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  There was a particularly ugly gash around one muscular thigh that looked as if it had healed badly.

  For the first time Orla had a very real sense of just how irresponsible she’d been. Maybe he was some kind of criminal? The thought sent shock waves through her body as she recalled how he’d been hidden in the shadows of the bar. How he’d come over and stopped her from leaving. How easily he’d enraptured her. She’d barely put up a modicum of resistance!

  She gazed around the room. Something cold went through her as she took in details. It looked lived in. Books. An old edition of Aesop’s Fables stood out oddly amongst them. Clothes. Paraphernalia. More than an overnight visitor like herself. She’d noticed it last night but hadn’t really taken it in.

  The assertion took root. He was living here.

  Who was this man? A sense of urgency gripped her now. She had to get away. She’d almost forgotten entirely why she was even in the Chatsfield Hotel. How could she have forgotten? She’d never allowed herself to get so sidetracked from work before.

  Ashamed and angry with herself for being so impetuous, so selfish, Orla slid off the bed as quietly as she could. To her intense relief, Marco didn’t move. She was terrified that he’d wake. That he’d open those dark compelling eyes and she’d be lost again. Orla picked up her dress and pulled it on with trembling hands.

  She found her bag. No matter how hard she searched though, she couldn’t find her panties. Marco moved minutely on the bed and Orla’s gaze froze on that huge rangy body. With sick fascination she couldn’t help looking at the most potently masculine part of him. Even in sleep he was awe-inspiring. He moved again and panic took her breath. She had to leave now before he woke. Wrenching her gaze away from the sleeping man, she turned and went to the bedroom door.

  Unable to help herself though, she stopped at the door and looked back. A fierce tug of something that felt awfully like regret made an emotion she didn’t like to name rise up within her. Before it could surface she clamped down on it and turned away again and left the suite. It was only as she was walking down the corridor that she realised she’d left her shoes and the belt of her dress behind, along with her missing panties.

  Exactly four hours later Orla was tapping her pen impatiently on the thick blotting paper pad that sat in front of her on the table. Her legs were crossed under the thick varnished oak table in the conference room and her leg jigged back and forth nervously. Even though the room was modestly sized, there any comparison to a normal hotel conference room ended. It exuded plush luxury. Everything one might require for a meeting was there, but discreetly tucked away so nothing jarred. Orla’s nose wrinkled. She’d noticed a scent in the air when she’d checked in yesterday but then had forgotten about it when she’d been so effectively distracted.

  But now she noticed it again and suspected waspishly that the Chatsfield Hotels must pump their signature scent throughout their premises, thereby increasing the whole Chatsfield experience. It was a smart strategy. Smell was well known to be one of the more powerfully evocative senses, and so by having a scent that linked people’s memories indelibly to you was prime subliminal advertising. She’d looked into it for their own hotels but it would have been too expensive.

  The Kennedy Group solicitor checked at his watch again and his counterpart across the table said smoothly, ‘I’m assured that Mr Chatsfield is on his way, and as I’ve said, he regrets keeping you waiting.’

  Orla huffed. She just bet he did. No doubt this was part of the strategy to let them know how weak they were and who was the power player here. It didn’t help, of course, that she felt woefully underprepared considering her very out of character sexual adventures last night with a complete stranger who could very well be some kind of underground criminal or a mercenary.

  When she thought of all those scars and markings on his body though, she didn’t feel scared so much as … hot.

  She imagined her wanton behaviour must be tattooed on her face like a beacon for all to see but she hoped that the effort she’d put into hiding the ravages of the night before had worked. She’d asked her assistant to buy her some shoes on her way over that morning, claiming some feeble excuse that the ones she’d brought wouldn’t go with the dark navy trouser suit she wore.

  So now she had brand-new shoes biting into her feet on top of everything else. She put down the pen and fiddled nervously with her white shirt and hoped that the frill detail down the centre where the buttons were didn’t appear too frivolous. She’d been more frivolous in the past twelve hours than in her entire life. And she was not frivolous. Her mother was frivolous. Flighty. Selfish. Orla was hard-working, serious. Frugal.

