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 she’d snuck out.
‘Excuse me?’ she said to a passing couple. ‘Do you happen to know which way’s north?’
The gent pointed without even thinking. Amazing. Then his hand remained outstretched, his mouth agape even after she’d hit the bottom of the wide steps and was heading north towards the bulk of the resort, her ballet flats slapping against the stone path.
Her calves were so tight she winced with every step. The blisters on her heels stinging as if they were teaching her a lesson for not wearing high heels.
Message well and truly heard, she wasn’t going to push her luck by going the week without her beloved caffeine as well. She was going to find something sweet and dark and rich and bad for her if she had to hike down the mountain, flag a passing truck and barter her shoes for some at a local milk bar.
The fact that what she craved sounded a heck of a lot like Zach Jones only made her walk faster.
It really was the strangest thing. She was used to people bending over backwards to get her endorsement, to have her wear their product, mention their charity, look sideways at whatever they were touting. Not that she ever agreed unless it was something she’d advocate even without being asked.
Zach Jones, on the other hand, had all but suggested he’d really prefer it if she and her friends would just clear off. To Las Vegas, no less. As far, far away from his resort as possible seemed to be his main point.
Far, far away from him.
Yet there was no mistaking the zing of electricity when he’d touched her. No denying the way the tension vibrating throughout him had melted away when she’d made him laugh. No confusing the way he’d taken his time getting to know her body when she’d unthinkingly told him to take his fill.
And absolutely no doubting, whatever beef he had with her, it was very very personal.
She was nice, for Pete’s sake! She worked her backside off. She was kind to small animals. She gave everyone a fair go. Why shouldn’t she expect to be treated the same way?
It was as though the guy had been given a torch and a map pointing him right towards her Achilles heel—a terminal relic of a childhood spent doing whatever it took to get even a hint that her father cared. That heel couldn’t be soothed with antiseptic cream and Band-Aids.
‘Grrrrr!’ she shouted to the wide-open sky.
When she glanced down a group of guests in matching pale green Juniper Falls Rainforest Retreat brand tracksuits doing t’ai chi on a mound of grass were looking her way. From nowhere one of them pulled out a mobile phone and took her picture.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. It happened every day.
But being on holiday she’d been silly enough to let down her guard. Enter one tall, dark, handsome businessman and her usual cool had gone up in smoke. She had to pull herself together quick smart.
The kind of attention that followed a down-and-out It Girl was far worse than for one who went about her business with