Wear My Ring
The Secret Wedding Dress
Ally Blake
The Millionaire’s Marriage Claim
Lindsay Armstrong
The Children’S Doctor’s Special Proposal
Kate Hardy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Title Page

The Secret Wedding Dress

Excerpt

About the Author

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

EPILOGUE

The Millionaire’s Marriage Claim

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Children’s Doctor’s Special Proposal

Excerpt

About the Author

Dear Reader

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Copyright

The Secret Wedding Dress

Through gritted teeth Paige muttered, ‘That’s it. I hereby promise to throw myself upon the mercy of the next man who smiles at me. I need to get myself some man-time and fast. Deal? Deal.’

‘Hold the door,’ said a deep male voice.

He loomed into view—a stranger, his bulk blocking her view of the foyer entirely. Head down, brow pinched into a frown, he stared intently at the shiny smartphone in his spare hand.

As she pressed herself deeper into the small lift her eyes flickered over a well-worn chocolate-brown leather jacket, with dark hair curling over the wool-lined collar, over dark denim clinging tight to masses of muscle, down to huge scuffed boots. Big and brawny, he was, with dark shadowed eyes and stubble long past designer on a jaw that could have been cut from granite.

The raw and unadulterated impact of the man sent her stomach into freefall, and the colour rushed into her skin with a whoosh she could practically hear. She had to swallow down the sudden absurd urge to growl.

Then a husky voice inside her head sent the stranger a silent plea: Smile.

About the Author

In her previous life Australian author ALLY BLAKE was at times a cheerleader, a maths tutor, a dental assistant and a shop assistant. In this life Ally is a best-selling, multi-award-winning novelist who has been published in over twenty languages with more than two million books sold worldwide.

She married her gorgeous husband in Las Vegas—no Elvis in sight, though Tony Curtis did put in a special appearance—and now Ally and her family, including three rambunctious toddlers, share a property in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane with kookaburras, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and the occasional creepy-crawly. When not writing she makes coffees that never get drunk, eats too many M&Ms, attempts yoga, devours The West Wing reruns, reads every spare minute she can, and barracks ardently for the Collingwood Magpies footy team.

You can find out more at her website: www.allyblake.com

For Deb.

For your imagination, your encouragement, your friendship.

And for the bit about the lift.

CHAPTER ONE

PAIGE DANFORTH didn’t believe in happily ever afters.

So it was a testament to how awesome a friend she was that she stood freezing her tush off outside a dodgy-looking Collingwood warehouse in the grey half-light of a misty Melbourne winter’s morning with her best friend Mae who was there to buy a wedding dress.

Wedding Dress Fire Sale! Over 1000 new and used dresses, up to 90% off! read the massive hot-pink banner flapping dejectedly against the cracked brown bricks of the old building. Paige wondered if any of the other women in the line, which by that stage snaked all the way around the corner of the block, saw the irony of the hype masking the depressing reality. By the manic gleams in their eyes they all bought into the fantasy, for sure. Each and every one of them convinced they were the ones for whom the love songs and sonnets rang true.

‘The door moved,’ Mae whispered, grabbing Paige’s arm so tight she knew it would leave a mark.

Paige lifted her long hair out of the way so that she could loop her thick woollen scarf once more around her neck and stamped her boots against the pavement to get her sluggish blood moving. ‘You’re imagining things.’

‘It jiggled. Like someone was unlocking it from the inside.’ Mae’s voluble declaration spread up and down the line like wildfire, and Paige was almost pushed over in the sudden surge of bodies.

‘Relax!’ Paige said, prying her friend’s ever-tightening claw from her arm while glaring at the rabid-looking woman pressing close behind her. ‘The doors will open when they open. You will find the dress of your dreams. If you can’t find yourself a dress in a thousand, then clearly you’re a failure as a woman.’

Mae stopped twitching to glare at her. ‘I should rescind your Maid of Honour duties for that alone.’

‘Would you?’ Paige begged.

Mae laughed. Though it was short-lived. Soon she was jogging on the spot like a prize fighter seconds from entering the ring, her usually wild red hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail, her focus fixed, as it had been since the moment her boyfriend had proposed.

All of a sudden the flaky wooden doors were flung open with a flourish, the mixed scents of camphor and lavender spilling into the air with a sickly sweet rush.

A tired-looking woman in skinny jeans and a T-shirt the same hot pink as the sign above yelled, ‘No haggling! No refunds! No returns! No sizes bar what’s on the floor!’ The words echoed down the narrow lane, and the line of women mushroomed towards the doors as if she’d announced Hugh Jackman would be giving free back rubs to the first hundred through the door.

Paige barely kept her feet as she pressed forward into the breach, and then grabbed Mae by the shoulders as she screeched to a sudden halt. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, waves of women poured around them.

‘Holy moly,’ Mae said.

‘You’re not wrong,’ Paige muttered, as even she was impressed with what she saw.

Sweetheart necklines by the dozen, beaded corsets as far as the eye could see, sleeves so heavily ruched they made the eyes water. Designer dresses. Off the rack dresses. Second-hand dresses. Factory second dresses. All massively discounted. Every last one of them to be sold that day.

‘Move!’ Mae cried out as she came to and made a beeline for something that had caught her now frantic eye.

Paige quickly tucked herself in a corner in the shadow of the door. She waved her mobile phone in the air. ‘I’ll be over here if you need me!’

Mae’s hand flapped briskly above the crowd of heads and then she was gone.

What followed was a lesson in anthropology. One woman near Paige who wore an immaculately tailored suit squealed like a teenager when she found the dress of her dreams. Another, in a twin-set, glasses, and tidy chignon, had a full-on temper tantrum, complete with stamping feet, when she discovered one didn’t come in her size.

All for the sake of an overpriced dress they’d only wear once at a ceremony that forced people to make impossible promises to love, honour, and cherish for ever. In Paige’s experience it was more like bicker, loathe, and cling on for dear life until there was nothing left but lost years and regret. Better to love, honour, and cherish yourself, Paige believed. For the chance to dress like a princess one time in your life the relentless search for love couldn’t possibly be worth it.

The scents of hairspray and perfume mixed with the camphor and lavender and Paige soon had to breathe through her mouth. Her fingers curled tighter around her mobile, willing Mae to ring.

Mae. Her BFF. Her partner in crime. They’d had one another’s backs for so long, since their parents had gone through simultaneous messy divorces and had left them both certain that happy ever after with some guy was an evil myth—one that had been perpetuated by florists and bakers and reception hall owners. Mae, who’d forgotten it all the moment she’d found Clint.

Paige swallowed. She deeply hoped Mae would be perfectly happy for ever and ever. She really did. But a hot spot of fear for her flared in her stomach every time she let herself think about it. So she decided to think about something else.

As brand manager for a luxury home-wares retailer, she was always on the lookout for locations in which to shoot catalogues, and, while the Collingwood warehouse was near decrepit, at a pinch the crumbling brickwork could be considered romantic.

Not that she wanted to shoot there any time soon. The next catalogue had to be shot on location in Brazil. Period. Such a big expense for a single catalogue was as yet unheard of at Ménage à Moi, which was a boutique business, but Paige knew in her bones it would be worth it. Her proposal was so dazzling her boss had to say yes. And it was just the shake-up her life needed—

Paige shook her head. Brazil was the shake-up the brand needed. She was fine. Hunky-dory. Or she would be when she got the hell out of the building.

Breathing deep through her mouth, she closed one eye and imagined the massive windows draped in swathes of peacock-blue chiffon, the muted brickwork a total juxtaposition against the next season’s dazzling, Rio-inspired, jewel-toned decor. Weak sunlight struck the glass which was in dire need of an industrial wash, made all the more obvious when compared with one incongruous clean spot that let through a single ray.

Dust mites danced in the sunbeam and Paige’s eye naturally followed it all the way to a rack of wedding dresses, most of which boasted ridiculously excessive layers of skirt that would struggle to fit even the widest chapel aisle.

She made to glance away when something caught her eye. A glimpse of chiffon in dark champagne. The iridescent sheen of pearls. Impossibly intricate lacework. A train so diaphanous it was lost as someone walked by the rack, blocking out the ray of light.

Paige blinked. And again. But the dress was gone. And her heart skipped a beat.

She’d heard the expression a million times, only had never experienced it until that moment. Didn’t realise it came complete with a tightening of her throat, a sudden lightness in her head, and the complete cessation of thought.

Then someone moved, the ray of light returned, and there it was. And then she was standing. Walking. At the rack, her hands went to the fabric as though possessed by some otherworldly force. The garment came to her from between the tight squeeze of dresses as easily as Arthur had released Excalibur from its stone prison.

As her eyes skimmed over the softly twisted straps, the deep V, a torso of lace draped in strings of ocean pearls that cinched into the most exquisite silhouette before disappearing into a skirt made of chiffon that moved as if it breathed, Paige’s heart galloped like a brumby with a horse thief hot on its heels.

‘Wow,’ a voice said from behind her. ‘That’s so cute. Are you just looking or do you have dibs?’

Cute? That was the best word the woman could come up with for the sliver of perfection draped over Paige’s shaking hands.

Paige didn’t even turn around. She just shook her head as the words she’d never thought she’d hear herself say escaped her lips:

‘This wedding dress is mine.’

‘Paige!’

Paige looked up from her position back near the doors to find Mae literally skipping towards her.

‘I’ve been trying to call you for twenty minutes!’

Paige’s hand went to her phone in her pocket. She hadn’t felt a thing. In fact, by the intensity of the light now pouring into the building, much of the morning had passed by in a blur.

Mae pointed madly at the heavy beige garment bag hooked over one crooked elbow. ‘Success! I wanted you to see it but I couldn’t get hold of you and this skinny brunette was eyeing it up like some starving hyena, so I stripped down to my bra and knickers and tried it on in the middle of the floor. And it’s so freaking hot.’

Mae’s eyes were now flickering to the fluorescent white garment bag with the hot-pink writing emblazoned across the front that was draped over Paige’s thighs. ‘Did you find a bridesmaid’s dress?’

Paige swallowed hard and slowly shook her head. Then, unable to say the words, she waved a wobbly arm in the direction of the sea of white, ivory, and champagne frou-frou.

‘Oh. For a catalogue shoot? You’re doing a wedding theme?’

And there it was. The perfect out. The exorbitant dress was a work expense. That would even make it tax deductible and less taxing on her mortgage payments. But panic had clogged her throat shut tight.

Mae’s eyebrows slowly slid skyward. Then after several long seconds, she burst out laughing. ‘I thought I was the one who made bizarre shopping decisions when I wasn’t getting any, but this takes the cake.’

Paige found her voice at last. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Mae’s spare hand went to her hip. ‘Tell me quick, without having to think about it, when was the last time you went on a date?’

Paige opened her mouth to say when, and who, and where, but again nothing came out. Because for the life of her she couldn’t remember. It had been weeks. Maybe even months. Rather than worry that she hadn’t even noticed she hadn’t been on a date in an age, she clutched onto the hope that there might be a reasonable reason for her moment of shopping madness.

‘You need to get yourself a man and soon.’ Mae tucked her hand through the crook of Paige’s arm and dragged her to her feet. ‘But until then let’s get out of here before the smell of spray-tan and desperation makes me pass out.’

Paige stood in the single lift of the Botany Apartments at New Quay at Docklands, staring blankly at the glossy white and black tiled lobby floor, the decadent black paisley papered walls, the striking silver sun-bursts framing every door, all lit by the diffused light of a half-dozen mother-of-pearl chandeliers as she waited for the doors to close.

Was Mae right? Had her wholly daft purchase been the result of a recent spate of accidental abstinence? Like a knee-jerk reaction in the opposite direction? Maybe. Because while she had no intention of following Mae’s path down the aisle, she liked dating. Liked men just fine. She liked the way they smelt, the way their minds worked, the curl of heat when she was attracted. She liked men who could wear a suit. Men who paid for drinks and worked long hours as she did and weren’t looking for anything more than good company. The kind of men downtown Melbourne was famous for.

So where had they all gone?

Or was it her fault? Had all the extra energy she’d put into the Brazilian catalogue proposal taken it out of her? Or was she bored with dating the same kind of guy all the time? Maybe she was emotionally sated by the Gilmore girls reruns on TV.

Groaning, she transferred the heavy white garment bag from one hand to the other, flexed her empty hand, and waited for the lift doors to close. And waited some more. It could take a while.

The lift had a personality all of its own, and as personalities went it was rotten to the core. It went up and it went down, but in a completely random fashion that had nothing to do with the floor she chose. Telling Sam the Super hadn’t made a lick of difference. Neither had kicking it. Perhaps she should next try kicking Sam the Super.

Until then, all she could do was wait. And remind herself that a tetchy lift was a small price to pay for her little slice of heaven on the eighth floor. She’d grown up in a huge cluttered house filled with chintz and frilly curtains, and smelling of Mr Sheen and dried flowers and tension you could cut with a knife. And the first time she’d seen the sleek, open-plan opulence of the Botany Apartments she’d felt as if she could breathe fully for the first time in her life.

She closed her eyes and thought about the minimalist twenties decor in her apartment, the sliver of a view of the city, the two great-sized bedrooms—one for her, the other her home-office-slash-Mae’s-room when Mae was too far gone after a big night out to make it home. Though it had been an age since Mae slept over. Not since around the time Clint proposed, in fact.

Paige shook her head as if shooing away a persistent fly. The point was the lift was a tiny inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. Except those times when she was carrying something that weighed the equivalent of a small car.

Okay. If datelessness had led to the thing currently giving her shoulder pain, then she needed to do something about it. And fast. Or who knew what she might do next? Buy a ring? Hire the Langham? Propose to herself in sky-writing?

As her spine began to crumple in on itself Paige muttered, ‘I hereby promise to throw myself upon the mercy of the next man who smiles at me. He can buy me dinner first. Or I can buy him a coffee. Heck, I’ll share a bottle of water from the third-floor dispenser. But I need to get some man time and fast.’

An absolute age later, when the lift doors finally began to close, she almost sobbed in relief. Until at the last second a row of fingers jammed into the gap.

‘Hold the door,’ said the deep male voice on the end of the long brown fingers.

No-o-o! Paige thought. Once those doors opened, the wait for the perverse damn lift to head skywards would start over, and she might never get the feeling back in her shoulders again.

‘No?’ the male voice asked with a low note of incredulity, and Paige blanched, realising she must have said it out loud. It seemed years of living on her own had made her a little too used to talking to herself.

Feeling only the slightest twinge of guilt, she jabbed at the ‘close door’ button. Repeatedly.

But the long brown male fingers had other ideas. They prised that stubborn door open with what was a pretty impressive display of pure brute strength. And then he loomed into view, a stranger, a great big broad one, his bulk blocking her view of the foyer entirely. Head down, brow pinched into a frown, he stared intently at the shiny smartphone in his spare hand.

Something about him had Paige pressing herself deeper into the small lift. Something else entirely had her eyes flickering rapidly over a well-worn chocolate-brown leather jacket with thick dark hair curling over the wool-lined collar. Over soft denim, lovingly hugging masses of long hard muscle, the perfect lines broken only by a neat rectangular bulge where his wallet sat against his backside. Down to huge scuffed boots. Huge.

Any calm and soothing thoughts the view of mother-of-pearl chandeliers and silver sun-bursts had inspired were swept away by the raw and unadulterated impact of the man. The sweet curl of heat she’d been thinking about earlier rushed into Paige’s stomach like a tidal wave and colour rushed into her skin with a whoosh she could practically hear.

Then, before she even had a chance to collect herself, a husky voice inside her head sent the stranger a silent plea: Smile.

Paige all but coughed on her own shock. He was not what she’d meant when she’d decided to get herself a man. A comfortable re-entry was just the ticket. Honestly, who needed such a breathtaking expanse of male shoulders, or such thick dark hair that looked as if no amount of product could completely ever tame it? Or fingers strong enough to open a lift door? As for the hint of hooded dark eyes she could make out in profile and stubble long past designer? That kind of intensity wasn’t comfortable. It was overkill.

She was staring so hard at the man’s lips—thinking that they were too ridiculously perfect to be hidden amongst all that rough stubble—there was no missing it when they twitched, as if they might be about to actually smile.

Oh, God, Paige thought as the man slid his phone into the inner pocket of his jacket. She’d been caught staring. And the pink warmth turned into a red hot inferno beneath her skin.

‘Thanks for holding,’ the stranger said in a voice that was deep and rich, like how the devil ought to sound if he hoped to be any good at tempting people to the dark side.

‘My pleasure,’ said Paige, eyes flickering up to his, which was why she didn’t miss a millimetre of his eyebrow raise, reminding her he was perfectly aware of her attempt to sabotage his ride.

Quitting while she was behind, Paige shut her mouth and made room, plastering herself as far to one side of the small lift as possible. The sooner he got to wherever he was visiting, the better.

Naturally the lift was narrow, complementing the dinky design of the boutique apartment building, and the sizeable stranger seemed to fill every spare inch of space all by himself. Even the bits he didn’t physically invade seemed to pulse with his energy. Every time he breathed in the hairs on Paige’s arms stood on end.

‘What floor?’ he asked.

‘Eighth,’ she said, her voice gravelly as she waggled a finger at the number-eight light that was lit up all hopefully.

The stranger ran a hand across the back of his neck and then the corner of his mouth lifted.

Paige held her breath while her hormones whooped up a series of cat-calls deep in her belly. But it wasn’t a smile. Not officially. Even though it sure hinted at the kinds of eye crinkles that had a habit of turning her knees to water.

‘Long flight,’ he said, his deep voice rumbling through the floor of the lift and all the way up her legs. He lifted one ridiculously broad shoulder over which a leather satchel and a laptop bag hung. ‘Not all here.’

Not all here? Any more of him and Paige would be one with the wall.

When the stranger leaned across to press the button to shut the doors Paige’s skin tingled and tiny pinpricks of sweat tickled down her neck and spine. She breathed in and caught the scent of leather. Of spice. Of fresh chopped wood. Of sea air. Sweat that wasn’t her own.

Outside it was the depth of winter, yet she yanked her scarf away from her neck and thought about ice cream and snowball fights to counteract the certainty that she was about to overheat. Yet something about him, something dark and dangerous dancing in his eyes, in the way her skin hadn’t stopped thrumming from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, made her quite sure, no matter how many snowballs she imagined, it would never be enough.

He pulled back and grunted when the lift didn’t move, and finally Paige’s brain caught up with her hormones. ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ she said, ‘there’s really no need to press that button. Or any button. This lift is completely contrary. It rises and falls as it pleases, with no care at all for—’

With its usual impeccably bad timing, the lift doors slid neatly closed, the box juddered and after an infinitesimal drop it took off. Paige glared in disbelief at the indicator light above the doors, which lit up in actual sequential order as it rose smoothly towards the sky.

Rotten, stinking, little—

‘You were saying?’ the stranger said.

Paige’s eyes cut to his to find humour now well and truly lighting them, creating fiery glints in the dark depths. As if he was about to smile at any second.

Okay, so that deal she’d made earlier to herself, it had been more like a set of guidelines than a promise. What if some pimply sixteen-year-old on a skateboard had smiled first? Or if it had been the guy with the scraggly beard and the rat on his shoulder who walked up and down the Docklands promenade yelling at seagulls? Clearly her deal needed tweaking before it went into official effect.

She lifted a shoulder, trying for nonchalance as she said, ‘This lift has it in for me, clearly. While you, on the other hand, have the touch. Want a job as a lift operator? I’d pay you myself.’

The stranger’s expression warmed. No, burned. As if the temperature of the glint in his eye had turned up a notch.

‘Thanks for the offer,’ he said, ‘but I’m set.’

And had he moved closer? Or merely shifted his weight? Either way the lift suddenly felt smaller. The hairs on the back of Paige’s neck now joining the party as they stood to attention.

‘Oh, well. It was worth a shot.’

When the beautiful bow of his top lip began to soften sideways, Paige smartly turned to watch the display as the floor numbers rolled over all too slowly.

‘You live in the building?’ the stranger asked.

Paige nodded, biting her lip so as not to shiver as that dark velvety voice rolled over her skin in delicious waves.

‘That explains your … relationship with the lift.’

Before she could help herself, her eyes slid back to the stranger, fully expecting to find him looking at her as if she might wig out at any second, as Sam the Super always did when she made a complaint. But the stranger’s gaze was making its way over her hair, the curve of her neck, pausing a beat on her mouth, before coming back to connect, hard, with her eyes.

Her next breath in was long and deep, and once again filled with the scents of spice, and all things deeply masculine. Maybe she wasn’t hallucinating. Perhaps he was a fighter pilot/lumberjack/yachtsman by trade. It could happen.

