The Most Expensive Night of Her Life

by Amy Andrews

  Ava shrugged. ‘You get used to it.’

  Blake shuddered. ‘I couldn’t live like that, with every minute of my life on show, a camera in my face.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Ava said, swivelling the chair to face him as the segment finished and the anchor starting talking about a string of break and enters. ‘I’ve had a camera in my face since I was fourteen so...’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘You just make boundaries,’ she said. ‘Outside I’m public property, inside I’m off-limits.’

  Blake thought that sounded like a fairly limited right to privacy. ‘But aren’t there days you just want to tell them to—?’ He stopped himself short of the phrase he would have used had it been him and Charlie talking.

  ‘Do something anatomically impossible to themselves?’ she suggested.

  Blake chuckled. ‘Yes.’

  Ava sighed. The sort of life she led was hard for everyday people to understand. ‘I have to court them, Blake. I’m twenty-seven years old. That’s bloody ancient in the circles I move in. And I’m getting older every day. The paparazzi, the press...they keep me current, keep me in the hearts and minds of people. Good press, good image equals strong interest. One day soon the interest, the jobs, will dry up but until then Reggie says the paps can make you or break you.’

  Blake snorted. ‘Your agent is a shark.’

  ‘Yeh.’ She grinned. ‘That’s why I hire him. Someone who’s sole job it is in life to look after my career. He does it well. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.’

  Blake rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, please, you make him sound like he’s some saint doing it out of the goodness of his heart. I’m sure he’s being more than adequately compensated.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she confirmed as she absently traced the hem of her gown where it draped against her thigh with her index finger. ‘He’s doing it for his fifteen per cent. But at least that’s an honest business transaction. Telling the difference was a very hard-earned lesson for me.’

  Blake heard the sudden steel in her voice and was reminded again that for all her privilege Ava hadn’t exactly had it easy. His gaze dropped to where her finger was doodling patterns on her hemline. With her legs tucked up under her, the gown had ridden up some more until it was sitting high on her thighs. It covered what it needed with a little to spare but that still left a whole lot of long, golden leg on display.

  Legs he’d managed not to look at or think about for three months. Legs that he was fast developing a fascination with.

  She looked at him then and he dragged his gaze back to her face with difficulty. ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do after?’ It was the first thing that came into his head that didn’t involve her legs. ‘When the jobs dry up?’

  She shook her head as her finger stroked and swirled.

  ‘Not really. I won’t have to do anything. I’m financially secure. I have the perfume line I’m launching and Reggie’s always fielding offers from media and fashion to keep me busy. But I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’ve been modelling since I was fourteen...I honestly don’t really know anything else.’

  Her finger stopped tracing as she looked at him speculatively. ‘What about you? Did you have some exit strategy for leaving the army?’ Her gaze dropped to his leg then back to his face again. ‘Were you...prepared?’

  Blake grunted. ‘No.’ Certainly not prepared for the way he’d left. ‘I was a career soldier. Never thought about getting out.’

  Something shimmered in her eyes that looked a lot like connection as she lazily swivelled the chair back and forth. He couldn’t remember ever having a conversation with a woman like this—apart from his shrink. Ever really wanting to—including his shrink.

  He hated those conversations.

  But, for some reason, it felt as if Ava was in a unique position to truly understand—looking down the barrel of shortened career prospects.

  ‘What did you do?’ she asked.

  Blake looked down at his left leg. ‘Spent a load of time in hospitals of one description or another.’ High-dependency wards, surgical wards, rehab wards. Surgeon’s offices, prosthetic offices, shrink’s offices.

  He could feel the intensity of her gaze on his face as he stared at his leg. Feel it like an invisible bloom of heat swelling in his peripheral vision.

  ‘I meant after that...?’

  She said it so softly, Blake had to turn his head to catch it. A mistake. Her finger had stopped its hypnotic path but her gown clung, her hair was now dry, her mouth was soft and, for some inexplicable reason—maybe it was sharing last night’s frightening episode—he felt he could talk to her. He’d spent three months avoiding it. Avoiding talking to her about anything other than the reno and her haughty demands.

  But she seemed different now. Vulnerable, stripped back, human. Like a woman. Not a brand.

  ‘Well, let me see...I spent the first six months with my head up my arse feeling sorry for myself, consuming large amounts of alcohol and pissing off just about everybody who knew and loved me.’ He grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t recommend you do that.’

  Ava smiled. ‘Check.’

  ‘Then I got a phone call—’ He stopped himself before he went any further.

  He’d only ever told the shrink this stuff. And while he felt some weird kind of kinship with her he just couldn’t go there. Prior to last night he’d been hard put sharing with her something as basic as his relationship with Joanna. Now, twenty-four hours later he was ready to spill his guts?

  It was confusing and he didn’t like it.

  He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Let’s just say I got some...news—’ news that had shocked him to the core ‘—and I realised that there were worse things than having one leg and that it was time to stop acting like the only person in the world who’d ever had something bad happen to them and get on with it.’

  ‘And that’s when you and Charlie formed the company?’

