The Right Mr Wrong

‘Nothing. You don’t. I’m not bothered by you.’ Lord, could she sound any more flustered?

She tilted her head back and hoped the breeze would cool her cheeks.

‘No? I bothered you once. I made you want something you thought you shouldn’t.’ His smile was still there but all sense of joking was dead.

‘As arrogant as ever, I see.’ And a game player. He’d considered her sport. He’d done it because he couldn’t help himself—consumed by that driving need to win. Even over his best friend. Oliver had told her about the new sailor who’d come into the team—that he was driven like no one else.

He was driven to win in everything.

But even though she knew that to be the truth, her heart puckered. Surely it hadn’t entirely been a game? That attraction had been intensely fierce. Surely there was no way it had only been her feeling it for real?

And the night they’d first met, Liam hadn’t known she was Oliver’s girlfriend. Not until that heated look and those soft, searing words had already been exchanged.

‘You’d be disappointed if I wasn’t.’

She rolled her eyes but she couldn’t help those urges again. ‘So you and Aurelie?’

The wry smile on his lips told her he was amused by her curiosity. She lifted her chin and ploughed on anyway. Because, damn it, they’d shared something. They weren’t mere acquaintances. A moment of connection had forged a thread between them. Incredibly, she almost felt a right to know. He’d once interfered in her personal life—didn’t that give her certain leeway in return? ‘How long were you together?’

‘On and off, almost three years.’

She snapped her mouth shut, almost as shocked as when she’d first seen him walk into that room at the chateau. He’d been with Aurelie longer than she’d been married to Oliver? He must have loved her.

Liam chuckled. ‘I’ve surprised you.’

‘Yes.’ She drew a breath and nodded. ‘You have. But in a good way.’

‘Why good?’

‘You committed that long.’

‘You didn’t think I could commit?’ His brows shot high, an odd note sounding in his voice.

‘It doesn’t fit with your image.’

There was a pause. ‘What’s my image?’

Victoria swivelled in her seat again to look directly at him, determined to play it up and ease them back into that slightly wary, almost joking mood. ‘Untamable. Challenging. Arrogant.’

There were so many more adjectives she could add to his definition. But she wasn’t going to feed his ego any more.

‘And that makes me seem like I wouldn’t commit?’

‘Well, you’re such a flirt,’ she said bluntly.

He laughed and his hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Only with you.’

‘Yeah, right.’ That was a prime example of his flirt talk just there. And it totally wasn’t true. He’d had them all eating out of his hand all those years ago. She’d seen how the other girls there had watched him. They’d looked at him the same way Victoria had covertly looked at him. With dazzled hunger.

She couldn’t believe he’d been with Aurelie three years. What had happened to break them up? Why was she marrying someone else? Victoria thought she already knew. Liam wasn’t the marrying kind. Not even to a total dream-girl like Aurelie. He’d never be pinned down by any woman—not for life. No doubt there were too many other challenges—races, trophies, women.

‘Are you in a new relationship now?’ That curiosity got her once more.

‘No,’ he answered with a soft drawl. ‘I have commitment issues.’

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. Even though she knew it was the truest thing he’d said all day.

‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Are you with someone new?’

She shook her head. ‘I have commitment issues too.’

Now his laughter rolled.

‘Well, you can’t blame me for being wary now.’ She smiled wryly.

He stopped laughing immediately. ‘No.’ He turned his attention to the road ahead. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

‘I thought you were all ‘I told you so’?’

He shook his head. ‘He was an idiot.’ There was a silence. ‘We were all idiots.’

Victoria shrank in her seat. She’d been the biggest idiot. She’d been unable to stand up for herself and say what she’d really wanted. And in some ways, what she’d really wanted had been neither of them. She’d needed freedom and independence and she’d been too afraid to reach for it. But she had it now and she wasn’t giving it up.

‘The calligraphy’s going well for you?’ He changed the subject.

‘Yes,’ she said proudly. It mightn’t be world famous but it was doing okay.

‘It’s an interesting way to make a living. Doing the purely decorative.’

