Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionai - By Bretton, Barbara Page 0,33

growing louder as he approached the laundry room. "You stay here and I'll--"

He stopped in the doorway, mesmerized by the sight of her naked. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her that way before. He had. Many times and in many places. And each time he'd experienced the same flare of desire in the center of his gut. This time, however, it was different. The desire was there but it was tempered with a feeling so intense, so unexpected, that he found himself struggling for composure.

Maybe he was crazy but for a second he seemed to see beyond her beauty, beyond their past, straight inside her vulnerable and lonely heart.

"There are some t shirts in the bedroom," he said, turning away.

"Your clothes," she said. "Let me dry them."

"The sun can do that." He started for the door. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

He was gone before she could say another word.

#

It didn't take long for Megan's sundress to dry. She slipped it back on, wincing at the wrinkled skirt, then managed to arrange her mane of hair into a fairly presentable French braid. She wandered through the cottage, poking her head into closets and cupboards while she tried to imagine how it had been when Jake lived there.

Actually the cottage wasn't much smaller than the house she and Jenny lived in now. Strange to think there'd been a time when she would have turned up her nose at anything less than 5000 square feet. She could have been happy here, living with Jake, working toward the future. Too bad she hadn't realized it six years ago when they still had a chance.

She stepped outside then followed the path down to the beach. The air was warm, heavy with the scent of flowers and the sharp, salty tang of the sea. A stab of longing pierced her heart as she thought of Jenny. Oh, sweetheart, what am I doing to you? It had all seemed so clear, so logical, before today.

She sat by the water's edge, arms wrapped about her knees, her thoughts tangled. Jenny wanted a father desperately. And no one knew better than Megan how important a father's love could be. Jake wasn't the same man he'd been during their marriage. The man she'd married wouldn't have been caught dead playing piano on some other man's yacht. He would have been off tilting at windmills, dreaming crazy dreams that could never come true.

And those dreams hadn't come true. Not a one of them. He wasn't rich or famous or powerful. He wasn't any of the things he'd wanted to be back when they were married and yet he acted as if everything he had ever wanted was his for the taking. He had changed. No doubt about it.

But had he changed enough to be the kind of father Jenny deserved or would he someday break their little girl's heart the way Darrin McLean had broken hers? Jenny deserved a hero but Megan knew heroes were as elusive as happy endings.

#

Francois and his wife Claudine were the kind of neighbors who wouldn't take no for an answer. All Jake wanted was their rowboat. He ended up with the rowboat, a bottle of champagne, a bag of plums, and half a dozen white orchids.

And Francois and Claudine.

"You don't have to do this," he told them as they loaded everything into their Land Rover. "I'll row myself back."

"Nonsense," said Francois, his accent a blend of French, Spanish, and boarding school English. "It has been too long since we saw you."

"And aeons since we've seen you with a young lady." Claudine dimpled, her lined face still lovely despite the years. "La Mirada is a quiet port of call, Jake. Surely you know we feast on the romances of others."

Claudine and Francois caught him up on local gossip as the Land Rover bumped over the dirt road that led to his cottage. Jake heard only part of it. He was too busy berating himself for letting these two incurable romantics know that he had a woman with him.

Still he had to admit there was something infectious about their enthusiasm and zest for life that reminded him of all the things he'd liked about living on La Mirada. Warm company. Great food. The Disney World beauty of the island. All the good things in life that he wanted to recover when he set sail on his boat. He was ambitious enough to enjoy the day-to-day combat of business, but a part of him was