by Nikki Logan
‘You’re offering to be bait?’
God, she hated how good an idea that was. Not that she hadn’t done the maths, too, and come to much the same realisation, but she’d only planned on collecting cards and making a few new acquaintances tonight on her own side of the guest list. Chasing the money.
‘And there’s a lot to be said for the subliminal impact of them reaching for your hand,’ he went on. ‘It redefines you in their minds.’
She studied him again and any thoughts of him having fallen into his role with charm or luck or connections evaporated entirely. Harry Mitchell really knew his stuff.
‘It’s a good idea,’ she acknowledged. ‘And I’m irritated that you thought of it.’
‘Guarantee you it would have occurred to you halfway through the night once you’d seen the feeding frenzy in practice. I just bought you a few extra hours.’
Her filthy mind didn’t make it past ‘I just bought you…’
Imagine the things they could get up to if she was his for the evening. To do with what he would. Desire coiled tight right below her bellybutton.
‘So how about it, Iz? Can you tolerate a couple of hours in my company?’
Iz…
Instant flashback to that word, hot and hard in her ear, as he’d buried himself more deeply in her than she thought she went.
The entire evening, working the room with a man she’d once had her legs wrapped around and trying hard the whole time to pretend she hadn’t. Knowing that brought with it a funny kind of intimacy. A very personal connection. It was a feeling she could hold close to her chest and savour for a bit.
On the inside.
On the outside she was going to fight it like hell. On survival grounds. Because while her stupidly optimistic body seemed oblivious to the real world, Izzy knew enough about people to know what a one-night stand meant.
It meant hands-off, going forwards.
‘I imagine we’ll be speaking with others most of that time, so…yes. I think I can manage.’
His laugh warmed her from her bellybutton inwards and he took her arm and slid it over the sexy fabric of his fine suit. She snuck in a quick extra feel.
Brioni… Sigh.
‘Come on. Use me and abuse me.’ They turned towards the throng of eager, bright smiles, but he bent long enough to murmur, entirely straight-faced, ‘Especially the abuse part.’
Izzy snorted the champagne she’d only just taken from a passing waiter. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’
Was it something to do with him being the most sexually exciting man she’d ever slept with? Or maybe, for those short hours they’d been together, because he’d made her feel like the most precious thing to walk the earth. She’d not even confessed this to Poppy and Tori, but, while the manner of their coming together was decidedly trashy and un-special, the way he’d made her feel in those moments was up there with the most memorable of her life.
Valued.
Worthy.
Equal.
Because he’d almost seen her in those moments. The real Izzy—with all her doubts and foibles and insecurities and lacklustre boobs.
And he’d wanted her anyway.
She pulled him to a halt just before they reentered the thick of the crowd and turned up to him. The sharp line of his jaw under the designer goatee cried out to be touched. Even though she couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
‘Thank you, Harry. This is really kind of you.’
His dark brows folded. ‘No. It’s good business of me, to make sure Broadmore remain the trust’s exclusive sponsor.’
Right.
No secret connection. No mythical simmering between them. He was keeping his mind firmly on business.
Had she really expected Harry to be about anything other than Broadmore’s bottom line? Or was she just a little bit deluded?
She followed him into the throng and tried to keep her mind firmly on the task at hand.
But it wasn’t easy with the words ‘Harry’ and ‘bottom’ swirling around together in her sad, smutty mind.
* * *
There was something disturbingly easy about circling a crowded room with Izzy on his arm. Not that he hadn’t circled one hundred rooms just like it with one hundred women just like her—better than her, for the most part—but, before, those hundred women had always wanted a piece of him. There had always been an agenda and he’d always known he figured centrally in their plans.
Because he was a Broadmore, and even the good ones eventually realised what the money was going to bring them.
Izzy’s only agenda was that she wanted the opportunity he was offering her this evening. And she was both open about and grateful for it. She’d more than held up her end of the deal in engaging the horde in her easy conversation, taking some of the pressure off him, and mining them to see who needed someone like her the most.
But she did more than that. All evening, she quietly helped the handshakers to put their best foot forward, prompting them with questions designed to highlight their strengths. Especially the ones who struggled the hardest; the ones totally unused to moving in these circles but doing it because it was what they needed to do to help their penguins or their heritage buildings or their trafficked children or oppressed nations. The over-or under-dressed ones with the sheen of terror dampening their foreheads. She prompted just the right discussion, asked just the right questions, steered them away from the inappropriate and generally facilitated the conversation.
She helped them shine.
For free.
And these weren’t clients. No, Izzy was helping them out because she was gentle and compassionate and kind at heart. And she didn’t like to see anyone struggle. Even the competition.
She’d accused him of kindness, too. He was a lot of things he’d happily admit to but that had never featured high in his skills sheet. How kind was it to lie through your teeth to people who would eventually find out and feel foolish at best, betrayed at worst?
He glanced at Izzy’s bright, open features and visualised them crumpled with confusion and hurt. Some tiny knife cut him inside.
