by Heidi Rice
She ignored him—along with the frantic pounding of her blood and the vague sense that she might be overreacting.
‘I know the kind of man you are. Your life is an open newspaper. The women you step out with are the kind who spend a fortune on their appearance and always look perfect. It’s obvious that’s what does it for you these days.’
‘So you think you only look good to me now you’ve spent hours getting your hair and nails and goodness-knows-what-else done?’
He got down from the stool, closed the gap between them so that she needed to look up to watch his face. She was hotly aware of his muscled body inches from hers, of every cell in her body wanting to take that one pace back into his arms.
She stood her ground and looked at him boldly. ‘In a word, yes.’
He gazed right into her eyes as he spoke.
‘You. Are. Gorgeous,’ he said. ‘In that dress tonight. In jeans and a T-shirt. And most of all in these hideous short pyjamas with your hair looking like you’ve spent the night screwing instead of sleeping. I really wish you weren’t. The idea was for me to avoid women, play the single professional for a bit, and having to share my roof with you, and those legs, was not part of the plan.’
Her oversensitised body fought for control over her mind. She was furious with herself for responding to him and livid with the unfairness of it all. The strongest physical reaction she’d ever had to any guy and it had to be someone like him—someone who held all the cards.
‘And you see this as more than a one-night stand, do you?’ she asked. ‘More than your usual casual fling? You want to step out with me in public? Or maybe introduce me to your parents? Are you looking beyond tomorrow morning for a change? Possibly the end of the week? Maybe New Year?’
He simply looked at her. And in his silence she realised how stupidly disappointed she was.
She was most definitely not going to have a fling with him. No matter how gorgeous he was. No matter how much her body wanted her to. She was in total control here. Let him realise he wasn’t irresistible. Kick that arrogance into touch. So his kiss turned her legs to jelly? That didn’t mean she had to betray the effects, give him the satisfaction.
His lips were inches from hers.
‘It isn’t going to happen,’ she said softly, looking into his eyes. His warm breath mingled with hers. ‘I don’t do rich men, I don’t do flings and I definitely don’t do flings with rich men. Especially ones who manipulate their way through life with gag orders, contracts and cash. So why don’t we stick to our own plans? I’ll get my article finished and be out of your hair by Christmas. And you can get on with sorting out your reputation. If you’ve still got one.’
With enormous effort she took a step back from him, then put another pace between them, and another. His gaze didn’t waver, meeting hers without a hitch until she cut her eyes away and left the room, slamming the door behind her. She knew just from the way her nerves were on edge that she’d be lucky to get any sleep tonight, but she didn’t care. She was in control, not Alex, and that was the only thing that mattered.
Alex stared for a long moment at the closed kitchen door. She’d had to kick the doorstop away because she was so determined to have something to slam. If his head wasn’t so mixed up he might have found that amusing.
Desire burned deep in his abdomen. He rubbed his fingers slowly over his mouth again. He could still taste her, still smell her. His senses were vibrantly alive. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so tuned in to a woman, and he was so damn sexually frustrated he felt like gnawing the granite worktop.
Kissing her hadn’t been the plan. Of course it hadn’t. He’d been fighting those mad feelings like crazy all evening. And suddenly those soft lips had been against his. He was shocked by the overpowering hunger that suffused every part of his body. Rational thought was driven away. The pent-up anger and jealousy he’d suppressed all evening as he watched her in someone else’s arms boiled to the surface. His one desire at that moment was to kiss and kiss and kiss her again, and ride that delicious wave as far as he could.
He stood up and made coffee. The familiar motions of filling the mug, adding milk, calmed him, brought a more solid reality back.
It gnawed at him that she’d painted him as some kind of predator, out to take advantage of her. And it annoyed him even more that he cared so much what she thought. He’d had a lucky escape. He was tired, wasn’t thinking straight. She might look like Miss Chelsea now, but underneath she was country village girl through and through. Miss Ordinary. Like Susan. Do-not-touch-with-bargepole. Rationality clicked coldly back in.
He drained his coffee and threw the dregs down the sink. As he made his way to his bedroom he felt the momentary lapse in control disappear. She’d done him a favour, backing off like that. The next time he saw her he’d make sure he kept a safe distance. Physically and mentally. And surely now her work would be done she’d be moving out. That was a good thing.
Yet sleep was still a very long time coming.
On edge through lack of sleep, Jen was dressed by seven, making coffee and breaking eggs into a frying pan. She added milk and began to scramble them. Her head felt fuzzy and out of focus.
Alex came into the kitchen and her heart skipped a beat. Despite her mental determination to put distance between them her body was apparently refusing to stand down. Even when obviously tired he still looked gorgeous. He poured his own coffee. The tension in the room was palpable.
‘Hi,’ she said uncertainly.
He barely glanced around.
‘Morning.’
‘I’m going to be working on a draft of my article today—the material I’ve got so far. I thought I’d set myself up in the den, if that’s OK with you?’
There was a pause, as if he was considering whether to mention the elephant in the room.
