Rival's Challenge

Orla looked into his eyes and wondered what colour they were. They appeared black in this light and she shivered slightly, suddenly aware of a hardness to this man she’d not noticed before. A latent sense of danger.

And then she remembered where she was and stiffened again. ‘Would you please leave? I did not ask you to join me.’

There was a taut silence between them and he didn’t move. Huffing, Orla made to move again. ‘Fine, well, if you can’t have the courtesy to move, then I will.’

But his hand snaked out and wrapped around her wrist and Orla felt as if a lightning bolt of heat went straight to her groin.

‘Please … you’ll be doing me a huge favour if you can just pretend that we know each other for a minute.’

Orla looked at him. Speechless and not just because of his hand on her wrist that felt hot and big. She pulled free and held her arm to her chest in an unconsciously defensive gesture. She narrowed her eyes on him. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘See that woman at the bar?’

Orla glanced over to where he had inclined his head slightly and saw the woman who had been wrapped around the other man like a vine. He was gone and she was alone again.

‘Yes, I see her,’ Orla supplied somewhat reluctantly.

‘Well, I’m afraid that I was going to be next on her hit list.’

Orla looked at the man and her eyes widened. He had a look on his face that was downright … pathetic. Big eyes, all innocence. Orla felt a very scary falling sensation inside her chest. He was flirting with her. Outrageously. Her nipples tightened into hard tight buds and Orla crossed her arms for fear they’d stand out like beacons against the thin silk of her dress. She put on her most severe expression. The one that usually had staff scurrying in all directions.

‘And you’re trying to make me believe that you’re not strong enough to stand up to a little bitty woman?’

He lifted a brow and that elevated his face from gorgeous to downright sexy. ‘Not working, no?’

Orla shook her head and couldn’t stop her own mouth twitching ever so slightly. She saw movement behind the man and observed dryly, ‘I think you’re safe now—her current victim looks like he was just on a toilet break.’

The man didn’t look behind him, but Orla realised when he looked up that he could see through the reflection of the venetian glass over the banquette seat as it was tilted slightly down towards the seating area. He looked back at her and smiled. ‘There goes my cunning ruse to have an excuse to talk to you.’

Butterflies exploded in Orla’s belly. She could insist on getting up to go, but right now she was curiously loath to. This man was a smooth charmer, but he also had an intriguing rough edge too, and there was no doubt about it, but something deeply feminine within her felt like it was blossoming in the heat of his regard. Coming back to life.

As if sensing her weakening, he said, ‘Can I buy you a drink for disturbing your peace?’

Orla hesitated. She had the funny sense that her peace was about to be disturbed in a very profound way. And that if she pushed for him to leave again he’d go. There was something innately proud about him.

But what harm was a drink? Feeling sensitised and more alive than she could remember feeling in a long time—if ever—she uncrossed her arms and shrugged minutely and took a mental step over a line. ‘Sure, why not?’

As if like magic, to prevent her changing her mind, an immaculately clad waiter appeared to take their orders. The man didn’t take his eyes off Orla and the waiter left. She was feeling breathless again, all hot and liquid inside.

A very feminine dampness was growing between her legs and she crossed them in a moment of self-consciousness. His eye immediately went to one pale thigh and Orla cursed her choice of dress. She put her hands on her leg and he looked back up, a smile making his mouth quirk again as if he knew exactly how awkward she felt.

He sat back. ‘So … tell me, you’re here on business?’

Orla nodded. She really didn’t want to get into anything that reminded her of the reality she faced. The inevitable takeover of her family business. So she said, ‘I’m in sales …’

Which was pretty much true. Along with marketing, management, PR, entertainment, travel, diplomacy …

The man grimaced and said, ‘I’m in acquisitions. It’s a grind, isn’t it?’

Orla regarded him suspiciously. This man looked no more like a banal businessman caught up in the daily grind than Santa Claus in full flight with all the reindeer. But she sensed intoxicatingly as if they’d both tacitly agreed to pretend to be something, someone, else.

She was about to respond when something unpalatable occurred to her. She glanced at his left hand and didn’t see a ring, but that didn’t mean anything. ‘Are you married?’

He shook his head and the faintly sick expression that passed over his features assured her even more than when he said, ‘No …’

Then he frowned. ‘Are you?’

Orla shook her head quickly and repressed a shudder. No way was she ever getting married so that some man could come and take half of the business she’d worked so hard to build up with her father. She’d seen the detrimental effects a marriage had on a business. ‘No,’ she said quickly, emphatically.

‘Well, as we’ve established that we’re both free and single … where were we?’

Orla repressed a shiver of awareness, of pure physical longing, and the feeling that she wasn’t in control of what was happening at all. She forced her mind to operate. ‘We were in sales and acquisitions, I believe.’ And why did that suddenly sound so … suggestive?

‘Ah, yes …’

The waiter returned then with their drinks. Whisky for both of them.

The man lifted his glass and tipped it towards her. ‘To chance encounters.’

Orla lifted her glass too, and said, ‘To very forward men with pathetic chat-up lines.’

He smiled. And so did she. They took a drink and Orla relished the smooth feel of the liquid running down her throat. Warming her up. She felt unbearably sensual all of a sudden. Languorous.

‘Perhaps we should exchange names?’

Orla’s chest tightened. Names were real. They would root this in reality and she suddenly didn’t want that.

Far more lightly than she felt, she said, ‘I think introductions are overrated. We’ll most likely never meet again. What’s the point?’

His eyes glinted in the dim light. A tiny smile tipped up one corner of his mouth. ‘We don’t have to divulge real names if you don’t want to. But I would like to call you … something.’

Orla went hot again. So that he could call her something in the throes of passion? The wicked thought made her pulse spasm between her legs.

He held out a hand then, a mischievous look in his eye. ‘I’m Marco.’

Orla put her hand in his and for a second her mind blanked when his big one enclosed hers completely. When she felt the calluses on his skin.

‘I’m … Kate.’

‘Nice to meet you, Kate …?’

Orla smiled at his obvious query as to her second name and pulled her hand free. ‘Just Kate.’

He nodded. ‘Kate Kate, it is. And I’m Marco Marco.’

Lord. No man Orla had ever met came close to this man. He enveloped her in sexual awareness. She felt energised. Alive.

‘You have a meeting here tomorrow?’