‘It started out slow,’ she said, sounding as if she’d run a mile in a minute flat, ‘a missed floor here and there. But now it’s all the time. I keep pressing the button knowing it’ll make not a lick of difference, as I refuse to stop hoping it will one day simply start acting like a normal lift. While it won’t stop refusing to be one.’

‘Such friction,’ he said, laughter lighting his eyes. ‘A clash of equal and opposite wills. Like something out of a Doris Day and Rock Hudson flick.’ He glanced at the computerised electronic display of her nemesis. ‘With a sci-fi bent.’

Completely unexpectedly, Paige laughed out loud, the sound bouncing off the walls of the tiny lift. And this time when her eyes snagged back on his they stuck. Such dark eyes he had, drawing her in so deep, so fast, she wouldn’t have noticed if the lift started humming Pillow Talk.

The only explanation she had for her reaction to him was her dating drought. He was so against type. She normally gravitated to men who were so clean cut they were practically transparent. Men who’d not have blinked had she slipped them a dating contract: three nights a week, split checks, no idealistic promises.

Whereas this man was so dark, enigmatic, and diabolically hot every nerve in her body was fighting against every other nerve. His big body that made her palms itch, and his scent that made her want to lean in and bury her face in his neck. ‘Getting back on the horse’ with a man like that would be akin to falling off a Shetland pony at the fair and getting back on a stallion jostling at the starting gate of the Melbourne Cup.

And yet … She wasn’t after a dating contract. She needed a springboard from which to leap back into the dating world. And there he stood, beautiful, sexy, and glinting at her like nobody’s business.

She stuck out a hand. ‘Paige Danforth. Eighth floor.’

‘Gabe Hamilton. Twelfth.’

‘The penthouse?’ she blurted before her tongue could catch up with her brain. That was how addled she was; she hadn’t even noticed which floor he’d pressed. The penthouse had been empty since the day she’d moved in. Meaning … ‘You’re not visiting.’

‘Not.’ How the guy managed to make one word evoke so much she had no idea, but he evoked plenty. The fact that he would be sleeping a mere four floors above her being the meat of it.

‘Renting?’ she asked, and his eye crinkles deepened, making her wonder what she’d evoked without meaning to.

‘Mine,’ he drawled.

Paige nodded sagely, as if they were still talking real estate, not in non-verbal pre-negotiations for something far less dry. ‘I hadn’t heard it had been sold.’

‘It hasn’t. I’ve been away. And now I’m back.’ For how long he didn’t say, but the glint sizzling in his dark eyes and making her feel as if steam were rising from her clothes told her he believed it was long enough.

The lift dinged, as lifts were wont to do—normal lifts, lifts that weren’t demonically possessed—right as she was gaining momentum to do something rash. Rash but necessary.

And then the doors opened.

‘Of course,’ Paige muttered as she recognised her own floor by the dotted silver wallpaper, a Ménage à Moi staple. What could she do but step out?

The back of her hand brushed Gabe’s wrist as she shucked past. The lightest possible touch of skin on skin. When little waves of his energy continued crackling through her as she stepped out into the hall, Paige turned back. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him in for coffee. Or offer to show him the sights of Melbourne. Or any other number of euphemisms for breaking her dating drought.

Then he stifled a yawn.

Like the dawning of the sun it occurred to her that the glint in his eyes had probably been the effect of jet lag the entire time, not some kind of extraordinary instant mutual chemistry between herself and the vision of absolute masculine gorgeousness gracing the lift before her.

If her complexion had been tomato-esque earlier, she’d bet right about then she resembled a fire engine.

Please, she silently begged the lift as they stood facing one another, close now. Just this once. Close.

And it did. The two great silver doors slid serenely towards one another, Gabe’s dark figure growing darker by the second. Until his hand curled around the edge of one door, stopping it in its tracks. Mere mechanics no match for his might.

‘I’ll see you ‘round, Paige Danforth, eighth floor,’ Gabe said, before his fingers slid back away.

Then, as the doors came to a close, he smiled. A dark smile, a dangerous smile, a smile ripe with implications. A smile that sent the dancing hormones inside her belly into instant spontaneous combustion.

Then he was gone.

Paige stood in the elegant hallway, breathing through her nose, feeling as if that smile would be imbedded upon her retinas, and messing with her ability to walk in a straight line, for a long, long time.

The gentle whump of the lift moving up inside the lift shaft brought her from her reverie and she blinked at the two halves of her reflection looking back at her in the spotless silver doors.

Or more specifically at the huge, great, hulking, fluorescent-white garment bag hanging from her right hand. The one she’d completely forgotten about even while her right hand now felt as if it would never feel the same again.

The one with the hot-pink words ‘Wedding Dress Fire Sale!’ glaring back at her in reverse.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’LL be damned,’ said Gabe to the dark wood panelling on the inside of the lift doors as he rubbed at the back of one hand with his thumb where the heat from the touch of his new neighbour’s skin still registered.

During the endless trudge through Customs, the drive from the airport with its view over Melbourne’s damp grey cityscape, then with the winter wind blowing in off Port Phillip Bay and leaching through his clothes to his very bones as he’d waited for the cabbie’s credit card machine to work, Gabe had struggled to find one thing about Melbourne that had a hope in hell of inducing him to stay a minute longer than absolutely necessary.

Then fate had slanted him a sly wink in the form of a neighbour with wintry blue eyes, legs that went on for ever, and blonde tousled waves cool enough to bring Hitchcock himself back to life. Hell, the woman even had the restive spark in her eye of a classic Hitchcock blonde; fair warning to any men who dared enter it would be at their own peril.

Not that he needed any such warning. Three seconds after he signed whatever his business partner, Nate, wanted him to sign he’d be on the kerb whistling for a cab to get him back to the airport. Not even the kick of chemistry that had turned the small space of the lift into a travelling hothouse would change that.

Gabe rehitched his bags, then shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his jacket, closed his eyes and leant back into the corner of the lift. As the memory of where he was, and why he’d left in the first place, pressed against the corners of his mind he shook it off. And, merely because it was better than the alternative, he let his thoughts run to the cool blonde instead.

About the way she’d nibbled at her full lower lip, as if it tasted so good she couldn’t help herself. And the scent of her that had filled the small space, sweet and sharp and delicious, making his gut tighten like a man who hadn’t eaten in a week. As for the way she’d looked at him as if he was some great inconvenience one moment, and the next as if she wanted nothing more than to eat him up with a spoon …?

‘Wow,’ he shot out, eyes flying open, hands gripping the railing that ran hip high along the back of the lift, feet spread wider to combat the sudden sense that his centre of gravity had shifted. The lift had rocked. Hadn’t it? Try as he might he felt nothing but the gentle sway as it rose through the shaft.

Jet lag, he thought. Or vertigo. He sniffed out a laugh. He had Hitchcock on the brain. The guy was no dummy and was also clearly terrified of cool blondes. Did one thing inform the other? No doubt. If a woman looked like trouble, chances were she’d be trouble. And Gabe was a straight-up guy who preferred his pleasures the same.

He pulled himself to standing and ran both hands over his face. He needed sleep. Clearly. He imagined his custom-built king-sized bed which a week earlier he’d had shipped back from South America. The deal there was done anyway, and he’d ship it out again the second the next investment opportunity grabbed him. He imagined falling face down in the thing and sleeping for twelve hours straight.

For some, home was bricks and mortar. For others it was family. For Gabe it was where the work was. And wherever in the world he got wind of an exceptional business idea in need of someone with the guts and means to invest, that was where he sent his bed. And his pillow—flattened to the point he probably didn’t even need the thing. And his mattress with the man-shaped dint right smack bang in the middle that fitted his spreadeagled body to perfection.

Moments before he fell asleep on his feet the lift deposited him neatly at his floor. Exactly as it was made to do.

Gabe yawned till his ears popped, fumbled for the keys to the apartment he’d never seen. The apartment he’d bought to shut Nate up, when Nate had maintained he needed a place in Melbourne considering the company they jointly owned was based there.

He stood in the open doorway. Compared with the bare-bones hotel room that had been home the past few months it was gargantuan, taking up the entire top floor of the building. And yet somehow claustrophobic with its dark colour palette and the huge grey windows along one wall that matched the drizzly grey world outside them.

‘Well, Gabe,’ he said to his blurry reflection, ‘you’re certainly not in Rio any more.’

He slid the carry-on and laptop bags from his shoulder onto the only piece of furniture in the whole room, a long L-shaped black lounge that cut the space in half. Only to be met with a loud ‘Arghuraguragh!’

Jet lag and/or vertigo gone in an instant, Gabe spun on his heel, fists raised, heart thundering in his chest, to find a man reposing on his couch.

‘Nate,’ Gabe said, bent at the waist, hands on his knees as he dragged his breath back to normal. ‘You scared me half to death.’

Gabe’s best mate and business partner sat up, his hair sticking up at the side of his head. ‘Making sure you got here in one piece.’

‘Making sure I arrived at all, more like.’ Gabe stood, cricked his back. ‘Tell me you went one better and filled my fridge.’

‘Sorry. Did get doughnuts though. They’re on the bench.’

Gabe glanced at the familiar white box as he passed it on the way to the silver monolith of a fridge, opening it to find it was empty bar the maker’s instructions. A frisson of disquiet skittered down his spine. If that wasn’t ready …

He strode across the gargantuan space towards the great double doors he could only assume led to the bedroom, whipped them open to find—

No bed.

Swearing beneath his breath, Gabe ran his hand up and down the back of his neck so fast he felt sparks.

Nate’s hand landed upon his shoulder a half-second before his laughter. ‘Your couch looks a treat but it’s not in the least bit comfortable.’

‘You didn’t seem to mind a moment ago,’ Gabe growled.

‘I can power-nap anywhere. It’s a gift born of chronic insomnia.’

Gabe slowly and deliberately shut the bedroom doors, unable to even look at the space where his bed ought to be.

‘Hotel?’

‘The thought of going back out into that cold is making my teeth ache.’

‘I’d offer my couch, but it’s my decorator’s cruel joke. Godawful leather thing with buttons all over it.’

‘Thanks, but I’d be afraid I’d catch something.’

Nate grinned and backed away. ‘I have seen with my own two eyes that you’re here, so my work is done. Catch you at the office Monday. Remember where it is?’

Gabe’s answer was a flat stare. He was lucky—or unlucky more like—to end up in Melbourne once every two or three years, but he knew where his paychecks came from.

Nate clicked his fingers as he wavered at the front door. ‘Almost forgot. Need to make a right hullabaloo now you’re back. Housewarming party Friday night.’

Gabe shook his head. He’d be long gone by Friday. Wouldn’t he?

‘Too late,’ said Nate. ‘Already in motion. Alex and some of the old uni gang are coming. A few clients. Some fine women I met walking the promenade just now—’

‘Nate—’

‘Hey, consider yourself lucky. I’m so giddy you’re here I contemplated dropping flyers from a plane.’

And then Nate was gone. Leaving Gabe in his dark, cavernous, cold, empty apartment. Alone. The grey mist of Port Phillip Bay closing in on his wall of windows like a swarm of bad memories, pretty much summing up how he felt about the possibility that he might still be there in a week’s time.

Before he turned into a human icicle, Gabe tracked down the remote for the air-con and cranked it up as hot as it would go.

He found some bed linen in a closet, then, back in his bedroom doorway, looked glumly at the empty space where his bed ought to be. He stripped down to his smalls and made a pile with blankets and a too big pillow and lay down on the floor, and the second he closed his eyes fatigue dragged him into instant sleep.

And he dreamt.

Of a cool feminine hand stroking the hair at the back of his neck, a hot red convertible rumbling beneath his thighs as he eased it masterfully around the precarious roads of a cliff face somewhere in the south of France. When the car pulled into a lookout, the cool owner of the cool hand slid her cool blonde self onto his lap, her sweet sharp scent hitting the back of his mouth a half-second before her tongue followed. Gabe’s dream self thought, Hitchcock, eat your heart out.

That night at The Brasserie—one of a string of crowded restaurants lining the New Quay Promenade—when Mae told her fiancé, Clint, about Paige’s little purchase, he choked on his food. Literally. A waiter had to give him the Heimlich. They made quite a stir, ending up with the entire restaurant cheering and Paige hunching over her potato wedges and hiding her face behind both hands.

Clint recovered remarkably to ask, ‘So what happened between us pouring you into a cab after drinks last night and this morning to have cured you of your no-marriage-for-Paige-ever stance? Cabbie give you the ride of your life?’

Paige dropped her fingers to give Clint a blank stare. Grinning, he put his hands up in surrender before smartly returning to checking the footy scores on his phone.

She didn’t bother telling him there had not been any curing her doubt as to the existence of happily ever afters. But she neglected to say that there had been one ride she couldn’t seem to wipe from her mind. A ride in a lift with some kind of tall, dark and handsome inducement that got a girl to thinking about all sorts of things she wouldn’t admit out loud without the assistance of too many cocktails.

She dropped her hands to her belly where she could still feel the hum of his deep voice.

As she’d done a dozen times through the day, she brought her thoughts back to the fluoro white bag covered in hot-pink writing currently hanging over the back of her dining chair.

The fact that Gabe Hamilton had got his flirt on while she was carrying a wedding dress made him indiscriminate at best. And the kind of man she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Fidelity meant a great deal to Paige. She’d worked for the same company since uni. Had the same best friend since primary school. She’d drive twenty minutes to get her favourite Thai takeaway. She’d watched her own mum crumble before her very eyes as her father confirmed his own disloyalty again and again and again.

‘Humona humona,’ Mae murmured, or something along those lines, dragging Paige back to the present. ‘Move over, Captain Jack, there’s a new pirate in town.’

Clint glanced up. Whatever he saw was clearly of little interest as he saw his chance to sneak a pork rib from Mae’s plate then went back to his phone.

Paige gave into curiosity and turned to look over her shoulder, her heart missing a beat, again, when she found Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome himself warming his large hands by the open fire in the centre of the room, his dark hair curling slightly over the collar of his bulky jacket, feet shoulder width apart.

‘Look how he’s standing,’ Mae said, her voice a growl.

As if used to keeping himself upright in stormy seas, Paige thought.

Mae had other ideas. ‘Like he needs all that extra room for his package.’

‘Mae!’

Mae shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. Not when you could be looking at him.’

Paige tried not to look, she really did. But while her head knew it was best to forget about him, her hormones apparently had fuzzier principles. She looked in time to see him push a flap of his leather jacket aside and glide his phone from an inside pocket, revealing a broad expanse of chest covered by a faded T-shirt. Paige wasn’t sure which move had her salivating more—the brief flash of toned brown male belly as his T had lifted, or the rhythmic slide of his thumb over the screen of his phone.

And then he turned, his dark eyes scouring the large space.

‘Get down!’ Paige spun around and hunkered down in her seat until she was half under the table. It was only when she realised neither of her friends had said anything that she glanced up to find them both watching her with their mouths hanging open.

‘Whatcha doin’ down there?’ Mae asked.

Paige slowly pulled herself upright. Then, wishing she had eyes in the back of her head, she muttered, ‘I know him.’

‘Him? Oh, him. Who is he?’

‘Gabe Hamilton. He’s moved in upstairs. We met in the lift this morning.’

‘Annnnndddd?’ Mae said, by that stage bouncing on her chair.

‘Sit still. You’re getting all excited for nothing. I tried to shut the door on his fingers. He suggested the lift and I were trapped in a passive-aggressive romantic entanglement. It was all very … awkward.’

Mae kept grinning, and Paige realised she was squirming on her seat.

She threw her hands in the air. ‘Okay, fine, so he’s gorgeous. And smells like he’s come from building his own log cabin. And there might have been a little flirting.’ When Mae began to clap, Paige raised a hand to cut her off. ‘Oh no. That’s not the best part. This all happened right after you dropped me off. While. I. Was. Carrying. The. Wedding. Dress.’

‘But didn’t you explain—?’

‘How exactly? So, sexy stranger, see this brand new wedding dress I’m clutching? Ignore it. Means nothing. I’m free and clear and all yours if ya want me.’

‘That’d work for me,’ Clint said, nodding sagely.

Mae smacked him across the chest. He grinned and went back to pretending he wasn’t listening.

‘I blame you, and your man-drought theory,’ Paige said. ‘I would have been hard pressed not to flutter my eyelashes at anyone at that point.’

‘Like if Sam the Super had turned up she would have wanted to ravage him in the lift?’ Mae muttered, shaking her head as if Paige had gone loco.

Paige couldn’t stop feeling as if the world was tilting beneath her chair. Mae, of all people, should have understood her need for absolutes. The old Mae would, what with her own father’s inability to be faithful. This new Mae, the engaged Mae, was too blinded by her own romance to see straight.

Paige fought the desire to shake some sense into her friend. Instead she reached for her cocktail, gulping down a mouthful of the cold tart liquid.

‘It’s all probably moot anyway,’ Mae said, sighing afresh. ‘That man is from a whole other dimension. One where men date nuclear physicists who model in their spare time. Or he’s gay.’

‘Not gay,’ Paige said, remembering the way his gaze had caressed her face. The certainty he’d been moving closer to her the whole ride, inch by big hot inch. Jet lag or no, there’d been something there. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Anyway. It doesn’t matter either way. A man who flirts with a woman holding a wedding dress ought to be neutered.’

‘Well, my sweet,’ said Mae, perking up, ‘you’ll have the chance to tell him so. Because he’s coming this way.’

Gabe had been about to leave when he’d seen her.

Well, he’d seen her dinner companion first—a redhead with wild curls and no qualms about staring at strangers. After which he’d noticed his fine and fidgety neighbour’s blonde waves tumbling down a back turned emphatically in his direction. If she’d given him a smile and a wave he might well have waved and gone home. But the fact that the woman he’d planned to ignore was ignoring him right on back tugged at his perverse gene and sent him walking her way.

‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Eighth Floor,’ he said, resting a hand on the back of her chair.

Paige turned, her eyebrows raised, her smile cool. But the second her deep blue eyes locked onto his, his blood thickened, his lungs got tight, and he felt a sudden surge of affection for the hard floor of his room.

Hitchcock be damned, he thought as the memory of those cool blonde waves tickling his chest as she’d ridden him in his convertible slammed into his head. It might only have been a dream but his libido clearly didn’t give a lick. ‘When I said I’d see you around I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so soon.’

‘Living in the same building we’ll be bound to run into one another.’

‘Lucky us.’ He gave her a smile, the kind he knew gave off all the right signals. Her eyes flared, but she physically pulled her reaction back. In fact from her pale pink fingernails gripping the table, to the ends of her gorgeously tousled hair, she screamed high maintenance. Complication. Trouble.

And yet the smile tugged higher at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe it was the challenge. Maybe it was the dream. Maybe it was that he suddenly had time on his hands, time he’d rather spend in doing than thinking. But as Gabe looked into those hot and cold blue eyes he knew he was going to get to know this woman.

A loud clearing of the throat sent them both looking to Paige’s friend.

Paige said, ‘Gabe Hamilton, this is my friend Mae. Her fiancé, Clint.’

Leaning across the table to shake hands with enthusiasm, Mae said, ‘I hear you’ve just flown in from overseas.’

When the table shook and Mae scrunched up her face, Gabe got the feeling she’d been duly kicked under the table. So Little Miss Cool had been talking about him to her friends, had she? Perhaps this would be easier than he thought. Though rather than that taking the edge off the challenge, the energy inside coiled tighter still.

He sourced a spare chair at the next table and dragged it over, sliding it next to Paige, who pretended she’d suddenly found a mark on her dinner plate fascinating.

‘Brazil,’ he said to Mae, pressing his toes into the floor as Paige sat straight as an arrow in the seat beside him. ‘I’m just back from Brazil.’

‘Seriously?’ said Mae. ‘Hear that, Paige? Gabe’s been to Brazil.’

Paige glared at her friend. ‘Thanks, Mae. I did hear.’

Mae leant her chin on her palm as she asked, ‘Back for good, then?’

‘Not,’ he said. Not that he was about to tell these nice people that given the choice he’d rather be neck deep in piranha-infested waters than stay in their home town. ‘Here on business for a few days.’

‘Pity,’ said Mae, while Paige said nothing. Those bedroom eyes of hers remained steadfastly elsewhere. Until Mae added, ‘Paige has a total thing for Brazil.’

‘Does she, now?’

