It Was Only a Kiss (5 page)

He wondered who’d taught her that.

* * *

The day before Jess was due to arrive at St Sylve, Luke sat on the end of the antique double bed in the largest guest suite in the manor house and looked around the room. Angel, his part-time housekeeper, had worked her magic in the room he’d allocated Jess. The yellow wood headboard had been oiled, there was white linen on the bed and fresh flowers on the nightstand. Luke glanced through the large bay window opposite the bed which enabled the guest to wake to a stunning view of the mountains. Luke had never understood why this room, with its large
en-suite
bathroom, had never been used as the master bedroom instead of the smaller, pokier bedroom at the front of the house, overlooking the driveway.

Easier to see who was coming up the road, Luke decided. Friend, foe, tax collector... In his father’s case, lover. There had been many, Luke knew. He remembered lots of women wafting around the house when he was a child... Some had paid far too much attention to him; others had paid him absolutely no attention at all.

They’d all left eventually. By the age of seven he’d learned to protect himself against getting emotionally attached to any of his father’s girlfriends. That way he hadn’t been affected when they’d dropped out of his life. Apart from the blip that had been his marriage, it was his standard operating procedure when it came to women.

Being a reasonably astute guy, he hadn’t needed therapy to work out that he’d learnt to protect himself against emotional entanglements, and he’d honed his ability to keep his distance from people at a young age. Between his mother’s death, his father’s dictator tendencies and his girlfriends wafting in and then storming out, it had become easier not to care whether people left or not.

His ex-wife and his marriage had been the exception to that rule. While he now called her a crazoid, with the ability to incinerate money, he had to accept that his own issues had also contributed to the train wreck. He hadn’t loved her, but he’d been monstrously in love with the
idea
of her: a wife, a family, normality. When he’d got it he hadn’t known what to do with it...

Saying goodbye to his lifelong dream of being part of something bigger than himself had stung like a shark bite, and because Fate had thought that wasn’t punishment enough, his father had died and he’d been yanked back to St Sylve.

He was still trying to come to terms with his legacy, and frequently wasn’t sure how he felt about the estate. Some days he loved it. Then resentment got the better of him, and on other days, when the memories of his father bubbled close to the surface, he actively hated the place.

If only his mother had— Luke stomped over to the window and looked at the mountains in the near distance. There was no point in thinking about his mother, Jed and his childhood. Nothing he could do to change it.

Luke sighed and thought of Jess. He knew that she was right—that the intelligent decision would be to ignore this attraction bubbling away. He knew that when the lines between working and sleeping together were blurred, confusion and craziness generally followed.

But she was a modern, independent woman—one who didn’t appear to need a man for emotional or financial support to make her life complete. She appeared to be controlled, thinking, cool—someone who could separate love from sex. A perfect candidate for a short-term affair.

She would understand that there would have to be rules. No sleep-overs, a strict division between work and play, no expectations of commitment or a relationship.

It was all in the communication, Luke decided. As long as they both understood the rules, no one would get hurt or could complain.

It was the adult, rational, sensible solution. And if she stuck to her guns and maintained that she couldn’t,
wouldn’t
, sleep with a client, then he’d do what any rational, determined man would do.

He’d seduce her into it. With the heat they generated, he didn’t think it would be too difficult.

* * *

Thirteen hours in a car gave a girl lots of time to get her mind sorted, Jess thought as she turned down the long driveway leading to St Sylve. It was nearly ten at night and she was utterly exhausted. Her eyes were gritty, her body stiff, and she could murder a cup of tea.

She’d initially thought she’d take two days to do the trip, but when she’d reached halfway she’d thought she would push through. She now wished she’d stopped. She had a massive headache and, although she’d done nothing all day but steer, she felt dirty and sweaty. Her hair was unbrushed and her teeth felt as if they were dripping enamel from the energy drinks she’d chain-drunk earlier.

Jess saw lights blazing from the guest house, and when she saw Luke’s Land Cruiser parked in the driveway she knew that he was home and not out on a date or—
eeew
—a sleep-over. Thank goodness.

Right. Before she saw him again, a quick recap on all she’d decided during the day. Living and working so closely with Luke was going to be a challenge. She got that. He was gorgeous, and she was crazy-mad attracted to him, but she couldn’t act on it.

‘No acting on the attraction.’ She muttered her new mantra. ‘No acting on the attraction.’ She just needed to say it forty times a day—an hour?—and her brain would be reprogrammed. Maybe.

