It was driving him demented. The food tasted like sawdust. The champagne burned his throat. He’d lost track of conversations he’d started. Had to have questions repeated. He’d even snapped the stem of a glass, he’d been holding it so tightly. Much more of this and people would begin to speculate about his competency.
Alex had had enough. He’d tried his damnedest to convince himself that he wasn’t attracted to her but he’d been fooling himself. When she’d sidled past him earlier in that slinky golden dress his brain had imploded, and ever since the principle thought hammering round his head was how quickly he could dispatch his guests and get Phoebe on her own.
It would help if she hadn’t spent the entire night avoiding him, he thought grimly. Everyone else had managed to come up and at the very least compliment him on the evening. Yet all Phoebe had managed to do was maintain her distance. Was it a coincidence that hordes of people had kept them separate throughout the night? He thought not.
‘So who is she?’
At the curiosity-laden voice of the woman threading her arm though his, Alex yanked himself out of his thoughts and glanced down. His eyes narrowed at the knowing little smile on Maggie’s face and he forced himself to relax.
‘Who is who?’ he drawled as if he didn’t have the faintest idea who Maggie was talking about.
‘The brunette you can’t take your eyes off.’
Maggie might have known him a long time but that didn’t mean he had any intention of telling her anything. He stiffened. ‘She’s business.’
‘It’s funny,’ Maggie said with a casualness that didn’t deceive him for a second, ‘but no business I’ve ever been involved in has generated the kind of scorching looks you two have been exchanging all evening. I must be doing something wrong.’
‘Your business is thriving.’
‘Yes, but it would be so much more fun if Jim and I smouldered at each other like that.’
His gaze swung back to Phoebe and his jaw tightened as he watched one of his friends drop a kiss on her cheek. His hands balled into fists. ‘Believe me, it’s no fun.’ At least not yet. Alex’s pulse hammered. There was only one way to find out if she was as at the mercy of this attraction as he was.
‘Hmm, perhaps not,’ Maggie said, glancing down at his white knuckles and easing her arm out of his. ‘Is she coming back on the boat with us?’
To end up in the arms of one of the many men she’d been flirting with all night? Not a chance. ‘No,’ he said grimly, ‘she isn’t.’
Oh, God, Alex was coming over.
Phoebe glanced round to try and find someone to latch onto and engage in intense conversation but the crowd of people she’d been using as a shield was thinning out and for the first time in the entire evening she was alone.
She ought to be dashing inside and running up the stairs. Chucking her things into her bag and joining the others and getting off this island as soon as possible.
Because she’d done what she’d set out to achieve. She’d more than completed Alex’s challenge, and, assuming he stuck to his word, she’d secured Jo’s and her own future, despite every second of the evening being torture. She had no further reason to stay.
So why wasn’t she making a run for it? Why wasn’t she seeking out the guest who’d offered her a lift on his private jet and looking forward to being back in London before sunrise? Why did her feet remain rooted to the ground?
Phoebe’s heart began to gallop as Alex closed the distance between them. He could have been born to wear black tie. He looked incredible. Dark and brooding and devastatingly handsome. He looked even better without the willowy blonde draped all over him, she thought tartly.
As he strode towards her, grim determination etched into his features, and a wild look in his eye, he pulled off his tie and snapped open the top button of his shirt, and Phoebe’s head spun.
An image of her undoing the rest of those buttons and tugging his clothes off him flew into her head and she nearly buckled beneath the force of the desire that whipped though her.
She swallowed hard and tried to ignore it, but it was no use. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She wanted Alex. She wanted him so badly that all he’d have to do was switch on the charm and the last vestiges of her resistance would crumble.
Her fingers itched to touch him. Her mouth tingled with the need to feel his lips moving over hers. She didn’t care any more. She might have successfully managed to avoid him, but his eyes had been on her all night, burning through the flimsy fabric of her dress and tangling up her insides. When their gazes had locked the hungry fire in his eyes had fanned the flames of desire that swept along her veins and all she wanted now was to assuage this deep craving that consumed her.
Alex stopped in front of her and Phoebe’s breath caught.
‘You look as if you’ve been enjoying yourself.’
Enjoying herself wouldn’t be quite how she’d describe the torment of trying to concentrate while battling the threat that the constant awareness of where Alex was and who he was with posed to her composure. ‘I have,’ she answered, inwardly amazed at how steady her voice sounded when inside she was a quivering mass of need. ‘It’s been a lovely party. Beautifully done.’
He shoved his hands in his pockets and his eyes glittered down at her. ‘And my challenge?’
‘Completed and detailed here.’ She held up a little notebook. ‘Impressed?’
A muscle pounded in his jaw. ‘I’d be a lot more impressed if you’d managed it without all the flirting.’