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She pushed her lush mouth out in a pout. ‘I’m not drunk. Look, I can walk in a straight line.’ She tottered off along the corridor, arms out wide to stabilise her passage. She turned and came back towards him but the fourth step was her undoing. Her legs suddenly tangled and she came down in a heap and would have fallen badly if not for him catching her in time.
He gathered her slim body in his arms, trying not to notice the sweet cinnamon of her breath on his face as she snuggled up close with her arms flung around his neck. ‘I’m soooo tired…’ She gave a huge yawn and dropped her head against the wall of his chest and closed her eyes with a soft little sigh.
He gave her a gentle shake. ‘Hey, you didn’t tell me your name.’
She made another soft purring sound and burrowed closer to his chest. ‘Need to sleep now…’
Luiz caught sight of himself carrying his rescued damsel in one of the gilt mirrors hanging above the hall table. Her shiny shoulder-length hair was swaying loose in a soft cloud over one of his arms, tickling the skin where he had rolled back the cuffs of his shirt. Her conservative black dress had ridden up, revealing slim legs and thoroughbred-narrow ankles, and a soft dreamy smile curved her mouth as her cheek settled against the steady beat of his heart as if she had finally found home.
He let out a low rough expletive. ‘Now what, Sir Galahad?’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_cee36bca-6909-5376-93e5-877c4b191a87)
DAISY WOKE WITH a construction site hammering inside her head. Her mouth felt as if she had been sucking on a gym sock all night and her stomach was churning so fast it could have spat out pats of butter.
She cranked open one eye to find herself in a plush penthouse suite instead of her budget book-three-nights-get-one-free hotel room. Chandeliers dripped from the high ceiling in a waterfall of sparkling and twinkling crystal. The walls were papered in a luxurious satin-embossed two-toned stripe that was unapologetically masculine and yet opulently stylish. The lighting was softly muted but she could see a sliver of bright sunlight through the gap in the brocade curtains, suggesting it was well past dawn. The acre of carpet looked so thick she was sure if she took one step on it she would be knee-deep. Maybe neck-deep. The pillows behind her were as soft as clouds and the sheets that covered her naked body were super-fine Egyptian cotton.
Her stomach swooped. Naked body? She lifted the sheet and peeked beneath it. Eek! She’d had sex with someone? No. Not possible. Not in a million squillion years. She was not the type of girl to go to bed with a stranger. She hadn’t even gone to bed with a friend. Flirting was one thing. Sharing her body with someone was something else again. But why on earth would she be naked in bed if she hadn’t?
No. No. No.
Surely she hadn’t. Had she? She pressed her legs together. Nope. Doesn’t feel any different. She checked her breasts for any love bites. Scrambled up onto her knees to glance in the mirror to see if her neck had any signs of foreplay.
Nothing.
The door of the bedroom opened and Daisy choked out a shocked gasp and quickly cupped her hands over her breasts as Luiz Valquez with his laughing black eyes entered the room. ‘You?’
He gave a mock formal bow. ‘At your service, mi pasión.’
His…passion? Double eek! Daisy dived under the sheets, pulling them right up to her chin. Oh, dear God. What had she done? Or, more to the point… What had he done? Anger came to her rescue, filling her voice with fulminating rage. ‘Where are my clothes?’
The half-smile that tilted his mouth had a glint of devilry about it. ‘Where you left them.’
Her eyes widened in horror. Had he—gulp—stripped her? Stolen her clothes? Was she to be sold into sex slavery? Never to be heard from again? Where was her damn bodyguard when she needed him? She threw Luiz a combative glare, determined not to show how terrified she was. ‘I won’t let you get away with this. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. I have connections that could wipe the floor with you.’
He had the gall to chuckle. ‘You mean those two travelling companions of yours?’
Daisy felt her flesh shrink on her bones. Oh, dear Lord. What if Belinda and Kate had been kidnapped as well? Were all three of them to be shipped off to some ghastly foreign hellhole where disgusting men would paw and slaver over them? She could already see the headlines. Three London Infant Teachers: Tragic Victims of International Sex Slave Ring. ‘Wh-what about them?’
His dark eyes gave nothing away other than amusement. ‘They weren’t the least bit interested in coming to your rescue.’
She narrowed her gaze to slits. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I asked them to fetch you from my suite last night but they refused.’
