A Contract for His Runaway Bride

CHAPTER ONE

ELODIE CAMPBELLGLANCEDat her designer watch and muttered a colourful curse. The one time in her life when she was bang on time for an appointment and she was kept waiting. Who was this guy who thought it was okay to leave her out here with her nerves ripping her stomach to shreds?

This meeting was her last chance for financial backing.

It had to go ahead.

To fill the time—and to settle her anxiety—she’d glanced through the artfully splayed glossy magazines five times. One of which featured a spread of her on a photo shoot in Dubai. Then she’d consumed two expertly brewed black coffees. Maybe the second coffee hadn’t been such a good idea. Restless at the best of times, now she was so fidgety she wanted to pace the floor...or punch something.

She crossed one leg over the other and kicked her top foot up and down in time with the tick-tock of the second hand on the clock above the receptionist’s desk.

The clock went around another eight and a half minutes and Elodie was close to screaming. Not just a scream of frustration but one that was so loud it would shatter the windows of the swish-looking office tower. Normally people had to wait for her. Her identical twin, Elspeth, had inherited the punctuality gene. Elodie had got the chronically late one.

The longer she waited, the worse her anxiety spiked. What if this meeting turned out like the last? Her options were running out—especially since the recent scandal attached to her name. Her previous financial backer had pulled out once he’d heard about her role in sabotaging a society wedding. Urgh. What was it with her and scandals? If she couldn’t secure financial backing, how could she leave her lingerie modelling career behind? She was tired of playing on her looks. She wanted to prove she had more than a good body. She wanted to design her own label of evening wear, but she needed an investor in her business to get it off the ground.

Another five minutes crawled past like a snail on crutches.

Elodie blew out a breath and sprang up from the sofa in the plush reception area on the top level of the London office tower. She strode over to the smartly dressed receptionist with a smile so forced it made her face ache. ‘Could you give me an update on when Mr Smith will be available?’

The receptionist’s answering smile was polite but formal. ‘I apologise for the delay. He’ll be with you shortly.’

‘Look, my appointment was—’

‘I understand, Ms Campbell. But he’s a very busy man. He’s made a special gap in his diary for you. He’s not usually so accommodating. You must’ve made a big impression on him.’

‘I haven’t even met him. All I know is, I was instructed to be here close to thirty minutes ago for a meeting with a Mr Smith to discuss finance. I’ve been given no other details.’

The receptionist glanced at the intercom console where a small green light was flashing. She looked up again at Elodie with the same polite smile. ‘Thank you for being so patient. Mr...erm... Smith will see you now. Please go through. It’s the third door on the right. The corner office.’

The corner office boded well—that meant he was the head honcho. The big bucks began and stopped with him. Elodie went to the door and took a deep calming breath, but it did nothing to settle the frenzy of flick knives in her stomach. She gave the door a quick rap with her knuckles.

Please, please, please let me be successful this time.

‘Come.’

Her hand paused on the doorknob, her mind whirling in ice-cold panic. Something about the deep timbre of that voice sent a shiver scuttling over her scalp like a small claw-footed creature. Elodie ran the tip of her tongue over her suddenly carpet-dry lips, her throat so tight she couldn’t swallow. Surely her nerves were getting the better of her? The man she was meeting was a Mr Smith. But how could this Mr Smith sound so like her ex-fiancé? Scarily like him.

She turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, her gaze immediately fixing on the tall dark-haired man behind the large desk.

‘You?’Elodie gasped, heat flooding into her cheeks and other places in her body she didn’t want to think about right now.

Lincoln Lancaster rose from his chair with leonine grace, his expression set in its customary cynical lines—the arch of one ink-black brow over his intelligent bluey-green gaze, the tilt of his sensual mouth that was not quite a smile. His black hair was brushed back from his high forehead in loose waves that looked as if they had last been combed by his fingers. He was dressed in a three-piece suit that hugged his athletic frame, emphasising the broadness of his shoulders, the taut trimness of his chest, flat abdomen and lean hips. He was the epitome of a successful a man in his prime. Potent, powerful, persuasive. He got what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted.

‘You’re looking good, Elodie.’

His voice rolled over her as smoothly and lazily as his gaze, the deep, sexy rumble so familiar it triggered a host of memories she had fought for seven years to erase. Memories in her flesh that were triggered by being in his presence. Erotic memories that made her hyper-aware of his every breath, his every glance, his every movement.

Elodie shut the door behind her with a definitive click. She clenched her right hand around her slimline purse and her other hand into a tight fist and stalked towards his desk. ‘How dare you lie to me to get me here? You know I’d never willingly be in the same room as you.’

His eyes shone with amusement, which only fuelled her anger like a naked flame on tinder. ‘You answered your own question. I wanted to meet with you and this seemed the only way to do it.’

‘Mr Smith?’She made a scoffing noise. ‘Couldn’t you be a little more original than that? And why not meet me at your Kensington office?’

‘In another life, Smith could well have been my name.’

There was a cryptic quality to his tone and a flicker of something in his expression that piqued her interest.

‘I’m using this office for a few weeks while my other premises are being renovated.’ He waved a hand at the plush chair in front of his desk. ‘Take a seat. We have things to discuss.’

Elodie remained standing, her fists so tightly balled she could feel her fingernails cutting half-moons into the skin of her palm and the soft leather of her purse. ‘I have nothing to discuss with you. You’ve no right to waste my valuable time by luring me here under false pretences.’