Beauty from Pain (8 page)

It could have been anyone in the building—or
the world—but of course, it isn’t. It’s Ben. His voice drips with
contempt as he walks past us to the door. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean
to interrupt.”

I’m embarrassed and don’t know what to say.
“No, it’s fine. You weren’t interrupting anything.”

Liar, liar. My pants are so on fire. And so is
the rest of me.

Ben interrupted Lachlan at the very moment he
was about to stroke my slut button. Oh, dammit, the timing couldn’t
have been worse. “I’d like to introduce you to Lachlan Henry. This
is Ben Donavon.”

They stare at each other for a few
seconds and I wait for them to whip out their dicks and start a
pissing contest.
Wow. The silence isn’t
awkward at all.

Lachlan extends his hand first. “Nice to meet
you, Ben.”

Ben takes his hand but doesn’t appear at all
pleased about doing so. “I don’t recognize your name, but your face
is familiar. Have we met before?”

Lachlan releases his hand and shakes his head.
“I don’t think so.”

Ben continues to study Lachlan. “I’m pretty
certain we have.”

Lachlan rubs his chin with his palm. “I was at
the university’s vintage dinner. That must be it.”

“
No, that’s not it.”

Lachlan shrugs and puts his hands in his
pockets. “I don’t know what to tell you, mate.”

Ben makes no attempt to hide that he wants me
away from the opposition. “If you’re done here, I’ll walk you
up.”

I’m so not done here. Not even
close.
“Umm, I’ll be up in a
minute.”

He doesn’t say anything as he slings the door
open with more force than is necessary.

Lachlan doesn’t wait for the door to shut
before he brings up Ben’s attraction to me again. “That bloke wants
you in a bad way.”

I don’t want to talk about Ben. I want to get
back to Lachlan sliding his hand under my dress, so I move closer
and put my arms around his shoulders. “Where were we?”

He brings his mouth back to mine and tugs on
my bottom lip with his teeth. “I will spontaneously combust if we
are interrupted again. How about I make good on my promise tomorrow
when you come out to the vineyard with me?”

I want to tell him I’m willing to take the
risk, but he’s right. Being interrupted again would blow.
“Okay.”

He kisses my forehead and it’s unexpected
because it feels affectionate—not at all like the arranged
relationship we’re entering into. “I’ll be here to pick you up at
ten o’clock.”

“
I’ll be
waiting.”
Breathless
and aroused.

“
There’s no
pressure, but my schedule is clear through Thursday evening. I’d
really like for you to stay a few days with me at the vineyard.
I’m
eager
to get
our stranger
anxiety
behind us so we can move on to the fun
stuff.”

“
I haven’t said
yes.”
That’s me playing hard to
get.

He pulls me close and whispers against my ear.
“But you will.”

He is one cocky son of a bitch. But an
accurate one. Still, I’m not ready to let him in on that little
secret. I want him to work for it a little longer. “I’ll think
about it.”

“
And I’ll think of you until
tomorrow.” He kisses my forehead again and I watch him walk to his
car.

This beautiful man has a dark side that draws
me in, yet makes me want to run. I’ve never been more certain of
anything in my life, and I wonder how I’ve allowed myself to be
pulled in.

When I walk into the apartment, Ben is nowhere
in sight. I guess he’s in his bedroom avoiding me, which is fine. I
refuse to feel guilty about having a relationship with someone
else. I never led him to believe there was anything between
us.

I go into the bedroom and Addison isn’t home,
so I check my phone. She’s sent a text to let me know she’s staying
at Zac’s. Good. I hope she stays all night this time.

8

Jack McLachlan

After enjoying a very pleasant evening with
Miss Beckett, I’m in bed no more than an hour when I get a call
from my right-hand man at the Chalice Vineyard. I immediately sit
up, knowing something serious has happened if he’s calling me at
this hour. “Clyde, what’s happened?”

“
I’m sorry to
wake you at this hour, Jack, but there’s been a fire at
C
halice tonight. It’s
under control now, but there’s damage on the south
side.”

C
halice
is my favorite vineyard. My father owned it when I was growing up
and I spent a lot of time there as a child with its workers, who
are now my employees. As such, they are almost family—their safety
is priority. “Was anyone injured?”

“
No injuries.”

Thank God no one is hurt. “Have you been able
to assess the damage?”

“
It’s hard to tell because it’s
still dark, but it appears to be minimal. We were lucky to catch it
when we did. John was awake and saw the blaze from his bedroom
window.” It helps that the vines are still green and there’s
moisture from a rain we had a couple of days ago. At least we had
that in our favor.

“
Can you tell how it
started?”

“
The fire chief will be back to
inspect it in the morning, but he told me he has reason to believe
it was arson. He said he should be able to give us a definite
answer tomorrow.”

Arson? That isn’t good.

I call Daniel to let him know I will be
leaving for Sydney within the hour.

I don’t have Paige’s number, but I’ll need to
let her know of the change in plans. I go into my library and take
out the phone I’ve already chosen to give her. I write a quick note
and insert it inside the package.

My next call is to my personal assistant,
Jonathan. “It’s Jack. I’m sorry to call at this hour, but I have a
job for you that must be done first thing in the morning. When you
come into my office, you’ll find a small brown box on my desk. I
need you to deliver it to the recipient by eight in the morning and
not a minute later. It’s personal and very important to
me.”

“
Of course, sir.
No
later
than
eight.”

