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A throat cleared loudly behind her.
‘Ms Calhoun, I presume?’ The deep, curt British accent had her swinging round so fast the hose flew out of her hand, sprinkling water everywhere.
Heat leapt into her cheeks and burned across her collarbone.
A tall man stood with his shoulder propped against the washroom door, his face cast into shadow by the sunshine, but she recognised him instantly from all the research.
What the ever-loving…?
She banded her arms across her chest to shield herself, but couldn’t stop the humiliating shivers—as his cold assessing gaze set her freezing skin alight.
Seriously? Could she have made a worse impression? And how had he found her here so quickly?
Dervla, I’m going to strangle you.
‘Mr… Mr Khan?’ She stuck her chin out, trying to claw back a modicum of dignity, even though she knew she had to look like a drowned rat. ‘We weren’t expecting you until Friday. And what are you doing in the stables?’
He wore blue jeans, a black crew-neck sweater that clung to his impressively muscular chest, and black leather boots polished to a high gleam. His complexion was dark, his hair even darker. She had a sudden recollection of the villainous king in a book she’d read as a child who had been cruel and cold and all powerful, but also weirdly hot for the villain in a children’s storybook. She’d loved that book once upon a time, reading it over and over again. And now she knew why.
‘What am I doing here?’ he said, the sarcastic tone cutting through her little reminiscence like a scalpel. ‘I plan to buy your stud, Ms Calhoun. Today.’
Today?
Renewed panic sprinted up her spine, but then he turned into the light to grab the towel that hung from a peg on the washroom wall. And every thought flew out of her head bar one.
He’s even hotter than the villainous king in Flinty O’Toole’s Epic Quest.
Her lungs squeezed and the heat of mortification morphed into something a great deal more disturbing.
She already knew Karim Khan was stupidly handsome. She’d studied enough photographs of him last night at gala events, in tuxedos and designer suits, his hair perfectly styled as he paraded supermodels and actresses about as if they were accessories.
But the photos had not done him justice. In the flesh, and up close, and even without the luxury of a stylist, the man was quite simply breathtaking. Her heart literally stopped beating as she devoured the sight of firm, sensual lips, a strong jaw, high sculpted cheekbones and the long blade-like nose. The slight bump in the bridge and a sickle-shaped scar above his left eye marred the perfect symmetry of his face, but only made him look more rugged and masculine and overwhelming.
The burning heat in her cheeks shot through her veins, and her nipples, which were already like bullets, tightened into torpedoes. She squeezed her folded arms harder over her chest trying to quell the throbbing ache. She was more humiliated now than she’d been when she’d found her fiancé eating the face off another woman at her engagement party. And she’d always believed that humiliation could never be topped.
Wrong.
‘Dry off,’ he said, throwing her the towel.
She caught it one-handed, struggling to inflate her lungs when the light hit his face again and she saw the impatience in his eyes—which were a beautiful golden brown. Because, of course they were.
All the better to devastate you with, Orla. Because he’s a god among men and you’re a shivering, almost naked tomboy pauper.
As she frantically wrapped the towel around her nakedness, his gaze skimmed down, coasting over every inch of exposed skin until it got to the puddle of water forming at her bare feet.
‘I’ll meet you at the house in fifteen minutes,’ he said, speaking to her as if she were a disobedient and particularly irritating ten-year-old. ‘I need this deal finalised today.’
Despite her breathing difficulties, Orla felt her hackles rising.
Who did he think he was, speaking to her like that? Just because he was gorgeous and loaded and dry and fully clothed and she… Well… She wasn’t.
But before she could come up with a suitably indignant reply, or gather enough courage—and breath—to actually enunciate it, the impossible man had strode back out of the stables and was gone.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MR KHAN, I’M sorry to have kept you waiting. I hope Dervla offered you refreshments?’
Karim swung round from his lengthy contemplation of the impossibly green hills and hedgerows that surrounded the Calhoun stud to see the girl he had encountered twenty minutes ago in the stables crossing the faded rug towards him.
