Romance In Paradise. Sarah Mayberry

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СКАЧАТЬ from turning away. ‘Answering my question is my price for the valuation.’

      ‘It was my mother’s—passed down from my grandmother. I was given it shortly after she died and I’ve kept it with me ever since. It would be my lucky charm if I believed in lucky charms,’ Noah said, with the reluctance of a child facing a dentist’s appointment. ‘Her family wasn’t...wealthy, so I’m surprised that they possessed something this valuable.’

      Forget reluctance. Now he sounded as if he was having root canal without pain relief. Noah did not like talking about himself or his family. She wanted to ask how his mother had died—and when—but his expression was forbidding. She wasn’t brave enough to go there.

      ‘It’s very lovely. And it either belongs on a finger or in a safe, soldier,’ Morgan said. His expression begged her to change the subject so she relented. ‘How did the meeting go with the Head of Security at the Forrester?’

      Noah turned away and walked over to the window, looking down on the busy road beneath them. ‘I have some concerns that he needs to address. I’ll put them in a report and email it to you.’

      Morgan wrinkled her nose. ‘Can’t you tell me instead?’

      ‘What is it with you and your hatred of reading reports?’ Noah asked, resting his butt on the window sill. Sunlight picked up deep golden-brown streaks in his hair and created a bit of an aura around his head. He looked like a rough, tough, gun-toting bad-ass angel.

      Morgan clenched her thighs together and ignored the pulsing down below. She really had to get her hormones under control. This was beyond ridiculous.

      ‘Uh...reports. They are just a hassle to read.’

      Noah’s eyebrows pulled together. ‘You don’t like reading?’

      ‘Not particularly.’

      Noah crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his arms. ‘So, what do you read? Tatler and Heat?’

      And there he went, making assumptions. ‘If I don’t like going out in society why would I want to read about it? Actually, snob, my favourite authors are Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway. Harper Lee, John Steinbeck—all the classics.’

      ‘But you just said that you don’t like to read.’

      Yeah, but not that I don’t love books. She did love books—devoured them by the bucket load. Except that along with the paperback she bought the audio book, so that she could read along. Truthfully, she frequently just opted to listen and not read.

      Morgan flipped Noah a look and saw that he was looking very confused. Right, time to change the subject before he probed a little deeper. She wasn’t ready—probably would never be—to tell him about her dyslexia. It wasn’t something she believed he needed to know— now or ever.

      ‘I have a list of this month’s events that I need to attend,’ Morgan said, picking up the piece of paper she’d printed earlier from the email she’d received from Helen. She walked over to Noah and watched as he speed-read the document. Lucky man.

      ‘Ballet? Uck. A ball? Save me... But I can handle the art exhibition; I really like Davie’s work.’

      ‘You know Johnno’s art?’ Morgan asked, surprised.

      Noah folded his arms and tipped his head. ‘Now who’s being a snob? I went to his exhibition in London. Fantastic.’

      ‘Do you have any of his pieces?’

      ‘Duchess, I could only afford to look—not buy.’ Noah drawled. ‘Maybe one day. Anyway, my partner can’t find my tux in my flat. I think it’s at the cleaners and has been for the last six months.’

      ‘You left your tux at the cleaners for six months?’

      ‘I’ve been in and out of the country and I forgot, okay? My tux wasn’t high up on my list of priorities. So when do I need a tux by...?’ He looked at the piece of paper she’d handed him. ‘Crap! Tonight?’

      ‘Yep.’ Morgan laughed at his look of horror.

      ‘Jeez, give me some warning next time.’ Noah grumbled.

      ‘Hey, I’m the one who has to decide what to wear, do my hair, shoes, jewellery. Make-up. You just have to put on a tux. Big deal,’ Morgan shot back. It took work to look like the Moreau heiress people expected to see. A designer dress, stunning salon hair, perfect make-up. The right jewels for the right dress.

      ‘Yeah, but I have to get a tux and get into character...you know...work out how I’m going to pretend to have the hots for you. It’s a difficult job, but someone has to do it.’

      She was so distracted by the humour dancing in his eyes that it took a while for his words to make sense. When they did she blushed from head to toe and her fist rocketed into his bicep. It made all the impact of a single drop of rain falling in the desert.

      ‘Jerk!’

      ‘Was that supposed to be a punch?’ Noah asked, and grinned as she shook her fingers out. ‘Wuss. So, are you going to stay here for the rest of the afternoon while I go and buy myself a tux? Can I trust you to do that?’

      Morgan shoved out her lower lip. ‘Maybe.’

      Noah’s face hardened and his mouth flattened. ‘You leave this building without me and there will be hell to pay, Duchess.’

      Morgan pulled in a huge breath. She didn’t mind him calling her Duchess, but not in that cold, bossy voice. ‘I’m not an idiot, soldier. I won’t leave until you get back. And if you weren’t being such a jerk I’d tell you that if you went across the road to that very famous store over there—’ she looked past him and pointed her finger towards the renowned corner shop ‘—in the men’s department there is a salesperson named Norman. In his sixties, bald. Tell him I sent you and he’ll sort you out with what you need.’

      Morgan was surprised when Noah leaned over and placed his cool lips, very briefly, on her temple. ‘Thanks.’

      Morgan watched him walk away, and he was at the door before she realised that kissing her was out of bounds too. ‘Hey, no kissing!’

      Noah tossed her a grin that had her blood pumping. ‘Just practising for later. Do some work, Duchess, you have a ball to organise.’

      Morgan wrinkled her nose. Sad, but true.

      * * *

      Being a bodyguard pretending to be her latest conquest sucked, Noah thought a couple of hours later in the ballroom of the Park Hyatt, half listening to Morgan as she talked ‘ball’ to a society matron with a pigeon-egg-sized diamond in her wrinkly cleavage. Doing it with a twitching groin made the situation a thousand times worse.

      It was her dress, Noah decided, taking the smallest sip of the glass of whisky he’d been nursing for hours. Moss-green and strapless, it fell from her breasts and skimmed her hips. At first glance it almost seemed demure, slightly bohemian, off-beat. Then she moved and the long slit to one side exposed most of a slim thigh and his blood belted south. That thigh was smooth and silky, and even sexier because nothing covered it except perfect, perfect skin.

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