Nicola Marsh - A Trip with the Tycoon

Quite simply, she was incredible and he wanted her with a staggering fierceness that clawed at him even now, when he was left analysing how he’d let his control slip again in her intoxicating presence.

‘I can see you’re still hurting but if you ever want to talk about Rich, remember the good times, I’m here for you, okay?’

Maybe, if she opened up to him, he could encourage her to get it all out of her system and move on. Highly altruistic but then, when was he anything but?

To his surprise, she wrinkled her nose and he knew it had little to do with the pungent odours of diesel fumes, spices and human sweat swirling around them.

‘Honestly? I don’t want to talk about Richard. I’m done grieving.’

A spark of defiance lit her eyes, turning them from soft moss-green to sizzling emerald in a second. ‘I want to enjoy this trip, then concentrate on my future.’

He’d never seen her like this: resolute, determined, a woman reborn.

He’d seen Tam the society wife, the perfect hostess, the astute businesswoman, the grieving widow, but never like this and a part of him was glad. Releasing the past was cathartic, would help her to move on and he really wanted her to do that on this trip. With him.

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Her answering smile sent another sizzle of heat through him and he clenched his hands to stop himself from reaching out and pulling her close.

Plenty of time for that.

Tamara lay down on the bed, stretched her arms over her head and smiled.

The rocking motion of the train, the clicketyclack as it bounced its way out of Delhi, the aroma of marigolds and masala chai—the delicious tea, fragrant with cardamons—overloaded her senses, lulled her while making her want to jump up and twirl around from the sheer rush of it.

For the first time in years, she felt free. Free to do whatever she wanted, be whoever she chose. And it felt great. In fact, it felt downright fantastic.

While she’d once loved Richard, had desperately craved the type of marriage her folks had had, nothing came close to this exhilarating freedom.

She’d spent months playing the grieving widow after Richard had suffered that fatal heart attack, had submerged her humiliation, her bitterness, her pain.

Yet behind her serene, tear-stained face she’d seethed: at him for making a mockery of their marriage, at herself for being a gullible fool and for caring what people thought even after he was gone.

She hadn’t given two hoots about social propriety until she’d married him, had laughed at his obsession with appearances. But she’d soon learned he was serious and, with his face plastered over every newspaper, magazine and TV channel on a regular basis, she’d slipped into the routine of being the perfect little wife he’d wanted.

While his perfect little mistress had been stashed away in a luxurious beach house at Cape Schanck, just over an hour’s drive from Melbourne’s CBD where they’d lived.

Damn him.

She sat bolt upright, annoyed she’d let bitter memories tarnish the beginning of this incredible journey, her gaze falling on the single bed next to hers. The single bed her mum should’ve been occupying while regaling her with exotic tales of Goa and its beaches, Colva beach where she’d met her dad, her love at first sight for a scruffy Aussie backpacker with a twinkle in his eyes and a ready smile.

Tales of the Taj Mahal, the monument she’d always wanted to see but never had the chance. Tales of an India filled with hospitable people and mouth-watering food, imparting recipes in that lilting sing-song accent that had soothed her as a young girl when the nightmares of losing her dad would wake her screaming and sweat-drenched.

Khushi should’ve been here. This was her trip.

Instead, Tamara swiped an angry hand across her eyes, dashing her tears away.

She wasn’t going to cry any more. She’d made herself that promise back in Melbourne when she’d decided to take this trip.

And while she knew her heart would break at every turn on the track, at every fabulous place she visited, wishing her mum was here to share it with her, she should be thankful she’d taken another positive step in getting her life in order.

She was through cringing with shame and humiliation at what Richard had put her through, done feeling sorry for herself.

This was her time.

Time for a new life, a new beginning.

So what the heck was Ethan Brooks doing here, muscling in on her new start?

Ethan, with his smiling eyes and that deadly smile. Where was the famed hard-ass, hard-nosed businessman? Instead, Ethan the pirate, the player, the playboy, had swaggered along on this trip and while every self-preservation instinct screamed for her to stay away, she couldn’t be that rude.

He’d helped her with the legalities surrounding Ambrosia after Richard’s death, had smoothed the way for her to re-enter the workforce by allowing her to use Ambrosia as a base. She owed him.

But he had her rattled.

She preferred him business-oriented, juggling a briefcase, a laptop and barking instructions on a mobile phone at the same time, barely acknowledging her presence with an absentminded nod as he strutted into Ambrosia.

He’d practically ignored her when their paths had crossed while Richard had been around, his head always buried in financial statements and yearly projections, and that had been fine with her.

He made her uncomfortable and it had nothing to do with the fact that they didn’t really know each other. The shift had happened when they’d met to sort out Ambrosia’s ownership, those two times when she’d noticed things: like the way he cracked pistachio nuts way too loudly, flipping them in the air and catching them in his open mouth, how much he loved Shiraz Grenache and sticky date pudding and the North Melbourne Football Club.

Trivial things, inconsequential things that meant little, but the fact that she’d noticed and remembered them annoyed her.

As for that kiss…she picked up a pillow and smothered a groan, hating how it haunted her, hating how she’d dreamed of it, hating how the dream had developed and morphed into so much more than a kiss, leaving her writhing and panting and sweat-drenched on waking.

She didn’t want to remember any of it, didn’t want to remember his expertise, his spontaneity, his ability to dredge a response from her deepest, darkest soul, better left untouched.

But she did remember, every breathtaking moment, and while her head had slammed the door on the memory of her temporary insanity, her body was clamouring for more.

Now this.

Him being here, all suave and charming and too gorgeous for his own good, was making her nervous. Very nervous.

She didn’t need anyone in her new life, least of all a smooth tycoon like Ethan Brooks.

As for her wayward thoughts lately in the wee small hours of the morning when she lay sleepless, staring up at the ceiling and trying to regain focus to her meandering life, she’d banish them along with her anger at Richard.

Wondering what would’ve happened if she’d gone for Ethan rather than Richard that fateful night she’d entered Ambrosia four years earlier was a waste of time.

Now was her chance to put the past to rest and concentrate on her future.

‘TELL me you’re not working.’

Ethan pointed at the small blue notebook tucked discreetly under her linen serviette—obviously not discreetly enough.

Ignoring him, Tamara sliced a vegetable pakora in two and dipped it in the tamarind sauce, her taste buds hankering for that first delicious taste of crispy vegetables battered in chickpea flour and dunked in the sour, piquant sauce.

‘Fine, I won’t tell you.’