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For the briefest moment she thought she saw actual concern flicker within his gaze. She blinked and it was gone. She hid the cuffs and her red wrists behind her. ‘I’m fine. Now how about that coffee?’
‘First things first,’ he said, rocking forwards on his heels until her personal space became his personal space. His dark scent became her oxygen. His natural heat her reason for getting up that morning.
Her toes curled and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.
‘I don’t make a habit of having coffee with a woman without at the very least getting a name.’ He held out a hand. ‘Dylan Kelly.’
Wynnie blinked, mentally slapped herself across the back of her head for letting her imagination run rampant, then took his hand, doing her best to ignore the frisson of heat that scooted up her arm as his fingers curled around hers. ‘Wynnie Devereaux.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘French?’
‘Australian.’
His eyebrows slowly flattened out, but the edge of his mouth kicked up into a half smile as he realised she had no intention of illuminating him further.
The truth was that Devereaux was the maiden name of a grandmother she’d never met, and her little brother, Felix, had never been able to pronounce her real name as a baby and had called her Wynnie from the time he could talk.
Felix. The whisper of his name in the back of her mind made her soul hurt, and reminded her how her patchy instinct on who to trust could go so terribly wrong.
Either way, she had no intention of talking to Dylan Kelly, or anyone else, about the existence of her brother. Or, for that matter, her real name.
‘Next,’ he said. Before I inflict you upon my place of business, he didn’t need to say. ‘Are you here on your own whim or as an ambassador for others like you?’
Wynnie raised an eyebrow at his snarky attitude. She then pulled a business card from the skinny travel purse looped beneath her shirt and hanging against her hip.
Her fingers brushed over the crystal and white-stone butterfly clip attached to the strap of her purse, and like the touchstone it was, it helped take the edge off her soaring adrenalin.
She handed her card over, a handcuff still dangling from that wrist.
The whisper of a half-smile tugged at Dylan’s mouth, and her body reacted the same way it had every time that happened. It stretched and unfolded and purred.
Which was insane. He’d made no bones about how unenthusiastic he was about the prospect of spending time with her. And he was a target, not some anonymous hot guy in a club who might, if she was very lucky, turn out to be an undemanding friend with benefits. But she couldn’t help herself. It was as though the laws of nature were having their way with her without her consent.
She whipped the cuffs behind her and unhooked them, shoving one end down the back of her trousers before they became more of a distraction. Or an apparent invitation.
He glanced at her for one long moment more before his eyes slid to her business card. His lip curled as he said, ‘You’re a lobbyist?’
‘Is that better or worse than whatever it was you were thinking I was before you saw the card?’
He tipped her business card into the palm of his hand and out of sight. And if she’d thought he’d filled out his suit before, now he stood so erect he looked as if he’d been sewn into the thing. ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure.’
But at least he waved an arm in front of her, herding her towards the formidable Kelly Tower.
As Wynnie’s feet moved under her she realised she was kind of stunned. The spectacle had actually worked. Her employers, whose previous public persona was devout and dull, would come out of this appearing anything but. They would get prime-time news coverage, and she had gathered several leads with reporters who wanted follow-ups. She couldn’t have asked for more.
The fact that she was now heading inside enemy camp meant she was a few steps ahead of the game.
So naturally she had none of the meticulously prepared, Kelly-centric pamphlets loaded with detailed cost projections and time frames on hand to back her up. There was no room in her purse for more than a credit card and house key. And nothing else was going to fit down those trousers.
Well, she’d be fine. She’d just have to wing it. Having grown up with hippy parents in Nimbin, the flower-child capital of Australia, spouting green was what she had been born to do.
She snuck a glance sideways at her silent new acquaintance to find his profile was even more daunting than front-on. His thick, dark blond hair was being lightly and sexily ruffled by the breeze shooting around the building. Those stunning blue eyes were hooded beneath strong brows so that they looked to be peering down at the world via his perfectly carved nose. And then there were those lips.
She wondered which lucky girl out there was allowed to kiss them whenever she pleased. Was able to run her finger across their planes whenever the fancy took her. Was able to lean her chin on her palm and watch them as they talked, and smiled and laughed. Her own lips tingled just looking at them.
