Mistress & a Million Dollars / Satin & A Scandalous Affair
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“Nothing of interest,” she said airily, but her heart was pounding in her chest.
“Oh, but I think there is,” he said, confirming her suspicions.
“Let it go, Jarrod. It’s nothing important.” And to prove it, she scooped a canapé off a tray as a waiter passed by.
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“Ahh, but I thought you were a property lawyer, not a judge.”
His lips began to twitch. “And you’re obstructing the course of justice, Briana.”
“Or guilty of contempt,” she mocked, then popped the canapé into her mouth, feeling pleased with herself.
He laughed out loud, taking her unawares. “I didn’t realize you had such a smart mouth.”
Because she’d never let him know it before, that’s why, she mused, chewing the delicate morsel. She’d never let him get close enough.
So why was she letting him get close now? More importantly, why was he trying to get close now, she wondered, watching as his gaze fell to her lips and darkened, as if he were thinking about kissing her. She quickly swallowed, then took another sip of champagne.
Just then, the sound of a helicopter rent through the air as it came close and swooped the yacht. Far too close for Briana’s piece of mind.
And obviously for Ric Perrini’s.
“Damn the media!” Ric growled, striding across the middle deck to look out the side window of the cruiser right near Briana. “Can’t they leave us in peace for one day?”
It broke the moment between her and Jarrod, for which she should have been grateful but wasn’t. Instead she kept remembering that gorgeous laugh of his. It sent shivers of desire down her spine.
“I’m already on it,” Kim said, coming over to her new husband and slipping her arm inside his. “The captain should be on the phone right now to the water police. They’ll sort it out.”
“They’d better,” Ric warned.
“Anyway, we have more immediate problems. The photographer’s about to have chickens if we don’t let him take some pictures of us with our guests.” She smiled at Briana and Jarrod. “You two will have your photo taken with us, won’t you?”
Briana’s fingers tightened around her glass. She knew it hadn’t been Kim’s intention, but even a small mention of her and Jarrod doing something together made her uncomfortable.
“Perhaps later, Kim,” Jarrod said with a tight smile, then excused himself and headed to where an older couple stood looking out the back of the cruiser.
There was a flash of disappointment in Kim’s eyes and Ric stiffened beside his wife, before she quickly gave his arm a squeeze. For all that Jarrod was here today, it was apparent Kim’s falling out with his brother was still an issue between the Hammonds and the Blackstones.
For the Hammonds anyway.
To cover the awkward moment, Briana pasted on her best smile for the new bride. “Hey, that’s all the more coverage for me then. You know how I love being in front of the camera.”
Kim smiled with gratitude. “Thanks,” she murmured, just as the photographer appeared.
Later, when everyone sat down to dinner, Sonya asked Briana how she managed to look so good in front of a camera when it was such hard work.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Briana said, smiling across the table at the other woman.
“I’d love to hear about it,” Sonya said, the warmth in her eyes belying her cool reserve.
Briana obligingly chatted about some of the more obvious facets of modeling, yet she knew they’d all be surprised if she told them the truth. She’d fallen into modeling as a teenager but much preferred being behind the camera than in front of it.
Perhaps one day after she’d made enough money to recoup the money Patrick had lost, she’d further her dream. Until then it really wasn’t such a hardship smiling for the camera or showcasing Blackstone jewelry. And it certainly wasn’t a hardship attending a Blackstone wedding like this one.
Except for Jarrod.
She groaned inwardly. Lately he was turning up everywhere she went. At the jewelry launch the other night she’d never felt so self-conscious being on show before, but seeing him there in the audience, feeling his eyes upon her, she felt as if she was showcasing herself, not the Blackstone jewelry.
And now here he was at the wedding, sitting next to Vincent Blackstone, the late Howard Blackstone’s older brother, deep in conversation. From time to time, though, his eyes were on her.
“You seem to be pretty cozy with Jarrod Hammond,” Jake murmured in her ear, startling her when she must have looked at Jarrod once too often.
