CHAPTER ONE
Simple words didn’t make sense anymore. Brody Nash paced, the same thing he’d been doing for the last half hour, and read the same line of his new script over and over again. He’d tried it so many ways: enthusiastic, cunning, smug, even perplexed. Nothing was working. The personal direction in parentheses below his character’s capitalized name read: fighting back a smirk.
What the hell did that mean?
In the warm glow of the overhead lighting, his cocoa-brown eyes scanned the line again.
“Life is only worth living if you’ve got something to lose.” This time there wasn’t any emotion in his voice.
He’d gone beyond feeling any connection to the character – not that he’d had much to begin with anyway. Mike Karver, or ‘The Wolf’ as he was known to his associates in the story, was a laidback grifter, someone who rolled with the punches and grasped onto the rollercoaster of life with both hands. Brody Nash was the total opposite. He was a planner, someone who enjoyed organizing his things, his house, and his life. He liked to think everything through before committing and always had a plan B if things didn’t work out as expected.
Although Brody was resilient and determined, a bit like his new character, he could also be self-deprecating and anxious – the scars of a Hollywood career which had peaked early in life. He knew there was no real reason for the apprehension he’d developed. After ten years in the spotlight, he was still the go-to leading man for many different roles, had numerous movies debuting each year, and found himself nominated for annual awards. But he was starting to feel as though something was missing inside of him and it had him questioning everything – including himself.
“What am I doing?” Brody tossed the script onto the cream-colored, three-seater sofa beside him and then ran a hand through his thick, dark chocolate curls.
He glanced around the living room. It was magnificent – spacious, contemporary, clean – just like the rest of the mansion. He’d bought the Point Piper property a few years back when he’d decided he wanted to have a base in Australia, near his hometown of Sydney. He even oversaw the refurbishments, making sure everything made it the home he’d always wanted. Yet he’d never had a chance to enjoy his new residence and instead, was right back on the next flight to Los Angeles to prepare for another blockbuster.
It was the main reason the house was so damned spotless as though it was blatantly obvious it had been uninhabited. He’d only arrived in town the night before. He hadn’t yet had a chance to make it look lived in and boy, did he plan to. He’d told his brilliant agent, Kevin Rhineer, he needed a few months of character building before he’d feel comfortable to start filming and his marvelous agent had wrangled a deal with the director. Brody would get three months before shooting as long as he committed to the planned sequel. With everything agreed upon and signed, he was really looking forward to time to focus, to catch his breath and find his feet. In the movie industry, things moved very quickly, sometimes too fast. Brody had felt as though he’d been hurtling at light-speed ever since his star-making role in the action flick Deadly Mission when he was eighteen. He really needed this time, and hoped he could come up with the confidence to play this new character before his time was up.
With a sigh, Brody strode toward the closed French doors which overlooked the sheltered bay, flowing out into Sydney Harbor. It was after ten on a Monday night and the only light remaining came from a few boats drifting on the thick, black water, a couple of houses across the distance of the bay and the security light on his neighbor’s private pontoon below.
An unfamiliar boat moored at the platform drew his attention. Illuminated by the warm glow of the outdoor floodlight, Brody could see an old-fashioned houseboat with a quaint-looking porch at either end and ladder access to the flat-topped roof. Although there hadn’t been a boat of any kind moored when he’d arrived yesterday, he definitely hadn’t expected his neighbor, the owner of a mansion which rivaled his own in expense and grandeur, to own such a shabby looking vessel. Then he saw the shadowy silhouette.
A person moving in the darkness, wearing dark clothes and carrying some sort of duffle bag, had adrenalin shooting through him. The figure jumped from the boat to the pontoon.
What was happening? Was this person a visitor or a trespasser?
Brody’s heart raced. The individual headed up the pontoon, toward the connecting jetty and the grassy verge in front of his neighbor’s home, shadows devoured their image as they disappeared.
A fierce oath left Brody’s lips in a mixture of fear and irritation. His body froze in place, not quite prepared to go fight some stranger in the middle of the night, but absolutely furious someone had dared to disturb his peaceful solitude.
Knowing he had only minutes to make his decision, Brody weighed his options. A twenty-four-hour security service roamed the local streets and could be hailed with one quick call, so could the police. He could call his neighbor to warn them about the impending danger – or touching reunion, he reminded himself, depending on the shadowy figure’s intentions – or intercept the dark-clothed person himself. There was sure to be a baseball bat, heavy lamp-stand or handy broom nearby he could use as backup. Or, lastly, he could forget about it completely and pretend he never saw anything.