  She’d pulled her hair back into a sleek ponytail and her heavy fringe offered the faint illusion that she could hide behind it.

  Just then they heard voices out in the corridor and all the tiny hairs all over Orla’s body seemed to stand up on end for no apparent reason. The door opened slightly and a huge dark shape loomed just out of sight.

  Then the door opened fully and a man walked in with another man in tow. A cold seeping horror spread through Orla’s body. Shock knocked the breath out of her chest. She couldn’t believe her eyes. He was striding in now, clad in a pristine three-piece dark suit that hugged his huge muscular frame. His jaw was clean-shaven. He was stupendously gorgeous. Arresting. Sexual charisma was a tangible aura around him.

  Orla was dimly aware that her own assistant had straightened in the chair beside her. The unconscious action of a woman in the presence of a virile alpha male. In spite of being in her middle-aged years with a healthy brood of children and a loving husband.

  Orla felt a surge of something that made her want to turn to her assistant, one of her best friends, and snarl at her.

  And then the man’s eyes fell on the people waiting for him. And one in particular. Her. He stopped in his tracks on the other side of the table. That dark compelling gaze on hers. She saw the shock in their depths before it was quickly veiled.

  Her lungs burned because she hadn’t drawn a breath. A million things seemed to lodge in her throat and in her belly: mortification, embarrassment, anger. Shock. Desire.

  The Chatsfield solicitor was standing now and saying, ‘Antonio, I’d like you to meet Orla Kennedy of the Kennedy Group, her solicitor Tom Barry and her assistant, Susan White. Miss Kennedy, I’d like you to meet Antonio Chatsfield and his assistant, David Markusson.’

  Orla was dimly aware of the people either side of them both standing to reach across the table to shake one another’s hands. She was paralysed. Her mystery lover was Antonio Marco Chatsfield. The eldest son of the notorious Chatsfield family. She had read up on him prior to this meeting. Ironically he was almost the only one of whom there were no recent photos as he’d been in the army and then the secretive world of private security for years.

  If he’d joined the regular army Orla might have seen pictures. But he hadn’t. He’d joined the famed and mythic French Foreign Legion and had served with them for seven years. It was where one entered and assumed another identity. Highly secretive and closed to the outside world. Effectively Antonio Chatsfield had been a ghost until his recent return to the family fold.

  But he was no ghost. He was very solid and very real and he was looking at her now and waiting for her to do something. Orla’s brain felt sluggish with shock.

  Her assistant, Susan, discreetly nudged her with her foot, under the table. That physical contact seemed to jolt Orla out of her fog and she stood up and put out her hand, her training and innate manners dictating the automatic moves of social training.

  After shaking hands with his assistant, her hand was clasped in his much bigger one—tightly—and the fire of his touch seemed to explode the memory box open in Orla’s brain and body. She was barely able to hold back the onslaught of a thousand lurid images: writhing underneath him, sobbing, panting, gasping. Clenching her legs tighter around his hips, begging him to go deeper, harder.

  ‘Miss Kennedy,’
he said in that deep voice. His eyes had darkened to black and Orla imagined she could see veritable sparks shooting her way. Something in her hardened as she pushed down those images to a deep place of personal shame. She gripped his hand back just as tightly.

  ‘Mr Chatsfield.’

  He didn’t let her go. He drawled, ‘It’s funny but I could have sworn we’ve met somewhere before.’

  Hot mortification threatened to swamp Orla but she refused to let it rise. If her eyes could have killed, he’d have been vaporised on the spot. She gritted out, ‘Believe me, Mr Chatsfield, we’ve never met. I think I would have recalled it, as your family are so memorable.’

  Antonio Chatsfield’s eyes flashed at that none too subtle barb and his hand was so tight on hers now that Orla could feel her bones grind together. She bit back the need to cry out. And then abruptly he released her. Orla wanted to cradle her hand to her chest but didn’t, not wanting to show him a moment of vulnerability.