Daisy shot him a look of pure venom. ‘I don’t believe you. They would never leave me to fend for myself.’ Hmm, maybe Belinda would. ‘Anyway, how did you contact them? You didn’t have their numbers or names.’
He inspected his square and buffed nails in a casual manner. ‘I sent a staff member to find them. Apparently they were too busy with their dates to come and collect you.’ He looked at her again and added, ‘Their message to you was—and I quote—“Have fun”.’
I am so going to kill you, Belinda.
Daisy huddled further up the bank of pillows under her shroud of luxury sheets. He looked so…so unlike a sexual predator. He was too sophisticated. Too clock-stopping handsome. Why would he have to resort to kidnap when he could crook his little finger and have any woman he wanted? Except you, she thought as she recalled her haughty rejection of him in the bar. She swallowed to clear the ropey knot of part dread, part excitement currently clogging her throat. She had spent the night with one of the world’s most notorious bad boys. How had he changed her mind? And why couldn’t she remember a single second of it? ‘What happened last night?’
He hooked an ink-black eyebrow upwards. ‘You don’t remember?’
She frantically hunted through her memory but it was like rifling through a file that hadn’t been organised properly. Nothing made sense. She could only remember watching him for most of the night, feeling annoyed he was never without a partner. He seemed to be flaunting them before her every time she looked at him, doing raunchy dance moves with an array of nubile young women.
It was nauseating.
Daisy had staunchly remained a wallflower—her default position—until a compatriot from Ealing had asked her to dance. She hadn’t really wanted to dance with him but she must have changed her mind for she remembered being on the dance floor and at one point cannoning into Luiz. The shockwave of touching his hard male body had sent her senses spinning like a top. His dark eyes had run over her partner in a sizing up look and his top lip had curled as if to say, Is that the best you could do? But after that her memory was a blank.
She gave him a caustic glare. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
He sent his gaze over her in a long lazy sweep. ‘You can’t guess?’
In spite of her trepidation, Daisy felt every pore of her skin flower open in response. Heat rushed along her veins, lighting a fire that fanned out from her core. Damn the man for being so attractive. How shameful of her to be so turned on by such a fiend. No wonder her father thought she needed a bodyguard. Clearly she was a ticking time bomb when left to her own devices. One night let loose on the town and she hooked up with the world’s most wicked playboy. ‘Did you—’ she swallowed tightly again ‘—undress me?’
His expression was now deadpan. ‘No.’
Daisy looked at him blankly. ‘Then who did?’
‘You did.’
Her eyes were so wide with shock they felt as if they were going to pop out of her head. She hadn’t been naked in front of anyone since she was twelve. She was twenty-six years old and she still got dressed under a towel at the gym. Body issues had plagued her since she hit puberty. Small breasts, a jelly belly if she didn’t do a hundred sit-ups a day and thighs that had a tendency to look like cottage cheese if she didn’t stick to her diet of cottage cheese. ‘I don’t believe you.’
A glimmer of a smile came back in his eyes. ‘I thought you said you were a teacher. Where did you learn the stripper routine?’
‘You’re lying!’ she choked. ‘I would never do something like that!’
‘It was the best lap dance I’ve ever had and I didn’t even have to tip for it.’
Daisy felt a blush move over her face like a flame let loose beneath her skin. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re making this up.’ You must be. You have to be.
He shrugged as if he didn’t give a damn either way. ‘You want some breakfast before you leave?’
Daisy frowned in a combination of confusion and an inexplicable sense of disappointment. He was letting her go? ‘You mean you’re not going to keep me here chained to the bed to have your wicked way with me?’
Those sinfully dark eyes roved over her huddled form once more, sending another wave of heat to her core. ‘Thanks, but no.’
She knew it was inconsistent of her to feel slighted but surely she hadn’t been that much of a flop in bed? Sure, she might have been unconscious, but still… ‘Fine. I’m leaving.’ She scrambled off the bed, taking the sheet with her. ‘If you’ll lead me to my clothes I’ll be right on my way.’
‘They’re on the coffee table near the sofa. I took the liberty of having them cleaned while you were sleeping.’
Daisy swung around to face him, a dangerous manoeuvre given she was mummy-wrapped in one of his sheets. She would have gone over except one of his hands shot out to steady her. It was warm and strong against her flesh, his fingers like velvet-covered steel. Something flashed through her brain…a vague memory of strong arms holding her close. Protectively close. Fresh-smelling laundry detergent and lemon-scented male flesh close to her face. A rock-steady heartbeat. A sense of being carried to safety… She frowned to bring the memory closer but it floated away like an apparition that no longer wanted to be seen.
