Ethan's Temptress Bride Read online

  ‘And you?’ He diverted his attention back to Jack Banning. ‘Do you sip the honey on a regular basis here?’

  Jack gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘The boss would have my balls for trophies if I imbibed,’ he murmured candidly. ‘No…’ picking up his glass he tasted the rum ‘…I have this lovely widow living on the next island who keeps me sane in that department.’

  With no ties, and no commitment expected or desired, Ethan concluded from that, knowing the kind of woman Jack was talking about because he’d enjoyed a few of them himself in his time.

  ‘She’s a good woman,’ Jack added as if he needed to make that point.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Ethan replied, and he didn’t. In the time he had been here, he had got to know and like Jack Banning. Being in the leisure business himself—though in a different area—he wasn’t surprised that André Visconte had a man like Jack in place. In fact he was considering doing a bit of head-hunting because they could do with Jack running the new resort his company was in the process of constructing in Spain.

  Though that idea was shot to pieces when Jack spoke again. ‘Her husband was caught out at sea in a hurricane four years ago,’ he said quietly. ‘He left her well shod but heavily pregnant. Left her with a badly broken heart too.’

  Which told Ethan that Jack was in love with the widow. Which in turn meant there was no hope of getting him to leave for pastures new.

  ‘So what’s your excuse for the self-imposed celibacy?’ Jack asked curiously.

  Same as you, Ethan thought grimly. I fell for a married woman—only her husband is very much alive and kicking. ‘Too much of a good thing is reputed to be bad for you,’ was what he offered as a dry reply.

  Glancing at him, he saw Jack’s gaze touch that part of Ethan’s jaw where the bruising had been obvious a few days ago. He had been forced to wear the mark like a banner when he’d first arrived on the island. Speculation as to how he’d received the bruise had been rife. His refusal to discuss it had only helped to fire people’s imagination.

  But the expression in Jack’s eyes told him that Jack had drawn a pretty accurate conclusion. He sighed, so did Jack. Both men lifted their glass to their mouths and said no more. It had been that kind of conversation: some things had been said, others not, but all had been taken on board nonetheless. Turning on his stool, Jack offered the busy bar room a once-over with his lazy-yet-shrewd manager’s eye, while Ethan studied the contents of his glass with a slightly bitter gaze. He was thinking of a woman with dark red hair, silk-white skin and a broken heart that was in the process of being mended by the wrong man, as far as he was concerned.

  But the right man for her, he had to add honestly, felt the tiger stir within and wished he knew of a good cure for unrequited love.

  ‘Try the sex,’ Jack said suddenly as if he could read his mind. ‘It has to be a better option than lusting after the unattainable.’

  Unable to restrain it, Ethan released a hard laugh. ‘Is that advice for me or for yourself?’

  ‘You,’ Jack answered. Then he grimaced as he added, ‘Mine is a hopeless case. You see, the widow’s son calls me Daddy.’ With that he got up and gave Ethan’s shoulder a man-to-man, sympathetic pat. ‘Let me know about the Marlin trip,’ he said and strolled away.

  Turning to watch him go, Ethan saw Jack stop once or twice to chat to people on his way out of the bar. One woman in particular came to meet him. It was Eve the temptress. A quick look around and he found Aidan Galloway standing at the other end of the bar. He was ordering a drink and he didn’t look happy. Join the club, Ethan thought, as his eyes then picked out Raoul Delacroix who was watching Eve with an expression on his face that matched Aidan Galloway’s.

  As for Eve, her long slender arms were around Jack’s neck and she was pouting up at him in a demand for a kiss. Amiably Jack gave it and smiled at whatever it was she was saying to him. Without much tempting she managed to urge the manager into motion to the music, his big hands spanning her tiny waist, his dark head dipped to maintain eye contact. Like that, they teased each other as they swayed.

  Suddenly Ethan knew it was time to leave. Downing the rest of his drink, he came to his feet, placed some money on the bar and wished the girl behind it a light farewell. As he walked towards the dancers he thought he saw Eve move that extra inch closer to Jack’s impressive body.

