About the Authors

CLARE CONNELLY was raised in small-town Australia among a family of avid readers. She spent much of her childhood up a tree, Harlequin book in hand. Clare is married to her own real-life hero, and they live in a bungalow near the sea with their two children. She is frequently found staring into space—a surefire sign that she’s in the world of her characters. She has a penchant for French food and ice-cold champagne, and Harlequin novels continue to be her favorite-ever books. Writing for Harlequin is a long-held dream. Clare can be contacted via clareconnelly.com or her Facebook page.

DYLAN ROSE is a writer from New York City who is obsessed with watching romantic comedies, taking hot baths on cold nights and finding the perfect red lipstick. Her debut novel for Harlequin DARE is Take Me On. Follow her adventures on Instagram, @DylanRoseRomance.

The Deal & Turn Me On

Clare Connelly and Dylan Rose

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90114-1

THE DEAL & TURN ME ON

The Deal © 2019 Harlequin Books S.A. Turn Me On © 2019 Dylan Rose

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

The Deal

Back Cover Text

Booklist

THE BILLIONAIRES CLUB

Dedication

PROLOGUE

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

Turn Me On

Back Cover Text

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

About the Publisher

The Deal

Clare Connelly

In the final installment of The Billionaires Club quartet, British playboy billionaire Nicholas Rothsmore makes a deal that Billionaires Club owner Imogen Carmichael can’t refuse—four weeks of pleasure!

One night of decadent, anonymous sex in the superluxe Billionaires Club—that was the deal. Then we would go back to our busy lives, free of entanglements. How could I have known it would be the most intense sex of my life? A night that left me with a gnawing need only she could satisfy…

Miss Anonymous wanted to remain that way. But as the Rothsmore heir, I’ve learned that money can buy pretty much anything…including the help of Billionaires Club and Chance charity owner Imogen Carmichael. I was beyond surprised when the hardworking, straitlaced entrepreneur turned out to be the same woman who’d donned a pink wig, stilettos and a mask and taken me to unexpected heights!

Now I’m offering her a new deal: in return for helping me enjoy my last four weeks of freedom before I assume my family duties and marry the most appropriate candidate, I’ll educate her in the art of seduction, satisfying her every whim with four weeks of exquisite sex. Four weeks with the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met. Four weeks that will have to last a lifetime…

Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

Also by Clare Connelly

Guilty as Sin

Her Guilty Secret

His Innocent Seduction

The Notorious Harts

Cross My Hart

Available now!

Burn My Hart

Harden My Hart

Unbreak My Hart

Coming soon from Mills & Boon DARE!

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

THE BILLIONAIRES CLUB

Exclusive. Elite. Always discreet.

Welcome to the Billionaires Club! Join the members of this elite club—Ash, Seb, Orla and Imogen—as they get up to exciting, sinfully sexy and downright dirty naughtiness at exclusive, international and glamorous events. Let the debauchery begin!

Have you received your invitation yet?

Enter the world of the Billionaires Club:

The Debt by Jackie Ashenden

The Risk by Caitlin Crews

The Proposition by JC Harroway

The Deal by Clare Connelly

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

For Sharon Villone Doucett, who was one of the first

readers to find my books, and who has been such a

champion and supporter ever since.

PROLOGUE

Five years earlier, Becksworth Hall,

Wiltshire, England

‘YOU’RE A ROTHSMORE, for Christ’s sake.’

My father is perhaps the only person more apoplectic than I am.

‘She is aware of that.’ Surprisingly, my voice comes out clear and calm, even when I feel as if I’ve run a marathon. I reach for the Scotch on autopilot, topping up my glass. My hand shakes a little. Shock, I suppose.

And I am shocked.

‘This isn’t like Saffron.’ My mother wrings her gloved hands in front of her pale peach suit, the wedding corsage still crisp and fragrant. I reach for my own in the buttonhole of my jet-black tuxedo jacket, and dislodge it roughly, pleased when the pearl-tipped pin snags on my finger. A perfect circle of burgundy blood stains the white rose at the decoration’s centre.

‘How do you know, Mother?’

I don’t mean to sound so derisive, but in the four hours since my cousin received a text from my bride’s best friend explaining that the love of my life wasn’t going to be showing up to our wedding, I’ve had to endure more platitudes and Saffron-defending than I can stand.

‘Well, she’s…’ Antoinette Rothsmore struggles to describe Saffron. There are any number of words I could offer. Suitable. Wealthy. Privileged. Appropriate. Beautiful. Cultured. Words that describe why my parents introduced us and cheered from the sidelines as we hooked up. But the reason we got engaged is simple.

I love her. And she’s left me.

‘Nice,’ my mother finishes, lamely.

Saffron is nice.

Too nice for me?

Perhaps.

I haven’t seen her in three days, but when I did, she was in full preparation mode for our wedding, reminding me that the photographer from OK! magazine would be coming to take pictures of the party so not to let my groomsmen get too messed up on Scotch before the ceremony.

I throw back the single malt and grip the glass tightly. How many have I had? Not enough to make this feel like a distant dream.

‘Nobody does this to a Rothsmore.’ My father’s face has turned a deep shade of puce. I’d think it’s sweet that he cares so much except I don’t for a second imagine he cares about the fact I just had my heart handed to me in tatters in front of five hundred of Europe’s elite. Princes, dukes, CEOs—everyone.

Not that I care about the embarrassment. I care about Saffy. I care about the fact we were supposed to be married and she’s sent me a ‘Dear John’ text via a friend and my cousin.

‘What would you like to do, Father? Sue her?’

‘If only,’ he snaps, then shakes his head. ‘Though the last thing this family wants is a scandal. Damn it, Nicholas. What did you do to her?’

I blink, his question something I haven’t considered.

What did I do to her?

Is it possible I said or did something to turn her away?

No.

This isn’t about me.

This is pure Saffron. Passionate, affectionate, changeable.

I grimace, rubbing a hand over my jaw, neatly trimmed just the way Saffron likes.

I fix Gerald with a firm stare. ‘I did nothing, Father, except agree to marry the woman you chose for me.’ I don’t say the rest. That I fell head over heels in love with her as well.

We used to laugh about the nature of our relationship—how we both knew it was a heavy-handed set-up from our parents. How their interference was like something out of a nursery rhyme. Except we were going to have the last laugh, because we were in love.

We were in love.

When had I started believing in love? What kind of goddamned idiot fool have I become to worship at the altar of something so childish?

I snap the Scotch glass down against the table, a little louder and harder than I intend, and I see my mother jump in my peripheral vision.

I’ve been an idiot.

There’s no such thing as love. No such thing as ‘happily ever after’. No such thing as ‘meant for each other’.

And suddenly, all I want is to get away from this. From my parents and their expectations, from this life I’ve been groomed all my life to lead. I want to get away from Saffy, from our wedding, from my damned broken heart.

I want to get drunk, and then I want to get laid—one way or another I’m going to forget Saffy ever existed.

I stumble a little as I head for the door. ‘Where are you going?’ My mother, behind me, is anxious-sounding.

‘Get Alf to fire up the jet.’ I hear my own words, slightly slurred.

‘But why? You can’t leave. What if Saffron comes looking for you?’

I prop an arm on the doorjamb for support, blinking at my mother for several long seconds. ‘Then I won’t fucking be here.’

CHAPTER ONE

Five years later, Sydney, Australia

OH, MY GOD. Oh, my God, Oh, my God. There’s an ancient grandfather clock against the far wall and it ticks loudly, but I can barely hear it over the desperate rushing of blood in my ears. Am I really going to do this?

The intimate rooms are perfectly climate controlled—it’s cool in here but that’s not why my skin is marked with delicate goose bumps. I run my hands over my naked legs, waxed and oiled so they’re smooth and soft in honour of this assignation.

It’s not too late to change your mind, my brain shouts at me.

But I don’t really want to change my mind. I made the decision to do this months ago, meticulously planning every detail in order to give myself one night of passion. To give myself a life—even just for one night. It’s been too long since I’ve had anything even remotely resembling a life. Too long since I’ve let go and enjoyed myself.

I still have too much to do, too much to achieve and, despite the tremendous growth and success of the charity, I want more. I need more. Faster, bigger. My charity is my all, and I’m happy with that.

But my body. Oh, my body. Lately, something seems to have awoken in me, a curiosity, a need I no longer seem able to deny. I want to get laid. No, I want to have sex. Really fantastic sex, and then I want to change back into my signature gown, swan out of this room and become, once more, the woman the world expects me to be.

I flick my gaze to the clock across the room. There are three minutes to go. Three minutes until Nicholas Rothsmore the Third arrives to seduce me.

My heart bounces against my ribs. I swallow. I need more champagne. No. No more champagne. I only had two sips at the party—I know better than to get drunk at something like this.

It’s work for me, not play—though I have perfected the art of looking as if I’m playing when I’m not.

But this? Being here in Room Six, the sumptuous décor the last word in elegance and sophistication, dressed only in lingerie, waiting for a man I know solely through the club’s exclusive, private online forum?

My pulse notches up a gear.

I’m waiting to have sex with a stranger.

Not just a stranger.

I lie back against the bed, my eyes sweeping shut as I picture the man in question. Nicholas Rothsmore the Third isn’t just a man. He’s unbelievably sexy, all tousled hair and rock-hard abs, and a firmly committed playboy. Who better to have one delicious sexual encounter with, no questions asked, before going back to my real life?

I lift a hand to check the bright pink wig is firmly in place, tucked all around the hairline as my stylist showed me, so there’s no risk of movement. It’s soft and silky, the hair falling in waves to my shoulders. My mask is bright silver and covers not just my eyes, but lower on my face as well, stopping just above my lips, in keeping with the masquerade ball theme downstairs. Of course, I have a separate mask stashed in the wardrobe across the room, as well as my distinctive couture gown, to avoid any likelihood that Nicholas recognises me, after.

After.

Such a delicious word loaded with promise. After this. After sex.

My heart is hammering so hard now I’m surprised it hasn’t beaten a hole through the wall of my chest.

I can’t have anyone know I’m doing this.

I never get involved with clients, and Nicholas is one of the club’s most prominent members. The last thing I want is to do anything to undermine the club or my charity. Chance is the reason for all of this.

I doubt anyone has any idea how hard I work behind the scenes. On the surface, I’m Imogen Carmichael, entrepreneur and socialite—my mother’s daughter. But behind closed doors, when other people my age are falling in love, getting married, having babies, or even just getting wasted and falling in and out of God knows whose bed, I’m working. I’m working on Chance, I’m working on it, for it, every waking minute, and there’s still so much more to do. We’re nationwide now, but I want more—there are children all over the world who need what we offer. I’ve been toying with the idea of opening a London branch for over six months now but I know it’s going to take a lot of my time and spread me kind of thin.

That’s my focus. That’s my life.

It’s why this night is perfect for me. It’s one night, and with a guy I know to be as interested in serious relationships as I am. Which is to say, not at all. He’s perfect one-night stand material, and excitement is shifting through me.

How long has it been since I was with a guy, anyway?

My lips tug downward as I consider that. At least three years. No! Nearly four. Jackson and I broke up just before Christmas.

Yes, it’s been a long time and, at nearly thirty, if I don’t take control of this, I’m going to grow my virginity back. That’s a thing, right? I’m sure I read it in one of those glossy magazines at the airport lounge a while ago. Okay, maybe nothing that drastic, but I am in danger of forgetting what it’s like to be touched, kissed, driven wild with pleasure.

And I miss sex. I don’t want a relationship, though God knows there are times when I wish I had someone I could talk to, someone I could bounce ideas off. But I don’t have the headspace for a boyfriend. Where would I even fit a relationship into my life? And what would that do to Chance?

One day, maybe. When the charity is big enough to run without me, when we’re fully established—and not just in America, around the world—maybe then I’ll open myself up to something more. But I’m a long way from that, and I’m not going to do anything that might risk what I’ve spent my life building. I owe it to Abbey to keep my focus, to make this a true success.

The quietest noise sounds, but it might as well have been the tolling of a bell. I’m hyperaware of everything in that moment and I sit up, then push to standing, the stilettos I kicked off by the bed waiting for me. I slip them on and catch my reflection in the mirror across the room.

Holy crap.

I look…like sex on legs. I look like someone who does this all the time. The corset is firm at my back and pushes my breasts up, like two pale orbs, and my legs are curvy and slim. The wig completes the look and the mask adds an element of decadence that is just perfect for The Billionaires’ Club.

‘Knock, knock.’ His cultured British tone would be haughty if it weren’t for the permanent husk that thickens his words. ‘Is there a Miss Anonymous in there?’ My tummy squeezes at his sexy, teasing voice.

