Tempted by the Billionaire(5)
“Maybe so, just not in my experience. What about you? Where do you live, when you’re not hanging out with the Berries?”
His frown showed that it wasn’t a straightforward question. “My apartment’s in Manhattan, but I haven’t been there much lately.” He had already promised the penthouse to Meghan. It felt like the least he could do.
“Why’s that?”
He frowned. “I just got back from Iraq a couple of months ago. I was stationed there on and off for a few years. I guess I’m weighing up my options now.”
The writer in her was curious. She wrote story after story about people who travelled to far off lands and undertook brave adventures. But she did it all from the safety of her nicely decorated home office. She looked at him earnestly, and leaned forward a little. “What was it like?”
“The war?”
She nodded.
Matt ran a palm over his stubbled chin. He thought of the noise. Of drones, of missiles, of screams. Of the heat, pervasive and dry, so hot that sweat was just a normal part of every day. Wet faces that the stirred up sand got stuck to. He thought of the blood. Clumped everywhere. Walls smeared in it. The children, with eyes so bleak that one look told you all you needed to know. They had no hope. No future. No identity.
The bugs. The sandflies and mosquitoes that had terrorised their battalion, wreaking havoc with any flesh they could find.
He shook his head. “What do you think it was like?”
“Scary?”
His laugh was grim. “Scary was surviving every day while your friends took bullets and got blown up. Scary was realising you were coming home again while you left brothers and sisters behind.” He closed his eyes. “Scary is seeing how life goes on. Like this. So beautiful and normal, but over there, kids are still slipping bombs under their school sweaters and taking out their teachers in morning lessons.” He blinked, apparently remembering himself. “Sorry, Willow. That’s probably not the answer you were looking for.”
She didn’t shy away from his haunted gaze. Her voice was a husk, when she was able to speak. “On the contrary, I was looking for the truth. I’m sorry you went through that. But grateful for you, too.”
He nodded. “I couldn’t sit back and not get involved.” He sat down beside her. “My dad was in the towers.”
She shifted a little, so that she could face him. “Did he… I mean… is he…”
“Dead? Yeah.” He wiped a hand across his brow and wondered, briefly, why he was telling this woman so much. He didn’t make a habit of spilling his guts to someone just because they had legs that went on forever.
Willow put a hand on his, drawing his attention to her face. Her sorrow was real. None of the coldness he’d come to expect from her was in evidence. In fact, the hint of tears moistened her eyes. “I’m so, so, sorry.”
He nodded gruffly, and pulled his hand away. “Thanks.”
She took the hint, and surreptitiously wiped her eyes. “So you signed up after that?”
“Yeah. Three tours and a bullet in my leg got me relieved from active service.”
She thought of the bullet. And his leg. And the strength that was evident in every step he took. “You sound sorry about that.”
Was he? “There’s a lot more to do yet. A lot of soldiers out there doing it. I feel like I’m letting them down by being here. Eating sandwiches with a beautiful woman, overlooking a stunning ocean.” He sighed, and put an arm along the back of the chair. Presumably, he was striving only for comfort, but the action brought his fingertips so close to her shoulder. If Willow shifted even slightly, they’d be touching. She made sure to stay perfectly still.
“And the bullet in your leg situation means you won’t go back?”
“That’s right. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to. Best I could hope for is administrative duty.”
“So what will you do?”
Matt’s frown was deep, as his eyes scanned the glistening ocean beyond them. “That, Willow, is a mystery.” His destiny had, in many ways, been marked long ago. The expectation that he would join the family business was felt by everyone. Everyone, that was, but him. What did he want with an airline? His interest in flying was limited to choppers in battle zones. He’d shied away from the air force. There was no way someone like Mattias McCain could fly under the radar for long. And now? With his father dead, and Matt’s military career at an end, the shiny Chairman position was his. If he dared to take it.
Willow leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees but angling her head to look back at him. “Come on. You must have some idea?”