  There were two of them who’d conspired to pretend to be someone else last night. He had no right to lambaste her silently for it, or allude to it in front of these people.

  He said with a deceptive lightness which surely had to be meant only for her ears, ‘I must have been mistaken, then, because the woman I’m thinking of is called Kate.’

  Orla’s face paled even more when she saw the curious look of her assistant from out of the corner of her eye as she sat back down. Her second name was Kate. They’d both used their second names. It wasn’t even funny.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE MEETING PASSED in a blur, with much of the discussion revolving around complicated legalese talk between the solicitors. In those instances Antonio sat back in his chair and regarded Orla steadily, forcing her to try and glare him out, refusing to be intimidated. She had nothing to be ashamed of, she assured herself stoutly. She always ended up looking away first though, as those eyes brought her back in time to only a few hours before and she couldn’t halt the lurid images from taking over.

  He positively radiated hostility and at one stage Susan leant close and said sotto voce, ‘What’s up Chatsfield’s nose? I’d heard he was charming … but he’s looking at us as if we’re something he found on the bottom of his shoe.’

  Not us, Orla replied silently, just me. And the more he sent out those silent vibes, the angrier she got.

  The Chatsfield solicitor was looking at everyone around the table now. ‘Well, it would appear as if everything is in order for us to begin negotiations regarding a potential takeover of the Kennedy Group.’

  Orla saw the smallest of smirks play around Antonio Chatsfield’s mouth and something inside her blew up. She stood up and put her hands on the table and stared straight at him. ‘With all due respect, I disagree. From what I’ve seen here today I’m not sure that I want to continue discussions of a possible takeover by the Chatsfields.’

  Orla heard her assistant and solicitor gasp simultaneously. She felt quivery with rage inside. He was playing with her, punishing her. She hated this feeling of vulnerability and exposure.

  Antonio stood up too, and after a long taut moment he said to the others without taking his eyes off Orla, ‘If you would excuse us please, I’d like to speak in private with Miss Kennedy.’

  Orla cursed herself and her big mouth. And her red-haired Irish temper which her father had always told her originated from her fearsome grandmother who had had ten children and almost outlived them all.

  The solicitors and assistants left the room hurriedly as if sensing the powder keg of tension about to go off between Antonio and Orla.

  The door shut behind them and they were alone. Tendrils of shock still coursed through Orla to be face to face with the mystery lover she’d never expected to see again.

  Antonio stared across the table at his lover from last night and wanted to smash the table aside and throttle her. Or kiss her. Despite the anger he’d felt as soon as he’d realised who she was, his body refused to react along the dictates of his head. It was as rampantly in lust with her as it had been since the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  She looked nothing like the wild and wanton woman who had urged him with that low husky voice to take her harder, deeper, over and over again just hours ago. Her body coming apart under his with an intensity that had driven him so far over the edge he’d blacked out.

  No, Orla/Kate, appeared as cool as a cucumber in a fitted short-jacketed trouser suit and white shirt with a very feminine frill detail. Buttoned to the neck like some Victorian heroine. Vibrant hair pulled back and sleek. That heavy fringe highlighting the exquisite prettiness of her face. Her dark blue eyes.

  What had made him even more incandescent during the meeting was the very uncomfortable knowledge that he’d slept like a baby while she’d sneaked out of his room. Antonio never slept through anything. It would have meant life or death in his line of work. Yet, she’d managed to get out of his bed and get dressed and leave the room. As if he’d been drugged.

  He’d almost missed the meeting because he’d slept so long and had only woken when Lucilla had rung him, wondering why he hadn’t shown up for their premeeting meeting.

  Antonio forced himself to utilise years of training to keep his emotions at bay. He crossed his arms and saw her throat move as she swallowed. She crossed her arms too, and he hated the involuntary reflex of his eyes when they dropped momentarily to the pushed-up swells of her breasts under her shirt.

  Cursing himself, he looked at her. ‘I suppose you found it amusing?’

