Harlequin Presents--April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Dani Collins

  ‘No, thank you. I don’t want to miss my flight.’ Even the sound of her heels click-clacking on the floor sounded annoyed.

  ‘What flight are you on?’

  She told him the carrier and the time, but it wasn’t the same as his, and he was vaguely aware of a little stab of disappointment deep in his gut. Who knew what seven and a half hours in her company might have produced? He got hard just thinking about it.

  ‘Good luck with your pitch,’ he said with a smile. ‘May the best person win.’

  Zoey stopped walking to look up at him, her violet eyes like lethal daggers. ‘If it were a level playing field, I would’ve won the last time we were pitching for the same account. Tell me, did you sleep with someone to swing the board’s decision?’

  ‘I don’t have to resort to such tactics, babe, I just do a damn good job. Yours was a good pitch, though. And I really liked the dog food commercial you did a while back. Cute...real cute.’

  She rapid-blinked in an exaggerated way, one of her hands coming up to her chest as if to calm her heart rate down. ‘Oh. My. God. Did I just hear you give me a compliment?’

  Finn chuckled at her mock-shocked expression. ‘What? Doesn’t anyone ever tell you how brilliant you are?’

  ‘Not that I can remember.’ She gave him a haughty look and added, ‘But no doubt you’ve been hearing that said to you from the moment you were born.’

  If only she knew how far from the truth that was. Finn had rarely seen either of his parents since he was six years old. They’d found the task of raising a child too restrictive for their hippy-dippy lifestyle—especially when he’d got to school age. They hadn’t been able to handle the responsibility of waking up early enough after a night of drinking and smoking dope to get him ready for school or to pick him up afterwards, so they’d dumped him on distant relatives.

  They had been given another couple of chances to get their act together during his childhood, but Finn had finally got tired of it by the time he was thirteen. He’d soon been shipped back to his relatives, who hadn’t exactly welcomed him back with open arms. He couldn’t recall too many compliments coming his way growing up, but he had got the message loud and clear that he’d been an encumbrance, a burden no one had wanted but kept out of a sense of duty.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Finn said with a hollow laugh.

  Zoey looked at him for a beat or two longer, her forehead still creased in a slight frown. Then she shifted her gaze and glanced at her boarding pass. ‘I’d better get to my gate...’

  She walked off without another word and Finn felt again that strange little niggle of disappointment. He gave himself a mental shake and strode towards his own departure gate. He needed to get a grip. Anyone would think he was becoming a little obsessed with Zoey Brackenfield. He wasn’t the type to get too attached to a woman—to anyone, when it came to that. His life in the fast lane left no time for long-term relationships. A long-term relationship in his mind was a day or two, tops. Any longer than that and he got a little antsy, eager to get out before it got too claustrophobic. Maybe he was like his freedom-loving parents after all. Scary thought.

  * * *

  It was almost three in the morning by the time Zoey got to her New York hotel. She had slept a little on the flight and watched a couple of movies rather than tweak her pitch on her laptop. She knew from experience that last-minute tweaks often did more harm than good. Her nerves would take over, her self-doubts run wild, and before she knew it the presentation would be completely different from her original vision.

  Besides, she really loved travelling in Business Class. The way her father’s business was currently going meant that travelling in style and comfort might not be something she would be doing too much longer, so she figured she might as well enjoy it while she could. No doubt Finn O’Connell had no worries on that score. She could just imagine him lying back on his airbed, sipping French champagne and chatting up the female cabin crew. Grr.

  Zoey had a shower to freshen up and dressed in a bathrobe with her hair in a towel, turban-like, on her head, placing the laptop bag on the writing desk in the suite. She unzipped the bag and took out the laptop and laid it on the leather protector on the desk. She opened the screen and turned it on and waited for it to boot up. A strange sensation scuttled across her scalp as the screen became illuminated. She leaned forward, blinked her weary gaze and peered at the unfamiliar screensaver.

  The unfamiliar screensaver...

