Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionai)

chapter Two



Sandy leaned over and touched Megan's forearm. "Are you okay?"

Megan nodded, not trusting herself to speak. All the times she had imagined seeing Jake again, all the elaborate fantasies she had entertained were nothing compared to the reality.

He slid over on the bench, making room for a flirtatious blonde with more than music on her mind. Pain, hot as the blade of a knife, sliced through her. She hated that girl for her easy grace, her laughing eyes, the fact that she sat next to the only man Megan had ever loved.

"He's gorgeous," Sandy breathed as Jake charmed the crowd gathered near the piano. "He has them eating out of his hand."

"He has that talent." Megan's voice was sharp. Clumsily she rose to her feet. "I'm leaving."

"Megan, you can't. It's early. If you don't like the music, we could--"

Things like this didn't happen in real life. Smart women didn't moon over their ex-husbands. And, even if they did, those ex-husbands didn't reappear one day out of nowhere as if conjured from a dream. She needed fresh air, anything to clear her head and snap her back to reality.

She pushed through the crowd near the doorway and stepped outside. The tropical breezes caressed her like a lover's touch, intensifying the painful surge of emotion inside her chest. The only sounds were the click of her high heels on the wooden deck as she made her way aft and the hum of the ship's engine as it cut through the water. Sea spray glistened on the railing. Stacked on the starboard side, white deck chairs made grey, ghostly shapes in the darkness.

She told herself he was a mirage, a trick of lighting, of years of wondering. Nothing more than a potent combination of brandy and loneliness. Tomorrow morning she would wake up and everything would be back to normal. Her body wouldn't ache for his. Her heart wouldn't still beat in synch with his heart. She'd be Megan McLean of The Moveable Feast, on her way to securing the future for her little girl.

Run, a small voice whispered. Nothing good comes of moonlight and stars and the smell of the sea.

But she stood at the railing.

And she waited.

"Don't do this to me, Jake." Her voice broke the stillness of the endless night. "Say something."

He stepped out of the shadows and her heart seemed to stop for an instant. This was no dream. He stood before her and she understood in the deepest recesses of her soul that the power he had over her was absolute. The sea might be calm but she was standing in the eye of a storm.

He was taller, broader than she remembered, so perfectly male in every way that she feared she would go up in flames simply from wanting him.

"It's been a long time, Megan." Her name on his lips triggered a flood of memories.

Open for me, Meggie...don't hold back....

"Still beautiful," he continued, his tone light.

"You sound disappointed."

"I don't mean to." His eyes traveled the length of her body. "Growing up agrees with you."

She bridled at his words. "You might like to try it someday."

He stepped closer. She held her ground, the light of defiance in her eyes.

"You saw me in there, didn't you, Megan."

She shrugged and he caught the scent of roses on her skin. "What if I did?"

"Did you think you could avoid me for the next week?"

"Five days," she corrected him. "I was willing to give it a try."

"The ship's not that big. Sooner or later we'd have to come together."

The double entendre in his words was not lost on either of them. She gathered her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and lifted her chin. Get hold of yourself! Don't let him know he still has that effect on you. She wasn't a girl any longer, naive and innocent and believing in forever-after. She was a woman who'd known heartache and loss. She was the mother of a small child, his child, and she'd kill before she let him break her daughter's heart the way her father had broken hers.



#



She was different somehow, Jake noted as he approached her, and it wasn't just the passage of time that had brought about the changes. At twenty-five she scarcely had to worry about lines and wrinkles. Her face was as smooth as he'd remembered; her luxuriant mane of auburn hair was as shiny and full as always.

But still there was something, some indefinable element that had changed. She seemed experienced, as if the world had touched her. Changed her in ways he didn't know, would never know. He found it hard to believe she'd spent the last six years in a convent. She was a sensual, vital woman. Thinking she had turned away from the physical side of life was unfair, unreasonable and exactly what he wanted to believe. She's not your wife any more, Lockwood. You have no hold on her. If she'd taken one lover or one hundred, it was no business of his.