Empathy, he’d have chalked it up to if he weren’t sure he had none.
‘It takes some getting used to, all that isolation. All that fruit and fish.’
The woman they were speaking to was still talking. Some island water-purification project stuck out in the Pacific or something. He forced himself to vaguely attend.
‘But a few weeks back in the hustle and bustle of home and I know it’s time to go back.’
Yeah, there it was. The shine of passion in her eyes. On the whole, people who were prepared to humble themselves like this to raise money for something or someone else were both ardent and dedicated. And he could live vicariously for days on their values.
Like a passion vampire.
He’d been passionate once.
They discussed her work for a few more moments until the woman perfectly picked up on Izzy’s subtle but strategic straightening and excused herself and moved off into the crowd. Impression left. Harry knew she’d be hoping it was favourable.
Just a shame he’d barely been listening. He’d been too focused on the smell of the woman next to him and the feel of her soft body as it occasionally brushed against his. And lost in memories of their one time together.
Like the horny, hungry teen he’d once been.
‘I hadn’t expected to get an inferiority complex tonight,’ Izzy commented once they’d insinuated themselves in the service holding pattern around the busy bar. Back home he’d have been on the VIP list and drinks would have been coming to him on a tray. With phone numbers.
Here, he queued.
Small pleasures.
She frowned, hunting for the right words. ‘They’re such devoted, good people. It’s hard not to feel inadequate.’
Really, that was what she got from tonight? Inadequacy? All he could feel was the usual sting of invisibility. Everyone here saw the chequebook but not the person holding
it. If he ran a spot quiz as people left he felt fairly certain they’d all struggle to even say what colour his hair was, let alone his name. Not because they were bad people—clearly they weren’t—but because there was something sickeningly… upstaging…about money. When it was in the room, people tended not to see anything else.
Not the charities. Not the media. Not the women.
Though any of them could probably tell him the shade of Izzy’s lipstick. She seemed to have no problem connecting with them. Cutting through the seductive haze.
That’s because she’s not holding the sacks of gold, a little voice whispered.
‘You’re good with people,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice what you were doing tonight. Helping them out, feeding them leads.’
‘Not everyone has the kind of experience needed to do well in this environment. They just need a bit of social facilitation.’
‘Well, you’re very good at it.’
She worked hard not to flush.
Wow. Had he really been so spare with compliments when he was her manager? His own body heat widened to absorb her under his skin. As if it recognised her gene code and wanted to reach out to it.
‘I have good moments.’ She turned brown eyes up to his. ‘But everything they do is so meaningful. The most meaningful thing I did this week was hold my bus for an old lady on a walker.’
‘You’d have made a good Girl Guide.’
She laughed. ‘If my parents had believed in any kind of formalised institution.’
Here it was. The moment where he either asked about her family or he didn’t. Or her school. Or her hobbies. Or her friends. It was how conversations were built. But the problem with conversations was that they were generally expected to be reciprocal. And not reciprocating was as rude as not asking in the first place.
But when the natural question after ‘tell me about your family’ was ‘tell me about yours’ and when there was nothing he could safely tell, rude was often the best option.
‘That’s the first time you’ve mentioned your parents.’ He heard the words before he even knew they were poised on his lips.
So much for rude. Seemed his subconscious had other ideas. So the best he could do now was let the caginess commence.
She glared up at him, wide-eyed and sparkling. ‘When was the right time, do you think? While I was pitching for funding or while we were having sex?’
Wow. Out-ruded on his own turf. That took some doing. So did intriguing him.
‘Sore topic, I presume?’
‘No.’ Her response was way too fast.
‘So I guess your enormous gratitude for this evening has worn off, then?’
Mental note to self: next time you’re tempted to move countries so people will treat you like a normal person, remember how normal people get treated.
‘I…no…I just—’ This time, colour flooded her very English skin and backlit freckles he’d barely known were there. ‘Okay, I’m sorry. That was probably overkill.’
He regarded her steadily and shrugged. ‘Parents suck.’
And didn’t he know it?
‘They don’t suck,’ she defended, loyalty intense in those complex brown eyes. ‘No.’
‘But?’
‘It’s hard to explain. Thom and Christine are very unique people.’
Her frown was genuinely pained. And, inexplicably, that pained him. He held up a hand before she could continue. ‘Full disclosure. I feel it’s only fair to warn you that you have no chance of winning a game of “whose parents are the most dysfunctional”.’
Stop. Dangerous ground, Broadmore…
Her dark golden hair tipped. ‘None at all?’
‘Zero.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
The speculation in her eyes screamed, but she simply turned and ordered herself a wine and him a beer—icy cold, just how he liked it—and made no attempts to continue the conversation.
He stared at the back of her pretty head as she collected their order and then stepped easily into the draught as he shepherded her with a hand at her back to a less crowded corner. Not touching, but itching to.
They sipped and crowd-watched and the whole time he waited for the inevitable.
So what makes your parents dysfunctional?
He waited.
And waited.
