Then she took a step closer, this time purposely invading his personal space. He dug his toes into his shoes to stop himself from pulling away from the rush of her body heat colliding with his.
‘This is your lucky day,’ she said. ‘Because I am here for a holiday, not to be caught out in my bikini for next month’s Chic magazine gossip pages. This is my first real vacation in a little over two years, and I need it. I really do. So for the next few days I have every intention of having a fun time with my friends. Right here.’
She pointed at the dirt and looked up at him, daring him not to believe her. But even though she appeared to be the very picture of candour, he had too much at stake to care.
‘And your friends—?’
‘Exist entirely independently of me.’
It was not an ideal answer, but he’d done all he could do without holding her down and forcing her to give him her oath in blood. He said, ‘Then I bid you have a wonderful stay for the remainder of the week.’
She nodded. And when she finally took a slow step back he felt as though a set of claws was unwinding from his shirtfront. The waft of hot summer air that slid into the new space between them felt cool. Cooler at least than the remnant reminder of her body heat.
She started to walk away, talking back to him as though expecting him to follow. ‘You know, there is something you could do to make sure my stay is wonderful.’
Negotiation? This he could do with far more panache than stand-over tactics. In three long strides he was back at her side. ‘What’s that?’
‘The mini-fridge in my room is stocked with nothing but bottled water. I’d re-e-eally like you to add some chocolate to the menu. And coffee. I’m not fussy. Instant’s fine. Not you personally, of course. You still have to catch up to the group ahead to survey them as to why they’re here and to wish them all a nice stay too. They are already about a kilometre ahead of you so you’ll have to run your little heart out to catch them up.’
And then Zach laughed, the sound echoing down the unoccupied tunnel ahead. Well, that was the very last thing he’d expected he might do after he’d first answered his phone that morning.
While her forehead frowned, her mouth curved into a smile. A smile with no artifice or strategy. A smile that reminded him of one she had aimed at him while he’d been standing in the shade of the gum trees awaiting his moment to strike. A smile that even from that distance he’d recognised as being loaded with pure, feminine summons.
He swallowed the last of his laughter and cleared his throat before saying, ‘If you had read the brochure you might have discovered that this here’s a health resort.’
‘So that’s a no?’ she asked.
‘Unfortunately, that’s an absolute no.’
‘Oh, well. I guess it never hurts to just ask nicely. Right?’
The hint in her tone—that he might have caught more flies with honey—was as subtle as a sledgehammer, but by the time he realised it she’d lifted her feet and jogged off along the trail, her dark curls swinging, the small muscles of her thighs and calves contracting with each charmingly wonky step. If she made it back to the main house before lunch he’d be very much surprised.
Zach slid his mobile phone from his pocket, called the resort’s manager and asked him to contact the wellness facilitators to send someone to escort her back to the resort.
He flicked to his inbox. No new messages. No more missed calls. His frown lines deepened so severely he wasn’t sure they’d ever fully recover.
Then he turned tail and ran in the opposite direction.
He concentrated hard on the whump whump whump of his feet slapping against the compacted dirt. Better that than let himself get caught up in that earlier moment of unmistakable invitation. Or the lingering spark.
He pushed himself harder. Faster. Till sweat dripped into his eyes. It didn’t help.
Maybe if she’d lived down to his expectations and been the ditzy powder puff he’d fully assumed she’d be, that’d be the end of that. Instead he couldn’t let go of the fact that despite her reputation she’d been out there at six in the morning with no entourage, no make-up, no airs and graces, no expectation of special treatment.
A woman who hid a sharp tongue behind her soft lips. A woman whose wickedly intelligent eyes could make lesser men forget themselves.
Zach pushed till his muscles burned.
Forgetting himself was not an option. It would mean forgetting a little girl who had no one else left in the world to protect her bar him.
His daughter. A daughter only a handful of trusted people even knew about.
No one else could know. Not yet. Not now.
She was so very young. Her life so recently upheaved. It was all he could do to keep her safe.
To do that he had to keep her from those in the media who would carelessly make bold, loud assumptions about her future before she ever had the chance to find her footing in the present.
He knew full well how even the most innocent of comments at that age could influence how one thought about oneself. He’d met more than one person in a position of power who’d taken some kind of sick pleasure in telling a lonely orphan kid that he was nobody and would grow up to be even less. Decades on he still remembered each and every one.
He’d never forgive himself if that happened to her because of her relationship to him. And that meant keeping her identity concealed from those for whom Meg Kelly was their most prolific source of sustenance.
Eyes on the horizon, he ran until his shins ached, his heels felt like rock, and his body was drenched in thirty-five-degree sweat.
He ran until the ugly faces from his past became a blur.
He ran until it no longer mattered how long he’d now been in lock-down in this middle-of-nowhere place trying to make his round life fit into a square hole.
He ran until he was too exhausted to be concerned that he was trying to be a father when, having never had one himself, he had no real clue what the word meant.
He ran until he could no longer quite remember the exact mix of colours it took to make up the most bewitching pair of feminine blue eyes he’d ever be likely to see.
CHAPTER THREE
POST-BREAKFAST, post long hot shower, make-up done, hair coiffed, and changed into a vintage pink designer sundress—the exact kind of body armour she’d have preferred to have been wearing when meeting the likes of Zach Jones—Meg’s skin still felt all zingy.
Not good zingy either. Uncomfortable zingy. Miffed zingy. It didn’t take any kind of genius to know it was all his fault.
Standing in front of Waratah House she held the resort map in front of her, turning it left ninety degrees, then right. Rylie and Tabitha thought she was taking a nap, as they were. All the zinging made that absolutely impossible, so
