Powerful and Proud: Beneath the Veil of Paradise / In the Heat of the Spotlight / His Brand of Passion

CHAPTER TWO

‘MORE private?’ Millie’s voice rose in a screech as she stared at him, two angry blotches of colour appearing high on her cheeks. He should be annoyed by now, Chase mused. He should be way past annoyed. The woman was a nutcase. Or at least very high-maintenance. But he wasn’t annoyed, not remotely. He’d enjoyed their little exchange, liked that she gave as good as she got. And he was intrigued by something underneath that hard gloss—something real and deep and alive. He just wasn’t sure what it was, or what he wanted to do with it.

But first, dinner. ‘Relax. I’m not about to about to abduct you, as interesting as that possibility may be.’

‘Not funny.’

She held herself completely rigid, her face still flushed with anger. He’d had no idea his change of dinner plans would provoke such a reaction—no; he had. Of course he had. He just hadn’t realised he’d enjoy it so much. Underneath the overly ironed blouse her chest rose and fell in agitated breaths, making him suspect all that creaseless cotton hid some slender but interesting curves. ‘You’re right, it’s not funny,’ he agreed with as much genuine contrition as he could muster. ‘We barely know each other, and I didn’t intend to make you feel vulnerable.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘We’re not on some mandatory course for creating a safe work environment, Chase. You can skip the PC double-speak.’

He laughed, loving it. Loving that she didn’t play games, not even innocent ones. ‘OK. Fine. By more private, I meant a room in the resort. Chaperoned by wait staff and totally safe. If you’re feeling, you know, threatened.’

‘I have not felt threatened by you for an instant,’ Millie replied, and Chase leaned forward.

‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked softly, knowing he was pressing her in ways she didn’t want to be pressed. He’d seen that shadow of vulnerability in her eyes, felt the sudden, chilly withdrawal as her armour went up. He knew the tactics because he’d used them himself.

It’s not good news, Chase. I’m sorry.

Hell, yeah, he’d used them.

She stared at him for a moment, held his gaze long enough so he could see the warm brown of her eyes. Yes, warm. Like dark honey or rum, and the only warm thing about her. So far.

‘Threatened is the wrong word,’ she finally said, and from the starkness of her tone he knew she was speaking in total truth. ‘You do make me uncomfortable, though.’

‘Do I?’

She gave him a thin-lipped smile. ‘I don’t think anyone likes being told that it’s obvious she eats a bowl of cereal by the sink for dinner.’

Ouch. Put like that, he realised it was insulting. ‘I wouldn’t say obvious.’ Although he sort of would.

‘Only because you’re so perceptive, I suppose?’ she shot back, and he grinned.

‘So shall we go somewhere more private so you can continue to be uncomfortable?’

‘What an appealing proposition.’

‘It appeals to me,’ he said truthfully, and she gave a little shake of her head.

‘Honestly? What do you see in me?’ She sounded curious, but also that thing he dreaded: vulnerable. She really didn’t know the answer, and hell if he did either.

‘What do you see in me?’ he asked back.

She chewed her lip, her eyes shadowing once more. ‘You made me laugh for the first time in—a long time.’

He had the strange feeling she’d been about to give him a specific number. Since when? ‘That’s a lot of pressure.’

Her eyes widened, flaring with warmth again. ‘Why?’

‘Because of course now I have to make you laugh again.’

And for a second he thought he might get a laugh right then and there, and something rose in his chest, an airy bubble of hope and happiness that made absolutely no sense. Still he felt it, rising him high and dizzily higher even though he didn’t move. He grinned. Again, simply because he couldn’t help it.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not that easy.’

‘This conversation just took a very interesting turn.’

‘I meant laughing,’ she protested, and then she did laugh, one ridiculously un-ladylike hiccup of joy that had her clapping her hand over her mouth.

‘There it is,’ Chase said softly. He felt a deep and strangely primal satisfaction, the kind he usually only felt when he’d nailed an architectural design. He’d made her laugh. Twice.

She stared at him, her hand still clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide, warm and soft—if eyes could even be considered soft. Chase felt a stirring deep inside—low down, yes, he felt that basic attraction, but something else. Something not quite so low down and far more alarming, caused by this hard woman with the soft eyes.

