The Love List

EVE DEVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

Copyright © Eve Devon 2014

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Eve Devon asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © October 2014

ISBN: 9780007558469

Version 2014-09-11

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

For Rachel—my fellow Chiari ZipperHead Club member, because you understand not only what it is to be creative, but to be courageous too.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Also by Eve Devon…

Eve Devon

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘What the..?’ Nora King strung together a stream of amazingly coherent swear words for so early in the morning as she flapped her hand around in a wide circle, trying in vain to dislodge the shoe she had just managed to superglue to her hand. This was so not happening.

‘Okay. It’s okay. Breathe,’ she instructed with an edge of panic when it became apparent she was going to do herself a serious injury if she continued to wang her arm about so insanely.

She counted to ten.

Then, calmly and without any sense of drama, lest the shoe somehow suspected she was going to try and wrench it free again, she placed her free hand on top of the harbinger of doom and pulled. Gently at first, then harder, as tears of frustration pooled at the outer rims of her eyes.

‘Damn it, budge, why don’t you?’ Desperate, she glanced around the private bathroom that connected to her office, looking for something to prise it off with. This was what she got for trying to be clever and fix her beloved shoes; the ones with the magical confidence-boosting properties, on the morning of her eight a.m. breakfast meeting with Eleanor Moorfield—designer of the shoe now attached to her hand—instead of the night before, where it had been clearly scheduled on her To Do list. But last night, after getting in late from a day of meetings, followed by an uncomfortable visit with her sister, Sephy, she had bypassed the shoe-fixing in favour of a large glass of red and some sleep.

‘A-hah,’ she exclaimed in a light-bulb moment. One-handed she upended the contents of her bag and rummaged for a nail file. Locating one and holding it aloft triumphantly, she smiled at her genius in the mirror, before trying to slide the file between the sole of the stiletto and the palm of her hand.

No deal.

A trickle of hysteria bubbled its way to the surface.

It was now one hour and fifteen minutes before she was due to deliver the pitch of her life. She’d been working on the presentation for six weeks. Six weeks of silly hours. Six weeks of devising, developing, practising and polishing. She had it on super-secret authority that Eleanor Moorfield, ex-model turned award-winning shoe designer, was looking to relocate her headquarters from Italy back to England. The Moorfield brand was right up there with Louboutin, Jimmy Choo, and all the other ‘have to have’ shoes women salivated over. Securing a contract to provide business premises for the Moorfield headquarters, shop units and manufacturing set-up would be a real coup for the King Property Corporation. Not to mention prove to herself that she hadn’t lost her touch. That she still had what it took to get out there and get the business in.

On her own. Without help.

KPC had been, and always would be, her life.

By the time her father had retired and she’d stepped up as CEO, KPC had over three hundred commercial buildings it owned and leased out and Nora’s first challenge had been to secure the company’s future against an economic downturn. Confidence had come from her passion for KPC, her unwavering dedication, and the knowledge that she could always get guidance from her father if needed.

But when her father suffered a major health crisis she’d been forced to approach her brother Jared in New York, and persuade him to return to the family he hadn’t been part of for ten years and the company he had declined to run—the company she loved, for help.

She had always known her brother’s expertise was on loan and ever since Jared had returned to his own life in New York, she had been working to implement the changes he had helped come up with. Changes that would add to KPC’s portfolio of property services and ensure the family-run company would recover from its dip and go from strength to strength.

Her confidence had taken a battering, though.

So get the Moorfield contract and hopefully she’d stop second-guessing every decision she made since the death of her father seven months ago and then Jared’s return to New York. Get the contract and she’d have so much work she wouldn’t have time to second-guess every decision she made.

She wanted desperately to land the account. For herself. For her father. Okay, mostly for her father. For the faith he had placed in her.

Blowing a strand of straight black hair out of her eyes she swung back to face herself in the bathroom mirror. It had all been going so well. All she’d had left to do was go through the pitch one last time before quickly repairing the spot where the sole had parted from the leather upper on her shoe. Nora sniffed dejectedly. Possibly she shouldn’t have been wearing this pair so much lately, but they made her feel so in control and can-do when she had them on, and today, especially, she’d wanted to show she loved the Moorfield brand. That she owned the vintage editions as well as the latest designs. She should have stuck with the perfectly serviceable but non-Moorfield stilettos she was wearing, or concentrated on doing one thing at a time, like any other normal professional.

Oh, a sudden brainwave had her rushing towards the door back into her office. Opening it she looked left and then right. What for, she wasn’t quite sure, but with perspective now dangling precariously, it felt like the right thing to do. Then, dashing across her office, stopping briefly to grab the large tote bag she had used to transport some of her files that morning, she encased her ‘predicament’ inside the bag, dragged the straps over her shoulder, and fought one-handed to set free some of her trapped hair.

Finally composed, she wished with all her might that salvation was about to take the form of her assistant Fern, who, if luck was on her side, would turn out to secretly be some sort of shoe surgeon.

Pushing open the door to the reception area, which housed Fern’s desk, she squeaked, ‘Fern? Two words: Help, Emergency,’ and then came to an abrupt halt as she spied a tall, gorgeous—if she was absolutely forced to form a fleeting impression—man, dressed in jeans and a charcoal-grey duffel coat, standing beside Fern’s desk. ‘Oh.’

Okay. This was most definitely not her five-foot-and-half-an-inch assistant, Fern. This was a well over six foot tall tree of a man, making five-foot-ten-inch Nora feel unexpectedly petite as she hovered uncertainly in her office doorway.

‘Technically that’s three words,’ claimed the man, turning from where he’d been staring at a portrait of her father to look over at her.

‘Three words?’ Nora blinked. She didn’t have time for a maths lesson. She needed help. She needed a miracle. She needed…a knight in shining armour strong enough to separate her shoe from her hand? Not that she could afford to be fussy. If the hand had to come too, so be it.

‘Mmmn. “Oh” being the third,’ he explained, shoving his hands casually into his coat pockets.

Somehow, despite a warm smile that induced a quite unnecessary, in her humble opinion, heart-skipping-a-beat moment, Nora felt sure actual knights didn’t come equipped with a mean streak in pedantry. She went to finger-quote and realised she couldn’t. Pushing the straps of the oversized carrier bag over her shoulder, nerves jangling on their very last nerve, she rose to the bait. ‘Technically, who are you, the Word-Count Police?’

No reaction. Well, if you discounted the slow sexy amused lift to his grin. Which, she decided, she really must.

Was this the famous boyfriend, then? Maybe he’d dropped Fern off and was waiting around to say goodbye when she came back from wherever it was she was. She looked around and finding the reception area empty, realised that Fern was probably getting the coffees in. She thought about her usual vanilla latte and, with hand clamped to her shoe, couldn’t help thinking she was going to need something stronger.

Of its own accord, Nora’s gaze swung back to Mr Office Imposter. He was definitely noteworthy. If you went for the whole twinkly blue-eyed, full wide smile, chiselled and stubbled jawline look, with the dirty blond slightly overlong hair in a ruffled style that made a woman itch to muss with it further and thus stake her claim. Nora couldn’t help herself; she ran her gaze from head to toe. He certainly had the whole broad-at-the-shoulder, lean-at-the-hip thing going for him.

Yeah, had to be the boyfriend. Shorter women always ended up with really tall men, who looked like they could pick them up and put them right where they wanted them.

Lucky Fern.

Nora felt kind of bad; Fern worked all hours of the day for her, which didn’t leave her much time to meet up with Mr Gorgeous, here. She wasn’t sure she could be so forgiving if the roles were reversed.

She shook her head slightly. Maybe she’d accidentally inhaled the glue while performing the spectacularly stupid stunt of sticking her favourite shoe to her hand, because it definitely wasn’t every day she was struck down by—

Nora breathed in sharply.

No way was she thinking love at first sight.

Lust at first sight, maybe.

Love at first sight was for wish lists that you wrote with your favourite coloured markers when you were ten.

Mr Office Imposter stared right back at her, knowingly allowing her to look her fill, and so, she guessed, it would be rude not to. After all, Nora liked to think she had good manners. And then there was the fact that it was her office he was in.

Shoe-gate was all but forgotten and seconds felt like minutes as she stood there watching him watch her. Worse, the more the laid-back confidence behind his eyes traitorously affected her breathing, the more she was struck by an insane impulse to slake her tongue over parched lips—wanting and not wanting his incredible blue eyes to track the movement.

Excruciatingly bad form, Nora. Fern had obviously got there first and besides, she definitely didn’t have time to indulge in whatever this silent thing was that they had going because none of this was getting her where she needed to be, in shoe-stuck-to-hand-less land.

Hugging the bag protectively to her chest, she tried to find her way back to the idea that she was a professional businesswoman. ‘I’m Nora King,’ she said, introducing herself.

