Hold Me Closer (Sea Island Brides Book 1) Page 2

  The moment he stepped into the air-conditioned house, he took a deep breath. He had dodged a real bullet there. Annabelle was dangerous, with her blond curls and those gorgeous tanned legs.

  Hudson had promised his family he would keep his libido on a short leash, and he owed them his complete dedication. At least until the merger was finalized.

  A merger with Takahashi International would make the Montgomery family a leader in the global travel marketplace. So what if he had to sacrifice his physical needs for a little while in order to secure the company's future?

  His family was counting on him, he reminded himself, trying to erase her from his thoughts. Those dark brown eyes that held a hundred secrets. Those soft, pink lips that opened to him so eagerly.

  He was lucky she didn’t live around here or he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to live up to the promise he’d made to his family when his father had passed away.

  Chapter Two

  Seven a.m. had come way too early this morning, and Annabelle was exhausted. She had tossed and turned half the night, unable to get Hudson Montgomery’s kiss out of her mind. She’d woken up about fifteen minutes late and had to skip her morning Starbucks, which is how she’d found herself standing in the break room with a lukewarm cup of bland office blend.

  As she stirred another scoop of sugar into her cup, two girls broke into a giggling fit behind her.

  She casually ran a hand through her hair, wondering if she’d forgotten to brush it. Or maybe she was wearing two different colors of shoes? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  She looked down, though, and saw that her black heels matched perfectly. She turned and caught a brief glimpse of her reflection in the glass door leading out to the center cubicles, but nothing seemed glaringly out of place.

  So why was everyone staring at her?

  The three minute walk through the maze of cubicles back to her desk made her increasingly more paranoid. Everyone seemed to be clustered in groups, hovering over some piece of paper, their eyes darting toward her every five seconds.

  What had she done this time?

  Annabelle was known for being a little clumsy on photo shoots, but overall she’d been keeping her head down and getting her job done the past few months. No incidents.

  Her stomach fluttered as she thought about Saturday’s stunt in Sea Island, though. Surely no one had found out about that?

  What if Mark had talked?

  She felt ill and wondered if she had enough time to make it to the ladies room before her boss came around for his normal Monday morning pep talk.

  Annabelle stood just as her boss—Barry Johnson—peeked around the tan corner of her cubicle.

  “Good morning, Barry,” she said, forcing a smile onto her lips.

  He didn’t smile back.

  “My office. Now,” he growled.

  Everyone within a hundred feet went silent. Not even their keyboards made a noise.

  Annabelle took a deep breath and stood, straightening her skirt. She held her chin high and tried to seem casual and confident as she walked toward Barry’s office.

  Surely no one had found out about this weekend, right? Mark had promised not to tell a soul.

  But when she glanced over toward Mark’s cubicle at the end of the row, it was empty, the bobble heads he collected completely cleared away as if he’d never worked here.

  Her stomach knotted and she thought for a second she might have to make a break for the bathroom.

  She stopped just outside Barry’s office and took a deep breath. Everything would be fine. There was no way Barry could have found out about Sea Island.

  OUR FAVORITE SOUTHERN PLAYBOY IS BACK!

  For anyone who thought his good boy days were here to stay, do I have news for you! Hudson Montgomery's womanizing days aren't over, folks, and from the looks of it, he's found himself a real hot tamale. An unidentified woman was seen lounging by his pool this weekend—and FYI, she got up close and personal with our favorite billionaire. Just look at that kiss? /swoon.

  Is this a new relationship? Or just a fun weekend fling? Only time will tell, but sources close to the family say that the pair just met and have no plans to see each other again. I, for one, am glad he's back on the market. Maybe it's time for a girl's weekend at the beach!

  Hudson stared down at the front page of The Informer, rage boiling inside of him.

  He crumpled the paper in his hand and pictured that redheaded kid, Mark. He must have shown up earlier than he let on, and decided to keep his photos a secret. Some people would do anything just to make a few dollars, and the tabloids ate it up.

  A source close to the family? Please.

  Just then, his assistant buzzed in. “Mr. Montgomery, Jack is on Line 1.”

  Hudson let his head fall into his hands. He cleared his throat, picked up the line, prepared himself for the yelling that was coming next, and glanced at his set of digital clocks.

  “This is Hudson,” he said casually, as if his face hadn’t been plastered across six separate magazines and news blogs this morning.

  “I just got off the phone with our lovely sister. Want to guess what incredible news she had to share?”

  Jack was never one for small talk. He liked to get straight to the point.

  “I should have known Scarlett would call you,” Hudson said. “Look, I’m sure I don’t have to explain myself, but this photograph has been taken completely out of context.”

  “So, you aren't standing beside the pool in your own back yard with a half-naked woman pressed against your body?”

  Hudson looked down at the image that had been swimming around in his mind all weekend, now printed for the whole world to see. Annabelle was pressed against his bare chest wearing nothing more than that dangerously skimpy white bikini.

  To the press, this wouldn’t look like a reporter who had been about to fall into the pool. She looked like a girl he was dating. Or worse.

