Maid of Dishonour. Heidi Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ ready for his wedding night? Missy would end up thanking her.

      * * *

      ‘Would you like another martini, miss?’

      Gina blinked, staring absently at the harassed young waitress as the question brought her spinning back to the present. And the bar at The Standard where she’d gone for a quick fortifying libation. And been blind-sided by too many memories.

      She looked down at her glass, surprised to find it empty, the olive on its cocktail stick lined up on the table. ‘No, thanks, just the check, please.’

      The waitress nodded, clearing away the empty glass.

      Tension tightened Gina’s stomach as the reality of exactly how reckless and manipulative she’d been that night slammed into her in all its grim glory.

      Maybe Marnie was right, and Carter was the one who had been cheating.

      But there was no getting away from the fact that she had seduced him. Not the other way around. And it wasn’t until twelve hours after meeting him in the kitchen and making a conscious decision to bend him to her will that she’d finally been forced to admit the magnitude of her mistake. As she lay in the dew-drenched grass under a maple tree, the dawn light casting a redolent glow on the rebel wave in Carter’s cropped hair, her heart beating a staccato rhythm of shock and guilt, her thighs spread and aching, his erection still huge inside her and his pinkie ring cutting into her cheek.

      Heat washed through her at the visceral memory—and it occurred to Gina that maybe the decision to cab it over to the High Line this evening and deliver her carefully composed message in person, when she could just as easily have phoned or emailed it, might have a lot more significance than she wanted to admit.

      Had she on some subconscious level hoped to bump into the man whose picture she’d glimpsed on Marnie’s smartphone that morning—for reasons other than closure and accountability? Was her new leaf not as well turned over as she thought?

      Crap! She needed to get out of here now.

      The waitress returned with the check, and Gina threw several bills on the tray without counting them. The guilty flush made her breathing speed up as she shot across the lobby.

      Gloria Gaynor singing ‘I Will Survive’ blasted from her bag at top volume, making her steps falter. It took her a moment to remember that Gloria’s strident disco classic was her phone’s ringtone.

      She paused, fumbled for the phone and stared at a number she didn’t recognise. Glancing at the clock above the lobby’s exit doors, she felt a little of the panic retreat. She still had thirty minutes before Carter was due to arrive. She took a steadying breath and clicked the answer button. This might be a new client responding to her recent social media campaign for new business. She couldn’t afford not to answer. She’d simply have to talk and run.

      But as she pressed the phone to her ear the deep laconic Southern accent had the heels of her sandals sinking into the deep pile purple carpet and her heart pounding into her throat.

      ‘Hello, Gina. It’s Carter Price. I got your message.’

      ‘Carter. Hi. How are you?’ she said, the false brightness making her wince.

      Good grief, was he at the reception desk? Right behind her? Maybe he’d phoned ahead? Please let him have phoned ahead. She couldn’t risk turning around to check. So she kept walking. The exit doors were only a few feet away.

      ‘I’m good,’ came the husky reply. ‘Although I’m wondering where you’re off to in such a hurry.’

      Crapola!

      She spun round. The phone dropping away from her ear as she spotted the man standing less than ten feet away, with one elbow propped against the reception desk, a phone at his ear—and cool aquamarine eyes locked on her face.

      Her breath got trapped somewhere around her solar plexus—as she debated the probability of teleportation actually existing.

      Beam me up, Scottie. Right now.

      ‘Don’t move,’ he said into his phone, before switching it off and tucking it into his back pocket.

      Her thighs quivered alarmingly as he walked towards her. She locked her knees, determined not to collapse into a heap as the shot of adrenaline collided with the explosion of heat in the pit of her stomach—and it occurred to her that the paparazzi pictures had not done him justice. Savannah’s most eligible bachelor wasn’t just hot, he was positively combustible.

      She forced air through her burning lungs, grateful for the fortifying buzz from her martini as he got close enough for her to pick up the smell of soap and man—and remember how much taller he was. At five foot seven, she wasn’t used to men towering over her, but Carter Price had no trouble at all making her feel like a midget.

      His steady gaze swept over her—then arrived back at her face. ‘It’s been a while, Miz Carrington.’

      But not nearly long enough, if the sweat popping up on her top lip was anything to go by.

      ‘You’ve improved with age,’ he said, his tone low and amused. ‘Like a fine wine.’

      So had he, she thought. The few strands of grey at his temples, the new creases round his mouth, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the waves of thick dark hair that now touched the collar of his white shirt only adding to the confident, take-charge charisma that had been all too evident in the paparazzi pictures.

      Say something, you silly cow!

      ‘It’s flattering of you to say so,’ she murmured, struggling to maintain cool distance and not give in to the throaty purr.

      His gaze strayed to her cleavage and her breathing quickened again, keeping a natural rhythm with the pounding beat of her pulse. But then the heavily lidded gaze met hers. The deep, lazy Southern accent reverberated across her nerve-endings. ‘It’s good to see you again. Marnie told me you were living in New York now,’ he said, surprising her.

      So he had asked Marnie about her. And Marnie had answered.

      Then, to her utter astonishment, he took her hand in long, cool fingers and lifted it to his lips. The quick gallant buzz on her knuckles spun her back in time to the clean-cut young man he’d once been. But then his thick dark lashes caught the overhead light as he blinked slowly, and the inscrutable gaze had all thoughts of the boy disappearing—until all she could see was the man.

      ‘How about we catch up in the bar? And you can tell me what’s on your mind?’

      ‘Okay, that would work,’ she said, thinking no such thing. His hand settled on the small of her back as he directed her towards the bar.

      Terrific! How the heck was she going to get her head round the perfectly simple apology she’d planned, while her mind was being fried to a crisp by all the zaps of electrical energy now radiating up her spine?

      FOUR

      Carter Price blinked eyes gritty from jet lag after his flight from Russia that afternoon, the fog in his brain blown off course by the pulse of heat in his gut.

      After ten years of denial, СКАЧАТЬ