‘Ethan Love. I—’

‘Hey, I see you two found each other,’ Fern said, as she breezed in with the requisite cardboard tray of hot drinks. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to do the formal introduction, but when I couldn’t find you,’ she added, looking at Nora, ‘I assumed you’d gone on the coffee run. I thought I’d catch you up by taking the lift, but you must have got back first.’ Fern whizzed over to her desk to set down her purse and the tray. Casting Ethan a brief look, she said, ‘Nora has a little thing about waiting for the lift and usually takes the stairs.’

Nora felt heat creep up her neck to tinge her cheekbones. ‘Er, that’s your boss you’re labelling as pernickety and impatient. Not sure your boyfriend and I know each other well enough for you to divulge all my endearing qualities.’

‘My boyfriend?’ Fern looked from Ethan to Fern with a funny look on her face. ‘Holy crap. You haven’t done the introduction thing?’

‘Of course I have. He’s Ethan Love. Your boyfriend.’

‘He is Ethan Love. He is not my boyfriend. He’s Daisy’s uncle.’

Nora felt a spike of something that might have been relief that he wasn’t Fern’s boyfriend before confusion set in. ‘Daisy who?’

‘Daisy, your niece,’ Fern said, speaking extra slowly and looking at her as if she had left her brain somewhere.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Jared is Daisy’s uncle.’

‘Jared King is your brother, right?’ Ethan said patiently. ‘Well, my brother is Ryan Love…your sister Sephy’s ex and Daisy’s dad.’

‘No, Daisy’s dad is called—’ Love-Rat. At least that was what Nora had privately labelled him when he’d run out on her sister. She managed to stop herself from saying the words out loud. Ethan Love…Ryan Love. The dots got closer together until they joined up. Wow. But why was his brother here? Nora tried to process his presence and suddenly could only think it must have been something huge to have brought Ethan Love to visit. ‘Oh no, please tell me your brother isn’t—’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She might not have ever understood the bad-boy draw of her sister’s ex and she might have been pleased when he’d upped and moved away so that her sister didn’t have to see him around town doing a very passable Peter Pan impression while managing only haphazard interest in his daughter, but Nora didn’t want her sister to go through another bereavement.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ethan was quick to reassure. ‘I should have thought about what it would look like dropping by so unexpectedly. I simply need your help to run something past your sister.’

Nora stared at Ethan. Why did she get the feeling that this wasn’t going to be simple? With a sinking heart she really didn’t see how she could possibly juggle one more thing, but if this had something to do with her sister—if her sister needed her help, she would find a way.

Plan A, to meet with Eleanor Moorfield minus her shoe appendage slipped out of the window and sloped off into the distance, where, the way her day was going, it would undoubtedly be joined by Plan B and Plan C.

‘Would you like me to reschedule your 8 a.m. for later today?’ Fern asked, looking at Nora with concern.

‘I can wait until your meeting is finished,’ Ethan said, mildly. ‘I just got off a plane so I could do with checking in to a hotel and sleeping. I only stopped here first to make an appointment. I’m afraid I didn’t realise how early it was.’

Nora was so busy wondering how he’d managed to charm security into letting him through to her offices that she only caught the tail end of Fern’s repeated offer to reschedule her breakfast meeting with Eleanor. Hand clenching within the confines of the bag, she said, ‘Thanks, Fern, but you’d better cancel it altogether. Something else has come up, which means I couldn’t have made it today, anyway.’

‘Something else? Since when? You were so pumped for the meeting. You’re ready. The pitch is ready.’ Fern glanced down at Nora’s feet. ‘Wait. Those aren’t the shoes. Where are the shoes? Don’t tell me you forgot to bring them in with you. Not you, The Shoe Princess.’

Nora felt Ethan’s gaze drop to the four-inch black stilettos she was wearing before slowly moving up the length of her legs to the hem of her black pencil skirt and then up further, across her cream jacket before finally coming to rest on her face. Fern and Nora knew each other, warts and all, but somehow with Ethan standing there, taking everything in, it was really hard not to feel exposed. And warm. Very, very warm. ‘I can be interested in shoes without being a “princess” about it,’ she said, trying unsuccessfully not to pout.

‘Right, so what’s with the shoe bag?’

Nora glanced guiltily down at the bag clutched across her midriff. It had the name of a well-known Italian boot-maker emblazoned across the front. Of all the ironies… Nora felt her grip on reality slipping as she admitted, ‘Actually, I do kind of need your help.’ She blew out a breath. There, that hadn’t been so very difficult. Doing her best to ignore Fern’s snort of incredulity, she rushed on, ‘Yes, this is really me, really asking for help, which you can tease me for later, but right now I need you to help me come up with a Plan B—a suitable excuse for postponing my 8 a.m. with,’ Nora looked at the wall clock and blanched, ‘with only one hour’s notice.’

‘Just for the hell of it, what happened to Plan A?’ Ethan interjected, pulling out one of the chairs in front of Fern’s desk and obviously settling himself in for the duration.

‘Forget Plan A. I am so beyond Plan A it’s not even funny,’ she answered, a tad more irritably than was perhaps wise, given that it was she who was asking for help and not the other way around.

The heartbeat-altering grin made an appearance. Ethan seemed to find her waspishness more amusing than insulting. He probably never found himself in embarrassing situations.

Taking another deep breath, Nora focused solely on Fern. ‘The problem is, I can’t do my pitch today, on account of a little accident, which doesn’t need a whole Q and A,’ she insisted as Fern stepped forward with a frown on her face, ‘I’m absolutely fine—I simply…need to cancel. And come up with a suitable excuse. I mean I know fact is stranger than fiction,’ when Nora heard her voice rising alarmingly she began pacing, to try and outdistance herself from her own stupidity, ‘but in this case fact sucks. Fact turns me into a laughing stock and I can’t afford that—’

‘Is she always this hyper?’ Ethan asked Fern, as if she wasn’t there.

‘No way. Only when she’s done something…oh, good grief, Leonora, have you been multi-tasking again?’

‘Only a little bit,’ Nora shot out defensively, before squeezing her eyes shut in mortification, because really, who had ever heard of a CEO not being able to multi-task?

‘We’ve talked about this. You know nerves and multi-tasking and you don’t mesh. I swear, for someone so ultra-efficient in every other aspect of life, it beggars belief. What’s happened and why on earth don’t you put the bag down?’

Nora winced.

It seemed a show-and-tell was on the horizon.

‘It is kind of shoe-related,’ she whispered as she started lowering the bag from where her arm was hidden inside, ‘it’s kind of a,’ she gulped and went for broke, ‘help, I’ve super-glued my shoe to my hand, kind of a mess.’

The bag floated silently to the floor and the next thing she knew, Ethan was standing in front of her turning her hand one way and then another, as if she were some sort of interactive museum exhibit.

‘How on earth..?’

‘Oh, by all means, let’s share.’ Nora’s head bobbed up and down as if she couldn’t wait. What was one more ounce of mortification? ‘Let’s see. Well, this is one half of a pair of vintage Eleanor Moorfield shoes. On my feet, these shoes say: This woman knows what she’s about. You can trust her with your business—with your life, which is why I intended to wear them today for a pitch I’ve been working on for weeks. Sure, I may have, technically, been supposed to fix the sole of this one yesterday. But, sometimes life gets in the way and anyway, I found some glue this morning on Fern’s desk and, well, some of the glue must have seeped out while I was pressing the sole closed. By the time I had finished running over my presentation, and,’ Nora’s head dipped as she mumbled, ‘taken a couple of work calls,’ she waved her hand-shoe combo in his face, ‘this, had happened.’

‘Fascinating.’

Nora’s gaze shot to Ethan at the quietly mumbled word. With the heat of humiliation stinging her cheeks, she really could have done with both hands free to fan herself, or at the very least, hide behind.

‘Did I mention Nora is addicted to multi-tasking?’ Fern chimed in helpfully.

‘There’s no way I can win a business pitch like this. Doesn’t exactly make for a great hand-shaking experience, does it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ethan said, his grin full. ‘You’d get my vote for originality. My guess is he certainly wouldn’t forget you.’ He stroked his fingers over her hand. Heat zinged all the way up her arm and into her neck. Okay, so snatching back her hand might send a signal that she was affected by his touch, but at least it would shock her brain back into working. And, a working brain would be good. If only to stop her feeling like some silly ingénue under his gaze.

‘He is a she,’ she answered. ‘And believe me…she won’t be so easily charmed, especially since it’s one of her designs that’s attached to my hand. I’m going to reek of ineptitude. Not exactly the look I was going for.’

‘Never mind all that,’ Fern said. ‘You should be in hospital getting that seen to.’

Hospital? Nora hadn’t really done hospitals much lately. Not since her father—skidding her thoughts to a halt, she tucked her tongue between her teeth and started pacing again. There had to be another way. ‘Ooh, quick. I need your computer.’

