LOUISA:
“Quick, Lou, major hot dude alert. Twelve o’clock.”
My fingers paused on my computer keyboard at the urgent whisper from my editorial assistant Tracy. “I’m on deadline here, Trace,” I muttered, trying to sound like I actually gave a shit about the piece I had been assigned. “And I happen to take my work extremely seriously.”
I was a professional journalist. One of Blush online magazine’s most popular feature writers and vloggers. Just because this article about the pros and cons of breast implants was giving me a headache, I refused to be distracted because Tracy had spotted a fit guy – especially as her celebrity crush was Benedict Cumberbatch, so her taste in men was suspect to say the least.
“We’re talking scorching. You will not want to miss this dude.”
I kept my head down and carried on typing. For about two seconds.
“Bloody hell!” I clicked on screen save. “All right, just one quick peek, but this better be worth my valuable time.” Surely even a dedicated features writer like moi was entitled to some recreational pursuits on the stuffiest, most boring Friday afternoon in the history of the world ever.
I peered past my computer to get a better view, not expecting to be impressed. Tracy’s taste in men stank, but even her idea of what constituted a hottie couldn’t make me feel as queasy as the pictures I’d been looking at all afternoon. “Where is Mr Hot Dude then?”
“Over there.” Tracy pointed to the far end of the open-plan office. “The bloke with Piers,” she said, her voice hushed in reverence. “Isn’t he magnificent? I think I just ovulated.”
I sent her a quick grin. Good to know I wasn’t the only stir-crazy female on the premises. Then I looked past the desks of journalists typing like crazy on the last Friday before press day and spied two men with their backs to the room by the receptionist’s desk.
I blinked. Twice. Tracy hadn’t just surprised me. I was struck dumb. I was the office’s acknowledged hottie connoisseur and even I couldn’t fault this guy. Not from this angle anyway. Tall, dark and broad-shouldered with an expertly tailored navy-blue designer suit on, Adonis was making our managing editor Piers Parker – who was at least six foot – look like a midget.
“So, marks out of ten?” My ovulating EA whispered.
I tilted my head to one side to objectify the guy properly. Even from twenty yards away the man deserved an appreciative purr. “He certainly qualifies from the rear,” I purred. “But I think we’d need to see his face to make a final appraisal. As you well know, no one enters the DiMarco Hot Dude Hall of Fame until I’ve had a chance to assess all his assets.”
Standing stiffly with his legs braced apart, Adonis chose that moment to thrust one fist into his trouser pocket. His body language radiated controlled irritation. I didn’t care. The movement had made his jacket rise over his backside and stretched the fabric over the tightest buns this side of Captain America.
Now, if he would just turn around and come a bit closer. Yep, this was definitely an improvement on silicone implants.
Something teased the edges of my memory, though, as I tapped my pen against my bottom lip and waited.
The clatter of computer keyboards and the buzz of conversation slowly tapered off as every woman in the place became aware of the designer-clad superhero in our midst. I could almost hear a collective estrogen-loaded sigh over the hum of expectation.
“Maybe he’s the new assistant editor?” Tracy said hopefully.
“I doubt it, that suit’s new season Tom Ford and Piers is practically genuflecting–which means he’s either on the board of directors or he plays for Arsenal’s A-team,” I whispered back.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a sportsman with that lean, athletic build, I couldn’t imagine a professional footballer looking this debonair.
I fluffed my hair instinctively. Fuck me, was I actually holding my breath?
It had been so long since I’d had the urge to flirt, I almost didn’t recognize the feeling. How long had it been since I’d even felt excited in the presence of a good-looking guy?
The errant thought had an image forming which I instantly repressed. Do not go there. My radar had been spectacularly off that evening, but the hook-up from hell had been over three months ago. Twelve weeks, four days and–I did a quick calculation–sixteen hours to be exact. Luke Devereaux, the uber-hot, charming Duke of Berwick and bone fide arsehole of the century no longer had the power to devastate me. But even so, the prickle of memory transformed into a nasty little thorn, stabbing at my subconscious.
I frowned as Piers turned to point straight at me.
What the actual fuck?
But then Adonis swung around too, in slow motion. A pair of piercing and painfully familiar silvery blue eyes fixed on my face and the little thorn became a jagged blade slicing right through my breathless anticipation – to the devastating date night from hell three months ago.
Devereaux.