At the low note that had crept into his voice, Paige’s eyes finally flickered to his. He smiled back, giving her a silent ‘hi’ with his eyes. She saw it too. Her eyes widened, all simmering heat trapped beneath the cool surface, and her chest rose and fell at the same time as his, as if she was breathing with him.

Gabe’s libido, which had been warming up nicely since the moment he’d spied her, went off like a rocket. He gripped the back of her chair, his thumb mere millimetres from the dip between her shoulders. When Paige breathed deep, arching away from his almost touch, her nostrils flaring, her throat working, he swore beneath his breath.

‘Why, yes,’ said Mae cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to the sexual tension near pulsing between her tablemates. ‘In fact she’s spent the past few months trying to convince her boss she has to shoot their summer catalogue there.’

‘Really?’ Gabe said, dragging his gaze to her friend in an effort to keep himself decent. ‘So what kind of work does Paige do?’

‘I’m brand manager for a home-wares retailer,’ Paige shot back, a distinct huskiness now lighting her voice. Oh, yeah, this was going to be fun. ‘Most of next summer’s range is Brazilian. In feel if not in actuality.’ Then, as if the words were being pulled from her with pliers, ‘And what were you doing in Brazil?’

If he’d been in need of a bucket of water to cool the trouble brewing in his pants, Paige asking about his work was a fine alternative. He’d learned the hard way that the less people knew about his business, the better. What big information you have! All the better to screw you with, my dear. ‘This time around, coffee,’ he allowed. ‘You like coffee?’

‘Coffee?’ She blinked, the change of subject catching her off guard. She shifted till she was facing him a little more. Her eyes now flitting between his, the push and pull of attraction working up the same energy he’d felt at their first meeting. Then she slid her bottom lip between her teeth, leaving it moist and plump as she said, ‘Depends who’s making it.’

Gabe felt the ground beneath him dip and sway as it had in the lift and he gripped the back of her chair for dear life. Vertigo, he thought, definitely vertigo. Hitchcock had been a glutton for punishment to keep going back to his twitchy blondes. Yet Gabe made no move to leave, so what did that make him?

‘Why coffee?’ Mae asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘The reason you were in Brazil. Do you grow it? Pick it? Drink it? Brew it?’

Gabe paused again, calculating. But the deal was done. He’d gone over every full stop, met every employee, vetted every business practice to make sure the product line was legitimate and above reproach. And profitable, of course. Nothing, and nobody, could ruin it now.

‘I’m investing in it. Or in a mob called Bean There, to be more specific,’ he said.

But it was too late. Paige had sensed his hesitation and, for whatever reason, her knees slid away from his and back under the table. Hot and cold? The woman ran from fire to frost quicker than he could keep up.

At that point Gabe seriously considered cutting his losses. But at his heart Gabe was a shark. When he got his teeth in something it took a hell of a lot for him to let go. It was why he was the best at what he did, why he’d never met a deal he couldn’t close. She didn’t know it yet, but the longer she sat there shutting him out, the deeper she sank her hook beneath his ribs.

A voice from across the table said, ‘Oh, I love those places! Those little hole-in-the-wall joints, right? One guy and a coffee machine.’

‘That’s the ones.’

‘Ooh, how exciting,’ Mae said, ‘insider information! From our very own corporate pirate.’

Gabe flinched so hard he bit his tongue. It was as though the woman had the book on which buttons to press to make his jewels up and shrivel. ‘It’s common knowledge,’ he avowed, ‘so feel free to spread the word. The more money they make, the more steak dinners for me.’

Clearly the time had come to retreat and regroup. He pulled himself to standing.

‘Stay!’ said Mae.

‘Thanks, but no. Beauty sleep to catch up on.’

He looked to Paige to check if she was even half as moved by his imminent departure, only to find her sitting primly with her fingers clasped together as if she didn’t give a hoot. Yet her gaze had other ideas. Beginning somewhere in the region of his fly, it did a slow slide up his torso, pausing for the briefest moments on his chest, his neck, his mouth, before landing on his eyes.

‘Friday,’ he heard himself say in a voice that was pure testosterone. ‘Housewarming party at mine. You’re all welcome.’

‘We’ll be there,’ said Mae.

Gabe reached out to shake Mae’s hand. Then Clint’s. He saved Paige for last.

‘Paige,’ he said, and he lifted her hand into his. His dream had been wrong on that point at the very least. Her hand was as warm as if she’d been lying in the sun. As for her eyes … As if touching him had unleashed all that she’d been trying to hold back, desire flooded them, then exploded in his chest like a bonfire, before settling as a hot ache in his groin.

Damn.

She pulled her hand away. Her brow furrowing, as if she wasn’t sure what had just happened. He knew. And hell if he didn’t want more.

‘Friday,’ he said, waiting until she nodded. Then he shot the table a salute before walking away, his entire body coiled in discomfort, his field of vision a pinprick in a field of red mist as blood pounded through his body way too fast.

He headed back to his apartment. To his hard floor. The ache lingering deep in his gut. And this time as he stared at the ceiling in his big empty bedroom, sleep eluded him.

He wondered how his neighbour might react if he showed up at her door asking for a bed for the night, carrying his box of doughnuts and wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a smile. The only thing keeping him from finding out was her patent determination to remain cool. If he read her even slightly wrong, boxer shorts might be not quite enough protection.

CHAPTER THREE

LATER that night, when the lift doors closed several minutes after Paige had pressed the button for the eighth floor, she leant against the wall, getting herself comfortable for the ride ahead of her.

The second she closed her eyes, the picture projected onto the backs of her lids was the view of Gabe Hamilton as he’d walked away. All long strong legs and loping sexy strides. The thought of him made her tingle all over. Like static, only … hotter.

As it turned out, whatever she thought of Gabe Hamilton’s scruples about flirting with a possibly engaged woman, she hadn’t imagined the spark. It was there, in the directness of his gaze. The purpose in his smile. He knew he was gorgeous and wasn’t above using it to get what he wanted. And if she had even half a sense about such things, he wanted her.

Paige crossed her legs at the ankle and slid her thumb between her front teeth and nibbled for all she was worth.

She’d never been one of those girls who went after men who looked as if they sinned a dozen times a day and twice on Sundays. Sure, she could appreciate the appeal. The desire to tame the untameable. But she’d seen the emotional destruction a man with that kind of concentrated charm left in his wake. And while she wasn’t a big believer in happy endings, more than that she was determined never to act in such a way as to have an unhappy one.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t dated any good guys of late either. The why of it niggled at a shadowy corner of her brain, as if it should be more obvious. But while her head filled with thoughts of Gabe Hamilton, and his hot hand and hotter eyes, she was finding it hard to think straight at all.

She pulled herself upright, shook out her hands, and paced around the lift.

The sorry truth was, she’d met enough ‘good guys’ who turned out to be jerks in the end anyway. So wouldn’t it be better to know a guy was trouble from the outset? Wouldn’t it be easier to protect herself if she knew up front exactly what she was in for? Wouldn’t it be something to let go and open up to all that sinful, seductive intensity just once?

Her eyes scrunched tight and she stopped pacing.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Gabe Hamilton didn’t seem like a jerk. He seemed … focused. Sexy as all get out. More than a little bit intimidating. And by his own admission, he was only in town for a bit. Which was a plus. Maybe the biggest plus of all. She wasn’t after a relationship with the guy. Just a safe place to dip her toes into the dating pool. A kiss. Maybe a little messing about. Or a good and proper tumble.

She sucked in a deep breath and let it go.

Anyway, she didn’t have to decide that night. She had till Friday at the very least to think about it, so long as they never shared the lift in that time. Not that it had ever done right by her before.

When the lift made its first stop she twirled her hair over one shoulder, stifled a yawn, glanced at the number to check which floor besides the eighth she’d landed on, then realised the lift had taken her to the top. To the penthouse.

She slowly stood to attention, her hands tight on her purse in an attempt to get a grip on the sensual wave rising through her knowing Gabe Hamilton was close. And with everything she had she willed the lift to descend.

But the lift being the lift, the doors slid open, and stayed open, leaving her standing staring into a large dark entrance boasting two shiny black double doors leading to the only apartment on the floor, one of which bumped as the handle twisted.

Paige shrank to the back of the lift, but there was no hiding. Every last wisp of air bled from her lungs as Gabe stepped through the doorway.

He looked up, saw her, and stopped. A muscle worked in his jaw. It was a testament to how her senses were working nineteen to the dozen that she even noticed that tiny movement, considering what the guy was wearing. Or not wearing, to be more precise.

Pyjama bottoms. Long, soft, grey-checked pyjama bottoms. And nothing else. After that it was like a freeway collision inside her head, the way the gorgeous bits of him piled on top of one another. The deep tan that went all over. The large bare feet. The hair, all mussed and rugged. Arms that looked strong enough to lift a small car. A wholly masculine chest with the kind of muscle definition no mere mortal had the right to possess. And a happy trail of dark hair arrowing beneath his pyjama bottoms …

‘Paige?’ he said, his devil-deep voice putting her knees on notice.

‘Hey,’ she croaked back.

‘I heard the lift.’

‘And here it is.’ Going for unflappable, she cocked a hip and waved a hand towards the open doors like a game-show hostess. She failed the moment the heat rising through her body pinked across her cheeks.

A hint of a smile gathered in Gabe’s dark eyes, tilting his gorgeous mouth. ‘Did you want me for something?’

‘Did I want you—? No. No.’ She laughed only slightly hysterically. ‘I was heading home, but the lift, it—’

‘Brought you here of its own accord.’

‘It’s contrary that way.’

‘So you’ve said,’ he said, planting his feet and crossing his arms across his chest, a broad, brown, beautiful mass of rises and falls that brought a flash flood to the desert that had been her mouth.

Paige dragged her eyes to the huge starburst on the ceiling as she said, ‘It’s late and you must have things to do, bags to unpack, sleep to catch up on.’

He slowly shook his head. ‘I’m used to living out of a bag. And for some reason I’m not all that tired right now.’

‘I could be here a while.’

He leaned against the doorjamb. ‘Or you could come in.’

The blood thundered so hard and fast through her she couldn’t be sure she’d heard him right. ‘Come in?’

‘I can tell you everything I know about Brazil.’

Paige blinked. Simply unable to find the words to—

‘And I have doughnuts.’

And at that she laughed. Loud. Nervous energy pouring from her in waves. ‘Well, that’s original. I mean, I’ve been offered “coffee” before of course. Even a good old-fashioned nightcap on occasion. But never doughnuts.’

He watched her, all dark, and leaning and so much man. Her mouth now watering like Niagara Falls, she swallowed again before saying, ‘What is a nightcap anyway? Sounds like it should be one of those Wee Willie Winkie hats with the pompom on the end—’

‘Paige.’

‘I …’ Her eyes slid to his naked chest as if they’d stayed too long away. ‘I feel overdressed for doughnuts.’

‘Only one way to fix that.’

She realised then that he’d moved aside so that the way through his open front door was clear. Inviting.

Her body waved towards the open lift doors, gripped with a desire to step across that threshold and into the arms of one big hot male, but she caught herself at the last second. She couldn’t. Could she? She’d met him that morning, for Pete’s sake. Knew nothing about him other than his name, address and occupation—Okay, so that was pretty standard. As for the way he made her feel—as if she were melting from the inside out—by looking at her?

The lift binged, the doors began to close, and Paige slipped through the gap, the bump and hum of the lift descending without her echoing through her shaking limbs. Other than that the dark foyer was perfectly quiet. No music. Just the sound of her shaky breath sliding past her lips.

She’d have a doughnut. Get to know him a little. Maybe even grab him at the last for a goodnight kiss. She could handle a guy like Gabe for one night if that was what it took to find her dating legs again; legs that wobbled like a marionette’s as she made her way to his door.

She held her breath as she slipped past him but there was no avoiding that complex masculine scent radiating from his warm naked skin.

Inside, the apartment was darker still. When he went towards the raised kitchen, Paige headed in the opposite direction where cloud-shrouded moonlight spilled through the wall of ceiling-to-floor windows. And he hadn’t been lying when he’d said there was nothing to unpack. In fact there wasn’t much of anything at all.

No lamps, only the light of an open laptop on the kitchen bench. No pictures on the walls. Not even a big-screen TV. Just a couch, a long, sleek L-shaped thing that could fit twenty. And it looked out over the stunning water view, as if the inside of the apartment was irrelevant.

Which maybe, to him, it was. In her experience a man who refused to stamp his own personality on a place wasn’t connected to it. Or those living in it with him. Hence the unrestrained frippery of the home she grew up in. If a home was where the heart was, then Gabe Hamilton’s heart was most definitely not in that apartment. Probably not even in her home city. And while in the past that would have been enough to turn her on her heel without looking back, her heart began to race.

‘Not a big fan of decor?’ she asked, glancing across to find him in the raised kitchen where a single muted down-light now played over his naked torso, making the absolute most of his warm brown skin. He loomed over a huge white box that did, in fact, contain doughnuts. ‘Or furnishings in general?’

He looked around as if he hadn’t noticed how bare the place was. ‘I don’t spend my weekends antiquing, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You don’t have to go that far, but you could do with a dining table. Some kitchen stools. A throw cushion or two.’

‘I’d bet my left foot that no man ever looked back on his life and regretted a lack of throw cushions,’ he rumbled.

‘But they’re like garnish on a dinner plate. You don’t need it to make the meal, but that splash of colour makes your mouth water all the same.’

To that he said nothing, just watched her across the darkness, and her own mouth had never watered as much in her entire life.

‘Is it just me, or is it hot in here?’ she asked, peeling off her shirred blazer, her knobbly scarf, and throwing them over the back of a couch.

‘Air-con’s on heat blast. I’m acclimatising.’

Her eyes fell onto a plate of doughnuts he was piling high. She edged towards the scent of sugar. And him. ‘Turn the heat down and put on a sweater. Much more comfortable.’

‘For who?’

For her clearly. She’d been inside his place for less than two minutes and already a drop of sweat slid between her shoulder blades, trickled down her spine, and pooled in the dent at the bottom of her back.

As for him? His gaze lingered on her cream silk top, hovered over the minuscule spaghetti straps, then swept down her bare arms. Paige fought the urge to cross her arms across her chest, as even in the sweltering room her nipples contracted to aching peaks.

‘Nah,’ he said as his eyes moseyed back up to hers, ‘I like the heat.’

Leaving the doughnuts to the elements, Gabe edged around the island, his dark eyes locked onto her. Heart pounding, she backed up a step, and her backside hit the couch.

‘Would you prefer I turn it down?’ he asked, his voice dropping as he neared.

God, no, she thought. By the twitch at the corner of his beautiful mouth, she realised she’d clearly said it out loud. Bad habit. Must break.

He moved closer, and, breathing deep, she caught his wholly masculine scent that made her certain he could change a tyre, and build a fire, and wrestle a shark all before breakfast and not break a sweat.

And she knew. There would be no doughnuts that night. There would be no lines drawn, or contracts agreed upon. Her world contracted until all she knew was moonlight, heat, breath, her throbbing pulse. And Gabe. Half naked, his dark gaze searing into hers.

Then, right when she thought she might die from the tension coiling within her, he took one last long step and his big hand was in her hair, and his hot mouth was on hers.

Explosions went off behind her eyes, beneath her skin, deep in her belly until her whole body was awash with heat that had nothing to do with the sweltering air.

Her hands were in his hair gouging tracks in the lush softness. Her leg was wrapped around his. Her body arcing into him as every part of her that could meld with his did.

She felt his smile against her mouth. A smile of pure and utter conquest. She nipped at his bottom lip. Take that.

He stilled, all that strength bunching, waiting, compounding. In the stillness his heat beat against her skin. The energy coursing through his veins found a matching beat in hers. Every sense was on a delectable high.

When the wait for retribution became too much, she rolled against him. Softly. Fitted herself along his length. Purposefully. Slid her hands to the back of his head, and her tongue across his bottom lip, tasting the tender spot she’d bitten.

This, she thought. This was what she’d needed. This raw release. Who needed promises? Who needed commitment? Of all times for her friend to pop into her head, this was not a winner. Clint joined Mae as they smiled at one another in that gooey way they had when they thought nobody was watching. In fact, they didn’t really care who was watching, they were too busy watching one another.

Paige shook her head in an effort to remove the image from her mind, and the usual dull ache it had created deep in her belly.

As if he sensed her retreat, Gabe closed his big strong arms around her, wrapping her in heat and muscle and might. He pressed her back and kissed her slow and deep until she was nothing bar a flood of sensation pouring hot and thick through her whole body. His scent curled itself about her, warm, spicy, mouth-watering, until she couldn’t remember what her mouth tasted like before it tasted like him.

This. The word whispered through her again.

And things only got better from there for a really long time. As he found the sweet spot below her right ear, sucking her skin into his hot mouth. The hollow at the base of her neck with his tongue. The line of lace where the edge of her bra met swollen sensitive skin. Until her mind was a haze. Her body pure vibration.

She groaned in frustration as his lips were gone from hers, but then his arm slid beneath her legs and he lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on tight, her breath shooting from her lungs as light, bright, startled laughter.

When her eyes found his, dangerous and intense, the laughter dried up in her throat, the pleasure of it trickling down to her toes.

She bumped in his arms as he kicked open what must have been the bedroom door. Then he stopped so fast she gripped on tighter so as not to fly out of his arms.

‘Dammit,’ he said. Followed by a whole slew of words worthy of any pirate.

‘Problem?’

He slid her down his body, his hardness giving her no doubt he was as deep in this thing as she was. Then he took her by the shoulders and turned her so that she could see into his bedroom.

It was huge, half the size of her whole apartment. Gorgeous window mouldings and cornices, with another fabulous art deco sun-burst in the centre of the high ceiling. Occupational hazard, it took her half a second to imagine a reading lamp and great chair in the near corner. A small antique desk with enough room for his laptop below the wide window. Lush dark curtains pooling on the shiny floor. None of which were there.

But decor and character weren’t the only things the room was lacking.

It had no bed.

A small sound of desperation escaped her lips as her eyes roved quickly over the scrunched-up blankets on the floor, none of which looked terribly conducive to the kind of action her poor neglected body was screaming for.

She swore beneath her breath. Or at least she thought she had. The rumble of laughter at her back told her she’d said it out loud. Again.

Then his hand slid around her waist, tucked beneath her top, and found her sensitive stomach. She melted against him, against the hardness pressed against her backside. He swept her hair aside and his teeth grazed her shoulder and if she hadn’t pressed her thighs together she’d have orgasmed on the spot.

She spun in his arms, her hands finding his firm chest. His body filled her view, blocking out any light that dared come between them. His face was all darkness and shadows, his skin like a furnace, his scent like pure testosterone. Instinct had her swaying back, only to find herself up against the doorjamb.

‘Gabe …’ Paige said, her spine merging with the line of the doorway.

His hand landed on the doorjamb above her head. She breathed out. Slow, shaky, every ounce of oxygen leaving her body until she was weak with desire. Heat licking and trembling at her core. She couldn’t feel her feet. Could feel the beat of his heart against her palms all the way in the backs of her knees.

Her chest felt tight, her lungs dysfunctional. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hang onto her self-control. But if she pulled back now, how long till she had such a chance again? If she turned away from this, she might as well buy a cat, get a blue rinse and be done with men for ever.

She curled her fingers and traced her nails through the crisp dark hair of his chest. Pressed her lips gently to his flat nipple, before tracing it with her tongue. Her hands, getting greedy now, roved over the bumps of his six-pack, the hard muscles at his hips, over what turned out to be a damn fine example of male backside.

Something close to a roar escaped Gabe’s mouth as his fingers curled into her hair and tugged, sending her head sliding down the vertical strip of wood. Then his mouth found hers, any gentleness or exploration gone, his lips and tongue making a joke of any last resistance she might have had.

He tucked his fingers beneath the strap of her top, sending it cascading down her arm, revealing the lacy half-cup of her bra. His eyes, dark as night, watched as his palm cupped her breast, then his thumb ran over the dark centre. Chills running up and down her body, she pressed her feet into the floor and she bit her lip so as not to cry out.

His hand found her hip, his thumb swirling over her belly button. Then before she knew it her jeans were unbuttoned, the zip sliding open one tooth at a time. Paige’s hands went to Gabe’s hips, grabbing on for dear life as his big hand slid inside her pants, cupping her. Then he slid a slow, strong finger along the seam of her underwear.

She bucked as a shot of the most exquisite pleasure pierced her, blocking out every other sensation.

Then his mouth was on hers again, taking her blissful agony and doubling it. Trebling it. Turning her thoughts to mere threads swirling in a wash of liquid heat as a finger curled beneath the hem of her underwear, dipped inside her, sending wave after wave of shock and awe through her.