  She frowned. ‘Found what amusing?’

  Antonio’s lip curled at her wide-eyed innocence. ‘To seduce the man who intends to take over your crumbling empire?’

  She gasped and her cheeks went pink, which had an immediate effect on Antonio’s body, forcing him to grit his jaw against the rise of desire, blood already pooling in his groin, making him hard.

  Her eyes flashed a brilliant affronted sapphire blue. ‘I did not know who you were—you flatter yourself, Mr Chatsfield. If I’d known who you were last night I would have walked right out of that bar and kept walking. I do not need to sleep with opponents the night before a meeting to get my kicks.’

  Antonio felt a hard mass settle in his gut. ‘So it’s just the thrill of sleeping with random strangers, then?’

  Her cheeks went even pinker. ‘How dare you judge me when you were the one who seduced me.’

  Antonio snorted inelegantly. ‘Give me a break. You came down to that bar looking for something and it wasn’t to sit alone and have a drink. You might not have been as obvious as that other woman but you were just as effective.’

  Orla recalled brazenly showing him her breast in the lift and clamped down on the torrid memory. Her chin came up. ‘And I suppose you were there for nothing else but the good of your health? You were quick enough to come and proposition me when I gave you no encouragement whatsoever.’

  Antonio ignored that and raked her with a scathing glance. ‘I see you’ve eschewed your peek-a-boo little black number for the meeting. You cannot seriously expect me to believe that you weren’t up for it when you came into that bar in a dress designed for seduction in mind. You weren’t even wearing underwear.’

  Orla’s arms dropped and Antonio saw her clench her hands to fists and recalled gripping her hand tightly as anger had engulfed him, and the excoriating feeling of exposure. No woman had ever walked away from him before. He moved around the table, not even really sure of what he intended to do. He just wanted to provoke Orla.

  Her eyes got wider. The blood in his body leapt. She put out a hand. ‘Don’t come near me, I mean it. How dare you accuse me of being up for it just because of how I was dressed. That’s very close to the kind of thing men say to justify their actions when accused of—’

  ‘Don’t even say it,’ Antonio ground out, incensed that she would even frame such a thing. And yet, she had a point. His brain was so entangled from seeing her here like this that he was being reduced to acting from some visce
ral place, saying things that he would never normally utter. He didn’t like to be reminded of how he’d gone over to her last night. The thought that she hadn’t wanted him as badly as he’d wanted her was like acid in his gut.

  ‘Damn you, Orla.’

  It was the first time he’d said her name and it made Orla feel funny inside. His scent enveloped her, woodsy and mysterious. Exotic. She could feel the vibrations of anger leaping between them.

  She reacted. ‘Damn me? That’s hardly fair, is it? We’re both to blame for what happened.’

  She didn’t want him to know how he’d filled her head since she’d walked away from him that morning. How regret had built in her gut, making her feel like she’d made a huge mistake.

  After a taut moment of silence, he walked over to a nearby window which overlooked a London park. He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, inadvertently drawing the material of his pants taut across his muscular buttocks. When he turned around abruptly, guilty heat rose up Orla’s chest and she glanced away hurriedly.

  Antonio sighed heavily and said, ‘You really didn’t know who I was?’

  Orla looked at him, still affronted. ‘Of course not. How unprofessional do you think I am? And I did not go looking for a one-night stand either. And that dress happens to be perfectly respectable—it’s from a well-known designer.’

  She went even hotter as she admitted with extreme reluctance, ‘I do have something to wear underneath it, but I forgot to bring it with me. And I didn’t want to look too conspicuous in this suit.’

  Antonio leant back against the window frame now and crossed his arms over his chest again. ‘So you were scoping out the competition.’

  Orla pursed her lips and said nothing but then Antonio raised a brow and she realised that if she didn’t admit the truth then how could she justify going to the bar to drink alone? Even though there was nothing inherently wrong with that.

  Angrily now she admitted, ‘Fine, yes, I wanted to get a feel for your hotel and business.’