No Longer Forbidden? (3 page)

“Rosedale,” she tossed out. It was a defiant challenge, but earnest want crept into her tone. This was her home. This was where Olief would return … if he could.

“Rosedale?” Nic repeated.

His frigid stare gave her a shiver of apprehension before she reminded herself she was being crass because he was.

She tensed her sooty lashes into protective slits as she held his intimidating gaze. “Why not?” she challenged. “You don’t want it.”

“Not true. I don’t like the
house
,” he corrected, shifting his big body into an uncompromising stance, shoulders pinned back, arms folded in refusal. “The location is perfect, though. I intend to tear down this monstrosity as soon as it’s emptied and build something that suits me better. So, no, you may not have Rosedale.”

“Tear it down?” The words hissed in her throat like the steam off the kettle. “Why would you even threaten such a thing? Just to hurt me?”

“Hurt you?” He frowned briefly. Any hint of softening was dismissed in a blink. “Don’t try to manipulate me with your acts of melodrama, Rowan. No, I’m not doing anything
to
you. You’re not on my radar enough for me to be that personal.”

Of course not. And she shouldn’t let him so far into her psyche that she was scorched by that. But there he was, making her burn with humiliation and hurt.

“Unlike you, I don’t play games,” he continued. “That wasn’t a threat. It’s the truth. The house is completely impractical. If I’m going to live here I want open rooms, more access to the outdoors, fewer stairs.”

“Then don’t live here!”

“Athens has been my base most of my life. It’s a short helicopter or boat trip from here to there. The island’s vineyard is profitable in its own right, which I’m sure is the real
reason you want your hands on the place, but I’m not going to hand you a property worth multi-millions because your mother slept her way into having a ridiculous house built on it. What I
will
do is allow you to take whatever Cassandra left here—if you do it in a timely manner.”

Rowan could only stare into his emotionless blue eyes. His gall left her speechless. Her mind could barely comprehend all he was saying. Rosedale gone? Pick over her mother’s things like she was snatching bargains at a yard sale? Give up
hope
?

A stabbing pain drove through her, spreading an ache like poison across her chest and lifting a sting into her throat and behind her eyes.

“I don’t want
things
, Nic. I want my home and my family!”

She was going to cry, and it was the last thing she could bear to do in front of this glacier-veined man. It was more like her to go toe-to-toe than run from a fight, but for the second time in half an hour she had to walk out on him.

After hiking the length of the island in heels, her feet refused a visit to all her favored haunts, so Rowan went as far as the sandy shoreline and kicked off her boots. The water was higher than she’d ever seen it, but she usually only swam in summer, rarely came to the beach in winter, and she hadn’t been looking at the water when she’d followed Nic down here two years ago.

Wincing, she turned her mind from that debacle—only to become conscious of how grim a place the beach was to visit since her mother and Olief had likely drowned somewhere out there in the Mediterranean. One year ago.

She was starting to hate this time of year.

Starting up the beach, she tried to escape the hitch of guilt catching in her, not wanting to dwell on how she’d
asked them to come for her when she’d broken her leg. She hadn’t been able to go to them—not physically and, more significantly, because she had feared running into Nic.

Oh, that hateful man! She hated him all the more for having a point. He wasn’t
right
, but she had to acknowledge he wasn’t completely wrong. She hadn’t expected to find her mother and Olief in residence, but she’d wanted to feel close to them as she faced the anniversary of their disappearance and accepted what he’d come out and said: it was very unlikely they would ever come back and tell her what to do.

The rest of her life stretched before her like the water, endless and formless. Until the dance school had kicked her out she’d never faced anything like this. Logically she knew she ought to celebrate this freedom and opportunity, but it looked so empty.

Her life was empty. She had no one.

Rowan drank salt-scented air as she inhaled, trying to ease the constriction in her lungs. Not yet. She didn’t have to face all that until the year was officially up. Nic could go to hell with his court documents and demands that she face reality.

