Oh, God, he was planning to kiss her, and if he did she’d kiss him back. She knew she would.

‘You said you weren’t interested.’

‘I lied. I’m interested.’

‘No,’ she breathed, managing to sound outraged, sexy and needy all at the same time—which so wasn’t the plan.

‘Why not?’

‘I never mix business with pleasure,’ she said, focusing on one of the founding principles of her company, albeit a bit belatedly.

‘Neither do I. But the party’s over and we no longer have business together.’

‘We might. Hopefully.’

‘What does that have to do with now?’ he asked, his gaze roaming slowly, sensuously, over her features. ‘All I’m suggesting is a kiss.’

Yeah, right. Like they’d stop at a kiss. Like she’d be able to. A kiss would be the beginning.

Dear Reader,

THE PARTY STARTS AT MIDNIGHT is one of two books that feature a couple of property tycoon brothers. Both are gorgeous (naturally!) but very different. Leo—the numbers man—is dark and serious, while Jake—the ‘face’ of the company—is more of a charmer.

First up is Leo, whose calm, ordered life is just as he likes it. Until, that is, he meets events planner Abby Summers—and from that moment on he’s in a complete spin. As a perfectionist, career-driven Abby’s none too happy about the chaos Leo brings to her thought processes either.

I loved the idea of two people who think they have life sussed and then, like two hydrogen atoms crashing together with a whole lot of heat—boom!—realise they so very clearly don’t. Talk about chemistry… phew!

I hope that you love it too.

Lucy x

LUCY KING spent her formative years lost in the world of Mills & Boon® romance when she really ought to have been paying attention to her teachers. Up against sparkling heroines, gorgeous heroes and the magic of falling in love, trigonometry and absolute ablatives didn’t stand a chance.

But as she couldn’t live in a dream world for ever she eventually acquired a degree in languages and an eclectic collection of jobs. A stroll to the River Thames one Saturday morning led her to her very own hero. The minute she laid eyes on the hunky rower getting out of a boat, clad only in Lycra and carrying a three-metre oar as if it was a toothpick, she knew she’d met the man she was going to marry. Luckily the rower thought the same.

She will always be grateful to whatever it was that made her stop dithering and actually sit down to type Chapter One, because dreaming up her own sparkling heroines and gorgeous heroes is pretty much her idea of the perfect job.

Originally a Londoner, Lucy now lives in Spain, where she spends much of her time reading, failing to finish cryptic crosswords, and trying to convince herself that lying on the beach really is the best way to work.

Visit her at www.lucykingbooks.com

The Party Starts at Midnight
Lucy King

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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DEDICATION

To my wonderful readers, without whom I couldn’t do a job I love.

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

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

CHAPTER ONE

AS THE LIFT DOORS opened with an expensively soft swoosh, Abby gave her head a quick shake to dispel the ear-popping dizziness caused by the thirty-floors-in-three-seconds ascension, and stepped into the hall of the penthouse suite of London’s newest South Bank hotel.

‘Hello?’ she called, her voice ringing out weirdly loudly in the silence of the apartment. And then, after a moment during which there was no answer, she tried again. ‘Mr Cartwright? … Leo? … Anyone? ‘

But there was still no reply.

Frowning slightly, she headed down the hall, barely noticing the thick cream carpet her heels were sinking into or the cool sophistication of the dove-grey walls that stretched out either side of her, and came upon the sitting room. A quick scan showed it to be huge and beautifully furnished but disappointingly empty, as, she subsequently discovered, were the kitchen, laundry room, library, cinema, gym and study.

If she hadn’t been on a mission to locate the man allegedly holed up within and remind him about the party in full swing downstairs—the party he was supposed to be attending but wasn’t—Abby might have been blown away by the sheer scale and luxury of the place.

She might have ditched her precious clipboard and marvelled at the spectacular view of London at night, all lit up like the enormous Christmas tree that sat in the lobby downstairs, and showcased by the acres of window. She might have oohed and aahed over the gorgeous chrome-and-crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceiling and cast subtle light over the antiques, and then thrown herself onto one of the three plush, charcoal velvet-covered sofas with a sigh of pleasure.

She might have lingeringly run her fingers along the gleaming granite work surfaces in the kitchen, had a quick go on one of the many machines in the state-of-the-art gym or wondered about the nearly empty bottle of whisky that sat on the desk in the study and the glass that lay on its side on a messy pile of faintly stained papers beside it.

As it was, she didn’t have either the time or the inclination to gawp, cop a feel or wonder about the possible evidence of a drinking session because the sumptuousness of his home wasn’t important right now. What was important was that Leo Cartwright was meant to be downstairs and she was here to fetch him.

If only she could find him.

Still in the study Abby put down her clipboard, and, out of habit, picked up the glass and put it on a coaster she saw peeping out from beneath a book. Then shuffled the papers into a neat pile.

