Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (24 page)

“She was a bundle of nerves before heading up the aisle,” Jared explained good-humouredly.

“Then I'm glad I gave her the inspiration she needed to come all the way to me.”
All the way
, Tommy vowed to himself, before this day was over. Nothing less would satisfy him.

“Without so much as a tiny falter,” Jared added, smiling warmly as he stepped up and curled his hands around her naked shoulders. “A class act, Sam,” he purred, and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

The jealousy Tommy had stifled so many times raged through him. “Who's the striking woman in the Broome group?” he sliced at Jared, pointedly training his gaze in her direction.

It served to spring his brother from his familiar fondling. It also caused a flutter in the fingers that had previously squeezed. And so it damned well should, Tommy thought savagely, fed up with watching open affection willingly granted to his brothers. No flinching from their touch! No avoidance of it, either.

“Oh, no you don't!” Jared warned, no purr in his voice now. It was as hard as steel.

Tommy raised his brows in quizzical innocence. “Don't what?”

“Target her,” came the sharp retort.

“Now why would I be doing that when Samantha is favouring me with her company?” he asked, flashing her a smile designed to show where his interest lay, while planting a seed of jealousy that would make her work harder at holding his interest. If the interest was genuine and not just a revelling in the power of being a woman who could attract any man. Even Tommy whom she'd snubbed countless times.

This is a two-way street, sweetheart, and don't you forget it!
he beamed at her.

“Just let this one go, Tommy. All right?” Jared demanded, completely missing the point.

The dead-serious glint in his younger brother's eyes suggested he was well and truly smitten. “If you're out to impress her, Jared, I'd stop acting so taken by Samantha, if I were you. It gives the wrong signals.”

He frowned. “That's easily explained. Sam's part of the family.”

“There's no blood relationship between the Kings and the Connellys. Think again, brother.”

“Damn it, Tommy! Do me a favour and stick by Sam today. That will sort it out.”

“Only if Samantha sticks by me,” he countered. “She does have a habit of showing how much she likes you, Jared.”

“That's because…” He stopped himself, breath hissing through his teeth as he turned to Samantha. “This is important to me.”

“I'll stay with Tommy as long as he stays with me,” she assured him, hedging her position.

“Now there's a promise that warms my heart,” Tommy rolled out, bitterly resenting the quick understanding between the other two. “And just to show who belongs to whom…” He released Samantha's hand to tuck her arm firmly around his, drawing her into very positive partnership with him. “You can walk on the other side of me, Jared, as we proceed to the gate for more photographs. That should draw the right picture.”

They both fell in with this arrangement—no other choice—and Tommy relished the control it gave him. Samantha had come his way and he wasn't about to let her go. If he had to use every tactic he knew, she was going to be his today.

“So who is this new light of your life?” he asked his brother, idly stroking the hand now clinging to his arm. He slid his thumb under her wrist and felt a highly erratic pulse beat, which put a fine zing into his own heated bloodstream.

“You'll meet her in the reception line at the marquee,” Jared answered.

Not exactly forthcoming, which piqued Tommy's curiosity. Jared was clearly uncertain of himself with this woman—a tantalising prospect since he readily made multimillion dollar deals in the pearl industry with hard-headed businessmen. Confidence usually oozed from him.

“Give us a name so we don't fumble over it when we do meet her.”

“Christabel Valdez.”

“Interesting. Where does she hail from?”

An agitated little movement on his arm, fingers curling, nails digging into the fabric of his sleeve. Jealous of his interest? Feeling threatened? How deliciously ironic that she couldn't scorn him for it, not after her promise to Jared.

“Brazil, Holland, Singapore, Australia.”

Tommy sifted the information, matching it to the woman and Jared's business interests. “A jewellery designer?”

“Yes. I've just hired her.”

“What does Mum think of her work?”

“A risk.”

“But you're going to take it.”

“Yes.”

“Well, good luck to you on both fronts.”

It earned a wry smile. “Thanks.”

