by Maya Banks
There was a festive air, and everyone wore broad smiles. He could even detect the glimmer of tears in the women’s eyes.
And then he reached out and took Isabella’s hand, pulling her to him. It didn’t matter that the vows weren’t spoken, or that the priest cleared his throat cautiously. He simply had to kiss her.
Their lips met in a heated rush, soft against hard, sweet against salt. When he finally pulled away to allow the priest to officiate, tears shone in Isabella’s eyes.
There was an odd catch in Theron’s throat as he recited his vows. The words carried on the breeze, firm and clear.
Finally they were pronounced man and wife, and she became his.
There was much dancing on the beach, and later they moved to the gardens. Sophia and Alannis took great delight in teaching both Marley and Isabella traditional Greek dances while the men looked on, their smiles indulgent.
Later the helicopter came and whisked Theron and Isabella away to the bridal suite he’d arranged, a cottage on a cliff overlooking the sea.
He carried her to bed, where she whispered she had one last wedding gift for him.
Intrigued, he reared back as she untied the sarong and pulled it from underneath her.
“Do you remember telling me I should get another tattoo?” she asked with a mischievous glint.
His brow furrowed. “You didn’t. Bella, tell me you didn’t go to some tattoo parlor alone and undergo pain to get another tattoo.”
“I didn’t go alone. Marley went with me.”
“And does Chrysander know this?” Theron asked incredulously.
Isabella laughed. “He might have had a thing or two to say when he barged in after us.”
Theron muttered in Greek as he shook his head.
She hooked her thumbs in her bikini bottom and slowly, sensuously worked it down. There just above the juncture of her legs, right in the center, a straight line down from her belly ring, was an angel holding a pitchfork.
Theron couldn’t contain his chuckle. Then he leaned down and brushed his lips across the design. “My own little demon angel,” he said as he worked downward with his mouth.
* * * * *
In the Rich Man’s World
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Carol Marinelli
Dear Reader,
Vaughan Mason is my kind of hero—ruthless, beautiful, sexy and at the top of his game. It’s no wonder he’s in demand. I didn’t blame my heroine, Amelia, in the least for jumping at the chance to spend a week with him. I laughed, though, at her determination that the week would not be spent in bed. I have to admit that it would take a stronger woman than me to resist Vaughan, but at least Amelia tried!
Vaughan is very used to women and delights in constant company, but he is completely unused to trusting another. I really enjoyed exploring what happened when it’s the hero’s trust that is shattered. I confess that Vaughan’s reaction had me falling just a little further in love with him.
I hope you enjoy their story.
Happy reading,
Carol x
For Fiona McArthur
A wonderful friend and an
amazing writer.
Carol x
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Prologue
Bed.
Alone.
Just the thought of how tempting those two words sounded brought a wry smile to Vaughan’s lips.
Bed alone was almost a contradiction in terms for Vaughan Mason, at least according to the journalists who tagged his every move, sensationalising every aspect of his professional dealings while attempting an angle on his private life—much to Vaughan’s slightly jaundiced amusement.
Taking a belt of impossibly strong black coffee, Vaughan screwed up his nose.
He’d barely slept in thirty-six hours, had crossed several time zones and ingested enough caffeine to raise the shares of coffee beans by several per cent. All he wanted was to close his eyes on this impossibly long day, yet instead he had to face them—the journalists, the one true love-hate relationship in his life.
A sharp rap on his door dragged him out of his introspection. He leaned back in his chair and yawned as Katy Vale, his personal assistant, waltzed in, smiling her pussycat smile and revealing just a touch too much cleavage and thigh for a Friday afternoon as she leant over his desk and handed him a list.
‘It’s your lucky day.’
‘I wish you’d told me that thirty-six hours ago,’ Vaughan retorted. His day had started at some ungodly hour in Japan and been followed by a meeting in Singapore, then several draining hours at Singapore Airport. Now, finally winding up in his office in Sydney, he felt like the sun creeping across the globe in reverse, his body clock completely kaput as jet lag finally caught up with him. The very last thing he felt like doing was being put on parade for some long-overdue interviews, but now, peering at the list, seeing the red pen slashed through the reporters’ names, he almost managed a smile.
‘There’s an election in the air—at least that’s the buzz going around,’ Katy explained. ‘All the big-gun reporters have cancelled their interviews with you and flown to Canberra, trying to get their scoop...’
‘Which means I can finally go to bed.’
That he had been cancelled at such short notice didn’t offend Vaughan in the least—in fact it came as an unexpected pleasurable moment of relief. The Prime Minister was one of the few people who could knock him out of the headlines of the business pages, and Vaughan was only too happy to step down. The pleasure was entirely his.
Snapping the lid on his pen, he stood up and stretched. But he changed it midway into a long drawn-out sigh as Katy shook her head. ‘Not just yet, I’m afraid. The Tribute has sent a replacement journalist.’
Peering at the list, Vaughan frowned. ‘Why on earth would Amelia Jacobs want to interview me?’
