Шэрон Кендрик - Too Proud to be Bought

Zara saw the glitter of danger which was hardening his eyes and realised that she was doing herself no favours by being evasive.

‘Okay. I had no right to be at the party—at least, not as a guest,’ she admitted. ‘I gatecrashed it—though I knew most of the waitresses, obviously, since I work with them most of the time. I was modelling the dress for a friend of mine, Emma. Her mother owns the catering agency I work for. That’s how she knew who was going to be on the guest-list.’

His expression didn’t alter. ‘Go on.’

‘Emma’s a fashion student—and she’s very ambitious.’

He frowned. ‘A fashion student?’

‘That’s right. She’s good at designing evening gowns and she wanted a bit of exposure.’

‘Exposure being the operative word,’ he drawled. ‘You certainly left very little to the imagination.’

Something in his tone brought another rush of colour to Zara’s cheeks. ‘The dress I was wearing was no more revealing than plenty of others there.’

But no other woman in the room had possessed her firm and slinky young body, Nikolai remembered with a sudden ache. Whatever it was she had, it had appealed to him on a very fundamental level. It still did. Even the drab knee-length skirt and innocuous white blouse she was wearing tonight were doing dangerous things to his blood pressure. Remember that she’s nothing but a fraud, he told himself. And that all women are frauds.

‘So what exactly was your brief?’ he demanded.

‘I was supposed to give you one of her business cards.’

‘Hoping that I’d play fairy godfather and give her the big break she deserved?’ he questioned sarcastically.

‘Something like that.’

‘But you didn’t, did you?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘So what happened, Zara? Did you decide to jettison that idea when something better came along? Did you think that by capitalising on the undoubted chemistry between us you could aim even higher than a mere marketing opportunity?’ He raised his eyebrows in a mocking question. ‘Maybe you thought that if you could get your claws into me, then you might benefit far more than just getting a cut from the sale of your friend’s clothes?’

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