‘It’s nice to make things beautiful for people. Life shouldn’t just be functional,’ she declared, knowing he was deliberately provoking her and responding regardless. ‘Anyway, it’s no less meaningless than sailing from point A to point B as fast as possible. You’re hardly securing world peace with that career.’ She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear with an affected gesture. ‘At least what I do makes a difference to a few people—it makes them smile.

‘I make people smile too, you know,’ he said slyly. ‘I make people cheer. And scream.’

She bet he made many women scream. ‘Is that why you do it?’ She couldn’t resist a little provoking either—asking him in terribly polite tones, ‘You need the adulation?’

His resulting chuckle made her smile inside. ‘I just like to win.’

He hadn’t won with her. He still wouldn’t.

She looked at him. ‘Not everyone can win all of the time. Not even you.’

‘That’s not going to stop me trying.’

No. Hadn’t he made a play for her even when he knew she was with someone else—someone who was supposed to be his best friend?

But once more her conscience niggled because he could argue he hadn’t made a play. He’d not said or done anything out of line once he knew who she was. Then again the man was so devastating he hadn’t needed to do or say. He’d only needed to look. And when he had finally spoken? In front of everyone? She sighed. He was the one who’d got away.

‘This the street you meant?’

Despite his determined effort to fly well under the speed limit for the entire journey, they were indeed finally in her neighbourhood.

‘Yes.’ She directed him to her apartment and he pulled up outside.

Her heart thundered. Her silly hands were actually sweating as she unclipped her seat belt. She was going to say goodbye to him again. For ever. Good, right?

He turned in his seat and faced her. She should get out of the car. She should open the door and walk away. But she couldn’t; somehow she needed to see him—see his eyes. See if that look was there.

And he knew it. He took off his sunglasses, meeting her eyes. His were serious, but there was that glint of laughter and of something else.

Determination. Desire. Challenge.

She recognised them all. But she couldn’t let this happen. Even if she was dying of curiosity inside. She’d resisted him once, she could again, right? She had a new man-free plan and she was sticking to it.

‘Victoria—’

‘No.’ She pre-empted him. She was not inviting him in. She was not touching him. She was not letting him—

He smiled. Reaching out, he touched her burning cheek with just the tips of his fingers.

She clamped her jaw together.

‘Even now you want to resist it?’ he murmured.

‘You can’t just pick up with five years in between when we last saw each other.’ Did she have to sound so breathy?

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’ So much had gone down between then and now.

‘I’m single.’ He glanced at her hands in her lap. ‘You’re no longer attached.’

‘And you’re pleased about that,’ she said tartly.

He clamped his hand over hers, a quick frown pulling his brows. ‘Of course I’m not. Believe it or not I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you both to be happy.’

She swallowed, conscious of the strength of his hand pushing on hers. The heat of it. ‘We were,’ she said hoarsely, but honestly. ‘For a while.’

‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out. But it not working out was nothing to do with me.’

‘I never said it was.’ And she wouldn’t. But the edges of her heart shrivelled because, while Oliver had been the one who’d cheated, she’d been the one who’d withheld part of herself. She’d not been honest with him. Or herself. Or anyone.

Liam leaned closer. ‘Don’t make me pay the price of him hurting you.’

‘I’m sorry?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What is it you want to do?’

‘What I’ve always wanted to do.’ His shoulders lifted. ‘From the second I first saw you in nothing but a towel and steam. At least I’m honest enough to admit it.’

She felt the steam now as heat surged through her body.

‘This thing between us?’ He shook his head. ‘Still the same, even after all this time. You can’t deny it.’

Of course she’d deny it. Self-preservation was a basic instinct. ‘I can.’ Because she knew all that was important to know about Liam, yet he knew nothing of what was important about her. Like the fact she wasn’t about to let herself get distracted. ‘You don’t know me now, Liam. You don’t know what I want.’

‘So you’re going to take the easy option and avoid it? You’re good at that.’

She shook her head. ‘You thought you were so clever. That you saw it all. But you saw nothing of what was really going on with me. You didn’t know me.’

‘I knew enough,’ he argued. ‘I still do.’

‘And what do you think you know? That I was sexually attracted to you?’ She kept her head high despite another flare of heat in her cheeks. ‘You intrigued me then, yes, I admit it. But I’m not interested now.’

‘Then prove it.’ His gaze locked on hers. ‘Come closer without blushing.’

