An Australian Surrender: Girl on a Diamond Pedestal / Untouched by His Diamonds / A Question Of Marriage

He nipped her lip, and the shock of the pain, slight but intense, made her heart pound faster, made her internal muscles tighten. She pulled her lips away from his, trying to catch her breath. He kissed her throat, her collarbone.

More. She begged him silently. She wasn’t ready to ask out loud. She didn’t think she could. But she wanted it. Wanted his mouth on her breasts. She wanted him … all of him.

“Oh, Ethan …” His name seemed like the only thing she could say. Because it was all that filled her mind.

He froze, his hands tight on her still. He pulled his mouth away from her. His chest was rising and falling sharply, his dark eyes unreadable in the dim light.

He shook his head. “This shouldn’t have happened. This can’t happen.”

The rejection cut into her, clearing the fog of arousal quickly and brutally. “What?”

“Not now. Not with you.” He pulled his hands away from her and she wobbled on the bench, bracing herself on the piano keys. The sound of incompatible notes was horrible and far too loud, jarring her the rest of the way back into reality.

“Not with …”

He turned away from her and walked back into his room, shutting the door behind him.

She could only sit there, stunned, not so much by her own behavior, but by his. He wanted her, she knew he did. No matter what he’d said.

Not with you.

Because of whose daughter she was? Or because she wasn’t sexy enough? Or for some other reason he’d chosen to invent? She curled her hands into fists and fought the urge to pound them on the piano keys. To make so much noise that he wouldn’t be able just to walk into his room and shut her out.

She was angry, embarrassed. But not destroyed. It was funny, she’d felt changed earlier, and now she realized that she really was. Because the old Noelle would have curled up in a ball and hidden after suffering something like that. Or she would have frozen, pretending things would somehow magically get fixed.

But she wasn’t hiding now. She had a house to get back. She was strong enough to get through this, and she wasn’t going to let something like errant attraction—or rejection—stop her from achieving her goal.

If Ethan didn’t want her, that was fine. She would deal with it. And she wouldn’t make the mistake of giving in to desire again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

NOELLE had been like a living flame to the touch. Her skin so soft, her breasts the perfect weight in his hands. It had been hell to leave her. Hell to turn away from her when he’d wanted nothing more than to lift her onto the piano and settle between her thighs. To lose himself in her body.

Twelve hours later and he was still so turned on, his teeth ached. And it was the wrong time to be so distracted. And she was absolutely the wrong woman.

It was like a cosmic joke that his body responded to her. Actually, responded wasn’t a strong enough word—a response was expected between a man and a woman. No, this was … combustion. And it made him feel on edge and out of control, both things he hated.

He gritted his teeth and tried to fight the arousal that still pounded through him. Part of him didn’t want to fight it. Part of him wanted to embrace it. To sink back into the dark sensuality that Noelle seemed able to create around them with such ease.

No. Not happening. This was complicated enough without adding sex to the mix. He could control his desire for her, and he would control it.

He walked out of his bedroom and into the main area of the hotel suite. It was empty, and he wondered if Noelle was still in her room. And if she was wearing that same, brief nightgown she’d been wearing the night before. She seemed to have a collection.

He could feel his body hardening, his erection pushing against the seam of his jeans, and he tried to reroute his thoughts. Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets and the falling value of real estate. That wasn’t sexy at all.

But Noelle still was, and he couldn’t shake the image of her from his mind.

He stepped down to the piano and looked outside. She was out there on the balcony, a stack of documents on the table in front of her, alongside a cup of coffee—a vanilla latte, he assumed—and the laptop he’d packed for her.

He slid open the glass door and walked out into the warm coastal morning, relishing the slight bite of the salt air in his throat when he breathed in. Relishing even more the scent of her as it caught in the breeze and teased his senses.

“Working?” He looked at her intently, taking everything in. The way her brows knit together with concentration, the way her fingers moved over the keyboard as they had over the keys of the piano the night before …

Just thinking about the night before made his erection throb.