"This has been wonderful," she said, her words clipped. "We must do it again." She heard the tremor in her voice and silently cursed the wild emotions tearing at her heart. There was something infinitely seductive about familiarity.

He blocked her escape. "This is a small ship. We can't avoid each other."

"We can try." He was so close to her that she felt the heat of his body. He still smelled of sunshine and spice. She hadn't expected that something so insignificant would be her undoing. She wanted to bury her face against his neck and--

She tried to push past him but he grabbed her wrist, his strong fingers easily encircling it.

"Why did you run away?"

"I needed some fresh air."

"You wanted to get away from me, didn't you? Admit it, Meggie."

"Don't call me Meggie," she snapped, regaining her composure. "Nobody calls me that."

"I always called you that."

"You don't have that right anymore." She met his eyes. "What are you doing here? Did you track me down?" Ridiculous though it sounded, she couldn't come up with a better explanation.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "What would you say if I told you I owned this ship?"

She started to laugh. "The truth never did stand in your way, did it, Jake."

"Too hard to believe I could make something of myself?"

Color flooded her cheeks and she blessed the darkness. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

"I saw you playing the piano, Jake. That's nothing to be ashamed of." Said in the precisely patronizing tones of a girl who couldn't believe she'd ever know such a person, much less have married him.

"About where you'd expect me to end up, isn't it, playing piano in a bar." There was an edge to his voice, a tone of defiance.

"This is a beautiful ship," she said, tilting her chin. "You could have done much worse."

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I could have."

The meaning of his words was clear and instantly she found her old rich-girl persona returning full force. She should thank him for it. "I'm so pleased you've found gainful employment," she said with a toss of her head. "If I remember correctly, that used to be a problem."

Not even the darkness could hide the look of anger in his eyes. "Want to see my resume, Meggie? You might find a few surprises."

"I've had enough surprises for one day, thank you." She felt giddy and disoriented, as if someone had taken her life and tilted it on its side. "Shouldn't you be getting back to your piano gig?"

"I'm finished for the night."

"Don't let me keep you then." She turned away from him, her heart pounding wildly inside her chest. She hadn't felt this exhilarated, this alive in years. The feeling was as dangerous as it was exciting and she wanted nothing more than to run as far away from him as she could get.

"So what are you doing here, Meggie? Hard to believe Daddy's sending you out to work."

She would rather die than let him know how much this cruise meant to her. "Oh, you know how it is," she said, her tone breezy. "Even debutantes are trying their hand in the job market."

"You're here to work?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised."

"You forget who you're talking to," Jake said. "I'm the guy who taught you to boil water."

"Well, believe it or not, I'm trying for a franchise with Tropicale and if you do anything to sabotage me, I'll--."

"Sabotage?" His expression darkened into a scowl. "What the hell kind of life are you leading these days? Why would I sabotage you?"

She'd cut too close to the bone with that statement, revealing much more than she'd ever intended. Her father's treachery had left scars too deep to share with anyone. Especially not with Jake. She looked at him, memorizing the strong jaw, the powerful shoulders, that sad look in his eyes against the time when he would once again be gone. He was as rootless, as insubstantial as the Caribbean breeze, a perfect lover but no husband at all, and she would be wise to remember that.

But, dear God, he was beautiful. A fine starburst of lines radiated from the outer corners of his eyes and shadowed his smile. He looked rougher than she'd remembered, more dangerous if possible.

That was the difference. He was a man now, not the wild boy she had loved during their marriage. For a moment, she allowed herself to forget the bitterness of their divorce and drink in the masculine splendor of his lean, tanned face. Her fingers ached to trace his high cheekbones, to glide across his mouth, to outline the stubborn angles of his jaw.

Life had been kind to him these six years past and for one fierce instant she despised him for all that she'd lost.



#



He saw the change in her instantly. Color rose to her cheeks and her eyes flashed with fire, but beneath the fire was a vulnerability that stopped him in his tracks. He'd seen that look in her eyes only one time before, when she lay beneath him as a girl on the brink of womanhood.