‘Yeah.’ My own voice comes out high-pitched. I suck in a deep breath, cross the plush carpet to the door and grip the handle. It’s cold beneath my touch. I count to ten slowly, a trick I learned in school, when my nerves used to get away from me.

Slowly, I draw the door inward, my heart unbearably loud and urgent now.

And at the sight of him, it skids to a stop.

A bead of anxiety runs through me. We planned this secretly on the forum, and my only condition was anonymity. He isn’t to know who I am—in fact, I went out of my way to create the impression that I’m some bored housewife just looking to get my rocks off. Naturally, he had no objections to that—if I know one thing for certain about Nicholas it’s that he doesn’t do commitment or serious.

Which makes him perfect for this. For tonight.

‘Come in,’ I invite, waving my hand towards the room. These Intimate Rooms were designed with seduction in mind and they have everything a couple could need for a sensual encounter. The bed is bigger than a king, laid with thousand-thread-count sheets. There’s a fridge stocked with the finest French champagne money can’t buy, a luxurious en suite bathroom with a spa bath and fragrant oils, and members are invited to request a bespoke ‘toy chest’ if their tastes run in that direction.

Nicholas requested handcuffs and seeing that on the booking sheet two days earlier made my body break out in a sweat. A good sweat. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

He swaggers into the room, his navy-blue suit slim-fitting and flattering to his trim and toned frame. His eyes take in the room, though I’m sure he’s been here before. He crosses to the window—the thick black velvet blinds are drawn for privacy. He flicks the blinds open a little, showing a slice of Sydney Harbour, the unique Opera House right outside the window.

I’m nervous.

Beyond nervous.

I’m full of doubts and desire in equal measure.

I have literally never done anything like this in my entire life.

My tummy loops into a billion knots.

‘So.’ He turns to face me, his lips flicking in the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen. My insides burst a little. ‘What shall I call you?’

‘Miss Anonymous is fine.’ My voice sounds so prudish and disapproving. I force a smile.

‘Anon for short?’ he quips, moving to the fridge as he discards his jacket over the back of the black velvet armchair.

I nod quickly. ‘Whatever.’ My name doesn’t matter.

‘You seem nervous.’

Crap. So much for seeming cool and in control. My lips curve into a small smile; his eyes drop to them. My throat goes dry. ‘I am, a little.’ When all else is lost, go for honesty.

‘Why?’

He lifts the top off the champagne expertly and pours two generous glasses. He turns to me, his eyes dragging down from the tip of my head and performing the slowest, most sensual inspection I can imagine. As his eyes shift over my body, I feel as though he’s touching me even when he’s on the other side of the room.

Slowly, so slowly, he lingers on the generous curves of my breasts, my nipped-in, corseted waist, my hips and lower, so heat flushes my cheeks and I’m grateful for the face mask I wear.

Lower, lower, over my legs, until, at my ankles, he grins. ‘Nice shoes.’

I lift a foot, to dislodge one, but he shakes his head, his eyes flying to mine. ‘Leave them on. For now.’

My pulse races. Anyone who knows me—who knows me as I really am—knows I’m not one to be told what to do. But for some reason, the idea of momentarily relinquishing control is kind of empowering and very appealing. I do as he says, leaving the shoes in place. He lifts a finger and bends it, signalling silently for me to join him.

I walk across to him with what I hope passes for a seductive stroll, a feline smile on my lips the closer I get. Here, just a foot or so away from him, I breathe in and taste the masculine fragrance he wears—woody and alpine and intoxicatingly sensual. His shirt is crisp white and at the cuffs he wears shining black cufflinks, which I have every reason to suspect are diamonds.

When someone applies to join The Billionaires’ Club, we run a detailed background check to maintain our exclusivity and privacy. I mean, membership comes with an annual fee of a million dollars, plus the buy-in, so I know the members can get their hands on serious cash, but we need to know more than that. Criminal records, credit history, scandals, everything.

So I know Nicholas Rothsmore’s background, probably better than most who just presume he’s a playboy bachelor living off his family’s considerable wealth. Sure, he was born with the proverbial silver spoon but he’s also smart as all get out and a crazy hard worker. Five years ago he arrived in New York to take over his family’s American branch of the Rothsmore Group and in that time he’s trebled their revenue and expanded beyond a blue-chip investment portfolio to a remarkable presence in the tech world.

Even without his family, he’s a formidable and impressive entrepreneur. Then again, his silver-spoon start in life probably didn’t hurt.

‘Your eyes,’ he murmurs, scanning my face thoughtfully, and my heart rate kicks up a gear, so that I doubt my veins are going to be able to hold the blood in place. ‘They’re so…’

Instinctively, I blink, shuttering my eyes from him. They’re a very dark blue, the colour of the sky at dusk, and I know it’s unusual. I don’t want him to recognise me. ‘No cheating,’ I say, taking the champagne flute he offers, lifting it to my lips. ‘This is secret.’

‘Right.’ His grin is pure devilish heat and his expression is one of amusement. ‘Well, Miss Anonymous, what’s your thing?’

‘My thing?’

‘Yeah. What are you into?’

I think about it for a moment. ‘I don’t have a lot of spare time. I guess, reading…’

‘Fascinating.’ His laugh is a slow vibration that travels around the room before landing at the base of my spine, sending little shards of awareness through my nerve endings. ‘But I meant, in bed.’ He takes a step forward, closing the distance between us, his fingers lifting to curl the edges of the wig, teasing the flossy pink strands between his thumb and forefinger.

‘Right.’ I slap my forehead exaggeratedly and my smile holds a silent apology. So much for acting as if I do this all the time. ‘I’m…a little out of practice.’

‘Are you?’ His gaze flicks to my cleavage again, lingering there for so long a faint murmur escapes my lips. Heat travels along my body as though he’s touched me.

All I can do is nod.

‘Why is that?’

We’d agreed not to discuss anything personal. I think of how to answer in a way that won’t give me away. ‘I’ve been single awhile.’

His smile is just a lazy flicker of those sculpted lips, framed by a squared jaw and a brush of stubble. I like the stubble. I itch to feel it and rather than denying myself that impulse, I surrender to it, lifting my hand to his face so I can run my fingertips over his jaw.

It shouldn’t be so sensual, but just the act of touching him like this is so illicit and sinful that I make a low, husky sound, my body trembling with the first flush of desire.

‘So you are nervous?’ He comes closer, so our bodies brush, and then he moves behind me, so close I can feel his nearness, his warmth, even though he doesn’t quite touch me.

He dips his head forward, something I only realise when I feel his breath on my shoulder, warm and smelling of champagne.

My knees tremble.

‘Look.’ He lifts his hands to my shoulders and angles me slightly so I can see us in the mirror. The sight of myself in this costume—so different from my usual appearance—and Nicholas Rothsmore at my back, his long, tanned fingers curved over my pale shoulders, fills me with a need that demands indulgence.

‘Tonight, we’re just two people.’ He speaks slowly, the words buzzing right against my ear. ‘Who came here to fuck.’

I swallow, my throat moving convulsively. His coarse description sends a frisson of awareness down my back, because he’s right. This is physical, primal, animalistic. ‘Right.’ I went into the forum looking for this. I don’t know why I’m panicking at the eleventh hour. I draw in a deep breath and smile slowly, calming my nerves.

‘That’s what you want?’

‘Count on it.’

His hands move to my back, where a delicate lace ribbon holds the corset together. He loops a finger beneath the bow, watching me with a hint of mockery as he pulls on one loop, loosening it appreciably.

‘You can stop this at any time, if you change your mind,’ he murmurs, pulling on the other loop.

My breath snags in my throat. I shake my head slowly from side to side. No way on earth am I going to put a stop to this.

‘Good,’ he growls, easing the corset down so my breasts spill over the top. He stops moving and stares at me in the mirror, his eyes hot and possessive, glued to my body as though I’m the first woman he’s ever seen.

Strangely, I don’t feel at all self-conscious now, despite the fact I haven’t been naked in front of anyone in a really long time. I’m someone who wears underwear even at the gym or the spa; when other women seem perfectly happy to strip down completely in the sauna or whatever, I’m buttoned up in the corner, sweating into my cotton.

I just don’t really do the naked thing.

But here, in the privacy of this intimate room, wearing a mask, with a prearranged lover loosening my lingerie, I have no reluctance; not even a hint of hesitation. This is what we’re here for. It’s just a transaction.

Convenient, satisfying sex.

At least, I hope it’s satisfying. His reputation sure as heck precedes him, but then, sometimes the myth is bigger than the man.

I don’t chase that thought down; I don’t have time to think about that. His hands are running up my sides, his eyes on mine in the mirror as he brings his hands around front to cup my breasts, his fingers finding my nipples and tweaking them so I let out a low growl, the pleasure from such a simple touch totally overwhelming.

‘I don’t want to stop it.’ The words are squeezed from my throat, breathing and speaking almost completely beyond me.

‘Good.’ Another husky admission before his fingers are sliding into the corset, pushing it even lower until it hits my hips and then falls apart completely, leaving me standing in just a scrap of elastic and lace. His eyes hold mine as he slips a finger into the waistband of my thong and then flicks it. I jump a little, and laugh, the sting unexpected, and unexpectedly sensual. Especially when his hands caress the area almost instantly, soothing the flesh.

My pulse is trembling like a fire in my veins and heat is rushing my insides. He moves his hands around my hips; still watching me intently in the mirror, he slides one hand into the front of my thong. I’m so glad I waxed there too.

His fingers brush my flesh, finding my clit with expert precision, moving over it slowly at first, so I gasp because the touch is unfamiliar and for a second I fight an urge to ask him to stop, because I haven’t been touched here in a really, really long time. And never like this. He is some kind of maestro because the very idea of objecting disappears from my mind almost instantly as I succumb to the blinding heat of this pleasure, this possession. It’s just the lightest touch but flame explodes to molten lava and I’m burning up, heat in every cell of my body, every nerve ending.

His mouth drops to my shoulder, kissing my flesh there, moving closer to the nape of my neck. His breath is cool, his kiss warm, his touch perfect and suddenly pleasure is like a lightning rod, forking through me, so I have to bite down on my lip to stop from crying out.

‘Don’t be quiet,’ he urges, and I blink, finding his eyes in the mirror. He’s watching me with an intensity that robs me of breath, his steady grey gaze fascinating and intelligent and somehow all-seeing, so I feel as if beyond my arousal he must be comprehending so much more about me right now. As if he might be seeing into my buttoned-up soul, might be seeing all of my usual tensions and removing them from me.

And I don’t care.

‘Look,’ he prompts, lifting one hand to my breast and cupping it, while his fingers work faster until I’m tumbling so close to the edge of a ravine that I can only exhale in short, shallow rasps. There’s nothing to grab onto; nothing to save me from falling.

‘Watch yourself,’ he says more insistently, though it takes me several seconds to process his words because my brain is no longer firing on all cylinders. All of my blood is busy being pleasured inside my body, being lit on fire by his intensely skilled ministrations.

‘Oh, my God.’ The words tumble from my lips and then I’m groaning, tilting my head back but doing exactly as he said—watching me, us, this. Watching as he moves his hand and pleasure makes me blush and my nipples hard and then I can’t watch any longer because I’m scrunching my face up and giving myself over completely to the total subjugation of sense and reason in place of white-hot desire.

I am falling, I am falling too fast to stop, and yet somehow I’m also flying, all the way to heaven.

I dig my nails into my palms and, because I am secret and he is not, I cry his name as I tumble over the edge. ‘Nicholas,’ I moan into the glamorous bedroom. ‘Oh, God, Nicholas.’

It is a wave that won’t stop, as if the last four years of celibacy have left me with a hyper-charged sex drive. How did I not realise that until now?

‘Oh, this is going to be fun,’ he drawls, his British so very sexy, so husky, so hot, and I laugh, because I’ve already had more pleasure than I bargained for. I can’t imagine what else he can do with those clever, clever hands. And that mouth…my eyes drop to it in the mirror and it lifts into a knowing smirk.

‘Oh, yes, that’ll be fun too.’

My eyes jerk to his. He’s watching me with what I think is amusement.

Normally, I might feel embarrassed at having been so completely lost to that amazing feeling, but I’m not. Because firstly, there’s nothing wrong with sexual pleasure—and this is the man to know that. And secondly, he has no idea who I am! This is totally anonymous, totally secret, totally no-consequences, no-holds-barred sex.

That knowledge is empowering, so I spin where I’m standing and look up at him. Even though I’m tall, there’s a height differential between us that means I have to look up.

‘How come you’re wearing clothes?’ I murmur.

His shrug is pure indolent heat. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Let’s do something about that, shall we?’

His nostrils flare at the challenge in my words. My fingertips tremble a little as I begin to undo his buttons, concentrating hard on the task so afterwards I think I probably could have moved a little more seductively. Not that I can muster much energy to care, because now I’m eye height with his naked chest and it is a sight to behold.