“Yes,” she replied, not looking at him. Her posture was still, her manner cool enough to cut through the Brisbane temperatures. A pink flush spread from her cheeks down her neck. He was starting to wonder whether she actually wasn’t that experienced with men—an idea that completely contradicted what he knew about her mother, and what he’d imagined it would have been like for her growing up.

But that blush. Those eager, honest responses …

No. He wasn’t letting his thoughts go there again. That way madness lies.

“I appreciate it, but you don’t have to. I can do that. Or it can wait until we’re back in the States.”

She kept her eyes fixed, very decidedly, on the computer screen. “No. It’s nothing. I mean it’s something. It’s part of my job, right?”

“Not really.”

“You told me that …”

“Yeah, I said you could do it, and you can, but it’s not what I need from you.”

The flush on her face darkened, and she turned to face him. “Oh. And what exactly is it that you … need from me?”

A few days in his bed. Uninterrupted. Room service brought to the door so they could just forget the world. Just for a while. That idea was more tempting than it ought to be.

Unsatisfied desire made his tone a little rougher than he intended. “What we discussed in the beginning. My priorities haven’t changed. I assume yours haven’t either.”

She looked away again. “No.”

“Good.” He sat down in the chair across from her. “Last night …”

“I know what it was.”

“You do?” Because he was starting to wonder whether he knew. And he knew.

“There’s tension between us. We’d be lying if we pretended there wasn’t. So it was a … tension … relieving … thing.”

“Oh yes, I feel much less tense,” he said, fighting the urge to reach back and work the knotted muscles on his shoulders.

“So do I.”

“Liar.”

She turned to face him again. “You were the one who … stopped it.”

“It was the right thing to do, Noelle.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

She nodded. “Of course. Sex complicates things. And sex between the two of us would get more complicated than things have a right to be. I’m glad one of us was thinking straight. I just want to get through this and get what I need. My house. That’s all I really want from you.”

It wasn’t all she’d wanted from him last night. He was sure of that. She’d been with him every step of the way, no doubt. And today, if not for the blush, he would’ve assumed she didn’t remember that it had happened at all.

“And don’t worry, I’ll be able to put on a show for the press. What happened happened, and it doesn’t change anything. It certainly doesn’t change my expectations.”

“It doesn’t?” Because his body’s expectations now seemed radically altered.

“Even if it did, I would do my part. I’ve always been a good actress.”

“You were a musician, you weren’t an actress.”

She looked past him, her blue eyes unfocused. “Sure I was. I would spend the whole day rehearsing, until the sides of my thumbs bled from scraping against the edges of the piano keys. The whole time my mother would scream at me to do it better. Cleaner. More precise. My teacher would pace the floor and try to run interference between the two of us. When I was a teenager I started yelling back. I would get slapped. And then, after all that, I would go on stage. And I would smile and I would play like I didn’t have any troubles. I am an actress, Ethan. Better than most you’ll find in Hollywood.”

She stood up and closed the laptop. “I need to shower.”

He grabbed her wrist and held her still for a moment, his stomach tight, sick. “Clearly, the affair with my father was the least of your mother’s sins.” She looked away from him and he took her chin between this thumb and forefinger, directing her attention back to him. “What happened to you wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal. You don’t have to live that way.”

He wasn’t so dumb that he hadn’t realized Noelle wasn’t her mother. It had become obvious after only a few days in her company. But he’d never imagined it could have been like that for her. Had never fathomed just how much she’d been controlled.

Noelle nodded slowly. “I know that’s not how it’s supposed to be. But I’m not really sure how I am supposed to live.”

She left the terrace and went back inside the suite, sliding the door closed behind her.

“What was one thing you weren’t allowed to do?”

Noelle jumped when Ethan strode into the main area of the suite, and her heart leapt up into her throat. After last night, being around him was … She wanted to turn and run from him or climb him like he was a tree. Which instinct was stronger greatly depended on the moment.