When she wasn’t so tired she’d sit him down and lay out some simple ground rules. She was here to do a job, so kissing and touching and most especially sleeping together were out. She’d didn’t sleep with her clients. It was unprofessional. And when trouble brewed it always mucked up the business relationship. Always.

Besides that, attraction spilt over into involvement, which tended to make her end up feeling as if she’d tossed her heart to a pack of rabid, starving wolves.

Luke would just have to understand that for the next few weeks he might own her time, but her body wasn’t included in the deal. Her body, slutty thing that it was, wasn’t very impressed with that decision.
Tough.
Someone had to be the adult...

In the light of her headlights she saw the front door of the guest house open and Luke’s tall silhouette in the doorway. She parked her car next to his Cruiser and switched off her iPod, playing through the car speakers. Hard rock stopped mid-wail and there was blessed silence in the car. Why hadn’t she done that earlier? Oh, right—the edgy album had kept her from falling asleep and drifting off the road.

Jess released the seat belt as Luke opened her door. She smiled wearily up at him, her eyes wide and blinking against the interior light. ‘Hi.’

Luke rested his arm on the top of the car and stood in the doorway. Instead of giving her a smile and a warm greeting, she saw his face was hard in the dim light. ‘When did you leave home?’ he barked.

That wasn’t a friendly woof. Jess frowned. No
hello
? No
good to see you
?

‘Uh...this morning,’ Jess replied. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘Damn right it is,’ Luke whipped back. ‘What do you think you are doing, driving thirteen hours straight? Without letting anyone know? If you’d had an accident how would I have known? You could be lying in a ditch somewhere and I’d still think you’d be arriving tomorrow!’

Jess blinked at his tirade. ‘Uh−’

‘Did you let
anyone
know?’ Luke demanded, increasing his volume with every word.

‘No, I—’

‘It’s stupid and irresponsible. Do you know what can happen to a woman driving on her own?’

‘They arrive safely?’ Jess asked, her temper starting to bubble.

‘You could’ve hit a cow, broken down, had a puncture...’

Jess spoke in her coldest voice as she stepped out of the car. ‘I’m a grown woman who doesn’t need to check in like a child. I didn’t break down, have a puncture or—good grief!—hit a cow! I am here safely. I want a cup of tea, a shower and a warm bed. Can I get any or all of those, or do you need to yell at me some more?’

‘You would try the patience of a flipping saint.’

‘And that saint wouldn’t be you,’ Jess snapped back. She opened the back door and yanked a large tote bag from the seat. Luke took the bag and Jess reached for it. ‘I can carry my own bag!’

‘Fine.’ Luke dropped the bag to the ground and held up his hands. This woman was going to drive him nuts, up the wall...

Jess picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder and squinted at the dark manor house. ‘No lights?’

‘Obviously not. Since I was expecting you
tomorrow
!’

He’d planned on switching on the electrics and the geyser feeding her bathroom in the manor house in the morning, so he supposed he’d have to install her in his tiny guest bedroom/storeroom for the night.

Joy of joys. How was he supposed to sleep, imagining her in a bed not more than a thirty-second walk from his own?

‘Can we possibly go inside?’ Jess asked, her voice as cold as the wind that blew off the mountains.

Luke gestured to his house and followed her long legs in loose jeans. In low boots, with her stripy hair and belligerent expression, she looked like an angry owl. A
sexy
angry owl...

Luke shook his head as her shoulder dropped with the weight of the bag but resisted the urge to take it off her shoulder. Why was he was feeling so annoyed? Protectiveness? Could that be what it was?

Well,
damn
.

He’d always felt uneasy about her travelling across the country on her own, but since she’d planned to do the trip over two days, and would be driving during daylight hours, he’d told himself that she would be fine. When he’d seen her white face and blue-shadowed eyes in the light of her SUV he’d felt a rush of relief followed by a tidal wave of anger because she’d pushed herself so hard to get to St Sylve—driving those passes through the mountains while tired was simple stupidity. He was mad because protectiveness was a precursor to caring, and caring was a precursor to getting involved—which led to pain when someone left, and that wasn’t something he was prepared to have happen again.

So...
Take a deep breath, Savage.
He had to find his self-control, get some distance between him and this fascinating woman.

And while he’d been a bit blasé about wanting her in his bed, now, with her arrival, he was rethinking that. Not that he didn’t want her in his bed—he still wanted that as much as he wanted his heart to keep pumping—but he was thinking that if he saw her as someone he felt protective over instead of an independent, competent woman there could be massive complications down the road.

Was sleeping with her worth the complications? He really wished he knew.

