Kimberley thought about her cousin, with whom she’d chatted long into the night about her designs and the materials she worked with and her fledgling business in Port Douglas. They had so much in common. And how could she dispute Sonya’s claim? “I want to disagree on principle,” she said after a moment, “but Danielle is so warm and lovely and talented and smart. She is a credit to her upbringing. You must be very proud.”
“I am, but it’s not only my doing, Kim. Did she tell you that Howard helped her with the capital to set up her business?”
“Yes, she did.” But Kimberley couldn’t help thinking there must have been something in it for Howard.
“He would have done the same for you,” her aunt said gently, “if you’d stayed.”
“I never wanted my own business.”
“Then he would have advanced you at Blackstone’s, the same as he’s done with Ryan and Ric. He loved you, Kim. Whatever else he may have done, whatever you hold against him, never forget that.”
There was so much heart in Sonya’s delivery, so much conviction, that Kimberley longed to believe her. Who didn’t yearn for their parents’ love? But Howard had too many strikes against him and the acrimony of their last encounter still burned in her stomach. He’d done nothing honourable, nothing to earn back the love he’d crushed like a worthless bug ten years before. And nothing in his attempted reconciliation suggested it meant anything to him beyond vengeance against the Hammonds.
Some of that resentment must have shown in her face because Sonya continued with the same earnest intensity. “I remember when you were born and Ursula told me how overjoyed he was to have a daughter. He chose your name, you know.”
“After the location of his mining leases?” she asked.
“Honey, you know that’s not the reason. When you came kicking and screaming into the world a week early—January twenty-sixth, Australia Day—he wanted a significant name, something fitting to mark our national holiday. He chose Kimberley because it’s his favourite part of Australia, because of the region’s natural beauty, and also because it is home to so many treasures. That’s you, Kim. You were always his treasure. Don’t ever forget that.”
Early Saturday morning, the pilot’s body was pulled from the water and AusSAR started making noises about calling off the search for survivors. Prepared for this eventuality, they had a team on standby to continue the search for the wreckage on the seabed. But Ric hadn’t expected it this soon. Until now he’d managed to harness his impatience and frustration, but all morning he’d been on the phone to every official contact he could find or make, only to be quoted policies and procedures until he ached to shove them back down officialdom’s collective throats.
He tossed the phone onto the armoire and dragged a weary hand over his face. He needed a shave. He needed sleep, too, not the restless minutes of shut-eye that were interrupted too soon by another phone call, another worried executive needing reassurance, another headline about the company’s future to repudiate.
The spread of papers across the table he’d commandeered as a desk in the top-floor living room of the Vaucluse mansion told the tale. It had gotten worse, even more swiftly and viciously than he’d predicted two days earlier, and it wasn’t all about scandal. Today’s business pages speculated over who would lead the billion-dollar business and hinted at the possibility of a power struggle.
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