Tamed By Her Husband

He stopped beside one of the small cruisers, cutting an impressive figure against the sleek, gleaming lines of an oceangoing motor yacht that caught Shannon’s attention just ahead of them, waiting for her to catch up.

Now, that would suit you more, Kane, she fantasised, dragging her weary eyes from what had to be over fifty feet of sporty-looking, unadulterated opulence. That’s more your style. Fast. Powerful. Expensive.

‘Are you all right?’

She had suddenly become the subject of his hard assessment and knew, as she drew level with him, that those shrewd eyes had seen the dampness that beaded her forehead, the way her chest was lifting a little too rapidly, making her breathing shallow.

‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t, though. She was feeling exhausted.

‘Is it the bang on the head?’

‘No, I’m OK,’ she uttered, moving past him so as not to draw attention to herself. Just not as well yet as she had thought.

‘Like hell!’ he muttered, moving to catch her, lift her, and then, as if she were weightless, to step with her onto the gleaming yacht.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU didn’t have to carry me on,’ she breathed, when he had made short work of the teak-laid steps to the covered aft deck and set her down in front of the yacht’s sloping glass patio doors. ‘I was perfectly capable of managing on my own.’

‘Were you?’ At the press of a button, the doors glided open on to an interior of pure luxury, cream leather settees contrasting with polished maple, soft carpeting complementing a ceiling panelled in suede. ‘For one thing,’ Kane said, ushering her down the few steps that gave the low-level saloon complete privacy from the quayside, ‘you’ve been dazed. For another you looked on the verge of collapse. You’re pale. You’re dark under the eyes. On top of which, you’re far too thin. In fact, you look an absolute wreck!’

‘Thanks,’ Shannon sent back over her shoulder with a rather pained grimace. ‘Remind me to return the compliment sometime.’

He guided her up more carpeted steps into what comprised a beautifully appointed dinette and galley.

Back in the city, sirens wailed—police vehicles racing to control the disturbance.

‘Sit down,’ Kane commanded softly.

As much as she resented taking orders from him, in this instance Shannon was grateful to sink down onto the soft cream upholstery of the semicircular settee, rest her arms on the gleaming oval table around which it curved.

‘I’m serious, Shannon. You look dreadful,’ he reiterated, dumping her bag down on the table. ‘What have you been doing for the past—what is it? Two, two and a half years?’ Censure burned in the eyes that raked disapprovingly over her. ‘Playing too hard, as usual?’

Broodingly she watched him move around the marble-topped counter in the galley—as well-equipped as any modern kitchen—and fish for something in a cupboard before turning on one of the sparkling chrome taps over the sink.

‘If you know, why ask?’ she challenged, humouring him, because, after all, he knew it all, didn’t he? ‘I think it’s called “burning the candle at both ends”, but then you never do that, do you, Kane? Or are you just so big and strong that you can deflect all that hard living?’ An involuntary glance over those broad shoulders and unquestionably fit physique made her blood race, increasing the ache at her temples as he strode back to her.

‘Let’s take a look at that,’ he said, without answering her.

Disconcertingly, he caught her chin, his touch surprisingly gentle as he inspected the injury she had sustained to her forehead.

‘The skin’s not broken, but I don’t think you’ll escape without some bruising.’ Deftly he applied a cold compress to the wound with the moistened lint he had taken from the cupboard, causing Shannon to suck in her breath.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘No,’ she lied, not wanting him to think her feeble. But it wasn’t only that. It was being this close to him, with the disturbing intimacy of his action that was making her pulse throb so hard that she wondered if he could hear it, so that, not trusting herself to look anywhere else, she kept her gaze fixed on the fine transparency of his shirt through his open jacket and the suggestion of dark body hair beneath it that spanned the hard contours of his chest.

‘Do you actually own this thing?’ she asked tightly, trying not to let him see how his tangible warmth and the subtlety of his cologne were affecting her as he gently bathed her wound. If he did own it, then he must have done very well for himself, she thought, since leaving Bouvier’s.

‘Would I be more of an interesting proposition for you if I said I did?’

