JustOneTaste (14 page)

A laugh burst out of her. What timing. Her father calling
her from the other side of the world right at this moment, when she was
considering…

“Should I put it on speaker for you?”

Heather’s tentative question made Sarah realize she hadn’t
moved away from the window. She hadn’t shifted her gaze from the horizon. “You
do that. Then please, go to lunch.” She turned around and smiled at her
secretary. She was probably beaming. “And thank you.”

Heather shrugged, the bemused smile on her face indicating
she wasn’t quite sure what she’d done. Then she pushed a button on the phone,
hung up the receiver and slipped out of the room.

“Sarah? What the devil is going on down there?” Her father’s
first demand vibrated through the office. “I hear there’s a delay with the
opening of the new Harry’s Nook. Unacceptable. I sent you down there to make
sure the schedule stayed tight. How could you let a pencil pusher from the
local council have any impact on…”

Sarah found herself tuning her father out. Experience had
taught her the best way to deal with his drill-sergeant voice was to remain
silent and let him rant. She waited for him to take a breath then jumped in.
“There will be no delay, I’m handling the council. A couple of T’s to cross,
I’s to dot, that’s all. The opening is still on schedule.”

“That’s not what I hear from Bilson.”

“Edward Bilson always overreacts. He doesn’t trust my
leadership because I’m a woman.”

“He tells me you’ve been disappearing from work. Canceling
meetings.”

Sarah bit back a curse. She’d been aware of Edward Bilson’s
attempts to undermine her with her father for a while but hearing how she’d
basically been tattled on made her see red. “I canceled two meetings, one
weekend.” The best, most romantic weekend of her life. Hell. Wasn’t she
entitled to a little romance? A burst of rebellion shot through her like
adrenaline. “I spent the weekend with a man, Dad. And I don’t regret a single
second of it.”

“Sarah!”

Sarah almost laughed. It took a lot to shock the tough-nut
Victor Harrington. “It’s called having a life, something I’ve denied myself too
long.”

The pause after her pronouncement thrummed with tension. At
length, Victor began, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Sarah, but I don’t
like—”

“Be quiet for a second, Dad. I need to talk to you—to really
talk to you. Promise me you’ll hear me out.”

Another long pause. Then her father’s gruff response. “All
right. You’ve got two minutes.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. Only her father would seek to time
his own daughter’s big life confessions. “It might take five—or even ten.
You’ll survive it, just listen.”

Now that she finally had the stage, Sarah wasn’t exactly sure
what to say. She sat on the window ledge, forming her thoughts for several
seconds that dragged interminably. When she heard the outer door to her office
suite open, she thought it was Heather returning for something she’d forgotten.
She wondered if she ought to pick up the phone receiver after all. Before she
could reach the desk, the door to her office burst open.

She blinked, yet the scene before her didn’t change. David
stood in the opening. He wore a dark suit, its shape emphasizing the breadth of
his shoulders and narrowness of his hips. He carried a rolled-up newspaper in
one hand. His dark gaze landed on her for a drawn-out moment, his intense focus
making Sarah’s heart stop.

Then a scowl drew his eyebrows together. He began striding
toward her.

Heart hammering, Sarah gaped. On the other side of the
world, her father sat silently waiting for her to continue speaking. Too
shocked by David’s sudden appearance, she couldn’t utter a single word to
either of them.

“Is this what you want, Sarah?” He brandished the newspaper.
With a glance, Sarah noted that it was folded with the picture of her and
Richard Abercrombie facing outward. She returned her attention to David’s
thunderous expression. “You want a guy who can put on a suit and perform for
the cameras? You should have said so. I used to do the business thing, I
haven’t forgotten how to kiss corporate butt. And I scrub up all right in a
suit.”

He held his arms wide, a gesture compelling her to take in
his appearance from head to toe. The Australians had such an endearing way of
understating things.
Scrub up all right indeed.
He was beyond
devastating in that dark jacket, his crisp white shirt offsetting the sleek
blue tie beautifully. The civilized outfit didn’t entirely conceal the wealth
of primal masculine strength in his physique. He was, in a word, incredible.

