Her Knight Under The Mistletoe. Annie O'Neil
Once Tristan had got the knack of sleeping through the night she’d started picking up shifts here and there, without bothering to take part in the “let’s meet for a drink” charade. Why should she when her number one priority was her son?
Work. Parenting. That was all she had time for. Before that it had just been work. And before that...
She screwed her eyes tight and pressed her fingers to them, as if it would squish the memories away. Before that nothing.
She gave herself a quick shake and pasted on her smile. Another laugh sounded from the room, chased up with more rapid-fire male conversation she couldn’t make out through the thick door.
Suddenly exhausted at the idea of going through the mockery of this “interview,” Amanda was sorely tempted to lean in, scratch her name out in Deena’s appointment book and scarper when the door handle turned and the door opened. Two men emerged, shaking hands, clapping each other on the shoulder as if in congratulations of some sort of excellent deal made.
She didn’t stand a chance in—
“Hell.”
Amanda’s fingers flew to her mouth. She was shocked the word had escaped her lips. Her lungs ached for air as an atom bomb of emotion detonated in her chest. And just as abruptly everything stopped. The roar of blood between her ears. The blurred vision. Her heartbeat.
Nature’s way of allowing the rest of her body to process seeing the one man who had proved to her that life was still worth living. The one man who had changed everything.
Matthew Chase.
Her tongue instinctively swiped at her lips. Even from a distance she could taste him as if it was yesterday.
One part sweet to one part salty. Vintage champagne and top-of-the-line caviar, if she remembered correctly. And she had an excellent memory. Besides, her parents never threw a party that swung anywhere close to below the top line.
The third part of his taste...the spice...that had been pure, unchecked desire.
Dark hair and bright blue eyes were a personal weakness for her, and on that early spring night she had wanted more than anything to succumb. To slide her fingers into the dark silky hair just threatening to turn into curls around his shirt collar. To spend unchecked minutes gazing into his sapphire-bright eyes, trying to divine what stories might lie in the kaleidoscope of blue that lay within them.
To feel anything. She’d been numb for so long she’d hardly known what to do with herself.
Matthew Chase had been the first person to remind her of the spark buried so deep in her heart she’d all but forgotten it had ever existed.
Amanda could feel Deena’s curious gaze on her now. And Dr. Menzies’s. But she still couldn’t move. She was a deer caught in the headlights of the one powerhouse of energy and seduction she had never expected to lay eyes on again.
Matthew’s scent—aura, more like—was another thing altogether. And when he took a step toward her there was a swirl of... How on earth did he smell like a Nordic woodsman peeling a blood orange in the center of London? In a hospital, no less?
It was all she could do to keep her knees doing their job.
The heat blazing from his bright blue eyes struck her like bolts of lightning. This meeting was obviously as unexpected to him as it was to her.
A one-night stand.
That was all it was ever meant to have been.
It was all it had been for him.
But...
If she closed her eyes Amanda knew flashes of that night would come back to her so vividly it would be like living it all over again.
He’d seen her first. She’d known that because she’d felt his gaze on her from across the room as intensely as she was feeling it now. He hadn’t just looked. His gaze had felt...tactile. As if he had already been undressing her. And when their eyes had met...
Fireworks.
One of those hits of recognition some people waited a lifetime for and never had. She had known that having it that night was a lifeline. A sign from above—or wherever signs come from—that she shouldn’t give up. Not just yet.
She cleared her throat as Matthew closed the distance between them with another long-legged step. The whorls of heat in her chest turned into protective bars of steel. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—know about what had also happened that night.
She’d overheard enough of his cocktail party chitchat to know he was a tried and true bachelor. A determined playboy, if his one-liners were anything to go by. A committed army doctor if the newspaper headlines were to be believed. Or had he recently been decommissioned? Given himself over to the finer things in life?
She gave herself a sharp shake. Playboy or not, if he was the one threatening to take the job she rightfully deserved she was going to have play her A-game.
This was her job. She hadn’t sat through countless interviews and buttoned herself into this ridiculous suit heaven knew how many times just to let it go without a fight.
“You two have met?” Dr. Menzies stepped between the pair of them, throwing anxious looks first at Amanda and then at Matthew.
Amanda realized that both she and Matthew had slowly been advancing on each other—as natural predators would. Cheetah vs panther? Or tiger vs lion? She’d like to think of herself as the lioness in this scenario. Ready with a killer hairdo and a roar that would knock anyone for six if they were brave enough to stick around and listen.
“Not formally,” Amanda answered, quirking an eyebrow in Matthew’s direction but turning on a hundred-watt smile and reaching out a hand to Dr. Menzies. “You must be Donald Menzies?”
IT TOOK ALL of the power in Matthew’s charm arsenal to hold back a full-bodied guffaw at the Ice Queen’s response.
Not formally?
True, he’d never learnt her name. Nor had he bothered to give her his.
But the night had been formal, all right. One of a score of similar black tie affairs he’d attended two years ago, nearly three, all aimed at making the Support our Soldiers House in Sussex a reality.
After his father had died, and his mother had high-tailed it to Australia, turning the place into a rehab facility had meant the faux-Georgian mansion would be good for something. Living in it certainly wasn’t.
“We met at...” He paused, drumming his fingers along his chin, feigning having to think about it.
He knew damn well where he’d met her, and how long it had taken before he had been holding her in his arms without a stitch of clothing between them. He also knew that every woman since hadn’t so much as shone a light on her. Not that there had been many. One night with the Ice Queen had changed his standards.
“A charity event, wasn’t it?” she prompted drily, tucking a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear before switching that diamond-bright smile back to Dr. Menzies. “Excellent places to meet like-minded people.”
“For Support our Soldiers?” Dr. Menzies asked, then continued apologetically, “Of course you would already know that Matthew founded the charity if you were at one of his events.”
Matthew was certain he was the only one reading the flutter of blinks masking Amanda’s hazel eyes as the reaction of a woman caught off guard and quickly rebuilding her house of cards.
“It’s an excellent charity,” she answered smoothly. “And I have quite a few ideas about how the SoS wing here and the A&E team could really benefit by being in the same facility.”
Matthew stifled another chuckle before a stark blaze of understanding