The Party Starts at Midnight

He wasn’t dead. Of course he wasn’t. He’d merely passed out, that was all. Which was such a relief, not least because while she might be a fan of TV hospital dramas she didn’t have the first clue about resuscitation apart from the fact that mouth-to-mouth was no longer thought to be necessary.

And wasn’t that a shame, because now she wasn’t watching it for signs of life she could see he had a great mouth. Well defined. Sexy.

Much like the rest of his face, she thought, her gaze drifting over his features. His nose was straight and his jaw firm. His cheekbones were sharp and his brows were as thick and dark as the tousled hair on his head. She could only guess at the colour of his eyes but his eyelashes were the kind that a woman who was sometimes strawberry blonde, sometimes ginger, and so had virtually invisible eyelashes, could only dream about.

It was a strong face. Gorgeous. And in sleep there didn’t seem anything cold, forbidding or ruthless about him at all. There certainly didn’t seem anything cold about his mouth. It looked warm. Soft. Lovely. Tempting. Very, very kissable, and there for the taking.

And whether it was because she’d just had the fright of her life and all kinds of emotions were rushing through her or whether it was because it had been so long since she’d been this close to a man she didn’t know, but for one crazy moment she wanted to lean forwards and take. Desperately.

At the thought of it, the intoxicating possibility of it, her head swam and her heart pounded and she very nearly did exactly that. Would have done had not the reason and common sense that had been eluding her slammed back into her head, making her freeze and jerk back as if suddenly jabbed with a red-hot poker because, oh, goodness, she’d actually started moving.

What the hell was she doing? she wondered, horror at her lack of control shooting through her. What was she thinking? Was she completely insane?

This wasn’t some kind of gender-reversed Sleeping flipping Beauty. Leo Cartwright wasn’t a prince. He was a client. One of her biggest to date, in fact. What if he’d woken up and found her leaning in for a kiss? He’d have been horrified. Appalled. Rightly so. He’d probably have fired her. Her reputation would have been in tatters, her career over, and the blood, sweat, tears and money she’d poured into the business would have been for nothing.

Abby shuddered as an icy sweat broke out all over her skin. God, it didn’t bear thinking about. Everything she’d worked for. Possibly gone. In a nanosecond of utter lunacy.

But it was fine, she assured herself, taking a deep calming breath and feeling the nausea churning around in her stomach subside. It had been a close call but she’d pulled herself back from the brink of madness and he hadn’t woken up. She’d got away with it. He’d never know what she’d so very nearly done. No one would. It was fine.

And so was she. She had to be. Because she was at work, for heaven’s sake. Work. So now wasn’t the time for panic, desire and random acts of insanity. In fact, now wasn’t the time to be anything other than Abby Summers, event planner extraordinaire. Professional, in control, and completely on top of him—things. God. On top of things.

Swallowing hard and ruthlessly ignoring the bolt of heat that rocketed through her at the thought of that, Abby gave herself a mental slap and pulled herself together because, really, this had to stop. It was ridiculous. She was ridiculous. And, quite frankly, she’d had enough.

So she yanked her shoulders back, set her jaw, scanned his upper body for a suitable target and absolutely did not think about how it might feel to run her fingers over his chest, his abdomen, maybe following the trail of her hands with her mouth, down, towards the sheet and then lower …

She blinked and snapped her gaze up. His arm would do. Right. She flexed her hands, leaned forwards and gave his biceps a quick prod.

‘Mr Cartwright,’ she murmured, her voice sounding unusually husky and weirdly seductive. ‘Leo.’

He grunted and shifted but he didn’t wake, and, remembering the bottle in the study, Abby wondered how much he’d had to drink. Then she cleared her throat, put her hand flat on his shoulder and, ignoring the heat of his skin and the hardness of his muscle beneath her palm, said his name again. But this time it was loudly and not in the least bit seductively, and the shake she gave him could have roused an elephant.

Which seemed to do the trick because with a bellow that made her nearly topple backwards in fright he twisted round, thrashed about a bit, then jackknifed up.

And just when she thought that the situation couldn’t get any worse, just when she thought her body had undergone enough physical wrangling for one evening, there went the sheet.

Abby’s gaze automatically shot down his chest to his partially exposed and—oh, Lord—very aroused crotch and, with a strangled yelp, she clapped her hand to her eyes, and thought with the one brain cell that hadn’t yet shut down in defeat, no unwelcome surprises? No embarrassing moments? And no inappropriate or foolish behaviour? Hah, who had she been kidding?

