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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      ‘I take it you can find the door on your own?’

      Okay. If he wanted to play hardball, she’d play. Lowering her gaze to his broad chest, she relaxed her shoulders and took a step forward, standing within inches of his large body and slowly lifting her lashes until she was looking deep into dark eyes. She ran her tongue over her lips and smoothed them together, watching his gaze lower and smiling when he frowned. She spoke in a low voice just loud enough for their audience to hear.

      ‘Tomorrow morning … all over the state … thousands of Warren Enterprises employees are going to turn up for work. I’d like to be able to tell them they’ll have a job a month from now, especially in this economy.’ She angled her head. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

      Reaching out, she set her business card on a plank of wood beside him before turning on her heel and walking back down the hall. Her hand was on the door when she heard a voice ask, ‘Charles Warren is your old man?’

      Silence.

      ‘You know my cousin Mike works for Warren Tech? He’s got a wife and three kids …’

      Olivia smiled as she opened the door. There was no question in her mind she’d be seeing him again.

      She was looking forward to it already.

      Blake had always liked cities better than small towns. Cities were anonymous, no one wanted to poke their nose in anyone else’s business; it was easy to disappear into the crowd in the city. At least it used to be …

      ‘Isn’t that your lawyer lady from the other day?’

      ‘Yup.’ He’d known she was there from the minute she appeared with her mismatched set of friends. His gaze found her in the crowded bar with the same accuracy as a heat-seeking missile.

      ‘Sure fills out a pair of jeans,’ Marty observed.

      ‘I’m sure Chrissy will be glad to hear you noticed.’

      ‘I’m married, not blind.’

      Without her power suit she was different, there was no denying that. Dressed in hip-hugging jeans and a scoopnecked blouse that highlighted her narrow waist, pale skin and the swell of her breasts, it had been hard to ignore her presence since she arrived. If there’d been the remotest chance they might cross paths again, he would never have accepted Marty’s usual end-of-the-working-week invitation for a beer and a game of pool in the nearest bar to the restoration project they’d been working on in the West Village. But it was too late now. It was only a matter of time before she crossed the room.

      Bending over to line up his shot, Blake’s gaze was drawn upward by the appearance of distinctly feminine, jeans-clad thighs at the other side of the table.

      ‘Gentlemen …’

      And there she was.

      Sinking a ball into the pocket in front of her before standing upright, he set the end of his cue on the floor, folding his fingers around it as he looked her over.

      American pool halls had once been the exclusive realm of men who smoked cigars and drank beer while they growled and spit tobacco. Young truants cleaned tables and floors, racking balls for new games while they learnt pool hustling and miscreant behaviour. It had been a poor man’s men’s club, devoid of female company.

      Blake couldn’t help thinking it would have been better for Olivia Brannigan if it had stayed that way.

      Because the second his gaze swept over her, he had the exact same reaction he’d had the first time. The tips of his fingers itched to be thrust into her sleek blond mane and mess it up until it framed her face the way it would after a session of the kind of hot, sweaty, mutually gratifying sex he doubted she’d ever experienced. He wanted to set the pad of his thumb on her full lips and smear away any hint of lipstick before he set his mouth on hers, to place a palm to the small of her back, melding her body to his as—

      He took a measured breath. ‘Want to play, do you?’

      ‘So it would seem.’

      There was a brief spark of light in the cool blue of her eyes that suggested a challenge did it for her. The fact she’d answered in a low voice which could easily have been described as sultry didn’t escape him either.

      ‘Reckon you can take me on?’

      ‘I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?’

      Indeed they would.

      ‘Rack ’em up, Marty.’

      While Marty handed over his cue and started gathering balls from the pockets, Blake stepped around the table to issue a low warning. ‘If you’re over here to discuss my luck in the legacy department, you can forget it.’

      ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ she replied brightly, ‘but I’m off the clock.’

      Looking down at her from the corner of his eye, he saw her check the face of a neat wrist-watch. A wave of softly curled hair hid her profile from him until she lifted her chin and added, ‘As of an hour and ten minutes ago.’

      ‘You’re the kind of gal who’s never off the clock.’

      ‘Maybe you don’t know me as well as you like to think you do.’

      ‘Meaning I should get to know you better?’

      ‘We’re set,’ Marty said.

      Blake held out an arm. ‘Ladies first.’

      ‘Don’t hold back on my account.’

      He leaned towards her as he walked by. ‘Never do.’

      ‘She know what she’s doing?’ Marty asked as he joined him at the bar.

      Time would tell. Since every town had a pool table, they’d been one of the few constants in Blake’s life growing up. He knew a lot of pool was simple physics. Watching men who’d been playing for most of their lives, he knew it was all about the angles, the action and reaction, knowing when to exert a little force and when to use a finer touch. He’d learnt a lot of valuable life lessons from the game of pool. Watching Olivia Brannigan in action turned it into something altogether different: less physics, a whole lot more to do with chemistry.

      Didn’t matter which side of the table she took her shot from, either way it provided the kind of view any red-blooded male could appreciate. When she was on the far side of the table, bending over the cue, it allowed a clean line of sight down her blouse to a hint of coloured ribbon that became the equivalent of an apple in Eden. A side view let his gaze skim over the sweep of her spine, the sweet curve of her ass, down legs that would never have ended if it hadn’t been for the floor.

      As a card-carrying one hundred per cent red-blooded male, his body’s reaction to her was understandable. Unwelcome, considering what she represented, but understandable. Not to mention a timely reminder he’d obviously been all work and no play for too long. Something he would have to rectify, soon.

      Standing upright, her gaze collided with his as she walked around the table with a hint of a smile on her face. Turning, she bent over to line up her next СКАЧАТЬ