The Tycoon’s Ultimate Conquest

by Cathy Williams

  ‘You’re here.’

  Rose spun around. She’d gone from ice cold to scorching hot in the space of two seconds. Dazed, she focused on him and the heat pouring through her body almost made her pass out.

  * * *

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether you were going to come or not,’ Art remarked, already turned on even though the deliberately uninspiring office outfit should have been enough to snuff out any stirrings of ardour.

  It was her face. It had haunted him and one look at her revived every single image that had been floating around in his head and every single lustful thought that had accompanied those images.

  He was pleased that he had been proactive. He could have sat around thinking of her. Sooner or later the memories would have vanished into the ether but he wasn’t a man to rely on a sooner or later scenario.

  The interruption to the smooth flow of his work life had been intolerable and the solution he had engineered had been worth the trouble.

  Art hadn’t known how he was going to play his cards when she arrived. He’d acted on impulse in engineering the situation in the first place, had ceded to the demands of his body.

  Now, for the first time in his life, he was taking a chance and venturing into unknown territory. At an age when he should have been having fun, Art had had to grow up fast to deal with his father’s unpredictable behaviour and the emotional and financial fallout each relationship had left in its wake. Before he had had a chance to plot his own life, he had already concluded that the only safe course was to hold tight to his emotions and to his money. Lose control and he could end up like his father. Adrift and ripped off.

  This was the biggest chance he had ever taken. At least he wasn’t going to be ripped off and she would be gone just as soon as he got this thing out of his system.

  He still wanted her. He accepted that as his body surged into hot arousal. Didn’t make sense but there you had it. What they had required a natural conclusion and looking at her now, seeing the way her cheeks reddened and noting the slight tremble in her hands, Art knew that she felt the same.

  Even if she didn’t know it. Yet.

  * * *

  He dealt her a slow smile of utter charm and Rose’s mouth tightened.

  ‘Well, here I am,’ she replied neutrally. She wondered whether that remark of his had hinted at a suspicion that she might have tried to avoid meeting him because of the effect he still had on her. Had he thought that she had hesitated because she’d been scared of seeing him again? Or was that just being fanciful?

  The way he was looking at her...

  She dropped her eyes and resisted the temptation to fidget. ‘I was under the impression that your secretary would be meeting me.’

  ‘Change of plan.’

  ‘Why?’ She looked at him and it took a lot of willpower not to instantly look away because gazing into those fathomless dark eyes was the equivalent of having a shock delivered to her nervous system.

  ‘Call it respect for the fact that what we had was bigger than the sum total of what I’m going to contribute to your community.’

  Rose felt the sting of colour creep into her cheeks. She didn’t want the past recalled. She wanted the brief time they’d shared neatly boxed up and shoved somewhere out of sight.

  ‘There was no need,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m not here to have a stroll down memory lane, Art. It’s not appropriate. I’m here to sort whatever details need sorting and then I’m heading back home. The quicker we can deal with what we need to decide the better.’

  ‘In which case,’ Art said briskly, ‘let’s start with your work space...’

  * * *

  It was the same size as the room which she shared with Phil and their assistant and all the various people who came and went at will. Compared with the clutter of the office in her house, the clean white modernist vision she had been allocated made her jaw drop.

  She thought of the warm chaos of her own house and the familiar sounds of occupied rooms and felt a pang of longing so great that it took her breath away.

  Life pre-Art had been simple. Making ends meet as she’d buried herself in her worthwhile causes had been a walk in the park because, when it came to stress, there was nothing more stressful than dealing with emotions. She had managed to avoid that for her entire life because no one had ever penetrated the protective wall she had built around herself.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Rose muttered, looking down at her feet.

  ‘Don’t you like the office space?’

  He’d moved directly in front of her and Rose only managed to stand her ground through sheer willpower and a driving urge not to feel intimidated.

  ‘It’s very...nice.’

  ‘Very nice?’ Art looked away briefly, then returned his dark searching gaze to her face.

  ‘It’s not what I’m used to.’ Rose cleared her throat and gathered herself. ‘It really makes me see the gaping chasm between us.’

  Art flushed darkly. ‘We’ve been over this. Let me take you to the hotel. You can drop your bag and then we’ll go for lunch.’

  ‘Art, there’s no need to put yourself out for me. I don’t expect you to take me to lunch or anywhere else, for that matter. Your PA gave me the impression that I wouldn’t actually be seeing a great deal of you.’

  ‘Like I said, plans change. You’ll be thrilled to hear that I’ve cleared my diary for you.’

  Rose looked at him wryly, eyebrows raised. ‘Do I look thrilled?’

  ‘I’ve missed your sense of humour. Some men might be turned off because you’re not simpering, but not me.’ Art held her gaze and raked his fingers through his dark hair, his lean body taut and tense.

  Rose stilled. Her whole body froze and for a few seconds she wondered whether she had heard correctly. His fabulous eyes were giving nothing away but there was something there that made her mouth go dry.

  ‘You missed me?’