‘About last night …’ he said.
She’d prepared for this. Somewhere in the long restless hours between leaving him in the kitchen and finally giving up on the prospect of sleep.
‘There was no last night.’
He looked vaguely amused. ‘You can deny it as much as you like. I was there, too, remember?’
‘I meant what I said. Let’s just be professional. Concentrate on our own lives.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. But first, for the record, I did not take advantage of you, despite your determination to paint things that way. You kissed me back.’
‘You made me.’
He laughed in disbelief. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said, you made me.’ She had to admit, as arguments went, it wasn’t her strongest.
‘I’ve only known you a matter of days but I think I can say with confidence that I can’t imagine anyone making you do something you didn’t want to. Ever.’
Deep down there was the frustrating reality that he was right. She had kissed him back. But only after he’d instigated the intimacy. She rounded on him, determined to put an end to this once and for all.
‘However you want to paint things, we both played a part,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why this has to turn into a huge atmosphere. I just want to make it clear that last night was a blip. I’d never be interested in a one-night stand.’ She tipped the eggs onto a plate. ‘It’s nothing personal.’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘One-night stand? Is that what you think it would be?’
‘What do you expect me to think? You don’t do relationships. You do work. You made it clear how you live your life. You want short-term flings with no comeback. That’s fine by me, but I’m not about to be a one-hit wonder. Not for any man.’
Alex thought of Susan. The sweetness of their early relationship, the distance that had grown gradually between them as his work became more and more demanding in line with his success. And the end, when he’d realised he no longer knew her at all. If he ever had. The side of the story the press hadn’t covered.
‘Of course you’re at such an advantage because you think you know all abo
ut me,’ he said. ‘Everything there is to know about my past. Because everything printed about me is, of course, always true.’ His voice rose to an exasperated snap.
She didn’t rise, kept her voice calm. ‘Tell me what you’re really like, then. What am I missing? Why shouldn’t I believe everything I read about you?’
How the hell was he supposed to answer that? And, more to the point, why did he even want to? She had the weight of years of tabloid stories on her side, painting him as a playboy. He’d been linked to so many women. Some were just speculation, but plenty had been correct. Oh, yes, the papers had made much of the financial cost of his divorce. But there had been other costs, too—ones which didn’t make such great column inches. He was so much more newsworthy as a bachelor playboy rather than a workaholic who dated superficially because he had no time to be a family man.
He gripped the edge of the granite counter, took a breath, and wondered where to start. Wondered whether to start at all.
The sound of the exterior intercom buzzing cut like a knife through the tension in the kitchen. For a moment both of them stuck to their rigid defensive posture. Jen looked at him expectantly for what she was no doubt certain would be a rubbish explanation. Then she threw her hands up and left the room for the front door.
He heard her speaking, heard the door open and shut, and then she re-entered the room. The only visible part of her was the long legs. The rest was obscured by a gigantic arrangement of red roses, holly berries and Christmas greenery. An explosion of red and green, vulgar in its hugeness. He felt his jaw drop.
She heaved the arrangement onto the kitchen table. He couldn’t help noticing that her cheeks were flushed pink with excitement as she emerged from behind the flowers. She pulled out the card and flipped it open.
A sharp intake of breath gave away her delight. ‘They’re from Richard Moran!’ she said.
Of course they were. Hadn’t he known that the moment he saw them? The man had no style. The massive bouquet dominated the room. Moran had never been one to stick to the mantra of less is more.
Lack of subtlety didn’t seem to make a poor impression on Jen. She looked at him, card held aloft, delighted excitement in her eyes.
‘He’s invited me to the racing!’ she gasped. ‘That VIP Christmas meeting I accidentally bid for. He must have thought I wanted to win it and couldn’t afford to go higher! ‘
Alex felt a nauseating stab of jealous irritation that told him that, however hard he denied it, last night’s kiss definitely meant more than he wanted it to. What a creep! He couldn’t believe she was falling for this.
‘You can’t seriously be thinking about going? You just finished telling me how much fantastic material you’ve got. How much more do you need, for Pete’s sake?’
She looked at him with an incredulous expression.
‘Of course I’m going! Are you insane? I need to ride this out as far as it goes now. That’s the whole point of the article. This is better than I could ever have hoped.’
‘The longer you go on with this, the more likely it is he’ll clock who you are. It might have been OK last night, with all those people, the dancing and the auction in the background, but if you spend the day at the races, just the two of you, he’s bound to ask you some awkward questions.’
‘Your confidence in me is really heartening,’ she said, giving him a sarcastic grin.
‘Your insistence on pushing ahead with the project is very telling,’ he snapped back angrily. ‘Are you sure it’s really still about the article? Are you sure you’re not getting carried away with the moment?’
The flush on her cheeks intensified and she cut her eyes away from his.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Nothing is more important to me than nailing this article. Everything is riding on it. All my savings are sunk into it, and my future career depends on it. I don’t care what it takes.’