The Brody Nash who liked to stay out of trouble and mind his own business would have taken option one, two or five. The situation had nothing at all to do with him and the professionals were better equipped to deal with an intruder. But this Brody, the one who was trying to become more daring like the role he’d committed to play, was actually considering taking option four. God help him.
Spinning around, Brody searched the living room for something he could use as a weapon – if only for intimidation purposes.
*
The gate was locked and none of the keys she’d been given would open it. Was there anything else that could go wrong in Willabelle Stone’s life today? She didn’t think so, but there was still an hour or so to go before it ended, so who knew?
Willa tossed her black duffle bag over the top of the perilous wrought iron spires and prepared to do the same thing with her own body. She was lucky the gate was chest high and without a security alarm, otherwise she’d have given up on the spot.
When her grandfather, Murray, had called her earlier to let her know he desperately needed someone to housesit for him last minute, she’d wanted nothing more than to say ‘sorry, no can do’. Yet, she’d known she couldn’t. She owed him more than just the usual family obligation. Her business, her life, even her home, wouldn’t have been the same without him. So, she’d said yes.
Apparently, his live-in housekeeper had been notified of a family emergency in Adelaide and wouldn’t be back for a few weeks. With Murray currently working in California for the next couple of months and the rest of her rather small family busy with their own obligations during that time, Willa had been his last and only option. She’d known being his final choice hadn’t insinuated in any way he hadn’t wanted to turn to her. No, in fact, it was quite the opposite.
Being the only grandchild, Willa had always been close with her beloved grandfather. But Murray understood her well enough to know that she needed her own space. He’d often told her she was a free spirit like her grandmother, the incredible woman she’d been named after. She’d never known her, having lost her namesake to cancer when Willa was only three. Her grandfather realized that asking her to tie herself down to a place, would grate on her every nerve. He knew she enjoyed her freedom and yearned for the spontaneity in life. But he had no one else to ask. And for him, she’d do almost anything.
Willa mentally chided herself as she climbed the cold, wrought iron gate. If she’d made a bigger effort to come earlier, then maybe she could have made it to the house before night had fallen. But she hadn’t been that organized, she was never that organized. Things kept getting in the way, and now it was nearly midnight – or close to – and she was attempting to climb over a fence. She was just grateful she had dressed sensibly for the occasion in stretchy black tights, an old indigo hoodie and dirty navy trainers. At least if she fell and broke her butt – and her clothes ended up in bloodied tatters – she wouldn’t be ruining anything nice or expensive.
Realistically, she should’ve been blaming Hayden for her lateness. If her ex-boyfriend, the preppy, privileged yacht owner and sole heir to the Montfort fortune, had just taken her no as the rejection she’d meant it to be, then she’d have signed all the necessary paperwork and been out of the marina in decent time. Yet, for some reason, he still thought they had something and deserved to have a say in her life, even though it was no longer any of his business and it hadn’t been for nearly two years now. She’d survived five years in his needy, suffocating embrace and even though she knew her father helped fan the flames of Hayden’s hope, she had absolutely no intention of returning to the stifling relationship. She’d thought turning down his proposal of marriage would have clinched the deal, but it had done the opposite. Maybe this time away and the distance would give Hayden some space to re-evaluate things and realize his idea of them was only in his own head.
As Willa hitched a long leg over the sharp spires and made a risky attempt to straddle the gate, she was distracted by a flicker of light on the path below. Intrigued rather than fearful, she glanced up and saw a tall, dark figure hurrying toward her, protected partly from her view by the blinding glow of a flashlight.
“Stop!” It was a stern, masculine yell, one which would’ve sounded a lot more dangerous had their hand, and therefore the light, not been shaking. “Don’t even think about making another move.”
Miffed, both by the interruption and the order, Willa grimaced. Just how was she supposed to freeze with her delicate feminine bits above the sharp point of an iron spire?
Prepared to ignore the intruder’s demand, assuming she was probably safer on the other side of the fence anyway, Willa made a move to swing her other leg up and over.
“I said freeze!” Once again it was a gruff instruction, one which was made the slightest bit less intimidating by the wavering lilt on the final word.
Willa paused once more in her precarious position, with her left foot balanced on a high horizontal bar, and steadied her weight just enough for her to remain perched in place for a little longer.
“Actually, you said stop before, not freeze.” She hadn’t meant for it to sound so snarky.
Silence answered her as though he was processing her response and then the dark, male figure inched forward.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making digs at my choice of commands.” His deep voice had lost the nervous quiver and now sounded seductive, velvety even, except for the tinge of irritation in his tone.
