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Her body rocked, but it was her face that kept his feet glued to the floor.
It was a knock-your-socks-off face—high cheekbones, made-for-sin mouth and a straight nose—a nose that was lifted high enough to give her altitude sickness.
The noise of the traffic from the road behind them faded as she approached him on those barely there, utterly ridiculous, spiked scarlet heels. Her scent reached him first: a light, citrus, grassy scent that made him think of sunshine and light. Those eyes behind her glasses—real? Fake? Who cared?—were a deep, deep blue. Both guarded and, he thought, irritated. And on closer inspection a little shadowed and baggy... Hot Librarian looked as if she needed a couple of nights of getting a solid eight.
‘Ross Bennett?’
He tipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘Alyssa—Ally—Jones. You’re a hard man to get hold of, Mr Bennett.’
Good grief, Mr Bennett? That catapulted him straight back to Bennett Inc. and yanked bile up into the back of his throat.
‘I’ve sent you no less than three e-mails and left countless requests on your mobile and answering machine for you to call me back. Don’t you have a personal assistant?’
Ross frowned. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Bellechier.’
Right—the clothing and accessories company. Swiss-based, very upmarket. He recalled the messages, the requests for a meeting to talk about branding and franchise opportunities. He wasn’t interested. Bigger and better brands had approached him and he’d refused them all, but he had to admit it was amusing to see exceptionally well-dressed corporate drones jump through hoops to impress him.
Ross watched as her eyes slowly swept his body, taking in his red V-neck T-shirt, cargo shorts and battered trainers. Just to see her reaction, he dipped his hand into the pocket of his pants, pulled out the band he kept there and tied the top section of his hair off his face.
Judging by the slight lift of her nose, Ms Prissy liked short, back and sides... She folded her arms across her chest and tipped her head like an inquisitive bird.
Suddenly he felt like a piece of prime rib being judged for its freshness. If that interest was sexual he wouldn’t mind so much, but her intelligent eyes were all business.
‘Shorter hair would suit you better,’ she said after a long pause. ‘But long hair works with the bad-boy CEO vibe you have going. I’m glad you lost the goatee, though.’
Ross wanted to look around to make sure that she was still talking about him. Bad-boy CEO? Seriously? Surely a bold geometric tattoo on his right forearm and long hair didn’t make him bad-ass these days? In the nineteen-fifties, maybe.
As for the scruff she’d called a goatee—he hadn’t had one for over a year. And this conversation was starting to get weird...
‘Uh...’
He caught the snort of one of his employees and without dropping his eyes from her face, he told them all to get back to their desks. When he could no longer hear their footsteps, Alyssa—Ally—pulled her bottom lip between her thumb and fingers. It made no sense that he wanted his lips where her fingers were, doing what her fingers were doing... What the hell?
Was it five degrees hotter out here than it had been ten minutes ago?
‘You might just do...’ Ally murmured.
Boy Wonder in his pants perked up and looked around. Who’s doing what to who? Can I join in? Hell, he was an embarrassment to suave single guys the world over.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘Do you always talk in riddles?’
She flashed a row of small, white, even teeth and two shallow dimples appeared, one on each side of her mouth. He’d always been a sucker for dimples...
‘Sorry... So, can we chat? Or can we make a time to chat if now doesn’t work for you?’
Okay, persistent and gorgeous. Ack.
‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude...’ But he would be if he had to. ‘If I didn’t respond to your sixty e-mails and ten thousand phone calls, don’t you think that’s a solid clue that I’m not interested?’
‘I don’t hear “no” so well.’
That, he thought, was a solid gold truth. Actually, he instinctively knew that she didn’t hear ‘no’ at all. And here he was—someone who never did anything he didn’t want to do and never, ever followed the herd.
A saying popped into his head: irresistible force meets immovable object.
‘How did you get my personal mobile and e-mail address, by the way?’
Slim shoulders lifted and fell. ‘I know people who know people,’ she said mysteriously.
He wondered if he would ever get a straight answer out of her.
Anyway, as fun as it was, trading barbs with this gorgeous, ultra-feminine woman—she was a girly girl from her perfect make-up and tousled hair to her dainty toes—he had things to do. ‘Got to get back to work. Enjoy your trip back to wherever you came from.’
