CHAPTER FOURTEEN
S KYLAR STRETCHED OUT her warm, achy muscles. It had been another magical night of tease and sensuality... She blinked drowsily and realised the morning was only almost perfect. Zane wasn’t lying beside her. She sat up. He was probably taking an early-morning swim. Which was fine. A little space was probably good.
Relax and enjoy it.
But her nerves were brittle and she suddenly felt a wave of warning. She tried to push the panic away—not ruin this moment by panicking about everything ending. Labour Day was a while away and she was here now , she could settle for this. It was already more than she’d ever had.
She got out of bed and shrugged on a silk robe. Glancing out the window, she saw he wasn’t in the pool. She wandered from the bedroom into the lounge to check the beach view. That’s when she registered the softly playing music. She followed the sound—upstairs. Once she hit the second floor she stopped at the open door, unable to believe her eyes. There were tall windows with even more expansive views over that amazing teal water, but Skylar’s attention was completely absorbed by Zane. Wearing only boxers, he was seated at a sleek piano. She watched the muscles rippling across his back as he played. Still and silent, she listened until the last note had faded. And when it had? That’s when she lost it.
‘Are you kidding me?’ She stalked towards him. ‘Of all the—’
‘What?’ Startled, he spun and lifted his hands like she was pointing a gun at him. ‘Did I wake you? I was playing softly. I didn’t think you’d be able to hear from the bed.’
She walked towards him. ‘I can’t believe you were really playing that.’
‘Who else would it have been?’ He grinned.
‘A paid professional?’ she muttered. ‘Like you’re not already...’
‘Already what?’
‘Attractive enough. Gorgeous face. Fit body. Successful.’
His eyes widened. But he joked, ‘Don’t forget outrageously wealthy.’
‘Right, should have put that first. Let’s not forget wickedly amusing...a foil to mask the moodiness of a lost soul.’
‘Just irresistible, right?’
‘Right. And now you’re a ridiculously talented musician as well.’ She shook her head. ‘I think I hate you.’
‘You think? You’re not sure? You were definite before. So that’s definitely progress.’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t want me to like you.’
‘Touché.’ He smiled, almost contrite. ‘Didn’t you notice the music room in my penthouse?’
‘I don’t think we’ve made it into your music room.’
‘Right.’ He chuckled again. ‘Another lesson.’
‘Seriously.’ She was so grumpy with him. ‘Is there nothing you can’t do?’
He pulled a wry face. ‘Express my feelings, apparently.’
She sighed and walked towards him. ‘I shouldn’t have said all that yesterday. I was just tired. You don’t have to share anything if you don’t want to. Not to me. Or anyone. Or anything.’
‘We’re spending a lot of time together,’ he said slowly. ‘I guess it’s inevitable we’d be curious about more than...’
‘What turns each other on,’ she said.
She followed his gaze down to his hands. The plaster on his thumb was still in place. Obviously no hindrance to his performance.
‘I’ve been playing since I was a kid,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘I call BS. We lived in the same apartment building for years. Was there even room for a piano in your place? Surely I would’ve heard you practice.’
‘Not when I had an old second-hand electronic keyboard and tinny headphones. No one else heard anything.’
Her heart twisted. If she didn’t know this, then she didn’t really know him at all. ‘But when did you have time ? You were so busy getting strong again. Then doing all your online trading things all while acing your studies... How is it possible that you got so good at this?’
He half swivelled back to the piano and played an arpeggio with one hand. ‘When my leg ached I’d go through my scales.’
‘Distraction?’ She perched on the piano stool next to him, unable to resist the need to be nearer to him. To touch.
‘Discipline. It kept me focused. My leg hurt all the time. I had several operations through my teens. Eventually it became like a meditation. A place to go to when I needed respite from everything else that was going on.’
She paused, processing all that. It was about the most he’d ever told her about his life. But one thing leapt out at her. ‘So you need respite now?’
He hesitated. ‘I guess.’ He pressed down the keys. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
Skylar made herself stay silent. If he wanted her to know why he’d been unable to rest, he would tell her. She wasn’t going to ask. But it killed her not to.
He nudged her shoulder with his. ‘I can see you holding back your questions.’
She smiled and opted for an easy one. ‘Please don’t tell me you composed that piece.’
He laughed. ‘No, that was Debussy.’ He glanced at her. ‘French composer.’
‘I know who Debussy was.’
‘Yeah. Of course you do. Brains as well as beauty.’
Not so clever. Stupid actually. Stupidly falling for the man she’d once thought she hated. The crush who’d crushed her. The one she couldn’t physically resist. And when his stupid bet was over, he would destroy the one constant she had left in her life. Her job. The one she wasn’t sure she even wanted any more. He would walk out of her life. And she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t know what to do with herself right now. But she knew for sure he had a soul. No one who could play like that didn’t.
‘You worked so hard. It really matters to you, doesn’t it?’ he said quietly.