  ‘No.’ Blake shook his head. ‘That’s when I bought this boat.’ He looked around the interior. ‘I spent a year fixing her up. Stripping her right back and rebuilding her from the hull up.’

  He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Manual work can be quite therapeutic.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ An image of Blake in a tool belt as he’d worked on her kitchen bench rose in her mind. Would he have taken his shirt off when he’d been working in the hull of the boat?

  He nodded. ‘Lots of things to tear down and rip out. Lots of pounding and hammering and loud noisy power tools.’

  Ava laughed at the note of relish in his voice. ‘Be still my beating heart.’

  Blake found himself laughing too. ‘It’s a guy thing.’

  ‘I’m guessing.’ She grinned. ‘So...your brother saw what a great job you’d done here and you decided to start the company?’

  ‘No. It evolved out of another company, that Charlie had started five years before that. I was doing some labouring for him in between doing up the boat.’ He paused. ‘Charlie and Joanna were determined to keep me busy...’ He grimaced. ‘And then, because I have an engineering background, I helped out with some design things and the company was really starting to take off, but it needed a cash injection to get across the line so he offered me a partnership.’

  Ava let it all sink in. So not only was he a war hero but he was an engineer who could design stuff and was so good with his hands he could make his own designs too.

  Clearly, he had plenty to fall back on.

  ‘Wow.’ She blinked. ‘Somehow, despite what most would call an exceedingly successful life, you’ve just made me feel completely inadequate. All I know how to do is wear clothes.’

  Blake chuckled at her blatant self-deprecation. ‘Hey.’ He smiled. ‘People need clothes.’

  She shot him a quelling look. They both knew people didn’t
need clothes a person had to earn six figures to afford. ‘I’m going to be totally screwed when the next big thing pushes me off my pedestal.’

  Blake laughed again. There was something very sexy about profanity coming from her posh mouth. ‘Don’t be discouraged. I hear they love ex-celebrities for those reality television shows the world can’t seem to get enough of.’

  Ava shuddered. ‘No, thanks. I’m not going on any bug-infested island where I have to pee in a hole in the ground and build my own shelter.’ She took in his big broad shoulders and those capable hands. ‘Not without you anyway.’ Although now the idea was out there it might be worth it to watch Blake in his natural element. Maybe with his shirt off?

  A soft fizz warmed her belly as her gaze made it back to his face. ‘Sorry.’ She lifted and dropped a shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘I just can’t imagine me there, can you?’

  Blake sobered as he followed the movement and the ripple effect it had across her chest. Her breasts jiggled slightly, the fabric clinging to them moulded the movement to perfection. He tore his gaze away, met her knowing eyes.

  Crap.

  ‘Before today, no,’ he said, ploughing on, determined not to acknowledge either his perving or her awareness of it. ‘But I’ve been impressed with how very unpretentious you’ve been today. There’s been no hissy fit over the cut on your face or hand. No hysteria about career-ending scars. No sitting on your butt expecting to be waited on. You got in and helped and—’ his gaze flicked briefly to her legs then back again ‘—current attire excepted, you disguised yourself just as I asked. I know bagging up couldn’t have been easy for you, but you did and you were very generous about it.’

  Pleasure at his praise flooded warmth through her system and heat to areas where pleasure meant an entirely different thing. She wasn’t sure why his praise meant anything to her. She lived in a world that sung her praises daily—and she pretty much took that for granted. She certainly wasn’t looking for more. Certainly not from him.

  Maybe it was because he’d been so hard to engage during those three months he’d spent at her house? Ava was used to male attention, hell, she loved male attention and generally took it as her due. But there’d been a very definite line between them that he’d drawn in thick black marker.

  Nothing personal had crossed between them.

  He’d been polite and respectful, prompt with her queries and had kept his eyes firmly trained on her face. He’d been one hundred per cent professional, resisting slipping into an easier, more casual relationship she’d tried to establish.

  Always holding himself back.

  She hadn’t been able to break through his reserve. And that had been frustrating, galling and intriguing all at once.

  But these last twenty-four hours had seen that line disappear. And here he was actually praising her.

  Even checking her out.

  She wondered how much further she could take it. It could be fun to find out, to push him a little. Discover his buttons. They were both adults and the night was theirs. She smiled at him as she stroked her palm down her neck to her chest, three fingers finding their way under the lapel of the gown.

  ‘It’s a lot easier to be baggy on the outside when you’re spoiling yourself underneath it all and there’s nothing quite like sexy underwear to make you feel sexy all over no matter what you’re wearing,’ she said.

  Blake frowned. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

  ‘Joanna agreed,’ Ava added. ‘She didn’t think I should have to let myself go altogether.’

  ‘I bet she did,’ he said. His sister was always on some mission to set him up. But Ava freaking Kelly was way out of his league.

  She ought to know he’d had enough drama in his life without inviting a diva in.

  ‘And,’ Ava continued, ‘I have to say, she has a real eye for classy lingerie. Not that I have any of it on right now.’

