More Than a Convenient Marriage?

CHAPTER THREE

“WHY DIDN’T YOU let nature take its course with me?” Nic was still sizzling when he left the shower, deeply angered by Rowan’s remark. She was internally programmed to make flippant, provocative comments, so he shouldn’t give her the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him, but today she was under his skin more than ever—and he’d been fighting his attraction toward her since before it had even been sexual.

He paused in hitching a towel around his wet hips, thinking back to those early years when she’d been a nubile sprite, too young for any man let alone one sowing the wild oats of his early twenties. Even so, she’d flitted in and out of his awareness with irritating persistence. He’d been alternately fascinated and annoyed, drawn by her quick wit even while baffled at the way she took it for granted that everyone loved her—especially Olief.

He’d been perversely determined not to fall under her spell, too irritated by how easily everything came to her. At a similar age, Nic had spent his holidays haunting the empty rooms of his boarding school. Olief hadn’t wanted his wife to know about his indiscretion, so Nic hadn’t entered the man’s world until the woman had died and Cassandra had come on the scene. Her indiscretion had had an open invitation to spend school breaks in Olief’s house. As an afterthought Nic had been asked to join them, but he’d been traveling by then, shedding light on the world’s darkest injustices, inexplicably drawn into following Olief’s footsteps into hard-hitting news journalism.

When Nic had come to Rosedale after those stints abroad it hadn’t been for happy family time. In one way, at least, Olief had understood Nic. Olief had recognized Nic’s need to retreat somewhere remote and quiet because Olief had experienced a similar need himself when he’d done that sort of work. The island’s tranquility had kept Nic coming here, but the visits hadn’t been comfortable—not when Olief showered affection on Rowan and she dominated everyone’s attention.

Nic had done everything in his power to ignore and resist her, but she’d still managed to penetrate his shield. He was standing here because of her, wasn’t he? Veering from deep insult that she’d actually thought he would leave her to die to stark fear at how close a call she’d had. That near miss unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. He told himself it was its similarity to the other deaths that made his blood run cold, but on the heels of that thought came the recollection that his blood hadn’t stayed cold. He’d nearly let nature take its course in the form of raw, debaucherous lust.

His groin tightened in remembrance of the feel of her, the press of her hips.

Idiot. Revealing his weakness had been a mistake. He hadn’t meant to, but the cork had popped under the pressure of saving her from danger and finally, after two years of reimagining it, holding her.

Bloody hell—why did she have to feel tailor-made for his form? The perfect height. A slender yet curvaceous shape that could wrap around him without smothering his need for space and autonomy. Her breasts, as natural as God had made them, had crushed against his chest with nipples so hardened by the cold he’d felt them like pebbles through both their shirts. He clenched his fists, still longing to warm those tight peaks with his tongue until they were both hot all through.

Naked, and burningly aroused, he tilted back his head and struggled against the foe that had been stalking him for too long. He didn’t recall when the switch had happened. Sometime between hearing she’d been caught with a boy at school and seeing her climb from the pool at eighteen. Suddenly he’d been unable to ignore her, or the singe in his blood whenever he was around her.

Then she had turned twenty, drunk her way to the bottom of a champagne bottle and, with no other man in the vicinity, turned her wiles on him.

Nic had tried not to let temptation get the better of him. He’d at least gone to the beach to avoid her. She’d followed, determined to get her man.

Nic had rules. Drunk women were never on the menu, no matter how willing they appeared to be. She’d sidled up to him, though, and he’d succumbed to a moment of weakness. One kiss. One warning to a reckless young woman who needed a lesson in putting herself at a man’s mercy. One peek through the door into carnal paradise.

And Olief had seen it from the house. He hadn’t seen Nic push her away, hadn’t heard Nic read her the Riot Act. By the time Olief had reached the beach Rowan had been stumbling her way back to the house, and Nic had finally earned a hard-won moment of privacy with Olief.

It had been punctured by words Nic would never forget. “What are your intentions, Nic? Marriage?”

