Fyre & Revenge (2 page)

She was so
wrapped up in her thoughts, Zette didn’t realise she had company
until someone, a male someone, cleared their throat at her side.
Startled Zette looked up, her eyes colliding with a pair of
striking hazel-green ones.

Hazel-green
eyes she recognised.

“Hello Zette,”
JJ said quietly. “Long time, no see.”

* * *

She closed her
eyes on a shiver, that familiar smooth-as-silk voice sliding over
her senses like a caress.

Instantly she
was eighteen again and in the grip of her first desperate love, for
her step cousin JJ. She’d had a crush on him since her mother had
married Robert Jensen and she’d been introduced to her new family,
the quiet plump daughter of her social butterfly mother, Ariadne.
He’d been fourteen to her eleven and seemed so grown up, so
confident. Quite unlike the shy Zette. She’d watched him for years,
secretly admiring him, wishing he’d notice her. See her as a woman
rather than an irritating kid sister. Finally, at her eighteenth
birthday party, he had. It had been a magical evening, she’d felt
so grown up in the evening dress her mother had picked out for her.
And JJ had obviously noticed, catching her hand and pulling her
away from the party into the shadows by the boathouse.

“I’ve wanted to
do this for months,” he admitted, a moment before his lips claimed
hers in a gentle kiss that blew her innocent, naive mind. It was
the perfect kiss and should have been the perfect end to the
perfect evening.

It had been an
end all right, but nothing like a perfect one. Not from Zette’s
point of view anyway. An end she’d have never seen coming, not in a
million years. Their perfect kiss had marked the beginning of the
end and a huge change in Zette’s life. A change that had left her
heartbroken and alone.

She’d left her
bag. Dropped on the seat by the boathouse as JJ had kissed her, she
hadn’t realised it was gone until she’d returned to her room,
filled with pink and white frills more suited to a six year old
than a young woman. She stood in the middle of the room, nibbling
her lower lip. A bad habit when she was stressed or nervous. She
had to go and look for it. It had been a gift, one of her birthday
presents and she didn’t want to lose it. Besides if anyone had
found it, they’d know she’d been down near the boathouse which
could have led to all sorts of questions she didn’t want to answer.
Particularly as the only person that stayed down there was JJ. No,
she had to go and fetch it.

Decision made,
she crept back out, checking through the debris of the now finished
party, retracing her steps until she made her way down to the
boathouse. Her steps were lighter, her very spirit buoyed up by the
possibility of seeing JJ again. Hopefully he’d still be awake…would
he kiss her again? She hoped so. She might even manage to surprise
him getting ready for bed, without his shirt on. This time, with
what had passed between them, she could look her fill instead of
looking away or burying her nose in a book like she usually did
around the pool.

No more sneaky
glances and covert looks! JJ loved her, he had to. Otherwise he
wouldn’t have kissed her like that, would he? With so much
tenderness and restrained passion. Innocent though she was, some
feminine part of her recognised a man who was holding himself in
check. The thought of JJ holding himself in check thrilled her. She
wanted to break through his restraint, taste the passion she knew
first-hand was hiding there. Her first lover.

“Lush armful
ain’t she? Bit plump for my tastes but good for a roll in the hay.”
Her stepfather’s voice broke through her daydreams, stopping her in
her tracks in the shadows.

The voice had
come from the open French doors at the side of the boathouse. Zette
crept forwards, her recovered bag in her hands. Robert must have
come down to check on JJ after the party. For some reason his uncle
always seemed to think JJ needed the ‘guidance of a father’ after
having lost both parents in a skiing accident when he was just six.
So Robert had set himself up in that role, despite the fact that he
had no kids of his own.

She edged
toward the pool of light until she could see in through the doors.
JJ and his uncle were sprawled in the leather easy chairs, heavy
whiskey tumblers filled with the amber liquid in their hands. JJ
shrugged, knocking back the contents of his glass in a careless
swallow, the powerful muscles of his throat working.

“She’s okay, a
pretty little thing,” he replied offhand, a reply that froze
Zette’s heart in her chest. She was okay? Just okay? What about the
kiss earlier, was that just
okay
? Hadn’t it meant anything
to him?

