скачать книгу бесплатно
Emily blinked, instantly aware that her skin had prickled, was still tingling, because his eyes had been burning into her back. ‘No, I’m not,’ she said calmly. ‘You’re watching me.’
A pause, and then, ‘Like I said, you’re disturbing me.’
CHAPTER TWO
EMILY went still while her body temperature rocketed. Had he really just said that? Did it mean what she thought it meant? She straightened and turned, eyes wide, not quite sure what to say next.
Luke wasn’t in his seat. He’d moved to the fax machine and was shuffling the pages into the feeder. What with the hum of the engines and the thickness of the carpet she hadn’t heard him move.
She took a deep breath. ‘Am I?’ she said.
Luke didn’t break from what he was doing. ‘Are you what?’
‘Disturbing you?’
‘Not at all,’ he said, whipping round and flashing her a brief smile. ‘Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything you like.’
What?
Then she shrugged. She must have misunderstood, she decided, following his movements over the rim of her glass as he strode back to the chair. He picked up his own glass and tossed the contents down his throat. Emily slid back into her seat and watched him as he leaned and twisted over to pull out another report. The muscles in his torso were clearly defined beneath his shirt. He pushed up his sleeves to reveal strong, tanned forearms and her mouth went dry.
Emily didn’t generally have a thing about forearms, but Luke’s were—well, they were making her reconsider. Tanned, muscled, lightly sprinkled with rough hair. She felt a fierce urge to run her hands over them. Her eyes fell to the long brown fingers idly twirling the pen as he concentrated on the report. Compared to the speed with which he’d read the last document, this one seemed hard going. In fact, he hadn’t turned the page once, and he hadn’t underlined a single word or made any notes whatsoever. If pressed, she’d have sworn he was distracted.
She would do the decent thing and rescue him from his torturous report by dazzling him with her conversational skills. But before she could make a start on finding out what made this enticingly enigmatic man tick, Luke shot to his feet and went to pour himself some more water.
‘Don’t you drink?’ she asked when he returned. She’d been merrily sipping away at her champagne since take-off, but he hadn’t touched a drop.
‘Not on a Friday when I’ve got meetings in the afternoon.’
She nodded sagely. ‘Very wise. On the other hand, who arranges meetings on a Friday afternoon? It’s practically the weekend.’
‘I have clients in Monte Carlo. And it’s not the weekend.’
Mmm. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a fund manager.’
‘Ah, interesting.’
Luke smiled. ‘Not really. Unless you happen to have an obsession with derivatives and index futures.’
‘Which you do?’
‘I seem to have a knack for making money out of them.’
And didn’t that neatly avoid the question? She nodded in what she hoped was a knowledgeable fashion. ‘I should imagine there are quite a few high net worth individuals in Monte Carlo.’
Luke’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You know about high net worth individuals?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. I know a little about lots of things.’
‘Like what?’ He linked his hands together and leaned forward.
‘Like how City boys like you can spend ten thousand pounds on a gold leaf cocktail,’ she said, giving him a small smile to show she was half joking.
Luke frowned. ‘A few do. I don’t. And nor do any of my staff. They don’t have time. Plus, they know they’d be fired if they did.’
She shuddered. Ruthless as well as gorgeous. A dangerously attractive combination.
He shot her a sudden killer smile that had her blood racing round her body. ‘Besides, I prefer to spend my money on rescuing damsels.’
‘You mean there are others?’ she said, trying not to sound too curious.
‘Not at the moment. It’s very distressing.’
Emily let out a burst of laughter.
‘What about you? What do you do?’
‘A bit of this, a bit of that.’ Emily smiled at the quizzical look on his face. ‘I’m a professional temp, currently resting.’ She waited. This was the moment when people usually scoffed at her, or told her what an idiot she was for not pursuing a proper career.
Luke leaned back. ‘What made you choose to be a temp?’