His cheek dimpled and she knew she’d been caught staring. As he turned his head her chin shot skyward so that she might pretend to be taken with the facade of the skyscraper named after his equally daunting family.
She lifted her right hand to shield her eyes from the glare shooting off the glass panels of the top floors when pain bit her shoulder. She crumpled in on herself and let out a shocked squeal.
He noticed. This time there was no mistaking the flicker of a supporting arm in her direction. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
She grabbed the handle of a glass door leading inside, using her left hand. ‘Once you’re standing beside me in front of a bank of cameras, telling the people of Brisbane the ways in which you and your company have helped reduce your impact on the planet thanks to the help of the Clean Footprint Coalition, and admitting how easy it will be for every individual sitting there on their couch at home to follow suit, then I’ll be ecstatic. Until then, assume I’m about middling.’
She pulled open the door and, with her head held high, stalked through.
The thick glass wasn’t thick enough to shield her from the surge of laughter tumbling from Dylan’s beautiful lips. Or the ripple of awareness that lathered her entire body at the seriously sexy sound.
She frowned. He didn’t need to be declared a protected species. He needed a warning label stapled to his head. Beware:come within ten feet and your sexual appetite willexceed local limits.
A few more steps inside and Wynnie’s high heels clacked noisily to a halt as she tipped her head back, spun about and assimilated the Kelly Tower’s entryway.
Acres of golden marble floors were only made more stunning by the most intricate black marble inlays. Two-storey-high columns acting as sentinels to a long hallway leading away from the front doors were lit by reproduction antique gas lamps. Numerous arched windows a floor above let in streams of natural light. And a massive clock, twice her height, ticked away the minutes until the banking day was closed.
It was the most stunning space she had ever seen. And that was just the lobby.
The CFC think tank had been spot on. This place, this family were the right choice. If the businesses of Brisbane didn’t all secretly want to be them, if every single citizen didn’t want to do behind closed doors exactly as they did, then she might as well have stayed in Verona.
That would have kept her from spending the past glorious month hanging with Hannah, her closest friend in the whole world. It would have kept her from working for an organisation that rang her bells like no other on earth. It would have kept her tens of thousands of miles from the beautiful place she grew up rather than a few hours’ drive…
‘You can buy a postcard with this exact view from the newsstand on the corner,’ a deep voice rumbled from just behind her.
She turned to him, her legs twisted awkwardly and a hunk of hair caught in her eyelashes. As elegantly as humanly possible she disentangled herself. ‘Not necessary.’
‘Then would you care to accompany me upstairs?’ he asked.
Right. Yes. She might be inside his lair but the hard work had barely begun.
It was game on. His job was easy—all he had to say was ‘no’, over and over again. Hers was nearby impossible—all she had to do was get him to say ‘yes’.
She took a deep breath and followed Dylan into the large art-deco lift. Going with the catch-more-flies-with-honey theory of negotiation, she cocked a hip and smiled at his reflection. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m not the first girl you’ve invited into your office for coffee?’
Though the rest of him could have been cut from the same marble as that in the lobby, a flicker of heat ignited in his eyes. They were his tell. The one sign that she had that maybe one day his ‘no’ might turn into a ‘yes’. Lucky for her, looking into them was no chore.
As long as she gave no tell of her own. She didn’t need him knowing that her need to get this job done right was as important to her as anything she’d ever done. Or that her body was as attuned to his as a weathercock channelling a coming storm.
Dylan took a seat behind his one of a kind, polished-oak desk, and waited for Eric to lay out a chai latte for his unexpected two-o’clock appointment and a sweet black for him. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves in preparation for whatever the hell else would be thrown at him this afternoon.
Eric moved to the doorway, half terrified and half smitten with the creature ambling about the office. His eyes begged Dylan to let him back in. But this was one meeting he was doing all on his lonesome. Dylan shook his head once and the door closed with a pathetic click.
‘What happened to Jerry?’ Dylan asked as he waved a hand at the couch on the opposite side of his desk.
Wynnie remained standing as she picked up her mug and blew cool air across the top. ‘Jerry who?’