The level of tension between them escalated sharply and he was reminded of the sudden storm, turning the air electric with its power.

How could he have believed this encounter would be easy. He'd approached this first meeting confident that once he saw her and spoke to her, he'd realize she held no magic for him after all. Wrong, he thought, watching the play of starlight in her eyes. Not only was the magic still there, so was the pain and the anger and the whole messy, complicated history between them.

"Let's get a drink." They needed something else to occupy them, a civilized ritual to help contain the primitive emotions that threatened to veer out of control. "We can talk about old times."

"No, thank you."

The schoolmarm sound of her voice suddenly enraged him. "Grow up, Megan. If you're going to play the businesswoman game, at least play like an adult." They never had been very good at civilized rituals.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I've seen your kind before, playing worker bee while some poor lackey does all the dirty work back at the office."

Her look was scornful but there was something beneath the scorn that drew him closer.

"It's not like that?" he demanded. "You'll have to do some fast talking if you want me to buy that line."

"I don't give a damn what you buy," she snapped. "I know who I am and what I'm doing and I don't particularly care what you think about any of it."

"Spoken like the only daughter of Darrin McLean," he said with a harsh laugh. "I'll bet he's still spoiling his little princess and screwing his competition while they--"

"You bastard!" The sound of the slap bounced off the water and back at them. She began to tremble.

He grabbed her hand and held it fast. "Next time I hit back."

"Go to hell."

"Been there," he said. "Want to hear about it?"

She wanted to slap him again but knew better than to try it.

He glanced down at the ring finger of her left hand.

"I'm not married," she said, noticing the direction of his gaze. "Once was more than enough."

"Neither am I."

She arched a brow. "I don't recall asking."

"You wanted to, Megan." He was back on familiar ground again, teasing, questing, hunting. "Admit it. You're as curious about me as I am about you. It's been six years. A lot can happen to a person in six years."

"You flatter yourself."

"I don't think so." He stroked the inside of her wrist with his thumb. She didn't try to move away. "There's a lot of history between us."

"Ancient history," she said. "None of it matters."

"I think it does."

"And I think you're wrong."

"Like I said, six years is a long time."

"We made a mistake and we rectified it. What's the point in rehashing the past?"

"We didn't always fight," he reminded her. "Sometimes . . . "

He drew her into his arms. She held herself stiff as a hundred warning lights went off inside her brain. This was insane...dangerous...exciting. She caught the familiar scent of his skin, and her senses veered out of control. He cupped her chin with his hand then lowered his head toward hers.

"Don't say anything," he whispered. "Just let yourself go."

She uttered a soft moan as he ran his tongue slowly along her lips, then eased it into her mouth, exploring the softness within. The bitterness and anger of the past temporarily vanished as a liquid sweetness flooded through her body.

His hands snaked their way up her spine and plunged into her thick hair. His hips pressed against hers and she felt his rising excitement. Her fingers were spread flat on his chest and she slid them under the smooth cotton fabric of his shirt and ran them, palms down, over his thick mat of chest hair.

His kiss moved down the side of her throat, along the slender column, to her tanned shoulder. With seductive deliberation, he nudged her lacy shawl and she let it slither down to the floor of the deck.

His burning mouth branded her shoulder, then moved slowly, inevitably, to her breast.

She cradled his silky head in her hands. With her forefingers she traced the proud curve of his cheekbones and the stubborn line of his jaw. For a moment it was as if the past six years had never happened. She was nineteen again, on fire from within for the man who had stolen her heart. She grew acutely aware of her breasts, of the way her nipples grew taut as his lips moved closer. She was as warm as the tropical night and the warmth seemed to rise in waves around her, threatening to make her throw reason to the four winds.

His face was half in shadow and his sad eyes looked down into hers with a look she couldn't fathom. He couldn't hurt her any longer, so why not allow herself this one last pleasure?

Her breath caught when his fingers encircled her wrist again. His dark brows were drawn together in what looked like a scowl. She tried to pull her hand away but he held it fast.