Her body no longer her own, she strained towards him. The perfect insistent slide of his finger. Then two. Melting from the inside out as blood roared in her ears, all sensation rushed to her centre, and, with a cry stifled as her mouth pressed against his shoulder, she came. A riot of hot waves buffeting her from scalp to toes, again and again, before finally diffusing to a warm delicious hum.

Her skin was slick with sweat. Her lips tasted of salt. Her knuckles ached from the clench of her fingers at Gabe’s hips.

Her eyes opened sluggishly as her top slid back up her torso, at the scrape of a fingernail as her strap hooked back over her shoulder. No. No! What was he doing? Even through the haze of afterglow she knew they weren’t done. Not by half!

Her focus landed on his eyes to find them lit by a slow burn that turned her mouth dry. She traced her thumbs into the waistline of his pants and he stopped her, his expression almost pained. His voice was subterranean when he asked, ‘Do you have protection?’

And she felt the floor drop out from under her.

It had been months, literally, since she’d needed a condom. Or even thought to put it on her shopping list; that was how dry her spell had been. She was on the pill of course, but she’d known this guy less than a day.

She must have looked as disappointed as she felt as Gabe’s forehead thunked against the wood, his breath shooting hot and hard over her shoulder, creating fresh goose bumps in its wake. ‘The closest chemist is three blocks from here.’

‘If I go outside in this state I’ll be arrested.’

‘Or there’s the stacked brunette on six.’

With palpable effort, Gabe pulled back. His dark eyes connecting with hers, the intensity coming at her making her knees buckle. ‘What about her?’

‘She looks the kind of girl who might have a permanent stash of such … accessories.’

After a few moments of quiet, Gabe burst out laughing. ‘Not quite the impression I want to make on the neighbours, door-knocking at one in the morning with a hard-on and a request for condoms.’

Condoms, she thought. Plural. Good God.

‘No,’ she said, licking her suddenly dry lips. ‘I suppose not. Even if you are only in town for a little while?’

Gabe’s dark eyes seared into her as if he was actually considering it. Then after one hard breath in and out, he took her by one finger and dragged her in his wake, away from the cruel temptation of his under-utilised bedroom and back into his big under-decorated home where he gathered her clothes.

‘Gabe?’ she said, half apology, half despair.

He shooshed her with a glance that told her he was barely controlling himself as it was. She bit her lip and kept quiet.

Once at the lift he redressed her until she had a semblance of decency. ‘In case the lift stops on another man’s floor,’ he said, the gleam in his eyes making it clear he didn’t believe her story for a second. ‘Wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea.’

‘But—’

The lift opened. His jaw tightened and Paige was sure he was about to kiss her again. Her lips opened, her breath hitched, her skin came over all hot and tingly. But he turned her on the spot and gave her a little shove inside. ‘Scram. Before I start something neither one of us will be able to stop.’

Compared with his apartment, the inside of the lift was freezing cold. She crossed her arms across her chest to hold in the warmth. To hold in the delicious fizzing in her blood. The wonderful heaviness between her legs.

What to say? Sorry? Thanks? See you around? In the end neither of them said anything, they just watched each other as the lift doors closed.

She slumped against the wall—her legs no longer able to support her—slapped a hand over her eyes and shook her head. What had happened? She’d broken her drought, that was what. And how! As the lift took her to the lobby and back a half-dozen times Paige relived every hot, rash second of it to make sure.

When the lift finally opened at her floor, she breathed out a long shuddering sigh of relief. Considering how her day had begun, she couldn’t possibly have hoped to negate that disaster so soon. But she had.

Hopefully now her life could get back to normal.

CHAPTER FOUR

PAIGE’S phone rang, but no matter how hard she reached, how hard she tried, it was never enough. She couldn’t connect.

She woke up with a start, her heart thumping in her chest, her legs entangled in a mess of sheets, to find light pouring through her bedroom window. A quick glance at her bedside clock told her it was after ten. Once she realised it was a Sunday she relaxed. Wow, she hadn’t slept in that late in—

The buzzing of her landline told her she hadn’t dreamt that part at least.

She reached out, grabbed the phone, lay back on her bed with the back of her hand over her eyes to block out the light. Expecting it to be her mum, she sighed, ‘Hiya.’

‘Sleep well?’

Words became impossible as her mouth fell wide open. She had to swallow, twice, before saying, ‘Gabe?’

‘Making sure you got home okay last night.’

Her head was spinning. How did he get her number? She hadn’t given it to him. He’d looked her up? He’d looked her up! Oh, calm down. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s just being gentlemanly. Though what he’d done to her up against the doorjamb the night before was so far from gentlemanly she had to cross her legs to keep from suffering a relapse.

‘Paige?’

‘I hardly had to brave the night. I’m four floors down.’

‘As I well know.’ The heat in Gabe’s voice had Paige sliding deeper under her sheets. Until he added, ‘By way of a lift that, according to you, is contrary.’

‘You still think I’m making it up, don’t you?’

‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. In fact I’ve developed a soft spot for the thing.’

She could all but see his seductive smile down the phone. Feel his warm breath on her neck. His hot hands on her skin. How had she convinced herself a night with Gabe Hamilton would be enough? Maybe it would have been, if either of them had come with protection. And maybe she’d turn into a monkey at the next full moon.

Whatever might have been, after last night he’d been left wanting, and she was left wanting more. And not just getting out there and dating again more. Him more. Big dark Gabe Hamilton more. That was what came of diving in head first when she’d meant to test the water with a tentative toe. But it was too late to think about what she should have done. She was in this thing now. Why not make the most of it?

‘Where are you?’ she asked. Her body began to feel hot and soft by turns at the hope he would say he was outside her door.

‘Why?’

‘No reason.’

‘Liar,’ he rumbled. Not only did the man have a voice that could send a nun into a fit of hot trembles, he knew what to do with it. ‘I’m at Customs. Tearing the place down in search of my bed.’

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘Not so much. You?’

‘I slept fine.’ Deep, dreamy, delicious.

The low notes of Gabe’s laughter vibrated down the phone. And Paige bit her lip so as not to say anything else incriminating.

‘Glad to hear you’re safe and sound. And well slept. Now I’ve gotta see a man about a bed. See you ‘round, Eighth Floor.’ And then he was gone.

Paige pressed the phone to her hot ear a moment longer before she let her arm flop sideways, the phone dangling from her hand. She stared at the ceiling, at the bouncing blobs of sunlight reflecting off the prism dangling from the corner of her dressing-table mirror.

He’d checked to see if she made it home. Which was actually quite lovely. Kind of a good guy thing to do, in fact. But then he’d made no noise about when, or even if, she’d see him again before Friday’s party. Which was a decidedly bad boy thing to do.

She rolled onto her tummy and pressed her face into her pillow. If only he were outside her door with a condom tucked in the back pocket of his old jeans. Then he could have his wicked way with her, and they’d be even, and that would be that. Perhaps. Probably not.

It was a Sunday, she had nowhere else to be, so she closed her eyes and pictured herself flinging open her front door to find him standing there after all, though this time in her head he wore black leather trousers, a loose white shirt open to the navel, an eye-patch. He was so big and tall he’d fill her small kitchen—

Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a start as she remembered the wedding dress in its fluorescent bag still hanging over her dining chair.

She rubbed the heels of her palms against her eye socket and breathed out hard. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing-table mirror. Her eyes were smudged with old eyeliner, her hair a scrambled mess. And her mouth? It tasted like three-week-old bread.

Looking as she looked, with a wedding dress in her kitchen, hearing one note of that voice and she would still have let him into her apartment in half a second flat. No, she would have dragged him in. Had she completely lost her self-control?

That was that. Until his party Friday she was using the stairs.

As Gabe leaned against the wall of the lift transporting him silently to the fifteenth floor offices of BonaVenture Capital he couldn’t help comparing it with the one at the Botany Apartments. Light, bright, luxuriously spacious and prompt as this one was, it hadn’t the added benefit of having deposited pure temptation in the shape of a leggy blonde at his door two nights before. He knew which he preferred, hands down.

He was quite sure this casual dalliance would end up being a most welcome postscript to the unwelcome trip. Casual being the key word.

He liked women. Downright adored some of them. He’d been raised by a strong woman—his gran, after his parents died a week before his tenth birthday—so he respected the hell out of them. But his work kept him on the move, which made casual more workable. That, and the fact that the one and only time he’d attempted a hearts and roses relationship he’d been burned to a crisp.

He shifted his stance, but the discomfort that had settled over him remained. He preferred not to look back to that time. It was a big black hole in his past with the capability to suck him in if he gave it half a chance. Being back in Melbourne, heading into the BonaVenture offices where it had all come to a head made it nearby impossible not to remember, but he was determined to try.

And if losing himself in the warm, willing arms of Paige Danforth every now and then helped, then who was he to argue?

He was rubbing at the bite marks she’d left on his shoulder when the lift dinged. He pressed his feet into the floor and held his breath, only to lose it in a rush when the doors opened to an expansive foyer with a shining dark wooden floor, blood-red walls, and sunlight seeming to pour from every corner of the place even though he couldn’t see a single window.

He glanced back at the floor number to make sure lifts all over the city hadn’t suddenly gone mad.

It was only when he looked up that he saw a sign twice as long as he was tall advertising BonaVenture Capital in elegant white type that he was sure he was in the right place. This was his company, only nothing like it had been when he’d last been in Melbourne. Two years before? Three? Now he remembered Nate carrying on about paint swatches during a lot of emails and calls at one point. He’d agreed to Nate spending whatever he liked on the refit so long as he didn’t have to read another memo about the critical difference between Egg White Omelette and Alabaster Dream. Whichever way Nate had gone, it worked.

‘Wow,’ he bit out, shocked laughter rumbling in his chest.

Shrugging his laptop bag higher on his shoulder, Gabe slowly walked through the foyer dodging the hive of men and women in sharp suits bustling back and forth to and from hallways hidden away to the sides. To think it had been less than ten years since they’d started their venture capital firm with Nate’s trust fund, Gabe’s hard-earned savings from every job he’d had since he was twelve years old, and a business plan mapped out on a handful of beer napkins in a dark corner of their favourite pub while their college mates downed shots at the same table.

He remembered like it was yesterday, walking through the city the next morning, while the grey city turned gold with the magic touch of sunlight, feeling as if his life was finally about to begin. As if he literally had the whole world at his feet. As if brilliance was within his grasp.

And then a smidge under three years later he’d nearly lost it all. And he’d spent every second of the last seven years of his life making up for it.

He pressed his boots into the expensive floor and for the first time since that time he let himself wonder if they might have finally pulled through.

‘Buddy!’ Nate said, appearing from nowhere as if by osmosis. He must have noticed the surprise on Gabe’s face as he laughed loud enough to turn heads. ‘So what do you think? Gorgeous right?’

‘Egg White Omelette?’ he asked, pointing a thumb at the company name.

‘Plain old White,’ Nate said.

‘Who’d have thought?’

‘Want to see your office?’

‘Hell, yeah,’ Gabe said. Though for half a second he wondered if he deserved anything more than a hole in the wall considering how often he used the place. But Nate’s excitement soon had him feeling a glimmer of anticipation at what lay beyond the doors Nate had led him to. ‘So what does a partner in a schmancy joint like this get for his buck?’

Nate grinned as he opened the doors with a flourish to reveal a corner office big enough to host a pool tournament. Huge gleaming glass desk. Acres of lush dark carpet so thick you could swim in it. And that was it.

Gabe found himself forced to school his face so as not to show his intense disappointment at its lack of … something. Nate had decked it out exactly the same as his apartment. Bare. Static. Distinctly lacking garnish.

Nate slapped him on the back. ‘I’ll give you a minute to settle in. Take a lap or ten. Spin around like Julie Andrews on the hilltop.’

Then he was out of the door, leaving Gabe alone in the big empty room.

Feeling tight and antsy, he whipped the beanie off his head and ran his fingers hard through his hair, realising it needed a cut. At the rustle of his leather jacket sleeve it occurred to him he was probably the only person on the entire floor not in a suit.

‘And this is why I don’t come back here,’ he told the walls, which could only be Light Grey. Turned out slapping on a fresh coat of paint didn’t nullify his history with the place after all. He could feel it pressing in on him from every angle.

The only time he hadn’t felt the pressure was when he was with Paige. Deep in the rush he got when a blush rose up her elegant neck. In pounding lust every time he witnessed the love-affair her teeth had with her bottom lip. Drunk on the taste of her sweet skin. Unleashed by the bottomless wells of desire clouding her big blue eyes.

That was that. When he wasn’t doing what he came to Melbourne to do, he’d bury himself to the hilt in a most agreeable leggy blonde. And once the job was over, he wouldn’t be seen for dust.

His relief was short-lived when he saw Nate’s arms were filled with a pile of daunting-looking binders. Throwing them on the desk with a hearty thump, Nate said, ‘No need to tell you, I’m sure, how hush-hush this has to be.’

Gabe merely stared at Nate while he waited for the irony to sink in that he was telling that to the one man who’d learned that lesson the hard way.

‘Right,’ Nate said, with the good grace to look sheepish. ‘Now read up. And then I need your take. Are we going to list BonaVenture on the stock market, or what?’

Paige walked along the promenade, the heels of her ankle boots clacking rhythmically against the cobblestones, her long skirt clinging to her tights with static, her wool scarf flapping behind her. No wonder she loved winter. It had been nearly two days since her sexual jump start, and still every shift of fabric on her skin felt like a caress.

Her stomach rumbled expectantly at the scent of warm food flowing from the open doors of the run of restaurants below the apartment buildings lining the waterside. What the heck? She’d order The Brasserie’s melt-in-your-mouth steak and chips to go.

It had been a good day. The girl who delivered morning tea had brought her favourite raspberry and white-chocolate muffins. The first product for Ménage à Moi’s summer line arrived into the warehouse and looked gorgeous; all luscious fabrics and rich decadent colours, as sexy and sensuous as Carnival itself.

In fact she couldn’t remember enjoying her work so much in a good while. The past few months she’d found herself growing frustrated there too, hence the hyper-motivation to get the Brazil proposal off the ground. Discontent seemed to have crept into more parts of her life than she’d realised, which made no sense. Her life was exactly as she’d always planned for it to be. A great apartment, a great job, a great social life, and all of it on her own terms. What more could she want?

She shook her head. What mattered was that things were looking up. At work, and in the bedroom if the number of men who’d smiled at her that day was anything to go by. She’d felt so many eyes on her it was as if she were surrounded by a cloud of flirtatious energy. She’d smiled back but kept on walking. Happy to take her time, now her wheels were back on the track.

Her mobile beeped. For a brief second she imagined a naughty message from Gabe, not that she’d heard from him since that phone call the morning before. The one that had left her with so much idle sexual energy she’d cleaned her entire kitchen, oven included.

Until she remembered he didn’t have her mobile number, as only her home number was listed. He didn’t even know which apartment was hers as far as she knew, only her floor. Enough to track her down if he wanted to. Which in nearly forty-eight hours he hadn’t.

Why hadn’t he? Unless his phone call the day before had really been about making sure she’d made it home all right and nothing more.

She shook her head again. They weren’t dating. They were barely even lovers. She’d taken this thing as it had come so far and would continue to do so until it faded. Or he left. And that was that.

Nevertheless, when she checked her phone it was with a level of anticipation that left her knees quaking so much she had to pull over to the side of the cobbled path. When she saw the message was from her mum Paige’s good mood took a little trip sideways.

Miss you, darling, the message read. Paige grimaced. She knew that tone. It was the one where her mum was feeling sorry for herself, and wondering, even all these years later, if divorcing Paige’s dad had been the right thing to do.

Miss you too! Paige tapped into her phone, looking up every second or two to make sure nobody barrelled into her. Want me to come over for dinner?

You’re busy. You probably have plans.

Paige bit her lip at the thought of the steak and chips for one she had planned. But her day really had been so good. And if she had any intention of retaining the new lightness in her step she really needed it to stay that way.

Next weekend, then, she tapped in. Shopping. Last of the big spenders.

Perfect. Love you, baby.

Paige slid her phone into her huge bag with a sigh.

She loved her mum. They’d always been close. They’d had to be. When her dad was home, it felt as if he was biding his time till his next tour. And when he was off overseas playing cricket it was for months at a time. And as it had turned out most of that time was spent shacked up with some girl or another while her mum looked the other way …

Paige would never let herself be taken advantage of in that way. Never let someone mean so much it would be to the detriment of her own dreams. Never be made a fool of for love. Not for all the raspberry white-chocolate muffins on the planet.

When she felt the deepening evening crowd parting around her, Paige shoved her hands under her armpits to get the feeling back into them as she walked a little more slowly home.

Her recent malaise really made no sense at all. Her life was perfect because she was in complete control.

And she knew how to prove it.

Gabe lounged on his huge uncomfortable leather couch; still in his jacket and boots, legs splayed in front, neck resting against the hard back, eyes closed to the cool moonlight spilling over him.

He’d read so many memos, reports, and projections regarding taking BonaVenture public there was no doubt the company was in better shape than he and Nate could ever have dreamed it could be. He should be feeling damn proud. Vindicated. Relieved. Instead he was so restless he could barely sit still.

Gabe reached for his keys, suddenly needing to go … somewhere, anywhere but the big, empty, cold, lifeless room in which he sat. In which his every thought seemed to echo. Tracking down the one thing that seemed to quiet those thoughts seemed as good a place to start as any.

He paused at his front door when he realised he had no idea which apartment number was hers. To hell with it—he’d knock on every door till he found the right one.

He opened his door, the lift dinged, and the doors slid open. And as if he’d conjured her from thin air, there Paige stood, soft and pink-cheeked, her blonde hair gathered off her face in a wind-tousled knot.

He opened his mouth to joke about the errant lift being his new best friend for having brought her to him again, but at the slow lift and fall of her chest, the quick swipe of her tongue over her plump bottom lip, his throat came over too tight and every muscle in his body was hit with a sudden dull ache.

If he’d had any illusions that the lift had brought her there by accident, they went up in flames the moment Paige lifted her right hand and unfurled a row of condoms. The silver foil wrappers swung from her fingers, glinting at him and sending tracks of fire through his veins.

A growl rose in his throat, and along with it the urge to throw her over his shoulder and drag her back into his cave. But it seemed she had ideas of her own.

She stepped out of the lift, tucked the edge of a condom wrapper between her teeth, and slid a pin from her hair, allowing it to tumble over her shoulders.

She dropped a couple of inches of height as her boots hit the floor with a double klump klump. Next came her scarf, uncoiling from around her neck far too slowly before it pooled at her feet. Then, as she watched him from beneath her long lashes, her breaths coming harder again, her fingers moved to the top button of her cardigan. Gabe had to dig his toes into his shoes until they hurt in order to stand still, knowing he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t let this play itself out.

The long strip of silver foil still dangled from her teeth as she padded his way, and slowly, achingly slowly, undid each button until she opened it to reveal beautiful soft skin and a pale pink lace bra, the dark circles of her nipples drawing his hungry gaze.

As she came level with him she slid the demure cardigan from her shoulders, her breasts pressing forward, her back arching. When she hooked the cardigan on the end of one fine finger and twirled it over her head, at the aroma of her hot skin wafting past his nose his patience finally gave out.

Gabe lifted her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder fireman style and a whoosh of her laughter filled his lofty apartment.

The second he’d seen her all the blood in his body had headed for his groin. The second he touched her he was rock hard, ready. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to place her down gently. Her stockinged feet landed with a soft touch on his hard floor.

She took the row of condoms from between her teeth, tucked them into the back pocket of his jeans, her hands lingering on his backside a moment. He gritted his teeth to keep from exploding on the spot as her soft hands moved up his torso to press his jacket aside. She shoved it down his arms and to the floor, and then she was on her toes, her hands beneath his T-shirt, his muscles clenching at the firm touch of her determined fingers.

And then her mouth was on his. Hot, lush, bliss. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her bodily off the floor to feel her body against the length of his. All he could think was so hot, so soft, so beautiful. The urge to get her horizontal was getting harder to push back, when he remembered belatedly that he still didn’t have a bed.

Irrelevant. His apartment might be stark, but his imagination was not.

He backed her into the pool of light by the kitchen, needing to see her, to live through her every reaction. Her breath hitched as he bunched her skirt in his big hands, only to come in contact with a hard man’s worst nightmare. Tights. He glanced down. Dark pink, they were, like the colour of her skin when she blushed. Hell. Was she trying to kill him? When she started to shimmy her skirt down, her body rubbing against his, he was sure of it.