The nails stopped digging. Threat over. But it stuck in Tommy's craw that she thought he would have no conscience about competing against his brothers for a woman either one of them was taken with. To him it was an unbreakable code of honour—respecting each other's territory—no crossing lines drawn unless invited.

He'd known Miranda was Nathan's territory the first night the two of them had met. Not that Nathan had spelled it out as Jared had just done on Christabel Valdez. Nathan wouldn't. But the writing was on the wall the moment he'd offered to show Miranda the Bungle Bungle National Park. She'd gone with Nathan, more or less pressed into the outing, then after that…nothing between them, which had intrigued Tommy into asking her out with him.

Pure curiosity…a little digging in mind…but, of course, Sam had read it differently. As she'd done with the little French piece, Celine Hewson, after he'd fixed things for Nathan and Miranda. No attempt to find out the truth of that tricky encounter or even listen to it. Judged in the worst possible light and slammed for it. Every time.

Until today. And even now the same kind of thinking was undoubtedly simmering away in her mind, ready to leap out and claw him…except it was deeply at odds with the sexual simmering, which he intended to keep fanning to the point where Samantha completely overrode Sam.

The photographer shuffled them around to a pose of his liking, moving Jared to the other side of Nathan and Miranda, with their mother beside him, the children strung out to flank the central group. With Jared out of earshot, Samantha obviously felt driven to comment.

“It's nice that Jared has found someone he fancies, don't you think?”

“Oh, I daresay in his years as a jetsetter he's fancied many women,” Tommy responded noncommittally.

“But this one must be special,” she pressed, an anxious thread in her voice. “He said she was important to him.”

“Well, it's to be hoped she wants what he wants.” He slanted a sardonic smile at her. “That's not always the case, is it?”

She looked discomfited. As well she might. Having not wanted what
he
wanted for so many years, she could hardly expect him to put the scars she'd left on him out of his mind and simply take what was now on offer. Though he would take it. If and when she proved she was really serious in wanting him, and not just responding to the excitement of feeling his desire for her.

Her gaze turned back to the milling guests. They had a clear view of Christabel Valdez in profile. Her hair rippled almost to her waist. Some Spanish heritage there, he decided.

“She's very sexy,” Samantha murmured.

“Who?”

She frowned at him. “Christabel Valdez.”

He pretended to find her. “Do you think so?”

“Don't you?”

“She certainly has the female assets to look desirable, but I've always thought
sexy
was in how a woman responded to me. How she looked at me, acted towards me, and generally showed I was her preferred man.”

It startled her into looking back at him.

He smiled, making capital of the eye contact. “I guess what it comes down to is a man wants to be wanted by the woman he wants. Exclusively. Because he's the best man for her. That's what I'd call very, very sexy.”

“Yes…exclusively,” she repeated, her eyes projecting that very need.

You could have had it anytime. Anytime, he thought, all his most primitive instincts aroused and humming. If you'd ever reached out to me instead of playing your one-upmanship game. If you'd ever paused to ask where I was coming from. Ever tried to understand my needs.

He dropped a kiss on her forehead, wiping out the impression of Jared's mouth on her skin. “For me, you are by far the sexiest woman here today, Samantha,” he murmured.

Her breasts heaved delectably under their satin covering. A sigh from her lips feathered his neck. Her eyes sparkled clear happiness.

Which was good.

He didn't want her confused.

He wanted her to give him what he wanted. All of it. And finally concede he
was
the best man, and always would be for her.

CHAPTER SIX

S
AM DUTIFULLY SMILED
when the photographer said, “Smile!” but her mind was whirling with what Tommy had told her about showing him he was wanted. She'd never known how to do that. The feminine wiles used by other women had always seemed gross to her. She'd felt she should be valued for her worth as a person, not as a sexpot, trading on all the bits and pieces of her anatomy that could be displayed to provoke lust.

