CHAPTER ONE
“THEO.”
He didn’t turn around, and she couldn’t blame him.
The exclusive wine bar was pumping; a writhing, teaming mass of well-dressed bodies. Was it always this busy? Or was it just the Friday night crowd that had saturated the small space with expensive cologne and loud voices?
Or was it that her heart was beating so hard that it drowned out anything else?
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Anxiety slicked over her like a waterfall, suffocating her, making breathing almost impossible.
“Theo?”
The man to his left heard. His eyes dropped to Imogen and a smirk crossed his chubby, cherubic face. He lifted his glass to his lips, Scotch, she’d have guessed, and in the process of throwing back a slug, pointed towards her.
Theo turned, and it was as if he moved in slow-motion. His dark hair, thick and coarse, breezed as he tilted his head, his eyes seeking the source of intrusion.
Imogen supposed, in the small part of her mind that was capable of operation, that he got approached by women all the time. Though probably not many like her, she thought with a hint of wry amusement. In jeans and a simple white shirt, she was hardly this kind of establishment’s usual patron. Her shoes were ten-year-old Doc Martens that she practically lived in, though she’d replaced the trademark yellow laces years earlier and in their place stood bright pink worms that snaked up the boot and around her ankle.
“Yes?” His eyes skimmed her face, a frown tugging at his lip.
Dear God. He didn’t even remember her? How was that possible?
It was only then that Imogen realized she’d been building up all sorts of fantasies. Him pulling her into his arms, thanking his lucky stars that she’d found him. Thanking her for ignoring the fact he’d crept out in the small hours of the morning, leaving a clump of banknotes beside the bed – money she’d chosen to believe was for the room in her parents’ motel, rather than services rendered.
“Do I know you?”
Holy hell. He definitely didn’t remember her.
She darted her tongue out, licking her lower lip, her enormous grey eyes flicking to the door as if expressing her sudden urge to run. Run like the wind.
Only she’d come to this decision after a lot of thought and heartache, and telling him he was going to be a father was the right thing to do.
Even if he was a bigger bastard than she’d realized.
“Yes,” she said, simply.
Had she forgotten how gorgeous he was? Up close, the effect of that face was doing all sorts of weird things to her nerves – and they were already in a stage of total meltdown. He’d been unshaven when they’d met. The night they’d made love.
No. Had sex. Mentally she forced herself to edit her language, even in her own mind. They were going to be co-parents and she couldn’t let herself get carried away with fantasies of what ‘could’ be.
Basing herself in reality guaranteed she wouldn’t get hurt.
“You work for me,” he hazarded a guess, his impatience conveying itself in the tautness of his lips, the unyielding strength of his shoulders. There was something else there too. A recognition of sorts. If he didn’t remember the details of the night they’d spent together, perhaps, on some level, he did remember her?
“No.” Her eyes met his, and her stomach rolled. She was dropping off a cliff, falling into their brown depths, drowning in their liquid heat. “Not exactly.”
He expelled a breath and his nostrils flared. “I’m not in the mood to play coy guessing games. What do you want?”
Her heart squeezed painfully inside of her. “Can we perhaps go somewhere a bit more private?”
There was something in her voice that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Familiarity and a strange sense of knowledge.
But it was a ploy. A lot of women had tried this ruse on him in the past. Pretending they had a relationship only to secure an introduction. It infuriated him.
“What for?” He dropped his head lower, so that he could whisper in her ear. “I’ll save you some time. I’m not looking for company tonight.”
She didn’t grasp his words at first. The smell of him overwhelmed her. Pangs of recollection sliced her heart and weakened her resolution. If she left now, they’d always have that night. That one, perfect, brief encounter.
But the second she told him the truth, what then?
“Besides, you’re not really my type,” he said and the words were like tiny little bullets sinking into her soul. She pulled back, fixing him with a look that clearly conveyed her outraged disgust.
There it was again! The weirdest sense that they’d met before. Only surely he’d remember. For one thing, this woman was tiny. Like a five-and-a-half foot pocket rocket with silky blonde hair half-way down her back and eyes so big they were almost circular. She was everything he avoided in the women he dated – she was all innocent and sweet and naïve and … pretty. Soft. Kind.
Definitely not right for him in the state of his life he’d entered. The state where he wanted to take anything in a skirt to his bed. He chose women who were like him. Sophisticated, experienced, hardened by life’s frenetic pace – who wanted what he did. A bit of fun. No fuss.
“Well, that’s too bad,” she snapped sarcastically. “Because I’ve been fantasizing about you all night.”
There was such a look of disgust in her face that he didn’t need to wonder if there was a hint of truth in what she’d said. She wasn’t approaching him because she wanted him to hit on her.
Curiosity piqued, he propped an elbow on the bar, carving out a little more space for himself and establishing a neat niche for her to step
into. Only it would have brought Imogen close to his body and she wasn’t going to risk touching him, even by accident.
“So, you don’t work for me. Do you want a job? Is that it?”
The article in The Guardian had only come out the day before, the headline BRITISH BILLIONAIRE SET TO TAKE OVER WORLD had been a little gaudy for his liking, but otherwise the story had been accurate. His net worth, his business interests, the fact he employed almost twenty thousand people around the world. The airline he was acquiring had been the purpose for the piece, though it had been only a paragraph at the bottom.