by Heidi Rice
As soon as the auction had closed the band began a classy jazz set, and Alex watched as Richard Moran led Jen by the hand to the dance floor. He took her in his arms, his hand pressed against the small of her back.
There was no point even bothering to deny it any more. The seething heat deep in his gut was too strong. He was horribly, angrily jealous. Of all the men she could have ended up with it had to be him. A business rival he truly disliked. He insisted to himself that this was about Richard Moran, not about Jen, and refused to acknowledge the needling thought that he’d be feeling like this about any man in the room she spoke to.
Good intentions or not, he’d had enough. He had to intervene before she went too far. She wasn’t the worldly-wise socialite she was pretending to be. And that meant she was out of her depth without even knowing it. As Moran led Jen to the edge of the dance floor he crossed the room towards them and waited to pick his moment.
‘Another drink?’ he heard Moran ask.
‘Just mineral water, please,’ Jen said.
At least she was pacing herself with the alcohol. With any luck she’d keep her wits about her and take on board what he was about to say.
As soon as she was left standing alone by one of the huge marble pillars Alex approached, took her hand and led her firmly back onto the dance floor. The band played a slow number, and the dance floor slowly filled up. He steeled himself against the heat that climbed through his body as he pulled her against him, slid a hand around her tiny waist. The soft velvet of the dress clung to every contour of her body, giving an intoxicating hint of how it might feel to hold her naked against him. The sweet scent of her hair made his mind spin. She looked up at him in surprise, the soft pink mouth close enough for him to kiss her with just a short movement of his head.
With a stupendous effort he focused on the task at hand and hissed at her in an urgent whisper. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Her brows knitted. ‘I might ask you the same thing. Thanks to you I nearly bought a trip to a race meeting when I’ve got zero cash and I loathe horses. I thought you were waving at me. And I thought we were meant to be avoiding each other at all costs.’
‘We are,’ he said. ‘I just can’t stand by and watch you spend the evening with Richard Moran without warning you about him.’
She pulled away a little to look up into his face, a puzzled expression in her eyes.
‘Why would you want to warn me about him? It’s going brilliantly. He’s the perfect target. Did you see how high he went with the bidding for that vile hunting holiday? He’s obviously completely minted, he’s here on his own and he isn’t a total nightmare to look at. In my book that ticks pretty much all the boxes.’
‘It doesn’t matter if he gives millions to charity. He can’t be trusted. He’ll do anything to get what he wants.’
She came to a standstill, forcing him to do the same. They stood motionless, surrounded by dancing couples. Her expression was fierce.
‘He’s in film production, isn’t he? Just like you.’ She held up a hand and cut her eyes away from his. ‘Look, I’m really grateful for all the help you’ve given me, but that doesn’t give you some kind of creative veto over my work. I can take it from here by myself, thank you very much. He’s perfect, and I’m not backing off just because he happens to be some work rival of yours.’
If only the reason was that simple.
‘That has nothing to do with it. I’m looking out for you. He’s not a nice guy.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Let’s just say he’s involved in some pretty shady stuff. If he gets a sniff that you’re chatting him up under false pretences it won’t be pretty. Don’t kid yourself that he’d see the funny side of your damn article. He could ruin your whole career with one phone call if he wanted to. You’re not used to mixing with these people. You haven’t a clue what you might be dealing with.’
He could see immediately that he’d said the wrong thing. Her eyes widened in anger.
‘Don’t you dare patronise me! Just because I’m not swimming in cash doesn’t mean I’m not up to dealing with people who are. You make it sound like I’m some social moron. I thought you were different, but I was wrong. You’re just like the rest of them here—certain that you’re better than everyone else.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. Where on earth did this paranoia of hers about not fitting in come from?
‘I can handle Richard Moran,’ she snapped. ‘He’s never going to know who I really am. It’s one evening. That’s all. I’m hardly likely to get much further than small talk, but I am going to end up with tons of information for my article. So if you could make yourself scarce that would be great.’
She raised her eyebrows and kept them there until he took a step back, and then she turned to walk back across the room to where Richard Moran waited for her like a predator, with a drink in each hand. His blood felt as if it might hit boiling point at any moment. He pushed his way through twirling couples to the other side of the room and was quickly surrounded by people wanting to discuss the evening, the charity, any forthcoming award nominations. He tried to focus outwardly on his own purpose for the evening—being seen to be on the straight and narrow, championing a good cause.
It felt to him as if Jen was lit up by a huge spotlight that kept everyone else in the room in shadow. What was happening to him? He barely remembered his girlfriends’ names usually, and now he seemed to be aware of every tiny detail about her. The gorgeous curve of her neck softened by the tumbling golden curls, the stunning slender figure hugged in all the right places by the rich velvet of the dress. He wanted to slide his arms around her again and feel her body against his, responding to his every movement.
He forced himself to get a grip. He was meant to be keeping his nose clean, living a quiet life, focusing as he always did on work. She had brought nothing but trouble since the day they’d met. He’d long since given everything to his career, and he damn well wasn’t going to let that be compromised again by a woman.