Luke scowled at Jess’s slow-moving figure. Apart from putting his libido on speed, she made his breath hitch and his heart stutter. He thought about her when she wasn’t there and felt protective over her, though she was perfectly capable of looking after herself, and worst of all his world made much more sense now that she was here at St Sylve.

Luke blew out a frustrated breath; he was losing it, he decided. Years of working far too hard and playing far too little were catching up to him. Luke caught her low groan as she moved the tote bag from one arm to another. Frustrated at her independence, he stepped up and yanked the bag from her grasp.

Jess started to protest, but something on his face had the words dying on her lips.

Excellent. He was making progress.

For about ten seconds.

‘I’m a modern, self-sufficient woman who doesn’t need a man to carry stuff for her or lecture her on road safety!’ Jess told him as he opened his front door and stood back to let her precede him.

Progress? One step forward, six back...

‘Yeah, yeah—blah, blah. Just get inside the house, Sherwood, and stop being a pain in my ass,’ Luke told her—and wondered if he had enough wine on the estate to take the edge off the frustration he felt when he was around this woman.

Probably not.

FOUR

Early the next morning, Luke stood with Owen on the veranda of his house, two massive Rhodesian Ridgebacks lying at their feet. Both men held hot cups of coffee—a welcome relief after the freezing temperatures in the lands.

Owen lifted his mug at the magnificent Dutch-gabled manor house directly across from them. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s one hell of a building.’

Luke nodded. ‘My ancestors were quite determined to make a statement that this was Savage land and that they mattered. Except for my father a seven-bedroom manor house wasn’t spacious enough. So he ordered the building of my house as a smaller guest house.’ Jed had also converted the carriage house into an office block, installed a gym, Jacuzzi and steam room, refurbished the tennis court, relandscaped the gardens...

‘All on borrowed money,’ Owen commented.

‘Yep—money he didn’t have and St Sylve couldn’t generate.’

After his father’s death Luke had immediately sold anything that wasn’t nailed down—excluding the family silver and furniture—to pay off his father’s debts. The money received had barely made a dent in the debt he’d inherited along with St Sylve.

Frankly, it would have been cheaper to buy his own wine farm...oh, wait, he
had
. He’d bought and paid for his own inheritance. If he added up all the money he’d poured into the estate over the years, servicing the debt and the interest, he’d probably paid three times what it was worth.

‘My father was intensely concerned about the image he portrayed. It didn’t matter that he was on the verge of losing everything. As long as the illusion of perfection was maintained he was content.’ Luke shrugged. ‘Sometimes I feel like going beyond the grave and slapping him stupid.’

‘Can I come too?’ Owen asked.

‘Who is going where?’

Both men turned quickly, and Luke’s cup wobbled as he saw Jess standing in the doorway of his house, dressed in jeans and low boots, her face mostly free of make-up and her hair pulled into a messy knot.

Luke felt his stomach clench and release.

After he’d introduced her to Owen and they’d exchanged some small talk, Owen glanced at his watch and excused himself. Luke thought that he needed to get back to the lands too, but he felt reluctant to leave Jess. It wasn’t good manners just to leave her on her own, he told himself...
lied
to himself.

‘We need to get your stuff into the manor house. I switched the electrics on; you now have lights but it’ll be a couple of hours until you get hot water.’

‘Thanks.’ Jess wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ll do that later. I want to explore St Sylve, if that’s okay.’

‘Sure.’ Luke shrugged. ‘I’ll give you a tour. What do you want to see?’

Jess shrugged. ‘Everything.’

‘Everything?’

‘I know the cellars and the buildings. I want to see the lands and the vineyard and the orchards.’

‘Okay.’

Luke stepped into the house and deposited the coffee cups on the hall table. Yanking down a heavy jacket from the rack behind the door, he handed it to Jess, thinking of how icy it could get on the bike. He pulled on his own battered wool-lined leather jacket over his long-sleeved T-shirt and stuffed a beanie into one of the pockets. In the shadows of the mountains the temperature could drop rapidly.

‘If you want to tag along, I need to check on how far along my staff are with the pruning, then I need to go across the farm to check on repairs to a fence.’

Luke gestured to his powerful dirt bike and led her towards it.

‘My Land Cruiser has gone in for a service, and the farm truck has gone to town, so this is the only mode of transport I have at the moment.’ Luke slung his leg over the bike. ‘Hop on. Relax and don’t fight me. Do you want a helmet?’

Jess sent him a cocky grin before sliding on behind him. ‘No, I want my own bike.’

‘You ride?’ Luke asked, not able to imagine this city slicker in charge of a dirt bike.