  And the fact that the sight of her picture made his blood pump a little faster wasn’t helping.

  “Believe it or not, it was completely innocent,” he explained. “She fell and I caught her. Simple as that.”

  “What was she doing by our pool in a bikini in the first place?” Jack asked. His voice had taken that hard edge to it that reminded Hudson so much of their father. As the oldest, Jack was the one everyone expected to run the company and make it better, an expectation Jack took very seriously these days.

  “She's a reporter from Southern Style Magazine. Her name is Annabelle. She was here this weekend writing an article about the plantation, remember?”

  “She was giving an interview in a bikini?”

  “I was late,” he said. “When I got here, she was alone in a bikini by the pool. She said she’d assumed I wasn’t coming and decided to make the most of the day.”

  “She was trying to seduce you,” Jack said.

  “Of course,” Hudson said, trying to hide his smile even though Jack couldn’t see him through the phone.

  “And it worked.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said.

  Jack sighed.

  “I asked her to leave and she slipped on the wet tiles. I acted on instinct and saved her from falling into the pool. How was I supposed to know there was a photographer in the bushes snapping our picture?”

  “Next time a reporter shows up wearing a bikini to an interview, assume there’s a photographer hanging out nearby,” Jack said. He sighed again, sounding older than his thirty-five years. The stress of father’s will was really getting to him.

  Hudson hated himself for adding to that, but he was starting to get an idea about how to make things right.

  “I’m sure you understand this puts the entire acquisition in danger,” Jack said. “I don't think Mr. Takahashi has seen this article yet, but you can believe that when he does, it's going to put a serious wrinkle in our plans. Honestly, this scandal couldn't come at a worse time.”

  “You don't have to remind me of
that, Jack. I'm fully aware of our situation here.” Hudson knew he sounded defensive, but he sometimes felt that his siblings had been waiting on him to screw this whole thing up. “I’ll deal with it, I promise.”

  “You’d better,” Jack said. “Look, I have to go, but call me later with news about how, exactly, you plan to deal with it. And it had better be good. I won’t allow the whole family to go down just because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.”

  Hudson tightened his jaw and slammed the phone down.

  Jack always thought he knew better than everyone. He was always the best, never making a false move. It was annoying, especially after how hard Hudson had worked to change his lifestyle.

  He wasn’t about to let Annabelle Day mess that up for him.

  He started to stand, but sat back down when the door flew open and his twin brother Harlan waltzed into the office.

  “I just can't believe you let this happen when we're only a couple of months away from closing this deal, Hudson,” Harlan said, doing a damned fine job of mimicking Jack’s voice. “Next time you feel the urge to kiss a beautiful woman in a bikini, for God’s sake, do it in the privacy of your own home.”

  Hudson threw a stress ball at his brother and Harlan treated it like a bullet, clutching his chest and falling, eyes-closed, onto the couch.

  “This is all just one big misunderstanding,” Hudson said.

  Harlan opened his eyes and sat up, smiling. “Of course it is,” he said. He picked up the crumpled newspaper Hudson had thrown to the floor and raised his eyebrows. “This looks completely innocent, I’m sure.”

  “You're one to talk,” Hudson said. He walked around his desk and snatched the paper from his twin’s hand.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Harlan asked. “I’ve been the picture of self-control and decorum.”

  “Oh, yeah? A couple of weeks before you got back from wrapping up that last movie shoot in Alaska, some woman came in here asking about you. She said the two of you met at some bar in St. Simons Island and had a hot one-night fling.”

  Harlan was silent for a few beats too long, which got Hudson’s blood boiling even hotter. “Harlan? Please reassure me that she wasn't telling the truth?”

  “Of course she wasn't,” Harlan finally said, the color returning to his face. “I mean, we promised each other no bars or parties or women until this merger thing was finalized, right?”

  Hudson heaved a sigh of relief. His brother's silence had scared him for a moment. The young woman who came here looking for Harlan claimed to be pregnant with his child, but Hudson refused to believe that his brother would go against their promise. Besides, he’d never even been to St. Simons Island. At least not that Hudson knew of.

  Still, that extra beat of hesitation put a sliver of doubt in Hudson's mind. Should he tell Harlan the woman had claimed to be pregnant?

  “What did you tell her?” Harlan asked, pulling Hudson out of his thoughts.

  “I wrote her a check for ten grand and told her I never wanted to see her again,” he said.

  Harlan’s eyes grew wide. “Did she take it?”

  Hudson shook his head. The girl had not taken the money.

  And they always took the money. At least that’s what his father had told him.

  This girl—a hauntingly beautiful brunette with dark brown eyes to match—had torn the check into a dozen pieces and thrown it in his face. Maybe he should have mentioned it to his brother earlier? What if the girl really was pregnant?

  “You sure you never went to St. Simons and slept with some bartender?” he asked his brother again.

  “I think I’d remember something like that,” Harlan said, clearing his throat. “Besides, today’s all about your scandalous behavior, not mine.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he groaned.

