Eve Devon - The Love List

She wanted desperately to land the account. For herself. For her father. Okay, mostly for her father. For the faith he had placed in her.

Blowing a strand of straight black hair out of her eyes she swung back to face herself in the bathroom mirror. It had all been going so well. All she’d had left to do was go through the pitch one last time before quickly repairing the spot where the sole had parted from the leather upper on her shoe. Nora sniffed dejectedly. Possibly she shouldn’t have been wearing this pair so much lately, but they made her feel so in control and can-do when she had them on, and today, especially, she’d wanted to show she loved the Moorfield brand. That she owned the vintage editions as well as the latest designs. She should have stuck with the perfectly serviceable but non-Moorfield stilettos she was wearing, or concentrated on doing one thing at a time, like any other normal professional.

Oh , a sudden brainwave had her rushing towards the door back into her office. Opening it she looked left and then right. What for, she wasn’t quite sure, but with perspective now dangling precariously, it felt like the right thing to do. Then, dashing across her office, stopping briefly to grab the large tote bag she had used to transport some of her files that morning, she encased her ‘predicament’ inside the bag, dragged the straps over her shoulder, and fought one-handed to set free some of her trapped hair.

Finally composed, she wished with all her might that salvation was about to take the form of her assistant Fern, who, if luck was on her side, would turn out to secretly be some sort of shoe surgeon.

Pushing open the door to the reception area, which housed Fern’s desk, she squeaked, ‘Fern? Two words: Help, Emergency,’ and then came to an abrupt halt as she spied a tall, gorgeous—if she was absolutely forced to form a fleeting impression—man, dressed in jeans and a charcoal-grey duffel coat, standing beside Fern’s desk. ‘Oh.’

Okay. This was most definitely not her five-foot-and-half-an-inch assistant, Fern. This was a well over six foot tall tree of a man, making five-foot-ten-inch Nora feel unexpectedly petite as she hovered uncertainly in her office doorway.

‘Technically that’s three words,’ claimed the man, turning from where he’d been staring at a portrait of her father to look over at her.

‘Three words?’ Nora blinked. She didn’t have time for a maths lesson. She needed help. She needed a miracle. She needed…a knight in shining armour strong enough to separate her shoe from her hand? Not that she could afford to be fussy. If the hand had to come too, so be it.

‘Mmmn. “Oh” being the third,’ he explained, shoving his hands casually into his coat pockets.

Somehow, despite a warm smile that induced a quite unnecessary, in her humble opinion, heart-skipping-a-beat moment, Nora felt sure actual knights didn’t come equipped with a mean streak in pedantry. She went to finger-quote and realised she couldn’t. Pushing the straps of the oversized carrier bag over her shoulder, nerves jangling on their very last nerve, she rose to the bait. ‘ Technically , who are you, the Word-Count Police?’

No reaction. Well, if you discounted the slow sexy amused lift to his grin. Which, she decided, she really must.

Was this the famous boyfriend, then? Maybe he’d dropped Fern off and was waiting around to say goodbye when she came back from wherever it was she was. She looked around and finding the reception area empty, realised that Fern was probably getting the coffees in. She thought about her usual vanilla latte and, with hand clamped to her shoe, couldn’t help thinking she was going to need something stronger.

Of its own accord, Nora’s gaze swung back to Mr Office Imposter. He was definitely noteworthy. If you went for the whole twinkly blue-eyed, full wide smile, chiselled and stubbled jawline look, with the dirty blond slightly overlong hair in a ruffled style that made a woman itch to muss with it further and thus stake her claim. Nora couldn’t help herself; she ran her gaze from head to toe. He certainly had the whole broad-at-the-shoulder, lean-at-the-hip thing going for him.

Yeah, had to be the boyfriend. Shorter women always ended up with really tall men, who looked like they could pick them up and put them right where they wanted them.

Lucky Fern .

Nora felt kind of bad; Fern worked all hours of the day for her, which didn’t leave her much time to meet up with Mr Gorgeous, here. She wasn’t sure she could be so forgiving if the roles were reversed.

She shook her head slightly. Maybe she’d accidentally inhaled the glue while performing the spectacularly stupid stunt of sticking her favourite shoe to her hand, because it definitely wasn’t every day she was struck down by—

Nora breathed in sharply.

No way was she thinking love at first sight.

Lust at first sight, maybe.

Love at first sight was for wish lists that you wrote with your favourite coloured markers when you were ten.

Mr Office Imposter stared right back at her, knowingly allowing her to look her fill, and so, she guessed, it would be rude not to. After all, Nora liked to think she had good manners. And then there was the fact that it was her office he was in.

Shoe-gate was all but forgotten and seconds felt like minutes as she stood there watching him watch her. Worse, the more the laid-back confidence behind his eyes traitorously affected her breathing, the more she was struck by an insane impulse to slake her tongue over parched lips—wanting and not wanting his incredible blue eyes to track the movement.

Excruciatingly bad form, Nora. Fern had obviously got there first and besides, she definitely didn’t have time to indulge in whatever this silent thing was that they had going because none of this was getting her where she needed to be, in shoe-stuck-to-hand-less land.

Hugging the bag protectively to her chest, she tried to find her way back to the idea that she was a professional businesswoman. ‘I’m Nora King,’ she said, introducing herself.

‘Ethan Love. I—’

‘Hey, I see you two found each other,’ Fern said, as she breezed in with the requisite cardboard tray of hot drinks. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to do the formal introduction, but when I couldn’t find you,’ she added, looking at Nora, ‘I assumed you’d gone on the coffee run. I thought I’d catch you up by taking the lift, but you must have got back first.’ Fern whizzed over to her desk to set down her purse and the tray. Casting Ethan a brief look, she said, ‘Nora has a little thing about waiting for the lift and usually takes the stairs.’

Nora felt heat creep up her neck to tinge her cheekbones. ‘Er, that’s your boss you’re labelling as pernickety and impatient. Not sure your boyfriend and I know each other well enough for you to divulge all my endearing qualities.’

‘My boyfriend?’ Fern looked from Ethan to Fern with a funny look on her face. ‘Holy crap. You haven’t done the introduction thing?’

‘Of course I have. He’s Ethan Love. Your boyfriend.’

‘He is Ethan Love. He is not my boyfriend. He’s Daisy’s uncle.’

Nora felt a spike of something that might have been relief that he wasn’t Fern’s boyfriend before confusion set in. ‘Daisy who?’

‘Daisy, your niece,’ Fern said, speaking extra slowly and looking at her as if she had left her brain somewhere.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Jared is Daisy’s uncle.’

‘Jared King is your brother, right?’ Ethan said patiently. ‘Well, my brother is Ryan Love…your sister Sephy’s ex and Daisy’s dad.’

‘No, Daisy’s dad is called—’ Love-Rat . At least that was what Nora had privately labelled him when he’d run out on her sister. She managed to stop herself from saying the words out loud. Ethan Love…Ryan Love. The dots got closer together until they joined up. Wow. But why was his brother here? Nora tried to process his presence and suddenly could only think it must have been something huge to have brought Ethan Love to visit. ‘Oh no, please tell me your brother isn’t—’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She might not have ever understood the bad-boy draw of her sister’s ex and she might have been pleased when he’d upped and moved away so that her sister didn’t have to see him around town doing a very passable Peter Pan impression while managing only haphazard interest in his daughter, but Nora didn’t want her sister to go through another bereavement.