There’s little to no traffic on
the road so I drive my black Fisker Karma coupe convertible faster
than I should as I race toward
C
halice. The businessman in me
should use the drive to think about how I plan to handle the
problem at
C
halice, but I have something else on my mind. This something
else has long brown hair, big golden-brown eyes, and a body that
makes me hard just thinking about it.

9

Laurelyn Prescott

I wake the next morning to an arm smacking me
across my face. Ugh! She’s back again. My vacation from getting
smacked around in my sleep is short-lived. I give her a stout
shove. “Knock that shit off, Addison.”

She grunts and flops away from me. Good. I’m
safest when she’s facing away from me.

I hear a loud knock on my bedroom
door and Ben’s irritated voice on the other side. “You have another
delivery from
him
.”

Addison’s eyes pop open. She stretches like a
cat and moans like a porn star. “Another delivery? Maybe he sent
breakfast again. I’m starving.”

I look at the clock and see that it isn’t
quite eight o’clock. It was late when he brought me home last
night, so how has he managed to have something delivered to me this
early?

I put on my bra because I won’t go
free-boobin’ in front of Ben. My robe provides added protection
over the pajamas before I investigate what my three-month fling has
sent me.

A small brown package is on the table. I use
the scissors to cut into it. Inside I find a new iPhone with a
personalized card:

I have an emergency at one of the vineyards.
I’ll be gone most of the day so I’m forced to cancel our plans for
today. This phone is your direct line to me—my number is already
programmed in. I’ll call you later when the situation is under
control and we’ll make plans for a rain check soon.
—Lachlan

I’m surprised by the disappointment I feel.
“Lachlan has a problem at work, so it seems I’m free for the
day.”

“
Great. Zac and Ben are tied up
with some kind of project, so I think we should have a girls’ day
out and go shopping.”

I don’t have money for shopping, so I guess
I’m browsing. “That sounds like a great idea.”

Addison picks up the new iPhone. “Why did he
send you another phone? Doesn’t he know you already have
one?”

The iPhone isn’t a gift. It’s a
booty-call device
—
his means of communicating with me about hooking up while he
holds all the control. This is one way he remains untraceable. He’d
never give me his real number, so I predict he has one just like
this designated only for my calls. That’s what he means when he
says it is my direct line to him.

It’s also a reminder that this relationship
isn’t romantic and won’t ever be. It is arranged and temporary. I’d
do well to not forget that any time soon.

“
My phone’s been acting up since
we got here. It won’t hold a charge so I guess he thought I needed
a new one.” I lie to my best friend because I can’t bring myself to
confess the terms of Lachlan’s arrangement. She’ll think he’s
bat-shit crazy. And that I am, too, for agreeing to it.

10

Jack McLachlan

I turn the five-hour drive
to
C
halice into a
little more than four. When I arrive, I see Clyde standing outside
the office building, waiting for me. “Jack, it’s been too long. I’m
glad to have you here, but I’d be happier if it wasn’t under these
circumstances.”

Clyde began working for my father
at
C
halice before
I was born and now he works for me. I’ve known him my entire life,
so I trust him. “I’m sorry I had to drag you out of bed in the
middle of the night for this.”

“
It goes with the territory,
Clyde. The good, the bad, and the ugly. This just happens to be a
dose of the bad and ugly at the same time.”

“
The fire chief said he would be
here at nine, so I expect him any minute.”

I’m anxious to see the burned area. “Can we go
out to survey the damage?”

“
Not until he’s finished
inspecting it in the daylight. There were a lot of people working
to put out the fire, so he doesn’t want any further contamination
of the scene.”

That seems reasonable. I check my watch and
see it is a quarter to nine. Paige has gotten my package by now and
I have a few minutes before the fire inspector will arrive, so I
try out our new means of communication.

I take out the phone meant only for Paige’s
calls and dial her number. She must have had the phone in her hand
because she answers on the first ring. “Good mornin’, Mr.
Henry.”

“
Good morning, Miss
Beckett.”

“
Are you wondering how I knew it
was you?” I could hear the amusement in her voice.

“
Could it possibly be because I’m
the person who sent you the phone and I’m the only person with the
number? Or because my name came up on the caller ID?”

She laughs. “None of the above.”

“
No, huh?” Though I’d been in a
hurry before leaving this morning, I had taken the time to program
a personalized ringtone. “Maybe it was the ‘Talk Dirty to Me’
ringtone.”

“
That’s the more likely
reason.”

“
Liked that, did you?”

“
Very much so. You deserve extra
points for that.”

So, she’s keeping score? “I was unaware of the
extra point system. What does a personalized ringtone earn me, Miss
Beckett?”

“
I
haven’t
chosen a
reward system yet, but I’ll let you know once I
decide
.”

She has another decision I am way more
interested in than a points-and-reward system. “Please do. I might
want to work harder on earning extra points if the reward is worth
the work.”

“
My prize is always worth the
effort, Mr. Henry. Have you solved your problem at the vineyard
yet?”

“
Yes and no. There was a fire last
night so the imminent danger is over, but I’m waiting for the fire
inspector to come out so he can tell us what happened. I’ll be tied
up with this mess most of the day. Since it’s a four- to five-hour
drive, I won’t be back until late. I was hoping to get a rain check
on our plans, possibly tomorrow?”

“
Hmm, I’ll have to check my social
calendar. It seems to be pretty full at the moment.” She hesitates.
“Looks like I can work you in.”