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‘Of course.’
As Stephanie stepped back Tara looked too happy for comfort.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Tara added meaningfully.
‘You will check, though? In person?’
‘Trust me.’ Tara leaned forward and wrapped Stephanie in another quick hug. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ She stage whispered, ‘It’s only a couple of hours. Go enjoy yourself.’
How was she supposed to enjoy herself with the wolf?
And yet there was a tightening in her body, as if her muscles had sharpened and her skin had shrunk. As if she was preparing for something.
Anticipation.
She hadn’t felt it in such a long time. Hadn’t looked forward to anything in so long. She was looking forward to negotiating with this man—to taking what she wanted from him. She was going to secure this deal, for all his initial disapproval.
‘Bye, Jack. Nice to meet you.’ Tara waved and practically skipped back into the hotel.
Jack walked around to the driver’s door.
‘You know we drive on the left side of the road here?’ Stephanie muttered grimly.
‘I’m aware of that.’ He got into the car and slung his briefcase on the back seat.
By the time she got into the passenger seat he already had his seatbelt fastened and was sliding his hands over the steering wheel, getting the feel of the vintage beauty.
‘You’re sure you don’t want me to drive?’ Stephanie wasn’t sure she could cope with sitting so near to him. He seemed bigger, somehow.
His answering smile was not innocent.
Stephanie ignored the traitorous warmth invading her body. She could not be attracted to someone so arrogant. ‘You don’t want to have to listen to me issue directions all the time.’
‘We’ll get to where we want to be more quickly without directions.’
Without directions? ‘You don’t know where I’m going to take you.’
‘But I know exactly where I want to go.’
She pressed her lips together, understanding. He’d been to Melbourne before. He had somewhere he wanted to go. So he’d hijacked her abduction plan.
‘You don’t like ceding control? Always have to be in charge of the destination? Hence your need to write travel guides telling people the best way to get to the best place to go?’
She shouldn’t have said that—Steffi Leigh was supposed to be too sweet to get snippy.
‘You’re the one dictating what colour gelato people should eat to look “effortlessly cool”,’ he mocked. ‘As if flavour doesn’t matter.’
‘You have it wrong. Taste is everything.’
‘Is it?’ His lips curved. ‘What do you suggest I taste?’
She was not responding to the suggestion in that question. She was ignoring it altogether. ‘And there was me thinking that the Wolfe way was to take the route less travelled—to put yourself in the care of the locals…’ Coolly she spouted his own travel tips at him.
‘You want to take care of me?’ He laughed.
That genuine sound surprised her into silence. He was a different man from the one she’d first laid eyes on. Had she dreamt the terse way he’d spoken into the phone and that bleak expression? And then that naked hostility? Because now he was all charm.
He turned the key and the car purred. Slowly he pulled out into the lane of traffic.
‘Who’s Dan?’ he asked.
She gritted her teeth, holding back the What business is it of yours? bite that had leapt to her throat. ‘My cat.’
‘Cat…?’ he echoed. His eyes narrowed on the road ahead. ‘You don’t look like a cat lady. I’d have thought you’d be a handbag dog diva.’
‘So last decade,’ she murmured. ‘And you know I live to subvert your stereotypical assumptions about vapid creatures like me.’
‘I never said you were vapid.’
‘You didn’t have to. It was all in the look.’
‘Look?’
‘The look you sent me when I first arrived.’
‘How did I look at you?’
‘Like you couldn’t believe you were going to have to sit through a boring business meeting with a brainless piece of fluff like me.’
He pulled up at a red light and turned to meet her eyes. ‘How am I looking at you now?’
Meeting his eyes, she couldn’t think at all. Then she remembered his contortionist comment and his taste comment and saw the unrestrained provocation in his eyes. ‘Like you’re hungrier than you claim to be.’
An electrical charge pulsed in the resulting silence.
‘All big eyes and sharp teeth?’ he finally responded. ‘You’re afraid I’m the Big Bad Wolf?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘You’re confusing me with my brother George. I’m no wolf—not really.’ For a second that bleakness flashed into his eyes again, but he blinked and it was gone.
‘How disappointing,’ Stephanie murmured.
‘You were looking forward to the chase?’ he challenged. ‘Did you want to be caught and devoured?’
‘I was looking forward to running away.’ As she answered she realised it wasn’t a mere Steffi Leigh comeback but the honest truth. She had been looking forward to running away for a couple hours this afternoon. Escaping her tiny flat, her brother, her blog. Taking Jack Wolfe on a tour had been an excuse, so she wouldn’t feel guilty about walking out for a little while.
He looked at her more thoughtfully. More intensely. ‘You surprise me.’
‘I’m so pleased,’ she replied, far too politely. And far too falsely even for Steffi Leigh.
‘Stephanie—’ He broke off at the sound of a phone ringing.
He looked at the phone, his face becoming that rigid mask again as he glanced at the name on the screen. ‘Excuse me a moment. I need to take this.’
He pulled over to the side of the road, ignoring the blare of the horn from the car behind.
‘Well?’ he asked tersely. There was a moment as the caller replied. Then, ‘Fine. I’ll be there.’
Jack tucked his phone inside his jacket pocket, but didn’t pull back into the line of traffic. His hand on the steering wheel clenched into a fist. Stephanie ran her tongue over her dried lips, unsure whether or not to speak. She knew he was looking at her—she wasn’t sure she wanted to look back at him.