‘I have four older brothers. I ride, fish, surf, play one hell of a game of touch rugby, can start my own fire for a barbecue and change a tyre,’ Jess said as she settled herself on the bike, her thighs warm against his hips, her breasts against his back.

Oh, hell, she sounded like the perfect woman. That was
not
good. Luke turned the key and the bike roared to life.

‘Oh—and the faster the better!’ Jess yelled in his ear. Luke grinned as he picked up speed. ‘Yee-hah!’

Luke felt her hands, light on his hips, and smelt the occasional whiff of something sexy from her perfume. He knew that she was smiling, and when her body relaxed he realised that her tension had disappeared.

Luke felt the wind on his face, her warmth at his back and felt...
content
? He let the thought roll around his head...contentment.

No, probably not. And even if it was, experience had taught him that it wouldn’t last.

* * *

It was mid-afternoon before Luke turned the bike to head back to St Sylve, and Jess was past frozen. A cold front had rapidly moved in, with an icy wind that had blown in heavy clouds and was sneaking in under her clothes. Jess buried her face in between Luke’s shoulderblades and gripped his hips with now frozen hands. She wished she felt comfortable enough to slide her hands up under his jacket to get her hands out of the freezing wind.

Jess pulled her head up as Luke braked and stopped the bike. He left it idling as he half turned to face her. He took her hands in his and rubbed them.

‘I can feel you shivering. Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you out this long,’ Luke said, blowing his hot breath onto her hands.

Jess quivered and not only because of the cold. Seeing that dark head bent over her hands and feeling his warm breath on her skin made the worms squirm in her stomach.

‘How long until we’re back?’ Jess asked, her teeth chattering.

Luke winced. ‘About forty minutes. This cold front came up really quickly.’ He looked up and frowned at the black clouds gathering above. ‘We might get wet.’

Jess shrugged. ‘Well, then, we’d better get moving.’

Luke pulled a black-and-white beanie out of his pocket and pulled it over her ears, tucking away her hair. They were close enough to kiss, Jess thought. She could count each individual spiky eyelash, could see the gold highlights in his very green eyes, could make out the faint traces of a scar in his left eyebrow.

She really wanted to be kissed...

Luke’s fingers were cool on her face as he tucked her hair under the cap and she wondered if she imagined his fingers lingering for a moment longer than necessary on her cheekbone.

‘At the risk of you taking this the wrong way, get as close as possible. Put your hands under my jacket—get them warm. The temperature is dropping fast,’ Luke said as he turned back.

Luke waited while she wriggled herself as close to him as she could and until her hands were flat on his stomach—oh, the blessed warmth—before roaring off. Jess put her face back between his shoulderblades and felt so much more comfortable than she had just minutes before.

His stomach was hard and ridged with muscle and his back was broad, protecting her from the wind they were now riding into. She’d forgotten how much of a man he was, Jess thought as the first drops of icy rain fell. It wasn’t only his impressive body—while he wasn’t muscle bound, he was still ripped in all the right places, like the six-pack under her hands—but wherever he went on the estate he instantly commanded respect.

She’d watched and listened as he interacted with his staff. He gave orders easily, listened when he needed to and made swift decisions. His employees felt at ease around him—enough to crack jokes and initiate conversation.

She hadn’t realised how extensive his property was or how much he was responsible for. He had a small dairy herd that provided milk to a processing dairy in town, orchards that exported plums and soft citrus, and olives that were sold to a factory in Franschoek that pressed and bottled olive oil.

‘They all add to the St Sylve coffers,’ Luke had said, a muscle jumping in his jaw. ‘Thank God.’

‘Are the St Sylve coffers empty?’ she’d joked.

‘You have no idea.’

Jess couldn’t understand it...
why
did St Sylve have money troubles if he had all these other sources of income? Even if the wine wasn’t selling that well, then the milk and olives, sheep and fruit should subsidise the winery.

It was a puzzle. Jess felt a big drop of rain hit her cheek and she shivered. Luke briefly placed his left hand over her hands, as if to reassure her, and Jess rubbed her cheek against his back and turned her thoughts back to St Sylve.

Luke and St Sylve were such a conundrum. According to the grapevine, Luke made money hand over fist from his venture capital business, so he was supposedly not hurting for cash. It was common knowledge that he had extensive business interests apart from St Sylve, and he was reputed to have the very fortunate ability to make money—a lot of which, she suspected, he poured into this estate. Although he was based in Franschoek she knew that he provided financial and management capital to high-potential, high-risk, high-growth startup companies for a stake in said company.