The first thing I notice is a tattoo that runs above his left pec, near his heart. It reads, in a strong cursive script, I am my own. I trace it with my eyes, imagining what would lead someone to have that written over their heart. I don’t ask. We’re not here for that kind of inquisition.

‘Holy crap.’ It’s just a whisper, so soft and hoarse in the silence of the room, with only the grandfather clock’s metronomic beat for company, but he hears and he grins.

‘Yeah?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Now it’s my turn to look a little mocking when I turn to face him. ‘Like you don’t already know.’

Because how could he not? While he’s slim, he’s also insanely toned, a buff chest loaded with muscles, eight firmly defined ridges calling out to be touched. I lift my fingers and trace over the pectoral definition, lingering on his own hair-roughened nipples, surprising myself when I flick one, just as he did with the elastic in my underpants, and he lets out a growl.

‘Retaliation,’ I simper, grinning as I move to the other.

His hand catches my wrist, his eyes flaring. ‘Careful, Miss Anonymous.’

‘Oh?’ My fingertips tingle. With his hand clamped around my wrist, his eyes watching me, I blink—a study in wide-eyed innocence. ‘Why is that?’

‘You’re baiting me,’ he points out.

‘Yep.’ And I flick his other nipple, so he tilts his head back, staring at the ceiling, his Adam’s apple moving beneath his stubble. More than that, through the confines of his trousers, I feel his cock jerk and power rushes my veins. Power, desire and a surge of sheer, desperate attraction.

I drag my fingertips lower over his body, moving them in teasing circles over his washboard abs then out to his hips, up a little, and lower, to the soft leather belt that’s threaded through his trousers.

Now my lack of speed is deliberate. I can tell it’s driving him crazy and, hell, I love that. I loosen the clasp and pull on the edge of the belt, watching him as I slide it out of his belt loops. I drop it to the ground beside us then concentrate on the button and zipper, easing it down, pushing the sides apart.

Suddenly, and out of nowhere, I’m uncertain. He understands and takes over, kicking his shoes off and stepping out of his trousers at the same time. Only his dark grey boxer briefs remain.

‘My turn,’ he murmurs, and I don’t understand what he means until he kneels at my feet, looking up at me as he slides my lace thong lower. I watch, the pink wig swishing against my shoulders as he uses my techniques against me, moving too, too slowly. Frustration gnaws at me. I don’t want slow. I want to be naked and possessed by him.

I go to step out of my thong but his hands are firm around my thighs, holding me where I am. He makes a tsking noise in response to my silent expression of inquiry, and then he’s slowly pushing the lace lower, so I have to stand there and wait until finally my thong is at my ankles and I can kick out of it.

I keep the shoes on and he makes no effort to remove them.

I can’t think about my shoes though. He’s kneeling before me and now his mouth is moving to my clit, and the pleasure I’ve been surfing since he walked in the room is dragging me away again, swallowing me into its midst, so I’m dropping off the edge of the earth, just pure sensation and feeling.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, but the last thing I think before I come—this time against his mouth—is that wild, anonymous sex might be the hottest thing ever.

CHAPTER TWO

JESUS CHRIST, SHE is unbelievably responsive. I lift her up easily, carrying her across to the bed. Her breasts are soft against my chest and I’m searching for her lips, kissing her, tasting her sweetness as I bring her to the edge of the bed and drop her onto it.

She laughs, a sound so sexy that I swear it writes itself into my mind as though it were chiselled from stone. There’s something about it, husky, sweet, laced with promise and heat. I don’t give her a second to recover; my mouth chases hers and pushes her backwards, my body coming to lie over hers even as she scrambles higher up the bed so she’s lying fully on it.

I trap her wrists with one of my hands, pinning them above her head so her beautiful round breasts are high and firm and then I bring my mouth down to one, sucking on a nipple, rolling it with my tongue, flipping it, my body weight holding her still as she writhes with pleasure. I smile against her pale skin and then move to her other breast, my spare hand plucking the nipple I just released, and I grind my hips so my rock-hard dick—that is giving me no end of grief right now, desperately needing to bury itself deep inside her—throbs and begs for release.

Soon.

We agreed to fuck, once. She was very specific about this. She wanted to get laid.

I can’t be away from the party for long. It has to be efficient.

A quickie? It feels as if it should have been outlawed, given how damned sexy she is. This is not a woman who should ever be made love to quickly, unless it is a desperate preamble to a long, slow seduction.

She deserves to be explored and tasted and delighted until she is hoarse from crying out in pleasure.

As if my thoughts have conjured her voice, she spills my name into the air over and over, arching her back, begging me to take her.

I don’t want to, though. I want to prolong this; I want to lose myself in her.

These rooms were built for privacy—not even a hint of the party downstairs reaches us, and I’m glad. I kind of hope she’s forgotten that a thousand of the world’s most well-heeled individuals are just a hundred or so metres away.

‘Please,’ she whimpers, but in a way that makes it clear it has nothing to do with her desire to re-join the party, or her worry that she might be missed. It’s more than that. She needs me.

I push up on my elbows, staring down at her, but I want to see more. I want to watch her come. More than just her expressive eyes and pouting lips, I want to see her whole face. I move my hand to the mask and begin to shift it but she jerks away and, from what I can see, her expression sobers instantly.

‘No.’ The word is deadly serious. ‘It stays on.’

Shit. I forgot. Anonymity is part of the deal.

‘Sorry.’ I grimace. ‘I just wanted to see you.’

Her smile is laced with pleasure. ‘You can see enough.’

I arch a brow but inwardly I disagree. Still, it’s better than nothing, and sure as hell better than I expected when I agreed to this.

I’m no stranger to random hook-ups, but something about this woman’s approach fascinated me. Her desire for anonymity, and the fact she is new to the club—I haven’t seen her profile on any of the forums before and thanks to networking I’m pretty familiar with most of the members.

So she is new. Someone who has just come into money?

No. I can’t say how, but I can tell she’s old money. Cultured. She has a certain air about her, a way of speaking that’s instinctively familiar.

‘You do realise we’re here to sleep together?’ she prompts, her brows lifting above the edge of the mask.

My laugh is immediate. ‘Are you complaining?’

‘Nope.’ She digs her white teeth into the pillow of her lower lip and need rushes through me. Fuck, she’s hot. So hot. I drop my head and pull her lower lip between my teeth, my whole body mashed to hers, her nakedness its own kind of torture, so close to me, so close and yet there’s still a scrap of cotton between my cock and her sweet warmth and suddenly I’m done being patient and I’m done with the idea of making this last.

Sex is sex. She wants a wild time, and that’s what I’m going to give her.

I push up onto my elbows. ‘Stay here.’

There’s a box of condoms in the bedside table. I pull it out and cross back to the bed. She’s watching me in a way that fills me with a torrent of needs and I intend to indulge each and every one of them.

There’s something about not knowing who she is that makes this even sexier. Except…

Ridiculously, for the first time, I wonder about her life outside this, outside this room and our agreement. ‘You’re not married?’ I prompt, staring down at her as my lungs work overtime trying to suck in enough air to keep me alive.

‘Married? I told you, I haven’t done this in a long time.’

My smirk is to hide my cynicism. It doesn’t work. ‘I don’t think celibacy and marriage are necessarily oxymoronic.’

She grins, and I hold my breath, needing her to tell me she’s single. I like sex. I fucking love it, unapologetically, but there are some lines I will never cross, and fucking someone else’s wife is one of them.

I like my women to be completely mine, even if it is just for one night.

‘No, Nicholas.’ The words are soft, sweet, and they run over my skin like oil. ‘I’m not married.’

Good. But I don’t feel a burst of relief—yet. ‘Engaged? Seeing someone? I’m not getting in the middle of anything?’

Her teeth are gnawing at that perfect, full lower lip again. She pushes up to kneel and moves across the bed, somehow managing to look elegant and coordinated. Her hands connect with my chest and my breath hisses out of me.

‘I am definitely not in a relationship with anyone. Except my remote control. And my MacBook.’ She grins, and I feel a kick of curiosity about who she is outside this.

I ignore it.

Tonight isn’t a prelude to anything except sex.

And I’m more than optimistic that this will prove satisfying.

In the back of my mind is my father’s edict.

‘Five years, Nicholas, and each year I expect you to come home wiser and ready to make me proud. And each year you disappoint me.’

I slide a finger into the box of condoms and pull a foil square out. Miss Anonymous takes it from my fingers, lifting it to her lips and tearing the top off. I watch with a racing heart as she pushes my boxers down, just low enough to release my cock, then her hand is cupping my length, her fingertips brushing my tip, delighting in the drop of cum she finds there.

‘I’m so glad your reputation isn’t exaggerated,’ she teases, sliding the condom over me and easing it down my length. My breath hisses out of me as she snaps it at the base, then squeezes me in her palm, my cock jerking against her hand, my whole body standing to attention.

‘I’ve had enough. Reading about you on that idiot gossip blog, seeing you with a different woman every goddamned night. If you’d married Saffron you’d have three kids by now.’

Everyone seems to have forgotten Saffy left me—for a firefighter from Bristol, as it turns out.

‘If you’re not married by the time you’re thirty then you can forget about becoming Lord Rothsmore. You can forget about the whole damned thing.’

It has been distinctly tempting to tell him to go to hell with his bloody title and inheritance. As if I give a damn.

Except I do. I care about my mother, and I care about my father, I even care about the legacy into which I’ve been born. But more than that, I’m becoming a little bored of this lifestyle. What started off as rebellion has become an unbreakable habit and it’s all just a bit too easy.

Miss Anonymous is right. My reputation precedes me. Women fall at my feet, doors open because of my name and the title I’m due to hold.

I’m ready for a challenge. I’m ready for something different and unexpected.

I’ve decided I’ll go home soon—before I turn thirty—and show my parents that, heirs or not, I am someone they can be proud of. I am someone who can think with more than his dick.

But for now, for tonight, I’m going to enjoy being the man my reputation has made me.

‘Exactly how long has it been?’ I prompt as I find her lips, tangling my tongue with hers, pushing her head back, so she falls flat against the mattress once more.

Her eyes, expressive and somehow familiar, swirl with uncertainty and then they zip closed a little, hiding herself from me. ‘A while.’

‘A month?’

She laughs, a skittish sound. ‘Longer.’

‘Six weeks?’

She shakes her head.

‘Jesus. Two months?’

Pink spreads across her décolletage. ‘A bit more.’

I frown, hating the thought of that, and hating it for her—because she’s so sensual, so responsive, so completely driven by desire. I can’t imagine how she could go even a night without sex, let alone months.

I nudge her thighs apart with my knees, and push my tip to her entrance, running my fingers over the bright pink of her wig. ‘Let’s see what we can do about that, huh?’

She nods, no smile on her lips, but I feel her anticipation and I recognise it because it one hundred per cent matches my own. Her breath is held; the room is quiet except for the incessant ticking of the clock against the wall. Outside, Sydney sparkles, beautiful, old, subtropical.

My hands press against the bed on either side of her and I watch as I slide inside her, slowly at first, but her muscles are so freaking tight that I lose my control for a second. Instinct takes over and I thrust deep inside her, grunting as I drop my head and kiss her hard, mimicking the thrust of my body, the tease of our flesh, the taste of her.

She lifts her hips, rolling them, and I have to fight to stop myself from going faster and harder and losing this.

This is sublime.

‘Fuck me,’ she whispers, her hands in my hair, driving through it urgently, and I grind my teeth together and do what we both want, thrusting into her hard, quickly, until she’s moaning over and over and then she’s pushing at my chest, trying to roll me over.

She’s not strong enough but I flip anyway, turning onto my back and dragging her with me, so I get to look up and see her full, round breasts moving with every thrust, as she lifts up and down my length, taking me deep inside her.

She moves fast, running her hands over her own body, and I am totally transfixed by the sight of this, of her. She is stunning, fascinating, wanton, sexy. She is everything in that moment.

I dig my fingers into her hips, holding her down low on my shaft, and then I buck, taking control once more, driving into her until her cries are louder and hoarser and she’s falling apart again, and I’m so close to coming, but I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.

I hold on, I keep myself on edge, steadying myself with monumental discipline and effort, and then I push up to sitting so I can run my tongue over her delightful breasts once more, chasing circles around her nipples, teasing her flesh, sucking her deep into my mouth and teasing her until her hips are jerking frantically and I can feel how close she is.

But so am I and I don’t want it to end. Yet.

I hold her still, pressing a light kiss to her lips before rolling us once more, so I’m on top, staring down at her eyes, running my gaze over the mask and trying to imagine what she looks like beneath it.