“When I was younger?”

He nodded. “Yes. What was one thing that your mother wouldn’t let you do? Something frivolous that has nothing to do with piano-playing or performing or milking you for cash.”

A whole lot of things rushed through her head. Shopping. Movies. Dating.

That thought reminded her of last night. Made her body hot all over. The way he’d touched her, the things he’d made her feel … amazing didn’t even begin to cover it. But then he’d rejected her. Her. Not just sex, but her specifically.

She wished she knew why. She also wished she didn’t. And she wished he wasn’t so determined to make it up to her. Because she was certain that’s what this was: a Band-Aid for the boo-boo he’d inflicted by turning away from her.

He would need a much bigger Band-Aid than a day out to erase the sting of that humiliation. Yet, perversely, she still wanted to be with him. To be near him. To spend the day with him.

“Nothing,” she said.

“There was nothing you weren’t allowed to do?”

“No. I mean … I was never allowed to just do nothing. Even now, I practice all the time. And what for? For concerts I’ll never give? I was never allowed to have a day that was just mine. If we ever shopped it was for my mother, wherever we ate, that was for her too. We never went to the beach because she hated getting sand in her shoes.”

“Then that’s what we’re doing today.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing and everything. Whatever you want.”

That conjured up images of his hands on her body, his lips against hers. Why she still wanted that after he’d made it very clear he didn’t was beyond her. Silence filled the room along with a tension so thick she was pretty sure she could eat it with a spoon.

“Ethan,” she said slowly. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to. Because maybe I need to do nothing too.” He looked as confused by that as she felt.

“So we’ll do nothing then.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Noelle looked down at her vanilla ice cream melting steadily in the sun. She’d been sitting in front of the ocean, watching the waves crawl up the shore, then recede, while she indulged in her frozen treat.

Ethan had gone off to take a call, and she finally felt like she could breathe.

The whole day had been … well, it had almost been fun. And would have had zero value as far as her mother was concerned. They’d taken a walk through a historic beach town, eaten lunch at a small fish and chip shack, then got ice cream at a shop right on the ocean.

Perfection. Not exactly relaxing the way she’d hoped it might be, but being near Ethan just wasn’t. It ramped her up, made her feel like she was on high alert, made her skin feel extra sensitive, like her blood was flowing closer to the surface. Like everything was more real and more fantastic all at the same time.

“I’ll take some of that ice cream.” Ethan returned holding two water bottles, looking sexier than any man should in a pair of sandals and some board shorts. He sat next to her and she fought the urge to move closer. Or scoot away. She wasn’t sure which she wanted more. So she stayed where she was.

“You had yours. You ate it too fast,” she said, licking a drip from the side of the cone.

“And yours is melting. You need help.”

She laughed. “I assure you, I don’t.” She lapped at another drip.

“While I love watching you do that, my professional opinion remains the same.” He smiled and she had a vision of the charming playboy she was certain he could be. But behind that, deeper, there was a flicker of heat in his eyes that went beyond simple flirtation.

“I …”

He leaned in and her heart stopped. He was so close to her, close enough that if she just dipped her head, she could brush her lips against his.

He moved first, angling his head, but not the way she’d been anticipating. He took a long lick of her ice cream cone before leaning back again. “Thanks,” he said, his voice rough.

Her hand was shaking from anticipation. From the fact that watching his tongue sliding over the ice cream had actually been pretty hot. She didn’t know herself right now.

No. That wasn’t true. She was getting to know herself. A sexual encounter on a piano bench and an ice cream cone on the beach at a time. It was like finding out there was a whole different side to herself when she’d always thought there had only been one. She’d been all about the piano. All about performing. But this was living. Real living.

“This has been … this has been great. Thank you,” she said, still trying to catch her breath from the sexual shock of watching him lick her ice cream cone. “Sorry I unloaded on you earlier. About my mother.”

“We all need to let it out sometimes.”

“We both lost the parent lottery, didn’t we?”

