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

Her dark hair had been pulled back into a slick ponytail. Huge hooped earrings hung from her ears to her shoulders, encrusted with more diamond dust than most women would ever own. But it was the dress that had him clenching his fingers into his palms.

Fire-engine red it was, made of some sparkly material that clung to her torso like second skin, cinching tight at her waist then billowing all the way to her ankles. Her shoulders were bare, her décolletage on display within a deep V, and around the middle she was tied up with a big red bow.

Never had he been given a gift quite like that. He’d obviously kept the wrong friends.

She leaned in as a staff member explained the ‘no shoes on the beach policy’ for the luau, and without hesitation she rested her elbow on someone’s shoulder, hitched her voluminous skirt as high as her knee and proceeded to uncurl a good metre of red leather strap wound about her calf.

Zach closed his eyes and prayed for mercy.

When he opened them it was to see Meg, barefoot, bouncing onto the sand with the exuberance of a puppy. Mid-twirl he got a load of the back of the dress—she was completely bare from a small clip at the back of her neck all the way to her waist. It wasn’t quite low enough to give him a glimpse of the tattoo he knew was there, but low enough he ran a hand hard over his mouth.

He knew what it was about her that had him tempting fate. For the past twenty years he’d spent every waking minute dedicated to turning himself from a kid with nothing into a ruthless businessman. For the past several months he’d had to completely strip away that part of himself in order to pour all of his energy into becoming a father.

Meg Kelly simply let him feel like a man.

It was energising. It was addictive. It could so easily prove to be his undoing.

Look at her, he said to himself. The diamonds, the flashy friends, the artless va-va-voom. She revels in the flash and flare of public life. And look at you, hiding in the shadows.

In allowing this infatuation to continue he was setting himself up to lose too much—he’d certainly lose Meg, and there was every real possibility he might yet lose Ruby. As for the fact that he could look in the mirror and see a guy who’d learnt from the alienation of his past? Gone.

Convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt leaving was the right thing to do, he took one step in that direction when a local reggae band on the other side of the fire struck up their steel drums with a little ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ Bee Gees action.

His eyes searched for Meg’s. She looked up and clapped, radiating pure joy as he’d known she would when he’d put in the request with the entertainment director.

Her gaze began flicking back and forth across the crowd and he knew too that she was looking for him. Instead of sliding deeper into the shadows where he belonged, his feet held firm until her eyes found his.

She smiled with her whole body—ravishing red lips, sparkling blue eyes, the happy shrug of her creamy shoulders. A deeply felt attraction slid through him like slow, hot lava. God, it felt good—like gut instinct, abandon and release. Feelings he’d never allowed himself to come close to feeling for another person his whole adult life.

She made a beeline his way, her friends following in her shimmering wake.

‘Zach,’ she said on a release of breath when she was close enough he could see the firelight flickering in her eyes.

‘Good evening, ladies,’ Zach said, purposely including all three. ‘Don’t you all look beautiful this evening?’

One gave Meg a small shove forward. ‘Don’t we just.’

Meg glared at her friend, while Zach pretended not to notice.

‘Ready for a big night?’ he asked.

‘I heard rumours of a marshmallow roast,’ said the brunette. Tabitha.

‘Bring ‘em on,’ said the blonde, her voice wry.

The hairs on the back of Zach’s neck twitched under the blonde’s incisive gaze. That one was the journo. At the very least she knew that something was happening between her friend and him. She who probably kept a lipstick camera and microchip microphone on her person at all times.

Meg slapped her friend on the arm, which he approved of heartily. ‘Don’t pay any attention to Rylie. She doesn’t understand that sweets belong to their own food group the way some of us do.’

When her eyes slid back to him, she let them flick to her friends and with a small shake of her head told him not to worry. He was safe. Ruby was safe.

Then a small smile hooked at the corner of her mouth. Thanks for the M&M’s, her eyes said.

He blinked back, My pleasure.

‘Are they actually serving drinks from coconut shells?’ Tabitha asked, then she was off.

Rylie, on the other hand, had her hand clamped over Meg’s arm as if they’d been soldered together.

Meg blinked at him, her mouth curving in apology. The St Barts crew were a hopeless cover. She knew he was there for her. And while she’d made it perfectly clear to him on more than one occasion that she understood why they should remain miles apart for Ruby’s sake, she’d come. The both of them needed their heads read.

‘I like the choice in music,’ Meg said over her shoulder as Rylie pulled her away. ‘Yours?’

‘Disco,’ he said. ‘It’s my secret passion.’

She grinned. It lit up the night. And then she was gone.

Zach slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He’d put in his promised appearance, meaning he could walk away. Ruby wasn’t home so he could slink back to his bungalow and work himself late into the night till his eyes burned and his back ached and he was too exhausted to think about anything but sleep.

He could do that, but instead he decided to stay a little longer. Listen to some Bee Gees. Drink some punch. Eat a marshmallow or two. See where the night took him.

Damn fool.

Meg sat on a straw mat next to Rylie, drinking a mocktail and pretending to watch Tabitha lead a conga line around the fire, but whenever she had half a chance her eyes sought out Zach.

The moment she’d first seen him standing with the fire at his back, feet bare, watching her with the kind of intensity that took her breath away, her skin had warmed as though she’d stepped too near the flames. Even wreathed in hot-pink flowers he was the most wholly masculine creature she’d ever known.

Dark hair slicked back, clean-shaven, and wearing a pale grey linen suit, he finally appeared how he should have all along—like the kind of man her father would know by name.

That first moment when she’d been allowed to dream he might be something he was not hadn’t been fair. If she’d first seen him looking like this then maybe she would have had her guard up and have avoided this whole mess from the outset.

Who are you kidding? she thought to herself on a slow release of breath. In cargo shorts and a soft faded T-shirt he was beautiful. In a perfectly cut suit he was devastating. A woman would have to be made of far sterner stuff than she to skim past such a creation.

‘You having a good time so far?’ Rylie asked.

‘Mmm?’ Meg said, turning to Rylie with the straw of her third pineapple mocktail bitten between her front teeth.

‘I feel like we’ve barely seen you enough to make sure you’re actually relaxing as promised.’

Meg raised an eyebrow. ‘If you actually turned up to any of the scheduled events rather than leaving me to fend for myself that wouldn’t be the case.’

‘I’m here now.’

Meg bumped her friend with her shoulder. ‘So you are. And I’m glad. This is fun. Especially since Tabitha is so on form, and thankfully not trying to rope us into her insanity.’

‘Too true. And, now that I am here, is there anything you’d like to catch me up on? The weather, perhaps? Petrol prices getting you down? Anything happen in the past couple of days you’d like to let off your chest?’

She knew what Rylie was asking. And it was fair enough. They were best friends. Had been since school. Maybe she could give her a little sugar, so long as she gave nothing away about Zach or Ruby. But to do that she’d have to give too much of herself away as well. The myriad reasons why she couldn’t just throw herself at him and be done with it went deeper than even Rylie knew.