My fingers went numb, my heart thudded like a sledgehammer, all my blood rocketed into my cheeks and the hairs on the back of my neck felt as if a greedy fist had wrenched them out at the roots. Then heat blazed through my body, as the memory I’d been suppressing like a Trojan every day of the last three months hit me like a red-hot slap–strong fingers digging into my hips, insistent lips fastened on the pulse point in my neck and wave upon glorious wave of orgasm rocketing up from my core.
A tangle of nerves, fury and nausea snaked into a vicious knot in the pit of my stomach.
What the ever-loving fuck is he doing here?
This man was no superhero. The guy making a beeline across the office straight for me made Thanos look like a good guy.
“Wow, he’s coming over here.” Tracy announced over the pneumatic drill now shattering my eardrums. “Oh-my-god! Isn’t that Duke What’s-his-cock? You know, the one who topped your Britain’s Most Eligible Bachelors list. Maybe he’s here to thank you.”
Hardly, I thought bitterly. He’d already exacted his revenge for that list three months ago. My spine snapped straight and I folded my legs tightly under my chair. The tap of my high-heeled leather boot against the chair’s stem sounded like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun at half-speed.
If he was here to take another cheap shot, I might actually lose what was left of my shit.
But the good news was, I had seen him coming this time. He’d used my open nature, my innate flirtatiousness, and my incendiary attraction to him against me three months ago. He would never catch me unawares again. This time, I would be able to fight back, no longer struck dumb by the awfulness of how easily I had been duped… And I would destroy him.
Then I would take great pleasure in tap-dancing on his grave.
LUKE:
I ate up the acres of beige carpeting as I zeroed in on my prey. I ignored the obsequious editor scuffling along at my heels, or the sea of female faces swiveling in their chairs to gawp at me. All my concentration, all my irritation was focussed on one particular woman. That she looked as stunning as I remembered her — shiny gold-streaked hair framing an angelic face, killer cleavage accentuated by a tight, figure-hugging dress, and mile-long legs encased in knee-high boots – only made me more determined to keep my cool.
Appearances were deceiving. This woman was no angel.
Okay, things had got spectacularly out of hand three months ago. And I had to take a large part of the blame for that. The plan had been to teach her a lesson about respecting people’s privacy – not humiliate her the way I had.
But Christ, she deserved a large part of the blame, too. I’d never met anyone as reckless and impulsive before in my life. And I was hardly a bloody saint. When a woman who looked like her, smelt like her and felt like she did had offered what she had offered, what did she think I’d do? Say no thanks? I couldn’t imagine any heterosexual bloke being able to think clearly under the same circumstances. How could I possibly have known she wasn’t as experienced as she appeared?
Well, one thing was for sure, I was through feeling guilty about my part in it.
After my chat with our mutual friend Jack Devlin yesterday all my guilt, and all my regrets over what had happened between us three months ago had given way to slow-burning anger.
Whatever hurts, whatever injustices I had done her in the past, I had no qualms whatsoever about coming here and getting the truth out of her.
Louisa DiMarco was about to discover Luke Devereaux never backed down from a fight.
What was it my late, unlamented shit of a father had said to me on our one and only meeting all those years ago? “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, boy.” I’d learnt that lesson the hard way when I was seven years old. Frightened and alone in a world I didn’t know and didn’t understand, I’d had to toughen up fast or go under. It was about time the spoilt, self-absorbed and fool-hardy Miss DiMarco learnt the same bloody lesson.
I reached Louisa’s desk, saw the bright spark of fury in those stunning brown eyes, the smooth honey-toned skin mottled with temper. Her elegant chin poked out in defiance. I imagined fisting my fingers in all those glorious blond-brown curls and kissing her into submission. A tantalizing prospect, but likely to be counter-productive in the circumstances. I wouldn’t put it past her to sucker punch me in the balls.
To resist the urge to touch her, I buried my hands in my pockets and kept my eyes flat and expressionless. It was a casual, predatory look I used to terrorize my business opponents. Louisa, though, I noted with some admiration, didn’t even blink.
The adrenaline rush I associated with a particularly tough new business challenge surged through me.
Teaching this woman how to face her responsibilities might actually be more of a pleasure than a pain. I was already anticipating lesson numero uno: getting Louisa to tell me what she should have told me weeks ago – when she’d discovered she was pregnant with my child.
“Miss DiMarco, I want a word with you.”