‘My computer? Sure but—’ Fern got out of the way in time for Nora to plonk herself down at her desk in order to slowly, single-handedly Google: How to remove superglue.

‘Ha,’ squinting at the screen, she clicked on several entries. ‘Right. I need something containing acetone chemicals.’ She scrolled down the page. ‘Otherwise known as…nail-varnish remover.’ She turned to Fern, who was looking over her shoulder. ‘Here’s the part where you tell me you never leave the house without nail-varnish remover?’

‘Oh, sweetie.’

‘Nooo! Come on,’ Nora looked skywards, ‘I asked for help and everything. Oh,’ Nora sat bolt upright as a new thought occurred. ‘Shops. Shops will save me.’ She looked at the expression on Fern’s face. ‘If they were actually open, that is.’ Whose bright idea had it been to have the meeting at 8 a.m. anyway? It was like some sort of weird conspiracy.

‘I have to win this pitch, Fern. I have to. I can’t f—’ Nora broke off and hung her head as the full enormity of what she’d been about to admit hit her. The last thing she needed was to give Fern the impression she was about to crumble if she failed.

Her vision blurred as she looked down at her hand. She’d have to cancel the pitch. So be it. These things happened. Except, usually she did everything in her power to ensure that these things didn’t happen. Not to her. Providing strong leadership had been what she’d been trained to do by the best in the business—her father. She hated that lately, every business move she made, had her questioning herself. When she’d heard on the grapevine that Eleanor Moorfield was thinking about returning to London, Nora had suited-up, taken the gamble and approached her directly. Now, it stung to have to admit that a little multi-tasking may have defeated her and made her look as if she wasn’t quite as super-efficient and in control as she liked to appear. It was beginning to look as if she deliberately sabotaged her own success.

She breathed in sharply. She did not like the sound of that. Not one little bit.

‘Why can’t you ask someone else to do the pitch for you?’ Ethan asked from where he was stationed the other side of her. ‘You must have account managers who usually handle this sort of thing.’

‘I don’t want to ask any of them to handle this particular meeting for me,’ Nora answered, realising the statement looked as though she couldn’t delegate. Why hadn’t she said something more along the lines of: she liked to lead by example or keep her hand in? Not that she needed to explain herself to him.

‘Why don’t I do the pitch for you?’ Ethan asked.

Nora’s mouth dropped open and she craned her head to look up at him as if he was insane. The raised eyebrow she got back in response suggested its owner cared not one jot what she thought of him.

‘Why don’t you…?’ Again she flapped her hand-shoe in his face. ‘Because despite all evidence to the contrary, I’m in the market of showing KPC in the best possible light at all times. I’m not about to put a complete stranger into a meeting it’s taken me weeks to set up. I don’t know you from Adam.’

‘Hey,’ Ethan held up his hands as if to ward off any histrionics. ‘I rather thought you were making a case for all hands to the pumps. But go ahead. Be Miss Independent. It’s working out really well for you, so far.’

Indignation battled alongside embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, I seem to have missed the part where you mentioned you were a property acquisitions lawyer, salesman or account manager or used to securing major business contracts.’ She raked her gaze down to his battered trainers and back up again. ‘You’re not even dressed appropriately.’

‘But maybe he could do it, Nora,’ Fern said.

Her head whipped in the opposite direction to stare at Fern. ‘You’ve only just met the man.’

‘But, well, he’s kind of family, isn’t he?’

‘He is not family. Besides, if he’s anything like his brother, he’ll get distracted by something pretty before he even gets to the meeting.’

In the stark silence Nora couldn’t quite believe she’d been so rude. Asking for help was new enough to her. Graciously accepting it was obviously still at the conceptual stage.

The urge to run and escape was immense. A feeling that was becoming increasingly persistent of late.

‘It seems to me,’ Ethan said, as if her words had had no effect, ‘you need someone who can represent your company without making a fool of himself, charm the client into outlining their needs and then promise you can deliver those needs within a reasonable time and for a reasonable fee. I don’t see a problem. I am such a guy.’

His arrogance astonished her. But while she sat there staring at him like a stunned mullet, couldn’t she actually see him charming Eleanor Moorfield right out of her shoes?

‘The idea is preposterous,’ she said to counteract the vivid imagery.

‘Clock’s ticking,’ he said patiently, testing her resolve.

‘You’re not even wearing a suit.’

He turned to indicate two travel bags stowed by the desk and she remembered he had said he’d come from the airport.

Her mind raced. It would take months to scout out another client the size and scope of the Moorfield brand. By then, KPC might still be surviving, but would it be flourishing under her guidance? What would she have if she didn’t have KPC? Her brother Jared had his own corporation and a beautiful new fiancée. Her sister, Sephy, had a fledgling business and a darling daughter. It was up to her to keep the family company run by someone in the family. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might run her father’s legacy into the ground—not when she believed so much in the company and not after Jared had helped her set KPC back on track for a bright future.

She looked at Ethan. At this point, what did she have to lose? If he didn’t land the account, no one within KPC would be any the wiser and she’d just work her butt off finding another lucrative contract to beef up the company’s profile. If he did land the account…

No.

She shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea.

But the thought of the Moorfield account slipping away…

She looked at the wall clock before her gaze settled back on Ethan. ‘But why would you help?’ she asked without filtering.

For the first time since she’d laid eyes upon him, his casual demeanour altered slightly and for all the caution she threw at herself, she was intrigued by the chink in this knight’s armour.

‘Call it family loyalty,’ he said, obliquely.

Chapter Two

‘So in between rescuing damsels, what is it you actually do?’

Ethan heard Nora ask the question from where she’d nervously set up camp outside her executive bathroom door. Whatever she’d taken from his reference to family loyalty had had her relenting and agreeing to show him the presentation after he got changed into a suit.

Ethan braced his hands on the marble vanity and stared hard into the bronze-toned mirror in front of him.

What was it he actually did?

Allegedly he was in the business of helping people. Whether he continued to get to do that was another matter altogether after the risk-assessment report was filed.

Turning away from the mirror, he searched his bag for his wash kit. He didn’t know what all the fuss was about. He’d got the kid out, hadn’t he? Like any other member of the team would have left him there if there’d been even the remotest chance of getting him out. He hadn’t placed anyone else in danger. Surely the important thing was that Pietro was alive and hopefully back with his family by now—not whether going into that building had been reckless and against protocol.

Ethan turned back to the mirror and ran a hand over his day-old stubble, realising he didn’t have time for a shave anyway.

God, he was tired. The insomnia was getting really bad. But he’d deal with it. No need to make it complicated. No need to dwell.

Angling his head toward the door he went with the job he hoped he would still have after the report was submitted, rather than the job title stamped on his passport. ‘I work for a charity that organises disaster relief. I go to whichever disaster zone I’m deployed to and help provide shelter, water, food, etc.’

Silence.

He wished he could see her reaction. He was willing to bet she was standing on the other side of the door with a sexy little ‘v’ etched into her un-Botoxed forehead, her tempting mouth dropping open slightly in shock.

‘And you’ve come back recently?’ she asked.

‘Via a quick stopover to see my brother, yes.’

‘Where is it you’ve been?

Ethan blew out a breath. ‘Northern Italy.’

‘Where the earthquake was?’

‘Yeah.’ Ethan deliberately kept his eyes open to stop the memories flashing before his eyes.

‘So…you have a really important job, then?’

‘If you want to think so,’ he said lightly. He smiled, imagining it might be a little hard to reconcile what she’d just heard alongside her previous judgement of him.

‘So…the Love Rat must have done something really bad to necessitate you coming home and then here.’

Huh. Clever.

His smile turned wry. He supposed he couldn’t really complain about the Love Rat tag she’d used for Ryan. It was quite the accurate description of the brother he had known before Ethan had deliberately started working so hard; he hadn’t had time to keep up regular contact.

He wasn’t going to hide from telling Nora where Ryan was. It was why he was here. But right now he had an opportunity placed before him that meant he didn’t have to think about the situation he’d left behind in northern Italy or about how seeing his brother really made him feel. Right now he wanted to do something he knew he could do, and do well. And if it helped burn off the latent energy so that maybe at some point later today he’d be able to sleep, even better.

Probably after he got some sleep things would go back to feeling simple and he’d stop worrying that his boss was going to judge him negatively for something any decent person would have done.

Realising he’d left his other bag behind, he called out, ‘Can you pop through to reception and pick up my garment bag, take out the blue suit and bring it to me?’

‘What did your last slave die of?’

Ethan looked in the mirror, liking how her harrumphed tone put the twinkle back in his eyes. ‘Happiness when I came out of the bathroom naked to fetch my own clothes?’