  Done for his benefit? he asked himself, then shot that idea in the foot with a silent huff of scorn to remind himself that Eve Herakleides disliked him as much as he disliked her.

  Outside the air was like warm damp silk against his skin. The humidity was high, and looking out to sea Ethan could see clouds gathering on the horizon aiming to spoil the imminent sunset. There could be a storm tonight, he predicted as he turned in the direction of his beach house. Behind him the sound of a woman’s laughter came drifting towards him from inside the bar. Without thinking he suddenly changed direction and his feet were kicking hot sand as he ran toward the water and made a clean racing dive into its cool clear depths.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Jack cautioned. ‘He’s too old and too dangerous for a sweet little flirt like you.’

  Dragging her eyes away from the sight of Ethan Hayes in full sprint as he headed for the ocean, Eve looked into Jack Banning’s knowing gaze—and mentally ran for cover. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

  Jack didn’t believe her. ‘Ethan Hayes could eat you for a snack without touching his appetite,’ he informed her without a hint of mockery to make the bitter pill of truth an easier one to swallow.

  ‘Like you, you mean,’ she said with a kissable pout, which was really another duck-and-run. ‘Big bad Jack,’ she murmured as she moved in closer then began swaying so provocatively that he had to physically restrain her.

  He did it with a white-toothed, highly amused, grin. ‘Minx,’ he scolded. ‘If your grandfather could see you he would have you locked up—these messages you put out are dangerous.’

  ‘My grandpa adores me too much to do anything so primitive.’

  ‘Your grandfather, my little siren, arrives on this island tomorrow,’ Jack reminded her. ‘Let him see this look you’re wearing on your face and we will soon learn how primitive he can be…’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ETHAN took his time swimming down the length of the bay to come out of the water opposite the beach house he was using while he was here. It belonged to Leandros Petronades, a business associate, who had understood his need to get away from it all for a week or two if he wasn’t going to do something stupid like walk out on his ten-year-strong working partnership with Victor Frayne.

  Victor…Ethan’s feet stilled at the edge of the surf as the same anger that had caused the rift between the two of them rose up to burn at his insides again.

  Victor had used him, or had allowed him to be used, as a decoy in the crossfire between Victor’s daughter, Leona, and her estranged husband, Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim. In the Sheikh’s quest to recover his wife, Leona and Ethan had been ambushed then dragged off into the night. When Ethan had eventually come round from a knockout blow to his jaw, it had been to find he’d been made virtual prisoner on Sheikh Hassan’s luxury yacht. But if he’d thought his pride had taken a battering when he’d been wrestled to the ground and rendered helpless with that knockout blow, then his interview with the Sheikh the next morning had turned what was left of his pride to pulp.

  The man was an arrogant bastard, Ethan thought grimly. What Leona loved about him he would never understand. If he had been her father, he would have been putting up a wall of defence around her rather than aiding and abetting her abduction by a man whom everyone knew had been about to take a second wife! 19

  Leona had been out of that marriage—best out of that marriage! Now she was back in it with bells ringing and—

  Bending down he picked up a conch shell then turned and hurled it into the sea. He wished to goodness he hadn’t had that conversation with Jack Banning. He wished h
e could stuff all of these violent feelings back into storage where he had managed to hide them for the last week. Now he was angry with himself again, angry with Victor, and angry with Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim and the whole damn world, probably.

  On that heavily honest assessment, he turned back to face land again. Leandros Petronades had been his saviour when he’d offered him the use of this place. Not that the Greek’s motives had been in the least bit altruistic, Ethan reminded himself. As one of the main investors in their Spanish project, Leandros had been protecting his own back, plus several other business ventures his company had running with Hayes-Frayne. A bust up between Ethan and Victor would have left him with problems he did not need or want. So when he’d happened to walk in on the furious row the two partners had been locked in, had seen the huge purple bruise on Ethan’s face and had heard enough to draw his own conclusions as how the bruise got there, Leandros had immediately suggested that Ethan needed a break while he cooled off.

