Princes of the Outback Bundle (38 page)

Oh, the scientist in her scoffed. The cynic sneered and the realist just shook her head and suggested she couldn’t afford a speeding ticket.

And when she pulled up outside the elegant facade of the Carlisle Grande Hotel, on the terra-cotta pavement under the gleaming stretch of awning, she still hadn’t shaken that unsettling anxiety from her body. It bugged her, the unaccustomed sense of nervous uncertainty, enough that she gave the throttle a half turn, amplifying the high-pitched roar for a few revs, before she turned off the engine.

A liveried doorman started toward them, his face a stern mask of disapproval, but then she saw him double-take. Alex had stepped from the bike and removed the helmet and jacket he’d borrowed from Carmel. The doorman dipped his hat and asked if everything was all right, sir, and various other staff lurked nearby, obviously awaiting instructions.

Alex lurked, too, obviously waiting for her to…what? Because of the broken stand, she couldn’t get off the bike but after a couple of seconds she did take off her helmet and shake out her hair. Hard to say goodbye through a Plexiglas visor.

Hard, too, to meet his eyes with her usual directness and to find the words to broach the awkward silence.

“It’s been—”
Was there an adjective to describe this last day?
“—interesting. You are not what I imagined, Alex Carlisle.”

His gaze slid over her, her bike, the helmet resting on the tank. Back to her eyes. “Likewise, Zara Lovett.”

Zara moistened her lips. Her fingers played over her hel
met, lifting and releasing the hinged visor, as she struggled over what to say. Goodbye seemed vastly inadequate, yet what else was there?

“I thought you would be ruthless and arrogant and full of yourself.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

For a second she stared back at him, knocked off balance by the impact of that question. Low, quiet, dangerous. “Last night,” she told him, recovering. Lifting her chin. “You know you could have had me.”

Heat flashed in his eyes. “I know.”

Behind them a car pulled up, a distraction, a reminder of where they were and a focus for her thoughts. There wasn’t any point extending this. There wasn’t anything to say. “Well, you have a fiancée to find and I have study to catch up on. I’d best get moving.”

But when she reached for her helmet, he put a hand on her shoulder. She felt the charge right through her leather. “I want to see you again. Is night the best time to call?”

“Don’t call,” she said quickly. “It’s pointless. You’re in Sydney and I’m in Melbourne. You want a wife and family. I don’t even have time to date. I’m not the woman you want, Alex.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Zara.”

And while she was still dealing with all the conflicting implications of that statement, his hand slid from her shoulder to cup her neck. Then he leaned down and kissed her.

Oh, man. He kissed her, and after the first shocked second of pressure from those unexpectedly cool, amazingly supple lips, she kissed him back.

The response was instant. Her brain shut down. Her complete sensory system quivered with pleasure.

Against the sensitive skin of her nape, his fingers moved
infinitesimally, their touch as soft as the finest silk, the effect a lightning streak of fire in her skin and her veins. Her nostrils flared, drawing in his scent. Not yesterday’s cologne but just the musky impression of man.

Not the filthy-rich tycoon, not the ruthless groom, just the man.

Dimly, that registered as significant. Dangerous. And then his tongue stroked her bottom lip and her whole body embraced the glorious idea of danger, heat,
him.
Starbursts of pleasure peppered her senses as she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss, as she silently acknowledged the overpowering sense of rightness that tightened in her chest, then unraveled in a swift silken flow of delight.

Then it was over, gone, a shift of air against her heated face and the blare of a horn from the street. She’d been completely lost in that kiss, and yet she wasn’t surprised. Some part of her had known they would be like this together.

His hand slid from her nape to cup her cheek for a moment, and he looked right into her eyes.

“I do want you, Zara. Make no mistake about that.”

“We can’t always have what we want,” she said softly and a muscle ticked in his cheek.

“I know that.” He straightened, and as his hand slipped from her face, she felt an intense sense of loss. It wasn’t only the breaking of that physical bond, but the sudden grimness she saw in his eyes.

Then he turned and was striding away before she could say the one word she’d been so intent on saying.

Goodbye.