‘Helberg changed my life.’ And she wasn’t sure it had been for the better any more. But she’d never dreamed a different route. She’d promised her father she’d follow the path he’d outlined—to a better life, right? And if she didn’t, she’d end up alone. Only that’s where she was anyway, for all her loyalty and duty.
‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘He changed mine too.’
Glancing up, she saw bleakness in his eyes. ‘Zane—’
‘I want you to understand,’ he interrupted her before she told him he didn’t have to tell her anything. He knew he didn’t have to tell her but right now it mattered that she not think him completely shallow and pettily vindictive. He needed her to know. He couldn’t hold it down any more.
‘You know I went for one of his scholarships. I imagine the process didn’t change over the years—you would have had an interview with the great man himself too, right?’
She nodded. ‘I was so nervous.’
‘Because you’d been told it was such a life-changing opportunity.’
‘Yes.’ She stared at him.
‘I was too young to really appreciate that. Too self-involved. I just wanted to read the things that interested me. I didn’t have anything to say to that blustery man and I didn’t care. So I came across as a sullen smart-ass.’
‘Surely he would have seen through that—’
‘Perhaps. But he wanted performers. Articulate and polite and full of adulation. Don’t you know how to smile, boy? He just wanted someone who’d smile when he was told to, who’d make Reed Helberg look good.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Eleven.’
Her eyes widened. ‘That’s so much younger than—’ She took a breath. ‘I was fifteen when I got a scholarship to that boarding school.’
‘They took you on a tour to get your hopes up, right?’
‘Yeah. It was huge. All those playing fields and...’ Something dawned in her eyes. ‘You didn’t want to go,’ she guessed softly. ‘You didn’t want to win it.’
Yeah, he’d always known she was smart.
‘Leave the beach? Home?’ He shook his head. ‘And I saw those other boys there. I think you’d call them arrogant prats. Entitled and lacking in empathy.’
‘Not all of them were like that. At least not all the time.’
‘Right. Because you made so many friends there?’
She stared at him. ‘Okay, I’ll admit Danielle’s about the only one.’
‘Yeah.’ He played another chord. ‘Reed’s rejection was instant and brutal, and on the long drive home my mother grew increasingly upset.’
‘She must’ve been disappointed for you.’
Zane stopped playing for a moment while he pushed back the pain he’d long tried to hold down. He didn’t want to tell her this, but nor did he want her thinking it was only out of shallow spitefulness that he wanted Helberg. It cut so much deeper than money.
‘I didn’t understand how much she wanted me to go away to that school.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I was too much, I guess. A scamp of a small boy. In trouble when I was bored—which was all the time in school. The teachers accelerated me but I was still a problem. She didn’t have the energy to cope with me.’
He’d been too young to understand just how hard she worked. How tired she must have been dealing with him. Because he hadn’t been easy. ‘She was in tears. And she lost it. She shouted at me for...’ Everything . He swallowed. ‘She missed the traffic light.’
‘That was when you had the accident? On your way back?’
He’d taken the brunt—pinned in the car while his mother had been able walk free. And then everything was worse. So much worse. ‘I became even more of a burden.’
Medical bills. Constant hospital appointments. And no fancy boarding school to give her any respite from him.
‘Zane—’
‘I’d failed.’ So he’d never failed again. He didn’t lose. Ever. He worked and worked and worked until he won. Once he’d decided on a target, that was it. ‘She was upset because of me. Distracted because of me. If I hadn’t failed that interview, it wouldn’t have happened. The accident was—’
‘An accident ,’ Skylar said firmly. ‘If anything, your mother could have taken a moment to calm down before driving.’
‘We had to get home quickly because she had to get to work. It wasn’t her fault.’
‘Okay,’ Skylar said. ‘But it certainly wasn’t yours either.’
He shook his head. He’d never forgotten his mother’s distress. He’d never wanted to make her—or anyone—that upset again. Not with his failings. Or his demands.
‘My grandfather came and stayed briefly. He told me I needed to keep it together. Not bother her. She already had to work hard enough and now there were my medical bills on top of everything. I had to be strong.’
‘What about your father? Did he ever help?’
Zane looked at her. ‘My mere existence was too much for him. He cleared off when I was three.’
He’d worked hard. He’d absorbed the pain. Learned to be quiet about it. Then worked to get stronger. He’d suppressed everything—including his own emotion—to protect his mother because he knew he’d let her down. He’d cost her the freedom that scholarship would have given her. And he’d learned to damn well smile and mask it all. Without Helberg.
‘I smiled and acted like nothing ever touched me. Nothing ever bothered me. Nothing ever hurt . I can hide hurt, Skylar.’ It had become habit.
‘Yes.’ She looked troubled. Almost guilty.
That moment in the stairwell just after her father had found them flashed before him. When she’d stood silently, letting him take the blame. Letting him be verbally abused. Not speaking up.
He’d hidden his hurt then too. Because he had been hurt. The best moment of his life till then had turned atrocious in seconds. He pushed it away and pivoted to what should have been his main point all along.
