Socialite's Gamble

The knowledge gave her the strength to push against him. ‘I’m sorry, Aidan, please don’t …’

As the words left her mouth she knew that she was so weak in the face of the desire he incited in her that if he pushed it, if he leaned down and kissed her again, she wouldn’t stop him. She’d reach up and pull his head down to hers and forget all about the consequences and face them when they inevitably occurred as she faced down every other disaster in her life.

Only he didn’t push it. He took a deep breath and released her before turning on his heel and walking away.

She didn’t think she’d ever felt worse.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE CONFERENCE WAS OVER. All that was left to do was to organise his jet to make ready to fly him home. For some reason Aidan hadn’t done that, even though he knew Ellery had planned to meet with the AFL board this week. Of course he wouldn’t be successful in his bid to win the contract, but even so, Aidan had sent Ben back to Sydney already to get a read on the situation.

He should have taken everything Ellery had when he’d had the chance and he still didn’t have a handle on why he hadn’t. The old restlessness that had been with him more and more lately was back and he felt like he was trudging through a swamp as he made his way back to the bungalow.

Would Cara still be there?

After she had pushed him away yesterday afternoon he hadn’t seen her. Last night she’d claimed to have had a headache and couldn’t accompany him to the conference dinner. This morning she’d still been in bed when he’d left.

Sometime during the closing session he’d come up with the crazy notion of taking Cara home with him to Sydney but then sanity had prevailed and he’d discounted that. Now, if she was still here, he’d offer her the chance to stay on another few days.

He knew she didn’t have to be back in London until the end of the week, and given that she had to stay out of trouble to win the contract she seemed to desperately want, this was the best place for her.

Here, or with him.

A top-of-the-line sailboat caught his eye and he tried to recall the last time he’d been out on one. A memory stirred of him and three university mates pooling their resources and hiring a cabin cruiser for an hour around Sydney Harbour to impress their respective dates. Hell, had it really been that long? No. He’d been out on his corporate yacht many times since then. All on business … all entertaining key clients and political figures.

The cruiser he’d hired with his mates had been about fun. They’d laughed, drank beer, hell, he’d even danced! He shook his head. No one would expect him to do that now. Now he was a man who wore suits on a tropical island and allowed himself ten minutes for dinner if he wasn’t entertaining a colleague or a woman as a precursor to sex.

When had his life evolved to this round robin of preordained events? And was that healthy? It was one thing to have focus, quite another to be obsessed with that focus. Automatically his mind fell to Martin Ellery and the thirst for revenge he had carried around inside of himself for so long. Cara’s words about forgiveness came back to haunt him. Would she have carried around a bag of hate inside her heart as big as a hot-air balloon as he had? Would she have gone after Martin Ellery with the precise determination to ruin his life? Would she have made it her primary goal to be bigger, better and stronger than someone else just to beat them? He doubted it.

But he had. He’d pursued Ellery because it gave him a higher purpose.

Yeah, some higher purpose that was. God, he could be a sanctimonious bastard when he wanted to be.

An image of Cara at the lunch table came into his mind. She was a graceful and natural hostess and it was clear she liked people. Accepted people for who they were despite the deep scars he sensed had been left behind by the combined abandonment of her parents. Picturing her as a young girl craving a morsel of her father’s affection made something heavy settle behind his chest. Something that made his hands clench tight. He hated to think that she had been hurt, that she was still hurt….

She was soft, he knew that now. Too soft, in some ways. And she was looking for love. For what Ben and Kate shared. But Ben and Kate were the exception, not the rule. And Aidan had seen firsthand what happened to a man when he chose love and it went wrong. It blinded him. Weakened him.

He stopped just as he reached the end of the path leading to their private bungalow. Cara was leaning on the deck and staring out at the ocean. Aidan’s eyes followed her line of vision and he saw a row of surfers in the line-up for the incoming waves.

It was an epic day. The waves were big and clean and sucking out into perfectly formed barrels. His palms itched to get out there. To cast his concerns aside for a moment and just be.