But maybe they were the right signals to excite a man's interest. Maybe she had it all wrong. Or maybe she'd been too frightened of failure to try in case she made a hopeless fool of herself. In moments of sheer desperation she had fantasised playing up to Tommy, but she'd never dared do it until today. Even now she felt self-conscious about it, half expecting him to drop her at the sight of someone more attractive, like Christabel Valdez.

Yet he'd given her every reason to feel positive and confident about what seemed to be happening. Tommy was focusing on her, making her feel sexy and desirable, preferring her over Janice Findlay and every other woman here. All the same, she wished she could feel secure that this was real and not just another playboy game to him.

She thought the desire was real enough. The way Miranda had dressed her had made her feel different, so she could understand Tommy feeling differently about her, too. But what if it was a novelty that would wear off? What if…

Stop it! Where had negative thinking about Tommy got her? In a pit of her own making! This was her chance to climb out of it. Probably her only chance. She had to risk it. There was no safe course to take. If she ended up hurt, what did it matter? She'd been hurting for years.

“Thank you, children,” the photographer said. “You can scoot off. I only want the six adults here now.”

For the next ten minutes they were grouped and regrouped in different combinations—the final one being just the three King brothers. Sam couldn't help thinking what handsome men they were as they lined up, chatting and laughing at each other. It seemed odd that neither Nathan nor Jared affected her as Tommy did.

What was it that made Nathan so compellingly special to Miranda? Why didn't Jared set either of their pulses racing? It was only ever Tommy
she
had wanted to impress, Tommy who made her nerves jangle and tied her emotions into painful knots, inevitably plunging her into doing or saying something that put him off instead of drawing him to her.

“Right, gentlemen! Face me and smile,” the photographer instructed.

Tommy's gaze zoomed to Sam, and the moment he found hers concentrated on him, the half-smile hovering on his lips widened with a dazzling burst of vitality that zinged straight into her heart, setting off an explosion of joy mingled with a clamouring need for all her fantasies to be answered.

“That's it!” the photographer called when he'd finished clicking.

“I'd like some shots taken of Miranda with me on the western verandah,” Nathan requested.

“Lead the way,” the photographer agreed affably.

“Sam, will you come with us and make sure I'm arranged right?” Miranda asked.

“I'll come, too. Give you the benefit of my expert eye,” Tommy chimed in, waving them both forward. “Clearly I'm the best man to do it.”

Miranda laughed and patted him on the cheek as she passed by to join Nathan. “The best, best man. You've been wonderful, Tommy.”

“To be faultless is my aim today.”

Sam stopped dead, her hopes teetering on the edge of a black abyss. Tommy transferred his devil-may-care grin from Miranda to her and she stared at him, too mortified to take another step. No faults for her to pick on…no baiting…no bickering.…

“Is that why you're being nice to me?” she blurted out, unable to bear it if it was.

He frowned, as though not seeing the connection.

“Did Elizabeth ask you to…to make me feel…”

“There you go again!” he broke in, his face tightening in exasperation. “Can you not accept…”

Instant panic. “Yes! Yes, I can!” she cried, frantically denying the negativity. She reached out and grabbed his arm to press her plea. “I'm sorry. I'm just not used to you being…

“
Nice
to you?” he repeated incredulously. His hand clamped over hers, strong fingers dragging at her skin as though he'd like to dig right inside it. “Believe me! What I'm feeling for you is not an insipid little politeness.”

His voice shook with a passion that rocked Sam out of any misconception about his aim where she was concerned.

“Is that how it feels to you…
nice?
” he demanded, his eyes searing hers with their dark blaze.

“Please…” Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe and her heart was thumping like a sledge-hammer. Sheer pressure to come up with something that would blot out her gaffe, stirred her mind into flashing back to the intoxicating fun of their
starting over
repartee. “I want to take this path with you, Tommy, but there are ghosts along it. You said you'd hold my hand.”

“Ghosts…ah, yes!” he answered slowly, his mouth curling over the words and his thick lashes half veiling the furnace of feeling in his eyes. “I must admit there are quite a few of those flitting along on both sides of the path. Warding them off does depend on the strength of our togetherness.”