The buzzards hadn’t even waited for a body to be found before starting their nasty work, damn them.
He needed a break from those screaming headlines, and when he paced onto the patio, he found the perfect distraction.
Kimberley lounging on the pool deck.
That she wasn’t wearing a bikini was only a minor blip of disappointment because the sleek, black one-piece clung to her killer curves and exposed the tanned length of her legs as she settled on one of the loungers. Even more spectacular than the harbour view, he mused, leaning his hands against the railing and drinking in the sight.
She’d changed some over the years, growing into the sophisticated sexiness she’d only promised at twenty-one. Yet she’d lost none of the strong will. None of the firebrand that had snared his attention from the second they locked eyes across the Miramare dinner table ten years ago.
Watching her now whipped a new frustration through his veins—a resentment of every one of their years apart, of every barb aimed in vengeful anger, of the pride that prevented him from chasing her down and dragging her home where she belonged.
He didn’t allow the feeling to take hold. She was here now, and getting her to stay was a mission he could sink his teeth into, one that wouldn’t leave him floundering like this morning’s exercise in futility. Right on cue his phone buzzed again, but he gave it only a cursory glance as he strode through to the bedroom he’d barely used the past two nights.
He was taking a break. Alone with Kimberley. She’d been avoiding his company, or distancing him with a cool politeness he figured was for Sonya’s benefit. Ric preferred her sharp-tongued frankness, and alone on the pool deck he might just get a healthy dose.
If not, at least he’d get some exercise.
Swimming laps of the serene Miramare pool was a poor substitute for pounding through the Bondi surf. That was Ric’s exercise of preference. Pitting himself against the unpredictability of the ocean’s surge and pull every morning set him up for the volatility he faced at the rockface of business. He relished that challenge, in the water and in the workplace. Pity it had taken him this long, through too many dead-end disappointments, to realise he needed it in his woman, as well.
He turned up the tempo, churning the pool’s surface with the power of a sprinter’s strokes. Another lap, forging through his own wake, still wasn’t the challenge of open water, but it dispelled the last of the morning’s frustration and breathed life into his dulled senses.
He climbed from the water, those senses already honed on the only occupied piece of poolside furniture. She was reclining, but not relaxed. Even from a distance he could see the tension in her posture, in the slender fingers curled around the edges of her lounger.
He knew she’d see his presence as an intrusion. A small grin tugged at his mouth as he recalled the evening she’d arrived, when he’d intruded on her solitude up on the terrace. His grin stretched when he imagined her outrage when he—
Still dripping from the pool, he stopped beside her and shook his head like a wet dog.
Kim didn’t disappoint. With a gasp of shock she bolted upright and whipped off her water-dotted sunglasses. Her eyes fired with green sparks. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Perrini?”
He finished pulling a lounger right alongside hers and stretched out. “Drying off.”
Damn, it felt good to see that blaze in her eyes. And to smile, genuinely, for the first time in days. Being around her always made him feel alive…in all kinds of ways, he added, as she began drying her dark lenses on the nearest soft cloth.
Which happened to be the softest part of her swimsuit.
Ric took full, unapologetic advantage of the show, even after she noticed the downward drift of his gaze and stopped polishing. “Nice suit,” he said, meeting her eyes again. “I’m glad you packed it.”
“I borrowed it from Sonya.” She shoved the glasses back over her eyes, hiding the irritation in her expression although she didn’t bother keeping it from her voice. “She told me you were working.”
“I was.”
“I assumed she meant at your office.”
“I have a makeshift office upstairs,” he said casually, closing his eyes and feigning his own relaxation. “In the living room next to my bedroom.”
“Don’t you have a home to go to?”
“I do. At Bondi.”
She didn’t answer right away, but he sensed a change in her mood and felt her alert gaze on his face for several seconds before she asked, “The same one?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I thought you might have cashed it in,” she retorted. “Although if property values in the eastern suburbs are still on the rise, then I suppose it’s a smart investment.”
“That’s not why I kept it.”
“Why did you?”
Surprised she would ask such a leading question, he opened his eyes and turned to look at her. She’d pushed her glasses on top of her head, and her candid green gaze and the intimacy of lying side-by-side—as close as if they shared pillow talk—kicked him low and hard.
“Because I like living there.”
Something flitted across her expression and was gone before he could catch it. And when she replaced her sunglasses and rolled onto her back to stare up into the blue summer sky, he knew that moment of connection was gone. Even before she sniped, “If you like your home so much, why do you spend so much time here?”
“Ahh.”
Kimberley turned to glare at him through her designer lenses. “What is ahh supposed to mean?”
“Sonya mentioned you had problems with the ‘standing guard.’”
That comment she’d made at yesterday’s breakfast. She should have known he would hear about it. Not that she wouldn’t have said the same to his face, but she hated the thought of her words being repeated behind her back. “Do you and Sonya discuss me often?”
“Would it be much of a disappointment if I said no?”
Damn him and the dark silkiness of his voice. Damn him for coming down here parading his assets in those Daniel Craig swimmers. Damn her foolishness for watching those powerful assets rise from the water, for wanting to know about his house, for longing to say yes, I loved living there, too, even for such a short time. For that split second of yearning for a place they’d once been, a time they could never wish back. Too much had been said, too much unsaid, too many years had passed.
“No,” she said finally in answer to his question. “Not if it’s the truth.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched, broken only by the murmur of traffic from the streets far below and the mournful hoot of a distant ferry in the harbour. Kimberley closed her eyes but she couldn’t shut him out. She felt his narrowed gaze on her face. Dissecting her expression, divining for emotion.
Damn him.
She shoved her feet to the ground, but he stopped any further retreat with one mildly delivered comment. “Walking away again?”
“That’s a cheap shot,” she snapped over her shoulder.
“A fair observation, I’d say.” With a seriously distracting play of muscles across his abdomen, he pushed upright. “Care to tell me what’s really bugging you?”
Kimberley’s gaze snapped back to his knowing blue eyes. Oh, yes, he’d noticed her distraction. “Do you mean what’s