Therese Beharrie – The Millionaire's Redemption (страница 3)
Even the after-effects of a bad relationship.
‘How about we start with an introduction?’
Her words were said a little breathlessly, and she cleared her throat. Nerves had replaced panic, and she glanced around. No one was paying attention to them. That helped.
‘Lily Newman—best friend to the bride-to-be.’ She offered a hand.
‘Jacques Brookes—brother of the groom-to-be.’
He took her hand and it was like touching the coals of a fire. It made her want to break the contact immediately, but he held on, shaking her hand slowly. The heat went up her arm, through her chest...
Before it could move any further she pulled her hand away. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, and folded her arms, constraining the hands that suddenly wanted more of the fire. ‘It probably would have been better if that had happened before the whole debacle inside.’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered with a sly smile. ‘It was much more interesting than the way I usually meet girls.’
‘I’m sure you must mean women, because clearly...’ She gestured to herself, and then flushed when she saw appreciation in his eyes.
But he only said, ‘Touché,’ and made her wonder why she’d said those words.
They’d made her sound sassier than she was. As if she was in his league. As if she was used to playing the cat-and-mouse game of flirtation. She almost laughed aloud at the prospect of being in any league.
No, she thought as she took in how effortlessly Jacques’s muscular body wore his suit. He was way too attractive to be interested in her. Someone who looked like him spent time with models and actresses—definitely not with women who had more than twenty-five per cent body fat.
She distracted herself by offering the explanation he’d asked for earlier. ‘Kyle’s my ex-fiancé—’
She broke off when he lifted a hand, and she saw that his ring finger was a little crooked.
‘The one who dumped him a month before the wedding?’
‘Yes.’
‘I always thought the woman who did that had some balls.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks.’
‘It doesn’t explain why you dated him in the first place.’
It was the same thing she’d asked herself when she’d realised how poorly he’d treated her. But that realisation had only come at the end—when she’d been forced to see the truth. She’d been blinded by how charming, how handsome he was at first. And at all the times when he’d switched it on again sporadically throughout their relationship.
But the simple truth was that the blinkers had been kept in place because he’d been interested in her. It had been intoxicating—until it hadn’t been. And then she’d found him with a naked woman and regained the gift of sight. It had grown clearer with each hour that had passed after she’d ended it. With each phone call Kyle had made. With each threat...
She was ashamed that she’d dated a bully—that she would have married him—just because she didn’t think enough of herself. She’d dealt with bullies her entire life—she should have known better. And then there was the guilt, the indignity of her actions after the break-up...
‘Some things you only realise with time,’ she finally answered Jacques.
‘Touché,’ he said again.
She watched him shift his weight from one leg to the other and frowned. The movement was so out of place for a man who clearly had an abundance of confidence. She thought of the conversation she’d overheard, wondered if what she saw was vulnerability, and felt it hit straight at her heart.
No! she commanded herself. She had her hands full with her own problems. Like the store she’d wanted all her life—had sold a piece of herself to start—which was failing. She needed to focus on fixing that—on fixing herself—before she could even think of getting involved with someone else’s problems.
And yet when she looked at the sexy man in front of her the resolutions that she’d thought were firmly in place seemed hazy.
‘Kyle didn’t seem to like you,’ Lily said to distract herself. ‘Why is that?’
Jacques moved closer, and the breeze brought his fresh-from-the-shower scent to her nose. Her insides wobbled as attraction flowed through her, but she chose to ignore it.
Or tried to.
‘We have history.’
Lily waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she said, ‘That’s all you’re going to tell me?’
He chuckled. ‘Apparently not.’
He leaned against the balcony’s railing.
‘Our families run in the same circles, so I’d met him a few times before Nathan started to work for him. Because I knew he was a—’ He looked at her, as though checking what her reaction would be, and then continued with a grin. ‘Because I knew he wasn’t a very nice person, I used to make a game out of stealing his dates.’
Her heart raced. ‘But you stopped?’
Something sparked in his eyes. ‘A while before you, yes. Unfortunately.’
Her face heated and she leaned against the railing as well, looking away from the view he was facing towards. She didn’t want him to see how uncomfortable he made her. And heaven only knew why she was staying there with him so that he could make her uncomfortable.
‘Why?’
‘Why did I stop?’
She nodded, and he sighed.
‘Because Nathan started working for Kyle’s firm. Because I stopped going to events he would be at.’
Jacques fell silent, and Lily wondered if he was remembering why he’d stopped going to those events. Had it been because he’d started playing rugby? Because he’d stopped? Had it been during the year after he’d stopped?
She folded her arms again when guilt nudged her at the way she’d got the information to wonder those things at all.
‘And,’ Jacques said after a while, ‘because I didn’t have time to deal with the punches he tried to throw at me.’
Surprise almost had her gasping. ‘Kyle tried to hit you?’
His lips curved and her pulse spiked.
‘Tried being the operative word. It was entertaining for me...painful for him, I imagine.’
‘You hit him back?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. I was defending myself.’
It took her a moment to process that, and then she laughed. ‘I would have paid to see that.’
He smiled. ‘You could still see it.’
She gave him a look. ‘I’m not actually going to pay you to hit my ex.’
Jacques laughed. ‘It wouldn’t cost you much if you wanted me to, but I wasn’t talking about that. I saw the way he looked at us when he heard we were together. He hated it. So I bet if you and I go into that party right now and pretend to be a couple for a while longer his reaction would pretty much be the same as a punch in the gut.’
She’d barely had enough time to consider his proposal before he’d pushed up from where he was leaning and moved closer to her, sliding an arm around her waist. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as she drew a quick breath. She watched his eyes lower to it. He only needed to dip his head—it was barely five centimetres away—and she would know if she could really feel that scar during a kiss...
He moved his mouth until it was next to her ear and whispered, ‘Kyle’s watching, so you might want to make that decision quickly.’
JACQUES COULDN’T DENY enjoying the way the woman he’d only just met shivered in his arms. Or the look her ex—a man he had a very low opinion of—was aiming at him. But those things were irrelevant to him at that moment. What was relevant was an opportunity to do just as his PR firm had advised. An opportunity that had just fallen into his lap, and would get him exactly what he wanted if he used it properly.
Lily shifted, reminding him that the opportunity wasn’t an it but a who.
‘If I say yes, will you let go of me?’
She asked it in a shaky tone, and he looked down into uncertain eyes. They became guarded a moment later, and he frowned, wondering where the spirit he’d admired earlier had gone.
‘I’ll let go of you regardless, Lily.’
He spoke softly, but forced his heart to harden. He couldn’t feel anything for her—including empathy. It would make using her a lot more difficult.
It sounded harsh, even to him, but he knew he would do it if it meant he could redeem himself from the mistakes he’d made in the past. He’d been trying to do that since he’d realised he was only proving people right—specifically his father—by acting the way he had during the year after his suspension.
The realisation had had him channelling the ‘I’ll do whatever it takes’ motto he’d been known for during his rugby days into building a sporting goods company. Into making it a success.