‘Don’t you think you might be protesting a bit too much? You don’t care if you’re taking a risk because you’re so busy swooning over your new fake life, being wined and dined by a millionaire. So much for social experiments.’
He knew he’d touched a nerve. Fury took over her face.
‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I am here to work. Last night was about research for my article—not cosying up to some rich guy, getting what I could out of it. This whole thing is about making my own success without the need for any of that.’
‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘I don’t care if you believe it.’
‘I’ve seen all this before, you know. Starting out grounded, determined the lifestyle won’t change you. Then you have a taste of the high life, start to enjoy the trappings. It’s one slippery slope to letting the luxury take over. You lose your grip on reality, on what was really important to you at the outset.’
He saw from the knit of her eyebrows, the sudden shrewd gaze, that he had her full attention now. But her next question still floored him.
‘Are you talking about yourself?’ she said.
He wanted to kick himself for giving away so much, and cursed her insight.
‘Not just about me,’ he said shortly.
‘You mean your marriage?’
He was done with this conversation. ‘Yes, I mean my marriage. I won’t bother to elaborate. I’m sure you already know all the details as you’re so up to speed with the press coverage of me. And if you don’t you can always research me on the internet.’
He left the room. Left her to the flowers. He didn’t see her blush because she’d actually done that way back, on the first day she met him.
CHAPTER NINE
‘LET me get this right. Alex Hammond snogged you and you’ve told him you’re not interested?’ Elsie’s incredulity was immense. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘No, I haven’t! And that’s exactly the point. I’m in total control of the situation. Men like Alex Hammond do not go for women like me. Not for any good reason, anyway. He only took an interest because he’s had to swear off women after all that stuff about Viveca Holt in the news. He can’t get his hands on one of his usual conquests so he thought he’d have a punt at me. He’d probably cosy up to a gorilla right now if it had a makeover and signed a gag order.’
‘Who cares what his reasons are? You passed up the chance of a fling with Alex Hammond!’ Elsie spoke as if Jen had won the lottery and handed the ticket back.
‘Yes! Exactly! All it would ever be is a fling. Because that’s all he ever has.’ Jen smoothed her hair back from her face, took a dignified breath, drew herself up to her full height. ‘I’m better than that.’
Perhaps if she said that often enough, in lots of different ways, she might actually begin to feel as triumphant about her decision as she wanted to feel. Instead of this miserable dragging in her stomach as if the butterflies he’d evoked there last night had been doused in icy water. The idea that she might be different, more than a week-long fling, was something she refused to entertain. She’d bet all his girlfriends thought they’d be the ones to change him, and if Viveca Holt hadn’t managed it Jen from the country wasn’t likely to, was she?
She made a huge effort to squash everything out of her mind apart from her article. It was about time she got her mind back on task.
‘Only problem is, now I need some background information on horse racing and I can’t ask him. I’m having to rely on the internet and I feel like I’m floundering. I don’t suppose you know anything?’
‘Nope. Sorry.’
Impossible to distract, Elsie returned to the subject that mystified her. ‘Was he a good kisser?’
Just the flashback that question prompted made Jen feel like melting into a puddle on the floor.
‘I’m not going to answer that,’ she said. ‘I’m going now.’
She moved to press the disconnect button, but not before she managed to catch Elsie’s parting comment.
‘That means yes.’
Rule #7: Never fall
at a millionaire’s feet. Remember he has hundreds of women doing that. Remain cool, classy and in control at all times.
It turned out that the careful couple of glasses of champagne at the ball—just enough to make her feel confident and bubbly, not enough to turn her into loudmouthed ladette—combined with the twinkly subdued lighting, had given her a bit of a rose-tinted goggles effect when it came to Richard Moran.
Perching uncomfortably on one side of the leather back seat as his car purred smoothly towards the racetrack, it briefly occurred to Jen that Alex’s warning her off him might also have pushed Richard up a few notches on the attractive scale. She’d been told many times, mainly by her mother, that there was a definite streak in her that didn’t appreciate being told what to do.
In the cold light of day Richard was ogling her cleavage rather too much for comfort. Then again, the moss-green dress with its pretty floral print and empire line didn’t need stuffing with chicken fillets to make it look half decent. Perhaps he was simply wondering where her curves had gone.
His incessant talking about himself and name-dropping was also beginning to grate on her, and his hands were getting a bit wandery, making her grateful to whoever had invented the maxi-dress that it banned access from ankle to neckline. She sat up stoically in the seat. She wanted so much to write a mind-blowingly brilliant article. One the editor of Gossip! magazine simply couldn’t refuse. The consummate professional, that was her. She was prepared to do anything to pull that off.
She wriggled away as Richard’s hand brushed her thigh.
Not quite anything.
Alex drained his fifth coffee and tried to apply his caffeine-buzzing mind to his work. Just his work. Everything else excluded. Doing that was meant to be second nature by now. Relationships, people, didn’t distract him like this. He didn’t allow them to.
The attitude he’d taken—let Jen go her own obstinate way and see how far it got her—had become somehow harder to stick to the moment the front door slammed behind her.