‘Oh, please.’ She covered up with a laugh. ‘I don’t need to prove anything to you.’

‘What about to yourself?’ he challenged right back, his expression wicked and tempting. ‘Isn’t that part of what you’re doing now? Isn’t your move to Paris all about proving things to yourself?’

‘You still think you’re so smart.’

‘No, but I know when I’m right.’ He brushed that strand of hair behind her ear for her. ‘You’re out here on your own. Proving you can do it. You can handle it.’

‘And I can,’ she whispered.

He smiled. ‘Yet you won’t even try to handle me.’

THREE

‘You do not have to see me to my door.’

‘Yes, I do.’ Liam wasn’t letting Victoria walk out of his life again. At least, not yet. Not when there was this much unfinished between them. He was going to get something from her today. Even just an admission. He wanted to hear her say it only the once, a whisper even. She reckoned she didn’t want him? She reckoned wrong. He knew that as well as she.

‘I have to work.’

He knew that too. ‘I’m not asking to stay the night.’ Though he would if she offered. One night was all he’d need. Why she could do this to him, he didn’t know, but from the first second he’d seen her it had been there. That hot response in every cell of his body.

Want.

But he wasn’t the kid he’d once been. He wasn’t going to lose it as he had back then—he was in control of everything now, right?

He’d experienced lust plenty of times. Course he had. Had acted on it too. But it had never been as extreme as it had that night he’d first met Victoria. When she’d opened her mouth and answered him back? When she’d been as enthralled as he had?

She still was. He’d seen it flash in her eyes when he’d walked into that room, before she’d had a second to school her face. He saw it now in the way she went out of her way to avoid touching, or even looking at, him.

But he looked at her. And he wanted to touch. In fact he wanted to provoke—that would only be fair. Because that rampant lust was back as bad as it had ever been.

He followed her up the stairs, trying hard not to stare at her sweet curves. Instead he glanced around, checking out her digs. The distraction was not good.

The stairwell was poorly lit but he could still see the grimy, peeling paintwork and he could smell something horrendous—like several stale dinners mixed with the stench of wet wool. How many tiny apartments were squished into this ugly building? They passed a million doors as they marched on. No wonder she was looking fit given all these stairs she had to climb.

‘So you’re doing the garret-in-Paris thing?’ He ground the feeble joke out. This place was hardly the Left Bank and giving her a nice view of the river.

‘I’m not starving. I’m doing very well,’ she said as they finally got to the top floor. She unlocked her door and paused. ‘And calligraphy is a craft as much as it is an art. I’m happy.’

‘Good for you.’ He ignored the ‘goodbye’ in her tone and walked right past her, into the shoebox of an apartment— a child’s shoebox at that. ‘But there are better garrets. With better views.’ He frowned, learning all there was to know in a swift glance. One room with a cupboard for a kitchen and another for a bathroom. The place sucked.

‘I don’t need a better view. I only need good light.’

She’d set up a small workspace in the room. The biggest bit of furniture was her desk. Angled and pushed against the window to maximise use of the natural light. On a flat desk beside it was her computer. Against the far wall—as if it were an afterthought—was the smallest single bed he’d ever seen.

The place wasn’t miniature doll’s-house cute, it was cramped.

‘How can you work in here?’ He looked away from the itty, bitty bed. ‘It’s hardly a ‘studio’ is it?’ It wasn’t big enough for anyone to be comfortable in. Not even petite blondes with leaf-green eyes.

‘That’s exactly what it is.’ Her chin lifted high, as if she was just waiting for the criticism.

Confronted with that expression, much as he wanted to criticise, he found he wasn’t going to. She was trying—­independent and alone. Far more than she’d been five years ago. Good for her, right? Except for some reason it annoyed him more. Why should it matter? Couldn’t he, of all people, understand the need to succeed?

‘Why don’t you come to my hotel and work there? I have a suite—it’s three times the size of this place.’ He knew before he’d finished saying it that it was a mistake. He knew how she’d react—call him worse than a flirt. Thing was, he meant it. Grudgingly. It wasn’t a line.

‘Oh, please, that was so unsubtle.’

Yep, she boxed him right back into flirt mode.