  “What’s the plan?” Harlan asked. “Is there anything I can do to help? Mr. Takahashi was pretty clear about not wanting to sell his company to a group of kids who didn’t know how to do anything but party and spend money. Or at least I think those were his exact words.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Hudson said. He didn’t need to be told how important this acquisition was, or how traditional and strict Mr. Takahashi was. He just needed to come up with some way to spin this whole thing in his favor. To make it look like he wasn’t the playboy the media made him out to be.

  “I can try to smooth things over once I get to Japan tomorrow, but it’s going to be rough,” Harlan said. “Even with my smile.”

  Hudson shook his head and threw another stress ball at his brother.

  “I’m sure you’ll do what you can with your fine acting skills, but don’t count me out just yet. I'm not going to let this deal fall apart,” Hudson said, making up his mind about the issue. “If it's stability they want, I'll just have to show them that I can be a stable family man just like Mr. Takahashi himself.”

  “The man’s been married for thirty-five years and has five children. I don’t think you can compete with that,” Harlan said with a laugh, throwing the ball up and catching it.

  “I’m not going to compete with him,” Hudson said. “I’m simply going to take his advice and shining example to heart.”

  “I’m not following,” Harlan said, sitting up.

  Hudson looked down at the picture again, Annabelle’s picture sending a wave of remembered heat through his body even now.

  He smiled. “I’m going to get engaged,” he said.

  Damn, the things he had to do in the name of family duty.

  “You're firing me?”

  Annabelle Day stood in the office of her senior editor at Southern Style Magazine with her mouth wide open.

  “Annabelle, please, sit down so we can talk about this.” The dark circles under Barry Johnson's eyes, and the way he sighed when he looked at her, sent her heart plummeting to the basement.

  This can't be happening to me. Not now.

  “Look, Barry, if this is about what happened with Harrison Peavy, I can explain,” she managed, feeling every muscle in her body tense as she waited for the guillotine to fall.

  “Well, now that you mention it, this morning I had to send Harrison Peavy a check for two thousand dollars. That covers the antique vase you broke last month when you were sent to deliver flowers to the photo shoot at his apartment.”

  Annabelle took a deep breath to calm the panic rising within her. Losing her job now would be a complete catastrophe. She was already late on the rent for her apartment.

  Julia's going to kill me...

  Annabelle shuddered. She didn't want to even think about having to move in with her cousin Julia again. Especially now that there was a baby on the way.

  “It wasn't my fault, Barry,” she started, leaning over the top of his desk. She was hoping the photo shoot was the only issue here. As long as he didn’t know about Sea Island, she was sure she could talk him into giving her one more chance. “I told you what he did to me when I was there. Surely you aren't planning on firing me because one of the magazine's rich clients couldn't keep his hands to himself during a photo shoot?”

  “Rich married clients, by the way,” Barry pointed out. “And I believe you about what happened. Harrison and I go way back, and he's not exactly known for being a faithful and loving husband, if you know what I mean. I should have never sent a young single woman out to his apartment when his wife wasn't there to babysit him, which is why I’m not firing you over the vase.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said.

  Relief spread through her body and she relaxed for the first time since she’d heard the giggles in the lounge that morning. She wanted to climb over the desk and kiss him on the cheek.

  But something about the way he sighed turned her blood cold. “Annabelle, wait,” he said when she turned to leave. “I’m not firing you over the vase, but I am firing you for the stunt you pulled at the Montgomery’s this weekend, on Sea Island.”

  Slowly, she turned back to her boss, tears stinging the corner of
her eyes.

  “You found out about that?” she said, no easy excuses coming to mind. Nothing could truly excuse her behavior and she knew it.

  Barry slammed his hand down on the desk causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.

  “Found out?” he said. “How could I have missed it?”

  Confused, Annabelle’s eyebrows crumpled together. She searched his eyes for some kind of explanation that made sense. What on earth was he talking about?

  Barry leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand across his beard. “You haven't seen it yet, have you?”

  “Seen what?” Annabelle shook her head in confusion. A knot had formed in the pit of her stomach and was starting to make her feel physically ill.

  Barry tossed something toward her and it landed upside down at the edge of her desk. Annabelle turned it over with trembling hands. There, on the cover, was a picture of her wrapped in Hudson Montgomery’s arms beside a sparkling swimming pool. For a moment, she was afraid she was going to pass out.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, bringing her hand to her chest as she gasped for air. It felt as if the room around her was getting smaller and smaller. How could this have happened? The only person who even had access to the photos was Mark. He was supposed to meet her at the coffee shop down from her house yesterday afternoon, but he hadn’t shown up. She’d been trying to call him, but just figured something had come up and she’d see him this morning at work.

  Annabelle sat down, trying to process what must have happened.

  He’d sold the photos out from under her. Sweet, nerdy Mark had totally screwed her.

  “Well, judging by your reaction, I'm assuming you are not the one responsible for leaking these photos to the tabloids?”

  “No, of course not. I've never even seen this picture in my life.”

  “That’s a relief, at least,” Barry said. “I never pegged you for the type to be involved in a scandal like this, which is exactly what I told Mr. Montgomery when he called this morning.”