‘Geneva—and you haven’t heard my proposal yet.’
‘Nor do I intend to. The Bellechier brand is old-school—slick and snobby. It’s everything that Win! is not.’
She had the temerity to look insulted. ‘Excuse me?’
All five and a half feet of her—in heels—vibrated with indignation.
‘Bellechier is one of the most iconic clothing and accessories brands in the world... I’m wearing Bellechier!’
Ross deliberately yawned.
‘It’s sophisticated!’ Ally protested.
‘Dull,’ Ross countered, just to be argumentative. Okay, not the shoes, but everything else was. He was really enjoying the sparkle in those fire-blue eyes, the flush on her prominent cheekbones, watching her fight to keep her irritation under control. Damn, she was hot.
‘Why would you even consider linking Bellechier with Win!? They have nothing in common.’
‘They do! Of course they do—or else I wouldn’t have travelled twelve hours to see you.’
He tipped his head enquiringly. ‘Are you on crack?’
‘Hey! I’m not the one playing basketball at—’ she snapped a look at her watch ‘—twelve fifteen on a Wednesday morning in this heat! That’s insane!’
‘I suspect that my playing basketball when I should be working is what most offends your corporate sensibilities.’
He hadn’t thought that nose could be lifted any higher but she managed it.
‘I don’t care how you spend your time, or whether you give yourself heatstroke. I just want an opportunity to talk to you about a campaign.’
Ally looked away and he sensed that she was trying to keep her cool. When she looked at him again her face was devoid of expression but her eyes were still spitting spiders.
‘This isn’t the way I envisaged this conversation going... I don’t normally end up in arguments with potential ambassadors in the first five minutes of meeting them.’
‘You do it so well,’ Ross said, his voice super-bland. Time to stop baiting her, he thought. Jamming his hands into his pockets of his cargo shorts, he rocked on his heels. ‘Let’s get this over with, Ms Jones. Even if I was interested in exploring branding opportunities, I don’t see any obvious link between Win! and Bellechier. So—not interested.’
Ally chewed the inside of her cheek. ‘That’s not what my brother Luc thinks. He sends his regards, by the way.’
Luc? Did he know a Luc? A memory of meeting someone called Luc at his old school friend James Moreau’s thirtieth birthday party drifted into his head. And later at James’ sister Morgan’s wedding...
‘Luc? Tall, dark, partial to smokin’ hot blondes?’
Ally nodded. ‘That’s the one. Luc Bellechier-Smith—CEO, my boss and foster brother.’
Huh. He’d instinctively liked Luc—liked the Frenchman’s passion and sense of humour, his quick mind. He couldn’t imagine how and why he’d ended up having Miss Carrot-Up-Her-Bum for a sister—fostered or not.
‘What do you for the company?’
‘Brand and Image Director. Marketing and PR all falls under me.’
‘And it was his idea to approach me?’ he asked, now puzzled. He’d thought that Luc was smarter than that.
‘Yes. We’re talking at cross-purposes due to the fact that we got distracted,’ she said, implying that the distraction was all his fault. ‘We’re launching a new line...would you give me five minutes to explain? Properly?’ Ally looked at the building behind him. ‘Preferably inside, where I presume it’s cooler?’
‘Here is good.’ He was far too attracted to her as it was, and he really didn’t want to extend this torture session any longer. What was wrong with him? He knew women—knew how to deal with them, how to control his reaction to them. They never made him feel off balance, slightly crazy.
‘A boardroom would be better,’ Ally countered.
His eyes narrowed in warning and he knew that she’d caught the hint when she wrinkled her nose.
‘Okay, here it is, then. Never mind that my nose is going to burn and I’m going to freckle...’
He looked for freckles and could find the hint of them under her make-up. On her nose, across her cheeks.
‘Bellechier is launching a new line—’ Ally’s opening gambit was drowned out by a piercing whistle from a balcony on the second storey of RBM.