But the question remained: if he had all these other sources of income for the farm and he was still selling wine—not huge amounts, but enough—why would he imply that the farm was in the red? That it wasn’t self-supporting?

It was very bewildering.

Jess silently cursed as the rain started to fall in earnest. Within a minute the drops had turned into icy bullets that soaked her jeans and ran down her neck into her jersey. Jess groaned. She’d look like a frozen drowned rat by the time she got back to St Sylve...

‘Are you okay?’ Luke yelled at her.

I’m cold and I’m wet,
Jess thought, but Luke knew that already. What was the point in whining? ‘I’m okay. Could murder a cup of coffee, though!’

‘You and me both. Damn Cape weather!’ Luke shouted, and Jess just caught his words before the wind whipped them away.

‘There’s ice in the rain,’ Jess yelled in his ear. She knew this because she could feel ice in the drop that was rolling down her spine towards her panties. She resisted the urge to wiggle.

‘I wasn’t going to mention it,’ Luke stated as he abruptly stopped the bike.

‘Why are you stopping?’ Jess demanded. ‘I thought the point was to get home as quick as possible!’

‘It is.’ Luke looked at a small track leading off from the dirt road. ‘How are you at cross-country?’

‘I’ve done it.’ Jess looked at him and pursed her lips. ‘Will it get us home quicker?’

‘It’ll save us about twenty minutes. But it’s tough. And muddy. And it’ll mean going through a small stream.’

Jess shrugged. ‘I’m soaked already. Let’s do it.’

Luke squeezed her thigh. ‘You’re quite a package, Sherwood. And even more of a surprise.’

Jess wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.

* * *

Luke had already polished off one cup of coffee and was on his second when Jess walked into the kitchen, dressed in another pair of jeans and a dark blue jersey.

‘Coffee?’ he asked, even as he poured her a cup.

‘God, yes.’ Jess took the cup, wrapped her hands around it and sipped. ‘Oh, that’s heavenly.’ Jess took a seat at the wooden four-seater table in the centre of the room and sipped and sighed. When her eyes met his, she smiled. ‘One hell of a tour, Savage.’

‘I’m really sorry we got caught in the storm,’ Luke said. It wasn’t like him. He always paid attention. But his mind had been on Jess and his hyper-awareness of her. The way her body had felt against his, listening to her introduce herself to his staff and engage them in conversation, watching her as she suddenly stopped walking and just looked off into the distance, as if she were taking a mental snapshot.

She was a city girl, and her attitude today had impressed him and, if he were one hundred percent honest, thrown him off his stride. He’d expected her to whine and moan about being wet and cold, yet she’d sucked it up and said nothing, accepting that there was nothing he could do about the situation but get them home as quickly as possible. While he’d pushed the bike through mud and grass and that icy stream she’d said nothing to disturb his concentration, and he’d got them back in record time...wet and dirty but ultimately safely, and as quickly as he possibly could.

She hadn’t griped or complained.

‘My boots are covered in mud. At least I can clean these—unlike my suede heels that I had to toss.’

Luke’s smile flashed. ‘I told you so. You’ll have to get a pair of gumboots.’

Jess shuddered. ‘They are so incredibly ugly.’

Luke rolled his eyes. ‘But made for mud and rain.’

Jess placed her cup on the table and looked past him to the window. ‘It’s really belting down.’

‘Winter in the Cape,’ Luke said. ‘Want some more coffee?’

‘Not just yet,’ Jess replied. ‘Thanks for the tour. I’ve already got some good ideas for the campaign...’

‘Want to share them with me?’ He took a seat at the table, propping his feet up on the seat of the nearest chair.

‘Not yet. Still percolating.’

‘So tell me why you wanted to work for me.’ After what had happened between them he’d thought that she’d hold a grudge for ever. ‘Why
did
you gatecrash my party, Jess?’

Jess rolled her cup between her palms. ‘It’s the most talked-about campaign around and I’m competitive enough to want to snag it. That was one reason. Another is that I have a reputation in the industry...I’m becoming very well known for tackling hard-to-rescue brands or campaigns. And I have a soft spot for St Sylve and this type of campaign is what I do best.’

‘Even though I—?’

‘Fought with me, kissed me and then fired me?’ A small smile tipped the corners of Jess’s mouth upward. ‘I deserved everything you said to me. You were right to fire me, and the k— Well, it was all a long time ago.’

She’d been about to mention the kiss, Luke realised. He really wished he knew what she wanted to say about it. That it was fantastic? She wanted to do it again? They’d be amazing in bed? It
had
been fantastic, he
did
want to do it again and, yes, he wanted her in his bed.