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‘That was Jules’s idea.’ Carly smiled.
‘Yeah, great—and cool, too. We’ve had the goodie bags made out of the same fabric!’
Carly nodded her head. Using the magazine’s past covers as a basis for the design theme of the event had been the result of a brainstorming session held between Lucy, Jules and herself when they had first been approached to pitch for this event.
Getting a canapé menu organised that would translate into plates of food put together in the magazine’s house colours had proved to be a major headache, though, with several chefs refusing the commission before Carly had had the bright idea of getting one of the top catering colleges to take it on as a showcase for the talents of their students.
She was just keeping her fingers crossed that the results would be as impressive as the sample plates they had seen photographs of earlier in the year.
‘And it may sound kinda silly, but I’ve always had a thing about Italian men—’
‘I’m sorry—I have to go.’
The young woman, who had spent the best part of the last fifteen minutes congratulating herself on having got Ricardo’s exclusive attention, just about managed not to stamp her expensive heel down into the turf as he cut through her breathless words and started to walk away. Her chagrin gave way to resentment as she saw that he had left her to go to someone else—a woman who was standing with a group of caterers, of all things. Grudgingly she acknowledged that the white linen trousers her competitor was wearing did do full justice to legs that, as the male sex would have it, went all the way up to her armpits.
Carly smiled her thanks at the team leaders of the hired catering staff. It was nearly nine in the evening and most of the guests had left. Most, but not all. Not, for instance, the baby blonde whom she had seen clinging fragilely to Ricardo’s arm earlier in the afternoon, whilst she had been talking to a trio of famous British fashionista sisters whom she knew, in a roundabout sort of way, via mutual contacts in London.
The clients had just told her how pleased they were with the event, and her New York opposite number had said that she knew her agency would want to do business with Prêt a Party again.
All in all, a successful event. A successful event but not, so far she was concerned, a personally successful or mood-enhancing few hours. But then she was not here for her own benefit, was she? Carly reminded herself, as she dismissed the waiting staff and wondered how long it would be before she could reasonably suggest to Ricardo that they leave.
Two men—executives from a big New York PR agency to whom she had been introduced earlier—were approaching her. She forced her lips to widen in what she hoped looked like a genuine professional smile.
‘Good event,’ one of them told her approvingly. ‘Harvey thought it was real neat—didn’t you, Harv?’
‘Yeah,’ the second one agreed. ‘Real neat!’
Ricardo increased the pace of his stride. Every time he gave in to his need to look for her Carly was surrounded by other men. And he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one little bit!
‘Sorry to break up the party,’ he announced untruthfully now, as he reached the trio.
Immediately the two men fell back, leaving an empty space at Carly’s side, which Ricardo promptly filled. As he did so he deliberately stood so that he was blocking out the other men—and anyone else who might have wanted to approach Carly.
‘Have you seen everything you want to see?’ Carly asked him brightly. All afternoon she had been reminding herself that she was supposed to be making sure that Ricardo was so impressed with Prêt a Party’s skills that he offered them a contract.
Ricardo was tempted to tell her bluntly and in explicit detail that she was what he most wanted to see—preferably lying naked on his bed, with that look in her eyes that said she wanted him like crazy.
Instead he nodded his head tersely and asked, ‘How soon can you be ready to leave?’
Her New York counterpart had already assured her that there was no need for her to stay, and she had spoken with the clients.
‘I’m ready now.’
‘Fine. Let’s go, then.’
Carly didn’t really want to move. Ricardo was standing right next to her, and if she turned towards him now they would be standing body to body…like lovers…
‘What’s wrong? Missing the attention of your new friends? Want me to call them back?’
Instead of turning towards him, Carly took a step back.
‘No, I don’t,’ she told him quietly. ‘And as for what’s wrong—I was just wishing that I didn’t ache so much for you to take me to bed!’
She turned away from him and started to walk towards the helipad, trembling inside from the shock of actually having told him what she was thinking and how she felt. Her face and body both felt equally hot, but for very different reasons. Her face was burning because of her embarrassment, but her body was burning because what she had said to him was the truth.
