Mr. Temptation. Rachael Stewart
he was the reason she’d had to leave in the first place. That she’d been the one who had worked twenty-four-seven to make it the success it had become. The success it still was, only now it was his baby, he was the one reaping all the benefit.
‘Very true,’ he said smoothly, his composure back so swiftly she’d probably imagined the crack—it was too much to hope for after all. ‘But, you know, my client now, of course.’
She clenched her fist around the phone, his smarmy tone and gibe making her want to hurl. The sooner she could have him off the line, the better. ‘I’ll dig it out and send it on, good—’
‘Wait, there’s something else...’
She halted midway through hanging up, the skin at the back of her neck prickling as her memory bank came alive. She knew that tone, knew it meant some big revelation or other. Wasn’t it just how he’d sounded when he’d finally been forced to admit all his extra-curricular activities?
‘What is it?’ She asked the question even though every instinct told her she didn’t want to know. The awkward cough he gave only confirming it. ‘Charles, spit it out, I don’t have all day.’
‘I’m getting married.’
The air caught in her lungs, ice seeping through her veins. Of all the things she could have imagined it being, it certainly wasn’t that.
The great bachelor, Charles Eddison, finally getting hitched. Five years and he’d failed to make an honest woman of her. She’d loved him with all of her being and yet it hadn’t been enough. And now, one year after their break-up, someone had managed to do it, someone had been special enough...
It just hadn’t been me.
* * *
‘Easy, liten syster,’ Daniel said into his mobile as he pressed the button for the lift to her floor. ‘I’m here now.’
‘Less of the little,’ she snapped, her irritation making her London accent revert to her Swedish lilt and making him grin. ‘Or I’ll start calling you Danny.’
He gave a mock shudder. ‘Quit the strop, then.’
Someone swept up behind him, a scent wrapping around him, vanilla twisted up in something so enticing he was damned if he could place it, and his eyes swerved of their own accord.
‘Strop! You were supposed to be here half an...’
His sister’s voice trailed away into the distance, his sight landing on the woman whose interesting scent had nothing on the visual. He felt his mouth quirk, his interest instant. She was beautiful, in an unusual, edgy kind of way. So not his type, a definite ‘no’ on paper, but when presented with the physical, she was all kinds of yes...
She faced the lift, waiting just as he was, one purple stiletto tapping impatiently, her body encased in a fitted black trouser suit, a leather-clad portfolio hooked under one arm, all quite usual but—
‘Are you listening to me, Dann-eee?’
‘Sure, I’ll be right up,’ he said distractedly, cutting the call and pocketing the device.
It was her hair that fascinated him: cropped to her ears, the reddish-brown mass was parted high to one side, windswept almost. And then there was her make-up, neutral save for the liner around her eyes and the bold lip colour—was that purple?
His gaze narrowed over it and she must have sensed his attention, her eyes flickering in his direction. ‘You know, it’s rude to stare.’
Her voice was husky, a crisp edge that rasped along his spine and sealed her appeal. He was hooked.
Her eyes were back on the doors, her lack of interest obvious. He should’ve taken it as a sign, but since when had he backed off from anything he fancied? In truth, her lack of interest only added to the appeal.
‘Rude?’ he said, raising his brow. ‘I’ve been called many things before—arrogant, reckless, even an arsehole—but rude, not had that one yet.’
Her mouth twitched but she didn’t turn to look at him, the ping of the lift arriving serving as a temporary interruption.
The doors opened and he gestured for her to precede him. ‘See, I’m not entirely rude.’
She looked to him then, her silver-grey eyes sparkling and those bold-coloured lips lifting into a smile that momentarily gutted him. Jesus, she was hot. The bow-like shape stretching and still the lower lip was full—swollen, even—almost as though it had just been thoroughly devoured.
Maybe she’d had to reapply that colour after it had been rubbed clean away. Oh, to be the cause of that little misdemeanour.
‘Thank you.’
It took a second to realise she had spoken, to realise he was staring all over again, and then sanity returned. ‘You’re welcome—which floor?’
He pressed the number for his sister and her thick black lashes lowered to trace his move. ‘The same.’
He nodded and came to stand beside her. The lift closed and together they stood, the silence heavy and loaded—at least to him.
Did she know who he was? Anyone with one eye on the media knew who he was: the sexy, Swedish billionaire who stuck one finger up to his celebrity roots and made it in the real world—the business world—the playboy who liked his women plentiful and hot, and always without strings.
That was pretty much how the article had summed him up that morning before really crucifying him.
Hell, maybe she knew exactly who he was and what he was like, hence her lack of interest.
If that was the case, she definitely wasn’t his type.
Not at all.
Liar...
Okay, so maybe it was time to break with tradition.
* * *
Did he have to be heading to the same floor?
She’d had enough of arrogant arseholes for one day and here she was stuck in a lift with a self-professed one. She couldn’t deny he’d amused her with his honesty and self-deprecating introduction though.
But he was trouble.
He wasn’t like Charles. He wasn’t smooth and perfect, clean-shaven and pristine.
No, this man was all about the stubble and the bedhead hair; a sun-kissed surfer plucked from the ocean, jazzed up and dumped in the city. The jeans and sweatshirt hugging his imposing frame looked laid-back but they screamed designer from top to toe. And the way he had her pulse tripping over itself, he was just as dangerous. On every level.
‘Now you know so much about me,’ he suddenly said, his accent thick and exciting her far more than was fair, ‘how about you let me take you for a drink?’
She almost swallowed her tongue, the portfolio digging into her side as she turned rigid. ‘I’m busy.’
‘Not right this second,’ he said, his amber eyes twinkling with amusement and holding her own. ‘But at a mutually agreeable time, of course?’
Of course. She mentally rolled her eyes. Would he just get the hint?
Her resolve was good, but she wasn’t immune. She could feel the temptation well enough and the sooner she got free of it, the better. She dragged her eyes away, forcing them on the intricate pattern twisting through the gold lift door ahead. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Care to tell me why?’
Because I’m not a fool. ‘I know you.’
The lift announced the arrival of their floor and he spoke over it. ‘You do?’
‘Obviously not you exactly,’