Socialite's Gamble

‘No, no siblings,’ he’d said.

They’d been lying on the deck utterly exhausted after the scuba diving. Or at least she had been. ‘So what was it like where you grew up?’ she asked, rolling onto her side to look down at him.

‘Nothing special,’ he said, keeping his eyes closed.

Cara had felt his slight withdrawal and tried to tell herself that she had imagined it and asked why he didn’t like talking about his childhood.

‘I don’t mind.’ He’d said it casually, crossing one muscular arm over his face as if to shield his closed eyes from the overhead sun.

‘So did you grow up in a big house? A little house? Did you go to an expensive boys’ school or an expensive co-ed?’

‘No expensive school. I was a kid from the western suburbs before they became cashed up. Originally my dad was a tradie who started a free newspaper before they were popular and made a business out of it.’

‘Entrepreneurial,’ she’d said, brushing a few grains of sand that had stubbornly clung to the dark hair on his forearm. ‘Is that where you get your business brain from?’

‘Something like that.’ He’d lifted her hand and studied it. ‘My mother certainly appreciated the shift from blue-collar to white-collar and before you know it goodbye western suburbs and hello Rose Bay.’

‘You don’t sound like you liked the move very much.’

His fingers almost absently laced with hers and he stared at the overhead sky as if he’d never noticed it before and didn’t like what he was looking at. ‘A lot changed after that. My mother left.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Was it a bad break-up?’

He stared at their entwined fingers as if he didn’t understand how they had got like that. ‘It’s fine, Cara. I was old enough to handle it.’

Cara, too, studied her small, pale hand engulfed in his much larger one. ‘Do you still see her?’

‘No. She died in a car accident eighteen months ago. But I’ll tell you something.’ He stopped and rolled over so quickly Cara was on her back and blinking up at him before she’d even taken her next breath. ‘Boring conversation always makes me horny.’

She’d wanted to ask more, of course, but he’d already reached behind her and tilted her lower body into his and rational thought had been usurped by instant arousal.

It hadn’t been so much a sharing of information, she realised now, but more a man suffering through an inquisition.

It made her realise that he didn’t trust her as much as she trusted him and she’d wanted him to. She’d heard the bitterness in his voice when he mentioned his mother and she wondered if his mother leaving was one of the reasons he didn’t believe in long-term relationships. It would make sense. Especially if the break-up had been acrimonious, which she was almost certain it must have been.

And to know that his mother had died and he’d never see her again was so sad …

Deciding not to dwell on anything that could bring her mood down, Cara took one more glance at her reflection and headed out into the living room.

Aidan was already dressed. Denim jeans that hugged his strong thighs, a white open-necked shirt. His hair was slightly damp and his feet bare. He sat slouched in the deep sofa watching some sort of sports game on the TV and Cara’s mouth instantly dried. He was devastating and she thought it would take a hundred years of looking at him to maybe, just maybe, get used to the impact of his masculine presence.

His true blue eyes held hers for a second and then swept down over her figure. She felt more nervous than she could ever remember feeling and she did a little twirl to hide it. ‘How do I look?’

‘Stunning.’

‘My hair is brown,’ she said, more than a little self-conscious. ‘This is pretty close to my natural colour. In fact, if it were to grow out I doubt you’d see any difference.’

‘Stop worrying. You look incredible.’

‘You don’t think I look like a Stepford wife?’

Aidan laughed and unfolded from the sofa and came towards her. ‘No, I don’t.’

Cara could see his chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths and when he stopped in front of her his eyes locked on to her mouth. ‘Does that stuff smudge?’

‘It’s called lipstick.’ She laughed. ‘And yes, it will.’

‘Damn, then I’ll have to satisfy myself with your neck instead.’

Cara clutched his wide shoulders as he pulled her in close and bent to the raging pulse point in her neck. She moaned and her body turned boneless as she felt the hard ridge of him press against her. Would it always be like this? she thought, breathless. Would it always be so all-encompassing?