The next morning saw Lily in absolute turmoil. She didn’t know whether to be furious with Jack or whether to just get back in her car, knock down his door and jump into his arms to rid herself of the sexual hunger he’d reawakened in her.
She headed into her shower in an attempt to tamp down some of that heat. She’d thought she was in control. That she’d made a conscious choice. First to go to his home last night, and second to allow him to kiss her and start to make love to her the way he did.
She’d wanted him every bit as much as he had obviously wanted her. The problem was, what happened after that? Where would that leave them both? Sure, she might be able to go some way to assuaging the ache deep down inside, she could even manage to rid herself of all the what-might-have-been questions she’d been riddled with since she’d left. But what if she ended up wanting him more, needing him more? What if she still loved him?
Lily turned off the faucet and dried herself slowly. Still in love with Jack Dolan? The thought struck sheer terror to her heart. No. She couldn’t still love Jack Dolan. There was too much water under the bridge. She’d carved his memory from her soul on the day she’d buried Nathaniel. It was the last time she’d allowed herself to weep for their lost love.
Putting that behind her had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to deal with in her life next to losing their baby. But she’d managed both on her own. She’d rebuilt her life, made her mistakes and learned from them.
As Lily knotted the towel across her breasts and began to apply a light sheen of makeup with a practiced hand, she thought back to the recent catastrophe—all because she’d trusted her accountant as her financial adviser. She’d allowed friendly familiarity to sway her better judgement. Okay, so she’d made some bad choices, but she could start again. Reinvent Lily Fontaine. The thing was, there was little call for a washed-up model who’d left behind a reputation for unreliability and unsavoury company.
How different would her life have been if the plans she and Jack had made all those years ago had come to fruition? Would they still be together? Would he be the cold, calculating man who’d lambasted her last night or would he have simply been an older version of the boy she’d fallen in love with when she was sixteen and he only eighteen years old?
Who knew? And what difference did it make anyway? She’d seen the man he was now and she was still wildly attracted to him. That she could identify it and analyse it would stand her in good stead in the coming weeks. They were bound to cross paths, and maybe sleeping with him would get him out of her system, once and for all. Of one thing, though, she was certain. If or when she did go to bed with Jack Dolan, it would be on her terms and because she wanted to.
He’d been so angry last night. Almost vibrating with fury. Unrequited lust? Maybe. She knew she’d been totally out of line. She’d allowed herself to be bowled over by sensation, divorcing reason from feeling. And oh, what feelings he’d evoked in her. Being in Jack’s arms had left her mind devoid of thought for her actions. All she’d wanted to do was to dwell in sensation, in the familiarity—yet newness—of his touch.
She’d had other lovers, not as many as the gossip mags cared to suggest, but enough to know that the way her body ignited for him was a one in a million reaction. A reaction that still had her skin tingling with the memory of his touch as she put on her underwear and dressed in a soft, pale-blue T-shirt and denim skirt. Determined to put him out of her thoughts for the rest of the day, Lily went downstairs to get some breakfast.
In the kitchen she was surprised to see her father still settled at the breakfast bar, a mug of coffee in one hand, a financial report in the other and a roll of antacid tablets on the counter in front of him.
“Morning, Dad. You’re late leaving for work today.” Lily dropped a perfunctory kiss on her father’s forehead. “How’s the coffee?”
“Strong. Just the way I like it.” He barely even looked up from the papers, a frown furrowed his brow.
“You’re not having anything to eat?”
“No. I’ll be fine.” He gave the papers one last rustle then laid them facedown on the kitchen bench. “You were late home last night.”
So that explained why he was still here. Time for the age-old inquisition. Lily felt herself bristle. She’d lived on her own for so long it felt strange to be responsible to someone else. She bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. She was altogether too sensitive and too reactive these days. It was what always got her into trouble. From today she was turning over a new leaf. Think first then speak.
“Sorry if I disturbed you when I came in. I tried to be quiet.” She poured herself a coffee from the carafe on the hot plate then grabbed some eggs from the fridge. Beating them to a frothy mess would go some way to alleviating the frustration she felt right now. “Are you sure I can’t get you something? You shouldn’t head off to the office on just a coffee.”
“You didn’t disturb me. I was working. And no, I’ll get the restaurant to send me something over later today.”
“Working at home as well as all the hours you’re putting in lately? I’ve hardly seen you since I got back, Dad. Is everything okay at FonCom? Is there anything I can do?”