  Zoey’s heart leapt to her throat, her legs went to water and her hands shook as though she had a movement disorder. This wasn’t her laptop! She was in New York without her laptop. The laptop with her pitch on it.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. She tried to calm herself down but she had never been a star pupil at mindfulness. Fear climbed her spine and spread its tentacles into her brain like a strangling vine. She was going to lose the contract. She was miles away from her laptop. What was she going to do? Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Zoey took a deep lungful of air and stared at the laptop, praying this was a nightmare she would wake from at any moment.

  But wait...all was not lost. Her presentation was in the cloud. But still, her laptop had a lot of personal information on it, and she didn’t want to lose it. Besides, her pitch was first thing tomorrow morning and she couldn’t be sure there would be another laptop she could use. And it would look unprofessional to turn up so ill-prepared.

  Who owned this one?

  Her mind spooled back to the security check at Heathrow and something cold slithered down the entire length of her spine. Could this be Finn O’Connell’s laptop? Her stomach did a flip turn. Oh, no. Did that mean he had hers? She had a sticker on the back of her laptop with her name and number on it but there was nothing on the back of this computer.

  The screensaver was asking for a password. She drummed her fingers on the desk. Did she need a password to check if it was his computer? Maybe there was something in the laptop bag that might be enough of a clue as to whose computer it was. She reached inside the bag and took out a couple of pens and a collection of business cards. One, from a woman called Kimba, had a red lipstick kiss pressed to the back with a handwritten message below it:

  Thanks for last night, Finn. It was unbelievable.

  Zoey wanted to tear it into confetti-sized pieces and only just stopped herself in time. Double grr. What a player. He probably had lovers all over the world.

  But at least it solved the mystery of whose computer Zoey had in her possession...or did it? The bag was the same as hers. No doubt there were other laptop bags exactly the same as this one. How could she know for sure this was Finn’s computer inside his bag? It had been crowded at the security checkpoint and so many laptops looked the same. Besides, he hadn’t phoned or texted her to tell her he had hers. Maybe someone else had hers and this was a complete stranger’s!

  Zoey searched further in the laptop bag and pulled out a bright orange sticky note attached to a computer technician’s card. The sticky note had the words ‘temporary password’ written on it and below it a series of numbers and letters and dashes and hashtags. She stared at it for a long moment, a host of rationalisations assembling in her head. She needed to know for sure if this was Finn’s laptop. She had a password but whether it was Finn’s or not was still not clear. This could easily be someone else’s laptop accidentally put in his laptop bag.

  She had to know for sure, didn’t she? She had to check to see if it was actually Finn’s laptop, right? She would call the airport once she knew one way or the other. She figured, if it turned out to be his, all she had to do was call him and ask him to meet her for a quick swap-over. There wouldn’t be any delay that way, as he was probably in New York by now too.

  Zoey stuck the note to the screen of the laptop and held her fingers over the keys. You shouldn’t be doing this. She rolled her left shoulder backwards, as if she was physically dis
lodging her nagging conscience. Her fingers moved closer to the keyboard and her heart began to thud, a fine sweat breaking out across her brow. She could only imagine how nauseating it would be to read his emails. No doubt hundreds of gushing messages from his many lovers telling how wonderful he was. Could she stomach it? No. Definitely not.

  Zoey got up from the desk, folding her arms across her body to remove them from temptation. It would be wrong to read his personal messages—anyone’s, for that matter. Was it even a crime?

  But then a thought crept into her brain... Could she just click on Finn’s pitch? Just a teensy-weensy little peek? No. That would be taking things a little too far. She was a morally upright citizen. She believed in doing the right thing at all times and in all circumstances. And yet...this was her chance to get a heads-up on what his pitch looked like. He would never know she’d checked...

  But she would know, and that was something that didn’t sit well with her. The competition had to be fair and equal and, if she looked at his pitch and made last minute changes to hers once she got her laptop back and subsequently won the account, how victorious would she actually feel? It would be a hollow victory indeed. She wanted to win the pitch on her own merit. She had fought too hard and for too long to be taken seriously. If she were to cheat to get to the top, then she would be devaluing everything she had worked so hard for.