She craned her head right back to look into his eyes, her stomach folding over at the satirical gleam that permanently shone there. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Have your clothes cleaned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Seemed the right thing to do under the circumstances.’
‘What…erm, circumstances?’
His mouth had that half smiling slant to it again. ‘After the lap dance you had an episode of dispensing with the contents of your stomach in my bathroom. Unfortunately, your aim was off.’
Oh, dear Lord above. Could this nightmare get any worse? ‘I was…sick?’
‘Spectacularly so.’
Daisy chewed her lower lip, desperately trying not to picture how that might have played out. No one looked their best when being sick. But it was the ultimate humiliation to have disgraced herself in front of him. He was so self-assured. So suave. How he must have gloated over her misfortune after the way she had rejected his offer of a dance. He couldn’t have asked for a better comeuppance for her. She had been so dismissive of his warning the night before. Arrogant even. How had she been so stupid and trusting to let something like that happen? Ugh! She was not some silly young girl on her first night on the town. She had a university degree, for God’s sake.
She rummaged inside her purse for a handful of banknotes, thrusting them at him. ‘I’m terribly sorry for any inconvenience I’ve caused. I hope this covers the expense of…erm, seeing to my needs.’ Bleah. Bad choice of words.
He pushed her hand back with a gentle but firm pressure, his eyes locked on hers. ‘I don’t want your money.’
Daisy was having trouble concentrating. Her thoughts were flying all over the place. The energy coming from his hand where it was holding hers back was making her whole body fizz with reaction. It was like being plugged into a power outlet with too high a voltage for her sensitive wiring. She was going to short circuit for sure. He was so intensely male. So unbelievably handsome it made a hollow space inside her belly vibrate. Her eyes kept tracking to his mouth. Had he kissed her? How annoying she couldn’t remember. That was a mouth that would know how to kiss. There would be no teeth scraping and nose bumping and awkward repositioning of lips and tongues. That was a mouth that knew how to seduce, to slay her senses with one brush of those hard male lips against hers. She drew in a shaky little breath and pushed back against his hand. ‘Take it. I insist.’
He pushed back a little harder. The uptake of tension triggered something deep and low in her pelvis. She felt it between her thighs, a tight ache that was part pulse, part contraction. A frisson shimmied down her spine as his fingers wrapped around hers, tethering her to him. His hands were not smooth but slightly calloused, which was strangely arousing. His thumb found her pulse and measured its frantic pace. ‘I have plenty of money.’
Daisy gave him an imperious look to disguise the catastrophic effect he was having on her senses. ‘Is that supposed to impress me?’
A lazy smile teased up the corners of his mouth. ‘Nothing else has so far.’
She raised one of her eyebrows. ‘You mean I wasn’t left breathless and gasping by your…erm, attentions last night?’
He gave a deep chuckle, which combined with that toe-curling stroking along the thumpety-thump-thump-thump of her pulse, made her senses careen off into another tailspin. ‘Your honour was safe with me, dulzura. I didn’t lay a finger on you.’
Daisy pulled out of his hold, blinking at him in surprise. ‘Y-You didn’t?’
He shook his head with mock gravitas.
‘Why not?’
‘I prefer my women sober.’
She glared at him again, stamping her foot for good measure. ‘I was not drunk! I’ve never been intoxicated in my life.’
‘You were legless last night. Just as well I came along when I did. You were about to get down and dirty with the man in Suite 1524.’
Daisy stopped glaring at him. Another fragmented memory filtered through the haze of her brain. The guy from Ealing pressuring her to have a drink. Refusing his offer but finding he had bought her one while she had gone to the restroom. He insisting he keep her company while she drank it. She had suffered his company because she’d become so irritated with seeing Luiz Valquez working the room like Casanova with catnip. Surely a single vodka and orange wouldn’t have caused her to lose all sense of control? ‘How do you know I was going to…erm, become intimate with that guy? I might’ve just been going to his room to—’
‘Look at his etchings?’
She gave him a look. ‘Not all men have one-track minds, you know.’
He moved over every inch of her sheet-wrapped body with the smouldering heat of his gaze. ‘They do when someone looks as gorgeous as you.’
