Stripped Page 12

  For now, it’s enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hart

  I’M NOT PROUD of what happened in my office three hours ago.

  I’m a fuckwit.

  Still repeating the same mistakes over and over. I’ve always dealt with my avoidance issues like that: not by fucking the nearest hot woman but by deflecting. And in Daisy’s case, the result of me blabbing too much information meant I deflected by using sex to distract.

  One minute we were oversharing, the next I had to shut her up and we did it doggy style on my desk.

  I’ll never be able to work on this thing again without remembering.

  ‘Fuck.’ I swipe a hand over my face. Yeah, like that’s going to wipe away the memory.

  She was so hot leaning over my desk, her ass in the air. My cock stiffens just thinking about it but I can’t afford to get distracted again. Not this time.

  We didn’t resolve anything. Not the important stuff anyway. The work, sure. She acquiesced to my demands. But when we started talking about the other stuff... I sensed the shift, saw it in her eyes, felt it all the way down to my frozen fucking heart.

  I’m in over my head and she’s right there alongside me, drowning.

  She left to go tidy herself up, and I’ve been hiding behind my desk ever since. I take the coward’s way out by sending her a text, citing that I have business to take care of for the rest of the day. She responds with a terse ‘fine’ but we both know it isn’t.

  We need to talk. I don’t want to. That’s what the sex was about, making sure I prevented her from asking the tough questions I didn’t want to contemplate let alone answer, and ensuring I kept my big mouth shut so I didn’t blab any more than I already had.

  I refocus on the proposal on the screen. I’ve crunched some numbers, contacted the appropriate governing bodies and laid it out in a clear, easy-to-read format.

  This holiday programme is going to kick ass.

  Imagining the joy of the foster kids when they first land on the island, I choke up and press the pads of my fingers to my eyes. That damn stinging must be from staring at the screen too long.

  I blink several times and take a few steadying breaths. Better. But as I stare at the screen again, at the pictures of kids on Australia’s most reputable website for families wanting to foster, I’m catapulted back in time.

  * * *

  ‘We’re going away,’ my foster mum said, packing a hamper with bread, peanut butter, chocolate-chip cookies and tiny bottles of lemonade—treats we never had.

  Deni was a good foster mum compared to my first, but she always favoured her three biological kids over me: snotty-nosed twin girls a year older than me and a boy, the eldest by two years. I never understood why she fostered me three years ago. Bringing a ten-year-old into an already struggling family seemed dumb to me. I guess she did it for the government money.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  She stared at me with incredulity, like she couldn’t believe I could ask such a stupid question. ‘We’re going to Coffs Harbour. You’re staying here.’

  My stomach roiled and the rotten apple I’d eaten for lunch threatened to launch up into my throat and out. She was taking her precious kids on holiday and leaving me behind. I shouldn’t be surprised. Yet another disappointment in a long line. But for once I’d thought I might be welcomed here. I might even be liked.

  ‘My sister from Cairns has rented a house for us. I haven’t seen her in a decade and there’s only room for four of us.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said, embarrassed when my voice broke a tad. It had to be the onset of early puberty and nothing to do with the sadness making me want to bawl. ‘I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Actually, you can’t,’ she said, her furtive glance away alerting me to the fact that if I didn’t like the news about their impending trip, I’d like what she was about to say even less. ‘You can’t stay alone so you’ll be moved on.’

  Moved on...

  I knew what that meant. I’d be sent back into the government home until they found me another placement with another deadbeat mother with another host of problems.

  I glanced at the computer screen on the desk in the corner of the kitchen. She’d obviously been doing an online search for Coffs Harbour and the images on the screen featured palm trees, white sand and a blue ocean that looked digitally enhanced.

  I’d never had a holiday and at that moment I yearned to go so badly I ached, like that time I had the flu.

  ‘You’re a good kid, Hart, you’ll be fine,’ she said, sounding gruff as she turned away to finish packing the hamper.

  ‘No, I’m not!’ I yelled, punching the hamper so that it toppled and landed upside down on the floor. ‘I’m bad and that’s why you’re sending me back.’ I stomped on the loaf of bread on the floor, flattening it, as she stared at me with pity. ‘I hate you!’

  I pushed through the back door and slammed it so hard the glass pane beside it cracked. I seethed until I reached my go-to place, a bicycle shed at the farthest corner of the stupid high school I’d just started at, where I sat in the deserted shed and cried...

  * * *

  I blink several times and lift my fingers to my cheeks, shocked to find them damp. I’ve dealt with my past and I moved on a long time ago but it catches up with me at the oddest of moments.

  Pa made up for lost time when he found me. I tried to feign disinterest in holidays but he took me to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Mumbai in our first year together, then London, Dubai and Paris the next. Despite pretending nothing impressed me, I lapped up every fact I learned in each new city and when I wasn’t able to hide my interest he showed me more.