  Her body came to life. Her nipples pinched and a spreading dampness between her legs was a painful reminder of the dramatic effect he still had on her.

  She’d hoped that seeing him in his gilded surroundings would kill off what remnants of idiotic sexual attraction lingered inside her, but looking at him now...

  She was no expert but that suit looked handmade, to match the shoes which also looked handmade. His smooth, ridiculously sophisticated attire would probably have cost the equivalent of what most normal earthlings earned in a year. It should have got up her nose, been a massive turn-off, and yet she had a sudden urge to swoon.

  ‘Well, I have not missed you,’ she croaked and he looked at her steadily, eyes pinned to her flustered face. ‘And I don’t appreciate you...bringing this up. What happened between us...happened and I’m not here to rake up the past. As I’ve already told you.’

  ‘I know. I’m crashing through all those barriers and voicing what you don’t want to hear.’

  ‘Shall I be honest with you?’ He dropped the loaded question into the lengthening silence and waited.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘I still want you, Rose. Just standing here is doing all sorts of things to my body, turning it on in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine. You’re in my system and, I won’t lie, you’re screwing up my working life because I can’t get you out of my head.’

  ‘Art, don’t...’ Rose heard the weak tremble in her voice with horror. She glanced at him and her breath hitched in her throat.

  ‘I still want you in my bed,’ he continued roughly. ‘It’s the only way I can think of to get you out of my system. I won’t lay a finger on you but...every time you look at me, you should know that I’m thinking about touching you.’ He stared away.

  ‘I should never have come here!’

  ‘But you’re here now. Do you want to leave?’ His smouldering dark eyes fastened on her, pinning her to the spot.

  Rose hesitated. As he said, she was here now and she would sort out all the fine detail he had summoned her to London
to sort out. She had promised all those loyal protestors that she would return with plans in place for them to start thinking long-term about improvements to the community. She wasn’t going to let them down.

  ‘I’ll do what I came here to do,’ she replied, breathing in deep and not looking away. ‘I told everyone I would have details for them to pick over and I have no intention of going back empty-handed. What you think when you look at me is your business.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IF ART HAD planned on dropping a bomb in her life then he’d succeeded.

  He still wanted her. He still wanted to take her to his bed. He still wanted to do all those things to her that she still wanted to do to him.

  When Rose thought about that she felt giddy. She knew that, by being honest, he had deliberately dropped that bomb to wreak havoc with her peace of mind. Honest or selfish? Did he really care if he ended up getting what he wanted? He’d got her to London under false pretences and now he was playing a waiting game.

  It had only been forty-eight hours but already her nerves were shredded. She felt like a minnow being slowly circled by a shark and, worse, the minnow was finding it hard to stop fantasising about its predator.

  Now, he was taking her out to an elaborate dinner.

  ‘Networking,’ he had explained succinctly, having earlier dropped by her office, which had also turned into her sanctuary, where she could find a brief reprieve from his overwhelming personality.

  She had looked up and given him a perplexed frown, which had clearly done nothing to dampen his high spirits.

  ‘I’m not here to network.’

  ‘Granted, but this is a charity event hosted by some fairly prominent members of the international legal community. All those causes you take such an interest in? Well, they’ll be represented across the board. Several people you’ll have heard of will also be giving speeches and, for the intrepid, I gather there will be an opportunity to go abroad to places where civil liberties are at risk. You may not want to personally vanish to the opposite side of the globe on a crusade to eradicate injustice, but you might be interested in meeting fellow like-minded citizens who are.’

  ‘A charity event?’

  ‘Reasonably smart, I should point out, as these things invariably are. A few degrees off black tie.’

  ‘I haven’t brought any smart clothes with me, Art.’

  ‘Nothing but the hands-off suits that could have been designed to deter roving eyes and repel curious hands,’ he murmured, in his first departure from the perfectly well-behaved gentleman he had been since his warning of intent. ‘Why don’t you get yourself something? You can charge it to my company account. Elaine, my PA, will sort that out for you.’

  ‘I couldn’t...’

  He’d shrugged but he’d dropped the bait and she’d taken it.

  How could she not?

  Rose immediately told herself that it didn’t mean anything. She’d been presented with an opportunity to meet people she admired so why shouldn’t she grab the chance just because Art had arranged it? She could pat herself on the back for not letting his suffocating presence plunge her into a state of permanent confusion. And since he seemed convinced that she wouldn’t take him up on his offer to subsidise an evening dress for the event, then why shouldn’t she prove him wrong and do what he least expected?

  Rose wasn’t stupid. She knew how to sift through the deceit and ferret out the truth. Art had descended on their village with one thing in mind and that had been to persuade her to stop the protests that were slowing up development of the land he’d bought. He could have run roughshod over all of them because he had the law on his side but he was clever enough to know that a diplomatic solution would have been preferable and so that was the road he had decided to go down.

  He hadn’t banked on her being a nuisance and getting in his way but he’d found her attractive and she knew why. It was because she represented everything he wasn’t accustomed to. From the way she dressed to the person that she was, she was a woman far removed from the stereotypes he was used to dating and he had found that appealing.