Heat trickled through her and she felt her throat close over, even though his mocking tone assured her he was only toying with her. What respect did he have for her, after all? she reminded herself poignantly. Hadn’t he condemned her along with all the rest?

‘I wouldn’t be tempted by you, Kane, if you had twenty yachts,’ she returned with feigned sweetness, her artificial smile concealing pain—a deep, long-buried yearning. Her heart was beating too hard; much too fast. ‘Anyway, don’t you have a wife stowed away somewhere in one of those cabins?’ A little jerk of her head indicated the steps she could see dipping down beside the helm, obviously leading to the vessel’s sleeping quarters, while she racked her brain to remember whether he’d been seriously involved with anyone before.

‘No wife,’ he answered succinctly.

Relief was sweet and almost weakening. ‘Why not?’ she pressed and, trying to offset the feeling, ‘You aren’t getting any younger, you know.’ What was he now? she asked herself. Thirty-three? Thirty-four?

‘Keep still,’ he commanded, without rising to her bait, so that suddenly she felt childish for making such a ridiculous statement. She’d always thought his maturity one of the most exciting things about him, and that hard sophistication had only increased with the years.

Plunged back into an enforced silence, she swallowed to ease the dryness in her throat, her eyes straying over his tight, lean waist and beyond.

Oh, heavens! she thought, deciding she would have more control over her reactions if she didn’t have to look at him. She closed her eyes, then realised that his scent was even more acute, and that now she was even aware of his breathing. It was quite rapid, really—hard and shallow—as though carrying her hadn’t been quite as effortless as she had thought.

‘Here. You hold this.’ His tone—his whole manner—as he surrendered the cold compress and moved away from her was surprisingly abrupt.

Kane was glad that he could busy himself with cups and saucers and filling a kettle. Touching Shannon Bouvier wasn’t something that he—or any man, he was certain—could do imperviously. She affected him in ways he didn’t want to be affected—in the profound and purely sensual way she had always affected him, he thought, if he was honest with himself—and silently he rebuked himself for the stirring he felt in his body. He’d be glad when the demonstration in town had broken up and he could take her home, he told himself, slamming a cupboard door, then wondering, as he spooned tea into a pot, why he felt an underlying reluctance to see her go. She didn’t look well, and yet even her fragility lent itself to that mind-blowing sexuality of hers; did things to him that he knew weren’t just the keen sense of the strong male to protect the weaker female, but stemmed from a less magnanimous, more primal desire to make this disastrously beautiful girl his. Because to lose oneself in a fatal submission to her lovely womanhood would be disastrous—and she was certainly a woman now, he recognised, that deceptively innocent look she had once had gone with the smouldering intensity of her full-blown sensuality. But for all that, she wasn’t well. Anyone could see that, and he was concerned about her being in a strange country on her own. If she was on her own.

Damn it! Why did he have to get involved? he asked himself, gritting his teeth as he switched off the kettle and poured boiling water onto the fine-leaf tea. It wasn’t as if he owed anything to Ranulph Bouvier, and even less to his pampered, self-indulgent daughter.

She wasn’t his responsibility, he assured himself. He could just put her in a cab and let that take her back. She was over eighteen. She had chosen her life and it wasn’t anything to do with him if she wanted to ruin it. So why did he feel this ridiculous and misplaced need to protect her?

‘Does this thing have a bathroom?’

‘Yes, it’s…’ Turning round as she was getting to her feet, he broke off, noticing how shaky, how drained she looked. Spaced out was the phrase that flew to his mind.

‘Are you all right?’ Coming around the counter, he could see the perspiration now dampening her forehead.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Her words, though, were slurred with fatigue. Or something else, he thought, feeling a sick fear suddenly grip him.

The way she looked. The gaunt features… Why hadn’t he considered the possibility?

‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ His hand clamped down on the scruffy canvas bag that, upon realising his intention, she had suddenly been making a grab for. He wouldn’t put anything past this girl.

His fingers bit into the delicate bones of her wrists as he grasped them both, turning them over, subjecting each arm to his hard, critical inspection.

‘What are you looking for?’ Shocked anger sparked in her eyes before she tugged forcibly away from him. ‘Signs of self-abuse?’