I make do with tracing the outline of her mouth with my tongue and she whimpers beneath me. I run my tongue lower, over the divot in her chin then lower to her décolletage, and the valley between her breasts, and then I push my cock deeper inside her, thrilling in the power of this possession, in how well we fit together, in how maddeningly mind-blowing this is.

It has to be the anonymity and the sheer directness of this. While I never take a woman to bed who wants more than one night, there’s still a bit of dancing around to do. Dinner, flirtation, conversation. This, boiling down an encounter to the truth of sex, is rare.

And I like it. I could become addicted to the idea of walking into a private room and finding a gorgeous woman dressed in lingerie waiting for me to drive her wild.

Yeah, this is fucking near perfect.

She cries my name and it drags me back to the present, back to what we’re doing. The clock is ticking across the room and it matches my internal chronometer, the one that’s telling me it’s time to go home and face the music, to pick up the mantle my father wishes to pass on.

It’s time to stop enjoying nights like this, time to stop fucking around and settle down.

But for now, for this night, I have a beautiful woman in my arms, I’m buried deep inside her and I am going to enjoy the rush of power as I drown in pleasure. There is only this, right now.

I watch him from across the crowded party. The wig and mask have been disposed of. I’m myself again: Imogen Carmichael, founder of The Billionaires’ Club, founder of the Chance charity—strait-laced, professional, no-nonsense. I’m the woman everyone wants to talk to and I only have eyes for him.

He looks the same as always. Disastrously handsome, confident, cocky, hot, and, now that I’ve felt his body up close to mine, I can’t look at him without feeling a rush of desire, a slick of heat between my legs.

He’s talking to Minette Gray, the daughter of a Mexican mining magnate who’s launched a successful Hollywood career for herself. She’s stunning, with a mane of long, silky black hair and skin like crushed onyx, eyes that glisten and bright red lipstick. I look at them and for a second I’m transfixed by what a striking pair they make. In the background, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of Sydney sparkle like something out of a movie. I shift my gaze to them, refusing to acknowledge the sharp stab of jealousy that hits me out of nowhere.

Nicholas Rothsmore is a Player with a capital ‘P’. Isn’t that why I chose him to be my very casual, very temporary lover?

I needed someone who’d be good in bed, discreet and wouldn’t particularly care about my ‘no questions asked’ demand for hot, anonymous sex.

Check, check, check.

Her laugh reaches me across the room and I jerk my eyes back to them on autopilot. He’s leaning closer, whispering in her ear.

Shit.

I spin away, pushing down the unwelcome sense of possessiveness that steals through me, focussing on business. That’s what I’m good at. It’s who I am.

My eyes skate across the room. There are Hollywood A-listers, Grammy-Award-winning singers and musicians, Tony-Award-winning stage actors, royalty, sultans, billionaires, media tycoons. Anyone who’s anyone is here, and a tingle of pride shimmies through me because this is all because of me—and all for Abbey.

I think of my best friend, as I often do, of the way she died, the pain she felt, and I square my shoulders. I might have sacrificed a personal life but it’s been worth it.

Nicholas Rothsmore was fun, but that’s over now.

I pull my phone from my clutch and load up The Billionaires’ Club app that runs the forums. Miss Anonymous has a profile with a picture of a stiletto—I have a predilection for heels. She’s served her purpose now. I’m done with Miss Anonymous, done with the future Lord Rothsmore.

I click into the brief bio and scroll to the bottom, where a red button invites me to ‘delete profile’.

I click and she’s gone. Miss Anonymous has had her fun and now it’s time to get on with my life.

If cities were animals, New York would be a gazelle. Fast, nimble, elegant, stunning. I stare down at this adopted city of mine, contemplating the first solo Saturday night I’ve had in…for ever.

It’s been a week since Sydney, and I’ve been flat out closing the Hewitson merger, but that’s done now. Usually, I mark my business triumphs with the kind of partying that would make my grandparents roll over in their graves.

Champagne, women, music.

I frown, surveying the empty penthouse. Only the kitchen lights are on, so it looks somehow more cavernous than normal.

I won.

This deal has been in the works for three years. Three years of meetings, negotiations, hard slog and now it’s with the lawyers and I can relax. And celebrate.

Out of nowhere, I close my eyes and remember what I was doing this time last week. I remember her pale body splayed against the dark sheets of the Intimate Rooms in the Sydney base of The Billionaires’ Club and my body is tighter than granite, aching, not just for sex but for her.

Miss Anonymous.

I was right that not knowing her name was part of the appeal, but now the not knowing is driving me crazy. Because I want to see her again.

I want to fuck her again.

A smile lifts my lips, because I don’t just want to fuck her, I want to have her every which way until she’s incoherent with pleasure.

In one month, I turn thirty and England beckons. Lord Rothsmore awaits. In one month, I’ll become the man my parents want me to be—or something more like him, anyway. But for the next four weeks I’m still a free agent, and I know just how I want to spend it.

Determination fires my step. I stride indoors, the temperature change marked. My cell phone is across the room. I lift it, loading up the app and selecting our private message conversation.

Except it’s no longer a conversation with an exchange of words. My comments remain but hers are gone. Italics proclaim These messages have been deleted.

I hadn’t expected that. Why?

Okay, that’s weird. But it doesn’t change how I feel and what I want.

‘Fancy round two, Miss Anonymous?’

I figure her American accent makes it likely she lives here in the States. I can get my helicopter to my jet and travel anywhere. The minute I think it, I realise how desperate I am to see her again.

Even though I’ve spent the last five years fucking my way around the world, I freely admit last weekend was the best sex I’ve ever had. There was something so illicit and hot about it.

Her mask, her hair, her body…

I groan into the night air, looking back at the screen.

Message undeliverable

What?

With a frown, I click out of our message chat and surf to her profile instead. It doesn’t come up when I type ‘Miss Anonymous’. Adrenalin shifts in my gut.

I go to the list of members using the app and scroll through it slowly, my eyes looking for the stiletto she used as a profile picture. Which makes me think of the sky-high shoes she wore as I ran my hands over her clit, feeling her pulsing beneath me as she exploded with pleasure, and I’m so close to coming at just that memory.

I have to find her.

But where the hell is she?

She can’t have left the club. It’s not like that. The entry process is gruelling and elaborate. No one signs up and leaves.

So?

Her profile might have been anonymous but it must have been created by a legitimate member of the club. Even the online avatars are vetted. So who the hell is she? And where did she go?

CHAPTER THREE

‘IMOGEN? THERE’S A Mr Rothsmore here to see you.’

Oh, my God. In the midst of studying the floor plans for a new school Chance will be funding in a couple of years, I jump so hard I bang my knee against the edge of my desk. Pain radiates through me. I ignore it, scrambling for the receiver of my desk phone.

‘What did you say?’ My voice comes out completely different.

‘A Mr Nicholas Rothsmore,’ says my loyal assistant—a woman to whom I offered a job after we met in a shelter for battered women that Chance was involved in supporting; she speaks slowly, as if I might have misunderstood. ‘He has a membership enquiry.’

Oh, my God.

‘I’m in the middle of something,’ I demur, wincing, because The Billionaires’ Club is founded on three tenets: exclusivity, privacy and exceptional customer service. My door is always open to members. ‘I only have a few minutes.’

‘I’ll send him in.’ She disconnects the call and I stand up quickly, my mind spinning. I have about ten seconds to get my thoughts in order.

I’m wearing a cream suit made up of a pencil skirt and a fitted blazer, with a lemon-yellow silk camisole beneath. No bra and my traitorous nipples are already straining against the soft fabric in anticipation of the fact he’s about to be here in my office, my sanctuary. I look around quickly for anything that could give me away.

I’ve had a manicure since the ball—the nails that were bright pink are now a muted beige. I took great care that night to remove any identifying jewellery. My lips were painted bright red whereas now they bear just a hint of gloss, and my long hair tumbles in waves over one shoulder. I pull on it and then remember my eyes…that he remarked on.

Crapola.

I swing around behind my desk and grab my handbag, lifting my oversized Jackie O–style black sunglasses out and pushing them onto my face right as Emily opens the door.

‘Mr Rothsmore,’ she announces, a slightly bemused look crossing her face as she sees me in my disguise.

My voice! Oh, crap. He’s heard me talk. No, he’s heard me scream, over and over. Argh!

‘Thank you, Emily.’ I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, just outside St Louis, so the southern drawl isn’t much of a stretch.

Her bemusement increases. ‘Would you like anything to drink?’ she prompts.

‘We won’t have time for that,’ I say, still in a voice that hums with the Deep South. ‘I’ve only got a few minutes.’

Emily’s trying not to laugh. Crap.

At least Nicholas doesn’t look any the wiser.

‘Well, if y’all change your mind,’ she says, with a wink at me right before she pulls the door shut behind her, leaving me alone with sex god Nicholas Rothsmore in the middle of my Manhattan office. I’m grateful the lenses of my glasses are darkly reflective, so I can stare at him without him having any idea.

He’s wearing jeans today, low-slung and faded, with a long-sleeved black T-shirt. It’s snowing out, so I imagine he’s left a jacket somewhere, and I imagine it to be distressed leather, something that goes with this billionaire-bad-boy-about-town look.

I manage not to drool, but my tummy is clenching with serious lust.

‘Imogen.’ His voice is crisp, professional, but that doesn’t matter, I hear it filtered through lips that have kissed me all over, sucked my nipples until pleasure exploded through me, and I find myself unable to push those memories away. My breasts ache now and heat fires low in my abdomen.

He crosses the room, extending a hand for me to shake, and my pulse shoots up a thousand notches; my body temperature skyrockets.

Act natural. Act natural.

I skirt around my desk, holding my own hand out, and I realise my fingers are trembling, just a little but enough for me to feel incredibly self-conscious. He doesn’t appear to notice as he shakes my hand.

‘Ignore the glasses,’ I explain a little stiltedly. ‘I had an operation.’

An operation? On what? My corneas?

If he thinks it’s a weird excuse, he doesn’t say anything. Maybe he presumes I had a big weekend and am wearing sunnies to cope with the hangover.

‘I need your help.’

Straight to it, then.

‘Sure, have a seat.’

‘I’m fine.’ He ranges to the windows, his stride long and lean, his body powerful. I mean, he looks powerful and sexy and yet I imagine him naked and my knees almost buckle beneath me.

He stares out at the city, snow falling fast beyond my window, the buildings lit up despite the fact it’s mid-afternoon.

‘Well, Mr Rothsmore, how can I help you?’

‘I was at the masquerade last weekend,’ he murmurs, still not looking at me. And I’m glad, because it means I get to look at him. And keep looking. At his broad shoulders, his narrow hips, his firm ass, his long legs. Legs that have straddled me, legs that have pressed hard against mine.

He turns around and again I’m glad for the glasses. He’s waiting for me to speak. I swallow, bringing much-needed moisture to my mouth. ‘Yes?’

A single word, husky and dry.

‘I met a woman there. I didn’t get her name but I’d like to speak to her. Can you put me in touch?’

My heart hammers like nobody’s business. I’m dying inside. ‘I…’

My pulse is thready in my veins.

‘You know privacy is one of the member guarantees,’ I hear myself saying, moving to the bar across the room and pouring myself a mineral water. I take a sip to buy time.

‘Yes,’ he agrees, his eyes narrowing slightly.

‘That guarantee benefits everybody.’ I move to my desk, propping my hip against it with what I hope passes for nonchalance.

‘Nonetheless, the club is about networking and I have a proposition I’d like to make her.’

I swallow, desire flushing through me. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! One night, no strings, no more. But, God, I want to push him to the floor and kiss him, hard, and beg him to make love to me. I sweep my eyes shut for a second.

Safe in the knowledge I’ve deleted Miss Anonymous from our forums, I shrug. ‘Have you checked the app?’

‘She’s not there, despite the fact we exchanged messages. I’d appreciate it if you could have someone from IT locate her and give me the details.’

I’m floored. And kind of flattered. ‘That would definitely be against membership rules.’

‘And you don’t break the rules, ever?’ he prompts, lifting a brow, and he’s just so perfectly rakish that my heart does a funny little tremble. I definitely broke the rules last weekend, even if they’re just rules of my own creation.

‘Rarely,’ I say with a small smile, which I quickly flatten. I smiled a lot that night. I can’t give myself away. In fact, I really need to wrap this up. As much as I don’t want him to go, he has to.

That night was an aberration. An itch I needed to scratch, and I scratched it. A lot.

‘Then perhaps this will be one of the occasions you will?’

I am instantly reminded that he is from a very wealthy, very ancient British family, a member of the aristocracy. He speaks with an authority and arrogance that would usually piss me off, but coming from Nicholas it is incredibly hot.

‘I’m afraid not.’

His eyes narrow. I suspect he doesn’t often get told ‘no’.