As he started removing jacket, top and jeans, he tried to make out more dark mutterings from the other side of the door before it was opened a notch and his clothes were pushed through the tiny gap and dumped on the chair inside the door. A few seconds later the door opened a little bit wider and she mumbled, ‘There was no tie in your bag.’

‘Oh, yeah. Don’t use them.’ He had no problem meeting her curious gaze and as her eyes dropped lower to take in his chest and the ink that wrapped around his right pectoral and shoulder, his grin grew impossibly wider. ‘Too restrictive.’

She shut the door firmly between them.

He chuckled. He might be suffering from insomnia, but even the fug of running on empty hadn’t diminished the spark of attraction between them.

Unbuttoning the white shirt, he shucked into it.

Settling back into life after a deployment was always hard. Granted, he usually had the satisfaction of knowing he’d done a good job and all he could to help.

This time everything was different.

This time…well he wasn’t willing to take that one out of the box for analysis quite yet. All he knew for certain was that for the first time in a long while he’d questioned his ability to make a situation better and he’d questioned his ability to keep doing a job he loved so much. Especially during the hours when he’d been talking to Pietro, trying to figure out how to get them both out. Shaking his head, he put the suit on and determined to think about something else.

For his brother to track him down and make contact was unusual, but when the first phone call from Ryan had come, Ethan had remained calm.

Relaxed.

Calm always got him through deployment. And relaxed had always got him through dealing with his family, and in particular, his kid brother.

He’d accepted that phone call with the deliberate laissez-faire attitude his brother was so expert at, and when Ryan had told him he was in trouble, he hadn’t asked near enough questions.

Ethan was going to carry the guilt of that for a while, no matter that in his opinion his brother hadn’t ever known what real trouble was. Never saw what Ethan saw every day in his work. Ryan’s version of trouble could be alleviated by him simply growing up and changing his attitude.

His brother had had to call a second time before Ethan properly computed what was going on. By then, coinciding with being called into his superior’s tent and told to take some leave while they filled out their report, the last thing he had been feeling as he packed his bag to take the plane home to the UK, was calm and relaxed.

Ryan needed his help. Of course Ethan would help.

Any concern over the fact that his own future hung on the outcome of a report could be relegated to second place.

He only hoped getting Sephy King on board with his idea to help his brother wasn’t made more difficult by her older sister, Nora.

Nora King.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Not a princess in skyscraper heels with defiant fiery button-brown eyes and the dreamiest, creamiest, palest of complexions, though.

She was the living embodiment of the corporate females he deliberately avoided these days, but there was something about her that slammed right into him, leaving him a little breathless. Even with the business-as-usual façade she wore, he could see the struggle she was trying to survive underneath. How she couldn’t quite hide the fact that grief had stripped her bare and she didn’t know what to do about it.

He’d seen that same hollowed-out shocked look on people’s faces when their worlds had exploded and they’d been left to try and rebuild what they could.

Combing his hair back from his face, he thought about the woman on the other side of the door. He really shouldn’t, but damsels in distress being something of a rarity these days, he felt like indulging himself.

Probably not the wisest move; especially as the plan had been to sort things for his brother, so he was ready to go and finish the job he’d started if he got the call from the charity. When, he got the call from the charity. He wasn’t going to waste energy thinking negatively.

Nora was standing by her uncluttered glass desk when he entered the office, her head angled towards his luggage as if trying to absorb all the information about him she could by osmosis. It occurred to him that no woman should be able to look that regal while having a shoe stuck to her hand, but Nora made it look easy. And sexy. Or maybe the insomnia was finally tipping him over the edge.

Buckling his belt he walked over to the garment bag and took out a pair of formal shoes to put on. He supposed if he was going to be back for a while he’d have to get used to being suited and booted again.

Doing this presentation for her and taking her to hospital to get her parted from her shoe would definitely help take the edge off the restlessness that came with being back.

Maybe taking her out afterwards would help keep that restlessness at bay. Especially if he took her somewhere colourful, lively, relaxed and about as far removed from the crumbling half-finished job he’d left behind him.

His gaze swept over the rigid set to her shoulders and the way she sucked on her bottom lip. On second thoughts, perhaps he’d take her somewhere quiet. Intimate. No distractions.

‘I can’t believe you don’t have a tie with you,’ she said.

‘You’re lucky I have the suit with me.’ He usually travelled lighter, but he’d had the King’s world in mind when he’d packed. If he wanted their help, he’d figured a bit of conformity would ease the way.

‘I don’t know why you would bring a suit but not a tie,’ she continued.

Ethan smiled inwardly at the genuine suspicion in her voice. He bet Nora liked her guys bound by the formality. Traditional. Safe. Boring. He caught her watching him out of the corner of his eye. ‘So what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Brush up as well as the next guy?’

Nora seemed to consider his question seriously. What? Was she actually weighing him up against every other guy? The notion had him wanting to puff out his chest and give her something a little more concrete for her to use in comparison.

Slowly she walked over to him, her fingertip tapping against her lip and everything within him stilled. He felt the air displace softly as she lifted her arm to brush a piece of lint off his shoulder.

‘You’ll do.’

He breathed out. ‘So glad you approve,’ he said, his voice deeper with her so close. ‘I guarantee you Eleanor Moorfield will.’ He liked that that brought her head up. Liked the spark that flared briefly in her eyes before she got herself under control. ‘You want to show me this presentation, Princess?’

She really looked as if she didn’t. Great, in the short space of time that he’d been changing had she lost confidence in him? He should have told her about his other job. ‘I guess now is a good time to tell you that when I’m not volunteering for the charity I run a chain of deluxe leisure facilities.’ He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, unused to having to sell himself quite so much. ‘I’m not a virgin at talking to potential clients.’

Nora regarded him silently for a few moments and mumbled an, ‘Okay,’ as she rounded her desk to switch on her laptop and bring up her presentation, then gestured for him to sit down and read through it.

A whole sixty seconds passed before she suddenly said, ‘Wait. You’re part of Love Leisure?’

‘I guess you could say that I am Love Leisure. Problem?’

‘No. No, of course not.’

Despite not liking that she looked more impressed by what he’d just revealed than she had sounded when he’d told her about being a disaster-response team member, he still found himself wanting to alleviate any doubt. Love Leisure’s success was paramount in providing enough income so that he could volunteer as a rapid-response team member on pretty much a full-time basis and as it was his name above each of the branch doors, he intended to keep it successful. ‘I have good people in place so that the business runs like clockwork while I’m away, but I do keep my hand in when I’m back. You don’t need to worry. I can do this.’ He returned his attention to reading through the entire pitch, nearly getting to the end before the nervous foot-tapping beside him became too pronounced.

‘This is fine. I can work with this.’

‘Hang on. If it’s only fine—’

‘Relax,’ he reassured when the foot-tapping started going into triple-time. ‘You give good presentation.’ He loved the way she blushed. He exited the PowerPoint presentation and logged into a business-networking site so that he could search the designer’s profile. ‘So where are you meeting this Eleanor Moorfield?’ he asked.

‘The Savoy. She has a suite.’ Nora glanced at her watch. ‘We can talk some more about KPC on the way.’

‘You’re not walking in those?’ Ethan said, pointing incredulously to her feet.

Nora glanced down at her shoes. ‘What’s wrong with these?’

‘They’re not a little difficult to walk in?’

‘I am a woman, Ethan. I can walk in any shoe you put in front of me.’

‘Okay, let me put it another way: have you actually seen what the weather is like outside? You’ll ruin them before you get halfway there. We’ll take my rental. What are you doing?’ he asked as Nora reached across the desk for her phone.

‘Calling Eleanor’s assistant to tell her it won’t be me doing the presentation.’

‘Don’t do that. Don’t give her any opportunity to cancel. She won’t mind if I show up in your place. Trust me.’

Nora looked at him as if he’d used the dirtiest two words in the English language. He caught the glimmer of something at the back of her eyes and wondered whether she was actually going to let him do this for her. ‘Come on,’ he said picking up the laptop before she had time to think. ‘We can go over everything in the car.’ As she followed mutely alongside him, he wondered if it was him she didn’t trust, or herself. Except, she was CEO of a company that had been going for decades. You didn’t rise to that position without being good at what you did. Well, you could rise to that position, he thought, glancing once again at the portrait of her father as they headed out, but you couldn’t keep that position. Not if you weren’t good.

By the time they pulled up outside the Savoy, Nora was looking pale and pensive. Ethan went through the presentation highlights again. It didn’t seem to help. If anything, she looked as if she was about to pass out.

‘You don’t look nervous,’ she accused. ‘Why don’t you look nervous?’

‘What is there to be nervous about? This will be a cinch.’ He shot her his most disarming smile.

‘And there was me thinking that nerves helped a person perform better.’