His guffaw startled her. “Do, Lily?” He shook his head. “No, my girl. There’s nothing you can do. Just stay out of trouble and we’ll both be fine.”
He could reduce her to feeling like a teenager just like that. Lily gritted her teeth. Moving back home was never going to be easy. Her dad had always tried to run her life before. He probably planned on simply picking up where he left off.
“Well, I’d best be on my way.” He grabbed the roll of antacid tablets and shoved them in his trouser’s pocket. “Remember what I said yesterday, Lily. Stay away from Jack Dolan. He’s always been trouble for this family. All the Dolans have.”
“Dad, that’s an unfair comment. You know that. You and Jack’s dad worked together for years. I didn’t know he’d passed away.”
Inwardly, Lily groaned. So much for the “think first” thing. It had lasted…what, all of three minutes? She saw her father’s posture stiffen.
“And why would you know that?”
“Just something someone said last night,” Lily evaded as she bent to get a bowl from the cupboard to whip her eggs in.
“Someone who?”
He’d always had a knack for knowing when he wasn’t being told the full story and Lily knew he wouldn’t let things lie until he had it from her now. She sucked in a deep breath.
“Jack. I heard it from Jack, Dad. Okay?”
“So he was there at the barbecue last night.” Charles Fontaine snorted in disgust. “If he so much as lays one hand on you again, I’ll—”
“Dad! I’m not a baby anymore.” Heat rose in Lily’s cheeks, half in anger and half in embarrassment at her father’s words. It had been more than a hand that Jack had laid on her last night and she’d welcomed him. Lord, if her father only knew, he’d be apoplectic. Actually, far better that he didn’t know. Ever. “I can take care of myself, truly. I know how to handle his type. And for the record, before you hear it from anyone else, the barbecue last night was at his house.”
She tensed, waiting for her father’s reaction. She wasn’t disappointed. For the next five minutes he raged on about how foolish she was to have gone in the first place, and that she could rethink her options if she thought he was going to provide her with a home just so she could ruin her life all over again. His colour had become an alarming shade of purple.
“Dad, please, calm down. It’s not like you think. Jack and I are bound to bump into one another. Onemata’s not so huge that we can avoid each other completely. We can be adult about this, and if that means seeing one another socially from time to time, then that’s what we’ll do. If you’re not happy with that, I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
“Over my dead body. This is your home. It’s where you belong and it’s where you’ll stay.”
Charles looked as though he was about to say something else but the trill of his cell phone interrupted him. “Yes!” he snapped, “I’m on my way.” He slid his phone back in his pocket and gave Lily one last glare. “Mark my words, missy. He’ll just lead you into trouble again. Stay away from him. Well away.”
Lily sat at the breakfast bar until the house was completely silent. Why had she even bothered to try to defend seeing Jack again? It had always been like that with her father. Always at odds. Him telling her what to do, her arguing back and running flat-out to Jack—partly for the comfort she knew he’d give her and partly because she’d known it would rile her father intensely. It had been her silent stab at independence, and had been as futile then as it was now.
Jack had been right. She did always run from her problems. She’d done it again simply by coming home instead of facing up to her responsibilities in Los Angeles. It was easier to run than to face things she didn’t like, easier to put on a facade and pretend everything was okay. It had been living life on a knife edge.
It really was time to grow up.
She owed Jack an apology. She didn’t like the fact, but if she was going to get control back in her life, really make something of herself, she had to start acting like the adult she always insisted she was.
Jack looked up from his computer as his secretary walked into his office with a smile wider than the Auckland Harbour Bridge pasted across her face and an enormous arrangement of colourful cut flowers in her arms. Lead settled uncomfortably in his gut. He recognised the flowers. He’d chosen the profusion of stems himself at the florist this morning before ordering them sent to Lily with an apology for his behaviour last night. He’d lost control, had lost sight of his goal and had lashed out verbally in reaction to the near overwhelming physical magnetism between them and her outright rejection of it.
Now, it appeared, he’d given her a platform from which to reject him again. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth. One he had every intention of overruling at the earliest opportunity.
“Don’t bother putting them down in here, Sandy. Take them home or throw them out, I don’t care.”
“But, Jack, they’re addressed to you.” Her smile grew impossibly even wider.
“What are you talking about?” He’d written the card and envelope himself, even tucked the flap inside the envelope to close it before handing it to the florist.
“Here.” Sandy pulled the card from the arrangement and handed it to him. “Read it yourself.”
Jack took the small envelope from her. Sure enough, his handwriting listing Lily’s address had been neatly crossed out and his office address written in its place. No wonder Sandy was just about shaking with barely concealed laughter. A flash of irritation swept through him.