  Once I started to trust him a little, I opened myself up to learning more about his world and it seemed natural to follow in his footsteps when I finished school. Doing a business degree was his idea, as was my part-time job in the flagship hotel in Brisbane. I did everything from concierge duties to valet parking, getting a feel for how a hotel ran from the ground up.

  When I did an internship in the hotel’s business centre while completing my degree, Pa was the happiest I’d ever seen him. It made what I had to do all the harder because I knew even then that I couldn’t be the man he wanted me to be. Being stuck behind a desk, ordering people around, delegating the shitty jobs I didn’t want to do myself, I would hate every minute of it.

  I knew what I wanted to do. Work behind the scenes, helping kids like me reach their potential despite the hardships they faced along the way. But I continued to toe the company line until I became so miserable Pa demanded I tell him what the hell was going on. I told him the truth; I owed him that much. And the kicker was that he understood, and he invented the hotel quality control job so I could travel while ostensibly still carrying on the Rochester name in the business. He gave me his blessing to follow my dream.

  ‘Dammit.’ I thump the desk and the penholder tips, spilling its contents onto the floor. There’s a framed photo of Pa and me next to it, taken on my first visit to Gem Island. I’m a gangly sixteen-year-old, uncertain and glum, Pa has his arm around me, pride in his grin.

  I’ll never understand how he accepted me so unreservedly, welcoming me into his life and his heart.

  That’s what my holiday project for foster kids is all about. Giving them the kind of awe-inspiring experience that I had the first time I set foot on this island.

  I want them to feel welcome and wanted and warm for one week in their lives, something to hold onto when times get tough, something to remember.

  I ignore the pens and return my attention to the computer screen.

  I refuse to be the face of this campaign and I’m launching this programme, with Daisy’s help.

  And once she’s done, our liaison will be over.

  Simple.

  At least, it should be. So why does the thought of never
seeing her again make me want to smash something?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Daisy

  I’M A WUSS. A weakling. I should never have let Hart distract me in his office yesterday but the moment he kissed me all my questions evaporated under the onslaught of his charisma. If that’s what I’m calling scintillating sex these days.

  It was so freaking hot doing it on his desk, our heightened emotions adding to the frantic edge.

  I can’t let it happen again.

  I allowed myself to be distracted once before, when the man I thought I loved captured my attention and ensured he controlled it, while I slowly but surely lost pieces of myself. Casper influenced my opinions, my likes, my goals, while making it sound like I wanted those things along the way. His subtle way of controlling me meant I lost sight of the important stuff, just like I lost sight of it yesterday thanks to Hart.

  I hate making comparisons between the two men but Hart too is demanding and dismissed my opinions like they meant nothing. One minute I was smarting, the next he opened up about his past and I was catapulted straight into a depth of feeling I’ve been avoiding ever since this fling started up.

  I wanted to confront him about it, to see if he’d be honest about our deepening attraction, but he distracted me in the hottest of ways...

  The sex might have been phenomenal, but it pulled my focus from where it had to be: seeing how far he was willing to go to admit we’ve moved beyond the sex.

  I don’t like that I allowed myself to slip back into old patterns of behaviour, to be distracted because of my feelings for a man. It doesn’t bode well for me and it makes me resent him for doing it.

  We didn’t say much afterwards. I had to take a call from Alf, cited work, and bolted. He texted me thirty minutes later saying he had international teleconferences for the rest of the day.

  And he hasn’t contacted me since.

  Not that I expect him to but... I call bullshit because I did expect to hear from him last night. In fact, I listened for a knock on my villa door for half the night before falling into a restless sleep.

  The mature thing to do would be for me to contact him: a blasé text, a call, a drop-in at his office. I’ve buried myself in work all day instead, ensuring the suitable adjustments Hart requested to the Gem Island campaign about to go live are the best they can be. I’m not exactly thrilled that I can’t feature him front and centre of his proposed holiday programme, but considering the mock-ups, I’m pleased with how everything has turned out—my best work yet.

  I was on the verge of emailing the lot to Hart for final approval when Alf dumped a shitload of work on me. He’s punishing me for having Hart treat him like a subordinate. He has forwarded emails from five potential new clients, requesting quotes for their needs. This, on top of putting the finishing touches on Hart’s campaign.

  I pulled up my resignation letter after his fourth email of the morning with its excessive demands. It’s ready to go, if and when I ever gather the courage to send it.

  But every time I read it, I get a hollow feeling in my gut and I hear Dad’s voice in my ear: ‘Adlers don’t quit, honey.’ Dad will be disappointed, no matter how hard I try to explain that I’m done with Alf treating me like slave labour for little reward. He’s already shattered that I ended my engagement. While he didn’t use the Q word on me then, I know by the shared glances with Mum that they think I quit on a relationship rather than hanging on for the long haul.

  That hurt, having my own parents not trusting me enough to make a sound decision that affects my future. Wait until they hear I’m contemplating quitting my job too. I don’t like when they don’t have faith in me, in my judgements as a grown woman. But not half as much as I hate not having complete confidence in myself. Even after the stellar job I’ve done on this campaign and the positive feedback from Hart, I still doubt myself. Wondering if I’ll make it on my own. Reluctant to take the next step to professional independence.