  He went out with catwalk models. Nothing could have been further than a pro bono lawyer whose wardrobe consisted of flowing skirts, baggy tops, faded jeans and waterproof anoraks.

  She’d been a trip down novelty lane and that hurt.

  When Rose tried to equate that to her own feelings towards him she drew a blank because she had been drawn to him against all good reason.

  It didn’t make sense but everything about his personality had appealed to her. She’d been cautious but in the end she hadn’t been able to resist the pull of his intelligence, his easy wit, his charm. Was she more like her mother than she realised? It didn’t matter whether her mother had been a loyal wife. When her husband had died she had behaved in a way that had had lasting consequences for her daughter. She had been promiscuous and eventually she had ended up with a guy who had been so out of her league that it was a mystery that they had lasted as long as they had. Rose had been careful all her life not to repeat any of the mistakes her mother had made and it frightened her when she thought of where she was now.

  She had opened up to Art. Even before he had shown his true colours, she had known that he wasn’t the kind of man who should have registered on her radar, but she had still fallen for him and she had actually fooled herself into thinking that he might have had similar feelings for her.

  Not so.

  For Art, it was all about the sex, hence his openness in telling her straight off the bat that he still wanted her. Had she given off some kind of pheromone that had alerted him to the fact that she still fancied him?

  That horrified her but she was honest enough to realise that it had probably been the case because, the second she was in his presence, her head and her body took off in two different directions and she was left rudderless and floundering and he was a guy who could pick up on things like that in a heartbeat.

  With her thoughts all over the place and her body threatening to go its own way and let the side down, Rose had gone to town shopping for something to wear to the charity event.

  Part of her was determined to show him that she was more than just a country bumpkin lawyer with no dress sense.

  Another part was curious to see whether, exposed to the sort of gathering that didn’t frequently occur in her life out in the sticks, she would find that there were other interesting men out there. That Art hadn’t netted all her attention to the exclusion of everyone else. Had he been as much of a novelty for her as she had been for him? Was she giving him too much credit for having burrowed into the heart of her when, in fact, she had just been vulnerable to a charming man because she’d been out of the dating scene for too long?

  To this end, she had gone all out and now, with a mere forty minutes to go before Art’s driver called for her, Rose contemplated her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror with satisfaction.

  In the background, she absently took in the sumptuous surroundings that had made her gasp the first time she had entered the hotel room. The lush curtains, the blonde wood, the pale marbled bathroom...the decadent chandelier that should have been over the top but wasn’t...the handmade desk on which was stacked fine quality personalised stationery and a comprehensive collection of London guidebooks which she had had precious little time to peruse.

  She refocused on her reflection.

  She had gone for drama and chosen a figure-hugging dress in a striking shade of raspberry. The narrowness of her waist was emphasised by a silver corded belt that lent the outfit a Roman appeal and the dress fell elegantly to mid-calf. In nude heels, her legs looked longer and her body more willowy than she had ever noticed before.

  And her hair. It fell in tousled waves along her shoulders and down her back and was as soft as silk because she had managed to squeeze in an appointment with a hairdresser, who had done some wonderful things with highlights and blow-dried it in a way she couldn’t possibly have done herself.

>   She’d also bought a shawl in the same nude shade as the heels and she slung that over her shoulders and smiled, excited.

  She felt like an exotic bird of paradise.

  For the first time in her life, Rose wasn’t being cautious. No, she amended, gathering all her stuff as her cell phone buzzed, alerting her to the arrival of the driver...

  She’d already thrown caution to the winds when she’d jumped into bed with Art. She was just carrying on in a similar vein and enjoying herself in the process.

  It was sufficient to bring a guilty tinge to her cheeks but she was composed as she slid into the back of the glossy Mercedes and she maintained that composure all the way to the venue and right up to the moment she spied Art, who was waiting for her, as arranged, in the lobby of the hotel.

  Stepping out of the car, with the door held open by one of the parking attendants who had sprung into action the second the car had pulled up, made her feel like a movie star.

  This was more than just fancy. There were journalists snapping pictures of the arriving guests. In a daze, she realised that she recognised faces from the world of movies and television and one or two prominent politicians and their other halves.

  But all those faces faded into a blur alongside Art, who had begun moving towards her and, in the process, created a bubble of excitement around him.

  He looked magnificent. The whiteness of his dress shirt emphasised his bronzed complexion. The black bow tie looked ridiculously sexy instead of stuffy, as did the very proper black suit.

  Rose was barely aware of him moving to politely usher her inside.

  ‘You look,’ he breathed without looking at her and only inclining slightly so that he couldn’t be overheard, ‘sensational. Was that the intention?’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’ But her pulse raced and she shivered with wild pleasure at his husky undertone.

  Art laughed as they strolled away from the lobby and into the impressive ballroom, which was buzzing with the great and the good. ‘Not a description that’s been used much about me but I’ll take it.’