‘But we wouldn’t have to share a bathroom this time.’ He walked up to her, giving into her expectations—and his own need to provoke. And stand closer. ‘Unless you wanted to.’ He smiled and lifted a hand to her jaw, unable to resist touching her again. ‘Now, that was unsubtle.’

He’d never forget the time he’d walked in on her in the bathroom. It had been his first night there that Christmas break. To his relief she hadn’t screamed the place down. She’d been mortified. In truth so had he. He’d covered up by joking, of course. But he’d soon got derailed. The towel had covered her most private parts—parts he’d ached to see. But there’d been so much damp skin on show and with the steam and the sweet scent of her soap? Of course he’d made a play. A huge one.

It wasn’t until the next morning that he’d learned she was Oliver’s girlfriend—the one he’d been with for a couple of years. Who Oliver’s family loved and expected him to marry. The good girl who slept in her own room when she stayed—not Oliver’s. It was all so perfect.

But it was already too late. Liam had been young and dumb and so callow. He’d mistaken insta-lust for love at first sight. He’d been unsubtle in his attention. Unable to stay away.

‘That wasn’t just unsubtle.’ Victoria lifted her chin sharply, so his fingers slipped from her skin. ‘That was sledgehammer.’

‘This is a dodgy neighbourhood,’ he said, wishing he could see her out of here.

‘Don’t try to get me there under the pretext of caring for my welfare.’ She looked amused.

There was no shifting her. And—albeit reluctantly— he respected that. ‘So where do you see it—’ he waved his hand at her desk ‘—in a few years?’

‘You want to know my business goals?’

Yep, oddly he did. ‘How are you going to expand when it’s so dependent on you? What happens if you sprain your wrist or something?’

‘I have business insurance. In terms of expansion—is it necessary? I only need to make enough for me to live comfortably.’

A single bed was never comfortable, no matter how slight she was. She clearly needed to make more than she currently was. ‘How are you going to factor in holidays? When you own your own business, it’s very easy to forget about holidays.’

‘How do you factor in holidays?’ She laughed at him.

‘I love my work. Work is a holiday for me.’ Sailing was and always would be his first, his ultimate, passion. He loved the challenge on the water. It was his home—the place he felt safest. And the most free.

She turned and looked at him. Her green eyes were very bright—he felt their power right into his bones.

‘And you don’t think it’s possible for me to feel the same about my work?’ she asked.

Frankly? No. ‘Not in this environment.’ This place was stifling at best. ‘But maybe it doesn’t matter to you. Maybe you only see what you’re working on.’ He walked over to the scrupulously tidy desk. ‘You’re very good at what you do.’

Victoria couldn’t get over his nerve. He couldn’t try to make it better now with flattery. Not when he hadn’t even seen her work. He’d only seen that mess on the card at the chateau. She’d boxed the others away and right now her desk was completely clear. So he had no idea how good she was. Unless—

A horrible suspicion occurred to her. ‘Did you recommend me to Aurelie?’

He stilled.

‘You did. You Googled me. You found my website. You—’ She broke off.

For once the self-assured expression was wiped from Liam’s face. He looked guilty. He was guilty.

Victoria gritted her teeth. She couldn’t back out of Aurelie’s job now, but a huge part of her wanted to.

‘I didn’t think I was going to make it to her wedding.’ Liam offered an explanation. ‘And I never expected to see you even if I did. But, yes, I wanted to help.’

Help who—her or Aurelie?

It shouldn’t bother her. It really shouldn’t. But she didn’t want to feel beholden to him. And she’d felt so stupidly proud to have gotten this commission. That she was succeeding independently and on her own merit. Oliver had implied that her early success in London had only been because of his contacts. Not the quality of her work. She’d thought this job an antidote to that bite.

‘I mentioned your name when she was boring me with wedding details one day.’ Liam fiddled with one of the tins she had on her desk, pulling out the pencils one by one and dropping them back in. ‘She looked you up herself and decided whether or not to hire you. She likes your work.’

Victoria swallowed. She couldn’t let pride ruin this. She could still get business off the back of Aurelie’s wedding. Her work would speak for itself.

He glanced at her, his sharp eyes assessing. ‘You’re unhappy with me.’