He slipped his glance to her face, his pale blue eyes challenging hers. “The army was always my number one. When the towers went down, it became more of an imperative.” He shrugged. “And you, Willow?”
“Oh.” She blinked. She’d lived in Haymarket Bay for four years now, and everyone in town knew who she was and what she did. It was a rare novelty to meet someone who wasn’t familiar with the work of Willow St Clare. “Anna didn’t say?”
He shook his head slowly from side to side, the same bemused expression on his face that she’d seen when he’d been pondering how the heck to get into the Berries’ home.
“Right. I’m a writer.”
“A writer?”
She nodded.
“A writer of what?”
Willow hadn’t had to tell anyone about herself for so long that she felt self-conscious doing so now. “Um, have you heard of the Ancient Hero Quest?”
“Those books that are in all the airport shops?”
Her smile was just a hint on her lips. She focussed her gaze on the horizon again, and leaned back against the seat. His fingers brushed against her shoulder but she didn’t flinch away. “Yeah. They’re mainly for young adults.” She shrugged. “Mystery stories. Adventures. History lessons disguised as mystery.”
He laughed deeply. “That’s great. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Writing must be interesting work.”
She nodded. “It’s not the writing. It’s… I mean, it’s the coolest job in the world.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “I get paid to indulge my imagination to its natural conclusion.” Her grin broadened. “I mean, I get so caught up in my characters’ quests that sometimes I don’t emerge from my home for days on end. It’s awesome.”
He nodded, completely knocked sideways by the way her sense of passion changed her features. It took over her face, making her glow and shine. He let his eyes drop lower, to her smiling lips, and felt a kick of awareness in his gut. “I’d love to read one,” he said, thinking as the words left his mouth how lame they sounded.
She grinned. “They’re more for teenagers, but sure.”
“Why write for teenagers?”
“You mean as opposed to people like you and me? Adults?”
“Yeah.”
“I just love fantasy.” She lifted her water and sipped it, then replaced the cup. “When I was growing up, I read all the old-fashioned mysteries. And I read some more modern titles too, but it was the older ones that really spoke to me. I guess I wanted to write the kinds of books I used to love. Books are amazing at any time, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “But especially so when your personality is still developing. I learned to be a mystery-hunter because of the books I read. If I can inspire that same journey in kids now, I’m honoured.”
Questions jostled for prime position in his brain. “You’re a mystery hunter?”
“Oh, yes.” She reached for another sandwich, and he was inexplicably relieved. Relieved and delighted that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“What kind of mysteries?”
“Oh, you know,” her cheeks were that beautiful pink again. He loved the way she blushed. It was so rare in the women he’d known in the past. So rare in Meghan, his estranged wife, who had been the epitome of calculated bitchiness. “Local history. Missing traders. Pirate ships.” She wriggled her eyebrows in a way that made him laugh. “Unsolved crimes. Poor Ike gets bored silly of my requesting old case files.”
Matt nodded, but he had a sinking feeling. A sinking feeling because he could no longer pretend that he was only feeling idle attraction to the girl next door. It was more than that. He was interested in her, and it would become a full-blown obsession if he didn’t take care.
“I bet he doesn’t,” Matt contradicted, a sense of uneasiness growing inside of him. He stood abruptly. “Anyways, I’d better get a move on. I promised these guys I’d paint the guest room as a kind of thanks for having me stay.”
Willow’s stomach lurched with unmistakable disappointment. “Oh, right.” She followed his lead and stood, but looked uncertainly towards her own home. “Do you, I mean… Do you want a hand with it?”
A hand? Hands were part of his problem. Matt jammed them into his pockets in an attempt to stop them from wanting to reach out for her. “Nah. You’ve got stories to write.” He reached down for the sandwiches at the same time she did. Their fingers connected on the edge of the plate, and he stifled an oath. “I’ve got this,” he said, far more sharply than he’d intended.