He tried dragging his eyes away from the small round hole formed between her full lips, but then realised he might as well get his enjoyment from this unfortunate meeting where he could. ‘Your predecessor at the CFC.’
‘Oh. He doesn’t work there anymore, and now I do.’
Dylan’s cheek twitched, and not for the first time that day.
Meeting Wynnie Devereaux in the flesh had done nothing to temper the fact that at first glance she’d seemed just the kind of woman he would normally like to sink his teeth into after a long day at work—pocket-sized, hot-blooded, skin like fresh cream.
Half an hour in her presence had told him she was also just about the most infuriating creature he’d ever met. She was a lobbyist, of all the rotten things—a professional charmer who’d chosen his family to lure to her cause. She had to be new in town or she would have known better than to come gunning for him.
Still, for one tiny moment out there in the forecourt, something in those absorbing brown eyes had yet again charmed him. And as that chink in his usually rock-hard armour lay exposed she’d been able to confound him, twist his words and finally outfox him at his own game. All that with both hands strapped behind her back.
His gaze meandered away from her lips to her small hands. Both of her wrists were so pink and painfully chaffed that his own itched and stung in empathy. And the instinct to soothe the hurt, to make it his own, slammed him from nowhere once more. Only this time he managed to catch himself in time before, like a sucker, he asked her if she was okay.
He shifted on his seat. Every part of him uncomfortable, some for different reasons than others. ‘If you’re hoping to find where I keep the busts of the baby seal cubs I club for fun, they’re in my home office.’
Her mouth curved into a smile. ‘Right by the barrels of crude oil you spill into the river at night just for kicks.’
‘You have done your research. So, where were you before the CFC?’
That had her eyes sliding back to his. Despite himself he searched their depths for the singular vulnerability that kept grabbing him through the middle. Now all he saw was the rush and fire of fierce intelligence. Unfortunately it didn’t serve to squash the attraction nipping at his skin.
She said, ‘Where I’ve come from is not important.’
‘It is if you wish to finish that coffee before my burly security guards throw you out on your sweet backside.’
She gave him a blank stare, but she couldn’t hide the rise and fall of her throat as she swallowed. She slowly took her seat, put her half-drunk chai latte on the edge of his desk, crossed her legs and dug in.
He hid his smile as he pretended to look for something in the top drawer of his desk. Poor old Jerry would have been quivering by now. And apologising. And practically offering to throw himself out.
Then again, he would never have accused Jerry of having a sweet backside. True, Jerry had never managed to be alone in a room with him before and he hadn’t been as close to Jerry’s backside as he had to Wynnie Devereaux’s…
The few remaining bits of him that weren’t coiled like springs coiled now, so tight they ached as he relived her turning her sweet backside his way so that he could set her free of her restraints.
Curves poured into tight white fabric, thick but not completely opaque, offering him the faint outline of a floral G-string. A flash of creamy skin peeking out from between her beltline and her shirt. His hand following the gentle curve but not touching. How did he manage to get so close without touching…?
Who was he kidding? The painful pleasure of those few moments of deliberate self-restraint were the highlight of his week.
He shut his drawer, sat back in his chair. Now he really wanted to know where the CFC had found her. And he made a mental note to get HR to headhunt their headhunter.
Her nostrils flared as she took in a breath. ‘Mr Kelly, what I’ve done before is not nearly as important as why I am here. My method of getting the name Clean Footprint Coalition on everyone’s lips may not have been typical by any means, but my mission is a deadly serious one. The CFC is a collective of respectable, hopeful, forward-thinking people. And it’s clear to all of us that KInG needs to go green, and quick smart.’
She sat forward, shuffled her sweet backside to the very edge of her chair and gripped the perimeter of his desk.
‘I need you,’ she said.
Her breathy voice came to him on a plea. A vulnerable, naked, genuine supplication. His own ability to breathe seemed to have gone walkabout as all the blood in his body was suddenly needed elsewhere.
She was good. More than good. She was a siren with a mission. But then, right when she had him where surely she wanted him, she seemed to recognise exactly how she had affected him, and her fingers uncurled from the edge of his desk and she sat slowly back in her chair. Confounding woman.