“Seems so.”

“Will you be happy when you get the resorts? I mean, will that be it? Will you win?”

“Is that a trick question?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not a trick. I’m really wondering. Because I want my … I want my life back, Ethan. Not exactly like it was. I want beach days. But I also want to perform. I want the recognition, the hard work, the reward. The money. I don’t … I don’t know what to do without it, and I have to believe that if you have a goal like that, when you reach it you’ll be satisfied.”

Ethan looked toward the sun glinting off the crystalline waves, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t really care. I’m more than happy to keep fighting for the next thing. Bigger and better.”

“That sounds … exhausting.”

“More exhausting than doing piano drills for the rest of your life?”

“Infinitely more.”

“There’s not really anything more to life, Noelle. You keep going, you get more. I doubt you’ll be satisfied just playing again. How many people do you need in the auditorium, and after you fill up a large one, won’t you need a stadium? That’s how it works.”

“I don’t …” Noelle’s voice trailed off. She didn’t like what he was saying. Because it was frighteningly close to what she feared might be the truth. That there would be no satisfaction in ‘reclaiming’ her career. That she would get back to that life and find it as empty as the one she was living now. “I don’t believe it. I won’t need more. I’ll be happy sitting at the piano, playing.”

“Maybe you think sitting at the piano will satisfy you. But then, you do know how to have fun on a piano bench, don’t you?”

His words hit her like a physical blow, the sudden venom in his tone shocking her. She stood, brushing sand off the back of her shorts. “Why would … why would you say that to me?”

“Noelle—”

“I want to go. Today was … fun. And it was neat to kind of play hooky from life. But we both have a plan. And hanging out on the beach just isn’t in it.”

He nodded. “Not for either of us.”

“I don’t think hanging out on piano benches is in it for us either.” She turned and headed back to the path that led to the teeming boardwalk area. A little noise would be good. A little something to keep her mind off the raw wound in her chest.

How could he say that? As if she let men touch her like that all the time? Though, he might think she did.

Well, so what if she did? She knew he was an epic playboy, and if she wanted to get off with men on piano benches every other night of the week that was her business. Not her mother’s and not Ethan’s. Hers.

She whipped around and was not that surprised to find Ethan only a couple of paces behind her. “You know what, Ethan? It’s none of your business what I do in my spare time. Beyond this little charade of ours, my life is none of your business. I could have had sex with a hundred guys, and guess what? Not your job to judge. I’m the one who has to live my life. The one who has to live with me. So … there.”

She turned again and walked away, her heart pounding hard in her head, her entire body shaking. It was true, and she hadn’t even realized it until she’d said it.

She had to live her life. No one else. Why had she always taken the path other people put her on? Why was she still doing her drills for hours every day?

It was her life. No matter how much her mother had wanted to treat it as her own, no matter how much her instructor had fed his ego on her success. They had had no right.

She was angry now. Not just about her situation, but for herself. For everything she’d accepted, her whole life, because she’d believed that her only option was to do as she was told.

Ethan’s firm grasp on her arm stopped her in her tracks. He didn’t seem at all concerned by the people walking by, craning their necks to see if there was going to be a huge fight between them.

“You’re right, Noelle, it’s not my job to judge you. And I don’t. My comment was out of line.” His dark eyes blazed with an intensity that stood in direct opposition to his apologetic words.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I … you apologized,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever apologized to me.”

“I’m a confident guy, Noelle, and that means my ego can take it when I have to admit I’m wrong. That was wrong. It isn’t my business how many men you’ve slept with, or intend to sleep with. It was my sexual frustration talking there. A bit of jealousy, which, I’ll be honest, is unfamiliar to me.”

“The … jealousy or the sexual frustration?”

“Both.”

“Oh.” She looked around at the people, moving around them now as though they didn’t exist, no more interesting than the pylons that divided the boardwalk from the sand.

“You sound shocked.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever aroused either emotion in a man before. So, yes, I am a bit shocked. Maybe as shocked as you are.”