‘Not even if I make it worth your while?’

My heart turns over in my chest. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘A million-dollar donation to Chance. For a name.’

My sharp intake of breath is involuntary. It takes me several seconds to process this. My fingers tremble. I curve them around the water glass and sip, needing to process this.

‘A million dollars.’ He’s found his way to my Achilles heel and I’m sure he knows it.

Because I make it a policy of taking whatever I can for the charity. Even my parents’ donations, when I have mostly wanted to tell them to go to hell and take their ‘too little, too late’ conscience-pricking gifts with them.

I take everything that’s offered because I know the charity is now the wall that stands between life and death for so many helpless, impoverished children out there.

‘For a name,’ he murmurs, his hands in his pockets as he watches me intently.

‘Who is she?’

‘I only know that she’s single,’ he says with a grimace that signals frustration.

‘That probably accounts for seventy-five per cent of our female membership.’

He scowls at me. It shouldn’t be hot but it is.

‘We exchanged messages. She’s deleted them, and disappeared off the forums.’

I can’t tell him the truth. But that doesn’t stop me from asking, ‘Why do you want to find her?’

He stares at me for several long seconds, a muscle twisting in the base of his jaw. ‘It’s personal.’

I dip my head forward, trying to slow my breathing, hoping my cheeks won’t be too pink. ‘So is the member’s information. If you want me to look into our records and find out who she is, then I’ll need more to go on.’

His eyes stick to me for a long time and I want to rip off my glasses so I can look him right in the eyes. I want to rip his clothes off. I want to fuck him right here.

Oh, my God.

What’s happening to me? I’ve been single for four years and it never bothered me, but now I can’t be in the same room with a man without wanting to leap into bed. Not bed. Desk. Floor. Window. And not a man. This man.

‘Fine,’ he grunts. ‘We spent time together in the Intimate Rooms.’

There’s a part of me that deeply appreciates his discretion, even though he doesn’t know I’m Miss Anonymous. I’m glad he’s not going into all the sordid details of what we shared. I appreciate that he’s respecting our privacy.

‘That’s what the rooms are for.’

‘I’d like to see her again.’

The room is suddenly a void, as if a black hole has opened up and swallowed us. The atmosphere grows thick, the air is heavy in my chest. Everything’s different.

‘Why?’

His eyes explode with strength. ‘That is also personal.’

I swallow, desire unfurling in my gut like a slow-slithering snake. I want him. I want him so badly. But that’s crazy. I don’t do relationships, and I particularly don’t do relationships with men like this. Entitled, wealthy, spoiled, arrogant.

Even when they’re savant-like in bed.

I clench my hand into a fist to ball up my own temptations.

I have to get rid of him before I do something really stupid. Like giving in to this.

One night. That was all it was meant to be.

‘If she’s deleted her profile, it suggests she doesn’t want to be found, Mr Rothsmore.’ His name in my mouth is so sexy. I want to kiss it against his skin.

I watched him get dressed on Saturday night. I lay in bed sated and so full of pleasure, and I watched as he pulled on his shorts, his trousers, donning the tuxedo he’d had on earlier. Even after sleeping together, that simple act of voyeurism felt strangely intimate.

‘Perhaps.’ His eyes narrow.

‘In which case, I can’t help you.’

‘For a million dollars, you’re not willing to discover who she is?’

I wait a moment.

He pulls a card from his pocket. It’s jet black, matte, thick, with gold writing across the front. As he brings it closer I make out his name and, beneath it, a series of numbers.

‘I’ll tell you what, Imogen. You find her and ask her to call me. Whether she does or doesn’t, the million dollars is yours regardless.’

I stare at the card, the trap he’s unknowingly set one I refuse to enter. Because it’s dishonest. I can’t take his money under these circumstances. I mean, the woman he’s looking for is standing right in front of him.

‘A million dollars? You must have shared something pretty special.’

Damn it! Why the heck did I ask that? I jackknife off the edge of the desk, leaving his card where he’s placed it.

‘You could say that.’

Oh, God. I didn’t need to hear that. Temptation is slicing through me.

And yet, he’s loaded. Seriously loaded. A million dollars isn’t even small change to him. It’s the lint in his pocket after he’s got rid of his small change.

And Chance is my life’s purpose.

I toy with the morality of this, mentally tossing it back and forth.

‘I’ll try to find her,’ I say, quietly.

It seems to placate him. He nods, moving towards the door. ‘Then I won’t take up more of your time. You’ll let me know, one way or another?’

His hand curves around the handle. He’s leaving. I swallow back an urge to shout the truth at him.

‘Count on it.’

Count on it.

Her words jam against me, hard, holding me completely still. I’m back in Sydney, in the Intimate Rooms.

‘That’s what you want?’ I asked her.

‘Count on it.’

Count on it. Common enough, I guess, but no.

I spin around, catching her staring at me. Except it’s impossible to tell because of those damned glasses she’s been wearing.

Suspicion moves quickly to certainty.

I shut the door and stride across the room, and it’s so unexpected that she doesn’t even have time to react. I stand before her for a second, and now I look at her lips and I kick myself for not realising sooner.

I lift a hand to the glasses and pull them from her face before she can comprehend what I’m doing.

Those eyes, eyes that have stared into mine as pleasure made her wild with insanity and desire, look back at me, heavy with surprise now. Those lips that I have tasted and dragged between my teeth form a perfect ‘O’.

‘Miss Anonymous,’ I drawl, and before she can answer I lift my hand around to the base of her skull and pull her head forward. I’m kissing her, kissing her first with exploration to test my theory, even when I know I’m right. And as I feel her familiar mouth, taste her sweetness, my kiss turns hard and heavy with censure for trying to hide from me, for lying to me, for being about to let me walk away.

She makes a strangled noise into my mouth and I swallow it; my body, denied the pleasure of hers for nine long nights, throbs with a need that will not be suppressed.

And whatever impulse had prompted her to try to get rid of me, it’s gone now, as her hands lift urgently, pushing at my shirt, running it up my body, so her palms connect with my naked chest, her fingertips finding their way back to paths she explored last weekend.

‘You were going to fucking hide from me.’ I curve my hands around her ass, lifting her onto the edge of her table, spreading her legs. The skirt she’s wearing splits with an almighty sound and she laughs, that husky sound having been imprinted on my memory in some strange way.

‘It was meant to be one night, we agreed,’ she says, tilting her head back so I can run my mouth down her throat, my teeth lightly nipping at the flesh on her collarbone. I feel her tremble beneath me and I have no time for the sensual seduction I thought I’d be engaging in. It’s been nine nights and I don’t think I’ve gone that long without sex since—

Well, since ever.

I reach into my back pocket, pulling my wallet out and flicking it open to find a condom without breaking our kiss. I move higher between her legs; the skirt splits more. I don’t fucking care.

I undo the button of my jeans and slide the zip down, freeing my rock-hard, aching cock. I shift for a second, just long enough to rip the packet open and push the condom down my length, and then I lift my head to stare at her for a long second, my eyes laced with a thousand and one feelings—anger, annoyance, heat, need, mockery, impatience.

‘You were going to fucking let me walk away just now?’

She bites down on her lip and in response moves forward, her hands against my chest, her face tilted, her lips seeking mine. I deny her that kiss, instead lifting her off the edge of the desk, using my hands to push the scrap of lace at her core aside, and sliding her onto my cock, stifling a moan as her muscles squeeze me so tight I convulse a little.

I take one step across her office and push her back against the thick, cold glass, bracing her there as I push into her hard. The eyes that meet mine are the same—exactly the same. And she knew it! Those fucking glasses.

Anger that she wanted to hide from me crests in my gut and I kiss her, pressing her head against the glass as my body takes command of hers. She is crying my name into my mouth, over and over, her nails digging into my shoulders, her heels pressed to my back.

Her muscles tighten, her whole body vibrates and her cries get louder and faster. At the moment she comes I let go of my own control, I stop fighting this, exploding with a guttural roar, pushing myself hard against her as I come buried deep inside her; finally feeling this release and giving myself over to it completely.

It is fast. It is animalistic. It is bliss.

I hold her, locked between the glass window and my frame, my body weight keeping her where she is, unwilling to put distance between us yet.

I push my head up, my cock still inside her, and fix her with an assessing gaze. ‘What game are you playing, Imogen?’

Her throat moves as she swallows. ‘Game?’ It’s husky, the southern accent forgotten, and her voice just as I remember it from Sydney.

‘Does fucking members without their knowledge give you a thrill?’

Her spectacular, memorable eyes widen. ‘No!’ Her denial is sharp and fierce. ‘I’ve never done that before. You were the first. And the last.’

Given my own attitudes to sex, it feels faintly chauvinistic that I’m relieved at that, but I am. I don’t like the idea that she uses her position to find her way into bed with members.

‘Why did you lie to me?’

‘I didn’t.’ She drops her eyes. I shift my hips, my dick already growing hard again, surprising her so she jerks her attention back to me quickly.

‘We agreed to a night. That’s the deal we had. It’s all I wanted.’

My laugh is spontaneous and deep, a sound of disbelief. ‘You didn’t want this?’

I have the satisfaction of seeing her cheeks flush pink. ‘I…shouldn’t have.’

‘Why not?’

She shakes her head, and slowly she shifts before me, her expression going from sexy deer in the headlights to the force of nature I know her to be—the woman who set all this up off her own back, who’s created an unbelievable empire.

‘Because I meant what I said in our messages. I just needed to have sex.’ More heat in her cheeks but she doesn’t blink away from me now. ‘I hadn’t been with anyone in ages and I felt like I’d forgotten what intimacy is like.’ She lifts her shoulders. ‘I wanted to get laid. And let’s face it, you’re somewhat of an expert in the meaningless sex department.’

She’s right. I’ve made one-night stands an art form and my reputation makes sure everyone knows it. So why does it piss me off royally that she says it so casually?

I make no apologies for the way I live my life. This is who I am. I’ve tried to fit myself into a different mould before, to be Lord Rothsmore In Waiting, and it was an abject failure.

At least when I get back to England this time I’ll have a better idea of who I really am.

‘You weren’t supposed to come looking for me,’ she says.

I roll my hips once more, enjoying the look of heat that shifts over her features. Desire flares between us, a flame too bright and searing to ignore.

‘Why did you come looking for me?’

That’s a great question. The thing about one-night stands is that they’re always one night. That was what we’d agreed. I’m the one who wants to shift the goalposts, to make this something else.

Except, it’s not as if I’d be changing the terms of our deal substantially. She wanted casual, no-strings sex. We obviously still have chemistry. So why not have fun until I leave? It’s exactly the kind of relationship I do. Never commitment, never serious, never more than great sex, and lots of it. I am the king of casual fun, and suddenly it feels like a month of that with Imogen would be a lot like bliss.

‘You know who I am,’ I murmur, and with her back propped against the glass, her legs wrapped around my waist, I separate the lapels of her blazer so I can see the skimpy yellow singlet top thing she’s got on underneath. It’s soft like silk. I slide my hands under it; her skin is warm to the touch. She’s not wearing a bra. My dick is hard again. Rock hard, as if I didn’t have sex just minutes ago. My palms curve over her breasts, tormenting her nipples just how she likes it.

It was only one night but I learned a lot about her and I’m not ashamed of using it to get my way.

Her eyes hook to mine, powerful and yet powerless, lost as well as found.

‘You know who I am,’ I say again, and drop my head to take one of her nipples into my mouth through the flimsy fabric. It adds an extra layer of eroticism to something that’s already pretty damned hot. I press my teeth to her nipple, just enough to make her draw in a sharp breath of pleasure.

‘Yes.’

It’s not clear what she’s saying ‘yes’ to.

‘You know I am due to inherit my father’s title, the estate, the whole thing.’

She groans, nodding.

‘In one month, I’m due back in England to take up my place in that life.’ I’m surprised how flat the words sound—the usual derision not in evidence. ‘I have only weeks left in Manhattan.’

Another gurgling noise as I transfer my mouth to her other breast and give it the same little bite. Her insides squeeze my cock so tight. I need more of her. All of her.

Impatiently, I push at her blazer and she pulls her arms from it, understanding that I need all of her, all of this. The camisole follows, the wet patches from my mouth visible as it scrunches to the ground at our feet. I have to put her down to get the tattered skirt from her body and I drag it off her with the lace thong, leaving both on the floor before spinning her around so her back is to me.

I push her forward at the hips, so her arms are braced against the windows, and I take the briefest second to imprint this memory on my mind—the sight of her naked ass, how hot she looks from behind. I spread her legs with my knee, and bring one hand around to her breasts, keeping it clamped there as my other holds her hips steady. I take her from behind quickly, thrusting into her, our voices mingling at the total possession of this, the rightness of my being buried deep inside her. The hand on her hip travels lightly to her clit, and I run it over her cluster of nerves as I move deeper and harder inside her.

