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With both strong hands he took hold of her shoulders, his hot fingers clutching her desperately. “I’ll never say this again, never admit it to anyone else, you understand?”
She nodded.
“The hell of it is, I love you, Claire Holland,” he said flatly. “God knows I don’t want to. Truth of the matter is, I loathe myself for it, but there it is.”
She couldn’t speak, was afraid to move, and felt like a frightened doe caught in headlights. Her heart hammered and she stole a glance at his lips, wondering if he was going to kiss her or if she should be the one to press her eager lips to his.
“There’s something else you should know. If you were mine, I wouldn’t keep you waiting. Harley Taggert’s a fool, and you’re an even bigger one to let him treat you this way. The reason I call you Princess? It’s because that’s the way you should be treated. Like goddamned royalty.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, her perfect world shattered. He loved her? Kane Moran loved her?
“My sentiments exactly. Helluva mess, isn’t it?” He let go then and she, too, dropped her hands. “Come on, Claire, I’ll take you back to your car.” His jaw was hard as granite. “We wouldn’t want to keep Harley waiting, now, would we?”
He was on his feet in an instant and striding to the bike.
“Kane—”
He stopped dead in his tracks, glanced over his shoulder.
She swallowed hard. “I, uh, I don’t know what to say—”
“Nothing. No lies. No excuses. Just say nothing.” He swung one long leg over the bike, switched on the ignition, and threw his weight into the kick-start. The big machine’s engine fired and growled, the noise ricocheting off the surrounding hills. “We’re both better off if you don’t say anything.”
But she wasn’t sure.
Throat as dry as dust, she walked on legs that didn’t seem to touch the ground and settled behind him on the bike. It felt natural—so right—to wrap her arms around his waist. Over the roar of the engine, she thought he muttered, “Let’s just forget this night ever existed.” But she couldn’t be sure. In her heart, she knew, she would treasure these past few hours forever.
Eleven
Dropping the mainsail and securing the boom, Weston felt the cooling spray of the ocean upon his face. There were times when he enjoyed sailing, being alone on the vast expanse of water, challenging the elements while feeling the pitch and roll of the sea. But not tonight.
Lights from the marina reflected on the dark, ever moving water. Using the power of the motor, he guided the sleek sailboat across the bay and into her berth. He tied up by rote, thought for a second about Crystal, then discarded the idea of seeing her again. She was warm and willing, a girl who would do anything to please him, and she bored him senseless. He needed a new conquest, a challenge.
The dismal part of it was, he knew that he’d never be satisfied, not with some new innocent conquest, not with an easy score, not even with Kendall if she accepted his offer. Christ, what a bastard he’d been to her—offering to screw her and impregnate her as if he were being noble. The truth of the matter was he’d just like a taste of Forsythe pussy. Besides, the thought of siring a child and having Harley raise it appealed to the perverse side of his nature. Not only would Kendall be forever in his debt, but he’d have one over on his stupid ass of a brother.
He locked the cabin and realized that even more than Kendall, he wanted one of the Holland girls.
Why? Because they’d been thrown in his face for nearly twenty years, described by his father as off-limits, the enemy, Dutch Holland’s evil, if beautiful, spawn.
Which made them all the more interesting. And now that Harley had the balls to date Claire openly, Weston saw no good reason not to act on his male impulses. Oh, he talked a good story with all that bullshit to Harley about being cut out of the will, but the old man would never be so rash, and Weston would never do anything to upset his place as primary heir. He’d worked too many years sucking up to his father, playing Neal’s games, shining at everything he did to blow it now. Neal Taggert made no bones about the fact that Weston was his favorite and as such would inherit the lion’s share of the family fortune. Weston would never blow it and lose out.
But what if that son steps forward, the other one, the one no one acknowledges—the bastard?
When Weston had mentioned that the old rumor was rearing its ugly head again, Neal had sworn and blamed Dutch Holland for spreading lies. For some unknown reason Dutch hated Neal and would stop at nothing to ruin him.
Weston had been placated, at least for the time being, and had even stolen a copy of his father’s will from the old man’s office in Portland. Neal had just altered the document, but he hadn’t lied. When his father kicked off, Weston was set for life.
If he didn’t screw up. He wouldn’t. He was too farsighted to mess up something important, but oh, he had an itch in his pants for Miranda Holland. What he wouldn’t give for one night to show that icy, sharp-tongued woman what hot-blooded, snarling, pure animal lust was all about. He was a good lover and he could show her things that would leave her sweating, heart pounding, and begging for more.
That thought brought a smile to his lips. Every time he’d so much as smiled at her, she’d looked down her nose at him, and the thought of her pleading with him, her hair wet with perspiration, her face flushed, her supple fingers reaching for his zipper brought his cock to attention.
“Someday,” he said under his breath. Someday she’d find out what a real man could reduce her to. Smiling, he adjusted his pants, and left the sailboat and the pier behind him as he walked under the arched neon Illahee Yacht Club sign and paused to light a cigarette. Another vision of Miranda Holland stole through his mind, as it had while he was out in the ocean and about a dozen times a day. For Christ’s sake, he was getting as bad as Harley, except, unlike Claire, who was apparently willing to warm his younger brother’s bed, Miranda would rather spit on him than talk to him.
Climbing into his convertible he imagined again what it would be like to make it with Miranda. Tall, long-legged, with eyes as cool as blue ice, she’d disdained most boys’ advances, burying her straight, nearly perfect nose in a book more often than not, but Weston sensed that beneath her frosty composure was a hot-blooded woman who could be an animal in bed.
Sharp-witted and rapier-tongued, an unapproachable woman who had her entire future mapped out for herself, she would like the world to believe that she had no time for any attention from the opposite sex.
But she was handing out false advertising.