‘Our organisation,’ she said with added emphasis, ‘needs KInG. And KInG need us. Getting into bed together is win-win for all of us.’
He shifted on his seat again, knowing he was running out of positions in which he could sit upright and not hurt himself. At least he saw a chance to give her a taste of her own medicine.
‘All of us, hey?’ he said. ‘For some reason I’m seeing futons involved and that’s just not my style.’
She shook her head, and seemed to struggle to find her words, the siren lost within the skin of a delightfully befuddled mortal woman. ‘Forget getting into bed.’
‘But now you’ve brought it up, it’s out there. I like big beds, not too firm, with plenty of room to move.’
She held out a steadying hand, as if willing him with every fibre of her being to shut up and let her finish. ‘I meant it’s a win-win situation for both companies. We are looking to make a difference, and just think of all the lovely, happy, warm, free PR that would come to KInG if you led the way on how to be an authentically green business.’
An electronic Post-it note blinked up onto Dylan’s computer from Eric, telling him he had a client waiting. ‘You have two more minutes. Give it to me straight up. What exactly do you want?’
‘A partnership.’
Dylan couldn’t help himself, he laughed. Her responding dark frown was adorable.
‘With KInG?’ he clarified.
‘And the Clean Footprint Coalition.’
He leant forward. ‘Honey, I’m not sure which hay cart you rolled in on, but somebody’s been pulling your leg if they gave you any indication that this company had any desire, need or care to be in cahoots with anyone.’
She leant in towards him, too, recrossing her legs, and giving eye contact as good as she got. ‘But you already are. Your largest corporate clients are in car manufacturing, oil production, shipping, some of the largest polluters on the planet. Is that something you’d rather we were focusing on in our press material?’
The skin beneath his left eye twitched. It was a timely reminder that no matter how adorable her frowns might be she had an agenda, and it involved targeting his family in her tree-hugging games. If she backed him any further into a corner he would have no choice but to claw his way back out, and if she was in his way so be it.
His voice was as sharp as cut glass as he asked, ‘So why the hell didn’t you chain yourself to a sculpture outside one of their businesses?’
Rather than sensing how close she was to grave danger, the minx smiled, her eyes gleaming like warm honey. ‘I like yours better.’
Dylan growled. He actually growled, right out loud, and shook his fists beneath his desk. And right when his frustration reached its peak, her voice came to him like hot chocolate on a cold night. ‘Mr Kelly, I told you a small fib when I promised to bother someone else tomorrow. You’re it; the only company I even have on my radar. My every working hour has been and will be focused on bringing you home. So why not save us both some time, and a lot of aggravation and let my people come in here, strip you down to your bare essentials and build you back up again when it comes to energy consumption, consumables and waste? You’ll barely notice the cost and you will go to bed knowing the planet is breathing better for your minimal efforts.’
‘Why me?’ he asked, questioning not only her but whichever god he’d annoyed enough that day to bring this woman to his doorstep.
‘You are the company every other one in the country wants to emulate. Your success is legendary. Your influence off the chart. Where you lead others will follow, and we want them to follow. Turn off one light overnight, who’d notice? Turn off all the lights of Brisbane overnight, and it’s a revolution.’
She took a breath, licked her lips, sent his body temperature up a notch in the process, then said, ‘So what do you think?’
He leant back in his chair, but his eyes never once left hers. ‘Here it is, hopefully clear enough none of it will flutter over your head. I do not respond well to threats. I do not respond well to having my business or my family singled out so publicly by upstarts with an agenda. I think the stunt you pulled out there might be a lucky winner for one news cycle, but in taking me on you have bitten off more than you can chew. I think you should shine your green light elsewhere before you find it’s dimmed forever.’
She blinked up at him, those warm brown eyes somehow holding in whatever it was that she was thinking. Eventually she uncrossed her legs and she stood. She ran her hands down the sides of her thighs and he noticed they were shaking. His gut clenched. He pinched himself on the arm, hard.
She gave a small nod, and said, ‘Okay, then. That sounds like my cue to thank you for your time and let you get on with your day.’