  So here he was, standing on the beach of one of the most exclusive islands in the Caribbean, and about the lush green hillside in front of him nestled the kind of properties most people only dreamed about. The Visconte hotel complex occupied a central position, forming the hub around which all activities on the island revolved. Either side of the hotel stood the private villas belonging to those wealthy enough to afford a plot of land here. André Visconte himself owned a private estate. The powerful Galloway family owned many properties, forming a small hamlet of their own in the next bay. But if the size of a plot was indicative of wealth, then the villa belonging to Theron Herakleides had to be the king.

  Painted sugar-pink, it sat inside a framework of ancient date-and fabulous flame-trees about halfway up the hill. From the main house the garden swept down to sea level via a series of carefully tended terraces: sun terraces, pool terraces, garden terraces that wouldn’t be believed to be real outside a film set. There were tennis courts and even a velvet smooth croquet lawn, though Ethan could not bring himself to imagine that Theron Herakleides had ever bothered to use it. Then there were the guest houses scattered about the grounds, all painted that sugar-pink colour which came into its own with every burning sunset. Almost on the sand sat the Herakleides beach house, the part of her grandfather’s estate that Eve was using while she was here.

  It had to be the worst kind of luck that the Petronades and the Herakleides estates were beside each other, because it placed her beach house right next door to his, Ethan mused heavily, as he trod the soft sand on his way up the beach. Other than for Eve’s close proximity he was happy with his modest accommodation. The beach houses might be small but they possessed a certain charm that appealed to the artist in him. Nothing grand: just an open-plan living room and kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom.

  All he needed, in other words, he acknowledged as he came to a stop at the low white-washed wall that was there to help keep the sand back rather than mark the boundary to the property. Set into the wall was a white picket gate that gave access to a simple garden and the short path that led to a shady veranda. Next to the gate was a concrete tub overhung by a freshwater shower head. Pulling his wet tee shirt off over his head he tossed it onto the wall, then stepped into the tub and switched on the tap that brought cool water cascading over his head.

  His skin shone dark gold in the deepening sunset, muscles rippled across his shoulders and back, as he sluiced the sand and salt from his body. Standing a few short yards away on the hot concrete path that ran right around the bay, Eve watched him with the same fascination she had surrendered to the last time she had chanced upon Ethan Hayes like this.

  Only it wasn’t the same, she reminded herself quickly. He was dressed, or that part of him which caused her the most problems was modestly covered at least. But as for the rest of him—

  Water ran off his dark hair down his face to his shoulders. The hair on his chest lay matted in thick coils that arrowed down to below his waist. She hadn’t noticed the chest hair the last time—hadn’t noticed the six-pack firmness of his abdomen. He was lean and he was tight and he was honed to perfection, and she wished she—

  ‘You can go past. I won’t bite,’ the man himself murmured flatly, letting her know that he had seen her standing here.

  Fingers curling into two fists at her sides, Eve released a soft curse beneath her breath. I hate him, she told herself. I really hate him for catching me doing this, not once but twice!

  ‘Actually I quite like the view,’ she returned, determined not to let him embarrass her a second time. ‘You strip down quite nicely for an Englishman.’

  More muscles flexed; Eve’s lungs stopped working. She wished she understood this fascination she had for his body, but she didn’t. She could not even say that he possessed the best body she had ever seen—mainly because it was the only one she had seen in its full and flagrant entirety. That, she decided, had to be the cause of this wicked fascination she had for Ethan Hayes. It fizzed through her veins like a champagne cocktail, stripped her mouth of moisture like crisp dry wine. Tantalising, in other words. The man was a stiff-necked, supercritical, overbearing boor, yet inside she fluttered like a love-struck teenager every time she saw him.

  The shower was turned off. He threw one of those cold-eyed looks at her then slid it away without saying a word. He was going to do his usual thing and walk away as if she didn’t exist, Eve realised, and suddenly she was determined to break that arrogant habit for good!