“I can take you to any damn dinner or cocktail party or
charity-auction wankfest you want. Unless you really want
this
guy.” He
waved the paper at her again before slamming it down on her desk. “Tell me,
would you rather have
him
kiss you—or would you rather have this?”

Before she could guess what he intended, David grasped her
shoulders and yanked her toward him so her breasts crushed to the solid wall of
his chest. Then he took her mouth, his kiss savage, dominating. Sarah’s
response was instinctual—a moan of surrender coupled with the immediate parting
of her lips so he could delve past them with his tongue. Need, sheer sexual
need, mingled with a powerful sense of rightness, of belonging. This was
right
.
He was right.

David was The One.

All too quickly, he wrenched his mouth from hers. Still
grasping her shoulders, he stared into her face. “Did his kiss make you respond
like that?”

Breathless, Sarah could only shake her head.

“You don’t want him.” The statement was full of snarling
satisfaction. “You want
me
. You want someone who makes you come alive,
someone who makes your toes curl when he kisses you, who makes love to you so
thoroughly you forget everything else. I can handle anything your life throws
at me, Sarah. Your status, your father—who frankly sounds like a bastard who
should get a friggin’ clue and butt out of your life—your money—”

“Ah, David.” Finally locating her voice, Sarah tried to
interrupt his diatribe.

But David pushed on. Relentless. Determined. “I don’t want
to hear your excuses anymore, Sarah. You pushed me away not because you didn’t
think we could work out our differences. You did it because you were afraid.
Afraid you were wrong about me, that your instinct to trust me is wrong. It
isn’t, lady. I will
never
hurt you like those other men did. I would
never take money over you. I will sign any bloody document to that effect, that
your overbearing father and his legal cronies want to draw up—”

Uh-oh.
“David, really. Stop.”

“I won’t touch a cent of your money. All I want is you.” His
gaze was so intense, the passion in his eyes hit Sarah like a jolt of pure
espresso. He meant every word. All he wanted was her. Just her, Sarah. Not the
money, not the prestige of the Harrington name.

And she wanted him. Only David.

Sarah reached a hand up and caressed his cheek. It was
smooth and he smelled like woodsy cologne. Even in a fury like he had been,
he’d taken the time to shave and put on a suit, to prove to her he could adapt
to her life. That he could take a place in it.

But Sarah didn’t want that. She wanted the both of them to
make a new life together.

She let out a shaky sigh and touched her cheek to his. “Oh,
David.”

“Sarah.” He drew her close so she fit snugly against his solid
frame. “Give us a chance. I can spend some time here in the city, you can come
to Windy Valley whenever you can. We’ll talk and laugh and make love by the
fire all night. I’ll whisper sweet, dirty things in your ear until you beg me
to—”

The sound of a throat being loudly cleared cut off the rest
of David’s sentence. He drew back, his brow furrowing. “What was that?”

Her father drawled, “That was the overbearing bastard.”

At David’s confounded look, Sarah pointed to the phone on
her desk, wincing. “I was on speakerphone with my dad when you came in.”

Sarah might have laughed at the pure mortification on
David’s face if she didn’t feel so bad for him. His face actually flushed red.

From the desk, her father’s disembodied voice, laced with
displeasure, growled, “Is this what you wanted me to hear, Sarah?”

She showed David a bemused smile. “Not exactly.”

David’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “So he heard
all that?”

“I heard enough,” came Victor’s gruff reply.

“Oh shit,” David groaned. “I feel like I’m in a particularly
upsetting episode of
Charlie’s Angels
.”

“What I want to know,” Victor went on, “is if you meant
everything you said.”

Pushing out a sigh that visibly rid him of his
embarrassment, David stared deep into Sarah’s eyes. He cupped her face with a
tender hand. “I meant every word. Sarah is the love of my life and I’ll do
whatever it takes to be with her.”

“Then I guess I should set my legal cronies on to drawing up
that contract you spoke of.”

“No!” Extracting herself from David’s embrace, Sarah shot
toward the desk and spoke directly into the speaker. All the better for her
father to hear every last word she had to say. “David was right, Dad. You
meddle far too much in my life. I’m making decisions for myself this time, and
I choose David.”

