Tempted by the Billionaire: A Hometown Hero Series Novel (3 page)

“No.” She looked towards her office, then fixed him with a cool gaze. “I’m working, Mattias. I’m afraid I have to get back…”

“You must have time for lunch.”

“Lunch?” She looked at him in complete surprise. “I’m not having lunch with you.”

“Why not?” His smile tickled her senses, and made her knees weak.

“Because I hardly know…”

“Ah,” he nodded in agreement. “Because you hardly know me. You said that the other day.” He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “So come get to know me.”

Willow stepped back again, but now her body was against the wall. She shook her head. “And why would I do that?”

He took a step forward, and Willow realised she was silently willing him to move even further forward, so that they were touching. It was ridiculous. Totally out of character behaviour. She stepped aside, and dropped his gaze.

“Why do you think?” He asked with a quiet intensity.

He knew. He knew that she found him to be the most incredibly gorgeous man she’d ever seen, and he was baiting her. “I have no idea,” she responded, her tone deliberately dripped in ice.

“Because Isaac and Anna are my best friends, and they’re your best friends. Let’s swap stories and see if we have any embarrassing dirt on either of them.”

It was so unexpected, and such a relief, that she burst out laughing. What harm could one lunch do? “Okay, but I just have time for a quick bite.”

Matt felt like he’d won the lotto. He had sworn he wouldn’t act on his interest in this woman, yet here he was, basically forcing her to join him for a meal.

“Fine by me.”

“Can you give me a minute?” She asked, looking down at her socks with a bemused expression. One had pink spots, the other was yellow stripes. She pulled them off, balled them together and tossed them as far as she could down the hallway. Her teeth felt furry, and her face was free of make up, but Matt was waiting just inside her door. She settled for finger combing her hair and slipping a pair of silver sandals onto her feet.

“Where shall we go?” Willow asked, as she locked her house and slipped the keys into her bag.

“How ‘bout next door?” He grinned, holding a hand towards number eleven.

“Next door?”

“Yeah. I made sandwiches. You do eat sandwiches, don’t you?”

Willow hid a smile behind the wave of her hair. “Yes, I do.”

“Good. Seems like nowadays you can’t go anywhere without finding someone who doesn’t eat something.”

“Shellfish,” Willow supplied with a moue of disappointment. “I love them, but one bite of shrimp and wham!” She held her hands about two inches wide of her cheeks. “I blow up like a puffer fish.”

“And yet you live here.”

She let out a sigh of mock disappointment, looking in the direction of the gorgeous beach. “It’s tough, Matt, but someone’s got to do it.”

He laughed as she opened the gate wide for her. “These are cheese and pickle, sorry. My favourite.”

Willow stopped walking, her eyes narrowed imperceptibly. “Cheese and pickle’s your favourite?”

Matt nodded. “I know, I know. It sounds weird. I have ham, too, if you want…”

“No.” Willow shook her head and fell into step behind him again. She climbed the porch steps. Cheese and pickle happened to be her favourite filling. It had been since childhood. She shook her head. It was a coincidence. It did not mean they were destined to be together, just because they happened to like the same sandwich. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

He pulled the door open to the house, but didn’t go through it. Willow kept walking, and bumped straight into his chest. He was pure muscle, as hard as a wall, and she literally bounced backwards off him. She might have fallen had Matt not reacted so quickly. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her arms, holding her steady. The contact lasted only a moment. Just long enough for Willow to regain her balance, but it was enough to send tiny little darts of pleasure shooting through her body. Her dark brown eyes were drawn to his. Instantly, she felt a wave of warmth and attraction flow between them. Her whole body seemed to sag, and lean towards his.

It was madness. She jumped, as though electrified, and shook out of his grip. “You stopped walking,” she muttered accusingly, shifting her eyes away.

He nodded, not unaffected by what had just passed between them. But he knew Isaac’s sentiments on the matter, and he had just separated from his wife. No way could he act on what his body wanted.

“I was just going to say that it’s a nice day out. Why don’t we sit here?”

“Sure,” she lifted her shoulders and looked towards the water. “Sounds good.”

“Grab a seat. I’ll get lunch.”