He thanked everything that was good and holy that the tights were going south as well. Like a man in trouble, he sank to his knees to worship those legs. Drinking in the tiny V of her G-string, her pale thighs. His hands were so dark against her pale skin as he circled her lean calves, traced her fine ankles, spent extra time on the soft spot behind her knee when he saw it made her shake.

When her fingers slid into his hair, hard and reckless, he placed a single kiss at the juncture of her thighs, marking his place, before he kissed his way up her beautiful body. The curve of her stomach, the dip of her navel, the jut of her hip, the shadow of her breasts and back to her mouth, hot, ready, waiting. The gates of heaven.

When he lifted her and plonked her on the kitchen bench, she cried out and flinched as her warm bottom met the cold granite. He swallowed her gasp, and it turned into a groan. Her lovely long legs hooked around his waist, pulling him to her with an urgency he understood.

When the heat at her centre bore against him and his tether ran out.

Pants off. Condom on. He hooked her underwear to one side and nudged the head of his penis against her centre. The swift intake of breath as he stretched her killed him just a little more.

His eyes met hers to find them wide. But hungry. Her nostrils flared with every intake of breath and her cheeks were so pink with desire he couldn’t stand it any longer. He plunged into her. She cried out, pleasure and shock twisting on her face before she tilted her hips to take him deeper, tighter.

If he’d thought her mouth the gates of heaven, deep inside her was heaven itself. So hot, and tight, her muscles clenching around him as together they found a perfect rhythm.

He opened his eyes to find hers on his. Like twin blue flames, hypnotic, drawing him in until he felt the ache build deep inside. He needed every last effort to hold back, even as he rocked into her, deeper, harder. He stopped breathing altogether when her mouth dropped open, her eyes turned to liquid, her breaths to short sharp gasps, and her fingers to talons in his back as she came. Then, after a moment of the most gripping stillness, his world crashed around him in waves of hot, hard, liquid heat.

He came to and found her shaking in his arms. The chill of unheated air touched his skin, turning his sweat to ice. He lifted her off the bench, wrapping his long arms around her until their combined body heat warmed them both.

Her eyes caught his and he took her in. The cool blonde exterior. The wild heat pulsing so close to the surface. Just what he needed. For now.

He opened his mouth to say … who knew what? But she silenced him with a kiss. Soft, sensual and steadying.

Then with a light scrape of fingernails across the stubble of his cheeks, she moved away, stepped into her skirt. Padded through his still-open front door to find her clothes, putting them back on as she went before twisting her long, dishevelled hair back into a makeshift knot.

And then she was in the lift and gone, leaving him with his pants still around his ankles.

‘Dear God,’ Gabe said, running his hands over his face. That had been hot. Scorching. And they hadn’t said a single word to one another the entire time.

He pulled up his jeans, leaving the fly undone, and leant his weary self against the kitchen bench, imagining her in the lift, skin pink from ravishing, clothes rumpled, lips swollen, pretty blue eyes as dark as night. And impossibly he found himself getting hard for her again.

Gabe pushed himself away from the bench, and padded into his bedroom on the way to his shower. He nearly tripped over his laptop bag, which had remained unopened since he’d walked in the door. In fact it had remained unopened all day.

He couldn’t remember a day in the past several years he hadn’t spent glued to the thing, searching out the next big idea. Collating, researching, and filling his head with every nuance of it so that he would not fail to land it. His gran had raised him to work hard, and make her proud. And since the time he’d failed her so spectacularly on the latter, he’d redoubled his efforts at the former. And while he’d never quite managed to regain that flicker of brilliance he’d felt the night BonaVenture was born, he’d never seen failure since.

But rather than feeling antsy at not working himself to exhaustion, he felt smug as hell. BonaVenture was so healthy it was radiant. And he’d had himself some mind-blowing sex with a beautiful woman who seemed so in tune with his preference to have a good time and not push for anything more, finding her was nothing short of serendipitous.

If he didn’t let himself enjoy the spoils of his labour every now and then, what the hell was the point?

As Paige waited in the foyer for the lift the next afternoon, she was still in a bit of a daze, wondering where she’d found it inside her to head to a man’s apartment, strip for him, have her way with him, then leave.

She’d never done anything like that before, but she liked it. After years of being so categorically careful, a little recklessness was a revelation. Even a relief. The world seemed that bit brighter, colours richer, the spring in her step springier. She’d even had an even more awesome day at work. Probably something to do with great sex being good for the blood vessels or some such thing.

Maybe she should indulge in a fling every now and then from now on; find some stranger to give her life the occasional splash of panache. Airports could be the new bar. Find someone looking lost and lonely and bam! Her next date.

She was laughing out loud when the lift doors opened, but all her confidence turned to mush when she got in the lift that afternoon to find Gabe already on board, lounging resplendently in the back corner. His dark eyes connected with hers, lit, burned, and it was all she could do to keep blushing from head to toe.

Funny, because now they were even, or nearabouts. Though perhaps she still owed him an orgasm. She stepped inside the lift, feeling his dark eyes on her, and thought it seemed as good a time as any to remind him as much—

‘Good afternoon, Ms Danforth,’ a female voice said.

And Paige leapt fair out of her skin. Her gaze jumped sideways to find Mrs Addable from the ninth floor tucked into the front corner, stroking Randy, her Russian Blue whose hair was the same solid dark grey as his owner’s.

‘Mrs Addable, hi,’ Paige mumbled as she slipped into the gap, behind Mrs Addable, and beside Gabe, who looked straight ahead even while his body heat reached out to her like an invitation. ‘Randy okay?’

Mrs Addable rolled her eyes. ‘He’s decided he’s too good for his litter tray. We now have to take a constitutional down to the garden near the parking lot four times a day.’

Mrs Addable’s eyes slid over lounging Gabe to Paige, who was standing as still and upright as a tower. The older woman’s sharp eyes softened to a dull gleam.

‘You’re Gabe Hamilton,’ Mrs Addable said.

‘That I am,’ Gabe’s deep voice rang out.

Paige had to swallow hard so as not to tremble as the sound reverberated deliciously through her bones. She remembered all too well the feel of his breath against her cheek that came with the exquisite sensation of having him inside her.

‘Gloria Addable. 9B. I heard Sam the Super talking to Mr Klempt the other day about your arrival.’

‘Pleasure to meet you, Gloria.’

‘Likewise, Gabe.’

No Mr Hamilton, Paige noticed. She’d lived in the building for two years and had yet to progress from polite surnames from anyone in that apartment bar the cat.

‘Sam said you’d had some trouble with your bed?’ Mrs Addable added, eyes now front, watching the movement of floor numbers, the slow strokes to Randy’s back causing the cat to purr.

‘True, yet I’ve managed remarkably well,’ he said, pulling himself upright, bringing him closer.

Paige looked directly ahead, not daring to meet his eyes. Yet she felt a beat pulse between them. Two. Three.

‘I have a spare mattress I can send up,’ Mrs Addable tried again. ‘It’s only a single, but …’

While Mrs Addable droned on about the history of her single mattress, Paige felt Gabe move closer still. Close enough when she breathed the sleeve of his jacket brushed against the sleeve of hers.

Then he said, ‘My bed arrived this morning.’

Forgetting propriety completely, Paige shot her gaze straight to his. ‘It did?’

Mrs Addable’s snort of triumph barely touched the edges of her sub-conscious. Gabe’s dark and dangerous eyes had a funny way of blocking out everything else.

His voice was low as he said, ‘The service lift, it seems, is less touchy.’

‘That’s great,’ Paige said, adding a belated, ‘For you.’

Gabe’s cheek lifted in the beginnings of the kind of smile that meant big trouble for her. ‘I’m glad—for me—too.’

The lift binged and when Paige and Mrs Addable both turned with expectation towards the doors, Gabe took the chance to slide his finger down the edge of Paige’s. The shock of his touch shot through her like a bushfire, spreading in half a second flat to the whole of her chest and the ends of her curling toes.

The door opened to the fourth floor. Where nobody was waiting. And stayed there.

Mrs Addable sighed. ‘It’s okay, Randy. We’ll get there eventually.’

As the lift went up and down the next ten minutes, Paige locked her knees, and bit her bottom lip, and prayed for the strength not to moan out loud as Gabe’s thumb traced circles over the wildly fluctuating pulse at her wrist, making her so woozy she saw spots.

And for the first time since she’d moved into the building she was thankful she had a Machiavellian lift.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT TOOK more than fifteen stupid minutes for the stupid lift to open at Paige’s floor on the night of Gabe’s party. Way too much time in which to wonder if she ought to change her dress. Her hair. Her mind.

She felt edgy. Hyper-aware. As if she could feel even the slightest shift of air dancing across her skin. Because after several days of living out the most hot, illicit, exciting affair of her life under cover of darkness in the privacy of Gabe’s moon-drenched loft, the real world was about to impose on their heretofore perfect little bubble of secret sex.

The lift doors began to close and she slipped inside at the last second, squeezing into a gap amongst a group of bright shiny young things, none of whom she’d ever met. Why would she have? She and Gabe knew hardly anything about one another outside the bedroom.

Which was fine. Perfect really. It kept things super casual.

She wished she’d brought up the party once, at least to get a gauge of what she might be about to walk into. Would she and Gabe treat one another as virtual strangers? As friendly neighbours? Or would they simply avoid one another all night?

This, she thought. This was why she liked things to be simple, straightforward, with all the cards on the table from the very beginning. This nervous tumbling in her stomach was awful. And horribly familiar. Surely it was a symptom that something wasn’t right.

As the lift rose the deep whump whump whump of music pulsed in her bones, lifting the energy throbbing deep within her to screaming point. The lift opened, and the sounds of party chatter and, ironically, Billy Idol singing ‘Hot in the City’ spilled into the lift as the inhabitants tumbled out.

Paige took a deep breath, smoothed a hand over her new dress, ran another over her hair, then with chin tilted she walked into Gabe’s penthouse.

As it turned out, Paige knew plenty of people. Mrs Addable and several other inhabitants of the building huddled by the windows checking out the view. She saw a few girls from uni, and even a couple of guys she’d dated. She felt an odd surge of disappointment. She shook it off. She wasn’t special to Gabe and she didn’t want to be.

She nearly managed to convince herself as much when a quick glance around the jam-packed room revealed a massive red and grey rug now covering the lounge-room floor. A large red urn bursting with a tall spray of stripped willow. And chairs and tables in every place they ought to be. A half second after she got over the surprise of Gabe having decorated she realised every item was from that season’s Ménage à Moi catalogue. The bubbles in her stomach went haywire.

Then the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, as though she was being watched. In a party that size someone somewhere would be smouldering at someone, and it was likely she’d been caught in the crossfire. And yet …

Rolling her shoulders to fend off the scratchy sensation, she turned, eyes searching the crowd until they landed on a pair of familiar dark eyes.

Gabe stood on the far side of the large room, his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows, a near full moon and a million stars twinkling in the inky black sky his backdrop. He was so deliciously handsome, so unsettling, so much. And his eyes were focused entirely on her. Dark eyes of a man who was near addicted to doughnuts, knew more about Doris Day movies than she did, and who remembered where she worked even though she was sure she hadn’t mentioned it since the day they first met.

She liked that he was leaving. Liked that he was discreet. Liked that every time she saw him he could barely keep his hands off her. But the riot of sensation ripping through her in that moment was so beyond mere like she hadn’t a hope of naming it.

She clutched her silver lamé purse in one hand, and the small box she’d brought with her, so hard they left imprints on her palms.

‘Paige!’ Mae’s voice rang sharp in her ear.

Paige blinked, the noise and energy and light and life of the party rushing in on her as if she’d burst from a tunnel. Then the crowd shifted, and Gabe was gone.

Paige turned to find Mae shoving through the crowd and bundling up to her like a ball of energy, Clint lolloping in her wake.

‘How cool is this?’ asked Mae. ‘And my godfather, this apartment! You must be dying to get stuck into it.’

Paige opened her mouth to tell Mae this was Gabe’s version of decorated, until she remembered that according to Mae this was the first time Paige had been there too. She hadn’t meant to keep the thing with Gabe from Mae, but they’d barely seen one another in the past week, and she’d been so busy at work—And it had been so intense, so unlike anything she’d ever done before, she hadn’t wanted the bubble to burst.

She’d fill Mae in on all the juicy details the first moment they had some girly time together, just the two of them. She glanced across at the ever-present Clint and wondered when that might be.

‘Where is that delicious pirate of yours?’ Mae asked. ‘The guy was clearly into you at The Brasserie last week, and he looks like the kind of guy who doesn’t need a flashlight and a map to find your treasure, if ya know what I mean.’

Paige rolled her eyes even while she knew it to be the absolute truth. Gabe Hamilton had found her treasure no problem at all. In fact, her treasure was so attuned to him she was doing her best to ignore the heavy ache in her treasure just thinking about him.

‘Drinks!’ Mae said and Clint looked as if he was reminded again why he wanted to marry her. Then hand in hand they made a beeline for the bar.

Leaving Paige to pretend every fibre of her being wasn’t paying intense heed to their host, wherever he might be.

Gabe ran a finger beneath the V of his sweater for about the hundredth time since a bunch of strangers had piled into his apartment.

He’d be pushing it to say he knew even a tenth of them, and a half of those he’d met in the lift at one point or another that week. The rest were a blur of hair and teeth that Nate had introduced to him, talking each and every one up as though they were the next big thing. He got it, Nate was trying to make him feel at home. Yet the only thing keeping him from making a hasty exit in search of fresh air, no matter how cold, had been brief glimpses of a familiar head of cool-blonde hair.

He’d known the moment Paige had arrived—some shift in the air, some call of the wild to his hormones had him sniffing the air for her scent. And then she’d appeared through the crowd in a white dress that looked as if she’d been poured into it and revealed enough leg to give a less vital man palpitations.

His gaze found her again, this time talking to some guy. Her hair shifting across her back as she talked. When the guy moved in, placing a hand on her upper arm, waving his big watch in her face, something clenched hot and hard deep inside Gabe. Something primal and not pretty.

‘It’s the legs,’ said a voice cutting into his thoughts.

He turned to find a group of men in sharp suits standing beside him, all cradling half-filled glasses, all looking in Paige’s direction.

‘What’s that?’ asked Gabe.

‘They’re like something out of a forties detective movie,’ said another of the men. ‘I’ve spent more time than I dare admit imagining myself as Sam Spade, walking into a smoke-filled room, sunlight pouring through slatted blinds, to find those legs crossed as she sits waiting on my desk.’

‘Hamilton, right?’ asked the third. ‘We’re friends of Nate’s.’

‘Right,’ said Gabe, brushing off the fact that Nate seemed to have more friends he didn’t know than friends he did. There were more pressing matters. ‘You know Paige?’

At the dark tone of his voice three pairs of male eyes turned his way. Turned, and softened. He could all but hear them thinking, Poor mug, thinks he’s in with a chance.

Never in his life had Gabe felt a stronger urge to kiss and tell. I’ve had her up against a wall, on the kitchen bench, crying out my name so loud the whole damn building must have heard. But he lifted his glass and filled his mouth with Scotch before his foot landed there instead.

‘Dated her one time,’ said the first, ‘before she introduced me to my wife.’

‘Cool move,’ said the second with a laugh.

‘Cool creature,’ said the third.

Gabe’s gaze drew back to Paige. He caught her profile as she smiled and waved at someone across the room. Her smile was calm. Understated. He could see why people might think her cool, he’d thought so himself at one point, but now he understood it was a mask, a mode of self-protection. Something tickled the back of his mind, as if he were trying to catch the disparate threads of a dream.

Familiarity, perhaps. Maybe even a recognition of his own natural reserve.

Or déjà vu.

Another cool blonde of his acquaintance came crashing into his mind, right along with the tightness in his gut as he’d first spied that long ago blonde smiling at him from across the room at BonaVenture’s first big party, and the smile that never quite reached her eyes unless they met his.

‘No,’ he said, out loud, turning heads. Grimacing, he downed the last of his Scotch before slamming the glass onto a passing tray.

This wasn’t the same as that. For one thing he’d been young, and cocky, and ruled by his libido. He was older, wiser now and kept that part of him on a short leash. And yet his subconscious wouldn’t let it lie. This thing with Paige was … intense. And it had ignited exceptionally fast. Who could blame him? The woman was so lush and lovely she kept him half hard half the day and all the way all night.

He ground a thumb and forefinger into his eyes, but the memories continued to knock against the inside of his brain.

He’d met Lydia right as BonaVenture had hit the crest of its first wave of success. The business that had been a mere dream a few years before had gone stratospheric right after his gran had died. And it was as though he’d gone to sleep one night himself, and woken up to find the world as he’d always known it was simply no more.

Lydia had been his port in the storm, and it had never occurred to him that her motivations in being with him might have been anything less than romantic. In the end that error of judgement had all but destroyed everything he and Nate had worked so hard to build.

And here he was, set to make the biggest financial decision of his life, and he’d gone and entangled himself in a blonde distraction once again.

‘Having fun?’ Nate said, slapping Gabe on the back, rocking him back on his heels.

A dark cloud hovering about his ears, Gabe shoved his fingers hard into the front pockets of his jeans. ‘So much so I barely know how to contain myself.’

Nate snorted. ‘Now quickly, I have a thing in Sydney this week. A meet and greet with an upstart encryption software company. Looks schmick. I was going to send Rick, but I’m not sure that he’s as net savvy as—Gabe?’

‘Hmm?’ A sliver of white glinting through the crowd had snagged Gabe’s attention. ‘What now?’

‘I was being about as subtle as a woman in red lipstick. I’m offering you a lifeline, mate. An actual prospective client to sound out while you’re here. Thought you’d jump at the chance to sink your fangs into an actual real live deal.’

Normally he would, but he was in a questioning type of mood, and even while Nate’s face was a picture of innocence, so far everything he’d said or done that night had screamed ulterior motive.

‘Unless you have other plans? More decorating perhaps? Like what you’ve done with the place so far. Very … pretty.’

Gabe cut him a glower. ‘Considering your flair for interior design I take that as a compliment. When’s the flight?’

‘Daybreak tomorrow. And you’re welcome.’

Gabe caught the glint of light on blonde hair move through the swarm and heard himself say, ‘Make it a day later and I’m there.’

He felt Nate’s incredulous stare. Pretended he didn’t.

Nate said, ‘Am I missing something here? I’ve had people manning the lifts at work in case you slipped out and were never heard from again—Ri-i-ight. I see.’ Nate grabbed a tiny pastry from a passing tray and threw it into his mouth. ‘So who’s the blonde?’

Gabe breathed out long and slow. He’d been quietly concerned about the ever-decreasing degrees of separation between Paige and Nate and confirmation that Nate wasn’t a paid-up member of the ‘I Fantasise About Paige’s Legs’ club was more of a relief than he cared to admit. Gabe set his vision at the middle distance, and drawled, ‘Any blonde in particular you need me to soften up for you?’

Nate grabbed him by the ears and turned his head the half-inch to face the blonde in question. ‘The one who has you dancing about like you have ants in your pants. The one making you think twice about getting out of bed early tomorrow.’

Gabe swiped his hands away. ‘For starters, I don’t dance. And secondly she lives in the building and …’ She what? Wasn’t the reason why he was actually considering shucking off work? The dark cloud surrounded his whole head. ‘She all but shut the lift doors on my fingers when we first met.’

‘That’s it? Well, then you won’t mind if I head that way and—’

Gabe’s hand shot out and grabbed Nate by the back of the neck.

Nate laughed as he ducked out of Gabe’s grip. ‘Been so long since I’ve seen you even look twice at a blonde, it’s bloody reassuring. Like you’re really back. Not just here, but back. Now, seems I have to go tell poor Rick he has an early start in the morning.’

With that, Nate headed off, leaving Gabe silenced. And shrouded in more grey clouds than ever. Of all times for Nate to slant a reference at Lydia … He’d dated blondes since her, surely? Lydia hadn’t screwed him over that much.

Sure she’d sold their pillow talk with the competition, leading to an investigation by the Australian Securities Commission for insider trading, which had meant the near undoing of the business into which he and Nate had poured their hearts and souls, the repercussions of which had sent him careening off to all four corners of the globe in an effort to wrench BonaVenture from the grips of obliteration—

But it wasn’t as if it affected him any more. Unless you counted the fact that he was more vigilant when it came to his business dealings. Perhaps even a little zealously so. But his dating habits were peachy. Or at least they would be once all the monkeys finally left his apartment.

All bar one.

Paige sensed Gabe a good second before his deep dark voice said, ‘Miss Danforth, how good of you to come.’

