Ally Blake - The Rules of Engagement

If so it was only because he knew he needed to exude confidence and above all trust. They needed to trust he could do the job. Those qualities that the Bainbridge name alone had once evoked he’d had to work damn hard to rekindle after his parents had thrown it all away in the name of hard and fast living.

But the thought of throwing on a suit that Sunday morning and controlling the unruly spikes of his hair had been beyond even him.

He’d yet to go to sleep. How could he? Every time he’d closed his eyes he’d been bombarded with images of a lissom redhead. Her head falling back, gasping for breath as she closed tight around him. Then the dense blur that had set in around him before scattering to the very edges of his consciousness, taking with it every thought, every ‘to do’ list, every agenda until all was quiet for a moment. Which was a moment more than he’d had in a long time.

The clouds outside his tenth-storey window parted, sending a shaft of painfully bright spring sunshine right onto the papers scattered across his desk, the whiteness giving him an instant headache. He closed his eyes and skulled the fizzy drink, wiping away with it all thoughts of the night before.

There were papers he had to get a handle on before open of business Monday. Memos from a forensic accountant he’d hired on a hunch that so far did not herald good news. Far from it. He might have been blind to the depths of his parents’ transgressions, but his instincts had never seen him wrong since.

If following those instincts meant putting aside far more pleasant thoughts in order to maintain the distinction of credibility, then that was what he’d do.

Implacable? He’d been called far worse, but that was what the foundation had needed when he’d been forced to take it over. The choice then had been ruthlessness or ruin. The success he’d wrested from near-disaster had given him no reason, no chance, no option, to change.

He slid the cap back onto his head, the narrow brim thankfully blocking out the harshest hit of sunlight.

When there was work to be done, daydreams of sweet-lipped redheads would simply have to wait their turn, along with everything else in his life.

* * *

Caitlyn’s excuse for spending way too much time on the factory floor Monday morning was that she was in charge of throwing a massive bash to launch the product kept under tight wraps down there. The fact that it also meant she had the opportunity to drool over the first Pegasus Z9 sports car fresh off the production line might have had a little to do with it too.

Like something out of an original James Bond movie, the Z9 was all soft leather interior, glinting spoked wheels, warm deep-set headlights, and curves luscious enough to take on the most buxom cheesecake pin-up of the same era.

It was beautiful, brilliant and built to last, just as anything well designed ought to be.

‘Honestly, Doug,’ she said to the mechanical engineer who, computer tablet in hand, was giving his beloved creation the third once-over that day, ‘she’s delectable. The second sexiest thing I’ve seen all year.’

Doug’s bushy red eyebrows rose in question.

Caitlyn grinned. ‘It’s been quite a week.’

Doug glanced at her hands for about the eighth time, making sure she wore the requisite white cotton gloves, and then he went back to the object of his desire, leaving Caitlyn free to daydream at leisure about hers.

She ran a gloved finger over the voluptuously rounded fender of the Z9 until her fingers tingled with the sense memory of springy dark hair sliding through them and she had to bite her fingertips into her palms to stop from moaning out loud.

She’d had to have gone and given Dax her phone number, hadn’t she? Rookie mistake. One she ought not to be punishing herself for, except she kept jumping out of her skin every time her phone rang.

He probably wouldn’t call at all. Probably didn’t have the time. According to those in the know, and Wikipedia, he was something of a workaholic corporate wunderkind who’d taken over the family biz when his parents died in a light plane crash in Aspen or some such rich person playground.

But if he did call, she wondered when that might be. Midweek? Weekend? In Franny’s considered opinion the difference between those two times told a girl everything. Midweek meant date. End of the week meant booty call. If that was true then it was certainly in Caitlyn’s best interest to just stop thinking about it any more until Friday—

Her phone shrilled in her back pocket. Pulling off the gloves, she drew it out between two fingers, as if it might burn, only to find a private number on the display. Likely press. They liked to get the jump on people.

Nevertheless her voice was husky when she answered with a distracted, ‘Caitlyn March.’

‘Good morning,’ said the deep male voice that had been whispering sweet nothings in her imagination all morning.

Caitlyn’s knees gave way and luckily the Z9 was at hand. She grabbed the side mirror so as not to land on her backside. Doug frowned at her. She quickly let go, wiped off the sweat-prints with the hem of her soft jacket, and mouthed an apology.

‘To whom am I speaking?’ she asked, her voice now an example in cool in the hopes of convincing the man on the other end he hadn’t made her blush with a simple good morning.

And on a Monday. She frowned, clueless as to what that could mean.

‘Dax,’ the voice said. Then, ‘Bainbridge,’ was added as an afterthought, the dryness of his voice giving her some indication that he was quietly sure she knew exactly who it was.

‘Oh, Da-a-ax. Hi! How’s tricks?’

She slapped a hand over her eyes. That was definitely too chirpy. But that voice of his did things to her so that she forgot all self-control.

From the other side of the Z9 Doug cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow. Caitlyn nodded. Yep, the number-one sexiest thing she’d seen all week was on the phone.

To Dax she said, ‘What can I do for you on this fine Monday morning?’

He’d called her on a Monday. Maybe he’d left something at her apartment. Or wanted to know the name of a good mechanic. Or—

‘You can make my day by telling me that you’re free tonight.’

‘I’m sorry—pardon?’ Caitlyn said.

‘Tonight,’ he said, more slowly this time. ‘Are you free?’

Free? But it had been a one-night stand. Sorbet sex. Hadn’t it? ‘For what purpose?’

‘You want specifics?’

Caitlyn looked around. Doug had shooed off elsewhere leaving her, and the Z9, all on their lonesome. She wriggled her toes to keep the blood from assembling in the one hot spot and said, ‘Sure. Why not?’

Through the phone she heard a shuffle and a squeak, and imagined him in a dark suit and tie, up in some lofty city tower, leaning back in a super-comfy leather office chair, looking out of his thousand-storey window, with glorious Melbourne spread out beneath him.

When his voice slid through the phone, deep and slow, the vibrations sent tingles all over her skin.

‘I was imagining we’d...’ He paused. Long enough she held her breath. Then, ‘...eat. We could enjoy a little...soft music. No doubt we would...talk. And later, much later, once I’ve loosened my tie, and you’ve kicked your shoes off under the table, and we’re both nicely pickled in some excellent wine, together we would do...dessert.’

By the time he’d finished she was leaning back hard against the Z9, the cold metal doing nothing to take the edge off her temperature. Somehow she managed to keep her voice from cracking when she said, ‘So you’re asking me on a date.’

Laughter rolled through the phone. ‘I’m asking you to eat dinner with me, but if you’d prefer to call it that—’