"Jake, we can't--"

Her words turned into a muffled gasp as, with great deliberation, he separated and then kissed each one of her fingertips in turn. His mouth was hot. The scrape of his teeth against the sensitive pad of flesh made her nipples grow taut. The gesture was fiercely erotic and it pierced her heart, catapulting her back into another time when there was only she and Jake and a wonderful future stretching before them.

Tilting her head back, she looked up at him, trying to read the expression in his eyes. The wind had picked up, whipping her hair about her face, making it as tangled and wild as her emotions. She couldn't control the rush of unwanted desire burning its way through her body.

He pulled her slightly closer with an insistent hand against the small of her back. "It was always good between us, wasn't it, Megan? Always." The simple touch of his hand against the bare flesh of her spine made her tremble with wanting him.

"Yes," she whispered, unable to deny the truth. "It was always good."

Her breasts and hips molded themselves against his body with an urgency that frightened her. She forced herself to grow rigid in his arms. He was not going to draw her close to him the way he used to do. She was older now, and smarter. Oh, he could be charming, flashing that killer smile of his, moving his powerful body with the grace of a jungle predator. Given half a chance, he could charm her right back into his bed.

"Do you remember the first time?" His voice was molten gold.

She struggled to dispel the magic settling around them. "I'm not interested in the past, Jake. The future is what's important to me." Jenny's future, most of all. Dear God, she thought, don't let him find out about our daughter. She had no room for him in her life, no matter that her traitorous body said otherwise.

"It was our wedding night," he said, ignoring her protests. "They had a bucket of pink champagne on ice--"

"Pink champagne," she said with a soft laugh. "You're being kind. I doubt if a champagne grape had been anywhere near that bottle."

"So you do remember. I was beginning to wonder."

Damn him. He'd always been able to bend her to his will. "Is there a point to all this? We were wonderful in the bedroom and terrible in every other room in the house."

"There was more to our marriage than that."

"No, there wasn't. I never knew you, Jake, not really. You were as big a mystery to me then as you are now."

"I'm not the one who walked out on the marriage," he pointed out. "You were."

"I had good reason." And you let me go without a fight.

"I'm not arguing that, Meggie. What I'm saying is there's unfinished business between us."

She looked away, eyes drawn to the silvery wake the Sea Goddess left in its path. How could she argue the point when back home their daughter slept peacefully, hugging her favorite teddy bear to her chest, dreaming dreams that Megan was determined to make come true.

"Can you deny there's something between us, Meggie?" His voice was low, seductive...dangerous.

"No." She turned to face him. "I can't. But that doesn't mean we have to act on it."

"Maybe we should." He released her from his grip and her entire body yearned toward his. "Maybe that's the only way we can get rid of the past once and for all and get on with it." The perennial twinkle in his eyes turned darker, more intense.

"This isn't a pleasure trip for me," she said, her mind racing through endless winding corridors, looking for a way out. "I'm here to work."

"Sunday," he said. "Day after tomorrow. You'll be finished by four. After that, your time is yours."

Her eyebrows lifted. "You know about Sunday?"

"I know about everything."

She didn't doubt him. "You piano players get around."

He gave her one of those smiles that had buckled her knees back when she was young and naive. Unfortunately, that smile still worked now that she was older and wiser. "Sunday night," he said, brushing her cheek with his fingertips. "Ten o'clock." He kissed her quickly, his lips barely touching hers. Just enough to make the longing inside her grow stronger. "Right here."

"No matter what I decide?"

"No matter what you decide." The look in his eyes brooked no argument. "You owe me that much, Meggie."

She remembered the night she'd walked out on him. How she'd gone out of her way to avoid confrontation and questions and the whole unsavory business of breaking up a marriage. She hadn't known how to handle conflict or poverty or any of the thousand things that could go wrong between a husband and wife.

She simply hadn't understood that divorce only ended a marriage in the eyes of the law; it took much more than a piece of paper to convince the heart that it was over.