  Zoey glanced back at the laptop, her teeth chewing at her lower lip. ‘You can stop looking at me like that, okay?’ She addressed the laptop sternly. ‘I’m not doing it. I would hate it if he did it to me.’

  Yikes! But what if he was doing it to her at this very moment?

  Zoey let out a stiff curse. Those last few emails she sent to her ex were not something she wanted anyone else reading, and certainly not Finn O’Connell. She walked back to the computer and slammed it shut. ‘There. Who said I can’t resist temptation?’

  As long as she could resist Finn O’Connell just as easily.

  * * *

  After dinner was served and then cleared away on the flight, Finn took out his laptop and set it up before him in his business class seat. But as soon as he opened it he knew something wasn’t right. For one thing, there were food crumbs all over the keys, which was strange, because he never ate at the computer. Besides, it had only just come back from his tech service people, who had serviced one of his faulty programs, and they always returned it spotless.

  He pressed the ‘on’ button and an unfamiliar screensaver came up. Shoot. He had someone else’s laptop.

  Someone who had gone through the security check at the same time.

  He turned the computer over and found a sticker on the back with Zoey’s name and number on it. A smile broke over his face and he closed the laptop with a snap. What were the chances of them switching laptops?

  As much as he was tempted to have a little snoop around Zoey Brackenfield’s laptop, he was going to resist. Who said he couldn’t be a chivalrous gentleman? She had a right to her privacy; besides, he could do without any more animosity from her. He genuinely liked her. She was feisty, determined and talented, and he admired her all-in work ethic. She was in a still largely male dominated field, but she didn’t let it intimidate her. A couple of her projects he’d seen had been nothing short of brilliant.

  Finn showered and shaved once he got to the penthouse suite of his hotel. He had yet to call Zoey about the laptop mix-up, but considering it was the middle of the night he figured it could wait until a decent hour. Clearly, she hadn’t discovered the mix-up because he had no missed calls or text messages from her.

  He had got a text message from Zoey’s father, however, mentioning something about a business matter he wanted to discuss with him. Finn couldn’t decide if it was one of Harry Brackenfield’s increasingly regular drunken, middle-of-the-night texts or if there was a genuine reason behind his request for a meeting. Either way, it could wait. He had much more important business on his mind—getting his laptop back and seeing Zoey again.

  But as Finn was coming out of the bathroom his phone buzzed from where he’d left it on the bedside table earlier. He walked over to scoop it up and saw Zoey’s name come up.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I believe have something of yours in my possession.’

  ‘Did you do it deliberately?’ Her tone was so sharp, he was surprised it didn’t pierce one of his arteries. ‘Did you switch them at the airport?’

  Finn walked over to the windows to look at the view of the city that never slept. The flashing billboards and colourful lights of Times Square were like an electronic firework show. ‘Now, why would I do that? It’s damned inconvenient for one thing and, secondly, dangerous to have my personal data in the hands of someone who doesn’t have my best interests at heart.’

  ‘I want it back. Now.’ Her tone was so strident and forceful, he could almost picture her standing in her hotel room visibly shaking with anger.

  He let out a mock-weary sigh. ‘Can’t it wait until morning?’

  ‘It is morning,’ she shot back. ‘Where are you staying? I’ll come to you right now.’

  ‘Now is not convenient.’

  There was a silence in which all he could hear was her agitated breathing.

  ‘Have you got someone with you?’ Zoey asked.

  ‘You might not believe this but I’m all by myself.’ Thing was, he was all by himself more often than not just lately. He was the first to admit his sex life needed a reboot. The hook-ups were not as exciting as they used to be. None of his lovers captivated him the way he wanted to be captivated. The way Zoey captivated him. His focus on her was stuffing up his ability to sleep with anyone else. But that was easily fixed—he would convince her to indulge in a hot little hook-up. Problem solved.