‘You’ve heard of her?’ Katy asked, the surprise evident in her voice. ‘Somehow I can’t quite picture you reading the women’s pages.’
‘She’s good.’ Vaughan shrugged, but Katy screwed up her nose.
‘She’s overrated, if you ask me.’
I didn’t, Vaughan almost responded, but he held his tongue. Frankly, he was too tired to be drawn into a long conversation with Katy.
Long conversations with Katy were becoming rather too frequent of late. Given any excuse, she’d sit her neat little bottom on the chair opposite and cross her perfectly toned legs, only too happy to flash her glossy smile and talk.
And could that woman talk!
What had happened to the quietly efficient woman he had hired as his PA? Where had the diligent worker who managed his impossibly tight schedule with barely a murmur gone? The woman who had glowed with pride when he’d commented on her new engagement ring, blushed with pleasure when her fiancé had arrived to pick her up?
‘I mean,’ Katy droned on, not remotely perturbed by his pointed silence, ‘despite all the hype that surrounds her, there’s not a single thing that could be described as deep about her articles; it’s not as if this Amelia ever digs up the dirt on all these celebrities she interviews—there’s nothing that can’t be picked up in the rags...’
Vaughan suppressed a tired smile, and this time it was easier to hold back. She simply didn’t get it. If Katy couldn’t read between the lines that Amelia Jacobs so skilfully crafted, then it wasn’t up to him to point
it out.
Amelia Jacobs was a master.
Or mistress.
Or whatever the politically correct term was these days.
Amelia Jacobs had, in the few months she’d been writing for the paper, developed something of a cult following—a group of loyal readers who read her articles with their tongues placed firmly in cheek, perhaps sharing a wry smile with a fellow devotee as they glimpsed over the top of their newspaper in some café or airport lounge.
Amelia Jacobs, in Vaughan’s not so humble opinion, had her finger on the pulse, but wasn’t afraid to remove it when needed, to stray from the usual run-of-the-mill questions and delve a little deeper, to somehow get her subjects to finally confirm or deny the rumours that plagued them. Her interviews were a strange mix of cynicism and compassion.
‘Why does she want to interview me?’ Vaughan asked again, then corrected himself. Every journalist this side of the equator seemed to want a piece of him, but the fact he had neither dreadlocks nor body piercings, actually managed to eat and keep down three meals a day, and didn’t have a father who’d abused him, didn’t put Vaughan in the usual category of Amelia Jacobs’s subjects. ‘Or rather, why do you think I’d want to be interviewed by her?’
‘Because you are always in the news for all the wrong reasons,’ Katy responded in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘There was that supermodel, the actress...’
‘Definitely no bishop, though,’ Vaughan clipped back, but even his dry humour didn’t allow him to dodge the uncomfortable issue.
Uncomfortable because suddenly discussing his sex life with Katy seemed like a very bad idea indeed.
‘That was all over ages ago,’ he said finally, staring coolly back as Katy rearranged her crossed legs, smiling sweetly over at him as he protested his rather recent innocence.
‘I know,’ Katy soothed. ‘But you know what the press can be like once they’ve got the bit between their teeth. And you don’t need me to tell you that you haven’t exactly been the blue-eyed boy...’
‘I don’t,’ Vaughan said, with a slightly warning edge to his voice.
Katy cleared her throat again. ‘It was agreed at the last directors’ meeting that if the opportunity came then you should show the media that there’s a softer side to you.’
‘But there isn’t.’ Vaughan shrugged. ‘What you see is what you get.’
‘I don’t agree.’ Dropping her voice, she stared back at him, flicking her hair away from her pretty face with her left hand, and Vaughan felt his heart plummet—the absence of her engagement ring was vividly noticeable for the very first time. ‘Look how nice you were to me when I broke up with Andy.’
‘I didn’t realise you had.’ Vaughan gave a very on-off smile, watching in slightly bored horror as she smiled over at him, from under her lashes now. He felt a subtle shift in the room that most men would miss—but Vaughan read women as easily as a recipe book, and while he’d been away Katy had clearly lined up all her ingredients and was right now stirring the pot and about to offer him a taste!
‘We broke up a couple of weeks ago. It hurt a lot at the time, but I guess I’m starting to move on.’ Boldly she held his gaze. ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight, Vaughan? I’m sure cooking is the last thing you want to do now, and you must have had your fill of restaurants.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Vaughan deflected her offer easily, quite sure he wasn’t hungry—on either count! ‘I just want to go to bed.’
God, she was bold. A tiny smile twitched on well-made-up lips at the mere mention of the word, and she was still holding his gaze. Vaughan knew exactly what was on the menu—knew that if he took her up on the offer they wouldn’t be starting at the entrée, instead they’d be bypassing the main course and moving directly to dessert!
Watching her face drop as he firmly shook his head and picked up his pen, Vaughan consoled himself that he was doing her a favour really—if he slept with her he’d end up firing her!
