Kitabı oku: «The Dare Collection: February 2018»

CHAPTER ONE

OLIVIA NOBLE WALKED behind the elderly professor, passing through the chrome-and-glass doors etched with the name of the swanky restaurant on the thirty-first floor of The Shard, London’s tallest building. Her belly, jittery enough from the long, hair-raising elevator ride, flipped at the panoramic views dotted with the city’s iconic landmarks. As a native New Yorker she accepted gravity-defying skyscrapers as part of life, but she avoided ones of this magnitude wherever possible.

‘Ah, the others are still at the bar.’

Professor McBride gestured Libby ahead of him, towards the party of suits. Libby’s legs wobbled on her four-inch heels as she crossed the plush carpet, trying to master the hold adrenaline had on her body. Her poor adrenal glands were wrung dry. This sophisticated, elegant restaurant might as well have been a roadside diner for all she noticed.

Head of her own marketing business in New York, she was used to public speaking. That didn’t mean she enjoyed it, or that nerves hadn’t gripped her for the whole forty-minute presentation she’d given this morning at the London Business School. In fact, she’d been blown away when invited to speak at such a prestigious seminar, unaware that anyone across the pond had even heard of her small up-and-coming company.

The rest of the speakers were clustered at the bar, forming small huddles, deep in conversation. Several glanced up as Libby and Professor McBride approached—faces she recognised from the seminar, and one face in particular that demanded more than a fair share of her attention. A face that was hard to ignore.

Alex Lancaster.

His stare lifted from the conversation taking place before him, settling on her over the tops of the heads separating them and practically stripping her bare. A shiver originated in her ovaries and snaked south to join the wobble in her legs. Those eyes… The intensity with which they pierced the recipient of his undivided attention…

Wow. Close up he was… Wow. A movie-star bad boy, a gentleman rogue and a geeky surfer dude all rolled into one mouthwatering package. Not that he had much of the surfer dude on display at the moment, attired as he was in a tailored three-piece suit that had probably cost more than the annual mortgage payment on her modest six-hundred-square-foot apartment. The only nod to his wilder side was the slightly dishevelled flop of dark hair, which looked as if it refused to be tamed, no matter what he did.

Libby clenched her thighs together, her twitchy fingers gripping her bag.

‘Glass of wine, my dear?’ Professor McBride asked.

Libby nodded, her eyes hot as she stared back at Alex Lancaster for longer than was polite or wise. Likely she was not the only woman in the room who found that staring at this disarmingly attractive specimen of manhood pushed semipornographic visions into her head.

She rolled her shoulders and looked away, blinking the burn from her eyes. A snort gusted over her top lip. Who was she kidding? Her thoughts veered firmly towards the absolutely pornographic where he was concerned. She tugged at the hem of her tailored jacket. Time to get her head back in the game.

She was a professional, a well-respected member of the business community who owned her own successful marketing business—credentials that had prompted her invitation to London to speak at the ‘Inspiring Business Leaders of the Future’ seminar.

She darted her attention back to Professor McBride and his lengthy introductions to those closest, all the while willing her greedy eyes to stay away from the lure of Mr Lancaster, the only other person close to her age in the group.

Libby zoned out of the tedious conversation, discreetly blowing through pursed lips and lifting wisps of escaped hair from her too-warm face. How could that man have such a profound effect on her? Perhaps her PA was right, and she did need a ‘good seeing to’. She’d have to give the perceptive Scotsman a raise, or finally sign up to that dating app he kept shoving in front of her.

Mmm…maybe not.

Fickle thoughts drifted back to the smokin’ billionaire across the restaurant. Forget swiping left or right. She could just swipe him out of that suit, tangle her fingers in that too-long hair while she directed his smart, arrogant head south… The dark scruff covering his angular face scraping across her sensitive inner thighs…

Whew! Potent stuff. There must be something in the English water—it was the only explanation for her train of thought.

She cleared her perilously tight throat, yanking her mind out of the gutter, her gaze from the toes of her favourite shoes and her attention back to the drone of Professor McBride’s voice.

