Leah Vale - The Rich Girl Goes Wild

The man glanced at his bike, then shrugged it off his shoulder. “Nah. Got it handled. This bike’s my baby.”

His baby’s knobby, rubber wheels bounced when they hit the foyer’s once pristine black and white marble tiles and sent mud splattering as far as the round, carved marble table with its large flower arrangement in the center of the foyer. The pale yellow day lilies that made up the bulk of the arrangement bobbed as they were soundly decorated.

She pursed her lips and pulled her pen from its sleeve in the day planner. In the 8:00 to 8:15 a.m. space she wrote:

Reorder foyer floral arrangement.

She looked up in time to see him prop his filthy bike against the mahogany wainscoting. Her frown deepened despite herself. Her father loved this house, having been built by his own father to provide a home for all the members of the Rivers family, present and future. While her father accepted his grandson’s wear and tear on it with surprising good humor, he wouldn’t appreciate her allowing a stranger to mar so much as an inch of the place.

Before she could suggest that his bike was better suited to waiting outside on the circular driveway, the man said, “I could use some breakfast, though. Nothing like an early-morning off-road 20k—not counting the trek back up the gully I slipped down, of course—to get a guy’s appetite up.” He gave her another all-too-thorough look. “Though there are some things I’m always hungry for.”

Ashley blinked. Surely he couldn’t be implying—

An unaccustomed heat blossomed in her cheeks. She pulled in her chin. She never blushed. Never. Even when she’d found her almost-fiancé, the man she’d loved, in bed with another woman and overheard his plans to use her for her money she hadn’t blushed. Shook with so much anger and humiliation she’d barely been able to get the words out to end their relationship, yes, but she hadn’t blushed. Now, especially, she always made sure she was far too well prepared to be so affected.

The fact that this unscheduled visitor could have such an effect on her set her in motion.

Clutching her open day planner to her chest like the shield it was, she came the rest of the way down the stairs, rounded the foyer table and firmly asked, “May I ask who, exactly, you are? I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting before.” Though she strove to keep her tone polite, she was certain he’d catch the censure.

After all, he had simply walked into her family’s home and appeared to be making himself comfortable. While making her uncomfortable. She would have been notified if any early-morning, 20k-minded visitors were expected. And who in their right mind would enter someone else’s home in such a muddy state?

If he didn’t have an excellent explanation for his presence he was about to find himself out the door and glad for his padding.

He stepped toward her, his expression definitely hungry, his sensuous lips curled salaciously.

Ashley violently wished she’d stayed on the stairs. While he had looked big from above, he was enormous on the same level. Without heels, she was considered on the tall side at five feet nine inches, but even with the sling-back, two-inch heels she was wearing this morning she had to crane her neck back to look him in the face.

She also had to marshal all of her old-world girls’ school etiquette training not to fidget under the intense appreciation in his gaze, reminding herself of the unmalleable Three P’s—Propriety, Presentation, and Principle—that had turned her into a woman her father could be proud of, one he would love. Normally the reminder helped, but even Roger had never looked at her with as much heat during their eight months together, and her own temperature rose with alarming velocity.

While she always took care to look her best so no one would doubt her capabilities, she had a hard time believing she looked that good. So there was no reason for her to be so…so…affected by this man’s attention.

A corner of his mouth curled upward and she felt an answering tightening in her stomach. “Oh, if we’d met, sunshine, there definitely would have been pleasure, and you’d remember it.”

His deep, rich and extremely provocative tone, not to mention his words, were like a warm, moist finger traveling up her spine, and it was all she could do not to shudder in the oddest sort of pleasure.

She took a hasty, and regrettably obvious, step back and pretended to consult her schedule while she struggled to gather her normally reliable wits about her. This man had the unique ability to unsettle her as easily as his filthy bike had muddied the foyer. Because her role in life had been to keep everything settled since her mother’s death nearly three years ago, she needed to regain her control and send the fellow on his way. But first, in the 7:45 to 8:00 a.m. block she wrote:

Consult with Donavon regarding household security.

Slipping the pen back where it belonged and closing the day planner with a snap, she said, “Yes, well…” She cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders and offered him her hand. “I’m Ashley Rivers. And you are…?”

“Charmed.” He enveloped her hand in his big, warm grasp and gently, with unbelievable sensuality, squeezed. “And enthralled.” One of his rather wicked looking dark brows arched slightly beneath the shadow of his bike helmet. “Maybe even a little smitten. But I am most definitely—” he regained the step she’d placed between them and leaned toward her “—starved.”

For the barest of seconds Ashley thought he might kiss her. The warm, minty scent of his breath unaccountably overrode the impact of his mud smell, and instead of skipping a beat, this time her heart raced in expectation—something else it never did.

He didn’t kiss her, though. He pulled back, released her hand and asked, “Where’s the kitchen?” before strolling off toward the long hall that paralleled the large foyer and led to the back of the house, his molded-sole biking shoes making an unusual clack on the marble floor.

Her hand trembling ever so slightly despite her best effort, Ashley reopened her day planner to the day’s date, took out her pen and in the 7:15 to 7:45 a.m. block wrote:

Take extended cold shower.

MAC BEAT AS HASTY a retreat as he dared from the unexpected and potentially disastrous complication to his plan.

Damn it. How could he have forgotten Harrison had a sister? Because while he’d heard her name, he’d never met her, that’s how. No man with a pulse could forget meeting Ashley Rivers.

Holy haggis, the woman was Grace Kelly, part two. Polished and poised on the outside, with her golden-blond hair pulled into a perfect bun, her flawless, even features accented with just the right amount of makeup and her jewelry obviously expensive but not overdone.

Yet the spark in the blue-green depths of her beautiful eyes…he knew in his gut after being in her presence all of five minutes that on the inside she was as strong as steel and just as fiery when heated. The sensual possibilities made him hot.

But she would rat him out in a heartbeat.

She was a creature of her world. A creature he knew all too well. He shook his head in disgust, the bitterness he’d been nursing these past weeks bubbling. He’d learned his lesson.

Following his nose to the kitchen, Mac lengthened his stride when he heard the click-click of Ashley’s heels as she came after him. No way would a woman like her let him get away with an entrance—and exit—like that, not without pressing for details.

Right now he couldn’t supply any. Her looks had thrown him for a loop when he’d come through the door, and instead of doing the simple thing by supplying her with a random name, all he could think to do was come on to her. A natural enough reaction, he supposed, considering how her tailored cream suit coat accentuated the fullness of her breasts and her slim waist. The matching, above-the-knee length skirt drew the eye to her curvy, long legs right down to her cream, sling-back pumps. Man, what a view he’d had while she’d been up on the stairs.