A Man For The Night

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“No,” she confessed. “No one appropriate. Certainly no one as impressive as you.”

When she looked him up and down again with admiring eyes, Callum wasn’t sure if he felt flattered or flustered. He’d never considered himself all that good-looking. He certainly wasn’t in Clay’s league.

Admittedly, his tall, broad-shouldered frame looked pretty good in the superbly tailored tux he’d bought when he was working in Milan last year. And as Clay had said, he did have a great tan at the moment.

Maybe his date had a yen for bronze and brawn.

Hell, he seriously hoped not. He was here to do a job, not be seduced by some female on the rebound, no matter how gorgeous she was. Damn, but he wished she’d stop looking at him like he was a cool beer and she’d just emerged from the Sahara Desert after a six-month trek.

As though reading his mind, she stopped the staring, but not before a quivery little shudder ran down her spine.

Who knew what she’d been thinking. It was probably best he didn’t know. Nothing turned Callum on more than his date being turned on.

“I suppose I should fill you in on the total picture,” she went on with a blessed return to the business at hand. “It’ll make your job easier if you know a bit of background stuff.”

True, he thought.

“The last time I went to a class reunion was five years ago. Unfortunately, it was just after I filed for divorce and I was a total wreck.”

Callum’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Divorced too, eh? She certainly didn’t have much luck with men.

“I should never have gone,” she muttered. “Certainly not alone. All I did was burst into tears all night. And I looked such a fright. I’d lost a lot of weight at the time. It was one of the worst nights of my life and the memory has haunted me ever since.”

Callum could well imagine. No one liked to look a fool, or a failure, in front of old school friends.

“I haven’t been to a reunion since, but when the invitation came for this year’s special ten-year reunion, I decided to go, just to show everyone that I’d really turned my life around. Unfortunately, I told the gossipy head of the organizing committee last week that I was bringing my new boyfriend. Fortunately, I didn’t tell them his name, but I stupidly bragged a bit about how good-looking and successful he was.”

“I see,” Callum murmured.

“Not entirely. There’s more. There’s this one girl, you see, who always hated me at school and got infinite pleasure out of witnessing the exhibition of myself I made at the last reunion. I guess she’s the one I want to show most of all. She’s hosting the party tonight at her multi-million dollar harborside mansion. She’s married to Ted Billingsworth. You know…the communications tycoon.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.” From what he’d heard, Callum didn’t like the sound of Ted Billingsworth. A womanizer from way back. Callum didn’t think he’d be any kind of prize as a husband, unless all you wanted out of marriage was money.

“Actually, when Angus became my latest personal disaster, I almost wimped out and stayed away. But then I heard about Gentleman Partners and their lineup of handsome hunks for hire and I thought, what the hell? Go for it! So I did. And here you are,” she finished up, her chin lifting in an attitude of spirited rebellion. “My own handsome hunk for the night.”

What a girl, Callum thought. She had the kind of pick-yourself-up-off-the-floor courage he admired. If she hadn’t also been highly emotional, sensitive, divorced and recently dumped, he might have asked her out for real.

“A hunk, anyway,” he agreed with a modest smile. “I’m not sure about the handsome part.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re drop-dead gorgeous!” she exclaimed before looking shocked at herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to gush. This is just so new to me. I mean, hiring a man for the night. But trust me, Beau, you are one very handsome man.”

“Well, I’m happy you think so,” he said. Yet he wasn’t happy. Here he was, with a gorgeous girl who liked him and he couldn’t lay a finger on her. Which was more than just a pity. It was downright frustrating.

It had been ages since Callum had had sex. Hawaii had been a total wipe-out where the ladies were concerned, the females who’d come on to him either being married, or desperately wanting to be. He’d been substituting surfing for sex for the last three months, and the result was one very nicely tanned but rather testy guy.

“When a colleague recommended you, I have to confess I was initially reluctant,” Josie prattled on. “But Kay insisted.”

Callum feared that his cover was about to be blown. “I’ve been hired by a colleague of yours in the past?”

“Actually, not Kay herself. It was her cousin. Cora.”

“Cora,” Callum repeated before realizing he was sounding like he’d been hired by so many women that they all blurred into one.

“You must remember Cora. She’s a rally-car driver, which is a pretty unique occupation for a woman. You took her to an industry awards dinner not long back. She certainly remembers you. She simply raved to Kay over your looks and your performance.”

“Really? And what performance, exactly, would that have been?”

Callum was astonished when she actually blushed. So! Madam wasn’t that bold, not if his unintended double-entendre embarrassed her.

“You…er…pretended to be her boy-toy lover for the evening,” she explained, her cheeks glowing. “To make her ex-husband jealous. You must remember. I was told it wasn’t long ago.”

“Oh yes…of course. Cora,” he murmured, digesting this highly interesting piece of information. It seemed he was getting Clay out of the escort business just in time. That boy had no common sense at all. Boy-toy indeed! What next?

“I thought if you had no trouble pretending to be a forty-year-old woman’s lover, then you’d have no trouble pretending to be mine.”

“You’re quite right,” he agreed. “Pretending to be your boyfriend will be a piece of cake.”

At this compliment, she blushed some more.

Ms. Josie Williams was an enigma all right, an intriguing mixture of daring and innocence.

“You ready to go then?” he asked. “My car’s parked right outside.”

“You know, I was thinking…I could easily call for a taxi. You might like to have a few drinks tonight. The beer and wine are sure to be laid on.”

“No, ma’am, I never drink on the job.” Now he sounded like a cop. A very pompous cop.

She smiled a stiff little smile. “I think you’d better call me Josie, don’t you?”

“Yep. I think you could be right there. And you can call me Callum.”