Ross excused himself and walked quickly towards the building. Eli, his friend and number two, stood gripping the balcony railing, an anxious look on his face.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Jac-tech have picked up a bug in that app we sent them to test and they are not happy. You need to smooth some ruffled feathers, pronto,’ Eli told him, waving his hands in the air.
Along with computer games, RBM also designed game apps for smartphones. It was a very lucrative part of their business.
‘It’s a brand new app...we told them it would have bugs.’ Ross slammed his hands on his hips. ‘Who has their panties in a wad? The suits or the tech?’
‘Suits,’ Eli replied. ‘Who else?’
Ross yanked the band from his hair and raked his hand through it. ‘Figures. Why can’t they keep their noses out of it?’
‘Because they are power-hungry control freaks?’ Eli threw his words back at him. ‘Get your ass up here and deal with it. I’m in development, you deal with the suits.’
‘Yeah, coming.’
Eli jerked his head. ‘Who’s the babe?’
Ross grinned and dropped his voice. ‘Another co-branding offer. Give me two minutes and tell Grace to video conference Paul at Jac-tech.’
Eli saluted and turned away. Conscious of the dull headache brewing behind his eyes, Ross spun around and walked back to the source of the pain in his butt. ‘I have to go.’
‘But—’
He should just tell her to get lost, that he wasn’t interested in any branding deals, but there was something about her—apart from her space-high hot factor—that intrigued him. It was those eyes, he realised, the layers and layers of blue. Confidence, sassiness, intelligence, and once or twice a flash of something deeper, darker. Wilder...
He knew he shouldn’t, but he did it anyway. ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.
‘The Riebeek.’
Of course she was. Stately, old, rich... His mouth twitched. It suited the boring clothes and the severe hair, but not the shoes. Those shoes intrigued the hell out of him. ‘Be in the lobby bar at seven-thirty. You can buy me a drink and have your five minutes.’
‘At least thirty minutes if I’m buying,’ Ally stated, in a don’t-mess-with-me voice.
‘Fifteen.’ Ross countered, backing away.
‘Twenty.’
‘Twenty minutes, two drinks.’ Ross whirled around and walked away. At the door, he glanced over his shoulder and sent her a wicked grin. ‘Kick-ass shoes, by the way.’
‘They’re from the new line—the one we want you to endorse. It’s not boring or snooty!’ Ally shouted at his back.
Ross had to smile.
He liked women who could think on their feet. And women with dimples.
* * *
Sitting at the long dark bar in the hotel that evening, Ally felt out of her depth—and she knew that it was all Ross Bennett’s fault.
She crossed one leg over the other and stared at her glass of icy white wine. She’d completely cocked up their first meeting and that never happened to her... She was always professional, calm and collected. She just hadn’t expected the CEO of RBM to be playing basketball at noon and looking so...
Incredible? Amazing? So super-freaking-perfect that her heart had tripped over itself and bounced off the inside of her ribcage? Ally bit the inside of her lip. Within ten seconds of seeing him she’d known that Ross Bennett had the elusive X-factor she needed for the face of the new line. In fact he had it in spades—along with the sexy-factor and the hot-factor and any other damn factor she needed. That meant that Luc and Patric—the know-it-alls—had, essentially, done her job for her.
Ross would be abso-freaking-lutely perfect as the new face of Bellechier. If she, social hermit that she was, was conjuring up fantasies of ripping his clothes off with her teeth and getting him naked and on top of her as soon as humanly possible, then normal women—and not a few men—would do the same when they saw the commercials. At the very least it would make them buy Bellechier...
Lots and lots of Bellechier products. Holy smoke. The couple of random pictures she’d found on the net had not done justice to the sheer presence of the guy. He practically radiated charisma and testosterone and heat and sexiness, and that meant...dammit...that meant Luc and Patric were right.
Blergh.
Ally glanced at her watch, realised that she still had a while to wait for Ross and returned to the primary source of her aggravation—specifically her brothers. Ally wrinkled her nose, as always uncomfortable with the word. She wasn’t technically their sister—because the Bellechier-Smith family had never formally adopted her—but she had been part of their family since she was fifteen years old so what else could she call them? Anyway, they were the reason she was in Cape Town, and she was not amused because she now had to eat her words.
She hated it when that happened.