Daisy knew it was a throwaway line but she couldn’t help feeling a little thrill all the same. It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to compliments. She knew she wasn’t model-thin or billboard-beautiful but she was pretty enough in a girl-next-door sort of way. But hearing him say it made her feel all fluttery and feminine. It made her want to flirt with him, which was rather surprising as she never flirted.
She shuffled over to where her clothes were folded in a neat pile on a coffee table next to one of the plush sofas. ‘I have to get moving. The girls will be waiting for me.’ She scooped up her clothes with her free hand, turning back to glance at him. ‘Do you mind if I use your bathroom to get changed?’
His eyes had that laughing glint in them again. ‘Be my guest.’
Daisy sniffed the air in the luxuriously appointed bathroom for any trace of sickness. To her very great relief it smelt of citrus with a hint of lemongrass and ginger. She unwrapped herself from the sheet and quickly donned her clothes, her fingers tracing over the lace of her bra and knickers as she thought of Luiz handling her intimates, even to pass them over to the laundry staff. Had he put her to bed? Had he carried her or had she walked/stumbled/crawled on her own? Had he tucked her in? A shiver passed over her flesh at the thought of his hands on her naked body. Damn it. Why couldn’t she remember the most exciting moment of her life? If he hadn’t acted inappropriately given the way he said she had, then why not? Wasn’t he supposed to be a bad boy or something?
Or did he have some scruples after all?
When Daisy came out of the bathroom he was standing with his back to her, looking down at the Vegas strip in all its crazy madness. ‘Are you decent?’ he asked.
‘Hardy-ha-ha.’
He grinned as he turned around to face her. ‘Don’t you like your men with a sense of humour?’
Her men? What a laugh. If only he knew the only men in her life were her father, her bodyguard and Robert, the elderly gardener at Wyndham Heath.
Daisy was afraid she was starting to like Luiz Valquez a little too much. His uncharacteristic chivalry was potently attractive. If what he had said was true about her having been in danger of being taken advantage of by the Ealing guy, she owed him a huge debt of gratitude, not censure. Anything could have happened to her last night but he had stepped in and made sure she was safe, possibly putting himself at risk in the process. She’d had him pegged as a hard partying bad boy and yet he had acted with honour and propriety.
Had the world got it wrong about him? Or did he cash in on his racy reputation because it fitted the image of the sporting superstar? Who was he behind that mask of sophisticated playboy? If she had offered herself to him so shamelessly and he’d refused, then he must surely have far more to him than met the eye.
She held her purse in front of her stomach with both hands, suddenly feeling terribly gauche…well, even more so than usual. ‘About last night…’ she began.
‘Don’t mention it. I won’t.’ Another glinting look. ‘It can be our little secret.’
She gnawed her lip as she thought of all the thousands of followers he would have on Twitter or other social media. He could make an absolute fool of her with a couple of hash tags. What if he’d taken pictures of her without her knowing? Her stomach dropped. The stripper routine. Oh, God. What if he’d recorded it? Uploaded it? Sent it out to cyberspace. What if he blackmailed her? What if—?
He reached into his trouser pocket and handed her his phone. ‘You can check it if you like.’
Daisy stared at his phone as if it were a grenade with the pin pulled out. ‘I really don’t think that’s—’
‘Here, I’ll show you.’ He came and stood shoulder to shoulder with her, accessing the camera roll on his phone. ‘See?’
She peered at the images he was scrolling through, conscious of the way his light lemony and citrus cologne sharpened the air. She could feel the slightest brush of his hair-roughened arm against her smoother one. Her traitorous mind began assembling images of them in bed together, limbs entangled, lips locked, tongues mating. ‘Good gracious, is that a dress that girl is almost wearing?’
He gave one of his deep rumbly chuckles that sent her senses spinning all over again. ‘For a simple scrap of fabric it was damn hard to get off.’
Daisy gave him a wry glance. ‘What? She didn’t offer to help you?’
‘Can’t remember.’ He carried on thumbing through another few photos.
‘How long ago was it—erm, she?’
‘Ages ago.’ He flashed her a sudden grin. ‘A couple of weeks at least.’
Daisy rolled her eyes and then pointed to a picture on the photo stream of a slightly older woman standing next to Luiz at what looked like a cocktail party. ‘Who’s that?’
‘My mother, Eloise.’
