Praise for Ally Blake

“Fast-paced and sexy, graced with great characters and funny dialogue, this one’s a standout from start to finish.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Dating the Rebel Tycoon

‘Ally Blake’s The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal starts with an amusing premise and quickly moves into an entertaining love-at-first-sight tale. It’s full of humor, witty dialogue, a hero to die for and a heroine that’s his match in every way.’ —RT Book Reviews

‘Flirty and totally funny,

The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal will leave readers smiling and thoroughly entertained by its characters. Ms Blake has penned an extraordinary story.’ —www.cataromance.com

‘Ms Blake’s prose is a revelation. She lets the characters speak for themselves—no telling here, thank you very much—and their dialogue zips along in a demonstrable meeting of true minds. It’s funny. It’s zingy. It’s touching. It is, in other words, just plain good.’

—www.likesbooks.com on

The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal

About the Author

When ALLY BLAKE was a little girl she made a wish that when she turned twenty-six she would marry an Italian two years older than her. After it actually came true she realised she was onto something with these wish things. So, next she wished that she could make a living spending her days in her pyjamas, eating M&Ms and drinking scads of coffee while turning her formative experiences of wallowing in teenage crushes and romantic movies into creating love stories of her own. The fact that she is now able to spend her spare time searching the internet for pictures of handsome guys for research purposes is merely a bonus!

Come along and visit her website at www.allyblake.com

Also by Ally Blake

The Rules of Engagement

Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue

Dating the Rebel Tycoon

A Night with the Society Playboy

The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Wedding Date

Ally Blake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for white chocolate raspberry muffins

and macadamia choc chip cookies.

Or, more specifically, the fab staff at my fave

local cafés who let me write this book in their

welcoming warmth and know my order by heart.

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’RE him! Aren’t you?’

The gorgeous specimen of manhood in the dark sunglasses, at the pointy end of a squat pale pink fingernail, sat stock still. To the eclectic, late-afternoon Brunswick Street crowd rushing past the sidewalk café he would have appeared simply cool. Collected. Quietly attentive behind a half-smile so effortlessly sexy it could stop traffic. Literally.

Hannah knew better.

Hannah, who worked harder and with longer hours than anyone else she knew, would have bet her precious life savings on the fact that, behind those ubiquitous dark sunglasses he was hoping, almost desperately, that the older woman on the other end of the finger might quickly realise she had mistaken him for someone else.

No such luck.

‘You are!’ the woman continued, flat feet planted determinedly on the uneven cobbled ground. ‘I know you are! You’re the guy who makes that Voyagers TV show. I’ve seen you in magazines. And on the telly. My daughter just loooves you. She even considered going into training once, so she could be one of those regular-type people you send off into the wild and up mountains with nothing but a toothbrush and a packet of Tim-Tams. Or however it goes. And that’s saying something! It’s all but impossible to get that girl off the couch. You know what? I should give you her number. She’s quite pretty in her way, and unquestionably single …’

Sitting—with apparently Ninja-like invisibility—on the other side of the rickety table that served as Knight Productions’ office those times when the boss felt the need to get out of the confines of their manic headquarters, Hannah had to cover her mouth to smother the laugh threatening to bubble to the surface.

Any other time of day or night her boss was like the mountains he had so famously conquered before turning his attentions to encouraging others to do the same on TV. He was colossal, tough, unyielding, indomitable, enigmatic. Which was why seeing him wriggle and squirm and practically lose the power of speech under the attentions of an overtly loving fan was always a moment to relish.

It had taken Hannah less than half a day of the year she’d worked for Bradley Knight to realise that overt adoration was her boss’s Achilles’ heel. Awards, industry accolades, gushing peers, bowing and scraping minions—all turned him to stone.

And then there were the fans. The many, many, many fans who knew a good thing when they saw it. And there was no denying that Bradley Knight was six feet four inches of very good thing.

Just like that, the laughter tickling Hannah’s throat turned into a small, uncomfortable lump.

She frowned deeply, cleared her throat, and shifted on her wrought-iron seat, redistributing the balance of her buttocks. And more importantly her train of thought.

The very last thing her boss needed was even the smallest clue that in moments of overworked, overtired weakness he’d even given her the occasional tummy-flutter. And sweaty palms. And hot flushes. And raging fantasies the likes of which she wouldn’t dare share with even her best friend, whose good-natured ribbing about Hannah’s constant proximity to their gorgeous boss had come all too close to hitting the mark on a number of occasions.

The beep of a car horn split the air, and Hannah flinched out of her heady daydream to find herself breathing a little too heavily and staring moonily at her boss.

Hannah frowned so hard she pulled a muscle in her neck.

She’d worked her backside off to get there, to take any job she could get in order to gain experience before finally finding the one she loved. The one she was really good at. The one she was meant to do. And she wasn’t going to do anything to risk that career path now.

Even if that wasn’t reason enough, pining after the guy was a complete a waste of time. He was a rock. He’d never let her in. He never let anyone in. And when it came to relationships Hannah wasn’t prepared to accept anything less than wonderful.

Don’t. Ever. Forget it.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly four. Phew. The long weekend looming ahead of her—four days away from her all-consuming job and her all-consuming boss—clearly could not have come at a better time.

Still on the clock, she turned her concentration back to the woman who might as well have had her boss at knife-point he was sitting so eerily still.

