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CHAPTER ONE
TAKE a chill pill, pal. This is a make-up emergency.
Pouting into her rear-view mirror, Ruby Delisantro tuned out the blare of a car horn from behind her and concentrated on applying a quick coat of Rose Blush Everstay lip gloss to calm jittery nerves.
She’d had the small but exclusive chain of Hampstead brasseries on her hit list for over a year. It had taken her months to get this afternoon’s appointment with their chef and she wanted to look her absolute best before she started the long search for a parking space.
The squeal of brakes and the teeth-jarring jolt that followed was a little harder to ignore though—as it shot her forty-quid tube of Rose Blush straight up her nose.
‘For Pete’s sake!’
Extricating the lipstick from her left nostril and hastily repairing the damage, she leapt out of her car. Having some bozo rear-end her was not the best way to prepare for her career-defining moment. Plus she’d just had Scarlett serviced and MOT’d at a cost of two hundred and twenty pounds. If any harm had been done to her beloved Bug, someone was going to die.
‘Hey, hotshot. What’s your problem? Don’t you know where your brake pedal is?’ she yelled at the man shielded behind the windscreen of the fancy Italian convertible pressed up against her bumper.
Typical. Only in Hampstead. A boy racer driving a lot more car than he can handle.
Gripping the top of the windscreen, Boy Racer jerked upright and jumped out of his car in one athletic movement. Ruby’s lungs ceased to function and the fervent wish that she’d actually lost the six pounds she’d been debating losing for nearly a decade flitted through her mind.
This was no boy. This was most definitely a man.
A tall, strong, long-limbed, super-gorgeous man with close-cropped dark hair, broad shoulders and slim hips expertly displayed in worn, low-slung jeans. His eyes were disguised behind a pair of expensive sunglasses, but the manly dent in his chin and the shadow of stubble defining chiselled cheeks weren’t doing a thing for Ruby’s breathing difficulties, especially when his head dipped.
Is he checking me out?
‘What’s my problem?’ He threw up his hands, making his muscular torso ripple under a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: ‘Barristers do it on a trial basis.’ ‘What’s your problem, lady? You’re parked in the middle of the road.’
Ruby gulped in air to kick-start her lungs and took a moment to consider her response.
The good news was, Ruby Delisantro loved to flirt. And she was remarkably good at it. She adored the spark and sizzle of sexual attraction, the tantalising tension of verbal foreplay—and a chance to flirt with someone this good-looking didn’t present itself every day. Not only that, but the figure-hugging dress she’d picked up at Camden Market last week turned the extra weight she’d been carrying around since she was seventeen into a major asset.
The bad news was, Mr Super-Gorgeous also had a super-large stick up his backside about women drivers and seemed to be virtually oblivious to her fabulous frock. Which meant he was either gay, a misogynist or didn’t have a sense of humour. Any one of which should have been a major turn-off.
Unfortunately they weren’t. Quite.
Hold it right there, Ruby.
She raised her gaze from her contemplation of his pectoral muscles. What was she thinking? She didn’t have time to flirt with this guy—no matter how spectacular he might look in a dorky T-shirt. She had to see a man about some cupcakes.
‘There was more than enough room to get past me,’ she replied tartly, sending him a hard stare. ‘And anyhow, it was an emergency.’ Sort of.
The direction of his gaze dipped to her mouth. She mentally crossed ‘gay’ off her list as her tongue slid out to moisten lips that had suddenly turned to parchment.
No flirting, Ruby. This is non-negotiable.
He huffed out an incredulous laugh. ‘Since when is putting lipstick on an emergency?’
‘I had my parking lights on,’ she continued, ignoring the jibe. Men were hard-wired not to understand the importance of lipstick, so she wasn’t about to explain how the simple act of putting it on could bolster one’s confidence in a business situation. ‘And you ran into me.’ She strutted towards him, grateful her four-inch heels went some way to correcting the height disadvantage.
Maybe she didn’t have time to flirt. But she certainly had time to make him suffer.
‘And if you had ever bothered to read your Highway Code,’ she added, ‘you’d know that puts you in the wrong. No matter how much testosterone you’re packing.’
She flicked a contemptuous glance at his crotch to emphasise the point. Only to have her gaze snag on the prominent package displayed by the loose-fitting denims. A flush burned the back of her neck, stunning her even more—Ruby Delisantro was not and had never been a blusher.
He stepped forward—making her far too aware of exactly how tall he was.
‘Those are hazard lights,’ he said, the rich, masculine voice low and amused. ‘Not parking lights.’ He crossed his arms, making his biceps bunch under the short sleeves of his dorky T-shirt, and Ruby lost her train of thought completely.
‘And if you’d bothered to read your Highway Code you’d know that,’ he continued. ‘No matter how much oestrogen you’re packing.’
His head dipped again, the glint of August sunlight on the dark lenses of his shades doing nothing to disguise the fact that he was staring straight at her cleavage.