N
ot having his hands on something he wanted didn’t usually perturb Alex. If he wanted that something badly enough, he devised a plan and went after it. In the case of wanting Zara Lovett, however, his hands were tied.

By lunchtime Monday he’d determined that no one knew Susannah’s whereabouts and short of implementing a search—he put an investigator on standby, in case she didn’t turn up soon—he could do nothing but wait.

And that inactivity, that lack of action, perturbed the hell out of him.

So did the tick of the clock counting down on the deadline for conceiving a baby.

During the long, dark stretch of Monday night, while he stared at the shadows on his bedroom ceiling with the taste and texture and heat of Zara’s mouth alive in his senses, he could hear the time passing in endless pulsing
beats of his blood. The frustration of knowing he might fail kept him awake. The conflict over what he wanted—Zara—and what he needed—a wife—brought him close to howling.

If Susannah returned wanting to be that wife, what then?

He could go ahead, marry her, and still not make a baby within the tight time frame. And if he did succeed on that front, would it really count as success if no one was happy?

His mother had made her feelings clear when he’d called with the news of his non-wedding. “I watched you together, darling, the night you brought Susannah to Kameruka. I’m so glad she was sensible enough to see what you’re too stubborn to admit.”

Not stubborn, Alex contended. Just focused on what had to be done. His duty, his responsibility, his contribution to the family that meant everything to him.

Even if that makes no one happy?

Tuesday morning dawned without any answers, and Alex took his simmering frustration to the racetrack to watch his favorite horse gallop. When he saw his brother strolling toward him in the pale, early morning light, he swore softly. He’d learned to deal with Rafe’s smart-aleck observations over the years. He no longer let them get under his skin and wind his temper as they’d done in his youth.

Not after his mother had sat Alex down and told him about his biological father, about the tearaway temper that had destroyed his career, his reputation, his every relationship. Alex didn’t want any part of the man who’d abandoned his mother. He couldn’t do a damn thing about his coloring or the set of his eyes or the distinctive mouth he’d inherited, but he could control his wildness.

And, with Charles Carlisle’s steady influence, he had controlled it and mastered it. Most days now Alex didn’t
even have to try. Today, if Rafe was true to form, it might take some effort.

“Morning, bro.” Rafe thumped him on the back in greeting. “Has Irish galloped yet?”

“About to go. Your timing’s inspired.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Rafe often made it to early morning track work, but grumbling and yawning and complaining about the godforsaken hour. This morning he practically hummed with bonhomie.

“Why are you in such a good mood?” Alex asked, lifting his binoculars toward the far side of the track and remembering his brother’s distraction the previous week over his brand new wife. “I thought you were having marital problems.”

“We were.” Rafe sounded happy
and
smug. “But we spent the weekend making up.”

“Congratulations.”

“You too. Although I gotta say I didn’t expect to see you this morning. Shouldn’t you be honeymooning?”

Although he gripped his binoculars tighter, Alex managed to keep his voice even, his tone conversational. “It appears you haven’t heard my news. The wedding didn’t go ahead.”

“No shit.”

“None,” Alex confirmed dryly, binoculars trained on the group of horses milling on the far side of the racetrack and the trainer giving instructions to the jockeys. “She’s about to send them off.”

Side by side they watched a trio of thoroughbreds set off on their training run, tracking their progress through the whispery threads of mist that curled up from the thick, damp turf.

“Glad to hear you came to your senses,” Rafe said after several seconds.

“I didn’t. Susannah did.”

He felt Rafe’s focus shift from the horses to his face. Steeled himself for a smart-aleck observation that didn’t come. Instead, when he spoke, his brother sounded serious, if slightly suspicious. “You want to tell me how that happened?”

Alex told him, in a bare-bones fashion that skimmed over the night in the cabin and ended with his current situation in limbo-land. And despite his best intentions, frustration coated every word. “Until I hear from her, I don’t know where I’m at.”

“I think her not turning up on Saturday is a clear enough message of where you’re at, bro.”

Irritation crackled in Alex’s blood. “‘I can’t marry you
today’
is not definitive.”