She took a quick heartening gulp from her champagne, then turned and said, ‘Why, of course.’ At least she planned to. But nothing came out.

In leather and a three-day growth Gabe Hamilton looked like a sexy pirate. In pyjama bottoms and nothing else he was every woman’s fantasy. In a cool pin-striped jacket, navy cashmere sweater, and dark jeans he looked so delectably tactile he was more dangerous than ever.

When he leant to place a soft warm kiss on her cheek she had a fair idea of what oxygen deprivation must feel like—all breathless and weak and woozy, with a touch of delirium thrown in.

‘For you,’ she said, shoving the small box between them. ‘Housewarming present.’

He took the package, his brow furrowing as he stared at it. And suddenly she felt silly for bringing anything at all.

She flapped her hand at him. ‘On second thoughts, give it back. It so won’t go with your gorgeous new decor.’

Pulling the gift out of her reach, he glanced up under his thick dark lashes. ‘You noticed.’

‘I’d be pretty sucky at my job if I didn’t. It looks great. You did good.’

He cocked his head in thanks. Then brought her gift to his ear and gave it a little shake. ‘So long as it’s not a throw cushion I’m sure it’ll do fine.’

All she could do was shrug, while she felt more and more sure that what was meant to be a funny little trinket was too ridiculous, too overfamiliar, too obvious he’d made an impact on her. But then she thought of the big changes he’d made to his apartment, because of her, and didn’t quite know what to think any more.

He opened the box, a wash of surprise, bewilderment, and laughter playing over his beautiful face as he stared at the hot-pink flamingo in his big dark hands.

‘For your phone,’ she explained, sliding her hand to the inside pocket of his jacket, knowing that was where his ever-present phone would be. She drew it out and placed it neatly into place in the crook of the bird’s bent leg. Tilting her head for him to follow, she slipped through a gap in the crowd to put the phone holder on the kitchen bench.

She turned and, with a ta-da move, said, ‘To keep the doughnut crumbs away.’

Gabe blinked at the kitsch splash of pink adorning his sleek dark kitchen, then back to her. His silky dark eyes looking right into her. She knew how Lois Lane felt knowing Superman’s X-ray vision meant he could tell what colour undies she wore. She felt the same desire to hide behind something big and solid for protection.

Waving her hand in front of her dramatically pinking face, she said, ‘It’s a silly little—’

‘It’s perfect,’ he said, placing a hand over his heart. ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure.’ And it was. He was. Her complete and utter pleasure. A pleasure she’d actually thought might fizzle in the glaring light of a public outing.

The crowd jostled and she bumped against him. He gathered her with a strong arm until she was flush against his big strong front, the heat of him bleeding through her barely there dress. Again she wondered how she’d gone so long without a man in her life. Without the mouth-watering ache inside her. How? Because it had never felt like this before.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ Gabe’s voice rumbled through her.

Paige laughed. ‘But the party’s just started.’

‘Really? Feels like it’s been going on for days.’

When it began to dawn on her he might not be kidding, she glanced over his shoulder at the party going great guns behind him. ‘But don’t you need to—?’

‘Not so much.’

Her eyes swung back to his to find them drenched with desire. For her. The hot ache sank and spread until she would have collapsed in a quivering puddle of pure need had Gabe not been holding her.

When the urge to grab his hand and run, dispatching a coat-hanger tackle on anyone in her path, swelled hot and fast inside her, Paige knew then that she’d gone past the point of curing her dating-drought.

She’d cracked.

Relinquishing a degree of control had seemed a worthy price to pay to find her feet again. But the raging desire to give in and do whatever Gabe asked of her was so strong it scared her. It felt like a heck of a short trip from that to becoming her mother, watching the clock, marking off the calendar, blushing hopefully every time the phone rang. And living a life of perpetual disappointment.

She locked her knees and pressed her hands into his chest, steadfastly ignoring the urge to curl her fingernails against the hard planes. ‘Gabe, you have to stay.’

He slowly shook his head. ‘I have to have you.’

Good God. Paige licked her lips, preparing to explain why he’d have to wait but there were simply no words. She bit her bottom lip to stop from whimpering. His dark gaze honed in on the movement, a muscle jumping in his cheek. The hastening of his heartbeat beneath her palms was her undoing.

‘Okay. Let’s go,’ she said.

Apparently that was all Gabe needed. He grabbed her hand and drew her through the crowd, parting it like a hot knife through butter.

‘Gabe!’ a voice broke into her buzzing sub-conscious.

Fully expecting Gabe to accelerate into a sprint, Paige was so surprised when he actually stopped she banged into his back, and had to grip his arm in order to steady herself. He wrapped his arm around her in order to steady her, so she was all wrapped up in him when she found herself the subject of some shrewd attention from a man she’d never met.

‘Now what?’ Gabe said, his impatience clear as day.

The party guest, handsome in a clean-cut jock kind of way, smiled patiently at Gabe, and then at her.

Gabe sighed, then said, ‘Nate Mackenzie, Paige Danforth.’

Nate grinned as he held out a hand. ‘The infamous lift monopolist. Pleasure.’

Paige laughed in surprise. Then glanced at Gabe to find him quietly fuming at his friend. A friend he’d talked to about her. While she’d never said a word to Mae. Mae who was somewhere at the party, clueless she was about to do a bunk. Her stomach clutched more than a little.

‘One last thing before you depart,’ Nate said to Gabe. ‘The men in grey by the window. Go say “hi”.’

Gabe growled so low Paige winced. ‘Another time.’

Paige felt Nate’s attention focus on her even as he held Gabe’s dark gaze with his deceptively smiling eyes. ‘This is the only time. We need them. For the … deal.’

Gabe’s grip tightened on hers and she prepared to make a dash for the door. But when her eye slid to his it was to see a muscle clenching in his cheek.

To her he’d always seemed basically untouchable. As if nothing could topple him. In that moment he looked like a fish on a hook. A fish who could have thrown the hook with little more than a jerk of his great head if he’d decided to do so. But a fish who was currently chewing on the hook instead, gritting it between his teeth, before he squared his shoulders, apologised to her for a momentary change of plans, and took off.

‘Sorry,’ Nate said, clearly meaning it. ‘Business, you know.’

‘That’s fine,’ she said, even though she hadn’t a clue. She barely knew what Gabe did for a living. It involved travel, a phone that might as well be permanently attached to his hand, and … men in suits, apparently.

‘I’m his partner at BonaVenture,’ Nate said. ‘And by the look in your eyes he’s never mentioned me to you.’

‘Sorry.’

They’d never talked that much about her work either. Which added to growing worry gnawing at her innards, because her work was pretty much the most significant thing in her life. Only the past week that distinction had been usurped by the man standing stiff-backed amongst a group of men who were grinning and fawning, shaking his hand as if he were some kind of rock star.

‘If only he wasn’t one of a kind.’

‘Hmm?’

Nate ran a hard hand up the back of his neck, eyes zeroed in on the conversation on the other side of the room. ‘Gabe. He’s brilliant, you know.’

She didn’t know that either, actually. Oh, she knew the man had skills, but she was fairly sure she and Nate were thinking of quite different ones.

‘I have a good line in spin,’ Nate continued, ‘but Gabe? He’s a superstar. He can smell potential from a continent away. He can seduce even the most timid ideas men to let him in. Nobody else out there like him. My life would be a hell of a lot simpler if there were.’

Nate’s astute gaze slewed from Gabe and back to her, his mouth lifting into a smile so self-confident it completely belied his previous words. She could see in that look why the two men got along. They were both forces of nature. And even while she had no idea what was going on behind Nate’s clever hazel eyes it gave her goose bumps.

Then Nate said, ‘If you have any kind of influence over him—’

She held up her hands and waved them frantically enough to stop Nate in his tracks. ‘I don’t. Honestly. We’re … friends.’

For a perfectly nice term, ‘friends’ sounded such a lame description for what they were, and Nate’s raised eyebrows told her he wasn’t buying it either.

But he backed down. ‘Apologies. Clearly I’m getting desperate.’

‘For?’

‘Him to stay, of course.’

The worries that had been little fissures splintered to form the Grand Canyon. ‘He’s considering sticking around?’

‘You tell me.’

She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. Like a good many things, they hadn’t talked about when he was leaving as an actual couple would, because they weren’t an actual couple. They were … flinging. And to protect herself from any damage the act of flinging might incur, she’d done a lot of assuming. And you knew what they said about assuming?

She needed him to go. The only reason she was taking chances where she’d never taken them before was because it had an end date.

As if he knew she was thinking about him, Gabe looked back across the room. As their eyes connected she could practically see the energy arcing between them.

Gabe shook his head once, promising he wouldn’t be long. Or was he saying, Don’t get any ideas, now. Don’t make the mistake of falling for me? On any other man the warning would be conceited. Gabe ought to have had it tattooed on his bicep at birth.

It seemed she’d been right to try to protect herself from fling damage. Only problem was, it hadn’t worked.

CHAPTER SIX

THE sound of the party spilled through the closed front doors of Gabe’s apartment as Paige pressed the lift button, her finger shaking, whether from anticipation of what was to come or aftermath of the conversation with Nate. Probably a mixture of both.

She glanced up, and caught Gabe’s eye. Remembered the warmth that had flooded her the night she’d caught him smiling at her over a doughnut while he leant against his kitchen bench in unbuttoned jeans and felt a tiny stab of fear that Mae wasn’t the only one she was hiding things from any more. So she blurted, ‘When are you going back to Brazil?’

‘I’m not,’ he said, and Paige’s stomach fell to her shoes. Then, ‘That deal’s done. But I will be leaving as soon as I’m done here. I follow the work, and ninety per cent of the time it’s many many miles from here.’

She breathed out a sigh of relief so loud she closed her eyes tight against the embarrassment of it.

‘Wrong answer?’ he asked, and she was surprised to find humour in his voice.

She screwed up her eyes. ‘Will it sound callous if I say that’s the right answer?’

‘It does a bit,’ he said, his smile growing. He gathered her to him, sliding his hands over her hips, his thumbs trailing hot and tempting spirals over her lower back. ‘But then it seems I’m into callous women.’

The lift binged. Opened.

Paige let out a huge ‘Whoop!’ as Gabe’s hands slid to her backside, lifted her and carried her into the lift. Then, before the lift doors closed, his lips were on her neck, his fingers sliding into the edge of dress, caressing the outer edge of her breast.

This, she thought. This was what mattered. Not all that thinking, and wondering and second-guessing. It was exhausting. And unnecessary. Thank heavens. Because she’d much rather be doing this instead.

Goose bumps sped across her skin as Gabe’s warm breath shot across her ear. ‘Although it’s not manly to admit as much, I’m strangely looking forward to learning what real garnish might look like.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I finally get to see your place.’

Paige’s eyes flung open. The wedding dress! It was still hanging over the chair in her kitchen. She’d never got around to putting it away. As though if it went into her cupboard that would be the final evidence of ownership.

In one second flat, Paige kicked off her shoe and with a naked toe jabbed the emergency stop button. The lift juddered to a halt with such suddenness she gripped Gabe’s jacket for dear life.

In the sudden silence their intermingled breaths sounded overly loud. Her heart rocking against her ribs sounded even louder.

Though she was clueless as to how she was going to explain that little move, her eyes went back to Gabe. Surprise lit the dark depths for a moment before one dark eyebrow rose, and his smile kicked up at one corner. And relief flowed through her like an injection of pure heat on a cold winter’s day.

Then with a growl that spoke to something deep and primal inside her, Gabe pressed her back into the wall of the lift. Their hands were all over one another, urgent, desperate to find skin.

Her skirt was up, his pants down, he was sheathed and inside her. Hard, solid heat filling her until she cried out with the pleasure of it. She flung a hand over her eyes as sensation pummelled her every which way.

So hot, so right, she thought. Whatever else was going on, however short a time they had, they were made for this and that couldn’t be denied.

Sensation pounded through her like a perfect storm as she tightened around him, pleasure pulsing until she couldn’t stand it any more. And with a cry that must have echoed up and down the lift shaft every last tension fell away in waves of perfect heat, until it ratcheted right back up again as Gabe’s powerful release followed right on top of hers.

The storm inside her quieted slowly as she leant her forehead on his chest, letting the deep rhythm of his breaths calm her.

When she finally lifted her head it was to find his eyes were closed. His lips parted as he found his natural breath. The bright lights of the lift created shadows beneath his brows, highlighting every crinkle around his eyes, every hair on his jaw, the curve of his Adam’s apple.

He was so much man it made her chest hurt just looking at him.

He opened his eyes, gave her a small smile, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and then his eyes left hers to drift over her face. Hovering momentarily on her hair, her neck, her lips.

This, she thought, swallowing hard.

Raging attraction plus wedding-dress-purchase-recoil had sent her into his arms in the first place but this was why she wasn’t yet ready to walk away. The way she felt when they were alone together. Work, family, Mae; they didn’t come up because they didn’t matter. He stilled her mind. Made everything feel simple. Let her live in the moment.

She reached up and traced the backs of her knuckles along the hollow of his cheek. Ran a thumb softly over his bottom lip. Smoothed a stray hair in his eyebrow. And he let her. His eyes gave nothing away, but his nostrils flared at her quiet touch.

When the feeling inside her began to swell so large she struggled to find a full breath Paige curled her fingers into her palm and pressed herself against the wall so that they could disentangle themselves. Gabe fixed his pants, she fixed her dress, both of them flickering sly glances at each other, before they both burst out laughing.

‘You, Miss Danforth, are a revelation,’ he said.

‘Would you believe before you came along I was a bit of a good girl?’

His dark eyes connected long and hard with hers for long enough that her breath caught in her throat. Then, as he reached for the emergency button, he said, ‘Nah.’

And Paige laughed again, light, free. Happy. Even as she revelled in the feeling, she knew it was dangerous.

Gabe didn’t notice as he was jabbing and jiggling the emergency button. Yet the lift refused to budge.

Giving her dress a last fix, she joined him. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

Gabe spared her a flat glance, before reaching into his jacket pocket for his mobile to call for help. Only to find it was missing.

‘The flamingo,’ they said as one, and Paige laughed so hard she clutched her stomach.

‘This isn’t funny. There are over a hundred people stuck up there.’

‘And it’ll only take one to leave early to notice the lift’s not working.’ Paige put a finger to her bottom lip. ‘If not for the fact that the lift is a total diva at the best of times.’

A muscle jumped in Gabe’s cheek and she realised he was beginning to look kind of stressed. Poor love.

‘Here,’ she said, pressing him aside to pop the hatch to find the lift’s emergency phone. It was busted. Seriously, at the next tenants’ meeting she was bringing out a whole bag of whoop on Sam the Super’s ass.

Gabe ran a hand through his hair as his gaze shot up, down, and at the seam in the lift’s doors.

And something occurred to Paige. ‘Gabe. Are you claustrophobic?’

He tugged at the V of his sweater. ‘Of course not. But neither am I keen on feeling trapped in a small space for an extended period of time. This rotten, stinking, no good—’ Gabe said, his voice now not much more than a growl as he banged at the control panel with enough force to bruise. Still the lift didn’t budge.

Paige lost it. Laughing so hard now she hiccuped. ‘See!’ she managed to get out. ‘It’s not just me. This is fantastic. And I was so sure he’d fallen under your spell.’

‘He?’

Paige blinked up at Gabe, whose eyes were narrowed dangerously in her direction. She was the one who’d hit the button in the first place after all.

Her bottom lip slid straight between her teeth and his gaze slid straight to her mouth, his eyes darkening, his breath lengthening, as she said, ‘Rock Hudson, of course.’

Then his eyes shot back to hers, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a dangerous smile.

Silence stretched between them, only broken by the occasional creak of the lift. They were left with nothing to do but wait.

‘So,’ Paige said, crossing her arms, cocking her hip, ‘what now?’

‘What kind of name is Gabe?’

Gabe’s thighs burned from being on his haunches the past ten minutes as he tried to rewire the phone and get them the hell out of the box. He could sniff out creative accounting in a company report from a mile away, but he knew less than nothing about electrical engineering.

‘Just Gabe? Or short for Gabriel?’ Paige added when it became clear he wasn’t about to answer.

‘Short,’ he said.

‘That’s sweet,’ she said, clearly not as concerned as he was about the thinning of the air. ‘Like the angel.’

Gabe’s knees creaked as he pulled himself to standing. He turned to find Paige standing in the far corner of the lift, one bare foot on top of the other, her hair now up in a makeshift knot, the ends of his sports coat rolled up at her wrists. Despite the stale air all sorts of parts of him stirred for her again. He shot them down. He was conserving air. ‘You having fun over there while I try to get us out of here?’

‘Tonnes. I’m used to being the one swearing under my breath at this thing. It’s nice to watch someone else have a turn.’

‘Nice ain’t the word I’d use.’ Gabe looked around the small space. No way was he something so pansy-assed as claustrophobic. Though time spent in parts of the world with less than exemplary examples of modern vertical architecture had left him with an ever so slight discordance with elevator travel.

‘Now back to your name—’

‘It’s a family name,’ he said, rubbing his fingers across the stiff back of his neck.

‘Mother’s side? Father’s?’

‘Aren’t you hot?’

Paige blinked her big blue bedroom eyes at him and wrapped herself tighter in the cosy warmth of his jacket. Then she slowly shook her head.

‘The air-con’s been turned off,’ he said. ‘When did that happen?’

‘I haven’t been paying attention. But we’ll be fine here for hours. I read a book about a guy in Brussels who was stuck in a lift for like a week. Lived off detritus he dug up from the carpet. Hugh Jackman was going to play him in the movie.’ She seemed to go far away for a second before she snapped back. ‘Compared with him we have it pretty good.’

‘Hugh Jackman, or the guy in Brussels?’ Gabe asked, trying his best not to imagine being stuck in what amounted to a luxury coffin for days. ‘Don’t answer that. In fact no more talk.’

Her cheek lifted as she held back a smile. He hadn’t realised she was a sadist but she was enjoying his discomfort way too much. Proving it, she slid one foot to the wall, cocking a sexy knee in his direction, drawing her tight dress right up her thigh. Then she took a big deep breath before saying, ‘So, Nate seems like a good guy. Great hair. And that dimple? Adorable!’

Gabe clenched his teeth so hard he was sure he heard something crack. ‘Are you kidding me?’

She blinked several times over. ‘I’m sorry, did you want me to stop asking questions about you, or to stop talking altogether?’

He raised one telling eyebrow.

She did the same, and began to swing her knee side to side, drawing his gaze to those legs. Legs that could make a grown man get on his knees and thank God he’d been born. She asked, ‘Is Nate single?’

‘My father’s,’ Gabe ground out.

She cupped a hand to her ear. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘My name comes from my father’s side.’ He checked the ceiling, wondering at what point he should kick out a panel, climb onto the roof, and shimmy up the metal cord—

‘He was a Gabriel?’

Gabe shook his head. ‘Frank.’

‘His father, then?’ Paige pressed. ‘No? His father’s best friend’s war buddy’s pet llama?’

And whether it was the fact that she was apparently willing to suffocate them both before giving up, or the way she looked so soft and smudged in her pretty bare feet and his big jacket, Gabe gave up something he’d never even shared with Nate. ‘My father’s mother was a Gabriella.’

It was a small confidence, but the surrendering of it was felt. He was more than surprised when places inside him seemed to shift to accommodate the newfound space.

Paige’s knee stopped mid-swing and her bottom lip tucked between her teeth, probably to stop herself from grinning at his namesake, but he didn’t much care. The sheen her teeth left in their wake brought on a blood rush of attraction with a vengeance. Screw it. If he was going to die here, he might as well die smiling. Eyes locked onto her mouth, he ambled her way.

She asked, ‘This was the grandmother who made sure your Doris Day knowledge was up to snuff?’

‘Amongst other things. Gabriel had come through several generations, and Gran had no brothers, so …’

‘So not a girlie name, then.’

‘Not.’ He lifted his eyes to hers, to find them darkened. As if she knew exactly what she did to his blood. And his nerves. And the tempo of his breaths. So long as she never realised she had the ability to shake things loose inside him as well.

She shook a lock of hair from her face and the knot tumbled free over one shoulder. ‘Well, I think it’s … sweet.’

‘Do you, now?’

‘Sweet as pie. Sweeter than how my name came about.’ She laughed, but there was no humour in it. And when she frowned and looked down at her bare toes curling and uncurling against the floor Gabe stopped in his tracks.

He wasn’t adept at deep and meaningfuls. In fact they had the tendency to bring him out in hives. But stuck in the lift, their personal space overlapping, it simply felt decent to ask. ‘How’s that?’