“That’ll be all, thank you, Sandy.” His voice was clipped, his instruction clear in its tone.
“And the flowers?”
“Leave them here for now. They will be going back out again shortly. Call the courier and—” He broke off, a grim smile curving his lips. “Forget the courier. I’ll take them myself. I’ll be back in about an hour.”
Jack drew his Crossfire SRT-6 Roadster to a halt in front of Charles Fontaine’s house with a spray of fine gravel from under the low-profile tyres. He hooked up the arrangement from the floor of the passenger side of the car and stalked to the front door.
No one refused to accept an apology from Jack Dolan, especially not Lily Fontaine. The fact that his attempt at apology hadn’t exactly been driven by sincerity challenged his sense of honour. He’d never apologised and not genuinely meant it before, but Lily had a way of making him walk outside his firmly drawn lines and he didn’t like it one bit. Eschewing the doorbell, Jack hammered a clenched fist on the heavy wooden front door.
His heart did an uncomfortable flip in his chest as the door opened, revealing a version of Lily that put him more in mind of the girl he’d lost his heart to as a hormone-driven teenager. Her hair was loose today, much shorter than it used to be, and barely touched her shoulders in a swathe of soft curls. She was barefoot and for some reason the sight of her pearl-pink-painted toenails lent her a vulnerability that spoke to him at his basest caveman level. Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his face because he was suddenly arrested by the expression in her eyes, which flashed like blue flame.
“These are yours.” He thrust the flowers in her arms. “Don’t send them back again.” He strode back to the car, crunching the gravel underfoot with a satisfying sound.
“Jack?”
He halted at the door of his car. “What?”
“Did you read the card?”
“Of course I read the card. I wrote it. You sent it back.” He crossed his arms in front of him.
Lily slipped the card out of the arrangement and put the flowers down on the tiled floor. The action made her denim skirt ride further up the back of her thighs, exposing a length of leg that sent a message of considerable demand from his groin to his head. She straightened and walked toward him, the rough texture of the driveway obviously causing discomfort to her unclad feet.
“Here, read it.”
In bristling silence Jack took the envelope from her and slid his finger under the sealed flap to rip it open. For a brief moment he allowed himself to imagine her tongue as it might have caressed the edge of the flap, moistening it to close it down. He quickly scanned the contents.
“Couldn’t you have just rung me and said yes?”
A small smile played around her lips, a teasing smile—one he had the almost overwhelming urge to control with his kiss.
“I suppose I could have, but I thought this would probably say it better. I had no need to accept your apology, you were due one from me. I behaved childishly last night, Jack. You were right, I do run away from things when it gets rough.” The smile slipped from her face and her expression was replaced with a far more sombre look.
Was she thinking about when she’d left him the first time? About their child? Since he’d found out about the private adoption Charles Fontaine had arranged, and which Lily had countersigned in agreement, he’d barely been able to think of anything else. Somewhere out there a stranger was raising his child—a stranger his son or daughter called Dad. His stomach knotted painfully. That’s why you’re here, he reminded himself. Revenge with benefits.
“I’ll take that as an acceptance of my invitation?” he pressed. He fought to keep his tone even, determined not to betray the direction of his thoughts, and watched her eyes carefully for any sign of duplicity.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I won’t run away again. I’d love to spend the day out with you on your boat. It would be great.”
Yes! Jack allowed her answer to wash over him in exultant waves.
“I’ll pick you up on Friday at 9:00 a.m. then.” He opened his car door and dropped into the seat.
“Could I meet you at the marina?”
Her voice sounded uncertain and he guessed her concern straight away.
“Afraid of what your father will say, Lily?”
“Let me take this in baby steps, Jack. While I’m under his roof I don’t want to antagonise him any more than necessary. He’s already under a lot of strain.”
Sure he was, Jack thought grimly. The strain of trying to hold together a business that was overstretched fiscally and had steadily diminishing staff resources. He could afford to let Lily take baby steps with this one although the analogy was anathema to him—ultimately the prize would be his.
“Okay, there’s parking at the marina for visitors. Meet me on Pier 23, berth 7. Same time.”
“I’ll be there,” she promised.
“And don’t have breakfast. We’ll have something while we’re out, okay?”
Jack slid his sunglasses onto his face and gave her a smile in farewell before putting his car into gear and driving carefully around the turning bay and out up the drive. Anticipation swelled deep inside. A day. A whole day. The possibilities were endless.