“You do?”

Sarah turned to meet David’s questioning expression. She
smiled, knowing he must be able to see the glisten of tears. David had called
her the love of his life. She’d never thought she’d be so lucky. “I do. I’ve
missed you. I’ve missed Windy Valley. I want to go back.”

“Now wait just a second, Sarah—”

“Dad, please.” Sarah spoke to her father but she never took
her eyes off David. “It’s time I tried to make myself happy. David makes me
happy, and I love him.”

Her father spoke on, about mistakes she’d made in the past
and the need for caution. Sarah only half listened. She could barely hear
anything over the thundering of her heart as David walked toward her. Slowly,
steadily, as if they had all the time in the world now. The wetness of tears
made tracks on her cheeks, ruining her makeup no doubt. She did nothing to wipe
them away.

Gripping the solidity of the desk behind her so the weakness
in her knees wouldn’t have her falling in a heap at David’s feet, Sarah waited
for a pause in her father’s lecture. Then she suggested, “Offer him money,
Dad.”

“What?”

Her focus still fixed on David, she said, “Offer him…a
million dollars.”

His lips quirking, David stuck up his thumb and lifted it.
Sarah took the hint. “No, offer him five million.”

Finally standing in front of her once more, David lifted a
hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. He was smiling so lovingly Sarah
didn’t want to take her attention off him for a second. His eyes were as soft
as velvet. “Come on, love, let’s go for broke. Make it a cool ten.”

A laugh bubbled up from her chest until Sarah found herself
giggling like a schoolgirl. “Offer him ten million dollars. He won’t take it.”

David shook his head. “Don’t want it.”

Sarah beamed. “He wants me.”

He growled. “Bloody oath, I do.”

Then he swooped in and kissed her. Sarah threw her arms
around his neck, kissing him back for all she was worth, kissing him and
pressing herself to him as if she wanted to become a part of him and believing
for the first time that it might actually happen. She could be a part of David
and he, in return, would be a part of her.

When another pointed throat clearing emanated from the
speakerphone, Sarah forced herself to break away and deal with her father.
Knowing at last that she had David’s love and support, she had the confidence
to put her thoughts plainly. “By the way, Dad, I think I’m quitting.”

“
What?
”

“Taking a leave of absence at least—but not until after the
opening, I promise.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me, girl?”

“I’m sure I’m throwing a wrench in the works but I have to
do this. For myself.” She gazed at David and whispered, “For us.”

David couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t stuffed everything up
for good with his impulsive He-Man act. But unbelievably, Sarah stood before
him, her eyes misty with tears and her confessions still thrumming between them
like the sweetest music.

She wanted to be with him. She loved him.

But after Sarah managed to end the phone call with her
spluttering-in-disbelief father and she turned back to kiss him again, David
pressed two fingers to her lips. “Perhaps you shouldn’t quit your job.”

“Why not? I hate it.”

“I don’t want you giving up everything for me. I was wrong
before to expect any relationship between us to require you to travel to see me
all the time. That’s what this was all about. I can come to you.”

“And give up the winery? No way.”

“I wouldn’t have to give it up. I could hire a manager,
maybe come away with you on some of the business trips you go on. All I want is
to be with you, Sarah. Under any terms.”

“No, David.” Sarah smiled softly. “You love the vineyard and
so do I. You belong there.”

David sighed. She was right. He’d never felt more at home
anywhere else than he did at Windy Valley. But his offer had also been genuine.
Seeing Sarah in the paper, her lips pressed to those of another man, had made
him see sense. Or made him desperate. Either way, he was willing to do anything
to ensure his were the only lips she kissed from now on.

He rubbed his hands in circles over her back. “What about
you? Where do you belong?”

Sarah tilted her head to the side and gave him that look,
the one that told him she’d made up her mind about something and there was no
changing it. “I belong with you.”

Then she kissed him and David was lost. He groaned into her
mouth and pulled her roughly against him. The adrenaline of the morning still
pumped its remnants through his system, mingling with the desire Sarah’s kiss
generated. He was so hard he was throbbing. With a little shift of her hips,
Sarah let him know she was aware of it too.