‘Interesting, but I’ve never had any complaints about my performance.’ He tried not to laugh as her eyes transformed into huge saucers. ‘Look, I’m good at thinking on my feet. I promise not to give the company secrets away and I won’t sign anything put before me. I’m going to go in now.’

Nora glanced at the valet patiently waiting to take the car. ‘Where shall I wait for you?’

‘How about the Starbucks across the street? When you see the car being brought around, you’ll know I’ve finished.’

‘Okay. Good. That’s good.’

Ethan released his seatbelt and was about to open the car door when he felt Nora’s hand, or rather, her shoe, on his forearm. ‘Ethan, thanks. I realise it may not look like it, but I really do take KPC incredibly seriously.’

‘No problem.’ He opened the car door and scooped up the laptop. He nodded towards a hotel doorman to open the passenger door for Nora and walked confidently towards the hotel’s entrance.

Forty minutes later he was getting into the car, impressed with the speed with which Nora had managed to sprint across the road in the shoes she was wearing, to be at his side.

‘Well?’ she queried.

‘How about we get in first,’ he said.

‘So get in already,’ Nora answered, jogging around to her side of the car to pull open the car door and slide in gracefully, which amazed him all over again, considering she still had a large bag covering her arm.

She waited a nanosecond for him to pull out into the traffic. ‘Well?’

‘It was interesting. I think it went well.’

‘You only think? Damn it. I knew it. Cancelling would have been better. What was I thinking, letting some complete stranger take over? I mean just because I’ve heard of Love Leisure, it’s not remotely the same industry as property services.’

‘Little joke.’ He smiled as he heard her inhale. Turning his head to briefly look at her, he said, ‘Relax, it went well.’

‘Oh.’ The confidence in his voice seemed to appease her a little. ‘What’s in the goodie-bag?’ she asked, craning her head to the back seat, where he had placed the large glossy, burgundy, signature Moorfield bag.

‘Something that tells me I know the meeting went well.’

She remained silent, but against the hum of the car’s motor he could practically hear her brain chugging away, trying to decide between staying polite and demanding to know what went on with Eleanor Moorfield.

‘So what happens now?’ she finally asked.

‘Now we wait.’

‘Oh.’ There was a lengthy pause and then he felt her turn her head towards him. ‘In case you haven’t worked it out already, I’m not that good at the whole waiting thing.’

Ethan stopped at the traffic lights and turned his head, grinning from ear to ear and feeling invigorated. ‘I’m sure I can come up with a way to pass the time.’

‘I have to tell you,’ Ethan told Nora as he eased the car out of the hospital grounds an hour later and headed back into traffic to drop Nora off at her office. ‘Your definition of a debriefing and my definition of a debriefing differ considerably,’

Bad jokes and double entendres aside, Nora was still having trouble believing how deftly he’d organised someone to see her in the casualty department after insisting on waiting for her. He’d taken one look at how quiet and uncomfortable she’d become the closer they got to the hospital and, once more, assumed the knight-in-shining-armour title. A couple of those artfully aimed sexy smiles of his and she’d bypassed triage and was being ushered into a cubicle for treatment.

‘Maybe I’ll have to check out your version, one day.’ Oh, she did not just say that! If the chemicals they’d put on her hand to melt the glue had tongue-loosening properties, oughtn’t they to warn a patient about that?

Ethan flashed her a hot, private smile and Nora tried to concentrate on breathing evenly. She really had to stop this now. This flirting thing she had going with him. Now would be a good time to remember that flirting, and everything that usually came after, was off her To Do list for the foreseeable. She didn’t have the time. Couldn’t afford the distraction. Look what happened to her when she tried to multi-task.

Admittedly it had been a while since she’d indulged in more than flirting. Her eyes squeezed shut as she remembered Sephy’s comment from last night—that if she wasn’t careful, outside of a work context, she’d forget how to talk to men altogether. Coming on top of the rest of the lecture she’d received from her younger sister, the comment had stung. Nora sighed. As if Sephy hadn’t known that accusing her of being a workaholic, who’d put her grief on hold, wasn’t going to put her in the best of listening moods. She knew Sephy’s little digs were designed to sneak under her shield and penetrate, but after the disaster of her last relationship Nora knew that relationships weren’t for her. She had much clearer goals. Until she was back on an even keel at KPC, work came first, second and third for her.

‘How’s the hand?’ Ethan asked.

His question had her turning her attention to his own hands as they rested competently on the steering wheel. Any idea of work flew straight out the window as she wondered idly how those hands might feel against her skin, smoothing their way up and over her naked flesh, from hipbone to breast.

Nora blinked, squirmed against her seat and looked down at the bag, now containing the remnants of her shoe.

‘Okay,’ she said, determined to shake off the attraction she felt for him. Peering closely at the hand in question, she cleared her throat and forced some more words out. ‘No lasting damage. It was a close-run thing, but thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, well, chemicals, actually… Turns out I probably could have done it DIY with the nail varnish remover.’ She sighed dramatically as she opened the bag carrying the rest of the shoe she had embarrassingly asked to keep because it was vintage Moorfield. ‘To be honest, I think I’m experiencing a little separation anxiety.’

Ethan’s deep laugh trickled over already hyper-sensitised nerve endings and left her feeling as though someone had left a window ajar in her heart. She had a desperate need to keep busy. To be doing many things at once. Anything to stop her nerves jangling at the idea of what a kick it was to make this man laugh. Honestly, the sooner she was out of his car and breathing in some normal, heavily polluted, air, the better it would be for her sanity.

Now that she didn’t have to worry about missing out on pitching to Eleanor, Ethan’s scent was staging a staggering assault on her senses, causing her to behave completely out of character. It was time to rein herself back in, she thought, as she suddenly realised whereabouts they were. ‘Oh, this leads straight to the back entrance of KPC’s offices. It’s about a hundred yards up on the right.’

Ethan stopped the car as the lights changed and Nora’s mind raced to try and come up with something to break the crazy sense of anticipation creeping in.

‘Eleanor really said she’d be in touch within the next couple of days?’ she asked, her voice higher in pitch than she would have liked. She had a feeling her babble-rate was about to grow exponentially, and she hated the fact that a simple attraction was the explanation.

‘She really did.’

‘As soon as I get back to the office I’m going to call a couple of contacts. I have a few buildings in mind for headquarters and then I need to look through the information she gave you about where she wants to base her manufacturing. There are a couple of options that become available mid-March. And there’s something special I want to try and get for her, right in the middle of London’s fashion district. Sort of baroque-meets-boutique, but with plenty of ground-floor space. All polished floorboards, wrought-iron work everywhere and bevelled windowpanes. High-end but perfect romantic style for a flagship store. Modern office complex and concrete and glass shopping mall is not the way to go. I’m fairly sure I’m right about this.’ Finally running out of steam she glanced across at him but he was concentrating on the signals ahead. The lights changed and as Ethan drove forward, Nora’s hands moved against the bag sitting on her lap. ‘So we’re coming up to the office. There’ll never be any parking around at this time of day. You can drop me off in the middle of the—hey.’

Ethan calmly drove until he reached the next junction, turned the car around and drove back so that he could ease the car to a halt right outside the back entrance to her offices. Where, for the first time in recorded history, there was an empty parking space, complete with meter. He switched off the engine and calmly turned to look at her.

‘Do you know, I have a feeling you were about to nip out into the middle of the traffic and run off, and all without setting up a meeting to discuss Ryan.’

‘Oh. Well.’ She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. How could she have forgotten who it was that had brought him to her office this morning? Was she so obsessed with KPC at the moment that nothing else could intrude? Or was it that in the space of a hundred yards, it had become awkwardly apparent to her that breathing in his scent and getting herself all stirred up was making it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. She needed to get out of this car. She needed space to be able to clear her head. Sephy was right. She really was out of practice at talking to men. ‘So. Thank you for this morning. If I could grab my laptop and the information Eleanor left you with..?’

‘What’s the hurry?’

‘No hurry. Well, I do have a lot of work to do. Why don’t you phone me with a time for us to discuss Ryan. You must be really exhausted by now—’

‘I’m really “something” right now. Not sure “exhausted” is the word, though.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to come across as rude. I—’ she tailed off when she saw smouldering blue eyes track their way to her lips. I have to get out of this car before I do something properly stupid, like climb over onto your lap, grab you by the lapels of that sinfully sexy blue suit you fill out so well and give in to this insane need to touch my lips to yours.

She was being utterly ridiculous, of course. She was supposed to be offering up a business-like thank you. Not wanting to devour a man she’d just met. Maybe if she hadn’t caught sight of his chest packed with all that tight, hard muscle in her bathroom. Yes, Nora. Absolutely blame the pecs. But honest to God, he’d looked so good standing there, was it any wonder she’d lost her professional A game?

Biting down on her bottom lip again she tried to ignore his scent. The smile. The body. When he wasn’t using all that muscle helping people he was probably working out in his own gym. Yes, that body…she mentally swooned, picked herself up and gave herself a little slap.

