AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘This is Ms Sanders from—’
‘Leave us, Mel.’ Dane interrupted the PA’s introduction. ‘And shut the door.’
The husky command had Xanthe’s heartbeat galloping into her throat to party with the asteroid, reminding her of all the commands he’d once issued to her in the same he-who-shall-be-obeyed tone. And the humiliating speed with which she’d obeyed them.
‘Relax, I won’t hurt you. I swear.’
‘Hold on tight. This is gonna be the ride of your life.’
‘I take care of my own, Xan. That’s non-negotiable.’
The door closed behind the dutiful PA with a hushed click.
Xanthe gripped the handle on her briefcase with enough force to crack a nail and lifted her chin, channelling the smouldering remains of her inner badass that had survived the lightning strike.
‘Hello, Dane,’ she said, glad when her voice remained relatively steady.
She would not be derailed by a physical reaction which was ten years out of date and nothing more than an inconvenient throwback to her youth. It would pass. Eventually.
‘Hello, Ms Sanders.’
His thinly veiled contempt at her deception had outrage joining the riot of other emotions she was busy trying to suppress.
‘If you’ve come to buy a boat, you’re all out of luck.’
The searing gaze wandered down to her toes, the insolent appraisal as infuriating as the fuses that flared to life in every pulse point en route.
‘I don’t do business with spoilt little rich chicks.’
His gaze rose back to her face, having laid waste to her composure.
‘Especially ones I was once dumb enough to marry.’
CHAPTER TWO
XANTHE CARMICHAEL.
Dane Redmond had just taken a sucker punch to the gut. And it was taking every ounce of his legendary control not to show it.
The girl who had haunted his dreams a lifetime ago—particularly all his wet dreams—and then become a star player in his nightmares. And now she had the balls to stand in his office—the place he’d built from the ground up after she’d kicked him to the kerb—as if she had a right to invade his life a second time.
She’d changed some from the girl he remembered—all trussed-up now in a snooty suit, looking chic and classy in those ice-pick heels. But there was enough of that girl left to force him to put his libido on lockdown.
She still had those wide, feline eyes. Their sultry slant hinting at the banked fires beneath, the translucent blue-green the vivid colour of the sea over the Barrier Reef. She had the same peaches-and-cream complexion, with the sprinkle of girlish freckles over her nose she hadn’t quite managed to hide under a smooth mask of make-up. And that riot of red-gold hair, ruthlessly styled now in an updo, but for a few strands that had escaped to cling to her neck and draw his gaze to the coy hint of cleavage beneath her suit.
The flush high on her cheekbones and the glitter in her eyes made her look like a fairy queen who had swallowed a cockroach. But he knew she was worse than any siren sent to lure men to their destruction, with that stunning body and that butter-wouldn’t-melt expression—and about as much freaking integrity as a sea serpent.
He curled his twitching fingers into his palms and braced his fists against the desk. Because part of him wanted to throw her over his knee and spank her until her butt was as red as her hair, and another part of him longed to throw her over his shoulder and take her somewhere dark and private, so he could rip off that damn suit and find the responsive girl beneath who had once begged him for release.
And each one of those impulses was as screwed-up as the other. Because she meant nothing to him now. Not a damn thing. And he’d sworn ten years ago, when he’d been lying on the road outside her father’s vacation home in the Vineyard, with three busted ribs, more bruises than even his old man had given him on a bad day, his stomach hollow with grief and tight with anger and humiliation, that no woman would ever make such a jackass of him again.
‘I’m here because we have a problem...’ She hesitated, her lip trembling ever so slightly.
She was nervous. She ought to be.
‘Which I’m here to solve.’
‘How could we possibly have a problem?’ he said, his voice deceptively mild. ‘When we haven’t seen each other in over a decade and I never wanted to see you again?’
