Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition. Heidi Rice

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      To resist the urge he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and kept his eyes flat and expressionless. It was a casual, predatory look that he knew terrorised his business opponents. Louisa, he noted, didn’t even flinch.

      The adrenalin rush he usually associated with a particularly tough new business challenge surged through his body. Teaching this woman how to face her responsibilities might actually be more of a pleasure than a pain. He was already anticipating the first lesson: getting Louisa to tell him what she should have told him weeks ago.

      ‘Miss DiMarco, I want a word with you.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      I’LL just bet you do.

      Louisa ignored Tracy’s sharp intake of breath and looked her tormentor square in the eye.

      ‘Excuse me, but who are you?’ Louisa asked, as if she didn’t know.

      ‘This is Luke Devereaux, the new Lord Berwick,’ Piers supplied, announcing the information as if he were introducing the king of the universe. ‘Don’t you remember? We featured him in May’s Eligible Bachelors issue. He’s the new owner of—’

      Devereaux lifted a hand, halting Piers’s sucking-up speech in mid-suck. ‘Devereaux will do. I don’t use the title,’ he said, his eyes still boring into Louisa and his deep voice as annoyingly distinctive as she remembered it.

      To think she’d once thought that accent—crisp British vowels underlaid with a lazy, measured cadence that sounded oddly American—and that steely, impenetrable gaze were sexy. Somebody must have spiked her drink with Viagra that night. His voice didn’t sound compelling any more, just detached, while the icy blue-grey of his irises looked cold, not enigmatic.

      All of which would explain why she was fighting the urge to shiver in the middle of August.

      ‘I’m sure that’s all very fascinating.’ She flicked her hair back. ‘But I’m afraid I’m terribly busy at the moment. And we only do one Eligible Bachelors issue a year. Maybe if you’re still eligible next year you could come back, and I’ll interview you then.’

      Louisa congratulated herself on the deliberate insult. She knew how much he had despised being on her list. But she didn’t get as much satisfaction as she’d hoped. Instead of looking annoyed, he simply stared at her. Not by a single flicker of his eyelashes did he acknowledge the hit. Then, to her silent irritation, his mouth curved at the edges. He put his hand flat on her desk and leaned over her. The familiar citrus scent of the soap he used had her boot-heel tapping harder against the chair.

      ‘You want to have this discussion in public? That’s fine by me,’ he said, in a voice so low only she could hear it. ‘But then I’m not the one who works here.’

      She didn’t have a clue what this was all about, but from his predatory smile she suspected the ‘discussion’ he intended to have would be personal. As much as she didn’t want to give him any quarter, at the same time she didn’t want to be humiliated in front of everyone she worked with.

      ‘All right, then, Mr Devereaux,’ she remarked loudly, swivelling to turn off her computer. ‘As luck would have it, I might be able to squeeze in an interview now. I could talk to our features editor—maybe she’ll consider putting it into next month’s issue. You’re obviously very keen to get your face out there, so the debutantes know what they’re missing.’

      He straightened away from her. One muscle in his cheek twitched. She’d got her hit that time.

      ‘Which is not a lot,’ she continued under her breath, going for the jackpot.

      She didn’t get it. The tension in his jaw disappeared and he smiled. ‘That’s very accommodating of you, Miss DiMarco,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’ll make it worth your while.’

      Ignoring the thinly veiled threat, Louisa turned to Tracy, who was doing a very good impression of a goldfish. ‘I’ll finish the article later, Trace. Tell Pam I should still make the five o’clock deadline.’

      ‘You won’t be back this afternoon,’ Devereaux announced from behind her.

      Louisa had swung round to correct him when Piers butted in. ‘Mr Devereaux has asked that you take the rest of the day off. I’ve already approved it.’

      ‘But I’ve got an article due today,’ Louisa said, stunned. Piers was usually a total Nazi about copy deadlines.

      He waved the remark away, looking harassed. ‘Pam’s going to stick in an extra page of ads. Your article can wait till next month. If Mr Devereaux needs you with him today we’ll have to accommodate him.’

      What? Since when did the managing editor of Blush magazine take orders from aristocratic bullies like Luke Devereaux?

      Devereaux, who’d been listening to their conversation with apparent indifference, chose that moment to pick her bag up from the desk. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked impatiently.

      ‘Yes,’ Louisa replied, still disorientated. What was going on here?

      He took her arm and tugged her out of her chair. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, steering her out of the office with his hand clamped on her elbow.

      She wanted to yank her arm out of his grip. She yearned to tell him where he could stick his Attila the Hun act. But everyone was staring at them. And Louisa would rather die than cause a scene in front of her colleagues. She was forced to submit to being marched out of the office and down the stairs like a disobedient schoolchild under the command of the headmaster.

      It didn’t stop her fuming every single step of the way.

      By the time they’d walked out onto Camden High Street, Louisa’s temper had reached boiling point. She wrestled her arm out of Devereaux’s grasp. ‘How dare you do that? Who do you think you are?’

      He stopped by a flashy convertible sports car, parked in a no-parking zone at the front of the office. Opening the door, he flung Louisa’s bag into the back seat. ‘Get in the car.’

      ‘I will not.’ Of all the cheek! He was treating her as if she were one of his minions. Well, he could think again. Piers might obey his orders, but she most certainly did not. She crossed her arms over her chest, determined not to budge an inch.

      His eyebrow lifted. ‘Get in the car, Louisa,’ he said, his voice deadly calm. ‘Unless you want me to pick you up and put you in there.’

      ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

      She had barely finished the sentence before she was hoisted off her feet. She had just enough time to gasp, and slap her fist against the solid wall of his chest, when she was dumped like a sack of potatoes into the passenger seat. The door slammed and the locks clicked shut. She shot up onto her knees, determined to climb right back out again. Unfortunately her movements were somewhat restricted by the skin-tight pencil skirt of her much-loved designer dress. She’d barely wriggled it up past her knees when the car peeled away from the kerb and she was thrown back against the seat.

      ‘Put your belt on before you get hurt,’ he shouted above the engine noise.

      ‘Let me out. This is kidnapping!’ The words came out on an outraged squeak, which would СКАЧАТЬ