Without conscious thought, he was shaking out the contents of the bag onto the polished surface of the table.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she challenged, looking aghast.

He felt her heated indignation beating against him as he rifled through her things, and he hated himself for his actions, but he felt compelled to do it. For her sake. For her father’s. For his…

Lipstick. Comb. Purse. Various papers. Bottle of tablets?

He picked it up to study the label, but swiftly she snatched the bottle away from him.

‘An intestinal problem. All right? That’s why I’m here and not Peru!’

His eyes narrowed questioningly. This girl sure got around. ‘Peru?’

She shrugged. ‘Rio. Peru. What does it matter to you? You’re not interested in where I’ve been or what I might be doing. You’re just worried about what I might be bringing onto your precious boat!’

That wasn’t strictly true—in fact, not at all true—but he couldn’t tell her that.

‘So I was wrong.’ He began dropping her belongings back into the bag, but she snatched that from him too.

‘I suppose that’s less of a climb-down than saying you’re sorry!’ Angry colour gave some glow to her cheeks as she began scooping up her possessions. ‘I might not amount to much in your—or a lot of other people’s—eyes, and basically I don’t give a fig! But I do draw the line at—’ her words were punctuated by short, angry breaths ‘—drugs, other people’s husbands, and anything that puts me out of control! And I do happen to value my own body!’

As if that was a cue for them to do so, Kane’s eyes slid, of their own volition, over her slender frame, coming to rest with a wave of heated awareness on the smooth flesh of her naked midriff, that small waist that most women would die for, that enviably flat stomach with its tantalising navel, the creamy camber of her hips. He wanted to coil his arm around her, draw her close as he had done when she had been struck back there on the Ramblas, only not to protect her this time, he realised shamefully, but to feel her warmth, the silky softness of her skin beneath his hands…

Blast her! He was thinking just like some smitten youth. He put a chastening clamp on his thoughts, picking up the small red document still lying on the table and handing it to her.

‘Do you always carry your passport around with you?’ That, too, was whisked from his hand to disappear with the rest of her things into the canvas holdall. ‘I was burgled twice when I was…’ She paused, looking at him as though weighing up what she was about to say. ‘Anyway, ever since, I’ve kept it with me. Anyone who wants it will have to get past me first,’ she told him determinedly, adding as a very pointed afterthought, ‘and that includes you!’

Kane studied her with a dubious lift of an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure you’re strong enough to fend off anyone,’ he commented wryly.

Her smile would have dazzled any man, but he wasn’t fooled. She wasn’t at all impressed by his remark.

‘I don’t think it would be a bad idea for you to lie down for a while,’ he advised, bringing her below into the luxuriously appointed berth of the forward cabin with its pale lacquered furniture and queen-size bed. ‘You look as though a bit of extra rest wouldn’t do you any harm. And the shower…’ He indicated the glass door leading off the bedroom. ‘When you’ve freshened up, I’ll bring you some tea.’

‘Thanks.’

She looked like a waif, he thought, standing there in her shabby combats and little red top with that ridiculous slogan printed across it. Not like the heiress to a multimillion-pound concern whose difficulties she could have no concept of, and in which she certainly had no interest beyond the lifestyle it provided her with, he reminded himself with his jaw tightening. She might have been just some ordinary girl he had plucked off the street, if he hadn’t known better—felt the deadly appeal in that dangerous vulnerability of hers that called to everything that was masculine in him…

‘You said you drew the line.’

‘What?’ She pivoted round, startled. Obviously she thought he had already left.

‘At other people’s husbands,’ he said softly.

She looked at him askance, some dark emotion crossing her lovely face, making him instantly regret having brought it up. Why had he? he wondered. To remind himself of just how dangerous she was? To protect himself? She was just a girl, for heaven’s sake! What protection did he need?

‘Yes.’ She gave a careless shrug. ‘Well, you know how the saying goes. Once bitten—twice shy.’

He couldn’t help the quip that slipped from his lips. ‘Is that why you asked if I was married, Shannon?’