“Callum! But I thought your name was Beau?”

Callum knew he couldn’t stand that name all night. He’d wince every time she said it. With Clay out of that agency tomorrow what did it matter what name he used tonight, as long as he kept up the pretense of being from Gentlemen Partners. He had to do that, otherwise there might be trouble, and that was what he was always trying to avoid. Trouble.

“Beau Grainger was a name I chose for my escort work,” he explained. “Like a stage name. Frankly, I can’t get used to it so I’ve decided to revert back to my real name. Which is Callum. Callum McCloud.”

“Callum McCloud,” she repeated, savoring his name as one might savor a sip of wine. Very thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “That fits you better than Beau Grainger. Much better. I’ll just get my purse and shawl and we’ll get going.” She turned away to walk toward a nearby hall stand, her body in motion threatening Callum’s intention to keep strictly to his Gentleman Partner role tonight.

Frankly, he’d never been confronted by a more tempting sight in all his life. That curtain of gorgeous black hair swinging across her deliciously bare back brought seriously erotic images to mind. As did the split up the back of that long clinging red skirt, exposing great legs with shapely calves and narrow ankles.

Callum’s gaze stayed glued to her as she picked up a beaded black shawl from the hall stand, and threw it around her beautifully bare shoulders with all the style and grace of a flamenco dancer. It was a sensual movement, with a sexually provocative garment, the shawl being transparent behind the beads.

Callum was glad Josie took her time, checking her hair in the mirror first as well as the contents of a black beaded purse, then extracting a set of keys from the hall stand drawer before turning back to face him. By then, he had his wayward body under stern control.

Still, it seemed the coming evening wasn’t going to be the piece of cake he claimed it would be. Not unless he could have this piece of cake, and eat it too.

5

WHEN JOSIE FELT she could not delay any longer, she turned back to face him.

“Ready now,” she said in what she hoped was a casual yet confident voice. In truth, she hadn’t felt either casual or confident since she’d opened the front door and come face to face with a physical replica of her favorite fantasy lover.

Josie shrank from thinking back over the way she’d acted since that moment. The gobbling him up with her eyes. Her gushing over his looks, not to mention blushing over his perfectly innocent use of the word performance.

Of course, her wicked mind had immediately put a sexual connotation on it, after which her imagination had been off and running….

Her imagination had been off and running from the moment she’d set eyes on the man.

As she walked slowly back to where he was still standing in the front hall—looking oh so cool—Josie found it hard to believe her escort was only in his midtwenties. There was an air of masculine maturity about Callum McCloud that most young guys simply didn’t have.

Still, most young guys weren’t built like him. Neither did their marginally post-adolescent features have such definition. Josie really liked his strong, if somewhat sharp nose, his firmly sculpted mouth and determinedly macho jawline. She especially liked his hard blue eyes and outdoorsy tan.

His rugged good looks probably weren’t to every girl’s taste; hence his endearingly modest surprise that she thought him so handsome. But to her, he was the stuff her dreams were made of. Which meant she found him far too attractive for her to totally behave herself tonight.

But he’s supposed to be your boyfriend, Josie, the voice of temptation whispered as her gaze took in his fantastic body once more, shown off to perfection in that fabulous black suit. It would be only natural for you to hold his hand sometimes, or his arm, or even snuggle right up to him.

And then there’d be the dancing!

Josie’s heart quickened. There was sure to be music and dancing at some stage tonight. It was a party, after all.

The thought of his holding her close in his arms took Josie’s breath away. Lord, but she was going to have some super fantasies during the course of this evening, that was for sure.

Suddenly, Amber and her crowd were far from Josie’s mind as she recalled the fantastic fantasy which had swept her away at work the other day, where she’d hired a man for the night, not as an escort but as the kind of lover described in that magazine article.

What she wouldn’t give for that scenario to come true!

But of course it wasn’t going to. Despite his being her perfect dream man to look at, Callum McCloud was not here to fulfil her sexual fantasies. He was here to do the job she’d hired him for and which she should get her mind back onto, pronto, or risk making a bigger fool of herself than she had at the last reunion.

Chastened, Josie summoned up a polite smile and refrained from taking her pretend boyfriend’s arm as she joined him.

“I just have to lock up,” she said, glancing briefly up at him but carefully avoiding more than a fleeting contact with those sexy blue eyes. Looking into them too much was asking for trouble.

“Is this your house?” he inquired as she proceeded to lock the dead lock as well as the normal lock.

“Heavens, no, I could never afford a place like this. No, this is my parents’ home. I’m house-sitting for them while they’re overseas, doing Europe in six weeks flat. Silly time to go in November with winter on their doorstep, but my mother refused to go during peak tourist season. She hates crowds. It’s a bit of a pain having to look after the garden and feed the gold-fish every other day, but how could I refuse?” She smiled up at him.

“No brothers or sisters to help?” Callum asked her as she popped the keys into her black beaded evening purse then pulled the drawstring tight.

“No. Afraid not. I’m an only child. To be honest this house-sitting job hasn’t been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve been sharing an old place at Milsons Point with a couple of girlfriends for nearly three years now and I think I must have needed a break. I always imagined that living alone would be awfully lonely, and perhaps it would be, in the long term. But at the moment, I quite like coming home to peace and quiet, with no one to interfere with whatever I want to do, or say.”

Too late, Josie realized she’d been staring up into his eyes for far too long, because all of a sudden, she found herself wallowing in a new fantasy where Callum brought her home tonight and simply didn’t leave. Not for the whole time her parents were away. He’d be waiting for her every evening when she came home from work. Waiting and willing to do whatever she wanted him to do…

“I know exactly what you mean,” he said ruefully. “I like my own space. I would never live with anyone else.”