“Not possible. I’m sure you make men feel like this all the time.”

He looked at her, his dark eyes intense, his jaw shifting as he tightened it, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I … I doubt it.”

He stepped closer, the hand on her arm gliding up to her shoulder, around to the back of her neck, his thumb moving over her skin, fingers sifting through her hair.

“I don’t. Not for a moment. You really are beautiful.”

“Ethan, I thought we decided that … it’s a bad idea.” She hated that. Why was it a bad idea? Ethan felt good. And warm, so warm. Everything had been frozen over for so long, dead and dry. Ethan was like the sun.

She wanted to bathe in his warmth, in the promise of new things that seemed to come every time he touched her.

But it was a bad idea. They’d decided that. She’d agreed.

She moved closer to him, her heart pounding. His hand was still on her neck, massaging her, spreading heat and fire through her.

She didn’t want to move away. Didn’t want to break her connection with him. It was her life. And she had to live it.

She wanted a little bit of Ethan in it. For as long as she could have it. Because he made her angry and happy and he turned her on. He made her feel, when for so long she’d simply been existing. He made her aware of things—needs, desires she’d never been mindful of before.

It was like finding a new dimension to life. And that was more than just the beach and sand and ice cream. It was deeper, it made everything seem as if it had broader scope, more depth.

She didn’t want to run from that. She wanted to dive into it head-first.

She stood up on her toes and leaned in, brushing his mouth with hers, her entire body trembling as she increased the pressure of the kiss, as the shock of his flesh on hers fired through her, charging her like a bolt of electricity.

It didn’t satisfy her. Not even close. She felt like he was water and she had been lost in the desert. She felt insatiable. She touched her tongue to the seam of his lips, explored the shape of his mouth, tasted his skin.

They hadn’t kissed enough last night. He’d done the touching, he’d done the pleasuring. But she wanted more than that. She wanted it all.

A short groan vibrated in his chest, and he locked his arm around her waist, pulling her to him, holding her against his hard, well-muscled body. She arched into him, could feel the heavy weight of his erection against her stomach.

And that was when she realized they were standing on the boardwalk, in broad daylight.

She pulled away from him, blinking hard. Pushing shaking fingers through her hair, she looked around, trying to see if they’d caught everyone’s attention. No, there were one or two people in line for ice cream who hadn’t noticed them. Great.

“I … for someone who was trained not to draw the wrong kind of attention, I seem to be doing a pretty bad job at … not drawing the wrong kind of attention.”

“You kissed me,” he said.

“Not … not your attention. People are staring,” she hissed, lowering her face and walking back toward the hotel.

“Isn’t that the idea? We are supposed to be an engaged couple.”

“That wasn’t the idea … just now. For me I mean.”

“I see, then what was it?”

She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t ask.”

“I didn’t say I was a gentleman.”

“No. I guess you didn’t.”

“You’re right.” He sighed. “This is a bad idea.”

A bolt of panic hit her in the chest. “Not the whole deal, just the kissing, right? Because I need this, Ethan. I need my house. I can’t lose it.”

He frowned and reached his hand out, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “Your cheeks are pink. You need sunblock.”

“Please tell me you don’t mean the whole deal,” she repeated.

“I think it’s all a bad idea, Noelle. But I’m not backing out of it. We have a deal, and we’ll stick to that. But it’s a business deal, don’t forget that.”

“I … I won’t.” Of course, if she really felt like it was a business deal her heart probably wouldn’t be beating so erratically, and her lips wouldn’t still be stinging from the kiss. “We should probably go.”

They were still standing in the middle of the crowded boardwalk, but even with so many people everywhere, she felt as if they were the only two people on the planet. At least, the only two who mattered. She wasn’t sure what that meant, or why he could make her so mad, and then make her want him, then make her nearly melt inside with the things that he said, all in the space of a few moments.

“Yeah, I’ve got some work to do this evening,” Ethan replied.