been hurt by family, sliced and diced by the people who were supposed to love them the most.
“Families can be...” Brin tested the words on her tongue... Infuriating? Annoying? Hurtful? Soul-destroying? She settled for “...complicated.”
Radd’s mouth briefly curled at her understatement. “Tell me about yours. You’ve given me a little information, but you know far more about me than I do about you.”
Brin jerked and hoped he didn’t notice. And what could she say, what should she say about her equally messed-up situation? “What do you want to know?” she hedged, desperately racking her mind for a way to distract him.
“Whatever you want to tell me,” Radd commented, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his hands. “What do your parents do? Your sister?”
“As I mentioned, my mother raised me as a single mom, then she met and married my stepfather, who is an accountant, and they had another child, my younger sister. I’ve never met my real dad. My mom helps my sister run her business.” There, that was subtle, but still vague.
“In?” Radd persisted.
Ah, damn his curiosity. “Public relations.”
Well, being a celebrity, an influencer and sometimes an actor could be called PR, couldn’t it?
“You’re even more reticent than I am,” Radd complained, tipping his head back as Brin climbed to her feet.
Maybe so, but she couldn’t tell him that her sister was Naledi’s archrival, that if her presence was discovered here, she’d put his plans in jeopardy. No, he most definitely did not need to know that... He’d told her he didn’t like secrets, and she was keeping a whopper to herself.
Radd rolled to his feet and came to stand beside her at the railing. Brin could feel his heat, and his sex and sunshine scent made her feel weak at the knees.
“When you went off at me earlier, it sounded like you’ve had experience being treated badly. Have you?”
Brin chose her words carefully. She wanted to tell him, she did, but she didn’t want to risk him being angry with her and spoiling the evening. She would tell him, she should, but not now. “My previous boss was difficult. And entitled. Honestly, I was, am, surprised I said anything. Normally I keep quiet and accept that status quo.”
“Really? What’s different about me?”
Because you make me feel like I am standing in a safe zone, a solid barrier between me and the world. Because I feel you might be the one person who gets me. But, while we might be walking this section of the road together, soon our paths will diverge.
“I guess it’s because you’re not going to be a permanent part of my life.”
Brin thought she saw a flicker of hurt in Radd’s eyes at her off-the-cuff comment but immediately dismissed the errant thought. Radd didn’t feel enough for her to feel hurt. But there was still a part of her that wanted to reassure him, to tell him that, strangely, she felt comfortable expressing her anger and her disappointment to him. She earlier suspected, but now knew, that Radd would never use her feelings or opinions as a weapon, to dismiss or to diminish her.
He might not agree with her but, around him, Brin never felt less than unimportant.
“So what’s your big goal, your life quest?” Radd quietly asked her, loosely holding his glass in his big hand.
Brin hesitated, not wanting to spin more threads that would bind her and Radd together, making it more difficult for her to leave. “I just want to be financially secure and to have my own space to stand in, a spot of sunshine that’s mine alone.”
“And will you get that once I pay you?”
Brin nodded. “In time. In a few months, I’ll own my flower-and-coffee shop and, hopefully, in a few years, I’ll be able to buy a house, put a little away for a rainy day.”
“Hopefully by then you’ll also have buried that death trap you call a car,” Radd muttered.
Brin smiled at the note of frustration in his voice. He obviously loved cars and Betsy’s lack of well, style, class and running ability offended him. But he didn’t understand that upgrading her car would mean taking a loan from her sister or mother, and that would be like walking straight back into the spider’s web.
It had taken her far too long to disentangle herself to take that risk.
“I just want to be self-sufficient and independent, Radd.” Brin quietly stated. “I don’t want to have to answer to anyone ever again. I’ve spent the last couple of months finding myself.”
Radd looked pensive. “I’ve never really understood that expression. I mean, God, you’re not a winning Lotto ticket in a coat pocket.”
“But I’ve felt so lost, like I’m a reflection of Ker...of my mother and sister.”
“I think whoever you are, the person you really are, is there, deep in you. It’s just buried beneath all the crap society feeds us, the messages we received as kids, and what the media tells us we should be. Could finding yourself actually mean returning to yourself, to being the ‘you’ you were before life and people got their hands on you?”
His words slapped her in her soul, in that place deep down inside that no one ever ventured. Man, he got her, understood her on a deep, dark intrinsic level. Despite not knowing everything about the mixed, complicated relationship between her, her sister and her mother, he managed to nail the proverbial nail on the head.
He understood her in a way she needed to be understood. From the moment she met him, she trusted him... She’d jumped into a plane with him, trusted him to pay her the money she was owed, moved into his villa with him.
