Kate Hewitt - Bad Blood

Frustrated, she watched as he cooled off in the pool. The sweat prickled her back. The sundress felt like a coat but there was no way she was removing it.

The initial euphoria at finding herself in paradise, dimmed. It was only paradise if you could afford the time off. She couldn’t. If she couldn’t find herself another job fast, she wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage. Her career would stall. Her dream would die.

And she wasn’t prepared to give up on her dream.

By the time Nathaniel pulled himself out of the pool her stress levels had reached breaking point. ‘Does this place have Internet access?’

He reached for a towel and dried his face. ‘Why?’

‘I need to look for a job. You said you’d introduce me to costume designers, but I don’t see how you can do that when we’re here. I need to do some job hunting.’

‘Wait there.’ Without enlightening her as to his intentions, he strolled into the villa. Moments later he emerged carrying a thick sheaf of papers held together by an elastic band. He dropped it into her lap. ‘Read that. It’s the script for my next movie.

I’m finalising the funding soon. We haven’t chosen a costume designer yet.’

Katie stared at the sheets of paper, looking for the meaning behind the gesture. He felt guilty? No, Nathaniel Wolfe didn’t do guilt. Then why? Just to shut her up, she decided. To give her something to occupy her so that he didn’t have to spend time with her. ‘There’s no way you’d give it to someone like me.’

‘Do me some sketches and we’ll talk.’

She kept the hope ruthlessly in check. ‘Because your conscience is pricking you and you feel guilty that you lost me my job?’

‘I’ve already told you, when it comes to my work, I don’t have a conscience.’ Without a flicker of regret or apology, he confirmed her own thoughts on that topic. ‘I pick the best person for the job. I liked the drawings I saw in your flat. The question is, can you do it again with a contemporary script? This isn’t Shakespeare.’

He liked her drawings enough to give her a chance? ‘Are you acting or directing?’

‘Directing. Don’t think about actors when you read it—just think about the characters.’

‘So are you giving up film acting?’ Refusing to be intimidated by his silence, she tightened her fingers on the wedge of papers in her lap. ‘Was that why you agreed to a stint on the stage in London?’

‘Don’t you ever stop asking questions?’

‘Sorry. I’m not good with silences. I’m trying to be polite.’

‘We’re not at a palace garden party.’ His soft drawl brushed over her nerve endings and Katie looked at him.

‘You’re not the only one finding this situation difficult. You could be a little more friendly.’ And a little less intimidating. A little less masculine. A little less … everything.

The smile that tugged the corners of his mouth definitely wasn’t friendly. It was dangerous. ‘Change into a bikini and I’ll show you how friendly I can be.’

He was just baiting her, she knew that. He couldn’t possibly be serious. A man who had his pick of women wasn’t ever going to pick her.

Katie thought about her sister’s perfect bone structure and endless legs. Next to Paula, she’d never felt anything but depressingly ordinary and a man like Nathaniel Wolfe was never going to be interested in ordinary.

Her fingers tightened around the bunch of papers. ‘How long until dinner?’

If he wasn’t going to talk, she might as well read the script.

Nathaniel waited impatiently, his fingers strumming a rhythm on the table. Two messages sat unopened on his phone, both from Jacob.

His temper and his mood simmered along at one degree under boiling point. Even on the other side of the world, his past hunted him. ‘Did Katie say how long she would be?’

‘I knocked on her door but there was no answer. I thought she might have been asleep. You had a long flight.’ Ben poured chilled wine into a glass. ‘You want me to call her again?’

‘I’ll do it myself.’ Desperate for distraction, Nathaniel left the phone on the table and strode back inside the villa towards the guest suite. The door was shut. He tapped once and received no answer so he opened the door and walked in.

And stopped dead.

Katie lay on her stomach on the bed, dressed only in a skimpy lace plunge bra and an equally skimpy thong, both in the same shade of hot pink. The headphones from her bright pink iPod trailed from her ears and she lay with her chin on her hand, completely absorbed by the script. Her head bobbed in time to the music and occasionally she made a little sketch in the margin.

Nathaniel’s mind blanked. He forgot about the texts waiting for him on his phone. Instead he stood still, transfixed by the creamy curve of her bottom revealed by the thong. He remembered the lacy camisole she’d worn to bed. Nothing about the way she dressed hinted at a secret love of sexy underwear. Underneath all that boring brown she’d been wearing hot pink lacy silk?

Engulfed by a scorching flame of lust, he felt himself harden. Dinner, he decided, was going to be delayed.

Kicking the door shut behind him, Nathaniel strolled into the room just as she glanced up and saw him there.

With a squeak of horror, she yanked the earphones out of her ears and scrambled off the bed, scattering pages of the script over the floor.

‘Get out of here!’ Her scarlet face clashing with the hot pink underwear, she grabbed the dress she’d been wearing earlier and clutched it to her chest, but not before Nathaniel had been treated to a full frontal display of her generous curves.

‘Just for the record, you definitely don’t need to suck in your stomach,’ he drawled. ‘And I thoroughly approve of the underwear.’

‘Don’t you knock ?’

‘I knocked. You weren’t listening.’

‘I was reading—’

‘In your underwear?’

‘I was hot .’

‘Now, that we can agree on.’ Nathaniel delivered a smile of undiluted masculine approval. ‘Why do you always wear brown on the outside when you’ve got all that lacy pink going on underneath?’

Her green eyes flashed a warning. If he’d been keen on the safe route he would have left the room, but Nathaniel had always preferred to live dangerously so he strolled towards her, prised the dress from her rigid fingers and studied the smooth perfection of her soft curves. ‘You have an incredible body.’

‘Get out of here!’

He discovered that playing with fire distracted him from all the things he didn’t want to be thinking about. ‘Of all the secrets you’ve spilled in the past twenty-four hours, this one is definitely the best.’ He tumbled her back onto the bed, pinning her arms as she tried to roll.

‘What are you doing?’

‘You said you wanted to get to know me better. This is the quickest way I know.’ Without thinking he brought his mouth down on hers, capturing her soft lips with his, smothering her moan of shock. Her mouth opened and he tasted the sweetness and then desire slammed into him, the explosion of need consuming him like a fever. Nathaniel locked his hand in her hair and plundered that mouth, turning what had begun as an experiment into a kiss of such erotic intensity that the shock of it exploded right through his body. Sucked under by the sheer impact of raw physical chemistry, he slid his hand under the smooth curve of her bottom, bringing her into contact with the urgent thrust of his arousal. His need for her desperate, he teased her lower lip with his teeth and tongue and then lowered his mouth to her breast. Pink lacy fabric acted as a barrier between them and he dragged it aside with impatient fingers and fastened his mouth around one thrusting peak—and tasted heaven.