It Started With... Collection

‘Cynthia said to be down in the front lounge at seven-thirty for pre-dinner drinks,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘I’m having a bit of trouble with my hair,’ she replied airily. ‘Why don’t you go down and make my apologies? I’ll join you as soon as I can.’

‘Fine,’ Ryan bit out, thinking that maybe a drink or two would soothe his ill temper.

Laura sighed with relief when she heard the bedroom door open, then close. She wasn’t really having trouble with her hair, or her make-up. She’d surprised herself by doing both very well indeed. The fact was she’d been ready for some minutes but just hadn’t been able to find the courage to leave the bathroom and face Ryan, looking the way she did in her new dress and shoes.

Which was crazy. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it—to see his eyes darken with desire for her? To drive him mad with how sexy she looked?

And she did. Oh yes, she very definitely did!

Alison had given her strict instructions over the phone as to how to present herself if she wanted to get laid that night: hair down and curled lightly around her face. Lots of dark eye-liner and mascara. The reddest of red lipsticks. And she wasn’t even to consider putting some silly pin into the neckline of the dress to hide her cleavage.

Laura had gone along with everything she had suggested and the result was wicked! She could hardly believe it was her staring back. She could also hardly believe that Alison had been so eager to have her succeed in going to bed with a man like Ryan.

When Laura had first told her what had happened so far, Alison had been genuinely shocked—not by Ryan making a pass but by his backing off.

‘I don’t understand it!’ Alison had exclaimed. ‘Not if he’s already got rid of the girlfriend. It just doesn’t make sense.’

Laura explained that he had this life rule about not dating anyone he worked with. She didn’t tell Alison about his near-disastrous fling with a client, as she felt that had been a confidential confession.

‘But you don’t want him to date you,’ Alison had shot back, exasperation in her voice. ‘You just want him to bonk you silly all night. Isn’t that right?’

‘Er … yes,’ Laura had admitted, her throat drying at the thought.

‘In that case, this is what you must do …’ At which point Alison had relayed a long list of instructions as to how Laura was to look. And to act—especially after they returned to the bedroom at the end of the evening.

Laura had been laughing over her outrageous suggestion in that regard when Ryan had walked back into the room. Suddenly, she had realised it was one thing to talk about seduction techniques over the phone and quite another to go through with them; just having him in the same room made her hyperventilate with nerves. But she knew she would only have this one chance. So she’d hurriedly shunted him off into the bathroom, putting some calming distance between herself and the object of this insanely powerful desire. Then later, when he’d emerged—wearing no more than a towel, for pity’s sake!—she’d kept her eyes rigidly averted from his breathtakingly beautiful male body and followed Alison’s advice to act cool and indifferent to his charms.

‘Your gran was right,’ Alison had said earlier. ‘Playing hard to get is the way to go. If I’m any judge at all of the male sex, then once he sees you in that dress and shoes you won’t have to do much later on. But if he’s still resistant you might have to go to plan B.’

‘Plan B’ was performing a none-too-subtle striptease.

Laura swallowed as she tried to imagine following that last piece of advice from her friend. She wasn’t sure if she could be that bold. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

Right now, she didn’t even feel bold enough to go downstairs. Everyone was going to be shocked when they saw her, not just Ryan. They weren’t used to seeing her dressed like this. She wasn’t used to seeing herself dressed like this. It had been years since she’d shown her cleavage in public. Years since she’d spent the night in a man’s arms. Years since she’d trembled at the thought.

Laura frowned as she accepted that she’d never felt quite like the way she felt at this moment. She might have become concerned if her brain had still fully been connected with her body. But logical thinking had become difficult since Ryan had kissed her earlier this afternoon. Her mind had shrunk to one focus and one focus only: to get him to make love to her tonight.

Now she frowned some more. For she didn’t want him to ‘make love’ to her, did she? That would suggest an emotional involvement with the man. Only a fool would fall for Ryan Armstrong, and she was no fool.