Several beats pulsed between them before she flicked her hair from her eyes again and said, ‘Dad was a cricketer. International. Away eighty per cent of the year. Mum figured he’d be away when I was born—which he was. So, in an effort to include him in my birth, she gave him the job of naming me. Carte blanche.’

Her voice was even, but he felt the cool in her as she spoke. Saw the chips of ice in her warm blue eyes. They echoed inside him, banging painfully against the raw edges of the new space there.

‘Want to know who I was named after?’ Paige’s shoulders lifted as she wrapped her arms tighter around herself, and flicked her hair again.

‘More than life itself.’

She laughed even as she frowned at herself for doing so, the husky sound washing over his skin like waves of warmth. ‘The maid who’d turned down his bed at the hotel when he’d got the phone call.’

God. What a prick. Instinct had Gabe wanting to run his thumb across the vertical lines above her nose. Circumspection had him pressing his feet hard into the floor.

She tucked the wayward lock behind her ear. ‘I think Mum had been hoping to rouse some kind of connection in him. Hoping it would encourage him home more. To us.’

‘Did it work?’

Her smile remained, only now it was bittersweet. ‘Not so much. He cheated any chance he got, and she scrubbed the kitchen till it shone. Until one day she had enough, and asked for a divorce. He had the gall to be shocked. And even while she took him for plenty, he left her broken.’ She shook out her shoulders, and scraped her teeth along her tongue as if trying to get rid of a bad taste in her mouth. ‘Anyway. Bygones.’

Bygones, Gabe thought. Things we pretend don’t matter any more. But sweeping them under the rug only creates a lump to be tripped over time and again. He pushed the thought away.

‘Do you see him much? Your dad?’

‘Never. Mum and I are pretty close, though. She’s a good woman, way more forgiving than I could ever be. Yours?’

He should have seen it coming, but he’d been concentrating so hard on Paige the question came out of left field. And he was caught, looking into her big blue bedroom eyes, all liquid, hurting, wanting, patient.

He could practically feel his heart beating in his neck as the words spilled from his lips. ‘They died when I was young. My gran raised me.’

‘Gran Gabriella,’ she said, nodding, even smiling a little, as if the pieces of him slipped into place.

‘She was an amazing woman. Tough. Stubborn. Thank God too. I was a wild kid. Impatient. First to climb the tree. Fastest to the top of the hill. She had a choice to either let me go feral or guide me with a firm hand. All of my focus I owe to her.’

‘Is she in Melbourne still?’

‘She passed several years back. Right about the time my career took off. It broke my heart that she wasn’t around to see it.’ As he breathed out he felt another shift, this one so significant he could practically feel air swirling inside him in the place where he’d harboured that regret for so long.

Paige’s next breath out was long and slow, as if she too was letting things go. He could have kissed her for leaving it there. Hell, he could have kissed her either way. Her hair falling in wisps about her face. Her lips pink from the nibbling.

‘Paige—’ he said, but that was all that came as he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.

He actually shook his head at the realisation that she’d rendered him speechless. The rainmaker. The silver-tongued seducer of innocent creatives.

No matter the mistakes he’d made in his life, he’d done something right for her to have come into his life at the right moment. This woman who’d looked so relieved earlier when he’d reiterated that he’d be leaving soon, that their affair had a use-by date, even he’d been a little taken aback. Until he’d given himself a swift mental slap.

Paige was warm, sexy, astute, and gorgeous as all get out, but there was a limit to what he could offer. It was a good thing that he’d been forced to remember what a destructive illusion feeling for someone could be. He’d remember with even more biting clarity once he was no longer surrounded by air that smelled so thickly of warm, soft, edible, feminine skin.

He stepped forward and placed his hands on her upper arms. Her warmth seeped from the fabric of his too-big jacket into his skin. Her delicious scent curled beneath his nose. Her big blue eyes looked unblinking into his as her chest rose high and fell hard.

Yes, he thought. That. The touchy-feely stuff had made him feel unexpectedly raw, but it had nothing on pure and simple sexual hunger.

He placed a hand on the wall above her head, and heat arched through him as her lips parted, soft and moist and practically begging for his kiss.

When she licked her lips, and tilted her head, the wanting that swept through him was thick and consuming. Unrelenting. And limitless, filling all the newly shifted places inside him. He closed his eyes on that thought. Gritted his teeth against the insinuation.

Then at the slide of her hand into the back of his hair, the press of her hips to his groin, the sweet shuddering sigh as her breath whispered across his neck, he thought, Oh, to hell with it—

Then the lights flickered. And the lift began to move.

The lift binged, the doors opened, and Paige knew that if she snapped her eyes left she’d see the silver wallpaper of the eighth floor. But she couldn’t snap her eyes any which way, not for all the coffee in Brazil.

Not with Gabe looking at her that way. As if he was looking not at her, but into the very heart of her. She wondered what he saw. If it was a disappointment, all cold and uninviting. Or if it flickered with any of the heat freefalling through her body. If he had any inkling any warmth glowing inside her had been put there by him. She looked away then, and hoped she hadn’t left it too late.

‘We should probably get out of here before the thing changes it mind,’ she said. ‘You’re way too big for me to carry out of here if your claustrophobia gets the better of you.’

‘Funny woman,’ said Gabe, though it was apparently enough to get him to move, as he grabbed a door and ushered her through. Without all that concentrated heat burning a hole right through her, Paige somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other to scoop up her heels and purse and exit the lift.

The recessed lighting made the hallway overly bright to Paige’s eyes, as if she’d spent a year in a cave, not an hour in a perfectly well-lit lift. As if the confidences she and Gabe had shared had all been a crazy dream. She shucked his jacket from her back and held it out to him on the end of a finger. He took it and tucked it over his crooked elbow.

He angled his head towards the ceiling. ‘I’d better head back up, check everyone’s okay. Make sure Nate hasn’t invited everyone to sleep over.’

‘You’re braver than I am.’

‘You kidding? I’m taking the stairs. You?’

She wrapped her arms about herself, missing Gabe’s jacket, missing his nearness. It was enough to have her take a step back as she shook her head. ‘I think I’ve tempted fate enough tonight.’

His mouth lifted into the beginnings of a smile, though it never quite eventuated. In fact he looked downright serious. Heart beating so loud she was certain he could hear it too, Paige took a breath to say goodnight, but Gabe cut her off, eating up the space between them with three long strides. Barefoot, she had to look up so far to meet his eyes.

‘When will I see you again?’ he asked.

Paige’s breath hitched in her throat. Apart from the party invite, it was the first time either of them had even come close to suggesting making actual plans. ‘Soon enough, if the past few days are anything to go by,’ she said, trying for sassy, but when her voice came out all husky she failed miserably.

‘Good point. But I was thinking more along the lines of dinner.’

‘Dinner?’ Paige asked, her voice rising in her complete surprise. ‘Like a proper date?’

Gabe nodded, serious face well and truly in place.

A date? A date. A date. Experience said no way. Gabe was a nomad. She’d recognised the impatience in his eye the moment she’d first seen him. If she hadn’t learned to keep a man like that at arm’s length from watching her mum watch her dad walk away, time and time again, then she was an out and out fool.

Of course, there was the small fact that Nate was in the process of trying to get Gabe to stay …

‘Paige,’ Gabe said, the tone of his voice making it clear he wanted an answer.

While her subconscious argued back and forth, all she could do was go with her gut. And it turned out that her gut, like the rest of her body, wanted Gabe.

‘Okay. Let’s do it.’

‘Good,’ he said on a hard shot of outward breath. ‘I’ll call to set it up.’

Gabe slid a finger beneath her chin, and kissed her gently. Tenderly. Then his tongue swept into her mouth and she curled her fingers into his sweater and held on for dear life.

Then with a shake of his head, and a growl that told her it took everything he had to leave it at that, he turned and disappeared into the stairwell, a flash of dark clothing, and huge shoulders, and powerful strides. Leaving Paige blinking into the bright empty hallway.

At the start of the night her biggest hope had been that their sizzle didn’t fizzle in public. Now he’d asked her on a date. She’d wished for a guy to end her dating drought. She had nobody to blame but herself.

CHAPTER SEVEN

PAIGE had just sat down to cocktails with Mae and Clint at the sparkly pink Oo La La bar on Church Street when she got the call she’d been telling herself she hadn’t been waiting for all day.

She held up a finger to excuse herself, slipped off the stool, and headed out into the icy Melbourne night. She stuck her spare hand under her armpit and banged her feet against the ground in an effort to keep warm as she answered her mobile.

‘Hey, Gabe!’ Paige scrunched up her face. Even in the age of number display, she should have at least feigned nonchalance.

As Gabe’s rich laughter rumbled down the phone she realised she needn’t have worried about the cold; every time she heard that voice a wave of heat followed in its wake.

‘What’s up?’ she asked. As if she didn’t know that either! She bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything else daft.

‘I do believe I promised you dinner,’ he said.

‘Right. So you did.’ There, that was better. Now she might get away with him not guessing she’d spent much of her Saturday daydreaming about where he might take her. Or what she might wear. If Gabe’s sweet tooth was enough to make them last till dessert. Or if his taste for her was stronger still.

A tram thundered noisily down the street, sparks flinting off the overhead cables and disappearing into the inky blackness above. Paige pressed the phone to her right ear, and a finger in the left. ‘I’m sorry, I missed that last part.’

‘I said we’ll have to have a rain check.’

Her feet stopped stamping and she came over all still.

‘I’m in Sydney for work. Flew down first thing this morning. Not sure when I’ll be back.’

He was in Sydney? A thousand miles away and he hadn’t even told her he was going? He hadn’t even had anything like this on the cards as far as she knew. Because she didn’t known much of anything? Unless he’d simply changed his mind. Maybe his claustrophobia was so bad he’d only asked in the aftermath of post survival euphoria!

‘Paige? Can you hear me?’

‘Yeah. I got that,’ she said. She rubbed at a spot under her ribs where she suddenly felt as if someone were poking her with a chopstick. ‘Cool. I understand. I’ve got so much going on at work this week as it is. I guess I’ll catch you when you get—’

‘Paige.’ He cut her off, his deep drawl pouring through her like melted chocolate.

‘Yep?’ She closed her eyes and slapped herself several times on the forehead for good measure. When she opened her eyes it was to see a couple, arms linked, scooting as far around her on the footpath as possible. She sent them a sorry smile but they were jogging too fast to see.

‘I’ll be back in a couple of days, and then I’m sure we can squeeze in a night out if we both try real hard.’

He didn’t say, ‘before I leave for good,’ but it was out there, like a big black piano waiting to fall down on her head. Paige pressed the heel of her palm to her chest as the chopstick beneath her ribs grew thorns.

‘I’ll call when I know more,’ Gabe said.

‘Sure. Fine. Or not. Whatever. Honestly, I’m cool either way.’

Gabe laughed again, the smooth deep sound vibrating down her arm and landing with a warm thud deep in her belly. ‘I’ll call,’ he promised, ‘even if you’re cool either way.’

‘Okay,’ she said on a long drawn out breath.

‘Goodnight, Paige.’ He rang off.

Paige turned towards the bar, but there her boots stopped short. She tapped her phone against her front teeth, her eyes misting over to the soft pink light spilling through the windows of the funky cocktail bar as she forced herself to think.

Good God, had she really floated the idea that Gabe was in Sydney avoiding her? She needed to get a grip. A man she wasn’t attached to had merely postponed a date that till the night before had never even been on the cards. And yet her heart thumped at triple its normal pace. That wasn’t her. She did not obsess about men she couldn’t have. She was not her mother …

No. Time apart was the exact wake-up call she needed. Her life had been plenty satisfying before Gabe Hamilton moseyed into her lift and into her life, and she could do with a few days without him to remind her of that.

She breathed deep, the thin cold air slipping into her bloodstream, and she felt far less wobbly than she had a minute earlier. In fact she felt positively urbane. Then the extreme mixed scents of Richmond’s Asiatic restaurant row hit the back of her throat and hunger followed in its wake. Teeth chattering, she hustled back inside the bar.

‘Trouble in paradise?’ Mae asked as Paige plonked herself back on her stool.

Paige opened her mouth to say everything was fine, but Mae’s open palm stopped her in her tracks.

Mae said, ‘Let me tell you a little story while you consider your answer. There I was the other night, enjoying my miniquiche at your gorgeous neighbour’s housewarming, when I spotted you and the hot pirate, looking all cosy. I barely had time to jab Clint in the ribs when you were off, running for the door as if you couldn’t wait to find somewhere private in which to tear one another’s clothes off.’

Paige blinked down into her milky cocktail as the heat rose in her cheeks; a healthy mix of mortification that if Mae had noticed there was a good chance others had too, and regret that Mae knew she’d been keeping her fling with Gabe a secret.

‘So what’s going on with the two of you?’ Mae asked.

‘Nothing,’ Paige insisted. ‘Okay, something. But not what you think.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘It all happened so fast.’

‘So fast you couldn’t send me a text? Preferably with image attached.’

Paige frowned at Mae’s pink cocktail, and tried to find an answer her best friend might understand, and couldn’t. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Maybe because I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I’m still not.’

‘Sounds serious.’

‘Lord, no! It’s a fling. That much I am sure of.’

‘You’ve had flings before, Miss Paige. Before Clint came along the two of us were the queens of the no-strings fling and you never kept it from me before. So what made this one different?’

She risked looking at Mae, and saw the one person in the world who knew her best. Her next breath out felt awash with relief that the truth was out, tempered by a little stab of heartache that she’d found it so hard to tell her.

She leaned forward, and wrapped her fingers around her cold glass. ‘Maybe it’s that from the moment I met him it felt different. Which has been thrilling, but also kind of terrifying. I might be struggling a bit with remembering where my limits lie.’

‘Maybe you’re struggling because, with him, you don’t want limits.’

Paige let herself wonder for about half a second before she remembered the unbearable feeling of the chopstick jabbing her under the ribs. She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. With this one I want them more than ever.’

Mae nibbled at the inside of her cheek a few moments as if she was grappling with some inner turmoil, before leaning over and wrapping cool hands around Paige’s. ‘I know you like putting your life into neat separate little boxes, Paige—work, home, friends, lovers—and I get why. Having them in boxes makes them feel like they’re under your control. I used to be the same way. And then I met Clint.’

Paige got her usual tummy ache at the mere mention of Clint’s name, only this time the jab of the chopstick under the ribs joined it. Which made no sense at all.

Oblivious, Mae went on. ‘I thought he was goofy and shy and way too sweet for the likes of me. I could have put him in that easy-to-ignore box on day dot and that would have been that. But I took a chance instead. I let him see me, and let myself see him. And look at us now.’

Paige wriggled on her stool, not liking talking about Clint any more than she had about Gabe. Because she hoped so hard that Mae could rise above the statistics, and genetics, and history and be happy for ever after? All of a sudden that theory didn’t hold water.

She gave herself a mental shake. One thing at a time. This current dilemma was about her. And Gabe. Even the mere thought of him had her breathing out long and slow.

Paige waved her hands in front of her face. ‘I know in your loved-up state you’re seeing cupid’s arrows flying all over the place, but it’s not like that. I assure you. It’s sex. Pure and simple. Well, to be honest it’s not so pure or so simple.’

Finally Mae stopped looking at her as if she was trying to see right into her soul. Her voice a low growl, Mae said, ‘Now, you’re talkin’. Details. You owe me.’

Paige figured she did, and then some. And gossiping like this felt so good, like the old days. ‘So what do you want to know?’

‘Do you have actual conversations in between bouts of athletic lust?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes we don’t want to waste our breath.’

‘Phew.’ Mae rested her elbow on the table and her chin on her upturned palm. ‘Do you catch yourself daydreaming about him? About his belly button, the whirl of hair behind his right ear, the way his eyes go all dark and dreamy when he sees you?’

Paige raised an eyebrow. ‘Clearly you do.’

‘Ha! So are you seeing anyone else?’

‘No,’ Paige answered before she’d even noticed Mae’s change of tack, or the knowing gleam in her eye. Dammit.

‘Do you want to?’ Mae asked.

Paige sat up straighter. ‘Where’s Clint?’

‘At the bar.’

‘Good, I need another drink.’

‘I’ll bet you do.’ Mae gave Paige’s foot a quick nudge under the table. ‘I know you, Paige. You are doing your absolute all to avoid even considering it, but I’m living proof that happily ever afters can happen, even to those who don’t believe in them. And that’s the last I’ll say about that.’

Mae mimed zipping her mouth shut tight as Clint returned with a beer for himself, another pink drink for Mae, and a Midori Splice for Paige.

‘You looked like you might need it,’ he said, before he slumped back onto his stool and closed his eyes as if he was seriously about to have a nap right there in the middle of the bar.

Paige should have thanked her lucky stars that Clint’s arrival had saved her from answering any more of Mae’s questions. But watching Mae’s eyes constantly swerving back to her fiancé, her finger running distractedly across the rim of her cocktail glass, her cheeks warm and pink, a small smile curving at her mouth, Paige felt as if she was witnessing something so intimate she ought to look away.

But she found she couldn’t.

Did Mae really believe they could love each other through everything? Through fights and ambivalence? Through having kids and demanding jobs? Through the times they were in each other’s pockets every minute of the day and the times they spent apart? Through the times they’d inevitably hurt one another in moments of boredom, exhaustion, self-absorption?

Her parents hadn’t. Not even close. For them it had simply been too hard. So Paige just couldn’t make herself believe. Even when Clint opened one eye and gave Mae a warm lazy smile, and it was like being this close to the real thing Paige could almost touch it.

She took a hard gulp of her cocktail, barely tasting it as her mind shifted to the one secret she hadn’t dared share with Mae, the secret she’d refused to even admit to herself until that quiet moment in the noisy bar.

She felt things for Gabe. Soft, gentle, warm things.

She didn’t believe it would last. She didn’t believe it was about anything other than chemistry. But it terrified her to the soles of her boots.

In the end Gabe was gone a little over a week.

Paige was thrilled at how much she got done with all that extra time! She’d done her tax. She’d rearranged her lounge-room, twice. Made her way through every level of Angry Birds. Caught up with Mae, and Clint, another two times. And she’d thrown herself into work with a gusto she hadn’t felt for months, shining up her proposal to shoot the summer catalogue in Brazil until the thing about glowed.

Time apart had been a good thing for sure. She was in a good place. Sure again about what she was doing. And that she could handle it. Yet there was no denying the nerves that skittered through her belly the morning of the Monday he was due back.

She donned the new black lacy underwear she’d bought specially, then practically skipped into her walk-in robe to get dressed for the day and—

Instead of reaching for the work outfit she’d hung out the night before, her hand went to the white garment bag poking out from the deepest darkest corner of the cupboard and before she could stop herself she’d unzipped the bag containing her secret wedding dress with a rush.

The moment the weight of the daring concoction of chiffon, pearls, and lace filled her hands, something flipped a switch inside her and she had rough-housed the gown over her head. The satiny lining slid over her curves, cool and soft against her bare skin, then the hem dropped with a gentle swoosh to float over her bare toes. Her fingers shook as she guided the zip up her back until it stopped just below her shoulder blades.

Eyes closed, knees trembling, she turned to face the mirror behind her wardrobe door. She hoped desperately the thing swam on her, or the colour made her look jaundiced, or that she looked as if she belonged on the top of a toilet-paper roll like the doll her mum had in her downstairs bathroom.

‘It’s just a dress,’ she whispered, her voice echoing in the cosy space. Yet when she opened her eyes it was to see herself through a sheen of tears.

Was this how Mae felt when she tried hers on? Beautiful, and special, and magical, and romantic, and hopeful? She didn’t know, because she’d never asked. It was always Mae who brought up the wedding. Mae who came over to her place with bridal magazines. Mae who booked meetings with caterers and bands. Mae who had to work so hard to get Paige to even pretend to sound enthused.

Mae had motivation. Mae had found the thing they’d spent so many years convincing one another didn’t exist. A man to trust. A man to hold. A man to love.

As if she were having an out-of-body experience, Paige watched her reflection with a feeling of detachment as a single tear slid down her cheek. And then everything came into such sharp focus she actually gasped.

Paige knew the moment it had happened. The moment her work had ceased to satisfy her. The moment she’d stopped dating. The moment her life had lurched out of her tightly held control.

It had happened with the first flash of Mae’s pretty little solitaire as Mae had giddily told her Clint had proposed. The diamond dazzling her as the sun caught an edge, piercing her right through the middle, tearing every plan, every belief, every comfort she had that she wasn’t alone in believing love wasn’t priority number one.