She had to admit that despite Jake’s assurance that his brother was definitely up here, the silence and general air of absence didn’t bode particularly well.

And OK, so there was still the bedroom/bathroom half of the flat that she hadn’t searched, but there was no way she was heading in that direction. It was bad enough that she was in Leo’s flat uninvited in the first place, and, even though Jake had said he’d take full responsibility for any outcome, she absolutely drew the line at scouring the bedrooms without some kind of authorisation at least.

Perching on the edge of the desk, she took her phone out of the discreet little pouch sewn into the inside of her belt and scrolled down until she came to Jake’s number. She hit the dial button, waited for a second and then, when he picked up, said, ‘Jake, I’m afraid there’s no sign of him.’

‘What, nowhere?’ came the deep voice at the other end of the line.

‘Not that I can see. Are you sure he’s up here?’

‘About ninety-nine per cent. He was when I last spoke to him. Where have you looked?’

‘Everywhere,’ she said, then added, ‘Well, everywhere apart from the bedrooms.’

There was a pause while he wished someone a happy Christmas and told them to grab a glass of champagne, and then he was back. ‘Why haven’t you checked the bedrooms?’

‘It seemed like an invasion of privacy,’ she said, thinking that actually, talking of privacy, if Leo was in there, he could well be doing something that meant he either hadn’t been able to hear her calling or didn’t want to. Possibly something wholly absorbing and very private indeed.

‘You needn’t worry about interrupting anything,’ said Jake, now sounding a bit impatient and, apparently, able to read her mind. ‘It’s seven in the evening and besides, Leo hasn’t had a woman in his bed for years.’

Which was way more than she needed to know about anyone, let alone a client. ‘Nevertheless, I—’

‘Look, Abby,’ said Jake, cutting across her protest in an I’m-the-client-here tone that told her he’d had enough and would brook no further argument. ‘I have to make this speech, and people are wondering where he is—as am I—so will you please just go and see if you can find him?’

Realising this wasn’t a battle she was going to win and consoling herself with the thought that so far they’d actually been remarkably—and surprisingly, given their exacting standards—easy clients, Abby gave in. After all, it was hardly the worst thing she’d been asked to do in her ten years of event planning, was it? The Cartwright brothers were paying her a lot of money to ensure that this evening went smoothly and if that meant that Leo Cartwright had to be located, then locate him she would. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing.

And so what if he had the faintly intimidating reputation of being formidable, ruthless and utterly devoid of emotion? He couldn’t be any trickier to handle than the last client she’d had, could he? She’d take cold, formidable and ruthless over a bad-tempered paranoid who’d accused her at virtually every meeting of, at best, wasting his money, at worst, siphoning some of it off.

‘Sure,’ she said briskly, mentally pulling on her big-girl pants and injecting steel into her spine. ‘No problem.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jake, and cut the call.

Swiping at her phone to lock the screen, Abby put it away and pushed herself off the desk. Then she smoothed her dress and adjusted her belt so that the bright silver bow once again sat exactly above her left hip bone.

Really, there was no need to feel awkward or uncomfortable or nervous about searching the rest of the flat, was there? She was just doing her job. She’d call ahead—loudly—and if Leo was in there he’d be alerted to her presence. He’d call back, she’d retreat and wait, and everything would be absolutely fine. There’d be no unwelcome surprises. No embarrassing moments. No inappropriate or foolish behaviour.

Satisfied with the plan, she checked her chignon for hair that might have escaped the pins, and then, pleased to find nothing amiss, picked up her clipboard and set off to investigate.

And while stomping to announce her arrival was never going to work given the deadening effect of the thick deep-pile carpet, perhaps a loud cheery hello would.

‘Hello, hello,’ she called brightly, and stuck her head round the door to a huge, immaculate but empty bedroom before moving to the next. ‘Anyone home?’ she trilled, but her quarry wasn’t there either.

Nor—perhaps thankfully—did she find him in the gorgeous bathroom that was practically the size of the ground floor of her house or, unsurprisingly enough, in the laundry cupboard.

Which left only one room to try.

Standing at the entrance to what she presumed was the master bedroom suite and her last hope, she listened for a moment for sounds that suggested he might be engaged in an activity she’d rather not disturb.

Blessedly hearing none, she rapped on the door that was ajar, and then, after taking a deep breath, went in.

And there he was.

Alone, thank goodness. But lying flat out on his back, sprawled diagonally across the bed, naked apart from a perilously small section of white bunched-up sheet that loosely covered him from waist to mid-thigh, and illuminated by a pool of soft light cast by the bedside lamp.

For one frozen heart-stopping moment Abby couldn’t work out what to do next. Which was odd because she always had a plan. Always. More than one, in fact; when it came to the events she organised she had plans to cover every imaginable eventuality. Her job, her success, depended on it, and so she never didn’t know what to do.

