I wasn’t intimidated, though. I’d dealt with plenty of difficult men in my time and not making things into a drama was the way to handle it.
So I simply stared back and kept my smile easy-going. Letting him know that I wasn’t a threat so he didn’t need to bristle at me the way he was doing now.
His eyes narrowed and I had the oddest feeling that his focus had shifted, zeroing in on me like a laser sight on a high-powered rifle.
It was unnerving since I didn’t much like being stared at, but I didn’t let my unease show. Keep it fuss-free, that was the Little way.
‘Do you speak to all your employers like that?’ he demanded.
‘Yes,’ I said, with absolute truth. ‘And they’ve all appreciated my laid-back attitude.’ I grinned wider. ‘That’s a direct quote by the way.’
A deep blue spark glinted in his eyes for a second and for some reason I felt an unfamiliar heat rise into my cheeks.
Weird. Why was I blushing? I kept my smile pasted firmly on and hoped the blush would go away.
‘Fair enough.’ He gave me a brief up and down glance then reached out to pick up the black T-shirt that had been draped over the back of a luxurious white couch. ‘Though if you speak to me like that again, you won’t last the night.’
I wasn’t listening. I was too busy being oddly mesmerised by the flex and release of the chiseled muscles of his chest and abs.
Which wasn’t like me at all. It was only that he was just so very...powerful. Like one of the Pythons, Dad’s latest model supercar. Super charged and sleek, with a big V8 engine. The most perfect design. Dangerous in the wrong hands, yet an adrenaline junkie’s dream in the right ones...
‘Do you understand?’
I nearly jumped as the edge in his voice caught me, making me realise I’d been standing there gawping at him with my mouth open.
Dude. Zoning out staring at his body? What is wrong with you?
Purely from a design perspective he was an impressive specimen. Built for strength and power, with not an ounce of fat on him. He could probably deliver the maximum amount of force with maximum efficiency too—
You’re not in the workshop now, idiot, and he’s not a bloody car.
Oh, hell. Of course he wasn’t. And now he’d caught me staring.
I struggled to find my normal chill, trying to think of a jokey way to defuse the situation.
‘Uh, yes,’ was all I could come up with.
His gaze narrowed further. ‘You’d better,’ he said, his upper-class British accent completely at odds with the roughness of his voice, his scarred face and worn jeans. ‘I’m not accustomed to repeating myself.’
Concentrate, fool! It’s like you’ve never seen a man before.
Well, to be fair, I hadn’t seen a man like him before.
‘Sorry, Mr Evans.’ I grinned like an idiot, pretending I wasn’t still blushing furiously. ‘I was thinking about something else.’
He stared at me with the same intense focus as when he’d opened the suite door earlier. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Ellie. Ellie Little.’
Would my surname mean anything to him? Probably not. Evans Investment, his venture capital firm, invested money in a lot of different projects so there was no reason he’d know about our company in particular.
Sure enough, there was no recognition in his eyes as he unexpectedly put out his hand. ‘Good to meet you, Miss Little.’
Now, he wanted to shake? A small, rebellious part of me was very tempted to refuse, which would have been stupid given the massive favour I had to ask of him at some point.
So I ignored the urge, reaching out to take his hand politely instead. Yet as his big palm and long fingers wrapped around mine, the weirdest thing happened.
A jolt of electricity shot straight up my arm, making me jerk my hand out of his before I could stop myself.