Never mind the package, get with the programme. None of this should be on her radar right now. Her sole focus should be on KPC. ‘I don’t know how to thank you for all your help.’

‘You don’t?’

At his quiet, teasing question, Nora dragged her gaze to his. Oh, not fair. It turned out that when Ethan Love actually wanted a person to know what he was thinking, he had no problem letting his eyes do the talking.

She simply didn’t understand why he was able to affect her so, but his charm offensive was leaving her with no other option than to hastily erect her official Deflector Shield.

‘Ethan, I—’

‘Have to go?’ he asked with an indulgent smile on his face.

‘Uh-huh.’ Like soonest. A few minutes more and she’d be simpering, whimpering and quite possibly whispering heated instructions as to where he could put those beautiful hands of his.

What on earth was wrong with her? She closed her eyes and pictured herself surrounded by her Deflector Shield. The one she employed when she panicked that she was getting side-tracked from her goals in life.

‘Okay. You’re excused,’ Ethan said grinning. ‘It was nice meeting you, Princess. I’ll be in touch.’

Nora looked at him suspiciously. Perhaps he was bored bouncing off her official Deflector Shield because he seemed to be letting her off the hook. Which was a good thing, she reminded herself. He was Love-Rat’s brother.

Way, way too complicated.

Tearing her gaze away, she refused to acknowledge the slice of bitter disappointment that she felt. She glanced up at the impressive steel and glass construction that housed KPC. That was where she belonged. Not down here in this intimate space with a man who slipped past her Deflector Shields and was connected to her family.

She let the seatbelt drag through her fingers as she released the buckle, and, muttering a heartfelt ‘thank you’, exited the car.

She was halfway up the shallow steps at the rear of the building when she heard his amused and oh-so-casual, ‘Oh, Nora?’

She couldn’t help herself. Her head whipped around at the sound of her name, which sounded like a warm invitation on his lips.

Chapter Three

Ethan was at the bottom of the stairs, holding the Moorfield bag out to her. ‘This should help you out with the separation anxiety.’

Nora eyed the bag as it swung tantalisingly back and forth from his forefinger.

‘Eleanor asked me to pick out something that I thought represented you best,’ he told her. ‘I think she was rather expecting to get a handle on you by the shoes you wore.’

Nora’s eyes narrowed speculatively.

‘She was a little thrown when she got me instead of you,’ Ethan continued. ‘But I assured her I was up to the challenge.’

Wait, he had picked out shoes for her? Was he kidding? She stared at him. He wasn’t. He really wasn’t. For what seemed like the hundredth time that morning she could feel herself getting all heated, flustered and distracted. That enticingly sexy shoe bag had been sitting there on the back seat of his car the entire drive back. Had he been thinking of her wearing what he’d chosen every time that slow devilish smile had come out to play? She snatched the bag and clutched it to her chest.

‘Don’t you want to open it up and check what I chose for you?’ Ethan asked with a look that said he knew damn well she was practically salivating to open it.

‘I’m super busy,’ she muttered inanely, needing her will to hold out just a little longer because he looked way too sure of himself and she was feeling…so much less sure and quite possibly a little punch-drunk on him.

‘Uh-huh, well I think you’re going to take the lift instead of the stairs and you’re going to be looking in that bag before you’re in your office.’

Nora, clasped the bag tighter to her, gave him her haughtiest look and then turned on shaky legs to walk into the KPC offices.

Don’t you dare look back, Leonora King. Don’t you dare.

It wasn’t until much later that afternoon that she realised she had left her own carrier bag, containing the remnants of her shoe, on the front seat of her car. How could she have done that? Had she subconsciously wanted to leave part of her in his car so that he would continue to think about her? Wasn’t the fact that he’d picked out shoes for her enough?

She rose abruptly and went over to where she had mutinously stashed the Moorfield bag earlier. Glancing around, she decided to store it behind her door, where it couldn’t continue cluttering up the place. She would not look inside until she’d put in a good afternoon’s work. Better yet, she wouldn’t look until she was back in the safety of her own apartment, where she could have whatever reaction she wanted to have in private.

Her thoughts inevitably returned to the shoe she’d left in Ethan’s car and she sighed, quite disgusted with herself. She was now seriously worried that in the space of one day she had turned into some sort of sad Cinderella cliché.

The phone on her desk rang and she pounced on it, glad of the interruption. ‘Yes?’

‘I have Eleanor Moorfield on the line for you,’ Fern said with a tiny telltale trill of excitement in her voice.

‘Thanks, Fern. Pop her through.’ The hand that had only that morning been attached to her shoe pressed on her stomach to try and still the rampaging butterflies. ‘Eleanor? Lovely to hear from you. I was just going through the information you left with Ethan.’ At least she would have been if she hadn’t been thinking about Ethan.

‘Wonderful. It was a pleasure to meet Ethan.’

What did that mean? ‘He did a good job, then?’

‘Oh, he did a great job, really made me feel like he understood my needs,’ Eleanor confirmed in a voice that almost sounded purring.

Nora bristled. She just bet he did.

‘He’s a great asset to have. It was astute of you to bring him on board.’

Nora’s mouth felt dry. Perhaps now would be a good time to apologise for not being at the meeting in person. Explain to her that, technically, Ethan didn’t work for KPC. ‘I’m so pleased the meeting sounds as if it was constructive, but I feel I must apologise for not being there myself—’

‘No need to worry. Ethan explained everything.’

‘He did?’ Nora didn’t think it was possible for her heart to beat any faster. What, exactly, had Ethan said?

‘Mmn—don’t worry about it. I tend to go by my gut instinct and after what I saw today I’m happy to start my lawyers looking at contracts. Think you can get one to me by the end of the week?’

Nora’s hand clenched against her stomach. She had thought letting Ethan help her today had been about family, but maybe her gut instinct had finally kicked back in. ‘No problem at all. You want me to throw in a transition package for releasing the property you already own in Italy, or do you have someone handling that for you already?’

There was a smile in Eleanor’s voice as she said, ‘You’re very good at this. Go on then, I’ll take a look.’

She was good at this, wasn’t she? Nora grinned like a Cheshire cat, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. ‘I’ll have one of my corporate solution professionals phone you to discuss your requirements.’

‘Okay. I really want to push forward with this. I’m happy to listen as long as you don’t start wanting to move my entire company into some cold City office tower. I assume you’re open to discussion about the finer points?’

‘Of course. Absolutely.’

‘And if I want to I can deal with you directly? I may not like being handed over to a posse of staff as soon as I sign on the dotted line.’

‘Well, I usually assign a personal account manager, but of course I’ll make myself available if you feel something isn’t being handled appropriately.’

Nora’s mind whirled. Ethan hadn’t simply given a good presentation; he’d saved the day and clinched the deal. It seemed an official upgrade to Mr Knight in Shining Armour was in order. She wanted to whoop for joy when she thought about being able to announce to the board who she’d snagged as their latest client. And if some of the property in Italy was worth hanging on to, their property portfolio would get a healthy bump, too. Barely managing to cling to any semblance of professionalism, she heard Eleanor speak again.

‘I’m having a little party next week, a celebration for being back in London. You should come. Bring Ethan, too.’

‘I’d love to. Um, I can’t vouch for Ethan. He’s very busy,’ she excused.

‘Well I’d love for him to be there, there are a lot of people I’d like to introduce you both to. It won’t feel like a proper celebration without him. I’ll send invitations out to you.’

Nora didn’t have to work very hard to read between the lines: Ethan was expected there. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she answered in her best non-committed tone. ‘And thanks again, you won’t regret having KPC handle all your property needs.’

Nora replaced the handset and pressed her hands to her lips. The grin started somewhere deep inside her chest and worked its way quickly up to her lips. Could it be true? Was it possible that a day that had started so abysmally could have turned around so fantastically?

She spun in her chair.

She’d done it. She’d actually done it.

Or rather, Ethan had done it.

Feeling dizzy, she stopped spinning and rose to pick up her bag as an overwhelming need to buy Ethan a special thank you present filled her.

Opening the office door she saw Fern tapping away on her keyboard. ‘Why don’t you switch everything off and finish early?’

Fern looked up at her with a frown. ‘It’s 5:55pm.’

‘And that’s early by your standards. Go on. Go home and phone the boyfriend. Maybe cook some pasta, open a bottle of wine…’

Fern smiled. ‘Well if my boss is ordering me, who am I to disagree? I take it the phone call went well?’

‘Ethan certainly seems to have charmed Eleanor Moorfield, so keep your fingers crossed.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ She took in the handbag Nora was holding. ‘Where are you off to, then?’

‘Quick shopping trip and then back here for some more work.’

