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Chapter One
Eva could still remember the first time she’d met Max Nolan – how could she possibly forget? It had been at that high-powered charity ball she’d accompanied Mark, her boyfriend to.
Her ex-boyfriend, she revised, biting on her lip.
But she pushed that dreary thought away as her eyes flew once more to the man she’d rather be thinking about right then. The Australian billionaire cowboy, the philanthropist, the dream of every woman – Max Nolan.
He didn’t seem to care that he stood out from the other men in the room, dressed in their dark power suits, their shiny black wingtips. He was probably worth more than half of them put together anyway. He was also in his third year on the Forbes List of youngest male billionaires – fourth or fifth place, she couldn’t remember which. But all that didn’t matter to her.
What mattered, was the man. His dashing persona, his evident sense of self-collection that made him seem different for all the right reasons. He had a lean, streamlined body, with long legs that made those pair of blue jeans he wore look sinful. His startling white shirt was tucked in and open at the throat, revealing tanned, invitingly smooth skin.
His face was much too angular to be considered textbook handsome. But to a woman like Eva, he appealed on so many levels. She liked his strong jaw, his narrow, proud nose, his manly, firm lips. She also liked his eyes, a gorgeous icy blue. He had longish golden brown hair which framed his nicely shaped head, and she couldn’t help picturing him in a cowboy hat to go with his deliberately casual attire. He looked like he’d just stepped off the ranch for a drink with the guys.
“You didn’t tell me Max Nolan will be here,” she said almost accusingly to her mother, who was standing next to her. Lori Fowler, silver-haired and elegantly lovely at age fifty, turned to her daughter in surprise.
“I had no idea you knew him,” the older woman said. This was one of her many cocktail parties she threw for the project close to her heart – the Henry Fowler Foundation named after her late husband, Eva’s father. Now, mother and daughter stood side by side, welcoming and greeting guests, male and female, who were the cream of the town’s corporate society.
Eva shrugged. “I’ve met him once. Leon introduced us; his financial firm had been running after the Nolan account for ages, apparently.”
She saw her mother’s lips curl slightly in irritation at the mention of Leon’s name. Eva knew her mother had never approved of her ex, and now he’d given Lori one more reason to dislike him by breaking Eva’s heart.
But then, was she truly heartbroken, Eva mused for a moment. And then she decided the achy feeling in her chest was mostly due to the fact that Leon had simply helped do what she hadn’t had the guts to do long ago. Break up a relationship that held no fire, no promise.
*
Eva was just twenty three and Leon had been her first, so she didn’t really have much to judge by. She’d tried asking her friends, in a coded way, about their own sex lives. But the little snippets she received only made her more miserable as she got an idea of what was missing in her life.
She’d read the steamy romance novels, listened to a few whispered details by the giggly girls at work – and come to terms with the fact that none of that was ever going to happen to her. It would all remain a fantasy, or something designed for other, more fortunate women but never for her.
Her mother’s hand suddenly tightened around her wrist, drawing her to the present time and place. Eva blinked, looking sideways into Lori’s green eyes, the same emerald shade as hers. “Have fun, Eva,” her mother said quietly, softly. “Live your life. Forget him.”
Eva sighed at the way her mother seemed to perfectly read her thoughts. She then smiled as her mother handed her a glass of wine from a passing waiter. “I’m going to mingle, take a few photographs for the week’s paper,” Lori said, sipping from her own glass, before winking at her daughter and striding away.
Eva was shaking her head in amusement as she drank her wine. Her mother really shouldn’t be handing her alcohol and telling her to have fun at the same time. It was almost the same as telling her to get drunk – which she knew her mother hadn’t intended, of course. But still, a week after breaking up with Leon, she was still raw and vulnerable. She needed some kind of picking up. Already, the one glass she’d gulped down seemed to be taking effect. The crowded room seemed less intimidating, more welcoming. Maybe she’d do a bit of mingling herself…
There was someone at her elbow. Thinking her mother had returned, she twisted to the side, a ready smile on her face. Only to freeze when she saw who it was.
*
Max. Nolan!
His lean, tanned face creased in a smile when he saw her expression. “Pardon me – I didn’t mean to shock you,” he said in that deep, throbbing voice she so well remembered. “But since you’d been staring at me all evening, I decided to come over and afford you a closer look.”
