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On the surface nothing changed. Outside she was a serene swan, with only the fluttering of the long curling lashes that framed her sapphire-blue eyes and the faintest quiver of the fine muscles beneath the skin around her wide mouth betraying that under the surface she was frantically duck paddling to stay afloat, a heartbeat away from...who knew? Total panic? She’d never gone there and she never intended to—it was all a matter of control.
Breathe, Gwen, she told herself. The breath left her parted lips in a slow, uneven, near-silent hiss as, like someone who had jumped in the deep end of the pool by accident, she kicked for the surface, leaving panic behind.
She brushed her forearms hard with her hands, rubbing the rash of goosebumps that had broken out over her skin. She despised her stupid overreaction, the first in a while. It had to have been a couple of months ago the last time she had experienced the dry-throated, heart-racing sensation of stepping off a cliff in the pit of her stomach. On that occasion it had been triggered when she’d seen a dark head standing out from the crowd in the middle of the busy shopping centre, but a moment later she had realised there was no definitive arrogant angle to his jaw, no big-cat fluidity to his stride. The sensation hadn’t lasted longer than a moment before her common sense reasserted itself and was followed by the sigh of relief that left her feeling foolish and annoyed with herself for allowing her overactive imagination to take control, even for a second.
The annoyance with herself was already kicking in hard as she tipped her head back to see the cause of her flashback. She had to tip it back some more as the guest was tall, the cut of his dark suit not disguising the power of his lean muscle-packed frame.
No, it hadn’t been a flashback;thiswas a flashback! And pulling free of it was not an option. Nearly three years suddenly slipped away and she was back in New York.
The bar was as cool and sophisticated as its clientele and Gwen, sitting perched on a tall stool, fitted right in; she was cool, she was sleek and she belonged...or at least shelookedas though she did and that was what counted, she’d discovered. She imagined there would be a time when it didn’t feel as though she were playing a part. It would come; she’d only been in New York three months and she knew it couldn’t happen overnight. She focused instead on the positives, the most positive aspect being that her five-year plan was already off to a flying start.
The first month at work she’d been finding her feet, so anxious to make a good impression that she had been unable to hide it. She did what she’d done all through university, when she had known that if her plan was to succeed she needed a good degree—some people could party and still get good results, but Gwen knew she couldn’t do that; she had to focus solely on work. So she kept her head down, sacrificing a social life to achieve what she needed. It had taken her a few weeks before she’d realised that the same method was not going to work here. Simply putting in extra hours at the office was not enough; you needed to network outside office hours too.
The first time she had accepted an invite she had stood out like a sore thumb in her office gear, but now she’d become something of an expert at making a seamless transition from day to evening and had it down to an impressive five minutes in the ladies’ room to make the necessary adjustments.
Like anything in life, it was about organisation: first make-up refreshed, lips highlighted for the evening by a bold red lipstick, then her hair, released from the sleek ponytail secured at the nape of her neck; one quick shake and it fell in glossy waves down her narrow back. All achieved while she was exchanging the discreet studs in her ears for a pair of art deco jet chandelier drops.
The tailored jacket that had seen her through the day’s meetings was removed and the stark simplicity of the little black dress it had covered was jazzed up with an oversized art deco pendant tonight. The jacket, neatly folded, was inside her capacious designer bag along with the moderate heels she had swapped for a pair of spiky ankle boots; that part took two minutes, tops.
It was amazing what you could do when you were organised and Gwen was incredibly focused. That was how she had made it this far. She didn’t allow herself to be distracted; she knew what she wanted and then figured out the quickest way to achieve her goal. People had quickly started to notice. She’d overheard a conversation in the ladies’ room once, and she had wondered, curiously, who thisruthlessperson was that they were discussing.
Then she’d found out it was her.
‘You’re just jealous, Trish, that Gwen has got the face and body to sleep her way to the top,’ had been one of the cruel comments she’d overheard.
Crossing one slim, shapely ankle over the other, she turned her head and laughed because everyone else was. The anger she had felt that day in the Ladies was spent now, but the memory still had the power to make the tension climb into her shoulders. She put her hand on the back of her neck and rotated her head from side to side to ease it.