Had things turned out differently, she would’ve trusted him with her body. And she might still do that.
Honesty made her admit she was a probably a hair’s breadth from falling in love with him—this man who operated in the same world she’d fought so hard to leave—but trust was far harder to find than love.
And, oh, God, Brin hoped he trusted her, too. Because she thought that maybe he did, just a little, she placed her hand on his arm and waited until he looked up and into her eyes. “That’s incredibly profound and I appreciate it more than you know. And because you said that, maybe I can say this...?”
“What?” Radd asked when she hesitated, his expression curious.
“Maybe the PR campaign is necessary, from a business point of view,” she shrugged. “Obviously I don’t know your business, but I do know that you are nothing like your parents and the people who deal with you are fools if they can’t see it. It doesn’t matter how people see you, Radd, it’s how you see yourself. The only way to stop your parents influencing your life is to stop caring, to accept that they made their own choices and that those choices had nothing to do with you.”
Radd stared down at his hands, and Brin didn’t push him for a response because their conversation was getting so deep, so intense. But, Brin thought as she looked up at the stars, this is the night, and the place for conversations like these. She wasn’t a fool to think that this was the start of something bright and shiny and new, but she did know that they’d impacted each other, that they’d reshaped each other’s thinking.
And that, in itself, was incredibly powerful.
After a delicious dinner, and a conversation filled with laughter, Brin sighed. It was almost a perfect evening, but she wanted more. She wanted a night she’d always remember in crystal clear detail, a wonderful memory to give her comfort when she returned to Cape Town and a Radd-free life.
Because a couple of days did not a relationship make.
But it was one thing to make the mental shift to decide to have sex, but asking for one night, a step out of time, was something completely different.
Seriously, Brin thought as she stared at Radd’s gorgeous profile in the romantic light of the oil lamps, why can’t he read my mind? It would be so much easier.
But that was his point, wasn’t it? He wanted her to make the first move, to take the initiative because then she could never accuse him of pressuring her. But the fear of rejection, something she’d battled with her entire life, kept the words locked firmly between her teeth. Brin tipped her head back to look at the stars, crystals hanging in a pure black sky. It was so quiet, yet, at the same time, it wasn’t. She was used to the sound of vehicles, the hum of their noisy fridge, barking dogs, wind in the tree outside her window. The noise of the bushveld was unlike anything she’d experienced, a dichotomy of silence and noise, both at the same time.
It was the sound of the earth and its creatures sighing, sleeping, dreaming. Even if nothing happened between her and Radd tonight—and she hoped to find the courage soon to ensure it would—it was almost enough just to sit under the low-hanging sky and listen to the sounds of the African night.
She heard the rumble, a displacement of air and, because she happened to be looking at Radd at the time, she saw his attention sharpen, his body tensing.
Brin leaned forward and, needing a connection, placed her hand on his knee. “What? Is everything okay?”
A small smile touched Radd’s face and he held up his index finger in a silent request for her to wait. Brin looked around anxiously.
“Shh, relax. Just listen.” Radd slid his fingers between hers, gently squeezing. Brin immediately relaxed; he’d protect her, she was safe.
Scooting closer to him, Brin placed her temple on the ball of his shoulder, her thigh aligning with his. Releasing her hand, Radd placed his arm around her back, his hand curving over her hip. His touch felt right and it felt real. If she lifted her head, her mouth would meet his...
A deep sound rumbled through the air, sounding as if it were pulled from the center of the earth and raising the hair on Brin’s arms and the back of her neck. It smacked her soul, the deep roar settling in the pockets of her heart and lungs, and twisting her stomach inside out.
“That’s a big boy,” Radd murmured, his voice lazy.
“Lion?” Brin asked, though she knew it couldn’t be anything else.
“Mmm...”
How could he sound so relaxed, like he’d just heard the hooting of an owl or the backfiring of a car? “And he’s how close?” Brin demanded, her voice a little shaky.
“A couple of kilometers, at least.” Brin felt rather than heard Radd’s amusement. “And might I remind you that we are thirty feet in the air, and lions can’t jump that high?”
He was laughing at her, but his amusement wasn’t disparaging or patronizing; it was gentle. And kind.
“Feel free to climb into my lap if you feel scared.”
It was an offer she couldn’t refuse, a chance she had to take. “Okay.”
She felt the muscles in his arms and thigh contract, heard his swift intake of breath. Brin wasn’t sure how many minutes, or seconds or years, passed, but then Radd’s hand touched her jaw, turning and tipping her face up. His eyes were the color of the sky, his scent as earthy and primal as the African night.
“I’m going to ask this once... Are you sure?”
“Very.”