As the cabin door clicked closed behind him, Shannon felt like throwing something at it. So she’d made a mistake. Been a poor judge of character. But why, oh, why, had Kane felt compelled to bring it up?

He was still treating her like the super-rich bitch the taw-drier papers had named her back home, she thought with an aching regret for the reputation she had unwittingly cultivated, and which she had left England to escape. And yet it was Kane’s harsh opinion of her that had hurt her most, and still did, she realised hopelessly, dropping her grubby bag down onto the pale coverlet of the bed, before sliding back the door to the en suite.

The oyster-coloured shower and basin and the blending marble of the counter tops brought a small, appreciative curve to her lips. It seemed a long time since she had enjoyed luxury like this. It was something she had relinquished when she had decided to make a bid for freedom, run from the gossip and the papers, from her father’s dictatorship and increasing disapproval, and stand on her own two feet.

There was no evidence of Kane’s occupation in here though, and, grateful for a few moments’ respite from her profoundly disturbing awareness of him, she ran the taps and splashed water onto her face, wishing, as she watched the water swirl out of the basin, that she could as easily erase her memories of the past.

She had been nine years old when her mother had died after a riding accident, and forever afterwards Ranulph Bouvier hadn’t known what to do with his fast-developing, much too adventurous daughter. Her life had become a series of expensive boarding schools and, during the holidays, trips abroad with whatever grudging member of his staff he could pay to accompany her. What she had wanted—needed—was her father’s love and affection, but he was always too busy, too preoccupied to give her any time. Instead he had indulged her to the nth degree. Fast cars. Jewellery. Clothes. And, of course, holidays. She had had it all, but unfortunately, Shannon thought sadly, it wasn’t enough. She would have forfeited all the trappings of her father’s wealth for a loving and harmonious relationship with him—to be able to talk to him about her dreams and aspirations, have her opinions taken seriously—but Ranulph Bouvier wasn’t the sort of man who would listen to anyone.

Perhaps it was his refusal to accept that she wanted to do something more worthwhile with her life than simply support a suitable husband, as her mother had, that had set her on that course of single-minded rebellion. The all-night parties. The publicity. The questionable company. At the time it had seemed to fulfil a need for the love and attention that was missing from her life; a need to be noticed. But the fulfilment was superficial and short-lived, like every relationship she tried to form with any of the men who pursued her. And as her disillusionment grew, so did her father’s disapproval. He didn’t like the way she was behaving: her inability to stick with one boyfriend, the adverse publicity she was courting. Didn’t she know she was making a fool of herself? Developing the worst possible kind of reputation? But she couldn’t help it if every man she took an interest in just seemed to be after her money, her body, or both.

All except Kane Falconer, that was.

Replacing the towel on its gleaming rail, she moved back into the bedroom. The large bed with its plump pillows beckoned invitingly, and the blind at its porthole was pulled down against the fierce heat of the Spanish sun.

Perhaps she would do as he’d suggested, she thought, and lie down for a while. The problem in town was going to take some time to sort out and it would be ludicrous even considering going home until it was safe.

Subsiding onto the sumptuous bed, she tried not to think about where Kane slept when he was on board. Nevertheless, she couldn’t prevent him from intruding unsettlingly on her thoughts, just as he had been doing since she was seventeen.

She had been dangerously affected by the man from the moment she had first set eyes on him, the day she had called into the modern Bouvier office building and seen him sitting there behind her father’s desk, as if he belonged there.

He hadn’t looked up for a moment, but a moment was all it had taken for the full impact of those compelling good looks and that hard virility to print themselves forever on her consciousness.

Staring down at his groomed dark head, at the breadth of his shoulders beneath the sophisticated cut of his dark jacket, she had started fidgeting, a little irritated that he hadn’t noticed her. Everyone noticed her. She had been wearing a black silk suit that day with her hair swept up, and she could still remember how sensuously the low-cut jacket and trousers moved against her body.

He had looked up then, as though it had only just dawned on him that she was there—although she’d known that that wasn’t the case, that very little would get past a man like him—and, tall as she was herself in her four-inch heels, as he’d risen to his feet she had felt unusually eclipsed by his dominating height.

