Millionaire Dad's SOS by Ally Blake

taste of his clean cotton clothes and some indefinable heat that was purely him.
    Like this, all easy silence, all effortless masculinity, it was hard not to imagine he might be exactly the kind of guy she could happily spend oodles of time with. A beautiful sailor who slept in late, didn’t believe in making plans, and just went with the flow.
    It was hard to believe he owned and ran a huge multinational business that no doubt took long hours away from home. That took the kind of relentless ambition that meant everything else in life came a distant second. Family included.
    Her brother Brendan was trying to do the single father thing. Running the Kelly Investment Group and raising two young daughters. And though she’d never tell him so to his face she knew in her heart the half of his life he was letting slip from his grasp was his girls.
    Zach’s eyes slid from some point over her shoulder to find hers. His dark, deep, unfathomable eyes. Their gazes held a beat longer than polite. Two beats. She held on, trying to sense regret, bereavement, concern for his little girl. All she got for her trouble was the sense that she was getting more entangled by the second.
    She breathed in slow and deep through her nose. Could she ask him about Ruby now? Should she? Would she be doing it to be helpful? Or did she know he’d react badly, so she could use Ruby to save herself from feeling the way she did when he looked at her like that?
    In the end she lost her nerve and said, ‘So you’ve been on two runs today and now rowing. I feel tired just thinking about it.’
    He went back to staring at the water. ‘I like to be on the move. Eyes forward, nothing but the wind and the sun to keep me company. It clears the head. If you don’t run or do yoga, what do you do?’
    Mmm. She had proven that day that exercise made her hurt, and wobble and crave sugar.
    ‘To clear my head?’ she said. ‘Disco music.’
    One dark eyebrow rose and his hot, dark gaze slid back to hers. ‘Disco?’
    ‘Blaring from my iPod directly into my ears. Ten seconds into any Donna Summer or Leo Sayer song and the rest of the world fades away.’
    They said music soothed the savage breast, and soit had done for her, many a time in her teens when she might have otherwise given in to mounting frustration with her life and done something she’d later regret. Ultimately disco could only soothe so much hurt.
    ‘Even if you’re lying on the couch your feet can’t help but bop. Your head clears of everything but the music. It’s kind of like exercise only more relaxed.’
    When he merely blinked at her she gave him her ‘greeting line’ smile, with a full showing of teeth, twinkling eyes and dimples. ‘You’re going to give it a go the moment you go home, I can tell.’
    And while most people, even members of her own family, could no longer tell when she was ‘on’ and when she was just being herself, the slow rise of the corner of his mouth told her she hadn’t fooled him for a nanosecond.
    How did he do that? How was he able to see straight through her? Again she felt exposed, as if she’d walked into a ballroom with her dress tucked into the back of her undies.
    He stopped rowing and the boat’s sleek glide slowed so that she rocked forward on her seat.
    ‘I’m game. I’ll give disco a go,’ he said. ‘But only if you take the oars right now.’
    She imagined splinters. She imagined aches in even more as yet undiscovered muscles. She imagined her hands brushing against his as she took him up on his offer.
    ‘I’ll pass.’
    Zach laughed. The column of his throat moved sexily beneath the sound. It faded all too soon in the wide-open space, and his eyes once again grew so dark they drew her in while they pushed her away.
    She wondered if he could see the same impulse in hers.
    She wondered what might happen if they both pulled at the exact same time.
    His large hands curled back around the worn old wooden sticks and he slid the oars back into