‘Uh-huh. Okay. Or…you could go another way, and, say, stop by a certain hotel, where a certain hot guy might be staying—’

Nora’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

‘—to, you know,’ Fern continued, cautiously, when she deciphered the warning look, ‘discuss his brother.’

‘Good night, Fern,’ Nora said, mock sternly. ‘I do not expect you to be here when I get back.’

‘Yes, boss. Um, you might need your coat?’

Nora rolled her eyes, thinking that her head was all over the place. Popping back into her office, she dragged her coat off the coat-stand and was about to turn around and head straight back out the door when she spotted the Moorfield bag. An image of her standing in front of a hotel room with a bottle of champagne, wearing only her coat and whatever was in that bag sizzled and then her eyes crossed. Yes—because turning up at the door of a man you had only met that morning with nothing but a bottle of champagne, a coat and a pair of shoes, was such a subtle message, wasn’t it? She could only imagine her sister’s face when she had to explain quite how well Ethan and she were acquainted. Wracking her brain she tried to remember if Sephy had ever mentioned Ethan when she’d been seeing Ryan. Not that during those years Sephy and her had been sisters who’d confided everything. Mostly Nora had used university as an escape from dealing with the fallout of Jared leaving and Sephy, well, she’d kind of used Ryan as her escape. After graduating Nora had spent all her energy immersing herself in KPC, working hard to ensure no one could ever accuse her fast-track through the business as not being fully earned. Then things with Sephy and Ryan had fallen apart when she’d got pregnant with Daisy and Nora had launched straight into over-protective mode.

She wondered what Ethan and Ryan’s relationship was like. It must be solid if he had flown all the way from Italy, but surely Ryan was all right if Ethan could take the time to help her out first before discussing it?

Bundling into her coat, Nora bid Fern goodnight again and made her way down the stairs and out into the cold evening air to hail a taxi. Once she was in the vicinity of the large department stores that stayed open late, she got out and wandered over to the first huge display window she came to.

Sometimes she couldn’t imagine ever working anywhere but in the centre of London. Amongst the buzz and the hustle and the bustle.

Although, lately, whenever she made it back to her fabulous apartment with its views over the Thames, she felt drained from being so switched on all the time, as if she had only two modes: full-on or empty. At least full-on mode didn’t give her time to think or feel. And if the emptiness started to overwhelm, she always had the family home to visit.

She stared, unseeing, at the goodies on the other side of the plate-glass window. Surely her mother had been joking about selling the forty-acre family estate in Heathstead, twenty miles outside London? Nora knew it had to be hard—understood that despite the fact that the hospital bed and nursing equipment was now gone, the memory of Jeremy King’s last months were frozen very much at the forefront of her mother’s thoughts. But the house stood for so much more. It had been in the family for generations. Where her father had lived for KPC, her mother had breathed life back into the estate and even now Sephy and Daisy lived in the specially built three-bedroom apartment built over the vast garages. Where would they go if her mother decided to sell? Where would her mother go? Was she really ready to leave the place she had spent years loving and tending so that it thrived as a home. What if Jared decided that one day he and Amanda wanted to come back to the UK? Surely as the eldest of the Kings, the house reverted to him? The will-reading had probably gone through this, but at the time she hadn’t really paid attention. The only specifics she’d registered were that KPC wasn’t affected and that Jared, Sephy and she had each received a letter from their father.

She shivered and walked to the next department store, determined to move away from thoughts that tugged at the veil of numbness she had got so good at wearing since her father’s death.

Work. Work was what would see her through. Work was the only fitting way to honour her father and feel his loss less.

Sephy and Jared had already opened their letters.

She wasn’t ready yet.

Not that she had to ever open the letter, she counseled herself as the curtain of grief threatened to descend.

All the time she kept the letter sealed, his silence wasn’t final.

Nora exhaled to try and loosen the tension. Hopefully while her mother was in New York helping with Jared and Amanda’s wedding plans she’d forget all about the idea of selling.

As her breath formed a foggy circle in the window of the store in front of her, she lifted her hand and, with her sleeve, brushed the condensation clear. She didn’t have time to think about something that might not even happen. All she had time for lately was to deal with what was immediately in front of her while she kept all her work plates spinning in the air and right now, what was in front of her was what to send the knight-errant? Suddenly she spotted a square glass vase and, smiling, she realised she knew exactly what to fill it with. Back at the office, she unpacked the half-dozen silk ties and arranged them in the glass vase. Tying a ribbon around the vase, she added a gift tag and wrote: ‘Thank you for all your help today. These are more practical than flowers and will last longer. Nora King.’ She put the unusual arrangement into a presentation box and phoned a courier to have it delivered.

The next morning Nora was at her desk struggling with her concentration levels when her mobile phone rang. Answering it, she took a fortifying sip of her vanilla latte, ‘Mmmn,’ it was good.

‘Interrupting something?’ said the relaxed, earthy baritone into her ear.

Nora smiled to herself as her stomach, recognizing Ethan’s voice, performed a perfect scoring six in the vault.

‘Who is this?’ she teased.

‘You always send gifts to men you don’t know?’

Ha. She wondered what he would have to say if he had even an inkling that she’d been toying with turning up at his hotel with a bottle of champagne, a pair of shoes and a very different kind of gift in mind.

‘Oh.’ She took another sip of coffee. ‘It’s you.’

‘So, thanks for the “flowers”.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Leaving her desk, she wandered over to the full-length mirror on the back of her bathroom door to check her appearance. As she saw the flush on her cheekbones she asked herself what the hell she was doing. She was preening and he couldn’t even see her.

‘In point of fact they’re a bit of a distraction,’ Ethan murmured as if a bit disconcerted her gift had such power over him.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Although, if she was being perfectly honest, didn’t she love the idea of him being as distracted by her as she was by him? Don’t tell me a simple vase of ties is preventing you from having a good night’s sleep?’

‘Little bit, yeah. How about you? Having trouble getting your work done?’

She looked at herself in the mirror. The blush was still there, and now that she peered closer, she could tell her eyes had just a touch more sparkle. How honest should she be? It’s not as if he could see she was primping, or that she needed extra coffee to get her mind off him and onto her work.

Self-preservation kicked in. ‘To be honest I’m kind of swamped with the Moorfield account.’

‘Yes, but are you having trouble getting any work done?’

Damn the man.

‘Little bit, yeah,’ she responded in kind.

‘How about coming out to play, for a while?’

‘Absolutely not,’ she answered quickly. ‘I have far too much to do.’ It was for the best. She’d already issued herself with a written warning containing an embargo on Ethan Love fantasies, which were, she had told herself in her strictest most super-stern voice, all the things inappropriate.

‘Shame. So what did you think of the goodie-bag contents?’

No way. Her gaze flew to her feet in the mirror. ‘I haven’t got around to looking yet.’

‘Liar.’ His soft chuckle had her flushing scarlet. His voice dropped an octave lower, ‘So what did you think? Did I get you right?’

‘I have to go now. I’m incredibly busy. Goodbye.’ She ended the call on the sound of more deep laughter.

Had he got her right? Had he ever. If she’d had to guess, she’d have said that Ethan Love wasn’t a man drawn to the obvious, so she wasn’t surprised he’d avoided black. Instead he’d chosen the most sinfully gorgeous deep wine-coloured patent peep-toe stiletto sling-backs she’d ever laid eyes on. They fitted her feet as though they’d been specially made for her and in them she felt, confident, capable, utterly in control…and the tiniest bit wicked.

Wearing them so wasn’t helping her not to think about him. Did he know that? He’d laughed as if he knew that.

Her phone beeped to signal an incoming text: I’m staying at The Grand. Meet me in the bar for drinks at 8pm. Wear the shoes.

Nora was tempted to tell him she’d wear whatever she damn well wanted to wear, if she was so inclined to meet him, that was.

Her phone beeped again and she looked down at the new text: Little Joke. The shoes are optional. But I do need to discuss Ryan with you.

Oh. Of course he did. Why did she keep forgetting that? She needed not to do that again. Ethan had something he needed to run past her about Ryan and she needed to be alert for that in order to look out for Sephy. Piqued at her ability to keep turning their interaction into something more she texted back: It’ll have to be 9pm. There. That was less like “date” time and more like simply meeting-up time.

At seven minutes past nine that evening Nora walked into the hotel’s bar, wearing the same designer business suit she’d put on after her gym session at 6a.m. that morning. It had been hard enough concentrating on exercising knowing Ethan owned the private leisure club in the basement of her building, but she wasn’t changing for Ethan Love. This wasn’t a date.

Okay, so she’d kept on the shoes he’d picked out for her, but he could read into that whatever he wanted. She knew she was wearing them because they were beautiful and comfortable. That was absolutely the only reason.

Probably.