My voice is music, deep and throaty, taking over the room. There’s no clock here ticking as a background accompaniment to this passion, but the desire is just as intense and just as overwhelming.

I forget that we’re in her office, I forget there’s a secretary just down the hallway. I forget everything except how this feels, how badly I need her, how it’s been nine nights of tormenting, snatched memories, of how I didn’t even want to go out and hook up with someone else because I didn’t think it could live up to this.

I am angry at that—angry at my dependence on being with her—but I am also thrilled because I’ve found Miss Anonymous and I have four weeks in which to enjoy her.

So long as she agrees…

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT THE HECK just happened?

I press my overheated forehead to the glass, staring down—way down—at Manhattan. My office is on the ninety-second floor of this glass and steel monolith. Believe me, I’d have preferred to cut costs and rent something cheaper, but my parents own two floors of this building and gave me a great deal on rent—besides which, my clients expect a certain air of wealth and prestige. The whole Billionaires’ Club is predicated on the idea of unattainable wealth and prestige, so I can’t exactly have my office headquarters in some three-storey brick walk-up in Brooklyn.

His breathing is ragged, just like my own. I stay right where I am, pleasure like fireworks just beneath my skin, exploding fast at my pulse points. I stare down at the snow-covered city, thinking of the time I went to visit Meemaw and Pa. I’d heard about them, but had barely spent more than an hour in their company. My mother worked hard to distance herself from her working-class roots. She’d married Hollywood royalty, she was a theatre queen and she wasn’t going to have the fact that she came from an ordinary family in the south do anything to harm her carefully cultivated image. I didn’t have those hang-ups, and right after Abbey died, I just felt as if I needed to see my grandparents, to spend time with them. I wanted the authenticity their life offered; I wanted to be as far from my parents and their set as possible.

So I went to Meemaw’s, and only a day or two after I arrived, a tornado crossed town. It was loud and fierce and so fast. It must have lasted only two or three minutes before it moved away again and the most surreal, unnatural silence followed.

That’s what’s happening now.

Silence, but weird and unnatural and, contrasted with our earlier passion, it is freakishly quiet in my office.

And I have no idea what to say, which makes me even more freaked out because I pride myself on being able to fill difficult silences and cover awkwardness with a quip or a joke.

Now, I’ve got nothing.

I’m just a tangle of nerves and excitement. My whole body feels as if it’s been stretched in a thousand directions, stretched by the speed with which my blood has terrorised it.

His hands on my back are gentle now, inquisitive, returning me to the here and now with a slow, sweet touch. He curves his palms over my shoulders and turns me around to face him.

It makes it so much harder to kick my brain into gear because one look at his face and I’m melting. What the heck is wrong with me? I don’t do rich guys. I find all that money off-putting and there’s no mistaking Nicholas Rothsmore’s background of privilege and wealth. It is in the strength of his spine, the confident tilt of his chin, the sophistication of his eyes, the dimple of his chin that for some reason screams aristocracy.

But there’s also something hard-worn about him, something broken and devil-may-care. Something that tells me he’s a risk-taker and an adventurer, that he might have been born to fit the mould of a privileged aristocrat but that he’s worked hard to fight his way free of it.

That alone keeps me rooted to the spot, unable to look away from a face that I have been seeing in my dreams since we snatched an hour together in Sydney.

‘I’m…’

He lifts a finger and presses it to my lips, his dark brows knitting together as if I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.

‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ I say against his finger. When he doesn’t move it, I dart my tongue out and flick it. His eyes flare wide and power rushes through my body.

This is bigger than me, bigger than him.

‘You made pretty sure of that.’

‘Not quite.’ I bite the soft flesh of his finger now, and he presses it to my lips, so I roll my tongue over it and feel his cock jerk against me.

He’s like the Energizer Bunny of sex. Then again, apparently I am too, because desire ignites inside me, and I wish we were anywhere but my office.

My office!

‘Oh, crap.’ I press my hand to his chest and push him back, everything forgotten except the fact Emily and I have an extremely casual relationship and she walks in whenever she needs anything. Not to mention I’ve just been screaming like a banshee at the top of my lungs.

I sidestep him and move away as if he’s explosive dynamite and I’m right in its trajectory. I need space. Space to think and I definitely absolutely need to get dressed.

‘That was…completely unprofessional.’ I lift a hand and smooth my hair over one shoulder, my fingers grazing my nipples by accident, so I have to spin away or risk him seeing my instant physical reaction to the simple touch.

‘It was also completely fucking great.’

A smile curves my lips. There’s a bathroom across my office—I work long hours and frequently have to attend Billionaires’ Club events, which I go to directly from here. Fortunately for me, there’s also a wardrobe and it’s always stocked with an array of outfits. I pull out a black pantsuit and a silk camisole, trying not to think about what Emily will say when she notices the obvious change of clothes, pulling the silk top on quickly to dispense with the whole nakedness thing.

I spin around to find him watching me with an expression I can only describe as indolent. He’s like some kind of crack cocaine to me—I’m high on him and already craving my next fix.

I stare across at him—he’s pulled his boxers back on but there’s still an expanse of toned abs and tanned skin—and my mouth goes dry, my stomach loops and my fingers tingle.

‘I don’t do this.’

He lifts a thick, dark brow, his expression quirking with curiosity. ‘Do what?’

‘This.’ I gesture from him to me. ‘Sleep with clients. Sleep with anyone.’

He laughs, the sound bouncing around my office. My pulse trembles. ‘You weren’t a virgin.’

I jerk my head. ‘Yeah, but…’

He begins to prowl towards me.

‘It had been a while.’

I told him that in Sydney. There’s no point in denying it.

‘What’s “a while”?’

I swallow, my throat bone dry. I wave my hand in the air in what I hope passes as some kind of descriptor of time. He catches it in his, lacing our fingers together and holding it at my side.

Up close, I look at him—really look at him—in a way I haven’t had the luxury of doing yet. I notice things that previously passed me by. Not because they didn’t warrant notice, but because there’s so much of him that demands attention: his square jaw; his perfectly sculpted lips; the little indent above his mouth, forming a bridge to his nose; a nose that is straight and strong—patrician, appropriately, given his pedigree—but that has a bump halfway down, as if it’s been broken at some point. His lashes are thick and dark and clumpy, and close up it almost looks as if he’s wearing eyeliner. He’s not, but that’s the effect the weight of his lashes combines to create. He has a silvery scar near his hairline—a single, trembling line about an inch long, very faint and, going by the shimmery paleness of it, earned long ago, perhaps even as a boy.

My tummy swoops. ‘Oh, you know, years.’

‘Years?’ The word is like a curse, and his brow dips as if he can’t even comprehend this concept. I can’t really blame him—standing here in a post-orgasm glow, I have no idea why I’ve denied myself this for as long as I have.

I go to pull away but his hand squeezes mine. ‘Years?’ Softer, gentler, less shocked, more wondering.

‘Yeah.’ I don’t meet his eyes. I hate feeling like this. Most people look at me with awe and it’s pushed my vulnerabilities deep inside me. But suddenly, I feel gauche and insecure; I feel like the gangly, solitary teen I was after Abbey died and I realised I had no one who really knew me.

I make an effort to straighten and transform into Imogen Carmichael, entrepreneur, philanthropist.

‘It’s not a big deal, okay?’

‘I beg to differ. Are you some kind of masochist? Or nun?’

‘Clearly not the latter.’

‘So why the hell have you been single so long?’

I square my shoulders but make no effort to pull my hand away from his. I like touching him. That should set alarm bells off inside my brain. Maybe it does. I ignore them, though, staying right where I am, his naked torso with that cursive script tattoo inked over his heart calling to me.

‘I’ve been busy,’ I point out, waving my free hand around the office.

‘But sex is…’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ I roll my eyes. ‘To you, sex is like breathing. I get it.’

‘I was going to say,’ he interrupts, a little gruffly, ‘that it’s an instinct. And it’s more than sex, it’s companionship. It’s falling asleep in someone’s arms, it’s having someone to laugh with.’

‘Says you, Mr Manhattan Playboy?’

He lifts his defined shoulders. ‘So? A varied sex life doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy those perks.’

It’s an admission I didn’t expect. Our eyes connect and something electrifies my pulse. ‘With a different woman every night, right?’

His eyes hold mine unflinchingly and I admire him for his lack of apology. Why should he apologise? He’s a renowned bachelor; he lives as he preaches. Everyone who sleeps with him knows what they’re getting.

Great sex.

Lots of it.

But just for a night or so.

I knew that—it’s why I approached him, specifically, in the forums. I didn’t want the complication of a guy who might want more from me.

Which somewhat begs the question as to why he’s here.

And why I don’t feel more annoyed about it.

‘You like sex,’ he says, as if I’m a puzzle he wants to work out.

My cheeks flush. Because up until a week ago, I didn’t know how much I like sex. I’ve only been with two guys. My college boyfriend, who it turns out was using me to access my mother’s production company connections, and Jackson, who was ‘great on paper’ but a complete dud in real life. It’s a shame it took me six months to work that one out.

In any event, the sex with both was…nice. At best.

‘Apparently,’ I murmur, scanning his face.

I had no idea it could be so completely mind-blowing. I mean, I’ve read my fair share of romance novels and watched movies where the women just have to be kissed on the nose to go into a full-blown orgasm, and I’ve always thought it was a stupid fantasy.

Not so much now.

‘You came looking for sex,’ he prompts, and I get a glimpse of the determination that’s made Nicholas Rothsmore such a success in business, away from his family’s prestigious standing in society. He has a needle-sharp focus and he’s using it to sift through my soul.

‘Yes.’ I jut my chin out unapologetically.

‘Why?’

I open my mouth to answer and then shake my head. ‘I told you, it’s been a while.’

‘So why now?’ he persists.

My eyes drop away from his, skimming the walls of my office. This place is my home away from home and yet it’s nothing like the real me. Elegant Scandinavian furniture, obvious signs of wealth and success. It’s what my clients expect.

‘I guess…’ I search for an answer. The truth is, it wasn’t one thing or another. People in the club have been pairing off lately. There’ve been engagements and rumoured weddings, and I guess it’s made me realise how far I am from that. It’s the knowledge that I’m approaching thirty and that happy couple life is nowhere near being on my horizon. But mostly, it was desire. Curiosity. Loneliness—the kind that permeates me on a cellular level, so I could no longer ignore it.

He squeezes my hand so I jerk my attention back to his face.

‘I just wanted to get laid.’ The admission is bare-faced, if only a fraction of the complex knot of emotions that led me into the Intimate Room. ‘And then get on with my life.’

‘Ah.’ He grins, just a flash, but I have the strangest—and most unpleasant—sensation that he’s laughing at me. ‘Sex isn’t a part of your real life?’

I shake my head. ‘This is…’ I wave around the office. ‘My business. The club. The charity. That takes pretty much all my time and energy. It’s hard to meet anyone, but—’

‘But?’ he prompts, when I don’t finish the sentence.

My teeth press into my lower lip as I think that through. ‘But, I’m twenty-nine and I have barely been in a relationship. I mean, a couple of guys but nothing serious, nothing that could ever go anywhere.’

He’s quiet, listening attentively.

‘And suddenly, everyone seems to be pairing off, like the club has become its own kind of Noah’s Ark or something.’

He laughs gruffly.

‘I’m almost thirty and I have no social life to speak of.’ I grimace. ‘I haven’t dated in four years. The guy I have the most frequent conversations with is my doorman, Mr Silverstein, and he’s seventy-five years old and very happily married. My parents won’t get off my back about being single. It doesn’t matter that I’ve built all this, they really only care about me getting married and having babies—not so many that I ruin my figure, mind you.’ I pause to roll my eyes, making the mental excuses for my mother that I always bring to the fore when I’m frustrated with her. How she’s an aging Hollywood starlet who sees youth and beauty as her greatest assets—and both are shifting away from how she wants them to be. ‘But more than that, I’m…getting used to being alone.’ I swallow, the raw truth of the confession surprising me.

‘It’s not that I want a relationship.’ The very idea fills me with panic. ‘There’s no way I could fit one in. I barely have time to workout in the day. I have to get a manicurist to come to the office if I need my nails done.’ I shake my head, hating how entitled that sounds, resisting an urge to explain it’s part of the whole image thing my clients expect me to project.

‘So our night in Sydney was…what? Your sexual equivalent to an in-office manicure?’ he teases.

Heat blooms in my cheeks.

‘Dial-a-Fuck?’ he pushes, and I laugh, shaking my head.

‘Honestly? I was seriously starting to worry I might have forgotten how to even do sex.’ I laugh, and am relieved when he does too.

‘So… Dial-a-Fuck meets sex refresher course?’