Robert’s laugh
twisted the knife that stabbed her gut. “That’s my boy, love ‘em
and leave ‘em! Mind you, if the daughter’s half as good as the
mother in the sack, I might have to look at the younger model
myself!”

Zette felt
sick, her eyes filling with tears as she waited for JJ to tell his
uncle it wasn’t like that, waited for him to defend her as surely
he must. Tell Robert they were in love.

He didn’t, just
shrugging again in a careless way that tore at Zette’s heart,
cracking it. His next words shattered it beyond repair. “I’ll be
gone in a week anyway,” he said in a bored tone, “she’s just a
diversion, something to fill my time this week.”

The memory
faded and Zette blinked, bringing herself back to the present with
a bump. She covered her lapse with a slow downward sweep of her
lashes. Her eyes, so expressive, had always been her downfall.
There was no way she wanted him to know how much he affected
her.

It brought it
all back, everything she’d tried so hard to bury for so long. She’d
known it wouldn’t work of course. These things had to be faced,
dealt with. But at the time she’d been too young, too inexperienced
to know how to deal with it. She’d had her heart broken, her
mother’s marriage had failed and she’d been left to fend for
herself in London after her mother had headed off to the Med to
find herself a new husband.

Survival had
taken precedence and she’d pushed it all to the back of her mind,
fooling herself that time healed all wounds. It didn’t. The mere
sound of his voice was enough to rip away all the layers she’d
plastered over her wounds like a child pulling the scab away from a
nasty graze and revealing the tender flesh beneath.

* * *

She was pissed,
that much JJ could tell. The slight stiffening of her body told him
she’d recognised his voice even before she looked up and speared
him with those eyes. Not the sultry chocolate brown of the pictures
in the various magazines upstairs but cold and hard. It took a lot
to make brown eyes go cold like that but he wasn’t surprised. No
doubt he was the last person she expected, wanted to see.

“JJ.” She
inclined her head a touch in greeting as she stood, moving with an
elegant grace he didn’t remember her possessing as a teenager. If
anything she’d been awkward, as though unsure in her own skin. She
didn’t offer her hand, which irked him a little. Now that she was
here, in front of him, he wanted to touch her again. Found he
needed to touch her, needed to feel her satin soft skin under
his.

Down
boy
, he told himself, getting his body’s reaction to the
sound of her voice in check. She’d always had an unusual voice,
distinctive. He could never remember her singing as a child though,
but that might have had something to do with her mother. Ariadne
couldn’t sing, wasn’t in any way musical other than using the odd
dance to cast her lures for her next victim of a husband. If she
wasn’t interested in something, no further effort was expended on
it. It had always pissed him off about Zette’s mother, that and the
callous way she’d treated her quiet daughter.

Obviously
though, somewhere along the line someone had seen the promise in
it. He wondered who… How had she gotten her big break?

As soon as he
thought it, he dismissed the question. He wasn’t interested in the
past, or the portions of it between Zette and her gold-digging
mother being kicked out of the Jensen house and now. All he was
interested in was getting her into his bed. For now anyway. The
rest would come later.

“You’re looking
well,” he commented lightly then nodded toward the lift, eager to
get on with this. “I believe we have an appointment so shall
we?”

“From that I
assume Mr. Anders isn’t going to be joining us?” she asked as she
walked into the lift ahead of him. Her perfume, an exotic scent
that suited her, wound around his senses leaving him a little
lightheaded. JJ shook himself to clear it and hit the button for
his top floor office, keeping his mind firmly on the business ahead
and not on the promise of the curves beneath the jacket she was
wearing.

What on earth
was the matter with him? He’d never reacted this strongly to a
woman before. Not even Zette herself when she was younger. But who
knew she’d turn out like this? A siren to haunt any man’s
dreams.

“Oh I doubt he
will be. Probably off playing golf in the Seychelles or something,”
he commented. “He retired last week.”

