The Dare Collection March 2019. Rachael Stewart

number one of not being Daniel St. George was the fact Jason had gotten on that plane. He’d decided that in the final tally, he didn’t really care what happened on that island he’d never wanted and didn’t know what to do with himself. He wasn’t attached to it. He didn’t have any dreams about it one way or another.

      But he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on living the same old life he’d already been living. Not without Lucinda.

      Wasn’t that a kick? She was the one night he never wanted to forget. If he had to chase her down on the other side of the planet, well, he was prepared to do that and more. He was more than happy to hunt her down. Lure her in with the resort she wanted. Keep her close with the one thing he knew she couldn’t resist. Not without removing herself entirely.

      Him.

      “You don’t want to build any kind of resort on that island,” Lucinda was saying, her pale red brows pulled tight. Jason could see the sun on her face in the form of all those cute freckles, but her skin looked pale even so. Her blue eyes were too big, too wide, and her mouth might have been painted in a bright color he very much wanted to taste, but she pressed her lips flat. “You want to keep it as some kind of sulky tantrum. A monument to a man you’re terrified you’ve already become. I understand that.”

      “Yeah. You sound real understanding.”

      “I’m not going to pretend this is professional, because I think we ripped through that boundary a long time ago.”

      “It was never professional, darlin’.”

      Lucinda’s chin lifted higher, which should have been impossible. “Do you really believe that you’re the only person in the world who has a shit father, Jason? I don’t know how to break this to you, but that doesn’t make you special. It makes you alive, that’s all. You should count yourself lucky that your shit father was considerate enough to ignore you for your entire life. Mine was far less accommodating.”

      She laughed, though there was precious little humor in the sound. “And mine didn’t leave me a luxurious private island, complete with a stately home for my personal use, plonked down in the middle of the sparkling Pacific Ocean as an apology. Last I heard, in fact, my father has drunk his way through several stints in prison, at least as many bouts of liver disease and more lost jobs than you can count. And he’s still going strong, no doubt beating up my mother and terrifying neighbor children just the way he used to do me. So you will forgive me, I hope, if my sympathy for your plight is somewhat dim.”

      “Good rant, Lucinda,” Jason drawled. “Have you been stewing on that one ever since you left Fiji?”

      She looked past him and blinked. Then squared her shoulders as if she’d forgotten that they had an entire audience clustered there on the other side of the glass, pretending that they were going about their business. When she looked back at him, her hands were curled into fists at her side, and Jason knew her well enough now to understand that that storm in her gaze was turmoil. Emotion.

      Not that she’d admit it. Not his stubborn redhead.

      His heart kicked at him again.

      “As a matter of fact, I did not spend a series of unpleasant long-haul flights having fights with people who weren’t there. I do try to avoid that whenever possible.” Lucinda sighed, as if her pissy, prissy voice irritated her, too. “If your goal was to disconcert me, I’m afraid you’ve come all this way for nothing. I don’t know why you suddenly want to develop the island, but if you’re under the impression that I’m going to come over all noble and refuse to do it because you’re so clearly using it as a bargaining chip in whatever psychodrama you have going on in your head, I’m afraid you’re going to be quite disappointed.”

      “I don’t give a shit about the island, darlin’,” Jason said quietly. “If I wake up one morning filled with regret that I developed this one, guess what? I can buy myself another one. As you pointed out, the place itself has no sentimental value to me. But it does to you.”

      “Wrong again.” She quirked her lips into that frozen, polite smile that she probably didn’t realize just made him hard. “I’m not a sentimental person. It’s not in my nature.”

      “Maybe not in the past. But you didn’t know me then.”

      This time her laugh was straight-up patronizing. “This conversation is becoming deeply embarrassing.”

      She didn’t say, for you. She didn’t have to say it.

      “I don’t embarrass easily,” Jason replied. He smoothed his hand down the front of his monkey suit, amused when her gaze tracked the movement. And even more entertained when her eyes snapped back to his, her cheeks flushing when she saw he was watching her do it. “You can have my island. And develop it anyway you want, tiki torches and private coves out the ass for all I care. We can sign all these contracts and all the lawyers can wet themselves with this clause and that clause. Whatever. But you and I are going to come to different kind of agreement.”

      She regarded him coolly. “I’m listening.”

      So stuffy. So clipped, like she was the Queen talking down to a dirty peasant. But she should know better. Because she and Jason weren’t that different, underneath it all. He knew all about her now. And he knew that trash like the two of them loved it when they were underestimated. Hell, it gave them life.

      “You already gave me your body once,” he said, low and lazy, like this was a bar instead of a boardroom. “All I want is more.”

      Color stained her cheeks, but Lucinda didn’t flinch. Her cool expression didn’t change at all. “Define ‘more.’”

      “You,” he said, very distinctly and directly. So there could be no mistake. “In my bed. As long as it takes.”

      “As long as it takes to have sex? I think we both know that’s no time at all. Did you really fly all the way here to ask for a quick shag?”

      “For as long as it takes to build your resort,” he said, patient now as he waited for that to sink in.

      The color all over her cheeks deepened. Her eyes narrowed. And at her sides, those adorable little fists grew so tight her knuckles whitened.

      “You understand, of course, that you’re not talking about another night. Or even a week. It will take years.”

      “I understand.”

      Her throat worked. “You can’t possibly want that. You don’t.”

      “I’m pretty sure I asked for it. Explicitly and directly.”

      “Right. You mean you want me in one of your beds. When and if you have the urge. Like your own, personal call girl. Is that it?”

      Jason laughed. “If that’s what you want to call yourself, I’m all for it. I like a little role play.”

      She shuddered, then clearly tried to hide it. “So whenever I’m in the vicinity—”

      “You’re going to spend a lot of time in the vicinity,” Jason interrupted her smoothly. Because this was the key point. “It’s a remote island, Scotland. You’re going to spend so much time there, making it what you want it to be, that really, it doesn’t make sense for you to do anything but move in.”

      Her lovely, lush mouth dropped open. Her blue eyes clouded over with confusion.

      And everything in Jason pulled tight.

      “Move in,” she echoed faintly. “With you.”

      “I can’t think of a better way to get you in my bed every night, can you? Much as I love flying around the planet, it’s kind of a long commute from my island to London.”

      “This is ridiculous. You’re just...taking the piss.”

      He loved it when her accent slipped. When her eyes flashed. When she used expressions he was quite certain weren’t considered strictly appropriate in a business