  Zoey made a scoffing noise, as if in two minds whether to believe him about his solitary status. ‘Then there’s no reason I can’t come by and get my computer and give you yours.’

  ‘Why can’t you wait until a decent hour? Or are you worried I’m going to hack into your computer, hmm?’

  There was another tight little silence, punctuated by her breathing.

  ‘Y-you wouldn’t do that...would you?’

  Finn let out an exaggerated sigh. ‘Your low opinion of me never ceases to amaze me. Look—I’ll compromise and bring your laptop to you rather than you come out in the wee hours. Where are you staying?’

  She told him the name of the hotel, which was only a block away. ‘How long will you be?’ she added.

  ‘Don’t worry, babe. I know you’re impatient to see me, but I won’t keep you waiting much longer.’

  ‘It’s not you I want to see, it’s my computer.’ And then the phone clicked off.

  * * *

  Zoey tugged the damp towel off her head and threw it on the bed, her fury at Finn knowing no bounds. She wouldn’t put it past him to have deliberately switched their computers. He never failed to grasp an opportunity to get under her skin. No doubt he’d been trawling through her emails and photos and pitch presentation without a single niggle of his conscience. She, at least, had felt conflicted enough not to do it, even if it had been a close call in terms of self-control. She shut down his computer and put it back in the laptop bag and firmly zipped it up.

  But deep down she knew she had made the choice not to snoop because she respected him professionally, even if she had some issues with how he lived his private life.

  Or maybe her issues with his private life were because she was envious of how easily he moved from one lover to the next. She had been unable to stomach the thought of sharing her body with anyone since her ex had cheated on her. Well, apart from Finn, which was both annoying and frustrating in equal measure, because he was the last person she wanted to get naked with under any circumstances. However, it was a pity her body wasn’t in agreement with her rational mind.

  The doorbell sounded before Z
oey had time to change out of the hotel bathrobe into clothes. She clutched the front opening of the bathrobe together and padded over to the door. ‘Is that you, Finn?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  Zoey opened the door and found him standing there with her laptop bag draped over one shoulder. He didn’t look one bit jet-lagged—in fact, he looked ridiculously refreshed and heart-stoppingly gorgeous. He had recently showered and shaved, his brushed back thick, dark hair still damp. The tantalising notes of his aftershave drifted towards her, reminding her of a sun-baked citrus orchard with crushed exotic herbs underfoot. She held out her hand for her computer. ‘Thank you for dropping it off. I won’t keep you.’

  He held firm to the laptop resting against his hip, one prominent dark eyebrow rising in an arc. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  Zoey looked at him blankly for a moment. He flicked his gaze towards the writing desk behind her, his expression wry. ‘I’ll give you yours, if you give me mine. Deal?’

  Zoey was so flustered at seeing him at this ungodly hour and looking so damn hot, she’d completely forgotten she had his computer. ‘Oh...right, sorry...’ She swung round and padded over to the desk to pick up the laptop. But then she heard the soft click of the suite door close behind her and a tingle shot down her spine. She turned to face him, her pulse rate picking up at the sardonic look in his eyes. ‘I don’t remember asking you into my room.’

  ‘I know, and it was most impolite of you to not at least offer me a drink, since I walked all this way in the dark to bring you your laptop. I could have been mugged.’ His eyes had a devilish gleam and her pulse rate went up another notch.

  Zoey gave him a look that would have withered a plant. A plastic plant. ‘Fine. What do you want? Erm, to drink, I mean.’

  She was in no doubt about what he really wanted. She could see it in eyes, could feel it in the air—a throbbing pulse of sexual energy that pinged off him in waves, colliding with her own energy, stirring a host of longing and need that threatened to consume her. She felt it every time she was in his presence, the dark, sensual vibration of mutual lust. It horrified her that she was in lust with him. Horrified and shamed her. How could she possibly think of getting it on with him? He was a playboy. A man who had a freaking turnstile on his bedroom door. It was lowering to admit she was so attracted to him. What sort of self-destructive complex did she have to lust after a man she didn’t even like?