The Dare Collection September 2019. Stefanie London

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       CHAPTER EIGHT

       Ash

      I STARED OUT from the empty floor of the tower building my company was in the process of constructing in Southwark, the Thames looking black and sluggish in the early afternoon light. Wind blew through the big empty space where the windows were going to go, while the site manager went through a list of excuses as to why the project had been delayed by several months.

      I was only half listening. Despite the delays, the construction was going according to plan and I didn’t care about the man’s excuses. What I was concerned about was the upcoming trip to Dubai that I’d promised Delaney, and how I still hadn’t sorted out the issue of the ‘serious girlfriend.’

      The solution, of course, was to bring someone with me and have her act the part. I had no shortage of women who’d be only too happy to pretend to be my ‘serious girlfriend’, but my real problem was that I couldn’t act to save my life.

      I’d never pretended to be anything but what I was, a former street fighter turned property developer, and I seriously doubted my abilities to pretend to be ‘serious’ about a woman, no matter how lovely she was.

      And I didn’t see why I had to bother with this nonsense just to get those islands. But Delaney wasn’t budging, which meant that if I wanted them, I had no other option. My only consolation was that he’d no doubt be doing the same thing to Dumont.

      ‘Excuse me, Mr Evans?’

      A female voice floated through the empty floor and I gritted my teeth, trying to ignore the lightning bolt that hit me every time a woman said ‘Mr Evans.’

      Christ, after a week, you’d think I’d have forgotten about one encounter in the back of a limo with a sexy Australian chauffeur.

      Apparently not.

      I turned from the site manager to see my chief assistant, Petra, exit the construction elevator and make her way towards me, adroitly skirting the piles of wood and steel offcuts, metal shavings and concrete dust that littered the floor, despite the skyscraper heels she wore.

      ‘What is it?’ I snapped, deciding my irritation had nothing to do with being reminded of my one-time chauffeur and everything to do with being interrupted.

      Petra ignored my temper the way she always did, peering at me from underneath her hard hat. ‘You wanted to know the moment I had that dossier ready. Shall I email it to you?’

      Instantly the single lightning bolt down my spine became a storm, igniting me for no fucking reason that I could see.

      It was just a dossier on a supercar company called Australis. Nothing major. And only for my interest’s sake. It certainly didn’t require me being interrupted in the middle of an important meeting with a site manager.

      Yet that didn’t stop me from saying, ‘Yes, of course, email it to me. Immediately.’

      Petra tapped her phone’s screen and smiled sweetly at me. ‘Done. Shall I finish up with Doug?’

      But I’d already turned away, getting out my phone and opening my mail app, leaving her to finish up the meeting with Doug, the site manager. It didn’t need me to be there, but I liked to visit a site at least a couple of times to get a feel for the building and the site itself, because you couldn’t get that sitting behind a desk.

      My boots crunched on bits of concrete as I came to a stop, staring down at the screen as the files Petra had sent me loaded.

      Australis Supercars, an Australian company that designed and hand-built luxury sports vehicles. It was owned by a guy called Oliver Little, who managed it along with his four sons and one daughter.

      I flicked through the pictures of the cars themselves. The Python model was the one garnering the big interest, apparently giving Ferrari and Bugatti, and some of the other big names, a run for their money.

      I didn’t keep track of every company I invested money in—I left that to my managers at Evans Investment—but according to the files we had invested quite a bit of money in this particular company.

      Money that was not going to see the returns we’d anticipated.

       So? Lots of companies don’t make it. Why does this one matter?

      It didn’t matter, so why I was interested in it, I had no idea.

      Yet I couldn’t seem to stop flicking through more images, pausing at one particular photo. It was of the Python and had the family clustered proudly around it. And right at the back, almost hidden, was a smaller figure, her hand possessively on the roof of the vehicle.

      Ellie.

      The lighting storm inside me sizzled against my nerve endings, igniting them, making me curse under my breath.

      I generally never regretted anything in my life—I couldn’t, not if I didn’t want to spend it being paralysed by all the shitty things I’d done—and had always believed the only way was forward. So there was no reason for me to be looking back at what had happened with a woman over a week ago.

      A woman I’d only known a couple of days.

       A woman whose relatively simple request you refused because you were being petty.

      I glared at the picture of Ellie on the screen, remembering the dogged way she’d continued despite the reception she’d got from me, talking about some electric car project she was working on.

      And I’d ignored her, too caught up in the rush of anger that had overtaken me the moment she’d mentioned that she wanted a favour from me.

      An anger that even now I didn’t understand.

      Yes, the timing of her confession, right after we’d had a one-night stand, left a lot to be desired, but, still, that didn’t explain my furious reaction to her request.

      You thought it was you she wanted.

      The way she’d looked at me... Seeing the fighter inside me and not being afraid. Not being intimidated. Ready to take me on. And the sex had been incendiary...

      But then she’d asked for money, just like all the others.

      Not that all of them wanted money. Some of them wanted the cachet of having slept with the notorious bastard billionaire. It wasn’t actually me they wanted. But I’d thought Ellie was different.

      Christ, why was I still obsessing about this? I wasn’t some sixteen-year-old kid hurt because some girl rejected him. I was thirty-two. I’d grown up on a grotty council estate with meth dealers in the stairwells and gangs roaming the hallways. My mother had spent her days constantly worried for me and my safety, grovelling to my father for money to at least send me to a private school—and he had.

      But after that night when I’d realised how little he actually cared, I’d decided I was done apologising for myself. Done cowering with my mother, terrified she would get hurt.