Trying to appear nonchalant, she glanced at Jake and saw a very male look in his eyes that reminded her too much of Jarrod. This guy hadn’t missed a thing going on around him. No doubt such ability was part of the reason he was now a rich and successful businessman.
But at least he wasn’t the jealous type, she mused. “We’re distant in-laws, that’s all. Nothing special.”
“Really?” he mocked in an arrogant way that said she wasn’t fooling him.
“You know, Jake,” she said, getting a little irritated being surrounded by males who thought they knew everything. “I think all the testosterone on this boat must be keeping it afloat.”
A surprised look entered his eyes then he burst out laughing. For a moment she stared at him, then began to smile in return. It was quite funny, now she came to think about it.
“I’d have thought a beautiful woman like yourself would be used to being surrounded by testosterone,” Jake teased.
“In the modeling world?” she jokingly scoffed, and received a chuckle from Jake.
“No, I guess not,” he agreed with a rueful grin.
Suddenly she caught Jarrod looking at the two of them. A slither went over her skin and quickly she looked away just as the waiter brought the next course. Once the food was served, talk at the table turned to other things.
Briana deliberately didn’t look at Jarrod after that, preferring instead to concentrate on the speeches and proceedings, though she was aware of him. Afterward, dark descended and they all moved to the well-lit top deck where the bride and groom began their first dance. Before too long, others had joined them, including her and Jake.
As for Jarrod, he seemed to have disappeared. She remained on edge, at first expecting him to show up at any tick of the clock, but when he didn’t, she quickly pushed aside the disappointment that filled her. She wasn’t going to let herself be disappointed by a man again, she reminded herself, then promptly did the opposite when she saw the lights from a small boat moving away from the cruiser, taking Jarrod back to shore.
He hadn’t even said goodbye, she thought, then something on the shoreline caught her attention. Myriad lights began to flash as the small boat approached them.
The media.
Not that Jarrod would give them a second thought. No doubt he’d stride through the pack to a waiting car like he was parting the Red Sea.
After that the evening seemed flat. Briana smiled and talked, and when it came time for the yacht to return to shore, she was glad that the security people held back the media circus while they made their way into a fleet of cars.
Lights flashed in her eyes as Jake guided her into the back of a limousine, but the media’s attention soon focused back on Kim and Ric, who had insisted they would only leave the boat after all their guests had alighted.
“They’re a brave couple,” Jake said, shaking his head as a shower of flashes seemed to light up the night sky through the back window of the car.
“Yes,” Briana agreed. “And very determined to show the world a united front.”
His smile disappeared. “I can understand that.”
The limousine drove off but they didn’t talk much while it weaved through the streets of Sydney to her apartment building. Then Jake walked her to her door.
“I had a good time,” he said, moving in closer, pushing a strand of hair off her cheek.
Briana knew it was a prelude to a kiss and she moved in closer, too. Jake had kissed her before and it had always been nice, but tonight she suddenly wanted him to kiss her like he meant it. As if she was the only woman in the world he wanted.
Only, when the kiss finished, one thing was clear. Jake’s kiss had been just a kiss. And by the wry glint in his eye he knew it, too.
“I think you’d better get some sleep,” he said, tapping her on the end of her nose with his index finger. And then he pivoted and headed back to the elevator.
Briana watched him go with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Jake was an extremely handsome man who knew how to treat a woman right. And he knew how to kiss. It was just a pity she hadn’t felt anything when his lips were on hers. Not like she would if Jarrod Hammond had kissed her.
Of that she was certain.
Two
The next morning Briana caught a taxi to Quinn Everard’s office and left the diamonds with his office manager. Then, after another couple of days in Sydney, including lunching with her agent, she caught a plane back to Melbourne on the Wednesday, and drove to her father’s house to check on him first. Then she’d go home to her apartment on the other side of the city. She still had to prepare for the Moomba Fashion Show this coming Labor Day weekend at the casino.