Izzy’s wine was half empty before he finally broke the silence. ‘Why do you call them by their first names?’
She stared at him for an age, and he wondered if she would answer at all.
‘Their choice. They felt we could be equals that way. Friends. No societal labels.’
‘But you didn’t want friends,’ he guessed.
That actually seemed to wound her. She glanced away.
‘So what did you end up calling them when you were younger?’
The safer ground brought her gaze back to his. ‘Honestly? I try to call them nothing at all. I’ve become quite accomplished at it.’
Yeah. He knew exactly what she meant. Some days when he was younger he’d have done anything to avoid using the words ‘mum’ or ‘dad’. Just so he could forget for a few minutes longer that there was any binding relationship between them at all.
The older he got, the easier it became.
‘I’m surprised they sent you to boarding school if they wouldn’t even let you join the Girl Guides.’
Sure enough her eyes snapped up to his and he answered her unspoken question honestly. ‘You met your flatmates there.’
Which was a careful—yet honest—way of not dumping Alex in it. If there was any hope at all of that pint he needed to tread carefully.
‘They didn’t send me. I went.’
‘There’s a difference?’
‘A big one. But they didn’t stop me when I won the scholarship. And for that I will always be grateful.’
As compared to…?
But the desperate edge to her slightly averted eyes told him loud and clear not to ask that. Time for a subject change, in fact.
‘So I guess your parents are where you get your slightly herbal gene from, then.’
‘My what?’
His eyes traced her body, criss-crossed in just enough snug, sheer fabric to be appropriately modest. Down at her left knee the fabric bunched and bloomed into a knotted flower. ‘Teal and rust? Very earthy colours.’
He had to give her credit for not so much as glancing down to check her outfit.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘First every man should have a suit and now teal and rust? My gaydar would be doing laps right now if not for—’
If not for the fact he’d practically fused their bodies permanently together that night?
He lifted one shoulder. ‘My sister Mags is a designer. Her place is a mess of half-assembled couture.’ He reached out and traced the seam where the two colours met from her top rib to her opposite hip. ‘I can even tell you your dress is cut on a bias.’
Brown eyes rounded, bigger and brighter than ever. But whether from astonishment at his ridiculous confession or surprise from his provocative tracing touch across her body he couldn’t tell.
‘Wow,’ she breathed. ‘File that under “things-taking-up-valuable-brain-space-that-could-be-used-for-something-else”.’
‘Tell me about it.’ He chuckled.
‘What are they like, your family?’
Clang.
Instant shutdown. Like a guillotine falling. He felt it and Izzy had a courtside seat, stumbling back unconsciously, gentle confusion glinting in those once shining eyes. But instead of coming over wounded, or gushing and apologetic, or instead of snooping further, Izzy just covered the moment with light humour.
Giving them both a graceful out.
As if she’d been apologising to others her whole life.
‘Caught me. Trying to keep you talking so I can enjoy your accent.’
All his life he’d been a name first and a person second. Women, colleagues. Even some of his academic achievements were more abou
t adding a Broadmore wing to his school than rewarding his own true efforts.
These few precious years in London were the only time he’d been normal. Just a guy. Albeit a guy who could have whatever he needed whenever he needed it.
He’d even had the crazy split-second thought that he could talk to Izzy about Mags, Carla and Katie without giving anything away. His heart pounded out the knowledge of how close he’d just come to letting part of the truth tumble off his tongue. How reckless he’d been with her. How that couldn’t happen again.
Sleep with her, yes. Reveal himself to her, no.
That wasn’t something he did.
With anyone.
He willingly took her lifebuoy. ‘Some people find our accent harsh.’
‘I find it incredibly sexy on the ear, actually.’ Her eyes met his. ‘And in it.’
He took a long swallow of beer, needing the gastric cold shower even if the alcohol was probably not conducive to keeping things wholesome. ‘Maybe that’s just the chemistry talking.’
She didn’t shy away from the comment. ‘Didn’t we exorcise it all?’
‘Not even close. We’re a regular high-school physics lab, Izzy. Or do you just fall into bed with every Tom, Dick and Harry you meet?’
She kicked up her chin. ‘Actually, you were my first Harry.’
An unfamiliar wave of unease rolled over him at the thought that there would ever be another Harry in her future. Or a Tom. Or a single, future Dick.
Wow, the stoutness of his ego apparently knew no bounds. There’d probably been half a dozen ‘others’ already. Isadora Dean was a sexy, intriguing woman. And the rest of the world wasn’t as messed up and damaged as him, nor ruined for casual sex after his amazing night with her.
Maybe he should thank her.
It gave him more time to work.
He glanced back at the thronging crowd and saw a couple of furtive glances in his direction. And nothing to do with sex. If they stayed here they’d only stray into ever more dangerous territory, anyway. It was bad enough almost letting himself discuss his sisters without also going all verbal foreplay on her.
He’d broken a bunch of his own rules here tonight. Time to get back in the game.
He placed the half-empty drink on the nearest table and tossed his head towards the crowd.