As Jen took to the dance floor again, back in the arms of Moran, Alex forced himself to look anywhere but at them.
Inside he fought the impulse to cross the room and tear Richard Moran’s head from his shoulders.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rule #6: Rich men can always be found near boats, horses and ski slopes. Get yourself to any of these locations and make sure you know what you’re talking about.
ALEX unlocked the door to the apartment and tried to engage his tired brain, which currently felt as if it was packed in cotton wool. A reversion to type had seemed like a great idea earlier, as he’d watched Richard Moran twirling Jen expertly around the dance floor. The ideal way to get back some perspective—which he’d clearly lost if he’d begun to obsess like this about a woman.
It was the stress of his recent press exposure. Had to be. Pressure from all sides to get some positive publicity had taken its toll. His enforced abstention from the opposite sex had made him become preoccupied by the nearest woman. One who couldn’t be more unsuitable if she tried. She might look delectable, but that didn’t compensate for the fact she was a walking disaster area, always causing chaos, always in some kind of scrape.
At first the decision to let her get on with it had seemed a liberating one. Let her spend the evening with that idiot Moran. It didn’t mean he had to watch her do it. He’d made his excuses at the ball and gone on to a club. Maybe exactly what he needed was to get back to normal, and have a full-on meaningless fling, and damn the consequences.
The problem was none of the women at the ball or the club had held the remotest speck of interest for him. Try as he might, there was only one woman he wanted to spend time with. He could deny it all he wanted. Apparently it wasn’t going to go away.
He headed to the kitchen to make some coffee. He would go to the study, work for a couple of hours. Sleep was beyond him now. The anger that had seethed all evening as he watched Jen fli
rt with Richard Moran was still simmering just below the surface. And adding to it was hatred of these insane feelings for her that were apparently beyond his control.
‘Richard Moran was nothing short of the perfect gentleman,’ Jen said airily the moment Alex stepped into the kitchen. For some reason the satisfaction she’d expected to get from saying that to him didn’t live up to the anticipation.
‘You waited up for me just so you could say I told you so?’
Hmm. She supposed it did really boil down to that. Not that she was going to tell him.
He threw his keys on the counter, filled a glass with water from the fridge and immediately downed half of it. Hah! Obviously dehydrated. She’d been looking forward to being the sober one with the moral high ground for a change. Surely sloping in at one-thirty a.m. automatically meant a few drinks too many?
Unfortunately not. The green eyes were absolutely sharp and lucid. Worse, the intense way he was looking at her over the rim of the glass was making her stomach feel melty and her pulse pick up speed.
‘I am not waiting up for you,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve got a ton of notes to write up on the evening. Best to do it while it’s still fresh.’ She waved a hand at the laptop and the notes covering the counter in front of her. ‘I just didn’t realise it was so late.’
She narrowed her eyes at him suddenly.
‘Anyway, how do you know I didn’t just get in myself? For all you know I could have been whisked off to dance the night away.’
‘Er … you’re wearing pyjamas.’ He raised an eyebrow and nodded down at her open dressing gown and shorts and vest combo.
Damn. She’d forgotten about that. Understandable, considering how annoyed she was with him. His implication that she was out of her social depth with men like Richard Moran had really rankled. She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. It had needled her more and more as the evening had progressed.
When Richard’s driver had dropped her home at half past eleven her first thought had been to sweep inside and run through the huge success of the evening with Alex. Prove him wrong. OK, so Richard had a bit of a propensity to ogle her fake cleavage, but she could put up with that because he also loved the sound of his own voice and had given her loads of material to write about. She’d seen no sign of the scary villain Alex had made him out to be.
Having to wait two hours to prove him wrong had somehow made her irritation spread into a massive annoyance with herself for wondering where he was, what he was doing and, worst of all, who he was doing it with. Because she really shouldn’t give a damn about any of those things.
No way was she letting on that she’d been sitting here that long. Not when he was obviously more than happy to have got some distance between them. He’d taken her at her word and disengaged himself totally from her and her project. She hadn’t even seen him again after he’d warned her off Richard.
So much for his concern for her safety and wellbeing. He was so concerned that the moment their conversation was over he’d disappeared for the rest of the night. No doubt living it up—probably with the exquisite blonde from his table at the ball.
He pulled a stool up next to hers and looked at the mess of papers and the open laptop in front of them. She was acutely aware of how close he was. Well within touching distance. She could breathe in the scent of his aftershave and she felt a dangerous flutter deep in her stomach.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I got on?’ she asked.
He took another sip of water.
‘Nope.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ she said, ignoring the here-we-go roll of his eyes. ‘Richard told me all about his home in Hollywood, and his ranch in Montana. Not to mention his mansion in the Cotswolds. He has a yacht, he dabbles in horse racing and he’s fed up with airhead women who aren’t up to the challenge of stimulating conversation.’
