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

‘Hey now,’ she laughed, taking a quick moment to brush a finger under her eyes, ‘that’s not fair. I was being nice giving you all that secret girls’ business insight, and now you’re using it against me.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘then I will tell you that it was something you said to her yesterday that had her heading off to school today like she had the wind at her heels. So thank you for that too.’

Wow. She’d done that? She gave him a nod. It was either that or croak out, You’re welcome .

‘Mr Jones,’ a woman’s voice with a lilting foreign accent said from between them.

Meg flinched and dragged herself out of the cloud of intimacy that had wrapped itself around them like a slow, thick, enshrouding fog shifting across the pool.

She turned to find a stunning redhead, her hair neat as a pin, her Juniper Falls uniform pressed, not a lick of sweat anywhere. Meg ran a quick hand over her fuzzy plaits and so wished she hadn’t. It would have been better not to know.

‘Claudia,’ Zach said, his voice so cool and aloof Meg was surprised to remember when he’d last used that tone of voice with her. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Sorry to interrupt, but the St Barts group had a few questions about the morning they wanted to run by you while we had a moment’s respite.’

‘Of course. Claudia, this is Meg, a guest at the resort. Meg, Claudia will be my St Barts manager,’ he explained.

‘St Barts? You lucky duck,’ Meg said with the instant return of her practised smile. ‘And thank you, Zach, for taking the time to explain how the waterfall works. It was most informative.’

Claudia gave her a short smile, then headed off to join the St Barts crew.

Zach looked across at her with a kind of smile she was having more and more trouble resisting. ‘Most informative?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was.’

Zach stood, yet he lingered.

‘Go,’ she said, shooing him away. ‘Please. I’m not going to fall into the pool and drown and cause you endless hassles. I promise.’

His brow furrowed, then he said, ‘No, that’s not … I was going to ask if I’ll see you tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ Her heart beat so hard in her throat she was certain it must have been obvious to everyone in sight.

‘You are coming to the luau, are you not?’

‘The what?’

‘There’s a clearing at the west corner of the lake on which we’ve created a beach. The staff put on a controlled bonfire there once a week. Have you even read the brochure?’

‘I glanced at it. Briefly.’ Trying to find chocolate, trying to find the Wellness Building. Both times she’d only found more of him. ‘Look, I’m not sure what our plans are for tonight—’

‘The St Barts team will be there tonight so I was thinking about putting in an appearance. For their sake,’ he said. Adding, ‘There’ll be marshmallows.’

She couldn’t help herself. She licked her lips.

And he laughed. Throaty, loud laughter that resonated through her bones as though her marrow were a twanged guitar string.

‘Real marshmallows?’ she asked, her voice comically low, amazed at the cool she could still find within herself when she needed it most. Thank heavens for her years of training. ‘Or soy-based, gluten-free, sugar-free sticky balls?’

‘Real marshmallows. Bags and bags of them. Pink and white. Sticks supplied if you’re a toaster.’

‘Sure I’m a toaster. You?’

‘All the way. But just in case you need something to keep you going until then …’ He tossed her a small package wrapped in the ubiquitous Juniper Falls pale green. He tipped his cap at her, then bounded across the rocks to join the St Barts crew.

Meg tore it open to find herself holding a small packet of M&Ms. She laughed out loud, then pressed her finger to her mouth before her fellow hikers discovered her laughing to herself and realised they ought to have been paying more heed to the frizzy brunette in their midst.

ZACH stood on a corner of the lake’s beach not lit by the blazing fire, feet bare as the day he was born, dressed top to toe in linen he’d ironed himself, and a hot pink lei someone he didn’t recognise had thrown over his head.

‘You’re a fool,’ he muttered to himself for about the seventh time in the past ten minutes. ‘You and Ruby might have had a good morning because of something she said, and maybe you can’t get that kiss out of your mind, but by poking your head out of your perfectly adequate cave again and again just to get another glimpse makes you a damn fool.’

His hands gripped the lei, crushing the flowers, but before he had the chance to whip it over his neck the sound of female laughter split the night.

Glitter twinkled in the darkness. Three distinct voices wafted towards him, followed by three female forms. The other two must have been her friends. All he saw was Meg.

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.