  I think some of that bitterness influenced the way I behaved with Hart yesterday, when he didn’t trust me enough to know what’s best for his island and his holiday programme idea.

  I was so mad at his lack of faith in me... I was so tempted to fire off a curt outline of what he needs to do if he wants the Rochester brand to be successful, but I’m not done with Hart yet so I didn’t.

  I’m not done with Hart.

  Professionally, I am. The campaign will be ready to launch first thing tomorrow morning once he gives the final go-ahead. And he will, considering I acquiesced to his hare-brained idea to tack the foster kids programme onto it without using himself to bring both campaigns together in a seamless transition.

  But being done with Hart professionally is a far cry from being ready to walk away from him personally. Despite my determination to view us only as island sex-buddies, the thought of flying back to the mainland in a day or two is making me feel like crap.

  Crazy, considering I knew this had an end date when we started up. It’s exactly what I wanted. Short-term gain with none of the long-term pain. Sorbet, remember?

  But what if one or two scoops aren’t enough?

  What if I want the whole damn sundae with a cherry on top?

  Not going to happen, but for an indulgent moment I allow myself to fantasise about what it would be like to stay. If I finally believe in myself enough to resign and start my own firm, I can work with clients around the world remotely. And if a job needs a face-to-face meeting, I can do that too. What I can’t ‘do’ is Hart if we’re not together and the thought of not having him hold me or be inside me is enough to send me into withdrawals before I’ve even left.

  An email pings into my inbox. It’s him.

  My pulse races as I open it. Read it.

  ‘What the fuck...?’ I reread it, to make sure I’m not making a mistake.

  I’m not. Hart has outlined succinctly what will happen once his precious bloody campaign goes live.

  Absolutely nothing.

  He’s saying goodbye and effectively ending us in a fucking email!

  I won’t let him get away with this.

  I fire back a polite response, asking him to meet me in the conference room in half an hour to discuss his email. I deliberately choose the venue, knowing that we can’t meet in an intimate place for fear of our rampant sexual attraction getting out of control again.

  This time, not even his wicked mouth, his talented fingers or his impressive appendage will derail me.

  His response is quick, confirming the meeting. Good. I have thirty minutes to prepare myself for a confrontation I have every intention of winning.

  * * *

  I arrive at the conference room with three minutes to spare. He’s already there, looking surprisingly dishevelled with his pants creased, his shirtsleeves rolled up, the top two buttons undone and dark shadows circling his eyes. Good to know he had a rotten night’s sleep too.

  ‘Hi.’ I breeze into the room, giving the door a little kick to shut it, before joining him at the table where he’s glaring at me like a foe.

  ‘You read my email?’ I nod and his jaw clenches as he slams his hands into his pockets, before taking a seat opposite me. ‘If so, what did you want to see me about?’

  No preamble, no small talk, no acknowledging the simmering tension buzzing between us even now.

  ‘Yes, I read it, and I call bullshit.’

  He places both his hands palm down on the table and leans forward, his glower formidable. ‘Don’t do this, Daisy. It’s easier this way.’

  ‘Easier for you, you mean?’ I try to scoff and it comes out an embarrassing snort. ‘As hard as you tried to dismiss us in that email as being nothing beyond a professional partnership, I think you need to confess.’

  His lips thin as his frown deepens. ‘To what?’

  ‘Actually giving a damn.’ I point to his heart. ‘And feeling
something rather than pretending you don’t.’

  ‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ he snarls, his upper lip curling as he rears back like I’ve prodded him. ‘I don’t feel a thing—’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Then what’s this?’ I swipe my phone to bring up the amended campaign, featuring a sidebar with the foster kids camp. ‘You want to help these kids in a way you wished someone had helped you, and that proves you care—’

  ‘Maybe about the kids,’ he roars, crimson creeping up his neck. ‘But what’s that got to do with you?’

  That hurts. A hell of a lot. I want to walk out of here and not look back, like he wants me to.

  He’s trying to undermine me, like Casper undercut me every chance he got during our relationship. Having a guy I actually care about treat me the same way...it kills me.

  So I go on the offensive.

  ‘Is this how you were with your grandfather? Pushing him away until he had no choice but to let you go? If so, I feel sorry for you. You like to blame everyone for your misfortune rather than face up to your past and your abandonment issues with your dad and—’

  ‘Stop!’ he bellows, his face a concentration in devastation.

  He’s hurting, an unimaginable pain that makes my throat tighten. Maybe I’ve gone too far but I had to try to make him face the reality that he has a woman who hates quitting, a woman willing to stick around, a woman who’s crazy about him. But by the way he’s staring at me, he’ll never forgive me for verbalising my pop psychology in an attempt to get him to open up about his feelings.

  ‘Hart, listen—’

  ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ His outburst echoes through the room and I try to hide my dismay.

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ I say, doing my best to stay calm.

  I lay my hands out, palm up. ‘I care about you—’