As she contemplated dealing with his threats against Rosedale a moment of self-pity threatened. Why did he dislike her so much? His cloud of harsh judgment always seemed directed inexorably toward her, but why? They were nothing to each other. He might be Olief’s son, but who would know it? He only ever referred to Olief by name, never even in conversation as “my father,” yet he wanted the rights of a son, full inheritance. That egotistical sense of privilege affronted her. She wanted to stand up for Olief if for no other reason than that Nic didn’t deserve the position of sole heir. He’d never made a proper
effort to be part of the family, and he wasn’t looking out for what was left of it:
her
.

Estranged seemed to be his preferred option in any relationship. That wall of detachment had broken Olief’s heart. And it made Rowan nervous because it made Nic formidable. Her insides clenched at the thought of Rosedale being torn down. She couldn’t lose her home.

Reaching the end of the beach, where a long flat rock created the edge of the cove, she clambered up to a well-used vantage point. The waves were wild, coming in with a wind that tore at her hair and peppered her with sea spray. Barnacles cut into her bare soles while bits of kelp in icy tide pools made for slippery steps in between.

She picked her way to the edge, reveling in the struggle to reach it under the ferocious mood of the sky. Another wave smashed against the rocks under her toes, high enough to spray her thighs and wash bitter swirls of cold water around her ankles before it was sucked back to open water. Uncomfortable, but not enough to chase her away.

Throwing back her head, she sent out a challenge to the gathering storm as if standing up to Nic. “I won’t let you scare me off!”

The words were tossed away on a whistling wind, but it felt good to say them. To stand firm against the crash and gush and pull of a wintry sea that soaked her calves before dragging at the denim in retreat.

It wasn’t until a third monster, higher than all the rest, rolled in and exploded in a wall of water, soaking her to the chest, that she realized she might not be strong enough to win against such a mighty enemy.

If Rowan thought he’d bring her luggage out of the rain or pour her tea while she stamped around outside throwing a
hissy fit, she had another think coming. Nic went upstairs to his office and did his best to dismiss her from his mind.

It didn’t go well. That heartbreaking catch in her voice when she’d said, “
I
want my home and my family
,” kept ringing in his mind, making him uncomfortable.

He wasn’t close to his own mother, and after many times hearing Rowan and Cassandra fight like cats in a cage had assumed their relationship was little better than an armed truce. Of course he’d observed over the years that regard for one’s parents was fairly universal, and he obviously would have preferred it if Olief had survived rather than disappeared, but he hadn’t imagined Rowan was feeling deep distress over any of this. Her anguish startled him. Throughout this entire year, as always, he had tried not to think much of her at all—certainly not to dwell on how she was coping emotionally.

He coped by working long hours and avoiding deep thoughts altogether. Getting emotional and wishing for the impossible was a waste of time. Nothing could be changed by angst and hand-wringing.

Moving to the window, he tried to escape doing anything of that sort now, telling himself he was only observing the weather. On the horizon, the haze of an angry front was drawing in. It was the storm that had been promised when he’d checked the weather report, and the reason he’d come over last night on the yacht rather than trying to navigate choppy, possibly deadly seas today.

A storm like this had taken down Olief’s plane. He and Cassandra had been off to fetch Rowan from yet another of her madcap adventures.
She
was the reason Nic had no chance of knowing Olief or grasping the seemingly simple concept she’d bandied about at him so easily:
family
. Rowan might not be the whole reason, but one way or another she had interfered with Nic’s efforts to get to know
his father. She had demanded Olief’s attention with cheeky misbehavior and constant bids for attention, interrupting whenever Nic found a moment with the man and constantly distracting him with her unrelenting sex appeal. He’d had to walk away from progress a thousand times. Away from her.

Prickling with antipathy, he unconsciously scanned the places he’d most often observed her over the years, not aware he was looking for her until he felt a twinge of confusion when he didn’t find her where he usually would. She wasn’t at the gazebo or up the hilltop or on the beach—

He spotted her and swore.
Fool
.

Bare feet had been a bad idea. Rowan couldn’t move fast across the sharp, uneven rocks to outrun the tide that was coming in with inescapable resolve. She couldn’t even see where she was stepping. The water had come in deep enough to eddy around her knees, keeping her off balance. With her arms flapping, she silently begged her mum and Olief,
If you can hear me, please help me get back to shore alive
.