Alex rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.
‘Let me guess—that’s where you come in, is it?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Once you’ve found out a man’s background and interests, you’re well on the way to snaring him. It stands to reason. He barely left me alone for five minutes. He was gobsmacked by how much we have in common. Well, how much he thinks we have in common.’
He gave a bitter laugh.
‘I just bet he was.’
She threw her hands up in exasperation.
‘I don’t understand this. Why can’t you be pleased for me? I thought we were friends. You’ve helped me do all this groundwork for my article—getting Marlon involved, helping me prepare. And now, when I start to have some success, when I actually manage to engage a man’s interest, you tell me I’m not up to the challenge of dealing with him. Your implication that I’m some hopeless case who can’t hold her own in rich company was so offensive.’
Elbows on the counter, he ran both hands through his hair.
‘That is not what I was saying!’
She could tell by the strangled tone of his voice that he was struggling to maintain control.
‘I was trying to do you a favour, look out for you, and for some reason—God only knows what—you’ve chosen to see it as criticism of you. You’ve got this huge chip on your shoulder about fitting into what, let me tell you, is nothing but a false world full of shallow people. Why the hell do you want so much to be a part of that? You saw it tonight. It’s all about getting along with the right people, keeping them sweet, greasing palms. You think I actually like half those people I was with tonight?’
She felt oddly naked, as if he could suddenly see inside her, pick out her insecurities. She dropped her eyes from his as if they were giving her away, fiddled with the papers on the counter.
‘It’s not that I want to be a part of it,’ she said, and in her tired and overemotional state she added before she could check herself, ‘It’s that I could have been. If my life had panned out differently.’
He frowned. ‘You’re not making any sense.’
She almost told him then. Who her father was. The way he’d paid off her mother instead of accepting Jen as his child before melting back into his opulent life with his wife and privileged legitimate children. There was so much bitterness there that she didn’t know how to start—wasn’t sure she wanted to. She bolted back to her comfort zone, where the whole situation was about work and nothing else.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is my work. Getting this article finished and sold. And, like it or not, Richard Moran has given me better material than I could have hoped for.’
He clenched his hands, glanced up at the ceiling.
‘OK, I apologise! Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry if I belittled your achievement. That wasn’t my intention.’
‘What was your intention, then?’ she snapped.
She sought the answer in his green eyes, waited for him to speak. And in the depths of that moment he was suddenly on his feet, reaching for her, one hand sliding into her hair, cupping the side of her face, tilting her mouth to meet his, the other claiming her waist.
The attraction she’d tried so hard to crush since she’d lain beneath him that first night flooded back. Sparks tingled on her skin at his touch, zinged down her spine, and heat seemed to pool at the top of her legs. If it hadn’t been for the stool she might well have folded like jelly onto the floor.
The space between them was hers for the taking, and before she had time to think take it she did. She was on her feet, too, palms sliding up the taut muscle of his chest to meet around his neck, fingers sinking into his hair. His hand curled around her waist in an urgent caress as he moved backwards again to the stool, hooked one foot around her and pulled her greedily into the gap between his legs. He moulded her body hard against his and she moved her hips against him in response. She could feel the effect she was having on him. He uttered a low guttural moan. She felt his hand slip beneath her pyjama vest, sliding across her skin and making her ju
mp and writhe with desire. The other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head to the perfect angle as he parted her lips hungrily with his tongue.
Only now she’d responded to him did he take full control. And that was what finally made common sense kick back into her spinning mind.
Better late than never.
Equal responsibility. That was how he wanted it. No comeback. That was how he played it with women, wasn’t it?
He was obviously missing his social life. He’d gone out partying after the charity dinner, had stuck to his stupid single-in-public rule. Was that because he knew he had his own manufactured socialite back at home, gag order in place, ready to go? She’d turned herself into his kind of arm candy, signed away her right to tell anyone what happened between them and suddenly—what a coincidence—she was fair game.
She disengaged herself from him, took a good couple of paces backwards. He didn’t protest, didn’t try to move towards her. He simply stayed where he was on the stool, watching her. He rubbed his lips with his fingers as if savouring the taste of her.
She tried to take control of her racing heart.
‘Got your gag order in place so now it’s all systems go?’ she said, trying not to pant.
His eyes held hers, widening slightly in surprise.
‘The gag order has nothing to do with this,’ he said.
‘Really? Your models and actresses are off the menu, aren’t they? I’ve been living under your roof these past couple of weeks and the only time you noticed the way I looked was when my hair turned into a fright wig. But add a load of gloss and fake extras … the nails … the breasts … and get yourself a gag order—suddenly I’m up for grabs. Now that I look like a clone of one of your conquests.’
He smiled at her, the lopsided grin melting her very bones.
‘I can see where you might get that idea from, but you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘The agreement has nothing to do with this. I wanted to kiss you. You gave as good as you got. Don’t try and hide that by criticising my motives. Why kiss me back if you didn’t want to?’
