She had been nine years old when her mother had died after a riding accident, and forever afterwards Ranulph Bouvier hadn’t known what to do with his fast-developing, much too adventurous daughter. Her life had become a series of expensive boarding schools and, during the holidays, trips abroad with whatever grudging member of his staff he could pay to accompany her. What she had wanted—needed—was her father’s love and affection, but he was always too busy, too preoccupied to give her any time. Instead he had indulged her to the nth degree. Fast cars. Jewellery. Clothes. And, of course, holidays. She had had it all, but unfortunately, Shannon thought sadly, it wasn’t enough. She would have forfeited all the trappings of her father’s wealth for a loving and harmonious relationship with him—to be able to talk to him about her dreams and aspirations, have her opinions taken seriously—but Ranulph Bouvier wasn’t the sort of man who would listen to anyone.
Perhaps it was his refusal to accept that she wanted to do something more worthwhile with her life than simply support a suitable husband, as her mother had, that had set her on that course of single-minded rebellion. The all-night parties. The publicity. The questionable company. At the time it had seemed to fulfil a need for the love and attention that was missing from her life; a need to be noticed. But the fulfilment was superficial and short-lived, like every relationship she tried to form with any of the men who pursued her. And as her disillusionment grew, so did her father’s disapproval. He didn’t like the way she was behaving: her inability to stick with one boyfriend, the adverse publicity she was courting. Didn’t she know she was making a fool of herself? Developing the worst possible kind of reputation? But she couldn’t help it if every man she took an interest in just seemed to be after her money, her body, or both.
All except Kane Falconer, that was.
Replacing the towel on its gleaming rail, she moved back into the bedroom. The large bed with its plump pillows beckoned invitingly, and the blind at its porthole was pulled down against the fierce heat of the Spanish sun.
Perhaps she would do as he’d suggested, she thought, and lie down for a while. The problem in town was going to take some time to sort out and it would be ludicrous even considering going home until it was safe.
Subsiding onto the sumptuous bed, she tried not to think about where Kane slept when he was on board. Nevertheless, she couldn’t prevent him from intruding unsettlingly on her thoughts, just as he had been doing since she was seventeen.
She had been dangerously affected by the man from the moment she had first set eyes on him, the day she had called into the modern Bouvier office building and seen him sitting there behind her father’s desk, as if he belonged there.
He hadn’t looked up for a moment, but a moment was all it had taken for the full impact of those compelling good looks and that hard virility to print themselves forever on her consciousness.
Staring down at his groomed dark head, at the breadth of his shoulders beneath the sophisticated cut of his dark jacket, she had started fidgeting, a little irritated that he hadn’t noticed her. Everyone noticed her. She had been wearing a black silk suit that day with her hair swept up, and she could still remember how sensuously the low-cut jacket and trousers moved against her body.
He had looked up then, as though it had only just dawned on him that she was there—although she’d known that that wasn’t the case, that very little would get past a man like him—and, tall as she was herself in her four-inch heels, as he’d risen to his feet she had felt unusually eclipsed by his dominating height.
‘Kane Falconer.’ His voice was deep and sexy, and as he reached across the deck her irritation melted under the blaze of his smile. ‘The newest assignee to the board.’ The board of directors, that was, which gave him top-notch status. The fingers that clasped hers were warm and firm, their contact so overwhelming that she completely forgot her manners and failed to return the courtesy of an introduction, hearing herself stammering uncharacteristically instead, ‘W-where’s my father?’
‘Your…’ Clarity dawned in eyes that reminded her of a cool blue alpine lake beneath the thick sable of long lashes. ‘So you’re Jezebel,’ he remarked, with his mouth twitching at the corners, repeating the name that one of the newspapers had so detrimentally used to describe her.
Had she been older, perhaps she would have laughed about it, Shannon decided in retrospect. As it was, for all her confidence, she had been too insecure and already hopelessly ensnared by that hard dynamism of his to take such unprovoked criticism from him lightly.
Feigning nonchalance as a protective armour, she had murmured, ‘If you say so. Didn’t she flout convention and shame herself by wearing red to the ball when every other woman wore white?’ She remembered watching a video once of the old Hollywood film. And when the man behind the desk dipped his head in the subtlest acknowledgment, she’d continued, ‘Perhaps they should have named me Danielle,’ with a forced little laugh. ‘For daring to stand alone.’
’Daniel,’ he corrected, releasing her at last, ‘was a man. And he faced lions—which I would have said was far preferable to a gossip-hungry press. And you’re just a girl.’ He might have thought so, but in that moment when those cool eyes moved over the smooth length of her throat, touched on the swell of her pale breasts beneath the low-cut jacket, she grew up; knew that she had met her match and, with a throbbing recognition, her mate. ‘Doesn’t it hurt or bother you?’ he said. ‘What they’re printing?’
Of course it did, but let anyone know it and they would have won—torn her to pieces, she thought bitterly. So, with the slightest movement of her shoulder that unintentionally exposed more of her breast to that hard masculine gaze, she answered, ‘What? That I’m seen at every wild party from here to John O’Groats and that I change my boyfriends as often as I change my underwear?’ She couldn’t believe she was quoting such derogatory statements to him, not only because they were totally untrue, but also because she had never in her young life met a man on whom she had so instantly wanted—no, needed—to make a good impression. Nevertheless, she felt herself cringing as she shrugged again and said, ‘Why should it?’, knowing that she couldn’t have sounded less bothered—as he’d put it—if she’d tried.
‘It hurts your father.’ He rocked back on his heels, surveying her with narrowed eyes and a dark heat that startlingly she recognised as something other than anger; something basic and feral. ‘But perhaps that’s the intention.’
Even while reeling from the shock of a mutual sexual chemistry, Shannon felt the sting of his remark like a whip across her face. Who did this man think he was? What right did he have to speak to her like this when he didn’t even know her? When he didn’t know anything about her—or of her unhappy relationship with her father?
‘I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing here, Mr Falconer. But I don’t think my private life—or anyone else’s in this family—is any of your concern! Unless you think your duties include trying to take me in hand and dragging me back onto the straight and narrow—in which case I can tell you now, you’re wasting your time!’
He was moving some papers on the desk with those long, well-shaped hands, but glanced up, looking totally unperturbed by her outburst.
‘I’ve no intention of dragging you anywhere, Shannon.’ It was the first time he had spoken her name and, despite everything, hearing the way he said it in that deep, rich baritone voice made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. ‘Much as I wouldn’t balk at the challenge, I’m rather opposed to seeing my name in the tabloids.’
She walked out of the office that day with her head held high, yet close to tears, having completely forgotten why she had gone there in the first place.
After that she tried to avoid him, but, of course, it was impossible. Having struck a hit with Ranulph Bouvier from the outset, Kane was often invited to the house for dinner. Sometimes