Date with a Single Dad: Millionaire Dad's SOS / Proud Rancher, Precious Bundle / Millionaire Dad: Wife Needed

‘My absolute pleasure.’ She smiled. That lush mouth. Those stunning blue eyes. He had a sudden need to know what they’d look like bathed in moonlight as she spilled apart in sheer pleasure in his arms.

He hooked the oars back into their loops and aimed for the resort, and every stroke felt as if he were pulling them through wet cement. ‘You seem perfectly comfortable in the limelight. Are you implying that’s all an act?’

‘Oh, no, did that just sound all woe is me? Please tell me it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m blessed in, oh, so many ways. And I am perfectly at peace with the contradictions that came with being notable. But I wasn’t born twenty-nine and world wise. You haven’t heard the story of my glittering debut?’

Zach shook his head.

‘Well, here it is. I must have been three at the most. My father was giving a press conference to announce that he’d bought the George Street building in which the Kelly Investment Group was housed and was renaming the thing Kelly Tower. Mum had taken us all along to see him in action. All trussed up for the big occasion, my hair in ringlets, wearing my favourite navy velvet dress and black patent shoes, I got away from her. I made it to the podium mid-announcement, clambered up, tugged on my father’s trousers and whistled through the gap in my front teeth that I needed to tinkle. Needless to say my father wasn’t all that impressed at being upstaged, but the press ate it up. I haven’t been able to tinkle since without the world knowing about it.’

Her smile was cheeky, but as he seemed able to do with this woman from the outset he felt the undercurrent stronger than the surface words. On the outside it was a cute story about a girl and her dad. For her it was a story of innocence lost.

He pulled the oars harder through the water. ‘Just because a spotlight follows you doesn’t mean you have to perform for it.’

She raised both eyebrows in challenge. ‘You really believe that? Do you really want to know the God’s honest truth? Or are you pushing my buttons in an effort to continue to punish me for the whole Ruby thing?’

He felt a smile coming, but this time didn’t bother trying to put a stop to it. ‘Both.’

‘Fine.’ She took a breath. ‘The only reasons I am telling you any of this is recompense for Ruby. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Fame is a funny old thing. It’s not like I’ve done anything to deserve being remembered. I haven’t invented something, or cured anything or broken any world records. But my name has brand recognition, which gives me not only a certain power, but responsibility as well. Say the name Kelly and what do you think?’

Wealth. Charm. Beauty. But also excessive influence. Secrets. Lies. Scandal. Everything he wanted Ruby nowhere near.

She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘I had to figure out early on how to deal with all that baggage. I have no interest in running the company like Brendan. Or owning the city like Cameron. And the rush Dylan feels every time a new client is lured into the KInG net is a mystery to me. I wouldn’t even begin to know what drives King Quinn himself. But what I can offer with a splash of perfume, a flash of designer skirt and a dash of feminine glamour is a much-needed counterpoint to the excess of testosterone my family exudes. A way to use some of that power for the greater good. And, boy, am I good at it. So good I could sell tickets. But unless you know a guy with a good line in wigs and fake noses it’s twenty-four hours, seven days a week, barely a holiday in sight.’

‘Why do it at all?’

She blinked, clearly thinking him obtuse. ‘For them. For each other.’

‘For your family?’ That kind of self-sacrifice was something he was only just beginning to understand.

‘Jobs change. Friends come and go. Family is where you begin and where you end. My brothers may appear to be the kings of the jungle, but deep down they have the hearts of big kittens. They need me as much as I need them. And no matter what part we play all of us are working towards the same goal.’

‘The succecss of your father’s business.’

‘No. For our family to be happy. The business success is a side effect. I certainly don’t dance to my father’s tune, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Is that what I said?’

She frowned deeply. ‘It’s what you intimated, isn’t it? To be fair, I did once. Then a time came when I became a right little tearaway. The things I got up to would make your eyes water. Then I grew up. Took charge of my life. And decided making love and not war was the only way forward.’