But now, as she looked at him, strangely unable to drag her gaze away, her mouth going dry and her heart thumping unnaturally fast, she couldn’t even think, let alone act because for some unfathomable reason her brain appeared to be having a bit of a wiring problem. Alarmingly, rational thought was heading for the hills. Her common sense was evaporating. And her unfailing capability to do her job was, well, for the first time in years, apparently failing.

The fast-disappearing professional side of her was dimly aware she should go and shake him awake and point out that he was late for his own party. But the sometime insomniac in her wanted to leave him to sleep, and the woman in her—who hadn’t been up close and personal to a man in six months and was now very much making herself known—was quite happy to just stand there and ogle for as long as it took him to wake up. Because with the broad muscled shoulders, the tanned hair-sprinkled chest and the long powerful legs that suggested the gym wasn’t just for show, Leo Cartwright was quite a sight.

Yet as she looked and dithered, the part of her that devoured TV hospital dramas began to wonder at the utter stillness of him, at the strong smell of stale alcohol that was wafting towards her and the absence of any rise and fall to his chest.

And it was this that made her brain finally engage, because, oh heavens, what if, by some horrible twist of fate, he weren’t simply asleep?

Propelled by a sudden surge of alarm and now no longer ogling, Abby sprang into action. Not bothering to weave her way through the clothes that were lying scattered all over the floor but instead ploughing straight through them and hardly even noticing, she reached the bed, dropped to her knees and leaned in close.

With the focus that had had her business making a profit in its first six months of operation she blanked out the horrible smell, the spark of sexual attraction and the nauseating panic. Everything, in fact, but the need to find out if he was OK.

As her pulse galloped she fixed her gaze on his mouth. Strained her ears. Waited. Listened …

And, after a couple of long heart-thumping seconds, was able to make out the very faint hiss of breath. Then, as she looked down, the beat of the pulse at the base of his neck, barely perceptible, but there.

Oh, thank goodness for that, she thought, sitting back on her heels and letting out a long slow breath of her own as the panic subsided and her heart rate returned to normal.

He wasn’t dead. Of course he wasn’t. He’d merely passed out, that was all. Which was such a relief, not least because while she might be a fan of TV hospital dramas she didn’t have the first clue about resuscitation apart from the fact that mouth-to-mouth was no longer thought to be necessary.

And wasn’t that a shame, because now she wasn’t watching it for signs of life she could see he had a great mouth. Well defined. Sexy.

Much like the rest of his face, she thought, her gaze drifting over his features. His nose was straight and his jaw firm. His cheekbones were sharp and his brows were as thick and dark as the tousled hair on his head. She could only guess at the colour of his eyes but his eyelashes were the kind that a woman who was sometimes strawberry blonde, sometimes ginger, and so had virtually invisible eyelashes, could only dream about.

It was a strong face. Gorgeous. And in sleep there didn’t seem anything cold, forbidding or ruthless about him at all. There certainly didn’t seem anything cold about his mouth. It looked warm. Soft. Lovely. Tempting. Very, very kissable, and there for the taking.

And whether it was because she’d just had the fright of her life and all kinds of emotions were rushing through her or whether it was because it had been so long since she’d been this close to a man she didn’t know, but for one crazy moment she wanted to lean forwards and take. Desperately.

At the thought of it, the intoxicating possibility of it, her head swam and her heart pounded and she very nearly did exactly that. Would have done had not the reason and common sense that had been eluding her slammed back into her head, making her freeze and jerk back as if suddenly jabbed with a red-hot poker because, oh, goodness, she’d actually started moving.

What the hell was she doing? she wondered, horror at her lack of control shooting through her. What was she thinking? Was she completely insane?

This wasn’t some kind of gender-reversed Sleeping flipping Beauty. Leo Cartwright wasn’t a prince. He was a client. One of her biggest to date, in fact. What if he’d woken up and found her leaning in for a kiss? He’d have been horrified. Appalled. Rightly so. He’d probably have fired her. Her reputation would have been in tatters, her career over, and the blood, sweat, tears and money she’d poured into the business would have been for nothing.

Abby shuddered as an icy sweat broke out all over her skin. God, it didn’t bear thinking about. Everything she’d worked for. Possibly gone. In a nanosecond of utter lunacy.

But it was fine, she assured herself, taking a deep calming breath and feeling the nausea churning around in her stomach subside. It had been a close call but she’d pulled herself back from the brink of madness and he hadn’t woken up. She’d got away with it. He’d never know what she’d so very nearly done. No one would. It was fine.

And so was she. She had to be. Because she was at work, for heaven’s sake. Work. So now wasn’t the time for panic, desire and random acts of insanity. In fact, now wasn’t the time to be anything other than Abby Summers, event planner extraordinaire. Professional, in control, and completely on top of him—things. God. On top of things.

Swallowing hard and ruthlessly ignoring the bolt of heat that rocketed through her at the thought of that, Abby gave herself a mental slap and pulled herself together because, really, this had to stop. It was ridiculous. She was ridiculous. And, quite frankly, she’d had enough.