Olief’s appalled disbelief, sharp with disparagement, had cut through Nic. It had been more than Olief warning off an experienced man from what he considered an impressionable young woman, deluded as that judgment had been. There’d been a fleck of challenge—as if Olief couldn’t believe Nic would dare contemplate marrying into his family; as if he looked down on Nic for imagining it would be allowed. Nic wasn’t good enough to be acknowledged as his son. Did he really imagine Olief would accept him as a son-in-law? Where did he get the nerve even to consider it?

It had been worse than humiliating. It had been hurtful. To this day Nic suspected Rowan had set up the whole thing and he wanted to shake her for it.

And yet when he’d had his hands on her today he’d only wanted to feel more of her. He’d seen the glow of arousal seep under Rowan’s skin and that had been a fresh, sharp aphrodisiac. The volcano of lust pulsing in him refused to abate now he’d caught a glimpse of answering fire in her, hotter and more acutely aware than he’d ever seen it in her before. Damn it, she was—

What?

He opened his eyes but saw nothing, still blinded by hunger even as a shift occurred in his psyche. She wasn’t too young. Not anymore.

Off-limits? By whose standards? Olief’s? He was dead, and if he were alive to know how many men Rowan had had, he wouldn’t defend her as being inexperienced.

As to marriage—well, Nic didn’t want to marry anyone. Especially Rowan. He wanted to slake this hunger and move on with his life.

Nic winced, hearing his rationalizations for what they were, but craving was clawing in his chest, tearing through the walls of resistance he’d kept in place through years of encounters with her. Possibility opened before him with treacherous appeal. What was to stop him? Nothing. There was nothing to keep him from having her. Why shouldn’t he? She’d been throwing herself at him for years.

Nic shuddered with physical need and inner turmoil. He never acted on impulse, yet everything in him longed to hunt her down right now and take. He shook off wild yearning and reached for self-discipline. Cool logic. Self-respect. He loathed her. Coming to Rosedale wasn’t about giving in to an appetite he’d denied for years. It was about gaining what he really wanted: his rightful place as the head of Olief’s media conglomerate. Not because he was the man’s son, but because he’d earned it.

Nic shrugged into a light pullover and faded jeans, trying to ignore his unrelenting want for Rowan, searching for a clear mind while opportunity hung before him, refusing to be disregarded.

What a profound thorn in his vitals she was. She would never sign those papers if she thought she could string him along by torturing his libido.

His body aching with denial, he gathered his wet clothes and faced the inconvenience of Anna’s quitting. Doing the washing and other chores would be a good lesson for Rowan, he decided arrogantly. Perhaps he was looking to punish her after all. She had been tormenting him for years. He was entitled to payback. At the very least she’d learn this wasn’t rent-free accommodation.

He was framing exactly how he’d inform her of that when the bloody footprints in the upper hall stopped him cold.

* * *

Rowan jerked her head out of the shower spray. Nic?

“What the hell? Rowan!” His voice grew louder. The bathroom door opened and he was right there on the other side of the steamed glass, glaring like an angry drill sergeant.

Rowan squeaked in shock and turned her back on him, but she couldn’t ignore the fact she was stark naked in front of him. The underside of her skin began to warm even though she was still frozen at her core. She tensed her buttocks, aware her bottom was on blatant display. Since when did he even know which room she used?

Strategically hugging herself, she cried, “Get out of here!”

“What have you done? It looks like a crime scene out there!”

“Oh, did I stain the precious hardwood you’re planning to tear up? I’ll scrub it once I quit bleeding to death, I promise. Now, get out!”

The door slammed with firm disgust. She sniffed in disdain at his impossible standards and stared at hands that looked worse under the running water. They scorched with protest at the pummel of spray, but they had to be cleaned. Her feet were begging her to get off them, but her leg worried her most. Not the sting on her skin, which was acute enough to make her clench her back molars. No, there was a deeper pain that concerned her. All the walking today hadn’t helped. She was afraid to look but had to. No one else would.