Emily was taken aback. He sounded genuinely interested. Most people assumed that she was temping until she could find a proper job. Whereas she’d made a deliberate decision to make it a career. ‘I like the flexibility. Days off when I want. It’s perfect. It gives me time to do the things I love doing.’
He was looking at her as though she was speaking in a foreign language. ‘Such as?’
‘Spending time with my sister and her twins. Seeing friends, potting, that kind of thing.’
‘Potting?’
‘Potting. Making pots.’
‘Are you any good?’
‘No idea. But I don’t have to be. It’s a hobby. I do it for fun.’ That wasn’t strictly true. She’d love to make a living out of it, but she suspected she wasn’t much good. ‘Temping is really just a way of paying the bills. Funnily enough, I once worked at a fund manager’s.’
‘Oh? Which one?’
‘JT Investments. Do you know it?’
Luke nodded. ‘I know the CEO.’
‘Jack Taylor? I never met him, but the work was interesting. Challenging.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s what I mean. I like the variety of the work. Meeting new people, discovering new gossip without any need to get involved in office politics. And then, just when you start thinking it’s getting a tad monotonous—which, let’s face it, most jobs are—you get to leave and try something else. It’s great.’ She grinned at him. He still wasn’t getting it, but that was all right, most people didn’t. She leaned forward. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to give me a lecture on the folly of my decision? About how unstable temping is, and how my brain must be atrophying, and that at my age I really should be sprinting up a career ladder?’
‘Why would I do that? You clearly enjoy what you do.’ He frowned slightly at this, as if it was an unfamiliar concept to him. ‘And it’s none of my business.’
Emily sniffed. ‘That doesn’t stop most people.’
He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I know...I’ve been on the receiving end of something similar.’
‘Really?’
Something in his voice—bitterness, weariness, maybe—had her senses leaping to attention. ‘What would people lecture you about, I wonder?’ she said.
In the long silent seconds while he regarded her, Emily’s heart began to beat faster.
‘Apparently I need more fun in my life,’ he said eventually, his tone leaving her in no doubt about what he thought of that piece of advice. ‘Apparently I work too hard.’
‘Do you?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Why?’ she asked, suddenly feeling that she was entering into choppy water.
‘Habit,’ he said flatly.
‘What do you do to relax?’
‘Relax?’ His brows snapped together.
‘Yes, you know. Relax. Chill out, unwind.’
‘I don’t have time to relax.’
Okaaayyy. ‘What about the fun part?’
His eyes glittered. ‘If I needed fun in my life,’ he said, his voice rumbling over her, ‘I’d be perfectly capable of finding it.’
The way he was looking at her, his gaze scorching over her face before resting on her mouth, set her blood to boiling. His eyes had turned the colour of the sky at midnight and his expression shifted, darkened, intensified—as if there was only one thing on his mind. Then it vanished and his face was impassive once again.
But Emily had caught it. She hadn’t been mistaken about what exactly it was that had been disturbing him earlier.
For that brief moment Luke had considered finding fun with her.
Her heart pounded and her ears popped. The problem was, she mused, as the pilot’s voice advised them they were starting their descent, that once they’d landed and gone their separate ways there wasn’t anything that could be done about it.
He should have left her at the bloody airport, thought Luke grimly, handing the porter a crisp note and watching him disappear with Emily’s suitcase.
That would have been the sensible, logical, rational thing to do. It was a shame, then, that sense, logic and reason had taken a hike hours ago.
‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Emily was squinting up at the hotel and rocking on her heels.
‘Yes,’ he said curtly. Her sister had booked her into the one of the oldest, most exclusive hotels on the coast.
‘But look at the place,’ she wailed. ‘And look at me.’
Against his better judgement, he did as she suggested. He ran his gaze over her profile. Wavy fair hair was held back in a wide scarf, the ends of which dangled down her back. She was wearing a close fitting pink T-shirt and well-worn jeans that hugged the curve of her bottom. He felt a savage kick of desire in the pit of his stomach as he followed the long line of her legs to where fuchsia-painted toenails were peeping out of some sort of high-heeled shoe.