‘Kane Falconer.’ His voice was deep and sexy, and as he reached across the deck her irritation melted under the blaze of his smile. ‘The newest assignee to the board.’ The board of directors, that was, which gave him top-notch status. The fingers that clasped hers were warm and firm, their contact so overwhelming that she completely forgot her manners and failed to return the courtesy of an introduction, hearing herself stammering uncharacteristically instead, ‘W-where’s my father?’

‘Your…’ Clarity dawned in eyes that reminded her of a cool blue alpine lake beneath the thick sable of long lashes. ‘So you’re Jezebel,’ he remarked, with his mouth twitching at the corners, repeating the name that one of the newspapers had so detrimentally used to describe her.

Had she been older, perhaps she would have laughed about it, Shannon decided in retrospect. As it was, for all her confidence, she had been too insecure and already hopelessly ensnared by that hard dynamism of his to take such unprovoked criticism from him lightly.

Feigning nonchalance as a protective armour, she had murmured, ‘If you say so. Didn’t she flout convention and shame herself by wearing red to the ball when every other woman wore white?’ She remembered watching a video once of the old Hollywood film. And when the man behind the desk dipped his head in the subtlest acknowledgment, she’d continued, ‘Perhaps they should have named me Danielle,’ with a forced little laugh. ‘For daring to stand alone.’

’Daniel,’ he corrected, releasing her at last, ‘was a man. And he faced lions—which I would have said was far preferable to a gossip-hungry press. And you’re just a girl.’ He might have thought so, but in that moment when those cool eyes moved over the smooth length of her throat, touched on the swell of her pale breasts beneath the low-cut jacket, she grew up; knew that she had met her match and, with a throbbing recognition, her mate. ‘Doesn’t it hurt or bother you?’ he said. ‘What they’re printing?’

Of course it did, but let anyone know it and they would have won—torn her to pieces, she thought bitterly. So, with the slightest movement of her shoulder that unintentionally exposed more of her breast to that hard masculine gaze, she answered, ‘What? That I’m seen at every wild party from here to John O’Groats and that I change my boyfriends as often as I change my underwear?’ She couldn’t believe she was quoting such derogatory statements to him, not only because they were totally untrue, but also because she had never in her young life met a man on whom she had so instantly wanted—no, needed—to make a good impression. Nevertheless, she felt herself cringing as she shrugged again and said, ‘Why should it?’, knowing that she couldn’t have sounded less bothered—as he’d put it—if she’d tried.

‘It hurts your father.’ He rocked back on his heels, surveying her with narrowed eyes and a dark heat that startlingly she recognised as something other than anger; something basic and feral. ‘But perhaps that’s the intention.’

Even while reeling from the shock of a mutual sexual chemistry, Shannon felt the sting of his remark like a whip across her face. Who did this man think he was? What right did he have to speak to her like this when he didn’t even know her? When he didn’t know anything about her—or of her unhappy relationship with her father?

‘I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing here, Mr Falconer. But I don’t think my private life—or anyone else’s in this family—is any of your concern! Unless you think your duties include trying to take me in hand and dragging me back onto the straight and narrow—in which case I can tell you now, you’re wasting your time!’

He was moving some papers on the desk with those long, well-shaped hands, but glanced up, looking totally unperturbed by her outburst.

‘I’ve no intention of dragging you anywhere, Shannon.’ It was the first time he had spoken her name and, despite everything, hearing the way he said it in that deep, rich baritone voice made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. ‘Much as I wouldn’t balk at the challenge, I’m rather opposed to seeing my name in the tabloids.’

She walked out of the office that day with her head held high, yet close to tears, having completely forgotten why she had gone there in the first place.

After that she tried to avoid him, but, of course, it was impossible. Having struck a hit with Ranulph Bouvier from the outset, Kane was often invited to the house for dinner. Sometimes she found herself having to speak to him if he rang her father at home—totally unaware of how even his deep, disembodied voice had the power to make her insides melt; her loins burn with a tense and feverish heat. And then, of course, he was at every company function that Ranulph insisted she attend.

‘How old are you?’ she found the courage to ask him after he had asked her to dance at that last company dinner.