She spotted him immediately. He was seated at the gleaming ebony bar, watching the TV screen and either oblivious to the number of women casting their eyes over him, or so used to it, he no longer noticed when he was being checked out. Her gaze flickered to the screen and she saw that he was watching a news report on the earthquake in northern Italy. She slowed her pace so that she could study him while he watched the news report. To anyone paying loose attention he seemed utterly relaxed and only vaguely interested. But, to Nora, those magnificent shoulders of his got a little tighter and sat a little higher the longer he watched.

Suddenly he turned, his gaze zeroing straight in on her and she could see nothing of the news report behind his blue eyes, only a sort of lazy warmth with a streak of sexy intensity that set off a seductive sense of anticipation in her and pulled her the rest of the way across the room to him.

He rose from his bar stool when she drew up alongside him. His head tipped in greeting and when his gaze dropped to her feet and she registered the appreciative look on his face, there was an absurd little loosening within her.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked, his eyes taking their time to travel back up to her face.

‘Jack Daniel’s and coke.’

He repeated her order to the bartender and swung his attention back to her. ‘Tough day at the office?’ he asked with empathy as he ran his gaze back over her in assessment.

‘Isn’t every day?’ she answered with feeling and definitely without thinking. Guilt coursed through her, leaving a tremor in its wake. What was it her father used to say? If you didn’t have at least one sweaty-palm feeling a week, then you weren’t pushing yourself hard enough. She seemed to have upped the ratio to once a day. He’d have been proud. She frowned at the strange unfurling in her stomach because she loved the work. Of course she did.

To combat thinking about KPC and her father and centre her thoughts back on why she was here meeting with Ethan, she picked up the tumbler the bartender had set down in front of her and brought the short black straw to her lips.

She watched Ethan watching her and couldn’t be certain whether it was the hit of alcohol responsible for spreading fire through her or the effect caused when his blue eyes hooded. Releasing the straw she swallowed dry air.

With a subtle clearing of her throat she fought to get a grip before she made a complete fool of herself and coughed and spluttered her way through the contents of her glass. Breaking eye contact would probably help. She brought the straw to her lips and deliberately looked around the room as she took a second careful sip.

Ethan picked up his own glass and steered them towards a small table for two in the furthest corner of the room. Once again, Nora tried to remember that this was not a date. This was a meeting to discuss his brother.

A meeting that definitely didn’t warrant searching Ethan’s eyes for bonus content while she returned his looks with what she was a little worried could be construed as a hint of puppy-dog adoration.

Ethan pulled out her chair and opened up with, ‘So how’s Sephy these days?’

‘How’s Ryan?’ she countered, not about to give him information on her sister before she knew why he needed her help. She sat down, determined to ignore the heat of his hand as it brushed against her back.

Ethan smiled and lowered his powerful frame into the chair opposite and then took his time lifting his glass before pausing to watch her over the rim. ‘Everything’s fast with you isn’t it?’ he said, enjoying the blush that bloomed on her cheeks. ‘It’s a Friday night. No reason we can’t unwind a little. Do the “How was your day” thing, first.’

He watched her lips purse with impatience at being made to march to another’s schedule, but he liked the fact that she wasn’t able to remain impassive. She’d been sneaking into his thoughts all day and he’d found himself wanting to check on her. See if he could catch the ball of pain he’d seen bouncing at the outer recesses of her eyes and throw it out of sight for her.

‘Fine,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders with a graceful nonchalance. ‘My day was busy. How was yours?’

‘Similar.’ In between putting things in place for his brother, he’d spent hours on the phone trying to find out how things were in Italy. The news showed that there had been another aftershock and more buildings had collapsed. He told himself Pietro was safe and had been reunited with his family. Opting to focus on who he was with and what he needed to say, he began, ‘Given your family’s recent bereavement I wanted to be able to gauge how Sephy was before I gave her the news about Ryan.’

‘Oh. Well. Sephy’s doing fine. She handles everything life throws at her.’

‘Good to know. Still,’ Ethan watched Nora closely, ‘grief visits people differently. I was sorry to hear about your father.’

She went utterly still, as if she hadn’t expected the common courtesy from him and he told himself he didn’t care what she thought about him.

‘Thank you,’ she eventually whispered, her smile determined as she tucked her hair behind her ear and sat up straighter. ‘Let’s get back to why we’re here, shall we? What’s going on with Ryan?’

Fixing his gaze on her, he breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, ‘Ryan is in rehab.’

Nora blinked. Twice. Oh, she had impeccable manners, but between the blinks Ethan caught something else that looked a lot as though her low opinion had simply been confirmed.

‘I…see,’ she said quietly.

Ethan could see a question forming at the back of her mind. She was busy asking herself if this was a brother-like-brother situation; it wasn’t the first time he’d been compared to Ryan – people always felt the need to lump family together – no doubt it wouldn’t be the last.

Still.

Disappointment weighed heavy in his gut before he asked himself why she should be different to anyone else. ‘No you don’t, but that’s okay,’ he returned lightly. What was the point in reacting?

‘Am I allowed to ask what he’s in rehab for?’

He hesitated because he wasn’t yet used to saying it. ‘He’s exhausted, very low and…has a gambling addiction.’

Again there was the blinking, before she said, ‘Did you know he had a problem? I mean, did you put him in rehab or did he put himself there?’

‘He mostly put himself there. I merely helped with the finer details. And, yes, I guess I suspected he had some issues, although I didn’t know about the gambling. More about women and generally living beyond his means—which, let’s say, weren’t inconsiderable.’ Especially if you counted the funds Ethan had unwittingly supplied, thinking he was simply short of cash-flow. When he thought about how he’d given Ryan money no questions asked he was disgusted with himself. Talk about carbon-copy behaviour of how his parents dealt with every problem their sons ever brought to them as children.

He lifted his glass and took a sip. At least Ryan was answering his questions and giving him the opportunity to help him now.

Nora frowned. ‘Not inconsiderable,’ she mumbled his words back at him. ‘Is he in rehab because he reached that lowest point—has he lost everything?’

Ethan inclined his head. ‘Pretty much, yeah.’

Nora whistled softly. ‘That explains that, then.’

‘Explains what?’

‘Sephy hasn’t received any child support for Daisy for months.’

Ethan took the family shame deep into his bones. It was one thing for Ryan to ruin his own life, but his daughter’s? He knew Ryan had never been in Daisy’s life and, given how honest his brother had been with him about how he’d been living, Ethan was actually pleased about that. But to not even pay support? ‘I didn’t know that. I’ll take care of it immediately.’

‘Don’t be silly. Sephy won’t accept any money from me or my brother, so I’m pretty sure she won’t take any from you.’

‘But the money isn’t for her. It’s for Daisy.’

‘Do you think I haven’t pointed that out to her? Neither Daisy nor Sephy go without. But Sephy is very proud. From the moment Ryan ran, she set about coping on her own. She insists she isn’t bothered that Ryan hasn’t paid anything towards Daisy. Of course it might be that she believes that Ryan made his choice. He was either in, or he was out, and if he was out, then it was less messy to make it all out.’

Ethan considered her words carefully. If Sephy didn’t want anything to do with Ryan how was she going to react to his plan? ‘Would she stop Ryan from seeing Daisy?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely not. Like I said, it was always more that Ryan was never particularly interested in seeing Daisy, and Sephy has always believed you can’t force people to love their children,’ she paused and he could see those little cogs of hers whirring and turning. ‘But, surely he doesn’t want Daisy to visit as part of his recovery programme? I have to tell you now that there’s no way I’m going to help you persuade Sephy to allow that. Daisy is way too young to be introduced to her father for the first time in a rehab facility.’

‘Relax. That’s not why I wanted to see you,’ he paused and then decided he might as well lay everything on the table. ‘Ryan is going to need somewhere to stay when he’s completed his programme.’

Nora gaped. ‘You can’t be serious.’

He had to hand it to her. She caught on quick.

‘I’m very serious. I don’t want him living back where he’s been, there’s too much temptation around, too many old friends willing to suck him back into that lifestyle. What I would like is to set him up with a house and a job in Heathstead. I know your sister still lives there. Ryan wants to change. He’s doing all that he can do to change. I figure, give him an environment where the possibility of making a fresh start somewhere familiar is more tempting than the old life he’s working so hard to distance himself from, won’t hurt.’

She leant back in her chair for a second, an assessing look on her face. ‘Have you actually run this past Ryan? Or is he simply another hop on the “Ethan Love Rescue Tour”?’

His fingers tightened against his glass. ‘You think I like playing the hero?’

‘Oh, I’m pretty sure I know you do.’

He took a couple of moments to ensure his breathing evened out. ‘Whatever. This is about my brother. He asked for my help. There was no way I wasn’t going to step up and do everything I could to make it possible for him to lead the life he wants to, not the one he’s been addicted to. He and I have had some pretty tough conversations lately and I know he doesn’t want his addiction to rule his life any longer.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.