In one aspect they had been right—shewasdetermined to succeed—but the totally unfair implication that she ever would demean herself by sleeping her way to the top... It had hurt and made her want to rush out and challenge the women cattily bitching about her, but just as well the tears streaming down her face had made her reject this impulse, because it was far better to make them eat their words by simply being better than them, and proving herself.
Blurting out that actually she was a virgin would not have improved the situation; it was almost easier all round to be considered an ambitious slut with no morals.
‘You look fierce!’ Louise, who had been the new girl in the corporate finance department before Gwen had arrived, looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Do you want another drink?’
Gwen shook her head and smiled as she held her hand over her full glass. She turned and caught sight of herself in the mirror that lined the wall behind the bar. Her loose hair had a mirror gloss, but the cost, which had initially seemed enormous, of having her thick chestnut waves tamed by the hand of someone who was a superstar in the world of hairdressing had proved to be a good investment, she decided, taking a sip of her wine. She intended to make it last all evening—the buzz of being here in this city was all the stimulation she needed.
Gwen leaned in to catch what the woman beside Louise was saying.
‘Your Scots accent is just so cute, everyone thinks so.’
When they’re not thinking I’m sleeping my way to the top,Gwen thought, hiding her flash of bitterness behind a smile. As she had to virtually yell to make herself heard above the competing conversations, Gwen decided it required less effort to smile and nod rather than correct the woman’s mistake over her nationality, even though it felt as though she was betraying her Welsh roots.
Not that anyone back home would have recognised her—the once awkward, intense swot with the glasses—in this place, she thought wryly, leaning in again to catch what Louise was saying.
‘Don’t look now buthehasn’t taken his eyes off you since he came in.’ Louise’s eyes widened as she tipped her head towards the smoky glass wall that screened the bar from the street. ‘I said don’t look!’
‘I wasn’t going to.’ Gwen was not averse to the idea of romance, at the right time, but it wasn’t scheduled at this point in her life. Right now it came under the heading of a distraction she didn’t need. Still it was always good if someone appreciated the effort she had made with her appearance.
Louise took a sip of her cocktail and sighed, leaning sideways to look over Gwen’s shoulder. ‘He really is totally...oh, my God!’ she yelped, before hissing, ‘He’s coming over, don’t panic.’
Gwen heard his voice before she saw him, deep, with a light gravel underlying the velvet and an intriguing hint of an accent. It made the half-smile she was wearing in response to her friend’s antics quiver and fade as for some inexplicable reason a deep shiver that made her toes curl passed through her body.
It was that same voice that dragged Gwen away now from the New York bar and the exact moment when her five-year plan—My God, was I really that arrogant, or was I just incredibly young and naive?—had started falling apart. She was back to sitting in the school’s assembly hall where for some inexplicable reason Rio Bardales, billionaire heir to the Bardales empire, was holding his audience in the palm of his strong brown elegant hand. Gwen had a sudden unwelcome image of that hand, those tapering fingers sliding over pale skin...her skin... She gulped and blinked to clear the unwanted images dancing in her head.
Everyone was clapping, except Gwen. She couldn’t have, even if she had wanted to. What she actually wanted, what every cell in her body was screaming at her to do, was to run as far away as she could.
Her head turned fractionally from side to side in mute denial—this cannot be happening!
‘He looks like a film star.’ Ruth’s awed whisper brought the past back with a rush she had no defence against. She remembered thinking exactly the same thing that night in the stylish New York bar where they’d met. He’d been wearing a suit then too but it had looked as though he might have slept in it, yet he’d still looked absolutely gorgeous—how could he not? Even if you discounted his physical attributes—several inches over six feet tall; long-limbed without being in any way lanky; lean and muscular with broad shoulders and a natural athletic elegance—Rio’s strong-boned symmetrical features were arresting enough to be a conversation-stopper. His eyes, dark and almond-shaped, were almost black, framed by dense long lashes and set beneath strongly defined flyaway brows, his carved cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and his square chin had the hint of a cleft, but it was his beautifully cut, overtly sensual mouth that did the most damage to her nervous system.