‘You changed the deal,’ she told him, dropping her hand, all businesslike and brisk again. ‘You said dinner here, in the restaurant.’

‘I did not,’ Chase countered swiftly. ‘You just didn’t read the fine print.’

He thought she might laugh again, but she didn’t. He had a feeling she suppressed it, didn’t want to give him the power of making her laugh three times. And it did feel like power, heady and addictive. He wanted more.

‘I don’t remember signing,’ she said. ‘And verbal agreements aren’t legally binding.’

He leaned back in his chair, amazed at how alive he felt. How invigorated. He hadn’t felt this kind of dazzling, creative energy in months. Eight months and six days, to be precise.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘You can go.’ He felt his heart thud at the thought that she might actually rise from the table and walk down the beach out of his life. Yet he also knew he had to level the playing field. She needed to be here because she wanted to be here, and she had to admit it. He didn’t know why it was so important; he just felt it—that gut instinct that told him something was going on here that was more than a meal.

She chewed her lip again and he could tell by the little worry marks in its lush fullness—her lips were another soft part of her—that this was a habit. Her lashes swept downwards, hiding her eyes, but he could still read her. Easily.

She wanted to walk, but she also didn’t, and that was aggravating her to no end.

She looked up, eyes clear and wide once more, any emotion safely hidden. ‘Fine. We’ll go somewhere more private.’ And, without waiting for him, she rose from the table.

Chase rose too, anticipation firing through him. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking forward to—just being with her, or something else? She was so not his type, and yet he couldn’t deny that deep jolt of awareness, the flash of lust. And not just a flash, not just lust either. She attracted and intrigued him on too many levels.

Smiling, he rose from the table and led the way out of the beach-side bar and towards the resort.

* * *

Millie followed Chase into the resort, the soaring space cool and dim compared to the beach. She felt neither cool nor dim; everything inside her was light and heat. It scared her, feeling this. Wanting him. Because, yes, she knew she wanted him. Not just desire, simple attraction, a biological response or scientific law. Want.

She hadn’t touched a man in two years. Longer, really, because she couldn’t actually remember the last time she and Rob had made love. It had bothered her at first, the not knowing. She’d lain in bed night after endless nights scouring her brain for a fragment of a memory. Something to remind her of how she’d lain sated and happy in her husband’s arms. She hadn’t come up with anything, because it had been too long.

Now it wasn’t the past that was holding her in thrall; it was the present. The future. Just what did she want to happen tonight?

‘This way,’ Chase murmured, and Millie followed him into a lift. The space was big enough, all wood-panelled luxury, but it still felt airless and small. He was still only wearing board shorts. Was he going to spend the whole evening shirtless? Could she stand it?

Millie cleared her throat, the sound seeming as loud as a gunshot, and Chase gave her a lazy sideways smile. He knew what she was thinking. Feeling. Knew, with that awful arrogance, that she was attracted to him even if she didn’t like it. And she didn’t like it, although she couldn’t really say why.

It had been two years. Surely it was time to move on, to accept and heal and go forward?

She shook her head, impatient with herself. Dinner with someone like Chase was not going forward. If anything, it was going backwards, because he was too much like Rob. He was, Millie thought, more like Rob than Rob himself. He was her husband as her husband had always wanted to be: powerful, rich, commanding. He was Rob on steroids.

Exactly what she didn’t want.

‘Slow down there, Millie.’

Her gaze snapped to his, saw the remnant of that lazy smile. ‘What—?’

‘Your mind is going a mile a minute. I can practically see the smoke coming out of your ears.’

She frowned, wanting to deny it. ‘It’s just dinner.’

Chase said nothing, but his smile deepened. Millie felt a weird, shivery sensation straight through her bones that he wasn’t responding because he didn’t agree with her. It wasn’t just dinner. It was something else, something scary.

But what?

‘Here we are.’ The lift doors swooshed open and Chase led her down a corridor and then out onto a terrace. A private terrace. They were completely alone, no wait staff in sight.

Millie didn’t feel vulnerable, threatened or scared. No, she felt terrified. What was she doing here? Why had she agreed to dinner with this irritating and intriguing man? And why did she feel that jolt of electric awareness, that kick of excitement, every time she so much as looked at him? She felt more alive now than she had since Rob’s death, maybe even since before that—a long time before that.