So it was mid-afternoon by the time Briana parked in the driveway of the solid brick home that her parents bought when they’d moved to Melbourne from Sydney nearly thirty years ago. They’d never been rich but had been comfortable. Her mother had even insisted on sending her and Marise to one of the top private schools here in Melbourne, after a spinster aunt had left her some money.
Now, when Ray Davenport opened the front door to her, Briana noted with concern that her father was looking tired. He’d been through so much, having kept her mother’s secret of the cancer that ravaged her body, until the end, when her mother had become so ill he’d finally told their daughters she was dying.
“Want some coffee, honey?” he asked, walking ahead of her into the kitchen.
“Thanks, Dad. That would be lovely.” She followed him, noting the stoop to his shoulders. “By the way, I dropped those diamonds off for an appraisal.”
He looked over his shoulder with a frown. “Diamonds?”
“The ones Marise left in my safe.”
His face cleared. “Oh, that’s right. You found them in your safe after the plane crash, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Overcome with grief, she’d nearly forgotten Marise asking for the safe combination to keep some jewelry in there.
Briana had thought nothing of giving the combination to her sister. She’d also let Marise stay in her Sydney apartment once she and her father returned to Melbourne, after Barbara Davenport had been buried next to her own parents in Waverley Cemetery. It was then that Marise seemed to go off the rails, those last few weeks before the plane crash. Their mother’s death had devastated Marise, but for her sister to remain in Sydney had been unwarranted.
Especially after she’d started to be seen around town with Howard Blackstone.
Especially when she had a husband and a small son back in New Zealand waiting for her.
No wonder Matt had said he didn’t give a damn about any jewelry belonging to Marise. But she knew her brother-in-law wasn’t thinking straight, and that was part of the reason she’d decided to get them appraised. Perhaps if they were valuable they’d be worth keeping for Blake as a memento of his mother. Or maybe one day Matt would forgive his late wife and want the diamonds back. In the meantime, getting the diamonds valued was something she could do for her dead sister.
“So you’re getting them appraised, you say?” her father said now, bringing her back to the moment. Again she noticed he didn’t look well.
She stood in the kitchen doorway, her forehead creasing. “Dad, are you okay?”
A moment crept by.
“Dad?”
He looked up at her then, and there was a despairing look in his eyes that had her sucking in a sharp breath. “I’m a thief, Briana. I’ve stolen some money.”
The breath caught in her lungs. “Wh-what?”
“I stole from Howard Blackstone.”
She stared in astonishment. “My God! How much?”
He paused, then let out a shaky sigh. “One million dollars.”
* * *
Briana was still reeling from her father’s confession as she sat at the roulette table at the casino on Saturday evening. It had taken such an effort to keep her mind on the fashion show today, then again at the cocktail party this evening, but somehow she’d put a professional smile on her face. Afterward, not ready to go home to an empty apartment, she had stayed on.
It wasn’t every week a daughter learned her father had stolen a million dollars. And from a “secret” account he’d been told about while working as an accountant for one of Australia’s richest men thirty years ago, after Howard’s previous accountant had passed on that bit of information.
Nor was the reason her father had taken the money in the first place enough to stop Ray Davenport from going to jail. Medical expenses for his wife’s cancer, then a world cruise after a terminal diagnosis would garner immense sympathy, but in the end, the law would not condone embezzlement.
A lump wedged in her throat. With the newspapers continuing to report on the anonymous buy-up of Blackstone shares, she could just imagine how the media would hound her poor father, not to mention herself. They’d already gone through that after the plane crash. She didn’t want to go through it again.
Besides, it wouldn’t look good that her father had never forgiven Howard for firing Barbara when she’d become pregnant with Marise. Yet even after the Davenports had pulled up roots and moved from Sydney to Melbourne, the Blackstones had ended up an intrinsic part of their lives. In the latter years, Marise had worked for Blackstone Diamonds in sales and marketing, then Briana had found herself a model and the face of Blackstone Diamonds. And then Marise had been with Howard on the flight to New Zealand, and had died in the aftermath of the crash. It was crazy, but it was as if destiny had somehow wanted the Davenports and the Blackstones to keep a connection.