‘Sex for Beginners,’ I agree with a wink.

‘Well, Miss Carmichael, I’m delighted to say you passed, with flying colours.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Silence hums around us, buzzing like paparazzi at fashion week. I hold my breath and wait, though I have no idea what I’m waiting for.

‘Why did you come here?’

His brows lift, just a little. ‘I was looking for you.’

Heat spreads through my body.

‘Why?’

His hands lift to my hair, flicking it between his fingers. ‘You suit blonde.’ His smile is somehow self-deprecating. ‘Then again, you also suit pink.’

I laugh. ‘Did you come here to discuss my hair?’

‘No.’ His eyes pierce mine. ‘I came here to find Miss Anonymous.’

‘Why?’

‘Because last week was the best sex I’ve ever had, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I want more. More of her, you, this. And I think you do too.’

My jaw drops, my heart stops, my pulse cracks like a frozen river.

‘Nicholas—’

His name rushes from my lips, too much air, too much feeling. It’s too much. If sex were a college degree, this guy would hold several PhDs. He really thinks I’m the best? The best he’s ever had? Pride soars in my chest, and, more than that, the addiction centres of my brain are going into overdrive because he’s damned right. I do want more of this.

But… ‘We agreed it would just be one night.’

‘That was before.’ He shrugs away the objection, as though it doesn’t matter.

‘But you’re not… Neither of us wants… I mean, what are you saying?’

‘I’m glad you asked,’ he says teasingly, pulling me closer, wrapping his arms behind my back so our bodies are cleaved together in a way that is both sexy and intimate. ‘I came here wanting to fuck Miss Anonymous again, and I did. And still I want more. And now, I think I can see a way for both of us to get what we want.’

‘What’s that?’ I sound as if I’ve run a marathon.

‘Go out with me.’

Panic spirals through me and I shake my head on instinct. ‘I don’t date, Nicholas. I didn’t mean to imply that I want that…’

‘Relax.’ He grins, and something fizzes in my gut. ‘I don’t mean for real.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You haven’t dated in a long time, and that seems like a waste. So date me. Play with me. Fuck me.’ He says the last in a voice that is so deep it rumbles right through my bones. ‘I’m moving home in a month and, suddenly, I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend what remains of my time in New York than with you.’

His voice whips against me, seductive and intense. But I hold onto Chance, to what I owe Abbey, to the single-minded focus this business takes to run. ‘I can’t.’ My tone is clipped, strange-sounding in the midst of our conversation and what we’ve just done. ‘I don’t have time to date.’

‘That’s a cop-out.’ His words are a little mocking.

‘I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s the truth. I work really hard, and I can’t spare the time to fill your last few weeks here in New York.’

‘You’re saying you’d rather work than do more of this?’ He lifts a brow and, damn it, he is so hot, and I want him, and he knows it. He knows what he’s doing to me. I swallow, frustration biting into my belly.

‘Look, Nicholas, I appreciate the offer.’ I wince, knowing it sounds like some kind of real-estate merger. ‘But this was only meant to be one night. I hadn’t—’

‘Had sex in a really long time,’ he supplies, a smile on his lips, as if he’s teasing me, and a smile twitches on my own lips in response.

‘I haven’t had a life in a really long time. No friends, no boyfriend, I barely see my family—though I can’t say that’s a bad thing, actually—but I got… I know it’s kind of sad to admit this, I got lonely, okay? I just wanted one night to be like a regular woman in her twenties. And it was great. You were great. But that’s all it can be between us. I can’t afford to get distracted.’

‘Great. I don’t want to distract you.’ He wiggles his brows. ‘At least, not beyond this month.’

‘Nicholas,’ I groan, lifting my hands to my face and covering my eyes. ‘I can’t do it. This all means too much to me—’

‘I get it.’ I remove my hands to find him watching me. ‘Your work is important to you. But you just said you haven’t had a life in a really long time. So why not give yourself one? Just for a few weeks.’

His words catch in my chest. I frown.

‘I’m not talking about a relationship, and I’m not talking about long-term. I’m literally talking about you and me, doing more of this.’ He gestures towards my desk and the window that still bears my handprints. ‘Dating for a few weeks, having fun, all kinds of fun, until it’s time for me to leave.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then, I go back to my life, and you can go back to working twenty-two hours a day and pretending you’re not a red-blooded woman.’

It’s crazy. But what’s craziest of all is that it makes sense. It’s everything I wanted and never thought I could have. A relationship with clear boundaries, limits on what we get from one another and a stop point that would make it impossible for this to overshadow my real life in any way. It’s exactly the kind of relationship I would create, if I thought there was any likelihood I’d find a guy to go along with it.

It feels almost too good to be true. ‘You want to date me?’

‘Well, I want to fuck you,’ he says with a devilish grin that takes any impertinence out of his correction. ‘But you should be dated. And I’m pretty good at the whole dating thing.’

My heart kicks up a notch. ‘And not at all arrogant with it, right?’

‘It’s not arrogant if it’s true.’

I roll my eyes again but stifle a laugh. ‘I suppose you have a point.’

‘So? Four weeks of debauched fun. What say you, Miss Carmichael?’

My body unequivocally and enthusiastically says ‘yes’. A thousand times over, yes. But I have to think this through. I’m not someone who jumps off the deep end without looking at every angle first. ‘I don’t date clients.’

‘Ever?’ Then, before I can answer, ‘Right, you’re a date virgin.’

‘I am not!’ I splutter, laughing. ‘I have dated.’

‘A millennium ago.’

‘Shut up.’ I punch his shoulder playfully but his eyes flare in a way that promises it could very quickly go from playful to something else entirely if I’m not careful.

‘No one has to know about this.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Could we actually keep this a secret? Is that remotely feasible?

‘What? You’re planning on taking out a full-page ad?’

‘No, but, you’re kind of recognisable, and so am I.’ Temptation is dragging me towards the line of acceptance, though. ‘Why don’t we just, you know, sleep together? My apartment has a basement garage, you can come and go and no one needs to know…’

‘No.’ He lifts a hand, curving it around my cheek, his eyes flaring with mine. ‘It’s obvious you’re a total novice and need a first-rate education. I’m going to take you out.’

‘Wine and dine me?’

‘Yes.’

Heat soars in my chest.

‘It wouldn’t work. I can’t have people talking. This matters too much to me.’ Once more, I wave my hand around my office, indicating the club.

‘I respect that.’ He studies me for a beat. ‘I promise I won’t do anything that could damage your reputation in the club. Scout’s honour.’

I laugh, because he is far from a Scout. ‘Dating you would do that though.’ And it would. Not just because I’m me, but because he’s Nicholas Rothsmore and his reputation would be enough to drag me towards scandal—just the kind of scandal I promise my members the club will help them avoid.

‘So we’ll keep it secret.’ He says it as if it’s simple.

Before I can ask him exactly how he proposes to do that, he pulls me closer, tighter, so our bodies meld and thought becomes a little harder.

‘I saw something on the forums about the Christmas gala,’ he murmurs, his eyes sweeping my face.

‘That we’re looking for donations of time?’

He nods, then drops his head so his lips buzz mine so lightly it’s a form of torture. I push up on my tiptoes without meaning to, so my face is closer, wanting an actual kiss.

He pulls back, just a little, teasing me, tempting me. Frustration kicks in my abdomen.

‘So?’

‘So,’ he murmurs, buzzing my lips again, then sliding a hand between my legs so I sway forward and exhale softly. ‘If anyone runs into us, we’ll tell them I’m helping with the Christmas gala.’ His fingers brush my clit and I dig my fingers into his shoulder, holding on for dear life as he stirs my body to a new fever pitch.

It’s so plausible. Members with certain expertise often volunteer their time or resources when it comes to organising events. Ellie Little recently provided a heap of supercars for a member event. This isn’t unprecedented.

People would believe it.

Probably.

He slides a single finger inside my core and my knees threaten to buckle. His arm clamps around my back as if he knows somehow.

‘Think about it,’ he murmurs in my ear before sucking my lobe into his mouth, teasing it between his teeth. ‘How else will you know what really…’ he moves his finger deeper, brushing his thumb over my clit; my breath hurts ‘…really…’ he bites his teeth down on my earlobe and I make a sound of total surrender ‘…great dating feels like?’

I hold him as he moves faster and pleasure is like a tidal wave swirling around me. I’m not sure I care about dating so much as sex, and sex specifically with Nicholas, but at the same time I’m completely intrigued.

Pleasure is making thought almost impossible, so I ask the first thing that occurs to me before I lose myself utterly in this moment. ‘Why would you do this?’

‘Beyond the fact the sex with you is fucking fantastic?’

I nod, tilting my head back, staring at my ceiling as everything explodes in my chest.

‘Because in a month I will become the man who’s going to be Lord Rothsmore and any kind of social life will be a distant memory.’ I cling on tighter as my eyes fill with stars. ‘This month with you will be like my very own goodbye party to my real life.’

If I weren’t cresting over a wave of sublime release, I might almost have felt sorry for him, I might have paid more attention to the heaviness in his voice. But I cannot think properly, I cannot act as I normally would. I cry out his name and tip over the edge, my eyes blinking open to find him watching me with an intensity that takes my breath away.

‘Say yes,’ he prompts, a smile flickering across his lips, as though he knows I’ll agree—how can I not?

My throat is parched, my body awash with a shock of feelings, but I nod, jerkily. In that moment, I would have agreed to give him my soul; I would have agreed to anything he asked of me. We have thirty days, not one thousand and one, and yet sex, I think, has become my Scheherazade’s tale, and he is the master storyteller, intriguing me more and more with each and every encounter…

CHAPTER FIVE

WELL… THAT WAS UNEXPECTED.

I settle into the luxurious leather of my limo, staring out at Manhattan as I cut across town. I can still smell her on my skin, on my hands, taste her in my mouth. Desire slides across me like warm water, and I throw my head back, squeeze my eyes shut and exhale.

Miss Anonymous is Miss Imogen Carmichael.

I’ve met her before, but only briefly, and while I thought she was attractive, I haven’t really given her a second thought. I focus on that memory now, remembering the way she was with me, the same way she is with everyone in the exclusive club. Friendly, but in a way I instinctively understood to be guarded. She is exceptional at seeming warm without giving much of herself away.

She’s calm and measured, and the club is a testament to that. It’s a behemoth of an organisation and she oversees all aspects of it, an impressive tribute to her hard work.

What is unexpected is the heat that runs just beneath her surface. The passion that makes her lose herself in the moment just as completely as I do—if not more so. She’s driven by instincts, and her instincts are fire and flame.

It isn’t that I haven’t had good sex. I have. But she’s on a whole other level. There’s nothing practised about her, there’s nothing overthought or contrived. She does as she feels, and she feels as she needs, and her body answers mine in every way.

It’s utterly surreal.

It must have been, for me to suggest we date.

Date! What the actual fuck?

I don’t date. I screw. I screw beautiful, available, temporary lovers then move on. A week here and there, sometimes longer, but always on my terms, and always only if my lovers understand my ballgame. I don’t do promises, I don’t do hearts and candles, love, promises of a future. If I date a woman, it’s because she knows how temporary and superficial it will be.

One day, I’ll marry, someone like Saffy, except I’ll never make the mistake of falling in love with them again. The pain of Saffy’s desertion has been muted by the passage of time but it’s still there, a pressure in my solar plexus whenever I remember it. When I think of how it felt to stand in front of the church and realise that she simply wasn’t going to show. It’s a pain that only grew when, a month later, I learned she’d fallen in love with someone else. While I was preparing for our wedding, she was working out how to leave me for some new guy.

I feel my tattoo restlessly. I am my own.

I’d forgotten that for a while. I’d let the union my parents had pushed me into, had championed and supported, become something else in my mind, so I’d actually let myself fall in love with Saffron. So much so that I was devastated when we broke up. Devastated, humiliated, burned to a crisp.

Never again.

When I get married, it will be to someone who wants the title I can give her and the money at my disposal, who understands that, beyond polite companionship, I’m not offering anything more and that, beyond a need for a couple of heirs, I’m not looking for anything further.

It makes me see my parents’ marriage through a new light. I used to think their lovelessness was kind of sad—the way they wasp their way through life. Now, I get it. It’s a practical marriage. They married because it made sense, they had their son and heir to carry on the family name and probably never touched each other again.

Yeah, it’s a well-worn blueprint for marriage in their circles, in my circle, and I have no doubt my own will be just like it.

But until then, for one month, I’m going to enjoy Imogen Carmichael, and I’m going to make it one of the best months of her life. I’m going to take dating to the next level, set the bar so fucking high for the poor next guy that he has to spend the rest of his life working to make her as happy and fulfilled as I have in these four weeks.