She walked slowly to the railing and laid one hand on the wrought-iron, still warm from the now-sinking sun. The vivid sunset had slipped into a twilit indigo, the sea a dark, tranquil mirror beneath.

‘We missed the best part,’ Chase murmured, coming to stand next to her.

‘Do you think so?’ Millie kept her gaze on the darkening sky. ‘This part is more beautiful to me.’

Chase cocked his head, and Millie turned to see his speculative gaze slide over her. ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,’ he said, and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Millie felt as if he’d just dusted her with sparks, jabbed her with little jolts of electricity. Her cheek and ear throbbed, her physical response so intense it felt almost painful.

Did he feel it? Could it be possible that he reacted to her the way she did to him? The thought short-circuited her brain. It was quite literally mind-blowing.

She turned away from him, back to the sunset. ‘Everybody likes the vibrant colours of a sunset,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. ‘All that magenta and orange—gorgeous but gaudy, like an old broad with too much make-up.’

‘I’ll agree with you that the moment after is more your style. Understated elegance. Quiet sophistication.’

‘And which do you prefer? The moment before or after?’

Chase didn’t answer, and Millie felt as if the very air had suddenly become heavy with expectation. It filled her lungs, weighed them down; she was breathless.

‘Before,’ he finally said. ‘Then there’s always something to look forward to.’

Millie didn’t think they were talking about sunsets any more. She glanced at Chase and saw him staring pensively at the sky, now deepening to black. The sun and all its gaudy traces had disappeared completely.

‘So tell me,’ she said, turning away from the railing, ‘how did you arrange a private terrace so quickly? Or do you keep one reserved on standby, just in case you meet a woman?’

He laughed, a rich, throaty chuckle. This man enjoyed life. It shouldn’t surprise her; she’d labelled him a hedonist straight off. Yet she didn’t feel prissily judgmental of that enjoyment right now. She felt—yes, she really did—jealous.

‘Full disclosure?’

‘Always.’

He reached for a blue button-down shirt that had been laid on one of the chairs. He’d thought of everything, and possessed the power to see it done. Millie watched him button up his shirt with long, lean fingers, the gloriously sculpted muscles of his chest disappearing under the crisp cotton.

‘My family owns this resort.’

She jerked her rather admiring gaze from the vicinity of his chest to his face. ‘Ah.’ There was, she knew, a wealth of understanding in that single syllable. So, architect and trust-fund baby. She’d suspected something like that. He had the assurance that came only from growing up rich and entitled. She should be relieved; she wanted him to be what she’d thought he was, absolutely no more and maybe even less. So why, gazing at him now, did she feel the tiniest bit disappointed, like he’d let her down?

Like she actually wanted him to be different?

‘Yes. Ah.’ He smiled wryly, and she had a feeling he’d guessed her entire thought process, not for the first time this evening.

‘That must be handy.’

‘It has its benefits.’ He spoke neutrally, without the usual flippant lightness and Millie felt a little dart of curiosity. For the first time Chase looked tense, his jaw a little bunched, his expression a little set. He didn’t smile as he pulled out a chair for her at the cozy table for two and flickered with candlelight in the twilit darkness.

Millie’s mind was, as usual, working overtime. ‘The Bryant family owns this resort.’

‘Bingo.’

‘My company manages their assets.’ That was how she’d ended up here, waiting out her week of enforced holiday, indolent luxury. Jack had suggested it.

‘And you have a rule about mixing business with pleasure?’

‘The point is moot. I don’t handle their account.’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He spoke with an edge she hadn’t heard since she’d met him. Clearly his family and its wealth raised his hackles.

‘So you’re one of the Bryants,’ she said, knowing instinctively such a remark would annoy him. ‘Which one?’

‘You know my family?’

‘Who doesn’t?’ The Bryants littered the New York tabloids and society pages, not that she read either. But you couldn’t so much as check your email without coming across a news blurb or scandalous headline. Had she read about Chase? Probably, if she’d paid attention to such things. There were three Bryant boys, as far as she remembered, and they were all players.

‘I’m the youngest son,’ Chase said tautly. He leaned back in his chair, deliberately relaxed in his body if not his voice. ‘My older brother Aaron runs the property arm of Bryant Enterprises. My middle brother Luke runs the retail.’

‘And you do your own thing.’

‘Yes.’