So she yanked her shoulders back, set her jaw, scanned his upper body for a suitable target and absolutely did not think about how it might feel to run her fingers over his chest, his abdomen, maybe following the trail of her hands with her mouth, down, towards the sheet and then lower …

She blinked and snapped her gaze up. His arm would do. Right. She flexed her hands, leaned forwards and gave his biceps a quick prod.

‘Mr Cartwright,’ she murmured, her voice sounding unusually husky and weirdly seductive. ‘Leo.’

He grunted and shifted but he didn’t wake, and, remembering the bottle in the study, Abby wondered how much he’d had to drink. Then she cleared her throat, put her hand flat on his shoulder and, ignoring the heat of his skin and the hardness of his muscle beneath her palm, said his name again. But this time it was loudly and not in the least bit seductively, and the shake she gave him could have roused an elephant.

Which seemed to do the trick because with a bellow that made her nearly topple backwards in fright he twisted round, thrashed about a bit, then jackknifed up.

And just when she thought that the situation couldn’t get any worse, just when she thought her body had undergone enough physical wrangling for one evening, there went the sheet.

Abby’s gaze automatically shot down his chest to his partially exposed and—oh, Lord—very aroused crotch and, with a strangled yelp, she clapped her hand to her eyes, and thought with the one brain cell that hadn’t yet shut down in defeat, no unwelcome surprises? No embarrassing moments? And no inappropriate or foolish behaviour? Hah, who had she been kidding?

A second ago Leo had been asleep. That much he knew. Now he wasn’t. That much he knew too. Which was a shame because he’d been having the best dream about a warm woman who smelt of flowers and who’d been leaning over him, murmuring his name and—rather randomly but pleasingly—been just about to kiss him.

But something had disturbed him. Jolted him and roused him to the extent that he was now sitting bolt upright in bed, his pulse racing, his instincts dazed and confused and adrenalin shooting through his blood.

He raked his hands through his hair and gave his head a shake but it didn’t dispel the sleep-induced fuzziness, the bewilderment or the thundering of his heart.

What the hell had happened? he wondered dizzily. What had woken him? Not a nightmare, that was for sure. So had it been a noise? A movement? What?

Rolling his shoulders, Leo blinked once, twice, rubbed his gritty eyes with the heels of his hands as he struggled to work it out, and then, quite suddenly, he froze. His entire body tensed and his ears pricked because, hang on, what on earth was that?

It sounded like a breath. To his left. Being released, slowly, carefully, lengthily, as if the owner didn’t want him to hear, and ending in a sigh, a whimper, or maybe a moan.

Whatever it was, with the adrenalin still pumping through his veins, preparing his body and mind for fight, Leo dropped his hands and snapped his head round. And nearly leapt a foot in the air because there beside his bed, sitting back on her heels with one hand clamped over her eyes and the other clasped to her chest, was a woman. Slim, reddish-blonde and wearing a dark blue dress with a bow thing tied round her waist. Unknown, uninvited and apparently in as much shock as he was.

Glancing down and seeing the dramatic effect that the dream he’d been having had had on him—which was presumably the reason she’d covered her eyes and explained the harsh, ragged breathing that was making her chest heave—Leo grabbed the sheet and yanked it over his lap.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he snapped, his voice rough with sleep and astonishment.

‘Abby Summers,’ she said quickly, hoarsely.

The name didn’t ring any bells, but then maybe that wasn’t surprising because nothing was ringing any bells right now apart from the fact that he was naked and not alone. ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’

‘Looking for you.’

‘On your knees?’

‘Long story,’ she said. ‘Not important.’

Wasn’t it? Who knew? Leo could barely think straight, let alone work out what might or might not be of importance here. He was too busy processing the fact that there was a strange woman in his bedroom, on the floor with her eyes covered and her breath coming in tiny gasps, making him think of blindfolds and what her gasps might turn into if he suggested she join him actually on the bed instead of beside it. All of which was so unbelievably out of character, so wholly inappropriate and so crazily beyond the realms of his usually rock-solid self-control, his brain would have reeled had it been up to it.

‘How did you get in?’ he muttered, totally thrown by how badly he wanted to grab her and roll her beneath him when he knew absolutely nothing about her or why she was here, and thinking that, damn, that dream had a lot to answer for.

‘The lift.’

‘It’s locked.’

‘Your brother gave me his key card.’

His brother? Huh? Now what was going on? Leo rubbed a hand over his face in an effort to wake himself up and get a grip on things. ‘Jake did?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded and the light caught her hair, making it glint gold—no, copper—no, gold—and, momentarily distracted, he wondered what it would be like to pull it down and run his fingers through it. If it would feel as silky and soft as it looked. How many words there were to describe its colour.

Flexing his fingers, then folding his arms and shoving his hands into his armpits just in case they got ideas, Leo hauled his concentration—such as it was—back on track. ‘Why?’