‘Who knew the life of a society princess was lived on the front line?’

Her frown faded away, but her eyes remained locked on his, a tad wider than normal, as though she couldn’t quite believe she was telling him all of this. ‘You can mock me all you like, but in offering a corner of myself to those who are interested, I am able to use my money, my influence and my time helping some of the less trendy, less telethon-appropriate organisations I believe need all the help they can get, which is extremely satisfying.’

‘I wasn’t mocking you. I—’

What? Envy you your infamously close family? Like hell he was going to tell her that.

Not knowing how to ask, he instead said, ‘Moving on.’

‘Excellent idea.’ She let out a deep breath and leant forward, just a touch, but enough that when her mouth curved into an all-new smile, a luscious, flirtatious, brain-numbing smile, he felt it like nothing else. If her life really was lived on a battleground, that mouth was as good a weapon as they came.

‘Am I off the hook?’ she asked.

He slowed his strokes, not quite ready to return to land. To real life. To the other side of the battle from her. ‘Just one last thing. Tell me how you got the chip in your tooth.’

She crossed her eyes as her tongue slid to the gap. His hands gripped the oars for dear life.

‘It’s so tiny. How did you even notice it?’

‘I happen to be an extremely perceptive man.’

Her eyes slid to his, warm, tempting, wondering just how perceptive he might be. Unfortunately he was perceptive enough.

As she slid her tongue back into her mouth her teeth scraped slowly over her lips and her nostrils flared as she let out a slow, shaky breath. He knew he wasn’t the only one feeling the impossible zing between them. He also knew she was wishing with all her might that he hadn’t noticed a thing.

She tilted her chin up a fraction before shaking her hair off her shoulders in a move meant to distract him from the fact that for the first time since he’d met her she was no longer looking him in the eye. ‘How else would a party girl chip a tooth but on a glass of champagne? On the upside, it was truly excellent champagne.’

He laughed softly as he was meant to do. Her eyes flickered to his and her smile was grateful.

After a few long, loaded moments, Meg asked, ‘I just … I’d like to know one thing too. Did Ruby tell you I was there?’

He shook his head. ‘Her nanny.’

She nodded, then looked down at her paint-chipped fingernails with an all-new smile on her face. A secret smile. An honest smile. One reserved for Ruby.

And from nowhere Zach felt something the likes of which he’d never felt in his entire life—the most profound kind of pride that a woman such as her thought so highly of his little girl.

Meg’s tongue kept straying to the itty-bitty chip in her tooth.

What had she been thinking, fessing up to all that guff in some great unstoppable stream of consciousness? Nobody wanted to see the workings behind the wizard. It ruined the fantasy. It seemed all she needed was a man who looked her in the eye and asked about the real her, and it was fantasy be damned.

Thank goodness she’d been rational enough to pull back when she had. There were some parts of her life not for public consumption.

If she wanted to continue volunteering at the ‘less trendy, less telethon-appropriate’ Valley Women’s Shelter she had to keep it underground too. Every woman needed her mystery, and every public figure needed their sanctuary, even if it meant she had to truss herself up in a blonde wig, red liptick, brown contacts, and tight second-hand acid-wash jeans circa 1985.

If she was to remain Brisbane’s favourite daughter she had to pretend the part of her life in which she’d attempted to leave the spotlight had never happened. She felt lucky much of her memory of that time was a blur of flashing lights—from the nightclub, the police car, the hospital.

As to the way she had finally taken control of her life? If she planned on going through life with a spring in her step and a smile on her face she knew it was best not to revisit the choices she’d made back then ever again.

It was done. It was for the best. Move on.

So Zach Jones—stubborn, pushy, scarily insightful Zach Jones; the guy who saw through her so easily that every time they met she had to chase him deeper into the darkest recesses of herself in order to drive him back out—could just take a step back.

Besides, her big mission had been to sort him out, not the other way around. He was the one with the rebellious daughter. He was the one who’d lost someone close. He was the one who needed help.