And how ironic that his supermodel daughter couldn’t help Ray out with money when he needed it. Her new million-dollar contract with Blackstone’s was due to be renewed in three months’ time, but nothing was ever certain until it was signed. Until then she had just enough to live on, thanks to her ex-business manager and lover, Patrick, who had convinced her to invest nearly all her money in an unbuilt apartment complex. It had sounded like a good investment at the time, until the developers had gone bust and she’d lost the lot.
She’d never told her parents about it, feeling like a sucker. They’d known she’d invested her money. They just hadn’t known she’d lost it.
All at once someone sat down on the seat beside her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She turned toward the man who suddenly and completely filled her vision.
“Jarrod!”
“Briana,” he murmured, his blue eyes trapping hers for a heart-stopping second.
She moistened her mouth even as she realized something. “You knew I’d be here, didn’t you?”
One brow rose. “Did I?”
“It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise,” she said, letting him know she wasn’t being hoodwinked.
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Her forehead creased. “You want to see me?”
“Oh yes,” he drawled, his gaze going over her long, blond wavy hair that tumbled around her head, before dipping to the creamy expanse of her neck and shoulders above the black cocktail dress, then further down and over the gathered bust held together by a diamond center clasp.
Her heart dropped to her toes but she managed a glare. “I meant that you wanted to talk to me?” she said, in no frame of mind to fend off his seduction.
He paused, his face turning unreadable now. “Yes.”
She waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t, she said, “Then talk.”
“Not here.” He got to his feet, his hand cupping her bare elbow, sending a warming shiver through her. “Come have a drink with me in the lounge.”
She looked up at him standing so close beside her, an air of command exuding from him, threatening to engulf her. She wanted to say no, but couldn’t think up a suitable excuse. “Just for a moment.”
Then she stood up too and his eyes approved the short, glamorous dress. Heat curled in her stomach, before he led her away from the crowds and into one of the lounges. It was quieter in here with plenty of small tables circled by large comfortable leather chairs.
He took her to some seats in a secluded corner that was much too intimate for Briana’s peace of mind, but when she saw some of the other patrons looking their way she was rather thankful no one could listen in on their conversation.
A waiter immediately came over to them, and she agreed to join Jarrod in a brandy. It would calm her nerves, she decided, watching him place their order, his self-confidence and sophistication an attraction many women would find appealing.
Dressed in dark trousers and a sports blazer with a white T-shirt underneath, he could have been a male model himself if there hadn’t been such a hard edge to him. Those blue eyes clearly showed that hardness, an arrogance that would never let anyone dictate to him, let alone a camera.
“No Jake Vance today?” he said once the waiter left.
“I gave him the day off,” she quipped.
The edges of that firm, sensual mouth tilted. “I doubt Jake would think of it that way.”
She doubted it, too, but she didn’t say so.
His smile disappeared and he fixed her with a candid gaze. “You and Jake are an item then?”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
He considered her for a moment, a pulse beating in his cheekbone. “The two of you were having a good laugh together at Kim’s wedding.”
For a moment she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she remembered her comment about testosterone keeping the boat afloat and a bubble of laughter rose in her throat.
His eyes narrowed. “So there is something going on between you two.”
She lost her amusement, not sure why he was being so insistent. “You wanted to talk,” she reminded him, crossing her legs, pretending this line of questioning wasn’t getting to her.
His eyes plunged to her legs in the ultrasheer silk stockings revealed by the ruffled hem, admired them, then rose back up to her face. “Are the two of you lovers?”
Her own eyes widened in dismay. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”
He held her gaze. “Tell me the truth, Briana.”
Panic stirred in her chest but she kept it at bay. “Why, Jarrod? Why do you want to know about Jake and me?”
“Because if he doesn’t want you, I do.”
Her head reeled back. “What?”
“I want you to be my lover,” he repeated firmly, leaving no doubt this time.
She gave him a glance of utter disbelief. “You can’t be serious!”
“You deny you want me, too?”