Finally she did, and was instantly caught in the swirling blue storm of his eyes. That rawness was back—intense banked emotion, threatening to surge and spill. That electrical current spiked between them again.
‘Steffi Leigh…’ he murmured slowly, using her blogging name. ‘Do you really want to run away?’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_95b29e61-ba3d-5c7d-8db8-00531d6fd064)
THE QUESTION WASN’T all innocent, but Jack Wolfe couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
Or to apologise.
Not as he watched the emotions flicker in her big eyes. For a second she looked startled, but then fire flashed in those blue-green, draw-you-in depths. A sizzle sparked under his collar in response. He realised he was holding his breath—seriously? As if her answer mattered that much?
He blinked, trying to pull his wayward brain back to reality, but for a moment it seemed she actually was contemplating an escape with him. As if the two of them could run away together and steal time alone in the heat?
His body grew hotter. His skin tighter.
But then, as he watched, that polite veneer of hers descended. Back to frosted—frosty—perfection. Disappointment trickled, cooling his jets. He’d bet she was like one of those ornate overpriced cupcakes people queued for at fashionable boutiques. A tempting confection, smothered in layers of intricate icing, beautifully presented… but when it came to the tasting there was very little cake.
Jack liked cake. Icing…? Not so much.
‘Do you?’ Her voice was low, but there was the slightest of catches in it. An edge.
Was this how she was determined to play it? To be ‘nice’ and ‘accommodating’ and turn everything back to his wishes? Was she that eager to impress—to please? To secure this deal?
Would she say yes to anything he offered or asked?
For a moment he was tempted, so tempted, to ask for everything he shouldn’t.
Because, yes. He wanted to run away. And right now he wanted to run away with her.
Instead, he drew a steadying breath and answered. ‘Always.’
The spark in her eyes reignited. Defiance.
‘Because your life is so dreadful?’ she asked.
‘Everyone has their challenges,’ he answered coolly.
Another emotion, frostier than ever, entered her eyes. She thought he was spoilt. Inwardly he laughed at the irony. This was a woman who spent her life online, talking about new perfumes and places to party.
‘Yes, it must be tough producing all those travel pieces. Getting to go to the furthest corners of the planet…’ she murmured.
Nowadays too much of his time was spent chained to a desk in one of many offices Wolfe Enterprises had around the world. It was his underlings and contractors who got to see the actual sights.
But he wasn’t about to try to prove himself to her. She could think what she liked. In fact, he was pleased she wasn’t the total yes-girl he’d had her pegged as.
So he smiled at the sceptical expression she was failing to hide from him. ‘Don’t you have things you want to escape from at times?’ he asked, keeping his focus on her unbelievably beautiful face.
If her make-up weren’t so bulletproof he’d guess there would be colour running into her cheeks. She licked her lips in a nervous gesture that—inexcusably—turned him on.
Now was not the time for his body to go renegade. Steffi Leigh was everything Jack Wolfe didn’t want in a woman. She was a high-maintenance, shallow ‘stylista’, dictating to the rest of the world what to eat, what to wear, where to go and what to talk about. All instruction given in that relentlessly positive, upbeat, girly way. Did she even believe half the stuff she spouted? She was the kind of candy usually hanging off his brother George’s arm.
Though he had to concede she wasn’t as vapid as she looked. She wasn’t afraid to needle him a little. Yeah… surprisingly Steffi Leigh was not entirely nice. And that appealed more than it should. Now he wanted to peel back those perfect layers and find the essence of her. He suspected it wasn’t purely vanilla.
‘Stephanie?’ he prompted a little roughly, feeling the urge to spar harder with her. How far would he have to push to make her ditch that relentlessly smiling persona and snap at him?
He was not nice today.
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘Not at all.’
That overly determined answer both annoyed and amused him. He knew to his bones she wasn’t being honest. He’d irritated her, but she wasn’t going to bite back. Which made her better than him. Because he was close to snapping.
‘No?’ he asked, letting his disbelief show.
She continued to meet his gaze with a defiant little tilt to her chin. He fell silent, falling into the spell she seemed to cast wordlessly—all with those big blue-green eyes that made his skin burn.
For too long he looked at her. Desire sank deeper into his muscles, slicing through to the bone. What he’d do to make her mask slip—
But then his damn phone beeped, signalling a new text message. He didn’t read it, but the sound alone was enough to make reality race back.
He cleared his throat. ‘Where were you planning to take me?’ Time to pull back and be professional—focus on the far more important meeting he had in two days’ time. ‘Some new mall? A new consumer paradise?’
‘Not a mall, no.’
Thank God. But he faked a crestfallen look. ‘That’s a shame. I wanted to see you in action.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Her eyes widened.
He bit back a grin. It was obvious she’d heard inappropriate innuendo when he hadn’t meant it. Interesting.
‘I wanted to see how you come up with all your content,’ he clarified with an easy smile. ‘How you create all those lists and pictures…’
‘Oh…’ She nodded. ‘Well, there are a couple of out-of-the-way places I thought it would be nice for you to see. They’re upcoming features on the blog.’ She bestowed her wide ‘Steffi Leigh’ smile upon him. ‘So your wish will be granted.’
As if she was some fairy princess? Yeah. That was totally how she sold herself. A bright, bubbly bringer of beauty and joy.
‘What about your office?’ he asked. ‘Where you film your vlogs? I’d like to see that.’
