Chapter Eight
All the millions in the bank, his photo on the cover of Business Review Weekly—even an honorary degree from Macquarie University—and Cam couldn’t figure out how to bring one stubborn woman to her senses.
After downing one beer, he cracked open another.
She was probably packing right now. Running home scared, to the man she could control and the life that would bore her senseless.
And because he couldn’t keep his bloody great mouth shut, she’d bolted. The morning would have been the time to mention about putting off her flight. Yeah. He saw that now. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant. He’d all but had her and then made her bolt.
“God damn it,” he said to himself.
Well, it wasn’t in his nature to give up easily, not give up something he really wanted, and he wanted Jennifer Bloody Talbot more than he’d ever wanted anything. What he needed was a plan of attack.
He tapped the bottle lightly against his teeth, thinking. Bron, he decided, was the next person he needed to enlist in his campaign. He’d seen her and Jen hanging about together. She might have some ideas.
So the next day, when Bron wandered in late as usual, he was waiting for her in her office.
“Don’t start,” she said, raising her hands. “I’ve been working like a maniac on swimwear all week. I can’t get the right fabric, and the right color, and the right price. You do not want to give me any aggro.”
“Partying late again, I see. You’ve still got some of that sparkly makeup stuff on your shoulders.” But he said it mildly. He needed her help.
Since she’d known him all her life, she put her hands on her hips and stared down at him. “All right. What do you want?”
“Jennifer Talbot.”
Bron’s impish grin dawned and she threw herself onto the bright pink sofa she kept in her office. “I knew it. You’re mad for her, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “And now she’s pissed off with me.”
Once more she threw her hands in the air. “I’m not acting as a go-between.” She shuffled among the piles of paper on the long counter behind the sofa which, in theory, was her work area. In reality, it was where she stored all her rubbish. How she produced anything in such chaos he could never work out. “But while you’re here, I’ll show you the color samples for the new wet suits. If I can bloody find them.”
“I don’t want you for a go-between,” he said, fairly certain, given the mess, that he wasn’t going to be looking at color samples any time soon. “I want your advice.”
She stopped mid-pile. “You do?”
“Yeah. What does she like? How can I make her stay?”
“She’s a woman, you great git. She wants romance.”
He wished he hadn’t bothered asking Bron. “Romance.”
“Yes. Flowers, chocolates, champagne, moonlight.” She laughed at him. “I know you can do it. You’ve got a real soft spot; you just hide it mostly.”
“Do you think?” He stopped and put her desktop calendar to today’s date, updating it a couple of months. “Does she say anything about me?”
“No.” Then she laughed again. “It’s what she doesn’t say that’s important. You ask me, she’s crazy about you, but she doesn’t know how to give in. She’s like you. She doesn’t know how to say she’s made a mistake.”
“She says she’s leaving in a week. And I don’t know how to make her stay.”
Bron looked at him like he was stupid. “Have you told her how you feel?”
“God, I never should have asked you anything. You want to turn my life into one of those stupid soap operas.”
“I didn’t think you had.” She tsked at him as he headed for the door. “Tell her you love her, you great stupid.”
Jen was tapping away at a spreadsheet on her computer when Cam stuck his head around her office door.
Though she hadn’t moved to a hotel, she had rented herself a car so she could come and go as she pleased. And she’d never been more pleased to travel on her own to the office than this morning.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said in a manner she hoped combined cool professionalism with personal detachment. “I have a week of minutes.” As if she’d change her return date because Cameron Crane figured if she slept with him she’d follow him around like a lovesick fool until he decided it was time for her to go.
He stood there, staring at her, and if there was a lovesick fool around, she sort of thought it was him. She didn’t want to soften toward him, but when he looked at her that way, she was lost.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, hoping her professional tone hid the crazy hammering of her heart.
“I wanted to apologize. I . . . .” He seemed to be in pain, as though the words hurt as they came out of his mouth.
“You?”
“I’m sorry about last night.”
