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She stole a glance at the man beside her and her pulse slowed, taking in the play of muscles as he shifted gears, the sculpted angle of his cheekbone in profile, and the way the wind whipped at his hair—making her fingers itch to sweep it back off that high forehead.
Rats. Seeing Carter Price in his natural habitat wasn’t going to make him one single bit easier to resist.
‘So what do you think?’ He shouted the question across the console.
You’re gorgeous.
The words echoed in her head, as they had been doing most of the afternoon. And it occurred to her she wasn’t just admiring his looks any more, or his super powers in the sack, or even the sharp intelligence he’d shown during their chat in the Standard bar a week ago. While walking through his business with him, she’d got a glimpse of the boy she’d met a decade ago. The cynical player slipping away to reveal a man with warmth and intelligence—and an almost boyish pride in what he’d achieved, not just for himself and his company, but for his community. She wondered if Marnie had ever seen this side of him. Surely she couldn’t have and still think so little of him?
But then families were often unpredictable. Growing up in close proximity to someone didn’t automatically make you able to understand them—or even like them.
Take her own father—and her impossible relationship with him. Arthur Carrington had been a low-ranking member of the British aristocracy who’d inherited a venture capitalist firm from his own father—her father’s ruthlessness in business had been legendary. He’d grabbed all he could with the arrogance of a man born into status and given very little back, not just in his professional life, but in his personal life as well. And although he’d been dead for over six years, Gina still shuddered when she thought of him and the cold, hard glint in his eyes as he’d kicked her out of his house ten years ago.
From what Marnie had said about Carter’s chequered love life since his divorce, and from what she had discovered during the last few days about the phenomenal success of his business, Gina would have expected him to be cut from the same cloth, albeit with a layer of Southern charm added. But it seemed nothing could have been further from the truth. Was it possible he really wasn’t that far removed from the idealistic and sincere young man she remembered at Hillbrook? Who had been striving to pull his family’s business back from the brink but had been determined to do so in an ethical way?
And why did that concept only make her visit to Savannah seem that much more perilous?
‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘You’ve built something amazing here—just like you hoped you would,’ she added, the memory of the starry-eyed enthusiasm with which he’d once outlined his dreams for the mill all those years ago making her forget to be cautious. ‘And you didn’t have to become your father to do it.’
A small crinkle formed on his brow. ‘What do you know about my father?’
‘Only what you said about him that night.’
He slowed the car, shifted down a gear to observe her for several long moments. ‘What did I say about him? I don’t recall.’
Her heart bobbed into her throat and it occurred to her she had just strayed into forbidden territory. Why had she mentioned that night? They were so far past it now. And she would do better not to equate the man Carter was now with the boy he’d been, because that boy had had a very unpredictable effect on her. And if she wanted to maintain a professional distance, sharing intimate recollections probably wasn’t the smartest way to go about it.
‘I can’t remember, not a lot.’
‘You remember, or you wouldn’t have made that comment.’
He didn’t sound annoyed, but his expression was far too intense for merely curious—forcing her to give him an answer.
‘I got the impression you didn’t like him much....’ A confidence that had instantly made them connect, because it was exactly how she had always felt about her own father.
‘Did I tell you why?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really.’ He hadn’t elaborated, even when she’d pushed and she couldn’t deny the spark of curiosity even now. ‘Marnie always described him as being larger than life—a force to be reckoned with. You seemed less impressed with him. That’s all I remember.’
But she’d always wondered where that disillusionment had come from. Especially the next morning, when he’d woken up in her arms in her tiny bedroom in Reese’s house and then shot out of her bed, the horror and regret plain on his stricken face. And all her stupid notions about some cosmic connection between them had shrivelled up inside her as he’d apologised with the stiff politeness of a puritan minister while rushing to get his clothes on—so he could escape out of the window and pretend he’d never been there when he returned to collect Marnie’s stuff. Before racing back to Savannah to throw himself on the mercy of the woman he was due to marry. The woman he loved.
‘I sure must have shot my mouth off that night.’ He sent her a quick grin. ‘You must have thought I was one hell of a sap.’
She hadn’t thought he was a sap—not after she’d cut through the macho posturing and discovered a young man who’d seemed as lost and alone and confused as she was. She flinched at the stupidly romantic thought. ‘You were certainly rather full of yourself,’ she replied—because he had been, at first. ‘And hopelessly sexist.’
He sent her a quick grin. ‘Yeah, and as I recall you weren’t shy about telling me. I still remember that comment about exactly how I was ruining the line of my designer points.’
He gave a rueful chuckle, but she cringed inside—knowing even then she’d been flirting with him.
‘But I realise now you were simply looking out for your sister in the only way you knew how to.’
‘That bad, huh?’ he teased, but she couldn’t bring herself to share the joke, the memory of that intense, conflicted young man and the way she’d mocked him far too vivid.
‘And in complete denial about your sexual needs—which made you an irresistible challenge for a tramp like me.’
He flicked up the indicator to turn off the country lane onto a two-lane highway. ‘Gina, honey, you weren’t a tramp,’ he said, with surprising conviction. ‘You had a healthy libido and you weren’t ashamed to enjoy it. Unlike me. I sincerely hope you are not still blaming yourself for what happened?’ he asked, the question a little too astute for comfort.
She forced out a husky laugh. ‘I’ve never been ashamed of enjoying sex. I think I gave you conclusive proof of that last week.’