‘So I could come up and find you, of course,’ she said as if it couldn’t be clearer, which it wasn’t.

But the mention of his brother seemed to have triggered his memory because snippets of the last conversation he and Jake had had were filtering into his head, slowly lifting the fog of confusion and, ah-h-h, now it was all becoming clear.

The time of year.

His mood.

The mention his brother had made of a gift.

Evidently Jake had followed up on his promise, and therefore Leo knew exactly who Abby Whoever-She-Was was, and what she was here for.

‘Right,’ he muttered, not really up to working out how he felt about what his brother had done. ‘I get it. You’re here to cheer me up.’

There was a pause, during which he watched her mouth open, close, then open again to emit a slightly startled, ‘What?’

‘Jake said he was going to send me something to make me feel better,’ he said flatly. ‘And here you are, all dressed up like a gift. In my bedroom. Virtually in my bed. So who are you? Someone who owes him a favour? One of his desperate-to-please exes? Or a professional?’

CHAPTER TWO

FOR WHAT FELT like the longest time Abby didn’t say anything. Didn’t do anything. She couldn’t. She was speechless. Stunned into immobility.

So much for explaining why she was really here, as she’d been about to. And so much for thinking that she was muddling through what was a hideously awkward situation reasonably all right.

That assumption had been well and truly shot out of the water because had he really just said what she thought he’d said? Implied what she thought he’d implied? Did he really think that she’d been sent to seduce him? In a professional capacity? Supplied by his brother?

Her mind was blank with shock and she was reeling all over again because OK, so he didn’t know who she was—the meetings she’d had had always been with Jake, who was the face of the company while Leo very firmly remained in the background, and from what she understood he’d been away a lot of the time anyway—but seriously? Didn’t he recognise her name? Hadn’t he received any of her emails? And was this really the way his supposedly razor-sharp brain worked?

With her jaw about to hit the floor, Abby quite forgot the purpose of the hand-to-eye combo, which wasn’t just to protect his modesty but also to stop her from ogling his body, lowered her hand and stared at him.

And immediately wished she hadn’t because prone and passed out he’d been impressive, but sitting upright, radiating energy, tension, and well, sheer presence, he practically robbed her of breath, never mind speech.

Not that he was exactly waiting for an answer even if she had been able to provide one. No. Now, to add insult to injury, he appeared to be checking her out, looking her over, slowly, lazily and thoroughly, his gaze sliding from her eyes to her mouth to her breasts and lower, lingering over every available inch of her.

And dammit if her body didn’t begin to respond to his scrutiny. To her appal, she could feel it happening. The heat pooling in her stomach. The tingles prickling her skin. The tension winding through her muscles and the beginnings of desire, intoxicating and heady and so inappropriate on so many levels she didn’t know who she was more disgusted with, herself or him.

‘Well?’ he asked, finally raising dark, inscrutable eyes to hers and arching an eyebrow.

‘I’m none of the above,’ she said tartly, silently adding you obnoxious jerk and feeling her estimation of him—which had previously been pretty high given everything he and his brother had achieved—plummet through every one of the thirty floors that lay between them and solid ground.

‘No?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Well, whatever you are,’ he said flatly, ‘you’ve had a wasted journey because I’m not interested.’

And, wham, there was another insult.

Abby swallowed back a gasp and tried not to recoil at the bolt of—what was that? Disappointment? Couldn’t be. Hurt? No way. Outrage? Definitely. That was what it was. She was outraged. Offended. Incensed.

And she’d had enough. Certainly of being on the floor and having him looking down on her with such dry disdain, such ice-cold superiority when he was so totally, so unbelievably in the wrong.

Setting her jaw and trying to formulate a response that wouldn’t cost her her job, she grabbed her clipboard and, holding it to her middle like some sort of a shield, stood up.

‘Actually,’ she said, fixing a cool smile to her face and just about keeping a lid on the urge to tell him exactly what she thought of him because however much of a jerk he was he was still a client, and an influential one at that, ‘I am here in a professional capacity, just not the one you’re thinking of.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m an event organiser,’ she said, then added pointedly, ‘Your event organiser. And you’re paying me a lot for the privilege, so there’s absolutely nothing “gifty” about it at all.’

There followed a couple of seconds of silence as presumably this sank into his seriously warped brain and then something that she hoped might be mortification flickered across his face.

‘My event organiser,’ he echoed with a faint frown, as if it was taking considerable effort to assimilate the information, which maybe it was because his head was clearly a mess. But, ooh, she didn’t like the way he emphasised the ‘my’, whether he’d meant it that way or not.

‘Yours and Jake’s,’ she clarified, then added in a tone so chilly it could have frozen the Sahara, ‘And just in case we’re still not clear, the event I’ve organised for this evening is your Christmas-slash-ten-year-anniversary party taking place right now downstairs. The party you’re meant to be at. Thanking your staff for all their hard work this year, celebrating your success, and generally being around looking full of festive cheer.’ Instead of being upstairs, unconscious as the result of a drinking spree and then flinging potentially slanderous allegations about the place.