‘They’ll never let me in in jeans—and non-designer ones at that.’
‘You have a room booked for two nights at five hundred euros a night,’ Luke said tersely. ‘They’re not going to question what you’re wearing.’
Emily swivelled to face him, her jaw dropping. ‘Five hundred euros? A night?’
‘A night,’ he confirmed, grabbing her elbow and leading her into the lobby. ‘You’d better make the most of it.’
‘I shall,’ she said, flashing him a wicked smile. The sooner he got out of here the better. ‘I’ll raid the mini bar and download dozens of saucy films, and then Anna will rue the day she decided to auction me off to the highest bidder.’
Saucy films? Luke’s jaw clenched. His fingers tightened and he quickened his pace. He needed to leave. Now. Before he succumbed to the demands his body had been making since the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
He propelled her across the lobby, deposited her at the reception desk, and took a step back. For a second he just stared at her, his mind suddenly blank. Then he noticed that her mouth, that highly distracting mouth, was moving. He forced his attention to what she was saying.
‘Thank you for the lift,’ she said, smiling faintly.
‘You’re welcome. It was on my way anyway. Have a good weekend.’
A shadow flickered across her face, clouding her eyes. ‘I’ll try. You too.’
Luke gave her a brief nod, turned on his heel and strode towards the door. With every step he felt the return of his focus. Hell, not just his focus. His sanity. Ever since he’d clicked on that damn link that Jack had sent him and seen her photo he’d been steadily losing it. Lusting over her picture as if he was a hormonal adolescent instead of the cool, disciplined, rock-steady man he had made himself become. For a man who liked to be in control, the last few hours had been a harrowing experience.
‘Luke?’
Her voice reached him when he was halfway to the door. You didn’t hear that, he muttered to himself. Don’t stop. Nearly there.
‘Luke?’
This time her voice was closer and huskier, wrapping round the sound of his name like velvet, and it slammed him to a halt. He turned to find Emily standing a foot away from him, looking at him warily. ‘Yes?’
‘Would you come to this wedding with me?’
When Luke went rigid, and paled beneath his tan, Emily instantly regretted the impulse that had made her run after him. She shouldn’t have asked. She knew that. It was just that as he’d walked away she’d had the oddest feeling that she’d never see him again. That somehow he’d arrange not to have to accompany her back to London on Sunday. And that she’d have to endure the torture of Tom’s wedding with nothing whatsoever to look forward to.
But maybe he had plans for the weekend. She’d seen how busy he was from the endless string of phone calls that he’d juggled during the journey from the airport to the hotel. He must have piles of work to do. Why on earth would he want to waste his valuable time on her?
No. That was Luke’s answer to her question. He had a stack of analyst reports and stockmarket data to get through before the weekend was over. Even if he hadn’t had that excuse, he hadn’t been to a wedding or inside a church in years, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now. So if that was what she’d been planning all along, she’d got landed with the wrong man.
His eyes narrowed as he watched her, standing there waiting for his answer, fiddling with her hair, her green eyes shining steadily at him. She was nibbling on her lower lip again. An arrow of heat fired through him, tightening and stiffening his body, just as it had done on the plane. He fought back a surge of desire. Emily was resourceful and confident. She’d manage fine on her own.
At the precise moment when Luke opened his mouth to tell her that he had other plans Emily jammed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. The movement thrust her breasts forward and he lost what little sense he’d had left.
‘Forget it. I—’ she began.
‘Sure—why not?’ He cut her off, his voice thick and distant. His head throbbed with a sudden desperate urge to haul her up against him and see if she was as soft and yielding as she looked.
‘Really?’ Emily let out a breath and her shoulders relaxed, while Luke shoved a hand through his hair, nodded, and called himself all kinds of bloody idiot.
‘Great,’ she said, beaming at him. ‘It might even be fun. It’s at six tomorrow evening, at a château near Valensole. There’s a reception and a dinner afterwards.’