And she was. She wanted one night, a perfect night. A night with no expectations but only pleasure, hours of hot hands and wet mouths and for them to pretend that they owned the night.
Radd half turned, and Brin felt his hands on her waist, easily lifting her so that she straddled his thighs. She knew that he was trying to be gentle, but gentle didn’t suit this environment or what she wanted. She wanted primal, sensual, hot.
Radd’s arms tightened around her bottom and lower back. His eyes dropped to her mouth and his fingers tattooed their way up her spine to clasp the back of her head, to pull it down. Without a word, his mouth slanted over hers and his tongue slid past his teeth. A hot ribbon of lust rippled from her mouth to her breasts, to that secret, dark place at the entrance of her womb. Radd pushed his hand up and under her clothes to learn the shape and feel of her breast. Brin whimpered, twisting Radd’s linen shirt in her hand. Nothing mattered but his mouth and his hand and the stone-hard length of him pressed between her thighs.
It wasn’t supposed to be this wild, this hot, this quickly. She wasn’t experienced, true, but this felt bigger, deeper, darker. Brin lifted her fingers to his jaw and nipped, her tongue making tiny forays into his mouth. She felt Radd’s hand slide under her top to unhook her bra and then, as his thumbs slid across her nipples, all hell broke loose.
And Brin welcomed the storm.
Their lips collided and Brin, strangely and uncharacteristically, found herself fighting for dominance of the kiss. Radd yanked her lightweight jersey over her head and, without hesitation, grabbed the hem of her button-down shirt and ripped the fabric apart, scattering buttons in every direction and baring her breasts to his mouth. Time stood still and the earth stopped moving as she bore down on his hard erection, desperate to have him inside her, around her.
Radd lifted his head from her chest and his eyes glittered in the moonlight. “You are so incredibly beautiful.”
For the first time in her life she felt beautiful, gorgeous, sensual, a goddess being adored by her mate. Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, she pulled his shirt up his chest and over his head, throwing it to the floor.
Brin, needing him and, unable to wait, hopped off Radd and shucked her jeans and panties. Barely giving Radd time to shed his own clothes, she climbed back on him, whimpering when her wet core met his heat and hardness.
Sighing, she tucked her face into his neck and inhaled, desperate to use every sense to experience the essence of making love to him, knowing that she’d need to commit this to memory because it was just one time.
The only time.
Brin felt the banked tension in his hand as he gripped her thighs, the urgency in his tongue as he looked for, and found, her mouth. She felt him quiver and knew that, with the slightest provocation, he’d spill himself. Needing more, needing everything, she bore down and clenched her internal muscles.
“Brin, we need a condom. I have some in my toiletry bag.”
It took a while for his words to make sense, even longer for her to respond. “I’m on the pill and if you are clean...”
“Physical a couple of months ago. No one since,” Radd muttered.
“Well, then...”
Radd touched her, expertly and intimately, and Brin released a cry that was part pleasure, all desire. His fingers lifted her up and up and, when she begged him to come inside her, he entered her in a smooth slide. Brin felt a sob build in her throat; he felt so right, the missing piece of her puzzle.
Riding a hot wave of pure sensation, and wanting to be an active participant in this tsunami-like ride, Brin grabbed his shoulders, swiping her breasts against his chest and seeking his mouth. Brin heard the deep moan in his throat and whimpered as he lifted his hips, burying himself even deeper inside her.
Higher, faster, harder, deeper. Their world receded, and the only question of importance was who was going to come first. Brin whimpered, and Radd shouted as their worlds collided and then exploded. Brin heard his harsh breath in his ear, his hot lips on the cord of her throat. She couldn’t tell where he started or she ended, as close as two people could be.
She could stay like this forever, hearts beating in unison, her hands on his back, his holding her hips. She wanted more of this, more of anything he could give her: time, affection, attention.
Love. Love most of all.
Oh, God, no. No, no, no, no, no.
She’d done exactly what she promised herself she wouldn’t...
She was so close to falling in love with Radd Tempest-Vane. One more step, a quick slide and she would be there. Brin bit her lip, wondering if she was not confusing great sex with love, an amazing orgasm with affection. She wished she was, because if this was only sex, then walking away would be so much easier. But leaving Radd, carrying on with her life was going to be...well, hard. Different. A little flat and devoid of color.
But she couldn’t tell him her feelings, wouldn’t let him in on how she felt. Radd insisted on her making the first move to have sex, but Brin wanted him to be the first to breach the subject of feelings and love.
Because while she knew that she was there, or almost there, or something, she had no idea what Radd was thinking or feeling.
And, as she’d learned, people couldn’t be forced to give you what you needed, to love you the way you wanted them to....
In the distance, a hyena’s mocking laugh pierced the night.