She would have insisted on helping him, except that she desperately needed some space from this man. He was nothing like Ashton. At least, not in looks. Ashton’s mother had been Spanish, and Ashton had inherited that heritage strongly. He was mysterious and dark, handsome and elegant. He’d come into her life and swept her off her feet, before she’d had time to say, “Hey, by the way, are you married?”

And why should he have volunteered the information? When she, Willow, had been so smitten, and so naïve? She’d fallen into his bed, and under his thumb. Until his wife had appeared at her apartment, and called her every name under the sun. Yeah, men who talked so smoothly and looked so good were usually trouble. And she’d had enough of that for a lifetime.

When Matt appeared with a plate of sandwiches and a couple of glasses of water, Willow had almost convinced herself that she could dismiss these feelings. If only he weren’t so… she shook her head, and stood, relieving him of the drinks. “Thanks.” She placed them down on the knee height table, then sat on the porch swing. She was both relieved and disappointed when Matt ignored the spare seat beside her and instead opted to lean against the railing.

Willow was five feet ten, and yet Matt was considerably taller. He was one of the few people she’d met who made her feel reasonably petite. She reached for a sandwich and bit into it gratefully. “Delicious, thank you.”

Matt’s expression was sceptical. “You sure?”

“Bizarrely, this is my favourite, too.”

He laughed. “We might be two of the only people.”

“What’s not to love?” She said with a shake of her head. “The saltiness of the cheddar with the vinegary tang of the pickle. Delicious.”

“Hey, you won’t get a fight from me.” He bit into his sandwich and watched her, while he finished the mouthful. “How long have you lived at the Bay?”

She bit into her own lunch to buy some time, then sipped her water. She’d moved to Haymarket right after she’d been confronted by Ashton’s wife. When her world had been falling apart, in some ways, and being made in others. For the day after Ashton’s treachery was laid bare, she’d signed her first book contract. “Four years.”

He nodded. “You like it?”

“For the most part, yeah. The beach is beautiful. The town’s nice enough. And Anna and Ike have been amazing.”

“Yeah, they’re good like that. What brought you to the area?”

She put her sandwich down on the plate and leaned back in the chair. “Do you always ask this many questions?”

He scanned her face with intense interest. She was determined to remain closed off, but every attempt to limit their conversation only gave rise to more questions. “Just curious is all.”

She frowned. “What makes you think there’s anything to be curious about with me?”

“Call it a hunch,” he responded seriously.

“A hunch, huh?” She ran her finger around the top of her water glass. “Well, I was looking for a change. I needed to get away from… Chicago.”

“You were what, twenty one?”

She lifted her gaze to his, surprise evident in the set of her features. “How’d you know?”

He waved a hand dismissively through the air, but he was cursing internally for the silly slip. “Isaac mentioned your age the other night.”

“He did?” She frowned. “How is he?”

“Pretty caught up in this case.”

“Any news?” She asked, lifting the sandwich to her lips and biting down on it with true pleasure.

“Not yet. They thought they had a pretty good lead in Nevada but it ended up being a hoax.”

“God, why do people do that? How excruciating.”

“Yeah, he’s cut up about it. He’s working just about around the clock.”

“That’s not good for him.”

“Maybe not,” Matt agreed. “But if that was your little girl, you’d want a cop like that on the case, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely,” she nodded enthusiastically. “I just hope she’s okay.”

“You were telling me what brought you to Haymarket Bay,” he remarked after a few minutes of contemplative silence had passed.

“Was I?”

“Let’s pretend you were,” he winked, and reached down for another square of lunch. His shirt gaped a little as he bent over, exposing an expanse of tanned chest and a sprinkling of fair hair. She gulped and looked away. To her chagrin, Matt moved to sit beside her, his bulky, firm frame dwarfing her with his strength and power.

“I told you, I wanted a sea change. Haymarket’s one of those places you can’t help but like. You know, I keep pretty much to myself, but I still must know a hundred people in the town. Everyone wants to help everyone. It’s a real community. I never had that growing up. Cities just aren’t so encompassing.”

“They can be,” he challenged.

“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?”