Zette made a
noncommittal noise in response. She wondered whether that had been
all Anders’s idea or if he had been ‘helped’ toward his decision by
a bucket load of stress. JJ wasn’t just known for his takeovers in
the world of big business but more for his hostile takeovers.
Bluntly put, they called him the ‘Jensen Mako,’ the shark of the
business world.

Impatience
surged through her as she waited for the lift to reach its
destination, a journey of mere seconds that seemed to be taking
hours. She needed to escape, put some distance between her and
JJ.

He’d changed.
The man standing next to her bore little resemblance to the boy
she’d known. Abruptly she realised he had been a boy then, despite
how grown up he’d seemed. She flicked him a glance from under her
lashes.

He’d matured
well, the lean frame she remembered filled out now. Broad shoulders
filled the tailored jacket and skimmed into a narrow waist and
powerful hips and thighs. They weren’t the only changes. His face
was harder, more determined. The glint of silver at his temple
suited him.

She shivered.
One thing hadn’t changed. He was still the hottest guy she’d ever
seen. Not the prettiest. Working in the music industry she saw
plenty of pretty boys but none affected her the way JJ did. She
stepped out of the lift as soon as the door opened, escaping into
the relative safety of the office beyond.

“Very nice,”
she commented, her heels soundless in the plush carpet as she
looked around. It was nice in that ‘exec in a box’ interior design
way. Personally she hated it.

“Bland,” he
replied, striding around her to the desk, unknowingly echoing her
thoughts. “However, you didn’t come here to comment on my taste in
interior design, did you Zette?”

Her chin rose a
little at his blunt statement, at the slight challenge in his
voice. For some reason he’d forced this meeting. Why, she didn’t
know, but he had. Zette didn’t believe in coincidences and this,
Anders Entertainment being bought out just as she was arranging a
concert at one of their venues, was just too much of a coincidence
to be plausible.

“No,” she
replied, wondering how to play this one. She didn’t understand the
world JJ moved in, didn’t understand the rules he played by. There
was no way she could play him at his own game and win.

“I actually
came to see Anders rather than you, so I was a little surprised to
see you here.

But that was
the point wasn’t it?” she threw back, the look on her face cool,
polite. “Why’d you buy Anders Entertainment? It’s not your usual
style…”

He looked up
from the papers he was studying on his desk, piercing hazel eyes
catching hers in a direct look. Amusement leeched into them. “My
usual style?” he queried, his voice dropping lower until it was
almost an auditory caress. “Been checking up on me Zette?”

Anger rose,
sharp and immediate. Of all the patronising, condescending… Didn’t
help that it was true. She had been keeping tabs on him, reading
every little snippet she found in the news. “No! Well, yes, but
only to avoid you and your bloody family!” she bit out, managing to
reign in her temper. Well, most of it anyway.

He smiled,
covering the flash of annoyance in his eyes before she was sure
she’d seen it.

He straightened
up. “Oh well, that’s a pity. I really was hoping this meeting would
be slightly more congenial.” “Why?” One delicate eyebrow arched
sharply. Realising her voice had risen to be almost shrill, she
sighed. “Look JJ, I don’t want to butt heads with you, I just want
to get this concert sorted out. So what will it take for these
‘problems’ with the Swithland Venue to go away?”

“You. In my
bed.”

You. In my
bed
.

Zette blinked,
totally surprised by the softly spoken reply. Then she laughed, the
corners of her eyes crinkling in amusement. She couldn’t help it.
Her in his bed? He had to be kidding.

“Oh, that’s a
good one,” she chuckled. “You want me to sleep with you and you’ll
agree to hold the concert? That’s…” she trailed off, her amusement
getting the better of her. “Even for you JJ, that’s taking the
piss!”

But he wasn’t
laughing. Her smile died away as he looked at her steadily, not
even a smile gracing his lips. Just that hard look on his face. A
look she recognised. It was the one he wore when he’d set his mind
on something, and would stop at nothing to get it.

“You’re not
joking. You’ve gotta be kidding me! What is this…some sort of
blackmail? You
are
aware this is the twenty-first century
aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not
joking and I’m quite aware of the date thank you. But this isn’t
blackmail—”