‘Not at all,’ she lied. ‘It was very nice of you to suggest me to her. I’m amazed you could even remember my name.’

‘Come off it, Victoria.’ He stepped closer.

She instinctively retreated. Because sometimes he saw too much—past her polite veneer to what she was really thinking. And wanting.

‘You’re so determinedly independent now?’ he asked, his brows lifting at her attempt to put distance between them. ‘Can’t accept anyone’s help?’ A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘Least of all mine?’ He let his gaze slowly lower— trailing over her body.

She stood her ground, hoping to school her response and this time truly hide her thoughts from him. But once again he seemed to know.

‘What are you so afraid of?’ he baited. ‘You have nothing to fear from me. It would only be the once.’

Victoria smiled, keeping the rest of her expression smooth. ‘Why? Isn’t it going to be very good?’

His attention snapped back to her face. ‘I’ve done the convenient relationship. It doesn’t work. One-night stands do.’

The ‘convenient relationship’? So he hadn’t been in love with Aurelie? Or was this his way of hiding his own deep hurt?

‘I’m not a one-night stand person,’ she answered honestly.

‘Maybe you should try it. Once.’

She held his gaze—still feeling that pull towards him, but she was older and wiser and stronger now. ‘You don’t like to give up, do you?’

There was a slight hesitation. ‘No. I told you I like to win.’

‘And that’s what this is?’ She gestured—fluttering her fingers towards him and then herself. ‘Like an event to be won?’

‘If we don’t explore it, there’ll always be that curiosity. Be honest,’ he drawled, taking another step closer. ‘You’re dying of curiosity. That burning wonder of what might have been.’

‘So poetic?’

‘It’s the Irish ancestry in me. And I’m right. We both know that.’ His voice dropped. ‘We also both know how good it’s going to be.’

‘Liam.’

His lashes lowered. ‘It’s always going to be like this,’ he muttered. ‘It’s inevitable. It always has been.’

No. She’d ceded control of her life for too long—always doing what others wanted. She was in control now.

He’d stepped near enough to touch her and now he did. Reaching out to brush the tips of his fingers on her shoulder.

‘Only once, you say?’ she asked, letting some tease out. Determined to make him pay for this casual attitude. As if all this was was sexual curiosity that could be assuaged in one hit.

‘Feel free to make me change my mind.’ His mouth quirked. ‘Love to see you try.’

She stepped back.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not happening.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Feel free to make me change my mind,’ she threw at him. ‘Go on. Do your worst.’

Startled, he stepped after her. ‘Victoria—’

‘Was this only ever lust? You’re so driven by base urges you ruined your friendship with Oliver? You almost broke up a relationship? For a quick fling?’

Or was it even less than that? She took another step from him, using the last bit of space behind her and bumping the backs of her knees against the small cot she called her bed.

‘Was it just your overblown need to win?’ she continued. ‘You’re so insanely competitive, did you need to get one over him? Was I nothing more than the trophy of the day?’ She kept her smile on but it was slipping. Quickly.

‘No.’ He frowned.

That didn’t satisfy her. ‘Then don’t cheapen this. Don’t cheapen me.’

Now he looked angry. ‘I didn’t betray Oliver.’

No?

‘I didn’t seduce you,’ he argued, standing so close she could feel his warmth and almost taste the salty ocean breeze that he always seemed to evoke. ‘And I could have.’

‘You think?’

‘I can’t give you everything you want. I can only—’

‘You don’t know what I want.’

He shrugged one shoulder. ‘Marriage, babies, Labradors.’

‘I tried that. It’s not for me.’ Maybe she just wanted acknowledgement of what could have been between them. That this had been more than just a sexual attraction. That somehow, unbelievable as it might have been, there had been a real connection between them that week.

‘So what do you want?’

‘A career. My business.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I was making headway before the divorce. Oliver hated that I was more successful than he was.’ The banking crisis had hardly been her fault. Hundreds in the city had been laid off—Oliver had been one of them. But for whatever reason, her little enterprise had gained traction. But after his affair and the divorce she’d lost it. Now she was back at the beginning. But she believed in it. In herself. ‘I want to build this up into something great. And to do that I need to finish this for Aurelie. That’s what I want. To have work coming out of my ears. For people to love my work.’