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, heat and tears squeezing past them.

What was wrong with her? Her best friend was in love. Getting married. Actually happy. Because of that her world had crumbled?

She’d always thought the hot spot that flared in her stomach whenever she looked at Mae and Clint together was fear for her friend. She’d been kidding herself. It was envy. Deep, torturous, craving certainty that she’d never experience even a tenth of the love and affection they shared. It had run so deep that for months she hadn’t even been able to face going on a date that would only remind her she was destined to be alone.

The tears came so fast she began to sob. And then to choke. And then she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt as if they were being squeezed from the inside out. The only way she’d ever breathe again was to get out of the damn dress.

She tugged at the straps, but they dug into her shoulders. She yanked at the deep neckline, but it wouldn’t budge. Her trembling fingers wrenched at the zip at her back and—

She stilled, one foot braced indecorously on an ottoman, her arms doing some crazy pretzel move behind her.

The zip was stuck.

Like something out of a movie, the next hour of her life flashed before her eyes. She had to leave in ten minutes if she had a hope of getting to work on time. And first up that day? The final presentation of her Brazilian proposal.

Determination steeling her, Paige took a breath, sniffed back any remaining threads of self-pity, gripped the zip between unwavering fingers, and tugged.

Nada.

Argh! What was she going to do?

Mae and Clint lived only a couple of suburbs over, but in peak-hour traffic it would take for ever for one of them to get to her. The neighbour next door was in hospital getting a nose job. If she called on Mrs Addable upstairs her predicament would be all over the building before she even left the apartment.

Maybe she could wear the thing. She could cover most of it up. Her chartreuse beaded cardigan. Her cropped chocolate jacket. Her fringed grey cowboy boots. And accessories. Lots of fabulous accessories. She pictured the conference room: Callie holding court with the fawning assistants, Geoff hovering over the pastry tray trying desperately not to eat one, her assistant Susie looking up at her as if she were the bee’s knees as she waltzed in … wearing a wedding dress.

With a sob Paige gave in and slumped to her back on her bed.

Gabe stood in the ground level foyer of the Botany Building, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. It had been a hell of a week. The two other mobs who’d lined up to hear out the ramblings of a rabble of tech-nerds on nanotechnology applications had been the hardest competitors he’d been up against in an age. He’d been lit by the honest to goodness thrill of the chase, and the flicker of brilliance he’d spent his career chasing felt, if not imminent, then at least possible for the first time in a long time.

And yet Gabe felt unpredictably relieved at being back. The cold didn’t seep into his bones like before. The trundle of trams didn’t give him a twitch. And even the Gothamesque skyline didn’t appear quite so unforgivingly stark. In fact with the morning sun pouring over the jut of skyscrapers, glorious Finders Street train station, and the gleaming, snaking river, the city had looked downright pretty.

Maybe he’d missed his bed, with its him-shaped dent. Or maybe he’d missed what could have been in his bed, all long and warm and languid, a warm smile lighting up her deep blue eyes, her lush pink mouth—

The lift binged.

Gabe discreetly repositioned himself. Whoever might be in the lift didn’t need to see how a week without Paige in his bed had affected him. But without even opening its doors, the lift headed back up without him.

A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Now, this I didn’t miss.’

The lift paused on the eighth floor. Paige’s floor. He checked his watch. She might not yet have left for work. He could drop in. Say ‘hi’. Shore up their plans for dinner that night. He actually laughed out loud. As if he’d be able to stop at just that.

No, he needed to get into the office to debrief Nate on the deal. He needed to get back to the piles of paperwork that needing reading before he signed on the dotted line to list BonaVenture on the stock market. So that he could get out there again, back amongst the sharks where he belonged.

And yet as he eyeballed the lift his mind didn’t wander to the big wide world waiting for him. His fingers twitched at the thought of burying themselves in masses of silken blonde hair. His mouth watered as he imagined the sweet taste of soft pink lips. He hardened at the thought of burying himself deep inside a woman who knew how to take him to the brink and right on over the other side.

He checked his watch again. His feet twitched and he stared at the lift, as if eyeballing it would make it come back to him.

Screw it.

Three long strides took him to the door to the stairs; he pushed through and took them two at a time, a surge of adrenalin all but giving him wings. His blood pumping hard through his veins as he got ever closer to number eight.

He reached her floor, jogged to her apartment, and, before he could talk himself out of it, banged on her door with a closed fist, feeling a connection to his caveman ancestors. If he was able to do more than grunt before kissing that heavenly mouth of hers he’d deserve a damn medal.

She was home. The shuffle of bare feet on her polished wood floor brought on a heavy heat in his groin. ‘Paige,’ he called, his voice as gruff as a bear’s. ‘It’s me.’

Then, listen as he might, he heard nothing, not even a breath. He hadn’t imagined it, had he? Conjuring up sounds of her that weren’t even there? He started as the doorknob squeaked and turned in its socket. Then the door opened as if in slow motion.

It had been barely a week since he’d seen her, yet the moment he looked into her beautiful face his heart skipped a beat. He’d heard the expression, but before that moment he’d not known it felt like stepping off the top of a tall building with only a faint hope there’d be a dozen firemen waiting below with a big trampoline.

Paige blinked at him, her gorgeous blue eyes smoky with smudged eyeliner. Her hair was all a tumble. Her skin flushed pink. The woman looked so gorgeously rumpled he throbbed for her, and it took every effort not to throw her over his shoulder and toss her down on the bed and take her before they’d even said hello.

Cleary a glutton for punishment, he slid his gaze down her gorgeous body to find it encased in—

What the—?

He blinked. And again.

Well, he thought as his libido limped into hiding as though it had been kicked where it hurt most, you don’t see that every day.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘ARE we a tad overdressed for this time of the morning?’ Gabe asked.

‘What do you think?’ Paige asked, before swallowing so hard the tendons on her neck looked about to snap.

‘I think you’re wearing a wedding dress.’ Even as he said the words a pulse began to beat in his temple. ‘Is it yours?’

After a long second she nodded, her eyes like those of a puppy who’d been kicked. As if she were the one who should be feeling hard done by, not the guy she was sleeping with who’d just come back from a week away to find himself staring down a bride.

Right. Okay. Think. Not an easy thing to do considering he was fighting against the unwieldy mix of raging lust and abject horror wrestling inside him.

‘And you’re wearing it because …’ You’ve been married before? You’re getting married today? You missed me that much …?

Wow. Had everything somehow been leading to this? No matter all the safeguards he’d put in place, had he been outfoxed again? Should he have paid more heed to Hitchcock’s warnings after all? He’d give her a minute to explain. Two at most. And if he wasn’t a hundred and ten per cent thrilled with the answers he was outta there.

‘The zip’s stuck!’ She turned, lifted her hair and flashed him an expanse of beautiful back. And creamy-coloured lace, and pearl looking things and—

Gabe lifted his eyes to the ceiling. ‘That’s not exactly … I meant why do you own a … you know?’

‘Took you long enough to ask.’

Gabe was fairly sure he’d only been at her apartment door for a minute but apparently he’d passed through the looking glass, so who knew? ‘Forgive me if my mind’s working at about thirty per cent velocity, but what the hell are you talking about?’

‘Oh, come on. You knew about the dress.’

Gabe shook his head, hard, hoping it might send him back to the right dimension. ‘What precisely am I meant to know about it?’

‘That it exists. That it’s mine. That I have a wedding dress in my possession.’

‘Paige, I’m on the back foot here, with the dress, and the accusations, and the … dress. But I can honestly, hands down, say, I’ve never seen it before.’

‘The day we met,’ she shot back, eyes flashing, arms crossed beneath her breasts until they loomed above the deep V of the dress. ‘I was carrying it in the lift.’

He opened his mouth to tell her she damn well wasn’t, because there was no way in hell he’d have made a play for an engaged woman. Who needed that kind of drama? Was she engaged? No. He couldn’t believe it. He shut his mouth, realising nothing good would come of any question he asked. And she didn’t look in the mood for an argument. In fact she looked pretty close to a nervous breakdown.

Not exactly what he’d imagined their reunion might be like. Sure, he’d imagined heat, he’d imagined sweat, he’d not even dared hope to come close to losing consciousness. But right then, the only thing keeping him from bolting was the fact that the terror in Paige’s eyes pretty much mirrored his own.

He tore off his beanie, unwound his scarf, rid himself of his jacket and threw them onto her kitchen diner. Then, hands shaking a little, he reached out, slowly, and curled his palms around her upper arms, careful not to touch the fabric wrapped lovingly around her body. Then he pressed himself inside her apartment and kicked the front door shut with his foot.

‘Paige. Believe me when I tell you this. I don’t recall you carrying anything that day.’

‘You told Nate I tried to shut the door on your hand, but you don’t remember me carrying a fluorescent white garment bag with ‘Wedding Dress Fire Sale’ in hot-pink neon writing slashed across the front of it?’

‘I remember fine.’ The big blue bedroom eyes. The rumpled blonde hair. The legs that went all the way up. The sparks bouncing off the walls. The instant intense stab of desire that had made a mockery of his efforts to sleep his jet lag away. ‘I remember you.’

At that Paige blinked. Faster than a hummingbird’s wings. And then she breathed out, long and slow, as if she’d been holding her breath a real long time.

At the slow rise and fall of her chest his eyes defied him and slid down, noting how well the … thing fitted her, dipping at the front, hugging at the sides, sloping down her beautiful hips. If a man in a rented tux ever got to see that walking towards him down an aisle, he’d have no complaints.

But he would never be that man.

He liked Paige. She was funny, smart, great company, breath-taking in bed. But if this dress was some kind of sign, she was signalling the wrong man.

He wasn’t a marrying man. Not even long-term-commitment guy. His priorities simply made it impossible. For as long as he could remember his ambitions had been clear-cut: to work hard and make his gran proud. After his one monumental hiccup, he’d poured all of himself into fixing that mistake. Never making the same one again.

And he wasn’t here. Was he? It didn’t feel as though he was, but, considering his track record, who the hell knew?

He pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing there was no going forward—to the apartment, to work, or dinner, or even to her bed—till they cleared this all up.

Gabe slowly removed his hands and tucked them into the pockets of his old jeans and took a small step back. He lifted his eyes deliberately to hers. Her eyes were all liquid-blue, her lush mouth down-turned. She looked so forlorn, so … unbridely, it was almost laughable. Almost.

He motioned with his chin to the small kitchen table. ‘Sit.’ She sat. Gabe sat too, though far enough away so as not to touch. ‘So do you want to tell me what this is all about so I can stop looking over my shoulder for the priest?’

‘Really?’

‘More than you know.’

‘Okay,’ she said, then after a big deep shaky breath went on. ‘So I’d been shopping with Mae to find her wedding dress the morning before we met, and I saw this dress and felt like I’d never breathe again if I didn’t take it home. Not out of some deep and abiding desire to get married. I’ve never been one of those girls who always wanted to get married. On the contrary. So we can clear that up.’

‘Okay,’ he said, feeling far from clear.

Then Paige looked down, a swing of fair hair falling over her face, all her usual va va voom seeping out of her as she stared at some unknown spot on the table. ‘Turns out Mae getting married has really thrown me. More than I’d realised until about half an hour ago. I’ve been completely out of sync since she got engaged. We’ve been in one another’s pockets for such a long time. And now she’s … not mine any more.’ She held out her hands as if she’d lost something then settled back into her slump. ‘I’ve been going through the motions ever since. With Mae. At work. Not dating.’ Her eyes slid to his, her long dark lashes all crazy and clumped together. ‘You’re the first guy I’ve seen since it happened.’

The emphasis on the word ‘seen’ brought a flare of heat to his groin. When he shifted on the chair Paige noticed, and her mouth flickered into the first smile of the day.

‘Mae had a theory about why I bought the dress,’ she went on, ‘and it was easier to believe that than to believe the truth. That I was jealous of her. Not the marriage bit, the happiness bit. So I kind of wished for you. And then a minute later you stuck your fingers through the lift door.’

‘I’m sorry … You wished for me?’

Sass put some sinew into her slump as she flicked her fringe off her face, and lifted one saucy shoulder. The flare of heat spread till it roared through his blood with the speed and intent of a bush fire.

‘Well, not you in particular,’ she said. ‘A man who … Well, a man. Mae’s theory for why I bought the dress was that I needed to get some.’

Gabe’s mouth turned dry at the thought … for about half a second. Then saliva pooled beneath his tongue and he had to physically press himself back into the chair so as not to go right ahead and give her what Mae thought she needed.

Paige slowly eased herself upright, leaned back in her chair, and looked him dead in the eye, and he realised she hadn’t been kidding. If any other man had walked into the lift at that precise moment she would have been sitting at her kitchen table sending some other guy hard with desire with those burning baby blues of hers.

No way. It wouldn’t have been the same. The way they fitted was chemical. One in a million. Thus worth pursuing to the edges of his limits. Clearly, or he wouldn’t still be sitting there while she wore a wedding dress.

He leaned forward, keeping her gaze connected to his. ‘And now that you have … got some, how are you doing?’

Paige tilted an eyebrow, before wafting a hand past her lace-covered curves. ‘How do you think I’m doing?’

‘Fair enough.’ Gabe rubbed his fingers into his eyes to clear the image that was making it hard for him to see straight. ‘And do you try it on every morning—? ‘

‘Good God, no! This was the first time ever. Don’t think I ever had any intention of you finding me like this. This is my worst nightmare. And I can’t fathom why you’re still sitting here and not halfway to anywhere else but here!’

She had him there. He’d help her get the dress off then vamoose. Go home. Go to work. Put some space between them so that he could think.

He shoved back the chair so hard it squeaked on the pale floorboards. He motioned to her with a flick of his fingers. ‘Come on.’

‘What?’

‘You said that thing was stuck.’

She nodded. ‘The zip. It’s caught on something. I tried tugging, and shimmying it over my head, but it fits like a glove.’

It did that. ‘Then let’s get you free of it, shall we?’

Paige stood, and turned her back to him.

Swallowing down the bile rising in his throat at the connotations of ridding a beautiful woman of a wedding dress, Gabe forced his eyes to move to the dress to find a paper clip had been bent through the eye of the zip.

His tension melted a little. At least now he could be certain she’d had a go at taking the thing off. As for the rest? Everyone had weaknesses, and if hers was for a combination of lace and pearly-looking things, then it beat smoking. Just.

‘Do you need me to move at all?’ she asked, lifting her hair away from her neck, the scent of her shampoo wafting past his nose for the first time in days. The interplay of muscle across her back made his fingers feel fat and useless as blood left his extremities to pour into his groin.

He reached for the zip, the backs of his fingers brushing across her warm skin. Her muscles twitched at even his slightest touch. A few strands of hair fell to slide against the back of his hand and, God help him, delicate shocks prickled down his arms landing with a rock-hard thud in his pants.

‘You want this thing off or not?’ he asked, his voice gruff.

‘I do.’

‘Then stop wriggling.’

She stilled. And there were a few long moments in which the only sound was the shuffle of satin on her skin as the hopeless zipper refused to budge.

‘I had an outfit,’ she said. ‘For tonight.’

‘Another one?’

Her laughter was husky, telling him he wasn’t the only one affected by the fact that he was, to all intents and purposes, trying to get her naked. The sound vibrated through him, morphing into a whump whump whump that pulsed through his veins.

‘Quite something, this outfit of mine. Red, sleek, no zip in sight.’

He swallowed down the lust rising from the bottoms of his feet all the way to the back of his throat. The phenomenal pull of desire he felt for her, despite the wedding attire, gave him one last pause.

Did he want her too much? To the detriment of his own sense? His own self-interest? He listened to his gut, and listened hard. But even his deeply scarred conscience couldn’t go there. She was habit-forming, but the hold she had over him was unintentional. And all the more dangerous because of it? Not so long as they both knew the score. He’d just have to make sure she never forgot it. Him either.

‘Careful,’ she cried out suddenly when the sound of over-stretched fabric rent the silence. Then like the collapse of a dam, the zip gave way. The dress tipped over her shoulders and she scooped it to her chest, but not before he’d caught a glimpse of a strapless black lace bra and a hint of matching G-string.

‘Oh, come on!’ she said, turning and staring down at the dress so that her breasts pressed together. ‘I’d been working on that damn thing for half an hour! It clearly hates me. Well, I hate it right on back. It’s so going straight to Good Will after this.’

‘Nah,’ he said, his voice rough as sand, ‘I have the touch.’

She glanced up at him, her chest pinking as she realised the direction of his gaze. And he was more than half hard. When their eyes met, her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth, and her naked toes curled over one another under the pool of material at her feet.

And Gabe knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

A half-second after he moved for her, she let the dress go and was in his arms. Clinging to him as he devoured her with his mouth. Tasting her neck, his tongue tracing the line of her jaw, teeth nipping at her ear. When he slid his hands to cup her backside it was to find the dress was thankfully gone, leaving him with her hot bare skin and a strip of lace.

When he lay her back on the table, atop his jacket and scarf, she was pink all over. A pulse beating fast in her neck. Her lips moist from his kiss. Her eyes so hot he could barely make out a thin circle of blue. She grabbed him by the belt-line, tugging him between her legs, wrapping her thighs about him as she whipped his button fly open with one rough yank.

With a growl he buried his face in her breasts. Drinking in the scent of her till his lungs were full. When he palmed her breast she arched off the table.

Lust filled him so thick and rich his vision was a pinprick. His focus concentrated on a bead of perspiration running down her torso. The jump of her muscles as his hands encircled her waist. Her gasp as he pressed a kiss to her navel. The grip of her hands in his hair as he sank his teeth into her hipbone. The way she trembled as he ran a thumb along the strip of soft black lace.

Holding onto the thinnest thread of control, he pressed her thighs apart and kissed her. She flung an arm over her eyes and let her thighs fall apart all the way. He tugged the slip of lace aside and took her in his mouth, tasting, bringing her to the edge before pressing soft kisses to her inner thigh. When she begged him to never stop, he never did, and when she came it was with such abandon he almost came right along with her.

Fumbling for his wallet, he took for ever before he found a condom. Sheathed, he hovered over her, waiting until her eyes found his, glints of fire, before he sank into her. Pressing into her velvet heat, deeper and deeper. The walls of her body gripping him like nothing else he’d ever known. One hand around the top of the round table, the other on his hip, she sucked in short sharp breaths. When pleasure gripped him from the inside out his eyes squeezed shut and he heard himself yell her name as he came.

As the world slowly came back into focus Gabe’s head cleared. And it was as if the hard and fast sex had knocked something loose.

He looked into her eyes, to find them dark, liquid, sated, making him hard for her all over again. Knowing it, she grinned, and stretched her arms over her head, letting them dangle over the edge of the table.

Willing himself to keep it together another moment, he asked about the one part of the morning that hadn’t made some sort of crazy sense. ‘All this time you thought I thought you owned a wedding dress, and you therefore believed that I believed you were possibly about to be married.’

She looked up at him from under her lashes. ‘Possibly.’

He braced an arm against the kitchen table. ‘And that was okay with you?’

‘Not normally. But remember I was a girl with not a lot of experience in happily ever afters who’d just bought a wedding dress. I needed to do something equally desperate to counteract the first act.’

Gabe blinked at her. A glint had made it through the sexual haze in her blue bedroom eyes. She was making jokes? ‘Hell, Paige. Consider what you’ve put me through so far this morning and give me the slightest break, okay?’

She lifted a knee to brace herself, her inner thigh accidentally sliding along the outside of his leg. Or maybe not so accidentally. He was fast learning the woman had hidden facets.

‘Gabe, I’ve dated guys who aren’t jerks and they’ve still jerked me around. So I figured dipping my toes back into the dating pool with a jerk there’d be no nasty surprises.’

‘Did you call me a jerk?’ Gabe pushed himself to standing, found his jeans and yanked them up, buttoned them, and ran a hand up the back of his neck. His head was starting to thud.

‘No. No!’ she said, bracing herself on her elbows, the long, lean, rumpled, semi-naked length of her draped over the table. ‘Honestly, there’s nothing about you that screams jerk. Or whispers it even. But, come on. You were all big and dark and stubbled and dishevelled from your flight. Could you blame me for not jumping straight to “Mr Nice Guy”?’

His default position, to get annoyed and stay that way, flickered to life. But the thing was she was right. She’d seen him at his irritable worst and thought him unapproachable. He had seen a leggy blonde and thought SEX! They’d both been spot on.

But, just in case, he looked back at her, right into her eyes, looking for something else. The opposite of what he’d always been most afraid of. A sign of hope. Of expectation. A sign that she was deeper into this thing than he was.

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