The response to her plea was the biggest wave yet, visible as a steel-gray wall crawling up behind her with ominous size and strength. Rowan dug in with her numb toes and braced for impact. Her whole body shuddered as the weight of the water began to climb her already soaked clothes, gathering height as it loomed behind her.

She held her breath.

The wave broke at her shoulders and with a cry she felt herself thrown forward onto what felt like broken glass. Her hands and knees felt the scrape of barnacles as she tried to scramble for purchase, but then she was lifted. Her heart stopped. The wave was going to roll her across these rocks before it dragged her out to die.

Rowan clawed toward the surface long enough to get a glimpse of Nic running flat out down the beach.

“Ni—” Her mouth filled with water.

Nic lost sight of her as the surf thundered into itself. He pushed his body to the limit, tormented anger bubbling like acid inside him. Questions pounded with his footsteps digging across the wet sand. What did God have against him? Why did he have to lose everything? Why
her—
?

An arm flailed, fighting to stay in the foam that drained off the ledge of rocks. If the retreating wave carried her into deeper water she’d be thrown back into the rocks with the next surge that came in. Rowan fought for her life and so did Nic. He leapt onto the ledge and waded into the turbulence, able to read the terror on her face as she valiantly fought to keep herself from being pulled beyond reach.

At the last second she surged forward enough that he was able to clamp his hand on her wrist. He dragged her up and out of the water, clutching her to his chest as he made for safer ground. The tide poured in with another wave big enough to soak his seat and spatter his back before he reached the sand and finally the grass. He stopped, heart racing with exertion, too close to seeing her die to ease his vice-like grip.

Rowan clung tightly to Nic even as he crushed her, stunned by how close she’d come to being sucked into certain death. She was shocked to the core that he’d arrived at just the right time to help her. Astounded that he’d bothered.

He hadn’t hesitated, though. His clothes were as soaked as her own, his heart pounding as loud and rapidly as hers. As her senses crept back to a functioning state she realized how thoroughly she was plastered to him. They were embracing like soulmates.

She lifted her face from the hollow of his shoulder, but his arms remained iron-hard, pinning her to a chest roped with muscle, holding her so close she could smell faded aftershave and sea spray. Warmth crept into the seam of their bodies, spilling a teasing pleasure under her skin wherever their wet clothes adhered.

Gratitude
. She tried dismissing it. But it was more. It didn’t matter that she’d been here two years ago, very close to this place on the beach, and had received a harsh set down on the heels of experiencing this same rush. Nic was the only man to affect her like this, no matter how often she’d dated or tried to let other men arouse her. Nic had set the bar impossibly high when she’d first begun noticing the opposite sex. She had yet to find anyone who measured up. It meant that his arms were the ones she secretly longed to feel around her. Now he was ruining her even more, because the fit of her body to his was so perfect. The flood of tingling awareness so exciting.

His gaze caught her own and stillness came over him. She mentally braced herself, but instead of fury something hot flickered in his eyes. His expression darkened with a flush that almost looked like— Rowan caught her breath, confused.
Lust
? Impossible. He hated her.

Nevertheless, she could feel an unmistakable male reaction against her abdomen. An answering trickle of desire made her wriggle her hips in embarrassed curiosity.

His arms hardened, holding her still for his penetrating gaze as their mutual reaction became undeniable. He knew she was getting turned on. He was turned on and was forcing her to acknowledge it.

Her mind blanked as her unsteady heart kicked into overdrive. She’d been drunk the last time, and insulated against what had really been happening. The moon behind him had kept his face in shadow. He’d kissed her, angrily,
and then had pushed her away as fast as he’d yanked her close.

This
hadn’t happened. Rowan was a skilled flirt, ever conscious of the power of her sex appeal, but real sexual need had never ignited in her properly. She’d never felt another man’s arousal and been intrigued and excited. She’d always kept a clear head and been able to put on the brakes.