You have to remember this is just temporary. She’d be at Jindalee most days, focusing on her business. She’d be with Cal only when he needed to show her off and make a good impression. He’d said so himself.
His own personal show pony.
With self-anger dogging her thoughts, she glanced away, back to the darkening sky.
Instead of taking a seat next to her, he sat on the couch directly across the coffee table, thankfully on the outer edges of her personal space. Yet anything short of another city was still way too close. He was simply too commanding to ignore, let alone be comfortable with. It was a combination of the dark, knowing look in his eyes, the sensual flow of his voice and the annoying memories that surged up to goosebump her skin.
She quickly returned her attention to the paper. “You started working for Victor at seventeen and now you’re a managing director. Did you…” she paused, mentally rephrasing the question. “You never felt the urge to start your own business?”
“VP Tech is my business.”
She remained silent at his cryptic statement until he elaborated with a small shrug. “I dropped out of school to work in Victor’s software development division. A few years later I had the idea for One-Click and Victor supplied technical staff and financial backing. Today we’re the only Australian company with integrated Internet, phone and software technology in the one office program. It brings in billions.”
After a brief second she changed gears. “What’s your mother like?”
His reply was instantaneous. “Loyal. Generous. Supportive.”
“And your stepfather?”
Cal paused, allowing himself the opportunity to study her features, the uptilted nose, the elegant sweep of her cheek. The way she looked genuinely interested in his answer. “Commanding. Immovable. Astute.”
“And he won’t figure out our newly engaged bliss is a front? Or are you planning to tell them the truth?” she said, her voice in complete control. Yet her eyes gave her away, deep pools of turmoil. Abruptly she glanced down, breaking contact.
“Are you worried about what people will think?” he asked slowly. The small crease between her eyes indicated he’d hit the truth.
“About what your parents will think, yes.”
Despite that ever-present distrust that lingered like an early morning fog, the air suddenly shifted, stirred by a gentle wave of something Cal didn’t want to explore, let alone acknowledge. Not even to himself.
He barely heard the catch in her breath, but he couldn’t miss the struggle etched in the gentle curves of her face. Shoving down that sliver of unfamiliar guilt, he instead focused on his purpose. He’d had one moment of weakness, and it was his responsibility to make it right. He’d learnt that from Victor. He didn’t welcome this deep, burning need to have her skin on his, to have her body hot and writhing beneath him.
Yet for the first time in months, he simply wanted.
He ground his teeth together. Christ. Now he was hard.
With a determined slant to his jaw, he refocused. Things with Ava were business. They had to be.
The silence stretched until the need to fill it with something, anything, became unbearable. Cal finally broke it.
“If they ask, you can just say we met over cocktails at the Shangri-La, kept in touch and met up again recently.”
“But isn’t a sudden engagement out of character for you?” she pressed.
“Trust me, they won’t ask. At least, my mother won’t.”
“And Victor?”
He paused, twirling the glass in his hand. “It’s none of his business whom I chose to marry. Let me handle him.” As his firm command lingered, their gazes clashed, one curious and bright, the other shadowed and dark.
Ava severed it and reached for her glass. “So we’re going to fake it.”
The unintentional double entendre curved his mouth. “That a problem?”
She looked discomforted by his scrutiny. “I’m not good at deception.”
Interesting. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage. Just think of the money.”
He could’ve kicked himself when an injured shadow passed over her face. But then she turned back to the view and it vanished.
What was with him? He preferred women who understood the demands of his lifestyle, women who were polished, sophisticated, who weren’t looking for promises or commitment. Women who could elegantly fake a parental inspection with ease. They’d graced magazines, television, catwalks. They met his needs sexually, socially and mentally, although not one woman had met them all.
But Ava…what was it about her and just her that compelled him?
Sure, she was a hot package. Their one encounter still haunted his memory. His eyes dipped to her neckline, to the silky material stretched taut across her breasts. Ava Reilly was also stubborn and proud, qualities that alternately fascinated and frustrated him.
Don’t forget she bargained her baby to save her business.
That should be enough to extinguish his craving, but inexplicably, it still simmered. And below that, an unfamiliar urge to know more about her, to unravel the pieces of what his brief report had missed, surged up.
“How long have you been at Jindalee?”
His sudden question snapped her gaze back to him.
“Pretty much my whole life.” At his frown she added, “Don’t you have all this in a report?”
“No.”
She held his gaze, as if trying to work out if he was telling the truth or not. Finally she gave a small sigh. “Jindalee used to be a sheep station, built by my father in the late forties.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty in December. My parents tried for ages to have kids, then they had two girls barely a year apart.” She clicked her mouth shut and looked away, indicating that line of questioning was closed.
He frowned. When they married, he’d get sole control of VP Tech, everything he’d ever wanted. He should be focusing on that and only that, not sharing intimate details of their lives. She was just a convenient means to that end. He’d done the right thing, the only thing by claiming his child. He didn’t need to know the intricacies of her past—just like she didn’t need to know about Victor’s ultimatum.
“So when is the happy day?” Ava said.
For a second, Cal remained wrapped up in his thoughts, in the remnants of anger still clinging to him like ethereal cobwebs. That anger was a constant confirmation never to fully trust anyone, never to let his guard down. But when he snapped his eyes to Ava’s, he felt those spidery webs slowly evaporate.
Quickly he gained control. “As soon as possible. How long does it take to organize a wedding?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Isn’t it something women always obsess about?”
She gave him a look. “Sorry, I missed the memo.”
She took a slow sip of her drink and his attention zeroed in on those cherry-painted lips as they met the rim of the glass, the small ripple under her smooth skin as she swallowed.
“Money’s no object,” Cal added with more calm than he felt. “If you want a particular place, a certain church—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He studied her with interest. “If you could get married anywhere, where would you choose?”