‘…and this is Alex Lancaster, one of our former golden boys, university benefactor and the major sponsor of today’s seminar—although I’m sure he needs no introduction.’

Professor McBride’s ass-kissing drawled to a close as his attention was requested by a university faculty member with a penchant for purple highlights and matching purple accessories.

Before she could mentally prepare herself for the close-up impact of his dazzling good looks, Alex had enclosed Libby’s hand in his larger one, setting off a cascade of tingles; little flicks of flame dancing along her wrist and raising the hairs on her arm.

Damn…

Smokin’ was an insult. Brains, business acumen and indecent levels of sex appeal—Alex Lancaster had certainly won the genetic lottery.

And of course she knew of him. Everyone knew of him. Besides, she’d done her research prior to flying in yesterday. One of Britain’s youngest billionaires, he wasn’t the richest, but his reputation for intuitive, if not somewhat reckless, business decisions was surpassed only by his brooding charisma and the dazzling smile that somehow managed to appeal to women of all ages.

Perhaps it was the single dimple in his cheek—simultaneously boyish and wicked. Or the incredible expressive eyes the colour of burnt sugar that regularly stared out from the glossy magazine covers he graced. Either way, he was utterly disarming. So much so that her voice completely deserted her—no doubt it was attending the ‘Get Alex Lancaster Naked’ rally being hosted by her libido and sponsored by her erogenous zones.

‘Ms Noble. Great talk.’

His mouth kicked up, unleashing the full force of that dimple. Damn, that smile could melt the underwear clean off her body. And his voice: smoky…rich bourbon in a cut-glass tumbler.

Her sharp, tight-fitting suit—her signature outfit—transformed into a straitjacket. It was the only explanation for the hot flush misting her skin and the prickle of every tiny hair covering her body.

‘Nice to meet you, Mr Lancaster.’

Libby pulled her hand from his. Not that the move offered relief from the inferno engulfing her. He was too close. Too virile. Too everything.

Get a grip, Libby. He’s just another suit.

Right—if by ‘suit’ she meant a walking advertisement for ‘Hot Boardroom Dudes’. Perhaps he could start an internet craze. She’d be the first to sign up.

‘You deserve every scrap of your reputation.’ He rubbed his knuckles over one lightly stubbled cheek, his dark gaze sparkling.

Libby’s missing-in-action tongue returned to her mouth. ‘Well, that’s a rare talent, Mr Lancaster—one that the gossip rags and business pages fail to credit you with.’

Libby wiped her palm along the length of her skirt, her body half turned away from him so he wouldn’t see the gesture that gave away the effect he had on her. The thought of this man’s focus honed on her, even simply her online business profile, shunted heat to the most inconvenient places.

At his small frown, she continued. ‘Perfectly disguising an insult within a compliment.’

She glanced over his shoulder, raising her eyebrows in acknowledgement of someone she recognised as she made to bypass him.

‘Excuse me.’

Arrogant, sexy…

He laughed. A head-thrown-back bellow that forced more gold flecks into the burnt caramel of his irises.

A waiter blocked Libby’s escape route with the delivery of her Pinot Gris, the elegant wine glass glistening with condensation. She bestowed her politest smile on the handsome waiter, still preparing to walk away from the charismatic jerk before her. Even if he was pleasing on the eye and the six-foot-three embodiment of most women’s filthiest fantasises. Fantasies she’d never imagined until she’d slid her eyes over Mr Testosterone there.

‘Forgive me…’ His hand on her arm stilled her. ‘What I should have said is that yours was by far the most entertaining of the lectures given this morning. I’ve heard of your work. I’m a businessman and I keep abreast of international business news.’

His mouth caressed the lip of his own wine glass, and he held her gaze over the rim, a mix of devilment and challenge warring for control in his slightly narrowed, sinfully provocative stare.

His hand, still on her arm, burned a hole through the fine wool of her favourite jacket. Large, tanned, with a sprinkling of dark hair smattering the wrist that poked from the cuff of his expensive linen shirt. Slight calluses marred the perfection of his long, elegant fingers, and she glimpsed clean square nails before he withdrew.