His jaw tightened, his dark eyes narrowed and she thought that she’d never seen anyone less full of festive cheer, but that wasn’t her problem.

‘What time is it?’ he asked.

‘Seven.’

He swore and raked his hands through his hair and she kept her eyes firmly on his face, not lowering them to watch the play of muscles and the stretch of his chest caused by the gesture for even a second. ‘I overslept,’ he muttered with a frown.

If that was the way he wanted to put it, she thought, swallowing hard and locking her knees because she might have peeked just for a moment and she might be feeling a bit faint, then that was up to him. If he thought it all right to drink himself into oblivion and shirk his responsibilities, then fine. ‘Apparently so.’

‘Long night,’ he said with a faint apologetic smile that didn’t mollify her in the slightest. ‘And an even longer day. On top of some pretty hideous jet lag.’

‘None of my business,’ she said, as interested in his excuses as much as she was interested in why he hadn’t had a woman in his bed for years. Which was absolutely not at all. ‘What is my business is that dinner’s in half an hour and people are wondering where you are, which is why Jake sent me to look for you.’

He nodded and rubbed a hand along his jaw. ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ she asked a bit archly because there seemed to be an awful lot he hadn’t seen in the last ten minutes, such as the clipboard, which surely marked her out as anything other than a lady of the night and to which she was now clinging as if it were a reminder to keep a grip on the self-control that was badly in danger of unravelling. ‘Really? Well, that’s great. And now I have found you, I’ll be going.’

She shot him a quick, professional smile and then turned on her heel because she really had to get out of there before she either said or, worse, did something she’d regret, only to jerk to a halt when he said, ‘Wait.’

‘What?’ she said, swivelling round and seeing his smile deepen and turn into something so unexpected, so lethally attractive, that she went all hot and dizzy and once again forgot that she was anything other than a woman badly in need of kissing.

‘I believe I owe you an apology.’

She blinked, totally thrown by the switch in his demean-our and the change to his features, but somehow managed to keep that smile fixed to her face. ‘Accepted.’

‘I was out of order. Not thinking straight. Half asleep.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Forget it. I have. Now if you’ll excuse me, I ought to be getting back to the party, so I’ll tell Jake you’ll be down in, what, ten minutes?’

Leo ran a hand through his hair and then grimaced, his smile turning from lethal to wry, although no less devastating for it, and Abby steeled herself against its effect before taking a hasty step back towards the door, towards escape.

‘As for some reason I appear to smell like a distillery,’ he said dryly, ‘you’d better make it twenty.’

Twenty minutes might have been long enough to wash away the foul smell of stale whisky and douse the heat and desire that Abby had unexpectedly conjured up in him, but it wasn’t nearly long enough to figure out what the hell had been going on with him back there in his bedroom.

Tugging his cuffs out from beneath the sleeves of his jacket, Leo set his jaw and strode into the lift, the excruciating details of the last half an hour or so slamming into his head all over again.

Had he really accused her of basically being a prostitute? Had he really thought Jake would organise something like that? And had he really not only eyed her up but actually, for the briefest, maddest moment while overwhelmed by inexplicable lust, seriously considered taking her up on an offer that wasn’t even on the table?

What was the matter with him?

Feeling strangely short of breath in a way that had nothing to do with the faster-than-lightning descent of the lift, Leo ran a finger around the inside of his collar to ease it and wished he could wipe the whole mortifying scene from his brain.

There were faintly mitigating circumstances, it was true. His brain had been fogged up with sleep and he’d been disorientated. In something of a state of shock and very confused. And then there was the fact that he was absolutely exhausted as a result of work, travel and the time of the year, which always gave him sleepless nights and set him on edge.

But was any of that an excuse? No, it wasn’t. If he’d been thinking clearly he’d have waited for her to explain, would have given her at least the nanosecond of a chance before rushing in with his ridiculous assumptions. He’d have clocked the clipboard earlier and probably come to a very different conclusion.

He’d certainly have kept his mouth shut. Silence was an excellent and effective weapon, he knew that, and if only his brain hadn’t been completely addled he wouldn’t have dug himself into a hole so deep that, despite her apparent acceptance of his apology, he wasn’t sure he’d got out of it.

But then he hadn’t been thinking clearly. Or rationally. He hadn’t been thinking at all. At least not with his head. For the majority of their encounter he’d been thinking with a different part of his anatomy entirely.

At the image of Abby standing there, beautiful blue eyes flashing while she set him straight, magnificent in her indignation and her efforts to hide it, a wave of heat surged through him, making his pulse spike and, to his frustration, his body harden.