Jen picked up a stapler and put it down. “Probably it’s a good thing last night didn’t go any further than it did. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Sleeping together would be a terrible mistake.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
“I’m not sure—”
“I finished your report last night.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “And?”
He grinned at her. “Wear something swish. We’re celebrating.”
Okay, it was a little high-handed, she thought as he left her office, but she was prepared to let a lot go when the man was accepting a marketing proposal that was both aggressive and expensive.
Because she wanted to prove to him that his decision was the right one, and she and her company were worth every one of the considerable number of pennies he was about to fork out, she got on the phone immediately to get started implementing a plan as focused and forceful as the man behind the company. If she could get a line on a spokesman in the next week, she could do everything else from her office in San Francisco.
She called every ad agency in town and asked for portfolios. Then she called her office back home and got Lise Atwater, who’d handle the advertising, working on locating any suitable Australian actors or models already in the States.
Cam had told her to wear something swish. While she showered she reviewed her options. Since she was living out of a suitcase, they weren’t limitless, but she had brought a soft, blue-green silk chiffon halter dress that she loved. She slipped it on and tried to imagine Cam doing “swish.” She spent extra time on her hair and makeup and wondered if she really knew what she was doing. Cameron Crane was a man who could explode her ordered existence, and her conception of herself and her life. Did she want that?
Mark was a good man, she reminded herself, but was he the right man? If she was so easily attracted to another, how could she be ready to marry?
She grabbed the silk wrap that went with the dress and decided to trust her instincts.
She left her room and made it to the bottom of the stairs when her heart almost stopped. Cam was wearing evening dress. He glanced up at where she’d stalled about five stairs from the bottom and sent her a crooked grin. “You look beautiful.”
How did he know that a man in a tuxedo was her greatest weakness? Oh, and he filled his out so nicely. Under the smooth, urbane tuxedo she saw the play of powerful muscle. He was smoothly shaven, he’d had his hair cut—not very short, but shorter and neater than before. It was even freshly combed, but he still wore the thug’s nose and the eyes were far from civilized.
“Is my tie crooked?” he asked, fingering the bow tie that was, in fact, perfect.
“I have a thing for men in black tie,” she admitted, thrilled to her toes that he’d dressed up for her.
“Head waiters must love you.”
“Oh, and don’t let me near a supper club band.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t.” The possessive way he spoke had her thinking that last night hadn’t permanently changed his mind about wanting to sleep with her.
“Car’s outside.” He held out his hand, and she made her way to the bottom of the stairs feeling his gaze on her the entire trip. He took her hand and at the touch of his skin against hers she felt little quivers jump to life deep in her belly.
“A limousine?” she asked when she saw the driver open the rear door of the long black car.
“I told you. We’re celebrating.”
She slid into the back and he slid in beside her. He even smelled good, she thought, as she settled back for the ride. She knew him well enough to know he loved everything casual, from his clothes to his lifestyle. Trussing himself in a tuxedo, shaving, combing, organizing a limo that left him in a vehicle he didn’t control must be stressing him right out. And he’d done all this for her. She turned to him, liking the smooth-shaven look of him, but realizing she sort of loved him scruffy, too.
His eyes seemed to burn right into hers as he leaned closer, not saying a word. He kissed her the way a man in a tuxedo ought to kiss a woman—smooth, lips only, drawing back before he made a nuisance of himself.
Without knowing she did it, she leaned in for more and with an animal sound that was out of place coming from a guy in a tuxedo, but very Cameron Crane, he pulled her in and kissed her with everything he had.
She responded with everything she had, until desire grew, budded, and bloomed, all in under two minutes.
“Christ,” he muttered, pulling away from her and hauling his body out of touching range. “I promised myself I wouldn’t act like an animal around you for one evening. To prove I can be a gentleman.” He thought about that for a moment. “If I put my mind to it.” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and glared ahead. “Sorry.”
“I mussed your hair,” she said, thinking how much more familiar he was to her with his hair tossed all over the place, and how glad she was that he was overcome with lust when in her company.