Ricardo caught up with her before she had taken more than three steps, his hand on her arm halting her progress until he could stand four-square in front of her.
‘Is that an admission or is it an invitation?’ he asked silkily.
Carly forced herself to look up at him, and to hold his gaze as she responded calmly, ‘Both!’
Ricardo couldn’t even remember how many women had propositioned him over the years, never mind count them, but none of them had ever spoken to him like this—simply and directly, admitting and owning their need for him.
‘That’s quite a change of heart! Why?’
‘I suddenly realised how much I would regret it if I went to my grave without knowing you.’
‘Knowing me?’
His voice was cynically mocking as he moved aside so that they could continue to walk together to the helipad.
‘Without having sex with you,’ Carly corrected herself steadily. ‘Obviously it goes without saying that it is only sex that we both want.’
‘Less than twenty-four hours ago you were outraged because I’d paid for your clothes. Now you’re offering to have sex with me?’
‘I was furious because I felt what you’d done implied that I could be bought. Choosing freely to have sex with you is completely different.’
‘Indeed. Didn’t it occur to you that I might feel equally insulted by your suggestion that I would want a woman I had to bribe into bed with me?’ he challenged her.
They had almost reached the helipad.
She had spoken to him, touched a deeply secret part of him, as no other woman had ever done, and instinctively he felt wary of his own emotional response to that. At the same time he also felt challenged by the fact that she was so obviously determined not to allow herself to become emotionally involved with him. A woman who wanted to give herself freely to him physically whilst refusing to become emotionally involved? Shouldn’t that knowledge delight him instead of irking him? he taunted himself derisively. He certainly wasn’t going to refuse her, was he?
Carly wondered what he was thinking. Was Ricardo shocked by what she had said? Turned off by it? Indifferent to it? Should she have been less direct, and instead created an artificial opportunity for him to come on to her if he wanted to do so?
Ricardo had gone to speak to the ground staff brought in to take care of the helicopters lined up away from the helipad. She could feel her stomach muscles clench as he walked back to her.
‘I was watching you earlier on today,’ he told her softly. ‘Imagining just what it would be like to have those long legs of yours wrapped tightly around me whilst I took you. How do you like it best? Tell me!’
Shocked pleasure rushed through her, hot, sweet and intoxicating. A dizzying, breathtaking sensation of open and responsive arousal.
Ricardo watched her, acknowledging that the look of dazzled, dazed anticipation in her eyes was doing more to arouse him than he would have thought possible.
‘Time to go,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the waiting helicopter.
/>
‘You’ve been very quiet. Second thoughts?’ Ricardo challenged Carly as he piloted them towards the landing pad of his New York building.
‘About what? Telling you that I want you? Or the fact that I do want you?’
Did she realise how the musical sound of her voice could play on a man’s desire, heightening it and arousing him? Ricardo wondered as he looked directly at her.
‘Either.’
Carly shook her head. She had spent most of the flight surreptitiously sneaking glances at Ricardo and then imagining herself touching him, learning him, allowing the fantasy that she hoped would soon become a reality to guide and slightly shock her thoughts. She’d touch first with her fingertips, tracing the bones that shaped him, and then with her hands as she absorbed the strength of his muscles and the taut smoothness of his flesh. And then finally with her lips and her tongue, as she explored every delicate hollow and plane of him.
The heat that constantly beat through her body was roaring now, pulse-points of urgency throbbing not just between her legs and in her breasts but everywhere—her fingertips, her toes, her lips—everywhere…
‘I’ve said more than I should,’ she admitted huskily.
‘Yes,’ Ricardo acknowledged coolly. ‘You have. Haven’t the other men in your life preferred to do their own hunting and their own propositioning?’
There was a small jolt as the helicopter hit the ground.
She waited silently for Ricardo to climb out and then come round to help her. Above them, stars glittered in the darkness of the night sky, but it was impossible for them to compete with the brilliance and colour of the New York skyline.