So, rephrase that, Laura Ferrugia. You want to have sex with him. That’s all. Then, once this weekend is over, you don’t want to see him ever again!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#ulink_dd08c095-c98f-54a3-a7b8-4bc7405942e8)

‘GO AND see what’s keeping that girl, Ryan,’ Bill said when ten to eight came round and Laura still hadn’t made an appearance downstairs.

Ryan had spent a sociable twenty minutes in the elegantly furnished living room, talking to Laura’s cousin and his pretty blonde wife and sampling some of Bill’s top-quality scotch. Laura’s grandmother hadn’t joined them for drinks but she would be at dinner, he’d been told. His earlier irritation had dissipated somewhat with Laura’s absence. But it seemed his respite was at an end.

‘She’s probably still having trouble with her hair,’ he said, repeating the excuse he’d made for her not accompanying him downstairs at seven thirty.

‘Yes, well, Cynthia said dinner would be served precisely at eight,’ Bill said ruefully. ‘And when Cynthia says eight, she means eight.’

Ryan knew Laura wouldn’t want to offend her aunt or anyone else in the family. This weekend was supposedly about impressing them.

‘I’ll go get her,’ he said, and headed for the double doors which led out into the main hallway. He was just approaching the bottom of the staircase when Laura appeared at the top.

He couldn’t help it—he stared. And then he swore, a crude four-letter word which echoed what he would have liked to do to her in no uncertain terms. Fortunately, he hadn’t said it loud enough for her to hear.

‘You’d better get yourself down here,’ he managed between gritted teeth. ‘The natives are getting restless.’

And so am I, by God, he thought agitatedly as he watched her sashay down the stairs.

No one would have recognised her as the drearily dressed creature that showed up at his office every Friday. He’d thought she looked pretty good today when he’d picked her up. But this was something else.

She was shockingly gorgeous in that low-cut red dress and those incredible shoes. He didn’t know where to look at first, his eyes raking over her impressive cleavage before dropping to her shapely legs which were on show as she moved slowly down the stairs. He’d always thought her legs were good. But in those shoes, they looked unbelievable. Not wanting to ogle her like some lecher, he lifted his eyes back up to her face. No peace there, however. Made up, and with her expertly waved hair moving slinkily around her bare neck, she looked like one of the sultry screen-sirens of the forties and fifties. Ava Gardner, with a bit of Lauren Bacall thrown in.

There had been times in Ryan’s life when he’d regretted things he’d done. He supposed everyone had regrets. But right at this moment he really regretted telling Laura that he’d sleep on the floor tonight.

‘I think I made a mistake telling you to buy a red dress,’ he bit out when she finally made it to the bottom of the stairs.

She seemed taken aback. ‘You don’t like it?’

He laughed a dry laugh. ‘You know damned well that I like it. You look absolutely stunning.’

‘Thank you,’ Laura said, thrilling to his compliment. ‘You look pretty good yourself.’

‘In this old thing?’ he returned, smiling a crooked smile.

It wasn’t the first time Laura had seen him in a suit and tie. But usually his suit was business black, the shirt white and his tie a conventional grey or blue. Tonight he was wearing a single-breasted one-button charcoal-grey suit combined with a silk shirt in a burgundy colour and a striped tie in burgundy and silver. He looked every inch an irresistible man of the world.

She wondered momentarily just how many lovers he’d had. Hundreds, no doubt. Whereas she’d had the grand sum of two.

But she was going to crank up that number to three tonight, or die trying. Not of humiliation, she hoped.

Surely he would not reject her? She’d seen the hunger in his eyes just now. All she had to do was convince him that she wasn’t the fragile emotional flower that he thought she was.

‘Ryan,’ she said abruptly when he stopped at the lounge and reached for the knob.

‘What?’ he returned a tad impatiently.

Laura cleared the lump which had suddenly filled her throat. ‘I … er … don’t want you to sleep on the floor tonight,’ she blurted out, trying not to blush but failing miserably.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed as they ran over her once more. ‘I see,’ he said, and she wondered what it was that he saw.

‘So it was just an act up in the room just now?’ he went on.

Laura winced. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, and blushed some more.