Willa couldn’t find a reason to argue. The flashlight-wielding intruder had a good point. She wasn’t in the easiest spot to make a quick escape. She opened her mouth to concede defeat. She was even willing to start begging for the opportunity to remove her precious lady parts from the danger of the spire below. But then the shadow-covered stranger lowered the flashlight just enough for her to see what he was holding in his other hand: a long metal pole attached to a blue-netted leaf rake, like one you’d use to scoop debris from the surface of a pool.
Suddenly, Willa didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. What had he been planning to do with it? Catch her like a butterfly? Or maybe he’d just come from cleaning the pool next door? The image had a laugh tickling the back of her throat but she held it in.
As though sensing her humorous take on the situation, the tall, dark stranger waved the pole toward her in warning and Willa wobbled the tiniest bit on her perch. Instinct had her attempting to raise both hands in obvious surrender, but she quickly realized how precarious her situation was. With one hand in the air, she held her flat palm up and out toward him.
“Whoa there, neighborhood watch!” It was all the capitulation she could manage.
“Okay, now that you’re taking me seriously,” he told her in that deep, silky voice, “I think it’s time you remove yourself from that gate.”
Willa tilted her head. Surely, which side of the gate was still up for negotiation, and she was willing to bet, she’d still be much safer on the side she was already heading toward than on the one with the crazed man brandishing a pool-cleaning tool.
Reluctant to wait for a more specific command, Willa made one swift movement and swung the rest of her body up and over the hazardous metal spires. When she landed, surprisingly gracefully, on the cement tiles with a light thud, she heard the urgent footsteps of the stranger hurrying toward her.
“Do you have a habit of doing the opposite of what you’re told?” His voice had lost any remaining edge to it and now sounded exasperated.
Pleased with herself, Willa shrugged without offering him another glance and bent to pick up her black duffle bag. “Sometimes.”
“I doubt you’ll be sounding so glib when the security service gets here,” he growled.
Willa spun to face him, heat burned her cheeks. “You called security?”
That was all she needed. If she thought it had already been a long night, it was about to get worse.
She strode back to him, about to scold him for his stupidity, when he lowered the flashlight. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she managed to get her first good glimpse of the stubborn man who’d made her night memorable for all the wrong reasons.
His features were strangely familiar and dark – gorgeous eyes and thick, black wavy hair – against the warm honey hue of his delectable skin. Stubble shadowed his square jaw and strong neck, which led her gaze further down to his broad shoulders and the strong muscles of his arms and chest encased in a midnight blue shirt. The tight material ended just above his slate grey track pants, giving her a tempting view of golden skin and a soft trail of dark hair leading down to a sizeable bulge below. At the sight of his huge feet in black flip-flops, Willa had a moment of mental calculation – considering the big hands, big feet theory – before realizing she’d taken a very long minute to check him out.
When her gaze met his again, over the deadly, decorative spears atop the gate, it became obvious he’d just finished doing the same thing to her.
Willa offered him a haughty smirk. “Maybe if you’d been a little nicer to me, I would’ve dropped down on your side and this all could’ve gone a very different way.”
A dark eyebrow shot up at her insinuation. “Sorry, but I don’t date criminals.”
Willa’s jaw dropped as her free hand went to her chest protectively, and then she smiled. “Who said anything about dating?”
Spinning on her heel, she flipped the duffle bag’s strap over her shoulder and headed up the cement tiles toward the back door of her grandfather’s mansion.
“Wait!” The tall, dark and handsome stranger’s voice rang out behind her.
Was that a hint of worry raising his pitch a little higher? She really hoped so.
“What about the security service? They’ll catch you if you break into that property.”
Willa frowned and glanced back at him. “Break in, yes. But, I have the key.”
She snatched the cluster of keys from where they’d been clipped to the side of the duffle bag and waved the shiny objects at him. She could’ve sworn she heard a muffled curse from his direction. Ignoring it and the magnetic appeal of his complete hotness, she turned back and managed to make it to the door.
As she inserted the key neatly labelled rear door, she turned her head to look back down the path in his direction. He was still staring at her, looking over the gate, his hands wrapped around the iron bars. The flashlight and leaf rake lay at his feet. She smiled and thought she saw a small smile in return.
“In case you’d forgotten to ask between threats and insults,” she told him sweetly. “My name is Willa Stone and my grandfather owns this place.”
There was a flash of white as he grinned bashfully. “Not a burglar then?”
Willa chuckled as she opened the door. “Only of hearts,” she teased.
Then she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.