Taken by the Pirate Tycoon by Daphne Clair

door latch, “Thank you for the beach, it was a nice ending to the day.”
    “I’ll see you to your car,” Jase said. And insisted, despite her protest that she would be quite safe. When she’d unlocked the car he leaned forward to open the driver’s door, touched her cheek and said, “Take care.”
    The banal words somehow warmed her, the warmth lasting all the way home—until she entered the apartment and found it almost chilly. The sparse furniture in leather and metal that she’d chosen with care for its elegant design, durability and ease of cleaning now somehow appeared uninviting.
    She showered off the sand and put on a short silk nightgown, and an embroidered kimono she’d bought on a business trip to Japan, then microwaved a piece of chicken and made a small salad to go with it.
    She felt alive and alert and after her shower rather mellow. A feeling of wellbeing she hadn’t experienced for a long time.
    That it was due to Jase Moore was peculiar, considering what he’d thought of her—possibly still did. He’d never retracted his initial assumptions and he’d been openly sceptical of her denials.
    The nature of the kiss still bothered her—what had he been trying to find out exactly?
    Not that his opinion of her mattered, of course. So long as he did his job and fulfilled his contract with Magnussen’s that was all she needed from him.
    It wasn’t the thought that now they’d finalised his proposal they’d be working less closely that caused a sudden dip in her mood. Of course not.
     
    Driving to his country home after dropping her off, Jase reminded himself that, spurred by the shock of learning she’d made Bryn a member of her board, he’d taken on the Magnussen’s project because it would help him keep an eye on Samantha.
    Working with her, he’d briefly, rarely, seen glimpses of a softer, warmer and much more vulnerable being than the one she presented to the world.
    And today she’d been…different again. Enjoying the simple pleasure of sea and sand and rock pools filled with secret life; unselfconsciously paddling in the waves, and laughing at her own discomfort when the cross-current caught her unawares. She didn’t lack a sense of humour.
    Kissing her had seemed not only natural but necessary. He’d taken a calculated risk, that it might make her let down her guard so he could find out what she was hiding underneath it, what made her tick. The more he saw of Samantha Magnussen, the more he’d had a driving need to melt the ice and find the real woman beneath.
    But she’d rejected his kiss and retreated physically and emotionally, shutting him out again.
    Her privilege, and anger wasn’t an appropriate response, he told himself.
    By the time he’d returned her to her car, her customary unbendable composure was back in place, exasperating him further.
    What would he have to do to get to the real, living, breathing, passionate creature he sensed behind the impenetrable surface gloss? Somewhere inside there was a heart, he knew. A woman’s heart that could be broken just like anyone else’s. And perhaps had been.
     
    After the first upheaval and major changes, and a couple of short-lived hitches, Jase’s new systems proved to work as smoothly as he’d promised.
    Samantha was able to home in from the computer on her desk to any of the company’s building sites, and confer with the site manager on a large wall screen while zooming in on the particular area under discussion.
    Jase himself supervised the installation in her office, although when it came time to load new programmes she vacated her chair and watched him install them.
    She said, standing at his shoulder, “Still, there’s nothing like actually being there. When are you geniuses going to add smell to this great technology? That’s what I miss. The smell of turned earth and timber.”
    He laughed. “We’re working on it. You can still go out on site and get mud on your shoes if you want to.”
    “That part I