  ‘You’ve missed a bit,’ she informed him.

  He turned a second look on her. Looks like that could kill, Eve thought as, with a scrupulously bland expression, she pointed to the back of his legs where beautifully pronounced calf muscles were still peppered with fine granules of sand.

  Still without saying a word he turned on the shower again. A sudden urge to laugh brought Eve’s ready sense of humour into play and she decided to have a bit of fun at the stuffy Ethan Hayes’ expense.

  ‘Jack just warned me off falling for you,’ she announced, watching him wash the sand off his legs. ‘He thinks you’re dangerous. The eat-them-for-a snack-as-you-walk-out-of-the-door kind of man.’

  ‘Wise man, Jack.’ She thought she heard him mutter over the splash of water, but she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘I laughed because I thought it was so funny,’ she went on. ‘I mean—we both know you’re too much the English gentleman to do anything so crass as to love them and leave them without a backward glance.’

  It was not a compliment and Ethan didn’t take it as one. ‘You keep taking a dig at my Englishness, but you’re half English yourself,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I know.’ Eve sighed with mocking tragedy. ‘It worries the Greek in me sometimes that I could end up falling for a die-hard English stuffed-shirt.’

  ‘Fate worse than death.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He switched the shower off again and Eve rediscovered her fascination with his body as he turned to recover his wet tee shirt; muscles wrapped in rich brown flesh rippled in the red glow of the sunlight, droplets of water clung to the hairs on his chest.

  Ethan turned to catch her staring. The prickling sensation between his thighs warned him that he had better get away from here before he embarrassed himself again. Yet he didn’t move, couldn’t seem to manage the simple act. His senses were too busy drinking in what his eyes were showing him. He liked the way she was wearing her hair twisted cheekily up on her head with a hibiscus flower helping to hold it in place. He liked what the pink dress did for her figure and the slender length and shape of her legs. And he liked her mouth; it was heart-shaped—small with a natural provocative yen to pout. He liked her smooth golden skin, her cute little nose, and those eyes that had a way of looking at him as if she…

  Go away, Eve, he wanted to say to her. Instead he dragged his eyes away, and looked for something thoroughly innocuous to say. ‘I thought you were all off to a party this evening.’ Flat-voiced, level-toned, he’d thought he’d hit innocuous perfectly.
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  But Eve clearly didn’t. She stiffened up as if he had just insulted her. ‘Oh, do let’s be honest and call it an orgy,’ she returned. ‘Since you believe that orgies are more my style.’

  Time to go, he decided, and opened the picket gate.

  ‘While you do what you’re probably very good at, of course,’ she added, ‘and play whist with the cheese and wine set at the hotel.’

  He went still.

  Eve’s heart stopped beating on the suspicion that she had finally managed to rouse the sleeping tiger she’d always fancied lurked within his big chest. Sometimes—usually when she was least expecting it—Ethan Hayes could take on a certain quality that made her think of dangerous animals. This was one of those times, and her biggest problem was that she liked it—it excited her.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  He knew exactly how old she was. ‘Twenty-three until midnight,’ she told him anyway.

  He nodded his wet head. ‘That accounts for it.’

  This was blatant baiting, Eve recognised, and foolishly took it. ‘Accounts for what?’

  ‘The annoyingly adolescent desire to insult and shock.’

  He was so right, but oh, it hurt. Why had she willingly let herself fall into that? Eve had no defence, none at all and she had to turn to stare out to sea so that he wouldn’t see the sudden flood of weak tears that were trying to fill her eyes.

  And who was the adolescent who made that cutting comment? Ethan was grimly asking himself, as he looked at her standing there looking like an exotic flower that had been cut down in its prime. Oh, damn it, he thought, and walked through the gate, meaning to get the hell away from this before he—

  He couldn’t do it. Muscles were tightening all over his body on wave after wave of angry guilt. What had she ever done to him after all? If you didn’t count a couple of teasing come-ons and letting him catch her in a heated clinch with someone else’s man.