The first time he set eyes on her she was wearing a gold satin beaded shift that shimmered when she moved. And how she moved!
Clutching an unwanted, untouched glass of white wine in his hand, he couldn’t find words to describe what he was seeing—the sinuous grace, the endless legs, the softly seductive curves of hip and breast. The sheer poetry as her head turned slowly on the perfection of the long and fragile stern of her neck. The strange, fabulous eyes meeting his briefly across the room, holding for a moment—almost as if the contact puzzled her—before she turned back to her companion.
He was holding his breath, he discovered. He hadn’t wanted to come to this party. But he hadn’t not wanted to, either—just killing time until his dinner date.
‘Eyes off, buddy!’ Alex muttered at his side. ‘The lady’s taken.’
‘Sorry?’ Jake’s brows met. He’d bumped into Alex Griffith in the City, just as he’d emerged from his Lombard Street head office, his mind still on his recent successful Far Eastern acquisition trip.
Friends since schooldays, they kept in touch more—as now—by luck than arrangement.
‘Have dinner?’ Alex had suggested.
Jake had shaken his head in regret, they had a lot of catching up to do. ‘Sorry. I promised to feed Kitty at The Dorchester. She’s thinking of applying for a teaching post in Chester. Wants my advice.’
‘Not boyfriend trouble this time?’ Alex’s tawny eyes had crinkled at the corners and Jake had grinned.
‘Happily not, it would seem. Though I’m not counting my chickens. Something like that could be behind the sudden need to move to the sticks.’
His kid sister brought as much dedication to her social life as she did to her chosen profession. And more often than not Jake was landed with the job of picking up the pieces. Looking out for Kitty was something he’d got used to. What else were brothers for—especially as there were no parents around to sort out the crises she seemed to thrive on?
‘Tomorrow? Lunch?’
‘Flying out to Dubai.’
‘Tell you what,’ Alex had shot a glance at his watch. ‘I’m due at this cocktail thrash around now. Duty thing—know how it is? Daren’t miss it, or I’d suggest a quiet drink. Why not keep me company?’
So here he was, almost wishing he’d not tagged along, until his attention had been riveted by the raven-haired beauty in the shimmering dress. He couldn’t take his eyes away.
‘Who is she?’
The face of La Donna.’ Alex hadn’t had to ask who Jake was talking about. ‘Shock to the system, what? I’ve met her once or twice. Got myself introduced during an interval at Covent Garden. But no dice. If I thought I stood a chance I’d be in there, trying my luck—along with the rest of the male population!’
Jake ignored that, dismissed it as an irrelevance, although it was to come back and haunt him time after time. ‘The face of what?’ The question was spiked with urgency, a tinge of irritation.
‘Where’ve you been the last couple of years, buddy? No, don’t tell me—too busy plotting how to make your company’s next billion to read the glossies or watch the hoardings!’
Then as if he sensed the brooding intensity in the dark eyes that suddenly flicked his way, Alex cut the banter and volunteered, ‘Appropriately, her name’s Bella. Bella Harcourt, supermodel. She was picked to be the face of La Donna—cosmetics and stuff. Since then her career’s taken off in a big way. And the guy she’s with is head of the agency which handles the La Donna account Guy Maclaine—a big name in advertising circles. He took her under his wing from the outset.’
‘And?’
‘And into his bed. Rumour has it he’s going for his second divorce, and that the answer to every man’s sexual fantasies will be Mrs Guy Maclaine the third.’
Over Jake’s dead body!
His eyes narrowed, intent, Jake watched the way she smiled at Maclaine, never moving from his side, her sinuous body curving into the shelter of his like a delicate vine seeking support.
Maclaine was a big brute, with the kind of near-ugly looks some women might find attractive. She obviously did. But if he could do it, he’d take her away from him.
He had never felt like this before. The assault on his emotions, the upheaval going on in his normally rational mind, would have rocked him on his heels had he not surrendered himself to the inevitability of what was happening here.
Without false modesty he knew he was what his mother would have called ‘eligible’. Neither repellent nor in his dotage, and going places in the dangerously unstable world of high finance, beautiful women came with the territory. They came and they went; he didn’t have time for a committed relationship and was always careful to point that out. But this—this was something very different...
He picked his moment, shouldering his way through the knots of brightly partying people just as Maclaine was politely allowing himself to be cornered by a red-haired, red-taloned woman of questionable sobriety.
‘Jake Fox,’ he introduced himself, catching a flicker of uncertainty in those strangely fabulous eyes, an automatic withdrawal. ‘Single, solvent, law-abiding.’
He could have added ‘besotted’, but didn’t. And wouldn’t—not until he’d come to terms with it himself, with this new and terrifyingly exciting experience. But he wasn’t going to waste time on preliminaries either.