  Blake tried and failed not to follow the stroke of her fingers as they played with the lapel. Her fingers rubbed along the edge of the fabric, lifting it slightly, exposing a little more flesh to his view.

  The air grew thick between them and Ava sensed that the time was ripe to make a move. It didn’t faze her. She knew what she wanted and she had the confidence to go after it.

  Some people called that bold. She called it decisive.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, her gaze firmly trained on his face, ‘about the sleeping arrangements tonight.’

  She stopped. Waited. He wasn’t objecting. Wasn’t bolting. He was watching, intently, his eyes on her hand.

  ‘I don’t think it’s fair that you should give up your bed for me again and so I thought...maybe we could...share...?’

  Those words finally did the trick, dragging Blake’s head back from the edge and his eyes back from her cleavage.

  Was she...propositioning him?

  ‘You mean...you lie on one side with your head at the top and I lie on the other with my head at the bottom and we both get a good night’s sleep?’

  Ava shook her head. ‘Nope.’

  The secret little smile playing at the edges of her mouth, the way she looked down her nose at him with blatant sexual interest, did strange things to Blake’s equilibrium. It was just as well he was sitting down.

  She was propositioning him.

  There was nothing touch-me-not about this Ava. This Ava was very, very touchable.

  Blake’s heart rate slowed right down in his chest as blood rushed south. His brain might be saying no but other parts of him weren’t listening. Ava Kelly was trouble with a capital T. And he’d had more than enough trouble to last him a lifetime. Being a supermodel’s plaything for a night or two might be every man’s wet dream but his doom receptors were working overtime.

  ‘I...don’t think that would be such a good idea,’ he said.

  Ava blinked. Not the response she was used to. Frankly she thought it was the best idea she’d had in a long time. But Blake had spent three months keeping his distance and she already knew he was the strong, serious, cautious type.

  Well, she didn’t get to the top of her game by taking no for an answer and she sure as hell wasn’t going to tonight either.

  ‘Okay.’ She placed her coffee mug on the coffee table and stood. She walked the three paces that separated their chairs until the outside of her right thigh was brushing the outside of his. She looked down at him.

  ‘I know this isn’t what we planned. And I know this isn’t the kind of relationship you and I have had to this point. But I’m just going to put this out there.’

  Ava’s pulse fluttered madly and her breathing sped up as she lifted her right leg to step over his thighs, placing them between her legs. He shifted in his chair and she shut her eyes briefly as the denim scraped erotically against the sensitive inner flesh of her bare thighs.

  When she opened them again his indigo gaze was staring straight at the knot of her belt as if he was trying to undo it through mind power alone. Heat flared behind her belly button and tingled at the juncture of her thighs.

  ‘I’m attracted to you, Blake,’ she said. ‘I think you’re attracted to me. We have tonight...maybe a few nights on this boat together and we’re both adults. I’m just saying...we could have some fun. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, right?’

  Right. Blake knew she was right. He had no problems with two consenting adults having a little fun together. He used to indulge in quite a lot of fun before the explosion. But since...

  Sure, there’d been women but fun didn’t really fit into his vocabulary these days. Sex was a lot of things—communication, connection, stress relief. An activity engaged in to relieve a build-up of testosterone.

  Pleasurable. Enjoyable. Necessary. But not fun.

  Because having fun felt wrong.

  ‘Blake?’


  He was still staring at that knot and she could tell he was teetering on the edge. She reached for it then, slowly worked at it with fingers that shook just a little until it slid loose and the belt fell to her sides. The two front edges of the gown slid over each other parting slightly.

  She was still covered—barely.

  Blake swallowed against a throat that felt as dry as the desert. His erection surged against his jeans and the urge to open her gown, to see more than a glimpse of cleavage, thrummed through his system like the steady backbeat of a tropical downpour. He glanced up at her to tell her to step away but her cat eyes looked back at him, her mouth parted.

  He sucked in a breath and curled his fingers into the lounge beside him. ‘Hell, Ava.’

  Ava felt dizzy from the longing in his low husky growl and she squeezed her legs hard against his to stay grounded.

  ‘I’ve shocked you, haven’t I? I’m sorry. Not very ladylike I guess. I’ve always been a little too forthright for my own good.’

  Blake snorted as her posh ladylike voice made excuses for her brazen proposal. In the grand scheme of shocking, it barely rated as a blip. ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse for ladylike,’ he growled.

  He liked a woman between the sheets, not some snooty lady who was worried about getting her hair messed up.

  Ava might talk a little on the posh side and have that haughty little look of hers well rehearsed but her frank proposition, the way she’d thrown her leg over him just now, the sureness of her fingers as she’d undone her belt, told him she was no lady in the bedroom.

  ‘Well, okay then,’ Ava said, smiling down at him. Their gazes locked and she waited for him to reach for her, to make the first move. Or the next one, anyway. But she could still see a glimmer of that famous reserve, that wariness in his eyes.

  Surely he wasn’t...intimidated? Blake didn’t strike her as the kind of guy that needed his hand held, but if that was what was required...