CHAPTER ONE
NICOSPOTTEDHERlong before she spotted him, but because he wasn’t expecting his prim and proper secretary to beinabar, it took him a few seconds for his brain to compute what his eyes were seeing.
Grace? His efficient, predictable and, oh, so self-contained personal assistant? Here? In this smoky, dark, sultry jazz bar in Mayfair? Surely not!
Framed in one of the three old-fashioned arched doorways that opened into a room that was very cleverly arranged around a highly polished bar and a bandstand, Nico straightened and narrowed his eyes.
Next to him, his date for the evening was clutching his arm and gazing up at him.
Nico should have been in New York for three days but the main guy on the other side of the Atlantic had cancelled because his wife had been rushed to hospital and it had seemed pointless to make the trip in his absence.
So here he was. A last-minute arrangement with a woman who had been texting him with intent ever since they had been introduced two months ago at a fundraiser in Mayfair.
Now, Nico utterly forgot the blonde at his side. Every ounce of his attention homed in on his secretary with an intensity that made his breathing slow and set up a steady drumbeat in his temples.
The soulful, sexy tempo of the background jazz faded.
The waiters swerving between tables and round sofas with their large, circular trays of food and drink disappeared.
The soft, feminine, flirty purring of the woman next to him was suddenly an irritating background noise.
Grace Brown,hisGrace Brown, wore knee-length skirts in riveting shades of grey and beige.
She always,but always, kept her hair tied back. Severely.
Her shoes were always sensible. Practical,sensiblepumps with just the smallest of heels.
And above all else, no make-up.
Sure, she’d attended the occasional conference with him but the uniform had never changed.
Even on her thirtieth birthday a little over a year ago, which he had personally arranged as a surprise do at one of the high-end restaurants not a million miles away from his towering glass office building, she hadstillbeen in her stalwart knee-length skirt and beige jumper and cardigan.
So who the heck was this woman sitting at the table at the back, reaching for the glass of wine in front of her?
Not even the subdued, atmospheric lighting in the room could disguise the fact that she wasin a dress. Something with thin straps that showed off slim shoulders, and her hair was loose, a thick fall of chestnut that highlighted her cheekbones and softened the austere look he had become so accustomed to. The table obscured all but her top half and yet Nico’s curious, stunned dark gaze still dropped, searching to unearth the slender body encased in the floral, frothy summer dress.
He was so enthralled by the sight of her, so transported by what even he realised was an unreasonable degree of sheer shock at seeing her out of context, that it took him a while to register that there was something a little off with what he was seeing.
She was with some guy.
The man floated into his vision as an afterthought even though he was sitting adjacent to her.
Receding hairline...one hand on a glass of something that looked like whisky and the other reaching towards her even as she skittered back and tucked her hair nervously behind one ear.
People coming and going interrupted his view, but he felt something slither down his spine because he knew her almost better than he knew himself.
The hair might be tantalisingly loose, and she might be in a dress that did all sorts of things to his imagination, but she was stillhisGrace Brown and he could pick up that infinitesimal tremor in the hand holding the wine glass, the nervous licking of her lips as she pulled back.
Discomfort poured off her in waves and Nico was suddenly galvanised into the sort of caveman protective mode that he would never have credited himself as having in a million years.
‘I have to go.’ He turned to his date and raked his fingers through his dark hair, barely able to focus on the blonde standing next to him, itching to glance back to the unfolding scene at the table at the back.
‘What?’
‘You have my apologies.’ It wasn’t her fault, and he was gentleman enough to admit that, just as he was honest enough to also acknowledge that he was doing her a favour.
They weren’t going to end up in bed, however luscious the curves. The evening would conclude in disappointment for her and relief for him as they went their separate ways.