Why? Because I’m Nicholas Rothsmore and I’m always, without fail, the best at everything I do, and now that includes dating Imogen.

A box arrives the following afternoon. It’s gunmetal-grey with white cursive script embossed across the top, proclaiming the name of an exclusive Manhattan lingerie boutique. My breath immediately speeds up. I ignore Emily’s curious glance as I take it from her, moving to my desk and placing it carefully on the corner.

‘RSVPs are coming thick and fast,’ I say. ‘Ticket payments are way ahead of where we were at this time last year.’

But, curious or not, Emily is all professionalism. She consults her clipboard for a moment. ‘And donations are great too. Sir Bennet Alwin has donated a guided tour of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on his own personal submersible.’

‘I wouldn’t mind winning that,’ I say with a smile. He’s one of the leading naturalists of our time, and the Great Barrier Reef is regrettably a dying wonder of the world.

‘You can bid,’ she points out.

It’s true, there’s nothing to preclude me from entering the auction bidding, but, much like dating members, I have my own little set of rules that stands me apart from the other club members. In the past, I’ve matched donations for items that can be replicated, so the charity wins twice.

‘I might. What else?’

‘There’s the private performance by the London Philharmonic, the flight over the Baltic in Yuri Ostromonov’s helicopter, the private cruise of the Antarctic and the custom diamond choker from Alec Minton.’

‘Wow. That’s quite a haul.’

‘That’s just in the last week.’

I shake my head, floored by people’s generosity, even when I know half of it is about advertising and the kudos that comes from being visibly associated with The Billionaires’ Club.

‘Seriously, you should see my inbox. It’s overflowing with offers.’

‘Great. Well, let me know if you need me to wade in.’

‘Nope, I’ve got this. The caterer asked you to go by some time this week to review the menu. You’re free Friday afternoon.’

My heart notches up a bit. Before Nicholas left, he turned and said, ‘Friday night. I’ll be in touch with details.’

But the afternoon is a separate matter. I nod, turning away in case the heat in my blood has converted to pink cheeks. ‘Sounds good. Send me a meeting invite once it’s confirmed.’

‘Done.’

As soon as I’m alone, I cross the room and lift the box, running my finger over the embossed text with a small smile. My fingers shake as I pull on the satin ribbon. It loosens then drops to the floor, just a spool of white against the carpet.

I lift the lid slowly, placing it on the desk. There’s a gold sticker joining two sides of tissue paper together. I slide my finger under it, easing it up, deliberately moving slowly to counteract my body’s impatience, needing to control my instincts—which shout at me to rip the damned paper and see what’s inside.

The paper lifts and a delicate cream silk fabric sits inside, perfectly nestled, so I have to lift it out to see what it is. My breath hitches not at the beauty of the lingerie, though it is stunning, so much as at the idea that he, Nicholas Rothsmore, bought it for me.

I hold it up a little higher, skimming my eyes over the delicate spaghetti straps, which lead to a low V of lace. I can tell that when I wear it, my breasts will be visible through the frothy, twisting swirls. Silk kisses lace and it falls in soft folds down to what I guess will be my hips when I finally put on the exquisite piece. I spin, looking back to the box, and smile, because there are matching briefs, silk and lace, with ribbons at the side, so they can be undone with no more than a slight tug.

Anticipation supercharges my blood. I’m about to lay the lingerie back in the box and stuff the lid on when I catch sight of an envelope in the bottom. Intrigued, I reach for it, opening the back and lifting out a single piece of thick card.

It bears his name at the top, and a coat of arms, which, I imagine, belong to his ancient family. I stare at it for a moment, making out a lion, a spiky-looking flower and a bird with a full and impressive plume of feathers.

Aristocratic guys I generally avoid like the plague. And with good reason. All my experience has made me wary of people with too much money, but at least people who’ve had to work to earn it or fight to keep it have some appreciation for the value of it and an understanding for what life is like for those who don’t; the liberties and choices many are deprived of because of a lack of financial viability.

But it’s the lords and the sirs, the counts and the barons who are, by far, the most…wankery. In fact, the only member I’ve expelled from the club was a lord with an impeccable reputation, but we discovered he’d drugged a waitress at a club event—one of our members had found them in the Intimate Rooms just in time—but, God, it could have been so much worse.

Not that all the guys with titles are bad. They’re just definitely not my type.

I have no idea what my type is, but it’s not Nicholas.

That gives me a sense of relief because I don’t want to get involved with anyone right now, and so the only way I can really date him is because I know it will go nowhere.

Miss Anonymous—

I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.

Wear this.

N

It’s so simple, so completely to the point, but my heart stammers as though he’s breathed the words into my ear, and I need to sit down for a second to regroup. His handwriting is bold and confident, just like him, and he uses—what else?—a fountain pen. I lift it to my lips without thinking and breathe deeply, as though I might somehow catch a lingering hint of him on the card.

Friday is still three nights away and suddenly the wait feels excruciating.

Fortunately, I’m flat out too busy to pine or anticipate…much. Wednesday will be spent doing membership interviews and vetting, Thursday will be planning out next year’s events and schedules, making sure we have something seriously incredible planned for each month. Right now, The Billionaires’ Club is the hottest ticket in the world—my waiting list is a mile long.

It’s a great position to be in but it’s also dangerous territory—someone else could set up and start taking my business if I don’t make sure our offering is consistently better. Extra is my middle name.

We’ve got Egypt on the calendar next year, including the kind of money-can’t-buy access to the Pyramids of Giza followed by a starlit dinner right beneath the Sphinx, with delicacies from all over the world being flown in for members. Imagine a carpet of stars, a thousand candles lighting the way and one of the world’s best jazz musicians crooning some beautiful music all evening long. Followed by a night in a tent that, once you’re inside, is more like a six-star hotel.

It’s taken a huge amount of work to organise—dealing with the authorities and making sure we’re not violating any local customs or laws—but this is what people pay their million dollars a year for. Oh, the ticket price itself is extra on top, but without being a member, you don’t get a look-in.

On Friday, I meet with the gala caterers to do a small tasting of the menu, as well as the wines, and go over the running of the night, explaining when we’ll serve which courses and why.

It’s a busy day, and I’m glad for that, glad that by the time six o’clock rolls around I’ve barely had time to stop, let alone think about Nicholas.

Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve barely stopped thinking about him but in a ‘back of my mind’ kind of way. But as I lather myself in the shower then towel off before smoothing oil over my hairless legs, all I can think about is the next few hours and the certainty that soon his hands will be where my hands are.

My pulse fires at just the thought. When I slip on the lingerie he sent me, my body is already a field of live wires so my breasts tingle and my stomach twists.

I stare at myself in the mirror, still nowhere near ready, but wanting to stay just like this. Not to go out so much as to stay in. I wish I hadn’t agreed to date him, only to sleep with him. Except I’m actually a little excited to see what a guy like Nicholas has planned.

And sex is happening.

I just have to wait a few more hours.

Is this completely crazy? I don’t get involved with members. Even though The Billionaires’ Club is my creation, my baby, and I’m prominent in the community, there’s a distance between me and everyone else. I have to oversee things, to make sure it goes smoothly. I have to run the business side of things and manage membership difficulties.

I can’t be seen fooling around with someone in the club.

This has to stay private. And it has to be brief. He said he’s going back to England in a month, but that’s no real impediment to us seeing each other. I mean, the club has rooms all over the world; we host events everywhere. He attends most of them, like all of the members. So I’m bound to see him again, often enough that we could keep this going on a semi-permanent basis.

And then what?

I see him slinking off to the Intimate Rooms with someone else? I hear along the grapevine he’s getting married to Lady Asher Cumber-something-or-other?

Because that’s how this plays out.

And if I don’t retain a bit of control here, I’ll get hurt. I might seem, on the outside, as if I have everything ordered in my life, but loneliness is pervasive and powerful, and the temptation of being one half of a pair might lead me to forget the sense in all this.

I’ll have to be clear with him from the outset, and clear with myself too. With a small smile curving my lips, I think of the tattoo above his heart and reach for a pen. I am my own. I write the words hastily on the back of a store receipt and stick it to my dressing table mirror.

It’s a good incantation. I’m going to say it often. Just in case.

It’s snowing again and cold out. With no idea what we’re doing or where we’re going, I dress with versatility in mind. A pair of slim-fitting black leather trousers paired with a silk shirt with long, bell sleeves that falls off one shoulder and is a dirty gold in colour. I like it because the colour flatters my skin, the softness of the fabric hugs my curves and makes it pretty obvious I’m not wearing a bra, and when the sleeve drops over one shoulder, you can see the hint of lace from the camisole he sent me.

I take a few minutes to style my hair, curling it with my wand so it falls in big loose waves over one shoulder. Make-up is simple—as always—just a slick of mascara and the bright red lipstick I wore the night we fucked in Sydney.

My heart is pounding like a bird trapped in a too-small cage.

There are still twenty minutes to go. Waiting is killing me.

I pace through to the kitchen and pour a Chardonnay, press play on my phone so soft piano music connects to the speakers that are wired through my apartment, filling the space with beautiful, calming jazz. It helps, but I’m still looking at the clock every ten seconds.

‘This is ridiculous,’ I groan, pacing across the lounge for my handbag. On a whim, I swap it for a small gold clutch that matches my shirt and opt for my faux fur coat, wrapping it around my shoulders as I pace back to the kitchen.

Shoes! I need shoes.

Damn it.

I can only laugh at myself and my state of nervousness as I survey my extensive collection of stilettos. Again, with no idea what we’re doing, I should probably choose a shoe for all occasions.

But as I remember the way he looked at my stilettos that night in Sydney, a wild impulse has me pulling out one of my favourite pairs. Supple leather, a pointed toe, and a heel so high and spindly it’s a wonder they don’t snap in two, gives me a few extra inches in height and a mega-boost in confidence.

I add a couple of bangles on a whim, and have three big gulps of wine then stand perfectly still and wait. I breathe in, I breathe out, I empty my mind, I still my trembling—all the tricks the psychologist taught me right after Abbey died, after I’d started having panic attacks.

I don’t have the attacks any more but I still get flushes of anxiety, especially when I have to speak at an event. No one would ever know—I pride myself on presenting the image of a calm and collected entrepreneur, but in no small part my success at faking a confidence I don’t feel comes from this arsenal of stress-management techniques.

My buzzer rings.

My heart leaps to my throat.

I spin and stalk across the lounge, adrenalin pumping through me as I lift the phone off the cradle. ‘Hello?’ Just a husk.

‘Miss Anonymous?’

My smile is broad and instinctive. ‘I’ll be right down.’

I hang up, take one last look at myself and exhale slowly—it does nothing to quell the butterflies rampaging my stomach. They chase me as I exit the apartment and descend in the lift.

‘Good night, Mr Silverstein.’ I smile as I approach the door. He pulls it inward, a kind smile cracking the lines that form his face.

He lets out a low whistle. ‘You look mighty pretty, Miss Carmichael.’

He has a southern drawl a lot like my pa’s. It softens my heart whenever I speak to him.

‘Thanks.’

‘Got a club function?’

I nod, because it’s easier than admitting the truth—that I have a sort of date.

‘Have fun, be safe.’

He says the same thing every time I go out at night. I like it. Even though I’m long past the point of needing protecting, it’s still nice to feel as if someone cares.

Nicholas is waiting just outside, standing on the kerb, the back door of his low-set black car open. A driver sits behind the wheel. I don’t know what I’d expected. A motorbike, maybe? Not necessarily this. But most people I know are chauffeured around. In fact, I’m probably an anomaly for the fact I use cabs or the subway.

As I step onto the kerb, his eyes trail their way over me, slowly, dragging heat and electricity wherever he looks. My heart stutters, my stomach dives.

Anxiety is back, pulsing through my veins. I refuse to show it.

He takes a step towards me, and another, and my pulse races, my heart twists.

‘You look good enough to eat,’ he murmurs, holding a hand out to me. I place mine in it; sparks dance the length of my limbs, and my eyes widen in recognition of the strength of this attraction and connection.

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

His eyes show amusement, but he doesn’t laugh.

Heat explodes between us. I stay where I am; he doesn’t move either. We’re separated by several feet, but holding hands, just staring at each other.

He’s wearing beige trousers, a white shirt and a dark blue jacket, with brown shoes. He looks handsome, sexy, stylish and wealthy.

I wish he weren’t wearing anything.

‘What are we doing tonight?’ I hear myself ask, my lips shifting into a slight smile.

‘Ah. It’s a surprise.’ He jerks on my hand a little, pulling me towards him, and he kisses me on the cheek. It’s so chaste and weirdly sweet that a different kind of heat, a warmth, flows through me. And then, a whisper in my ear, just low enough for me to catch, ‘But I promise it’s going to end in my bed.’

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