The Dare Collection March 2019. Rachael Stewart

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СКАЧАТЬ for years, but sooner or later, there was only a reflection in that mirror and too much truth to bear.

      Why wouldn’t you build a resort here? Lucinda had asked.

      And Jason grinned now, while the breeze teased his face and the sea sighed its way onto the rocks far below.

      Because that was an excellent question.

      And he knew just how he was going to answer her.

      Lucinda rejoiced in her welcome home to England, four miserable travel days later. She’d had to wait longer than she’d liked in Fiji to get on a plane to Los Angeles, there in the sweltering heat. And had been forced to wait in too-sunny California for a seat on a plane back to London, too, for what had seemed like another eternity.

      But when she’d finally made it onto a red-eye headed for the UK, Heathrow hunched there when they’d finally landed, gray and wet and green, like a song of homecoming.

      She smiled as she surrendered herself to the tender mercies of the Tube that whisked her along beneath the London streets. She told herself she was merry and bright, despite another round of serious exhaustion hanging on her like a cloak, as she walked from the Tube stop back to her flat. She was happy every time she heard a horn, or screeching tires, or the rest of the clattering noise and dismal tumult of London.

      Lucinda was sure she’d never been so happy in her life as she was to let herself into her flat, then find her way to the rain-streaked window in her lounge that looked out over a dingy rooftop and a few brick walls.

      No assaulting sunshine. No complicated blue sky and sea, stretching on toward forever.

      No half-naked man, all temptation and wickedness.

      Just London, doing its thing. It made her imagine that all she needed was a good sleep and she’d feel like herself again. How hard could it be to forget about her too-brief time on a fairy-tale island? After a good sleep it would feel like nothing more than a dream, she was certain.

      Lucinda staggered off to bed, slept for hours and woke up to treat herself to tea and toast. No platters of dramatic fruit, everything garnished with coconut and soft breezes. Just a proper breakfast on a rainy Thursday morning, like any other.

      She thought about taking another day to settle herself but decided against it. Her endless hours of travel had allowed her to play her time on that island over and over again in her head. She’d relived every touch. Every sound she’d made, on the surfboard or in Jason’s bed. What would lying about her flat do but make it worse?

      She needed to put all of that behind her. Now.

      Lucinda took a certain grim pleasure in her usual routine. The attention to her hair, her makeup. The heels she wore because practicality had its place, but sleek, stylish, wearable weapons were a woman’s best friend.

      And then, telling herself that she was perfectly fine and suffered no ill effects or emotional residue at all, she headed back into work.

      She was so busy congratulating herself on her escape from paradise and the terrifying lure of the most astoundingly beautiful man she’d ever met that it took her entirely too long to notice the way everyone in the office was staring at her.

      “Is there something on my face?” she asked her harried assistant after she’d run the gauntlet of the executive floor. A little more sharply than necessary, perhaps.

      “You’re quite tanned, actually. That’s surprising.” Her usually reliable and practical assistant shook herself, as if she hadn’t meant to say that. “But you’re a legend, Lucinda. That’s the main thing. You did it. You really did it.”

      Lucinda blinked. “What did I do?”

      “You know.” Pandora shook her head, admiringly, as if Lucinda was being coy. And then made it all worse by nudging her with her shoulder, as if they were friends. “They should have known better, shouldn’t they? Lucinda Graves always gets what she wants.”

      Lucinda had the faintest inkling then—but surely not. Surely there was no way. Still, she was too taken back by the possibility to lecture her assistant on proper office decorum.

      Especially when the phone rang and her presence was requested in the executive boardroom. Immediately.

      “Congratulations,” Pandora whispered after she put the phone down.

      Lucinda turned and headed for the boardroom, done in achingly posh wood with gold accents and featuring a priceless view over London. She’d always loved that view. She liked to walk the long way through the office so she could look at it, always visible behind the clear glass walls that invited everyone in the office to see what it looked like when important meetings happened. Who attended and who dominated.

      She had studied that room, and she’d vowed that one day, she would look out to see London at her feet and all of upper management gazing at her as if she was the star.

      And she could see it happening as she walked toward the room. She saw all the men in their suits turn to watch her approach. She lengthened her stride, aware that she looked bulletproof and flawless, just the way she liked it.

      She might not understand this moment, but it was hers, and she’d take it.

      But then the sea of business suits parted, and everything changed.

      Because Jason was here.

      In London. In her office.

      His back to that glorious view of London as if she was the only thing worth looking at.

      And worse, he wasn’t standing in the middle of the executive boardroom with his miraculous chest out and all those acres and acres of brown skin and perfect tattoos on display. Lucinda felt that keenly, like one more betrayal.

      Because Jason was wearing a black, obviously bespoke suit that hugged that big, athletic form of his in a way that made her blood turn molten in her veins. He’d scraped his hair back and fastened it, and that was terrible, too. It made him look like some kind of elegant marauder, and she couldn’t bear the heat of it.

      Much less the way his gaze caught hers through the glass.

      As if he knew all the things she wanted so badly to hide. The anticipation in her belly that was easing its way lower still and changing into fire. The catch in her breath. That damnable weakness in her knees, just because he was near.

      Every single lie she’d told herself over the past few days about how happy she was to get away from him.

      She wanted to run, screaming. She wanted to keep on going, past the boardroom and back out into the gray morning. She wanted to pretend none of this was happening.

      But that was the coward’s way out. And Lucinda was no coward, no matter how much she wished otherwise this morning.

      She lifted her chin to a properly belligerent angle. Then she shoved open the glass door and stepped inside.

      Instantly, it was like the two of them were alone. As if there weren’t all those other faceless executives in between them, judging them. Jason’s gaze slammed into her the way his cock had, over and over, and she knew that he could see an answering heat all over her face.

      She СКАЧАТЬ