Free Tycoon's One-Night Revenge by Bronwyn Jameson Page B

inference of Van’s rejoinder hummed between them. Wary heat flared in her eyes and low in Van’s belly. He lifted a hand and threaded a loose strand of windswept hair behind her ear, and she shook her head slightly as if to refocus. “Why is the island so important?” she asked.
    Van let his hand slide from her elbow to her hand. “Come and steady your legs on solid ground,” he said, “and I’ll tell you.”

    Feet fixed firmly on something that didn’t rock and roll and an answer to the puzzle of why he wouldn’t let The Palisades go. How could Susannah resist a double-edged invitation like that?
    Once on firm land, she realised just how shaky her sea legs were, so when Donovan suggested they stroll down to the beach, she had no objection. After a short distance her legs started to feel more normal and so did her head. “This is why you came back,” she mused.
    She felt his glance on her face. “Here?”
    “To Stranger’s Bay. If you’d only wanted to apply pressure about the deal, you could have landed on my doorstep in Melbourne or gone straight to Alex.”
    “I needed to come back here. To see if I remembered.”
    Retracing his footsteps, recreating the past weekend. Last night’s anxiety over that endeavour resurfaced in a slither of unease that travelled the length of Susannah’s spine and tingled in the palm of her hand. Where he’d held it, she realised, last night and again leaving the boat just now.
    It should have seemed small, insignificant, compared to all the intimacies they’d shared already. But it didn’t. Perhaps because they’d skipped the preliminaries and landed straight in bed the first night, perhaps because he’d returned as a virtual stranger with no memory of those intimacies, perhaps because beyond the innocent touch she felt every memory in vivid, visceral detail.
    She pushed both hands deep into the pockets of her trench coat and forced her focus back to his words. “You needed to come out here, to Charlotte Island, to see if you remembered that first visit?”
    He didn’t respond immediately, pausing instead to help her down a rocky section of path. They’d come quite a distance from the boat—far enough for her peace of mind. She glanced back to where it sat, rocking peacefully to sleep in the deep-blue water.
    “You said I mentioned Mac.”
    Susannah’s attention shifted back to his face, the boat instantly forgotten. “Only in passing, when I asked who the MacCreadie was in the Keane MacCreadie business name.”
    “Elaine MacCreadie,” he supplied now. He started to move as he talked, and she kept pace beside him, her eyes trained on his face. “She was a client when I worked on Wall Street, a businesswoman with a boatload of investments and a steel-trap brain. She said she appreciated my low BS quotient, and when I was shafted by one of the big bosses, she encouraged me to go it alone. She provided the start-up capital and the smart advice. I provided the man hours.” He cut her a look. “Did I tell you she’s an Aussie?”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “From here,” he said, indicating right here with a sweep on his hand. “Born and raised on Charlotte Island.”
    Susannah stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re buying the place on her behalf.”
    “I’m buying it for her,” he said, making the distinction with subtle emphasis as his eyes locked on hers. “Is there anyone in your life you would do anything for?”
    “There was,” she replied without hesitation. “My grandfather. Pappy Horton.”
    “Then you understand.”
    “I’m not sure that I do,” she said slowly. “There is a wealth of difference between doing something and buying something.”
    “You think that’s what I’m doing? Making an expensive gesture?” He expelled a rough breath and turned to stare fixedly out to sea for a long moment. And when he continued, there was a raw note to his voice she’d never heard before. A note that ripped straight to her heart. “Mac’s