‘I never forgot, never forgave Reed Helberg. He made a snap judgment and didn’t change his mind about me no matter what I did from then on. I know his opinion shouldn’t matter yet it always did.’ Zane had channelled his anger towards Helberg. It had been easiest to. ‘No one person should have that much power over some kid’s life. Why choose just one lucky recipient? Why change only one student’s life?’ The man had been so damned wealthy—until he’d begun to run his company into the ground with a series of bad choices. ‘What about all the others? Why not lift the performance of the whole damn school instead of scooping out that one stellar student and sending them somewhere supposedly better.’
Skylar stared at his hands. ‘You’re the anonymous donor behind the new gym at our old school.’
He shot her surprised look. ‘You know there’s a new gym?’
‘I’m still on the email list for the newsletter.’
‘Of course you are.’ He blinked.
‘What about the new science lab?’
‘That too,’ he mumbled. ‘And the music room.’
‘Anything else? A library?’
‘A physical rehab centre at the health clinic in town,’ he muttered. ‘For kids and people who need to rebuild strength after accidents like mine.’
‘And that’s anonymous too?’
He had to drop his gaze from hers. ‘I call in there sometimes. But I don’t want my name over anything. It’s not about me.’
‘So you make out like everything’s a bit of a joke. That you don’t care. But you donate to all those charity things. Just not publicly.’
‘I don’t want people to come to me so desperate for my support that they’ll do almost anything I want.’ A ripple of guilt went down his spine.
‘You don’t let anyone get that close,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve never trusted anyone with the truth of how you actually feel. You didn’t take comfort from your family.’
‘I didn’t need comfort,’ he said. ‘I could take care of myself.’
‘ Everyone needs comfort.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘Right, that’s why you support a rehab clinic for kids. Why you go visit them and encourage them. Because they don’t need comfort.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why? Because they’re not as tough as you? Not as capable?’
‘They’re far braver than I ever was.’
‘Yet you say you didn’t need comfort.’
He rolled his shoulders. ‘Don’t, Skylar.’
‘I’m not judging you, Zane.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ She sighed. ‘We all do our best, but we all screw up sometimes. And most of us admit we need help sometimes. But not you. You won’t ever stop or ask for help. Or take a step back and say, I’m tired .’
‘I’m tired.’ He paused. ‘Of this conversation.’
He didn’t know why he’d thought it would be a good idea to start this. Why it would help in any way at all. Because now she was looking at him with soft sadness in her eyes and he did not want her pity. He didn’t want her feeling that for him.
‘Where’s your mother now?’ she asked.
‘Florida. Fiercely independent. Won’t retire even though I bought her a condo and made arrangements. She cancelled them. She doesn’t touch the account I opened for her.’
He wanted to take care of her and she wouldn’t let him and it rubbed everything that was raw inside and now he really regretted saying everything he had in the last half hour.
‘Maybe she feels like she doesn’t deserve your help because of what happened.’
‘ I caused that crash.’
‘It was an accident .’
‘Stop.’
‘You’re invoking your safe word when we’re just talking?’
Yeah. Because he didn’t talk. He shouldn’t have said any of this to her.
‘So you do everything good quietly. And everything wicked with a smile.’
‘I make the tiniest of differences,’ he growled. ‘And I’m no saint. I bought the house of my dreams on the beach that I love and I have my Manhattan penthouse with a spectacular view. And you know I like my personal pleasures too.’ He drew in a sharp breath. ‘Money and power corrupts. Who’s to say it hasn’t corrupted me?’
‘Because you know what it is to be desperate and you wouldn’t take advantage of anyone in that state.
‘No?’ He looked at her bitterly. ‘Wouldn’t I take advantage of someone desperately wanting to convince me to do something about something they cared about?’
‘You haven’t taken advantage of me .’ She looked put out.
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
He’d been pleased to find her literally caught in his orchard and needing his help. He’d been pleased that she couldn’t get away. For a moment there, he’d even toyed with the fanciful idea of not helping her, so she’d be trapped in his garden for always. Because that old chemistry had flared. And then he’d used that stupid bet—all but engineered her loyalty to the company to spend more time with him. Because she’d always been in the back of his mind. The one he couldn’t have. The one he wanted more than any other. And he didn’t know what he felt worse about—engineering their fling, or the fact that he still wanted her so badly.
‘ I’m the one who pushed for us to sleep together again,’ she said. ‘I asked. I took. Don’t act as if it were all your idea.’
Yeah, but she just wanted some ‘experience.’ He’d not been good enough for her back then. He’d been a distraction . Maybe that’s all he was now too. Because even more important to her was her desire to save Helberg. Once this bet was done, she’d continue with her workaholic ways without him. The thought of all that reality bit hard. Unsatisfied . He was still so unsatisfied.
‘Kiss me then,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘If that’s what you want.’
She lifted his hand from the keys and pressed her lips to that raw spot on the inside of his thumb. The small thing that still hurt.
Her touch was too gentle and it wasn’t enough. He was still greedy. He slipped his hands around her and drew her onto his lap. He would take this now. Only now.
And then they would be done.