That dart of curiosity sharpened into a direct stab. Why didn’t Chase work for the family company? ‘There’s no Bryant Architecture, is there?’

His mouth thinned. ‘Definitely not.’

‘So what made you leave the family fold?’

‘We’re getting personal, then?’

‘Are we?’

‘Why did you throw out your canvas?’

Startled, she stared at him, saw his sly, silky little smile. ‘I asked you first.’

‘I don’t like taking orders. And you?’

‘I don’t like painting.’

He stared at her; she stared back. A stand-off. So she wasn’t the only one with secrets. ‘Interesting,’ he finally mused. He poured them both sparkling water. ‘You don’t like painting, but you decided to drag all that paraphernalia to the beach and set up your little artist’s studio right there on the sand?’

She shrugged. ‘I used to like it, when I was younger.’ A lot younger and definitely less jaded. ‘I thought I might like to try it again.’

‘What changed your mind?’

Another shrug. She could talk about this. This didn’t have to be personal or revealing. She wouldn’t let it be. ‘I just wasn’t feeling it.’

‘You don’t seem like the type to rely on feelings.’

She smiled thinly. ‘Still typecasting me, Chase?’

He laughed, an admitted defeat. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s OK. I play to type.’

‘On purpose.’

She eyed him uneasily. Perhaps this was personal after all. And definitely revealing. ‘Maybe.’

‘Which means you aren’t what you seem,’ Chase said softly, ‘are you?’

‘I’m exactly what I seem.’ She sounded defensive. Great.

‘You want to be exactly what you seem,’ he clarified. ‘Which is why you play it that way.’

She felt a lick of anger, which was better than the dizzying combination of terror and lust he’d been stirring up inside her. ‘What did you do, dust off your psychology textbook?’

He laughed and held up his hands. ‘Guilty. I’m bored on this holiday, what can I say?’

And, just like that, he’d defused the tension that had been thickening in the air, tightening inside her. Yet Millie could not escape the feeling—the certainty—that he’d chosen to do it, that he’d backed off because he’d wanted to, not because of what she wanted.

One person at this table was calling the shots and it wasn’t her.

‘So.’ She breathed through her nose, trying to hide the fact that her heart was beating hard. She wanted to take a big, dizzying gulp of air, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t. ‘If you’re so bored, why are you on holiday?’

‘Doctor’s orders.’

She blinked, not sure if he was joking. ‘How’s that?’

‘The stress was getting to me.’

He didn’t look stressed. He looked infuriatingly relaxed, arrogantly in control. ‘The holiday must be working.’

‘Seems to be.’ He sounded insouciant, yet deliberately so. He was hiding something, Millie thought. She’d tried to strike that note of breeziness too many times not to recognise its falseness.

‘So are we actually going to eat?’ He hadn’t pressed her, so she wouldn’t press him. Another deal, this one silently made.

‘Your wish is my command.’

Within seconds a waiter appeared at the table with a tray of food. Millie watched as he ladled freshly grilled snapper in lime juice and coconut rice on her plate. It smelled heavenly.

She waited until he’d served Chase and departed once more before saying dryly, ‘Nice service. Being one of the Bryant boys has its perks, it seems.’

‘Sometimes.’ Again that even tone.

‘Are you staying at the resort?’

‘I have my own villa.’ He stressed the ‘own’ only a little, but Millie guessed it was a sore point. Had he worked for what he had? He was probably too proud to tell her. She wouldn’t ask.

She took a bite of her fish. It tasted heavenly too, an explosion of tart and tender on her tongue. She swallowed and saw Chase looking at her. Just looking, no deliberate, heavy-lidded languor, and yet she felt her body respond, like an antenna tuned to some cerebral frequency. Everything jumped to alert, came alive.

It had been so long.

She took another bite.

‘So why are you on holiday, Millie?’

Why did the way he said her name sound intimate? She swallowed the fish. ‘Doctor’s orders.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, no. Boss’s. I haven’t taken any holiday in a while.’

‘How long?’

That bite of fish seemed to lodge in her chest, its exquisite tenderness now as tough as old leather. Finally, with an audible and embarrassing gulp, she managed, ‘Two years.’

Chase cocked his head and continued just looking. How much did he see? ‘That’s a long time,’ he finally said, and she nodded.