The Dare Collection June 2019. Rachael Stewart

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СКАЧАТЬ poker face thing is great when you don’t want to give yourself away but surely you can crack a smile now you’ve won?’

      ‘I’ll consider it a true win when you’re not affiliated with any of this.’

       Dammit.

      I pressed my lips shut but it was too late.

      Laser eyes narrowed. ‘Why does my presence bother you so much?’

      ‘It doesn’t,’ I snapped with excessive heat and instantly knew I’d left myself wide open to the dark speculation growing in his eyes.

      ‘Then you won’t object to a sit-down tonight to discuss the best way forward with this deal,’ he parried smoothly. So smoothly, I didn’t feel the shackles closing in until I was trapped.

      He knew I’d planned to return home to Westport tonight, having heard me say as much to the director when we’d discussed the final segment of shooting.

      But he wouldn’t throw me that easily.

      I made the exaggerated show of looking at my watch. ‘I can delay my car service for an hour...’ I raised an eyebrow when he shook his head.

      ‘For a deal worth over half a million dollars, surely you’ll want to devote more time than a measly hour to this?’ he drawled in that laconic way that was at odds with the dangerous fire gleaming in his eyes.

      I sucked in a slow steadying breath, aware that his gaze was moving over me again, lingering at my throat, on my breasts. Making me hot and hungry when I needed a cool head.

      The goal here was sexual domination. My domination. My win. ‘Fine. I’ll give you two hours.’

      He nodded. ‘Perfect for dinner. I’ll book us a table at Mortimer Plaza—’

      ‘No. I’m staying at the Wilton Grand. It has an excellent restaurant. I’ll make reservations.’ No way was I meeting him on his turf. To hell if that suggested I was a little scared of being seduced by the elegance and grandeur of his hotel all over again the way I was last time. I’d learned the hard way how to pick the weapons for my battles.

      ‘My driver’s outside. He’ll take us to your hotel,’ he said.

      ‘I have a few things to take care of first. We can meet at the restaurant at seven-thirty.’

      He nodded after a brief hesitation. ‘Very well. I’ll even endeavour not to be late,’ he said with a touch of sexy mockery that irritated and made my breath catch at the same time.

       This is where you walk away, Neve.

      My feet refused to obey, because the way he was staring at my mouth made my pussy throb and clench with a furious need that excited me way too much. He prowled another step closer and somehow my back was against one of the Chinese frames and we were hidden from view of the crew.

      ‘Neve.’

      God. His voice. Low. Sexy. Deep.

      The craving he sparked terrified me. ‘Are we done here? I need to get going.’

      He made an irritated little sound under his breath. ‘I’m looking forward to dinner. It might even give us the chance to put all this...hostility to bed.’

      The mention of bed immediately conjured up more explicit images that made my thighs clench and my nipples hard. To redress the sensation of being so...off balance in his presence, I subtly leaned towards him, gratified when his gaze dropped to my mouth for the umpteenth time this evening.

      Slowly, I slicked my tongue over my lower lip and smiled when his breath caught. ‘You know what? I’m actually looking forward to seeing you try.’

      My mental fist-pump as hunger spiked in his eyes stayed with me all the way back to my hotel and through my quick shower. Right up until my phone beeped with an unwanted reminder as I was slipping on my dress.

      Call Mom.

      My finger hovered over the delete button only to be knocked away by surging guilt and the reminder of the promise I’d made to try, no matter what. The weight of my grandparents’ own pain for the bond they’d never managed to forge with their own daughter burrowed deeper into my heart. Stomach clenched with nerves I should’ve been used to by now, I hit the call button, a quiet obstinacy not to fail at this too urging me on.

      She answered on the fourth ring.

      ‘Hey, Mom.’

      A pulse of silence. ‘Neve. I was beginning to think you’d permanently lost my number.’

      Relief darted through me at her sharp tone. She hadn’t hit the bottle. Yet. ‘Sorry. I’ve been a little busy.’

      ‘Of course you have. Chasing another overambitious venture, I expect? I don’t suppose you listened to my advice and dropped that silly TV show gimmick?’

      Relief was replaced with a spiky ache that tunnelled deep. ‘No. I went ahead with it. The exposure will be good for business.’ I wasn’t going to mention Fantasy Rooms. Not until it was a done deal.

      She made a derisive sound under her breath. ‘I guess we’ll see, won’t we?’

      My fingers tightened around the phone, suspecting what was coming. ‘Mom—’

      ‘Did you stop to think how your grandparents would feel about you turning their place into a spectacle?’

      Tears prickled my eyes. I blinked them back. ‘They knew how much I loved the place so I hope they’d be proud. I hope they’d be pleased that I managed to hang onto it instead of selling when times got hard.’

       Like you wanted me to.

      ‘You mean when you were forced to change the name of the hotel my father chose so your mistake didn’t follow you around?’

      ‘It made good business sense to rebrand. Start fresh,’ I argued.

      ‘You think you know better than me, don’t you?’

      I sighed. ‘No. I just... I just wish—’

      She laughed, a bitter sound that scraped my nerves. ‘Wishes are for fools, Neve. All the wishing in the world didn’t stop your father from leaving us. From erasing us from his life like we were nothing and hightailing it back to England.’

      The pain in my gut intensified. ‘You could have gone back with him like he wanted. We could’ve still been a family—’

      ‘Are you saying that was my fault?’ she asked sharply, and just like that we were back inside the vicious little circus of resentment and recrimination that had peppered our lives from the moment my father had walked out the door.

      I fought to keep my voice even. ‘No, Mom. I’m not saying that.’ But the part of me that had always judged her a little for her decisions wouldn’t be soothed. From the letters I’d discovered as a teenager, Richard Nolan had loved his wife. Enough to uproot his life to follow her to the States. Enough to forgive her first СКАЧАТЬ