Eva’s eyes widened, then darted as her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. Had she really been so blatant? She wanted to sink through the marble floor.
“But it’s okay – I like being ogled by a pretty woman,” he drawled, taking her empty glass from her limp grasp and placing it aside.
“Mr. Nolan,” Eva said with a scratchy throat, her heart racing from his presence and his recent words. “It’s…nice to see you again. We met at – “
“I remember,” he cut in crisply, his eyes hooded for a moment as they swept over her then back up again.
Eva swallowed. “Oh.” She still couldn’t believe he was right next to her, so close she could see the dark orbs in the centre of his startling eyes. Up close he was lethal; he exuded presence, a certain magnetism that would make any woman standing within a yard of him start to hyperventilate. Eva felt the strangest kind of twitching within her stomach muscles and wondered why he affected her so.
It was as bad as the first time.
Leon had taken her over to Max Nolan. It had been an even more formal occasion that this one, and he’d still been dressed as casually. Blue jeans, a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Eva could recall Leon mumbling something to her later about accomplished moneybags who didn’t have to conform to society. She’d had the impression that Leon was awed by the guy, who was around his age, barely even thirty. She could remember that veneration turning to resentment when Max Nolan finally picked another firm to handle his interest city-side.
Leon had introduced her as his girlfriend, and she’d felt an instant awareness as she’d shaken hands with the billionaire. His touch had been warm, almost scalding. His grip, though brief, had been firm. She’d held his eyes for a moment and had felt tilted on her feet. The spell was broken; he looked away, letting her go. But as Leon continued talking with Max Nolan, she’d somehow felt that the lean-hipped man’s attention was still centered on her.
They didn’t share many words after that as she never got to really contribute much to the conversation. But before Max Nolan got drawn away by some other fawning group of people, he looked at her with those piercing blue eyes, shook her hand again, and told her how nice it was to meet her. Her whole body had tingled for hours afterwards.
Now she tried a weak smile, wondering if it was really true that he remembered who she was. They’d come in contact for no more than ten minutes, tops. And they’d barely shared three whole sentences. And it was so long ago – months even.
Well, she hadn’t forgotten him either – but that didn’t count. He was Max Nolan, the Australian billionaire cowboy and owner of the sprawling Keystone Ranch. She was just…Eva, fresh out of college and working for an online human interest magazine. Hardly memorable.
*
Seemed like she was wrong about that though. Because Max Nolan was looking at her in much the same way he’d looked at her that night – in the way that would make a woman’s toes curl up in her shoes. He wanted her. Did he?
Suddenly Eva was in a whirl. How possible was it that a man like him could be attracted to her? It looked more like a figment of her overactive imagination.
“Where’s the boyfriend?” Max asked mildly, thumbing his pockets in a way that seemed to unconsciously thrust out
his hips. And what hips. Those sexy jeans seemed sprayed on, hugging him lovingly, especially that spot beneath his belt buckle that was intriguing enough to make her steal more than a few admiring glances down below.
Realizing he really did remember her, she said, “Um…oh, Leon. He’s history.”
Max’s eyes glinted in surprise, and she could swear, even glee. And yet he said, “Damn.”
Her eyebrows shot up into her full fringe. “Excuse me?”
“I said, “damn”,” he told her, taking her elbow and leaning forward to whisper in her ear, “I was so looking forward to the satisfaction of having to steal you from him.”
Eva let out a choked laugh, shock and excitement coursing through her. That moment of closeness and intimacy as he’d come near to her ear had been electrifying. But for some reason, she couldn’t seem to take him seriously. She was actually smiling goofily.
“You think I’m joking?” he said softly, eyes narrowing on her face as he correctly read her mind.
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I think you like to flirt, Mr. Nolan. You like the idea of making a young, impressionable girl smile and feel admired and sexy.”
Eva was amazed she could be talking to him in this way. Especially when he suddenly looked so speculative. Quickly, she tried to bring things back to a more manageable level. No use waving a red flag at him. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was challenging him. No way. Men like Max Nolan ate women like her for breakfast.
She knew all about his conquests, his success with women. He was perpetually single and yet always seemed to be just done with his last whirlwind love affair. The latest had been some hotel chain heiress barely older than Eva, and the three month romance had ended with the heiress fleeing the country to Europe to nurse her wounded feelings.