“Are you saying you’ll marry her if she turns up tomorrow?” Rafe’s voice rose, incredulous. “After she left you cold at the altar?”

The horses thundered past their vantage point at a full-stretch gallop. Exasperation and a sense of hopeless futility pounded through Alex with the same thick drumbeat. The binoculars came down. Slowly he turned his head to stare at his brother. “Maybe I don’t have any choice.”

“Because you like being a martyr? Or because you won’t allow Tomas or me our part in this?”

A muscle ticked hard in Alex’s jaw. He felt it and took it as a warning to cool down, to take a second before answering. “I gather you’re doing your bit.”

“As was Tomas, before Angie walked. She could be pregnant now. Catriona, too.” Rafe’s voice softened on his wife’s name. His expression, too, as if that possibility enthralled him. As if his new wife enthralled him.

“You love her, don’t you?”

“Like crazy.”

Alex shook his head slowly as he watched another bunch of racehorses flash by. Rafe Carlisle, confirmed playboy, struck by Cupid’s arrow. Amazing. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“The rest were for fun. I knew Catriona was serious stuff the second I clapped eyes on her.”

“Weren’t you concussed?”

Rafe shrugged negligently but his gaze remained steady. “Unconscious I’d have still known she was the right woman.”

The space following his pronouncement echoed with the retreating beat of galloping hooves for a good thirty seconds. Alex’s head echoed with the beat of his brother’s words. “What if this right woman—your Catriona—hadn’t wanted to marry you? What if she wasn’t ready for having babies?”

The creases around Rafe’s eyes deepened, his gaze narrowed astutely. “If she’s the right woman,” he said slowly, “then the baby part isn’t going to matter…especially if, for example, my brothers had that covered already. In that case, I’d say ‘thank you, bro,’ and I’d set about convincing her that I was the right man.”

Alex didn’t thank his brother for that advice before he left the track. He didn’t thank him later that night, either, when Rafe called to let him know that Tomas and Angie were back together and setting a wedding date. Rafe used the occasion to casually ask, “Who is she?” to which Alex deadpanned, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

He had no intention of saying anything or doing anything until after he’d talked to Susannah. He didn’t know
if he could take Rafe’s advice, if he could dispense with his familial responsibility, if it turned out he had a choice.

On Thursday, Susannah called.

She told him she couldn’t marry him and relief flooded through Alex like a dam gate had opened. Later, he knew, that sense of reprieve would get spliced with guilt and the sense that he was letting down the man who had given him so much, who had made him everything that he was and everything that he wasn’t. But for now, he could think no further than the moment, could feel no more than delight and satisfaction because now nothing stood between him and Zara.

That night he picked up the phone and then put it down again. He didn’t call her on Friday either because he knew a phone call wouldn’t be enough. He flew down to Melbourne instead.

Before his jet landed in the southern capital late on Friday afternoon, Alex knew exactly where to find Zara. Inside
this
fitness club. Satisfaction and anticipation jostled for supremacy in his gut as he flashed a smile at the receptionist.

The smile—and the fact that her eyes widened in recognition—helped when he asked if he could take a look at the facilities. Of course, then he had to stave off her enthusiastic offer to act as tour guide.

“Not necessary,” he told her briskly. “I’m only interested in seeing your weights room.”

“To your left and you’ll see the sign, but it’s no bother, Mr. Carlisle, really….”

Alex was already moving, and with every long stride his expectancy sharpened. For the last twenty-four hours he’d kept that keenness under tight restraint, but as he pushed through the door the rhythmic clank of weights swelled in
the air and through his senses. So did his anticipation. His eagerness to meet Zara on equal terms, man and woman, without the will or Susannah strong-arming them apart.

He sensed she would have used this week to shore her I-don’t-have-time-for-dating defenses. That’s why he hadn’t rung, why he’d chosen to surprise her and put her off balance again.

His eyes zeroed in on her instantly…or on her reflected image in the long mirrored wall. For a moment he stood riveted to the spot, drinking in the sight of that killer body at work.

She wore a similar outfit to last weekend. One of those racing-back athletic tops that bared shoulders and arms and the flat stretch of her midriff. Matching shorts—today’s color was sunshine yellow—with a pair of stripes tracing the flow of her hips and outer thighs.