‘Send Miss Jacobs in as soon as she arrives—and,’ he added firmly, ‘once she gets here you might as well go home.’
‘I don’t mind waiting,’ Katy persisted, but Vaughan was insistent.
‘Go home, Katy.’ He didn’t soften his rejection with a smile, didn’t even look up from his work. Mixed messages were clearly not what were needed here. ‘I’ll catch up with you in Melbourne next week.’
Chapter 1
Send.
Amelia’s finger hovered over the computer key, then pulled back.
She made a quick dash into the bathroom, and inhaled the delicious scent of bergamot mixing perfectly with frankincense and just an undertone of lavender. Her Friday afternoon routine was written in stone:
Read her article as objectively as possible.
Clean the flat while all the time reciting paragraphs of article out loud, adding mental commas and meaningful exclamation marks.
Head into the high street while still mulling over article.
Drop off dry cleaning.
Stop for a café latté—extra-strength with full-cream milk and three sugars.
Head for home.
Finish article, adding said commas and exclamation marks.
Take phone off the hook and run bath.
Finally hit ‘send’ and, as her work drifted into cyberspace, dive into the awaiting aromatic bath, allowing the fragrance to soothe. Lavender was supposedly fabulous for stress headaches, and for the past six months, come Friday at four p.m., a stress headache was exactly what she’d had.
Okay, her article would still make the deadline if she sent it at five, but she needed that hour. Needed to lie in her fabulous bubbly bath as the blood, sweat and tears she’d shed over the past seven days wafted through cyberspace and into her editor Paul’s in-box. Needed that hour wallowing in the bath forgetting the horrors she’d been through the past week.
Sure, interviewing celebrities, eating out at fabulous restaurants and actually being paid to write about it sounded like most people’s dream job come true. But for Amelia it was merely a means to an end. Contracted on a freelance basis to cover a nine-month maternity leave position, Amelia had taken the job with the sole intention of making a name for herself, networking with the right people, and hopefully—hopefully—landing a more permanent position in the offices on the second floor, the hallowed ground of the business reporters. There she would be writing not about the rise and fall of celebrities’ bustlines or their latest off-on romances, but about the far more intriguing effect of rises and falls on world stock markets, or the impact of the US dollar on trading in Australia, and hopefully one day she’d get an inside scoop on a major business deal which would surely seal her arrival as a heavyweight. And maybe would even win her father’s approval!
But so far nothing had happened. Sure, her editor, Paul, had made all the right noises—insisted he was talking to people behind the scenes as he handed Amelia her latest task for the week. But still nothing had happened, and with Maria’s maternity leave galloping into the final run Amelia was starting to feel more than a touch anxious. Not just because of the lack of movement in the business side of things, but because she’d grown rather used to having a regular wage in the fickle world of journalism. She also had to admit it was because she’d be leaving a job she’d started to love...
Closing her eyes, Amelia let out the breath she’d been inadvertently holding, half expecting that if she opened her eyes she’d see her father’s appalled expression at the fact that the daughter of Grant Jacobs, esteemed political reporter, could possibly like writing such articles, could actually enjoy interviewing celebrities, confirming or denying salacious rumours and feeding the never-ending quest for insight into Australia’s most beautiful.
He’d never call it news!
With the soapy water now licking the edges of her claw-foot bath, Ameli
a twisted off the taps, ran into the lounge, which tripled as a dining room and study, and turned on her favorite CD. She listened as the decadent, fabulous voice of Robbie told her that once he found her he’d never let her go, and finally she did relax.
The phone was off the hook—as it always was when she’d finished a piece—her horoscope was waiting to be read, and a glass of chilled white wine was by the bath.
Routine firmly in place, she took a deep breath and, with her hand over the send key, closed her eyes and pressed it. Then, as she did every Friday, she ran like the wind into her tiny cramped bathroom, stripped off in record time, and winced as she submerged herself into too-hot water. She waited for her body to acclimatize and her over-sized boobs to waft up onto the surface, waiting for their owner to pluck up the guts to sink fully into the water. She would massage that deep heated conditioner that promised miracles into her hair, then lie back and read her horoscope just as she always did.
A fabulous period supposedly lay ahead. Virgos should be ready to embrace changes, throw caution to the wind and take up crazy offers, arming themselves for opportunity, getting ready to expect the unexpected and let a little romance shine into their lives.
For once Louis the astrologer had got it wrong.
Turning to the front of the magazine, Amelia stared at the scowling face of Taylor Dean, every inch the popstar, walking out of a chic restaurant, the requisite beautiful woman firmly entrenched on his arm. She was scarcely able to comprehend that six months ago it had been she, Amelia, on that arm.
Perhaps Louis had misplaced his notes—accidentally repeated her July horoscope in the middle of January—because six months ago today a fabulous period really had lain ahead. The crazy offer of a date with Taylor had literally fallen into her lap, and she’d been foolish enough to accept—stupid and naive enough to throw caution to the wind and let a little romance into her life. Only where had it got her?