Ruthlessly deleting the image, Leo reminded himself of the ice-cold shower he’d just taken, and as the lift doors opened and he stepped out he decided to delete the rest of the episode up there in his bedroom too, because how the hell was he supposed to get through this evening if he kept remembering how much he’d wanted to take her to bed?

Doing up the button of his dinner jacket, he strode in the direction of the venue for tonight’s celebrations, searching for the clarity of thought and steely self-control he’d always taken for granted and just about finding it.

There was nothing he could do to undo what had happened, he reasoned, but with any luck his and Abby’s paths wouldn’t cross again. She’d be working and he’d be doing the thanking of his staff and attempting—though probably failing—to dispense the festive cheer she’d mentioned. Once the evening was over he’d never have to think of her or his fifteen minutes of complete mental meltdown ever again.

Taking a certain amount of comfort from that, Leo felt the churning in his stomach subside and the mess in his head dissolve, and walked through the double doors that led into the room that was being used to serve drinks and canapés.

Inwardly wincing at the noise level—which had to be ten times anything he’d ever encountered on a building site—he accepted a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, and set about draining it in the hope it might obliterate the memory of that humiliating half an hour in his bedroom.

‘Good of you to make it,’ came a dry, amused voice from his left that had him jolting mid-swallow and nearly choking on the champagne.

‘Thanks for that,’ said Leo, once he’d recovered from both the champagne going down the wrong way and his brother’s efforts to rectify the situation, which had involved a lot of back thumping and drink spillage.

‘Sorry,’ said Jake, not sounding in the slightest bit apologetic. ‘So what kept you?’

‘Jet lag,’ he muttered. ‘Knocked me for six.’

‘Ah. I did wonder. I thought you might be deliberately avoiding the party.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘You hate them.’

That was true, but, ‘This isn’t a party,’ he said. ‘This is work.’

‘Try telling that to our guests.’

Leo swapped his empty glass for a full one, took a long gulp and forced himself to focus. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, his gaze drifting over the throngs of people all drinking and eating and full of the Christmas spirit he found so hard to muster up while he identified staff members, clients, architects, planning officers and financiers among the guests, and resolutely did not look for a certain slim, strawberry blonde event organiser.

‘Pretty good so far.’ Jake helped himself to something that looked like a mini Yorkshire pudding. ‘Thanks to Abby,’ he added. ‘Whom you’ve met, I gather.’

‘I have,’ said Leo, annoyed with himself for being tempted to seek her out when she shouldn’t even be crossing his mind, and then thinking that actually ‘met’ wasn’t quite the word he’d have used. Insulted. That was probably an appropriate one. Or offended. That would work equally well.

‘What did you think of her?’

He thought she was gorgeous. Sexy. Very very beddable. ‘I didn’t think anything of her, particularly,’ he said, his voice not betraying a hint of the lie. ‘Why?’

Jake wiped his fingers on a napkin and grinned. ‘Just wondering.’

‘What do you think of her?’ asked Leo before he could stop himself.

‘She’s great. Extremely capable. Has a knack for knowing exactly what’s needed, a talent for solving problems with the minimum amount of fuss and a rare ability to stick to the budget. Plus, she’s single and incredibly hot.’

Leo felt his jaw tighten for a second but channelled nonchalance he really didn’t feel and said, as if he couldn’t give a toss, ‘Is she? I hadn’t noticed.’ Which was another lie because like hell he hadn’t.

Jake grinned. ‘No, well, you wouldn’t, would you? A dozen naked women could parade right in front of you and you’d be oblivious.’

‘I prefer subtlety.’

‘As I don’t, I might ask her for a dance later.’

‘Go for it,’ said Leo, just about managing not to grit his teeth.

‘Although I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if she said no.’

‘Why?’

When Jake didn’t immediately answer, Leo glanced over to find his brother looking at him questioningly. ‘What the hell happened up there?’

Hmm.

Leo picked up a tiny blini topped with sour cream and caviar and ate it slowly, largely to give himself time to work out how he was going to respond, because wasn’t that the question of the night? And one to which there was no answer, because for one thing he still hadn’t entirely worked it out, and for another, hell would freeze over before he shared the details of the misunderstanding that made him look like such a complete and utter fool with anyone, least of all his no-holds-barred brother.

‘What do you mean, what happened up there?’ he said evenly, deciding that bluffing was the only way through this. ‘Nothing happened up there.’

‘Right,’ said Jake, clearly not believing him for a second. ‘Then why did Abby come down looking like thunder?’

Leo shrugged and kept his eyes on the party. ‘No idea,’ he said and took another gulp of champagne.

‘What did you do?’

‘Why would you think I did anything?’

‘It’s that time of year. Makes you morose. Edgy. Unpredictable. But more than that, she was fine when I asked her to go up and find you.’

‘Maybe she had a call. Maybe something’s gone wrong with the catering. Who knows?’

There was a pause and Leo glanced at Jake to find him looking back shrewdly. ‘I think I might have some idea.’