A second ago Leo had been asleep. That much he knew. Now he wasn’t. That much he knew too. Which was a shame because he’d been having the best dream about a warm woman who smelt of flowers and who’d been leaning over him, murmuring his name and—rather randomly but pleasingly—been just about to kiss him.

But something had disturbed him. Jolted him and roused him to the extent that he was now sitting bolt upright in bed, his pulse racing, his instincts dazed and confused and adrenalin shooting through his blood.

He raked his hands through his hair and gave his head a shake but it didn’t dispel the sleep-induced fuzziness, the bewilderment or the thundering of his heart.

What the hell had happened? he wondered dizzily. What had woken him? Not a nightmare, that was for sure. So had it been a noise? A movement? What?

Rolling his shoulders, Leo blinked once, twice, rubbed his gritty eyes with the heels of his hands as he struggled to work it out, and then, quite suddenly, he froze. His entire body tensed and his ears pricked because, hang on, what on earth was that?

It sounded like a breath. To his left. Being released, slowly, carefully, lengthily, as if the owner didn’t want him to hear, and ending in a sigh, a whimper, or maybe a moan.

Whatever it was, with the adrenalin still pumping through his veins, preparing his body and mind for fight, Leo dropped his hands and snapped his head round. And nearly leapt a foot in the air because there beside his bed, sitting back on her heels with one hand clamped over her eyes and the other clasped to her chest, was a woman. Slim, reddish-blonde and wearing a dark blue dress with a bow thing tied round her waist. Unknown, uninvited and apparently in as much shock as he was.

Glancing down and seeing the dramatic effect that the dream he’d been having had had on him—which was presumably the reason she’d covered her eyes and explained the harsh, ragged breathing that was making her chest heave—Leo grabbed the sheet and yanked it over his lap.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he snapped, his voice rough with sleep and astonishment.

‘Abby Summers,’ she said quickly, hoarsely.

The name didn’t ring any bells, but then maybe that wasn’t surprising because nothing was ringing any bells right now apart from the fact that he was naked and not alone. ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’

‘Looking for you.’

‘On your knees?’

‘Long story,’ she said. ‘Not important.’

Wasn’t it? Who knew? Leo could barely think straight, let alone work out what might or might not be of importance here. He was too busy processing the fact that there was a strange woman in his bedroom, on the floor with her eyes covered and her breath coming in tiny gasps, making him think of blindfolds and what her gasps might turn into if he suggested she join him actually on the bed instead of beside it. All of which was so unbelievably out of character, so wholly inappropriate and so crazily beyond the realms of his usually rock-solid self-control, his brain would have reeled had it been up to it.

‘How did you get in?’ he muttered, totally thrown by how badly he wanted to grab her and roll her beneath him when he knew absolutely nothing about her or why she was here, and thinking that, damn, that dream had a lot to answer for.

‘The lift.’

‘It’s locked.’

‘Your brother gave me his key card.’

His brother? Huh? Now what was going on? Leo rubbed a hand over his face in an effort to wake himself up and get a grip on things. ‘Jake did?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded and the light caught her hair, making it glint gold—no, copper—no, gold—and, momentarily distracted, he wondered what it would be like to pull it down and run his fingers through it. If it would feel as silky and soft as it looked. How many words there were to describe its colour.

Flexing his fingers, then folding his arms and shoving his hands into his armpits just in case they got ideas, Leo hauled his concentration—such as it was—back on track. ‘Why?’

‘So I could come up and find you, of course,’ she said as if it couldn’t be clearer, which it wasn’t.

But the mention of his brother seemed to have triggered his memory because snippets of the last conversation he and Jake had had were filtering into his head, slowly lifting the fog of confusion and, ah-h-h, now it was all becoming clear.

The time of year.

His mood.

The mention his brother had made of a gift.

Evidently Jake had followed up on his promise, and therefore Leo knew exactly who Abby Whoever-She-Was was, and what she was here for.

‘Right,’ he muttered, not really up to working out how he felt about what his brother had done. ‘I get it. You’re here to cheer me up.’

There was a pause, during which he watched her mouth open, close, then open again to emit a slightly startled, ‘What?’

‘Jake said he was going to send me something to make me feel better,’ he said flatly. ‘And here you are, all dressed up like a gift. In my bedroom. Virtually in my bed. So who are you? Someone who owes him a favour? One of his desperate-to-please exes? Or a professional?’