Insatiable. Julie Leto

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СКАЧАТЬ job. Until my boss gets back from his honeymoon.” She paused, biting her bottom lip before admitting, “I’m a protection specialist with No Chances Protection.” Her claim grew louder as she spoke, as if she was trying the label on for size.

      “Protection specialist?” he asked.

      “A bodyguard.”

      After his brush with the screaming crowd, Nick couldn’t begrudge his savior her choice of occupation. In fact, he was having a damn hard time begrudging anything at the moment. Just walking behind her, watching the alluring swing of her hips, catching the light in those impressive blue eyes whenever she looked over her shoulder, did amazing things to his outlook. His cousin and assistant, Anita, had started calling him the ogre at least ten times a day. Right now, he felt like the prince who slew the ogre…all for the sake of a sexy blond princess.

      And he didn’t appreciate the feeling one iota.

      Everything about Miss Deveaux should have gone against his grain. She was tough. She spoke her mind. She took control and did what had to be done without regrets.

      A fine combination for a lover, ordinarily, but a horrible mix when he couldn’t afford to extend an invitation to his bed unless it was attached to a marriage proposal. And though Miss Deveaux stirred his blood like a chef with a swift wooden spoon, this woman’s medley of sassy confidence was the last thing he wanted to deal with for a lifetime.

      Nick knew his preferences for a bride—sweet, submissive, maybe a little shy—were about a century behind the times, but he’d yet to meet someone who inspired him to change.

      And though he was the last heterosexual man on earth who wanted to get married, he couldn’t deny that very, very soon, he’d have little to no choice.

      When his grandmothers decided last year that they wouldn’t retire and turn the company completely over to him until he settled down and started a family, he should have popped the question to the nearest single adult female and been done with it. Instead, he’d dug in his heels and refused to let them dictate his private life.

      Only, his private life consisted of endless family obligations—weddings, baptisms, birthdays—an occasional jog down Lake Shore and, perhaps, a night out with his CFO and vice president of retail sales so they could discuss business under the guise of relaxation.

      Their latest discussion was the conundrum his grandmothers had created with their declaration. If Rose and Fae died before he married, LaRocca Foods would be sold in pieces to various family members. The conglomerate he’d worked so hard to build would cease to exist. All the market power he’d amassed since he joined the company just out of college would be lost.

      The LaRoccas and Durantes had never been wealthy before. Until he took over the business, they had struggled through two generations of barely making ends meet, of not sending children to college if they couldn’t win scholarships, of doubling up on living arrangements to make sure every mouth was fed. But when the family’s restaurant fell on hard times and his grandmothers started supplementing the family income by selling their pasta sauce from behind the register, it had been Nick’s idea to build a display case for the West Monroe Street entrance. He’d been the one to organize and offer mail order to tourists and, after completing his course of study at the University of Illinois, he’d personally pounded the pavement to introduce their products to grocery stores. And just seven years ago, he’d spearheaded the promotion campaign that pushed their private stock into the public marketplace for a premium price.

      And all without putting his own picture on a single label.

      Nick quickened his step to match Miss Deveaux’s momentum. “I can make it to my room alone, thank you. Just tell me which door leads to the stairwell.”

      She shook her head, a few more strands of blond spilling out to brush her shoulders. “That’s not the way we do things in Louisiana,” she said proudly, adding a Creole lilt to her accent-free voice. “This is a Southern state, remember? Hospitality and all that.”

      “Yes, well, I’m from Chicago. We do things just fine on our own. The last thing I need is another woman clamoring to hold my hand.”

      She stopped her progression down the hall and impaled him with a look of utter disbelief. “I’ve met lots of people from Chicago and not one was downright rude. Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but I did just save your hide. And I didn’t touch your hands in the process.”

      He didn’t want to think about what she had touched. And how that touching had sent his pulse rate skyrocketing.

      “You have my gratitude.” He reached for his wallet, but the widening of her azure eyes to the size of jar lids stopped him from offering money for her service. He pocketed his eelskin billfold. “If you could just point me to the right door?”

      The sassy security guard with the name Deveaux stitched above her left breast—a rather pert, curvaceous breast—slid her cap off her head, releasing the full, bouncy tumble of her hair. She eyed him head to toe, a growing distaste skewing her bowed lips into an unattractive sneer.

      “The blue door at the end of the hall.”

      He nodded to her curtly—just to make sure she didn’t follow him—and proceeded in the direction she’d indicated. Insulting women hadn’t been a mainstay of his behavior until recently, when Nana Rose and Nana Fae schemed to make him the most eligible bachelor on the Fortune 500. With the gleeful help of his cousin, Anita, they’d successfully transformed him from a driven businessman into a cynical, overbearing slave driver. He had no right to take his frustration out on Miss Deveaux, but she had the unfortunate luck to be the nearest woman in range of his anger. He’d dictate a letter of commendation to her superiors as soon as he found Anita.

      Yanking at the latch on the door she’d indicated, he turned his thoughts from the woman behind him to plotting how he could reschedule his appearance at the booth. He’d planned to glad-hand some of the industry’s largest chains into awarding his products more shelf space and additional end-cap promotions. He’d be damned if he’d abandon his short-term goals for the Expo just because his grandmothers intended to make him the Fabio of the grocery business.

      As he walked across the threshold, a distinctly feminine squeal snapped up his head.

      “It’s him! Marry me, Pasta Man!”

      Nick glanced over his shoulder at the slowly closing blue door. She’d said “blue,” right? Yet he was now standing in the registration area of the Expo instead of a stairwell to his hotel. And one by one, recognition dawned on the faces of several women just a few feet away.

      Here I go again.

      SERVES HIM RIGHT.

      From behind, Samantha watched LaRocca’s fists clench. His shoulders tightened. She could only imagine the look on his face—and the horror she pictured gave an extra curve to the smile bowing her mouth. Some men had to learn the hard way. Samantha Deveaux was not a woman to be dismissed. Someone might do it once. But twice? Not likely. Not anymore.

      Disheveled and distraught, the women being escorted out of the Superdome struggled against the careful grasps of several annoyed security guards. As Sam figured, her co-workers had reached the main lobby to escort the rowdiest women out of the Expo Hall to cool off. She’d just stoked the flame by misleading the lion right back into the den.

      She considered letting the blue door slam shut behind Dominick LaRocca, leaving him at the mercy of СКАЧАТЬ