Leo went still, his fingers tightening around the stem of his glass as his pulse sped up. Had Abby said something? Given Jake a minute-by-minute account of what had happened? And were there perhaps ramifications to what he’d done? Hadn’t people been sued for less?

‘Really?’ he said, hedging his bets but bracing himself for the worst.

Jake nodded. ‘Yup. She’s a perfectionist. She doesn’t like things to go wrong.’

‘No, well, what event planner would?’

‘So perhaps finding you passed out after a drinking session piqued her sense of responsibility and orderliness.’

Leo frowned and wondered if his brain was still on go-slow because what on earth was Jake on about? What drinking session? ‘Passed out?’ he echoed.

‘That was her guess.’

‘It was the wrong one.’

‘You should have mentioned the jet lag,’ said Jake dryly. ‘Then she might have been a little less disapproving.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Leo, wishing that his state of sobriety had been the only misunderstanding of the night.

‘Why, what else happened?’ said Jake, and Leo mentally kicked himself for forgetting that while his brother sometimes came across as being so laid-back he was horizontal, he also had a sky-high IQ and an irritating talent for zooming in on things that one might prefer to be glossed over.

‘There may have been a slight misunderstanding,’ he said, resigning himself to the knowledge that he was going to have to divulge at least something of the events of half an hour ago because Jake could be surprisingly tenacious when the mood took him.

‘What kind of misunderstanding?’

‘Nothing important, and it was cleared up.’

‘Did it involve me?’

‘Why would you think it involved you?’

‘Because when she was telling me you were on your way down she kept giving me the filthiest looks. It made me want to ditch the champagne and break into the bottle of single malt I was planning on giving to you.’

Leo went still. ‘Single malt?’

‘To drown your woes and cheer you up. The present I was talking about to get you through Christmas.’

‘That was the present?’

‘Of course. What else would I have meant?’

What else indeed? Damn. He really had got things wrong. Badly badly wrong.

‘Are you all right?’

Leo snapped back to find his brother watching him closely. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘You’ve gone pale and you’re frowning.’

‘I’m fine.’ Or he would be once he’d come to terms with the realisation that for the first time in years he’d abandoned logic, reason and self-control, and had basically totally lost his mind.

What the hell was wrong with him this evening? he wondered for what felt like the hundredth time. Was it really merely jet lag and the time of year? Or was he coming down with something? Something he’d picked up on his travels maybe?

More to the point, why was Jake looking at him like that?

‘Oh, my God,’ said his brother, his jaw dropping as his expression turned to one of disbelief. ‘You didn’t.’

‘I didn’t what?’

‘Think Abby was the present.’

‘Of course not,’ said Leo with a short laugh that didn’t sound as dismissive as he’d intended.

‘You did.’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘I’m not the one being absurd. You did. You really did. And you claim to prefer subtlety.’

As this was a conversation he really didn’t want to be having Leo ran a hand along his jaw, shifted his attention to the party going on in front of them and, in a probably pointless effort at distraction, said, ‘Did I mention how great this place looks? Excellent tree.’

‘Forget the decorations,’ said Jake, sounding astounded, incredulous and appalled. ‘How on earth could you think I’d ever do something like that?’

Leo arched an eyebrow and swung his gaze back to his brother. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’

Jake looked as stunned as if he’d thumped him in the stomach. ‘What?’

‘Remember the stripper?’

‘That was twelve years ago,’ said his brother, after a moment. ‘For a mate for his eighteenth birthday, and he’d specifically requested it. Don’t you think I might have matured a bit since then?’ He ran his hands through his hair and then shook his head in disbelief. ‘Jeez,’ he said, blowing out a breath. ‘Thanks for that. I think I might be seriously offended.’

‘I think Abby might have been too.’

There was another stunned silence as Jake stared at him apparently briefly lost for words. ‘You confronted her with it?’

Leo shrugged, keeping the cringing very firmly on the inside. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. Half asleep, in fact. Disorientated. Like I said, jet lag.’

‘Not an excuse.’

‘I know.’

‘How did she take it?’

‘How do you think?’

Jake, who wasn’t nearly as good as Leo at containing his emotions, winced. ‘Did you apologise?’

‘Yes.’

‘And explain?’

‘I didn’t get the chance. She didn’t stick around.’

Now he thought about it, he hadn’t had a woman flee from him quite so fast since the excruciating afternoon exactly five years ago when Lisa had raced back down the aisle the wrong way, leaving him standing, jilted, at the altar. But he could hardly blame Abby. He’d probably been lucky to get away without a slap to the face.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Jake.

‘Neither am I.’

There was a moment’s silence during which Jake, presumably struggling to come to terms with what had happened, gave his head a couple more shakes in disbelief. Then he sobered, fixed Leo with a look that spoke volumes and said, ‘So do you think it’s going to be a problem?’

‘Not if I can help it,’ said Leo darkly as a pair of doors swung open and dinner was announced.

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