She swallowed past her suddenly dry throat, tried to speak and had to swallow again. “I can deny it and I do,” she lied, knowing she couldn’t admit wanting him. It would give him an unfair advantage over her. One he wouldn’t hesitate to use.
“Why sound so shocked? I’d have thought a woman like yourself—” he gave a tiny pause “—would be used to such propositions.”
Her blood pressure began to rise. “You mean because I’m a model?”
He inclined his dark head. “What other reason would there be?” he said silkily, as the waiter arrived with their brandy.
Her lips flattened with anger. At the wedding, Jarrod had made a similar comment about how far she’d come in the business. It hadn’t sounded like a compliment back then, and neither did this comment. Had he thought she’d slept her way to the top? It sickened her to think that, yet why she cared she didn’t know. It would serve him right if she called his bluff.
Why not?
“Okay, I’ll sleep with you,” she said, once the waiter left. “For a million dollars.”
His eyes flickered then became shuttered. “That can be arranged.”
Her brain stumbled. “What?”
He shot her a dry look. “Sleep with me and I’ll give you a million dollars.”
He’d well and truly called her bluff. “But—but you don’t have that kind of money to give away.”
His brows lifted. “You know that for a fact, do you?”
Oh heavens. Was she stupid or what? Apart from coming from a wealthy family, he’d made a name for himself as a property lawyer. Of course he’d have a million dollars to spare. What an idiot she was!
From somewhere she managed to scoff, “Ill-gotten gains, Jarrod?”
Contempt flashed in his eyes. “No. I’ll leave that to the Blackstones.”
“That’s my employer you’re talking about,” she said coolly.
“Doesn’t change a thing. The Blackstones are far from saints.” He picked up the two glasses and passed one to her. “Now, about our agreement—”
She took the brandy glass from him, but an acute sense of panic raced through her again. “Keep your money. I don’t want it. I—” She stopped.
She did need the money.
Needed it more than he could ever know.
“Having second thoughts?” he asked.
“No.” She took a sip of brandy, and wished her denial carried the same strength as the alcohol now burning her throat.
“We can always do with more money,” he pointed out, watching her as if knowing all along it would come back to this.
This being money.
Of course, she now realized that by even suggesting the million dollars she was playing into his belief that she was cut from the same cloth as her sister. Marise had said she’d fallen in love with Matt, but Briana suspected Matt’s wealth hadn’t hurt, either. And then there was Marise and Howard….
“A million dollars, Briana,” he reminded her.
No, she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t for sale.
Then she forced her heart to steady itself. What if she looked upon it as a loan, asked a small voice inside her. A loan she would pay back once her contract with Blackstones was renewed.
A million-dollar contract.
But if it wasn’t renewed? What if they got someone else to replace her as the face of Blackstone Diamonds?
What if—
No, she wouldn’t think about “what if’s”. Nor would she think about not repaying the money to him at all. It just wasn’t in her to be underhanded.
But could she make love to Jarrod Hammond?
Oh God. How much of a hardship would that really be? She was attracted to him, no doubt about it. Intensely attracted, if she were to be honest with herself. It wasn’t like she would be making a huge sacrifice and giving her body to someone who was revolting and wouldn’t appreciate her. Jarrod would definitely appreciate her. Oh yes. She didn’t know a man who would appreciate her better.
“Briana?”
She glanced at him then. He looked cool and calm, yet she sensed he was anything but. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him. So what harm would she do in sleeping with him? It wasn’t as though she would be doing anything against her will.
On the contrary…
“It’s a deal,” she heard herself say.
He scowled. “It is?”
“You don’t have the money?” she said with a rush of disappointment that was about more than just getting her father out of trouble.
His dark brows straightened. “I have it.” Just as quickly a considering light came into his eyes. “But now that I think of it,” he drawled, “a million dollars for one night is a bit too much money—even for the face of Blackstone’s.”
Her lips tightened. He’d been playing with her. “Fine. That’s it then.”
“No, I’d say it’s worth a month of nights together, don’t you?”
She stiffened in shock. “No! I can’t. A month is too long.”