Swept Away by the Venetian Millionaire

After all, it was the money Harper made from her meteoric rise in the field of corporate mediation that had allowed Lola to stay on in the wealthy coastal playground of Blue Moon Bay, to finish high school with her friends, to be in a position to meet someone like Grayson Chadwick in the first place.

And yet as Cormac watched her, those deep brown eyes of his unexpectedly direct, the tiny fissure he’d opened in Harper’s defences cracked wider.

If she was to get through the next five minutes, much less the next week, Cormac Wharton needed to know she wasn’t the same bleeding heart she’d been at school.

She could do this. For Harper played chicken for a living. And never flinched.

“You sure know a lot about planning a wedding, Cormac,” she crooned, watching for his reaction.

There! The tic of a muscle in his jaw. Though it was fast swallowed by a deep groove as he offered up a close-mouthed smile. “They don’t call me the best man around here for nothing. And since the maid of honour has been AWOL it’s been my honour to make sure Lola is looked after too.”

Oh, he was good.

But she was better.

She extended a smile of her own and placed a hand on her heart as she said, “Then please accept my thanks for playing cheerleader, leaning post, party planner and girlfriend until I was able to take up the mantle in person.”

Cormac’s mouth kicked into a deeper smile, the kind that came with eye crinkles.

That pesky little flutter flared in her belly. She clutched every muscle she could to suffocate it before it even had a chance to take a breath.

Then something wet and cold snuffled under Harper’s coat and pressed against the back of her knee. With a squeak, she spun on her heel to find Cormac’s beautiful dog standing behind her. Panting softly, tail wagging slowly, it looked at her with liquid brown eyes that reminded her very much of its owner.

She was surprised to find a soft, “Oh,” escape her mouth.

“Harper,” Cormac’s voice rumbled from far too close behind her, “meet Novak. Novak, this is Harper.”

“Novak?”

“After the great and glorious Kim.”

“The actress? From Vertigo?”

A beat, then, “One and the same.”

Spending more of her life in planes and hotels than her high-rise apartment, Harper didn’t see a lot of dogs these days, so wasn’t sure of the protocol. What could she do but wave? “Hello, Novak. Have we been ignoring you?”

Novak’s tail gave a quick wag before she sat on her haunches and—No. Surely not.

“Is she...smiling?” Harper asked. “It looks like she’s smiling. Can dogs even smile?”

She looked over her shoulder to find herself close enough to Cormac to count his lashes. There were millions of the things...long, plentiful as they framed those deep, molten-chocolate eyes.

When she didn’t look away, his eyes shifted slowly between hers, lingering a beat before shifting back. Then he smiled. Turning her thoughts to dandelion fluff.

Then suddenly he was leaning towards her, a waft of sea salt, of summer, tickling her nose. Then he leant down to grab a couple of her bags, hefting the long handles over his shoulders as if they weighed nothing, and the moment passed.

She reminded herself—stridently—that he might look like the boy she’d thought worthy of secret teenaged affections, but those affections had gone up in smoke when she’d discovered he had it in him to stick in the knife. And twist.

Harper grabbed the handles of her last couple of bags and took a discreet step away.

Not discreet enough, apparently, as Cormac’s cheek kicked into a knowing smile before he said, “Could you have brought any more baggage?”

Honey, you have no idea.

“Come on, then,” he said, and with that he crunched over the white gravel and up the huge front steps of the big house.

The impressive Georgian-look manor was the first house built on the bluff over Blue Moon Bay by Weston Chadwick’s father. When the next generation relocated the head office of their world-famous surf brand to the area, making the holiday estate their permanent home, the sleepy town had fast grown into a haven for wealthy families looking for a sea change.

Those who could keep up with the Chadwicks thrived. Those who couldn’t...