He watched the stripes bend and flex as she demonstrated a deep squat, then uncurl in a long, easy flow of limbs. The need to touch, to trace that path with the slow glide of his palms, crackled hot in his blood. When she switched modes, from demonstrator to hands-on instructor, Alex noticed she wasn’t alone.

He’d known, of course. That’s why she was here. It’s what she did as a personal trainer.

He knew all this, yet when she put her hands on the man—when Alex saw the sandwiching touch, one hand on his abs, the other his lower back—an acid burn of jealousy seared his gut. Perhaps she actually heard the steam of that reaction, because suddenly she stilled. Her spine stiffened, her shoulder blades snapped back, and their gazes collided in the mirror. Her eyes widened, sparking with shock and something else.

Oh, yeah. It was still there. The same bolt of attraction. The same smoldering charge of awareness.

She said something to her client, bent to pick up a towel, then started to cross the room toward him. Her eyes flicked over his suit, rested a tick on his mouth. Remembering the heat of their kiss? Recalling his taste in her blood?

Heat burned in Alex’s veins. He wondered what the half dozen or so members working on the resistance machines would think if he greeted her like he ached to. If he put his hands on her shoulders and rolled her around against the wall and kissed her until neither of them could remember where they were or why they hadn’t kept on kissing last Sunday.

She stopped in front of him. Alex managed to keep his hands at his sides but he couldn’t manage another smile. “Hello, Zara.”

“Alex.” With her usual steady confidence, she met his eyes but a note of wariness crept into her voice. “Why are you here?”

“To see you,” he said simply.

Expression guarded, she stared back at him. “Why didn’t you call first?”

“Would you have agreed to see me?”

Her lips tightened and her gaze rolled away. Perhaps he should have skipped the awkward introduction and explanation and gone with the kiss.

“So, you found out where I was working? How did you do that?”

“I called Personal Best. Jen was very helpful.”

Her brows pulled together in vexation. “She shouldn’t have told you I was here. That’s not—”

“Don’t blame Jen. I told her you would want to see me. I said we were…friends.”

The way he lingered over that last word, investing it with an extra layer of meaning, brought her gaze rocketing back
to his. “And she believed you? She actually believed I was ‘friends’ with Alex Carlisle?”

“Apparently,” he said mildly. “Or she wouldn’t have told me where to find you. Would she?”

No.
The answer sparked in her eyes a second before she exhaled an audible breath. Before she lifted her towel to wipe the sheen of perspiration from her face. “Well, I can’t talk now. Even to ‘friends.’ I’m working. I have a client.”

“I noticed,” he said evenly, taking the towel from her hands. Dabbing at her throat. “You missed a bit.”

Under his hand, he felt her reflexive swallow and paused with the towel against her skin. His eyes lifted to hers in time to see the spark of response. It caught alight in his body.

“Are you always so hands-on?” he asked, slowly wiping across her collarbone, dipping into the hollow above. “With your clients?”

“Robert wasn’t using his core muscles. I was instructing. Doing my job.”

Of course she was. He had no right to this primitive possessive burn. None.

He slung the towel over her shoulder and met her eyes again. “Have dinner with me.”

“I can’t. I—”

“Don’t make excuses. Jen told me this was your last client. You have to eat, I have to eat. I would enjoy your company.”

She started to shake her head.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “You know you want to.”

For some reason that made her take a step back. Not physically, but mentally. He saw the grab of focus in her eyes and could feel the rejection coming off her in waves.
He’d expected this response, had planned for it, but that didn’t make it any easier to take.

“It’s just a meal, Zara. And while we eat I can tell you about Susannah.”

Her eyes widened. “She’s back? You’ve seen her? When? Where was she? Why hasn’t she called me?”

“She isn’t back. She’s on her way to America. Come to dinner and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

Zara agreed to meet him at the restaurant because, a) she had to know what was going on with Susannah, and, b) if she wanted to keep this “just a meal” then she wasn’t inviting him anywhere near her home, and, c) same with his hotel, only more so.