She scraped her chair back and intervened, before Bradley managed to perform the first ever case of human osmosis and disappeared through the holes in his wrought-iron chair.

The woman only noticed her existence when Hannah slung an arm around her shoulders and none too gently eased her to the kerb.

‘Do you know him?’ the woman asked, breathless.

Glancing back at Bradley, Hannah felt her inner imp take over. Leaning in, she murmured, ‘I’ve seen the inside of his fridge. It’s frighteningly clean.’

The woman’s still glittering eyes widened, and she finally focussed fully on Hannah. She was very thorough in her perusal of the kinks that always managed to appear in Hannah’s straightened hair by that time of the afternoon. The countless creases in her designer dress. The chunky man’s diving watch hanging loosely around her thin wrist. The cowboy boots poking out from beneath it all.

Then the woman smiled.

With a none too comfortable flash of realisation it hit Hannah that she was being compared unfavourably to the daughter who never got off the couch. Her inner imp limped back into hiding.

Eight hours earlier she’d looked the epitome of personal assistant to Australia’s most successful television producer—even despite the little odes to her tomboy roots. You could take the girl out of small-town Tasmania, but.

But she didn’t say any of that. With a shrug she admitted, ‘I’m Mr Knight’s personal assistant.’

‘Oh.’ The woman nodded, as if that made so much more sense than a man like him choosing to spend time with her—because when he said jump, she knew how high without even having to ask.

After a little more chat, Hannah turned the woman in the opposite direction, gave her a little push and waved goodbye as, like a zombie, she trudged away down the street.

She brushed off her hands. Another job well done. Then she turned, hands on hips, to find Bradley running long fingers beneath his eyes, sliding his sunglasses almost high enough to offer a teasing glimpse of the arresting silvery-grey eyes beneath. But not quite.

Then slowly, achingly slowly, his rigid body began to unclench. Muscle by hard-earned muscle, limb by long, strong limb, down his considerable length until his legs slid under the table and his large shoes poked lazily out at the other side.

The apparent languor was all an act. The effort of a private man to restrain whatever it was that drew people to him like moths to a flame. Unfortunately for him it only made the restrained power seething inside him more obvious. More compelling. A familiar sweep of sensation skipped blithely across her skin again—a soft, melty, pulsing feeling.

Even the fact that she knew she was about to bear the brunt of the dark mood he’d be in after the one-way love-in didn’t make her immune.

At least it hadn’t yet.

Time was what she needed. Time and space, so that the boundaries of her life weren’t defined by the monstrous number of hours she spent deep inside Bradley’s overwhelming creative vision. Thanks heavens for the long weekend!

Actually, time, space and meeting a guy would do it for sure. A guy who might actually stand a chance in hell of feeling that way about her.

He was out there. Somewhere. She was sure of it. He had to be. Because she absolutely wasn’t going to settle for anything less than everything. She’d seen first-hand what ‘settling’ looked like in the first of the three marriages her mother had leapt into after her father passed away. It wasn’t pretty. In fact it was downright sordid. That wasn’t going to be her life.

She blinked as her boss’s beautifully chiselled face came into such sharp focus her breath caught in her throat. He was something. But any woman who hoped in Bradley Knight’s direction was asking for heartache. Many had tried. Many more yet would. But nobody on earth would topple that mountain.

She grabbed the wayward swathe of hair flickering across her face and tucked it behind her ear, plastered a smile across her face, and bounded back to the table. Bradley didn’t look up. Didn’t even flicker a lash. He probably hadn’t even realised she’d left.

‘Wasn’t she a lovely lady?’ Hannah sing-songed. ‘We’re sending her daughter a signed copy of last season’s Voyagers.‘

‘Why me?’ Bradley asked, still looking into the distance.

She knew he wasn’t talking about posting a DVD. ‘You were just born lucky,’ she said wryly.

‘You think I’m lucky?’ he asked.

‘Ooh, yeah. Fairies sprinkled fortune dust on your cradle as you slept. Why else do you think you’ve been so ridiculously successful at everything you’ve ever set your heart on?’

His head swung her way. Even with the dark sunglasses between them, the force of his undivided attention was like a thunderclap. Her heart-rate quadrupled in response.

His voice was a touch deeper when he said, ‘So, in your eyes, my life has nothing to do with hard work, persistence, and knowing just enough about man’s primal need to prove himself as a man?’

Hannah tapped a finger on her chin and took a few seconds to damp down her own latent needs as she looked up at the cloudy blue sky. Then she said, ‘Nah.’

The appreciative rumble of his laughter danced across her nerves, creating a whole new wave of warmth cascading through her. Enjoying him from the other side of the mile-high walls he wore like a second skin was imprudent enough. Enduring the bombardment of his personal attention was a whole other battle.

‘If you really want to know why you are so lucky, give that lady’s daughter a call. Take her to dinner. Ask her yourself.’ She waved the piece of paper with the woman’s address and phone number on it. ‘Talk about a PR windfall. “Bradley Knight dates fan. Falls in love. Moves to suburbs. Coaches little league team. Learns to cook lamb roast.”’

She could sense his eyes narrowing behind his sunglasses. He then took his sweet time sitting upright. He managed to make the move appear leisurely—inconsequential, even—but the constrained power pulsing through every limb, every digit, every hair was patently clear to anyone with half an instinct. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins.

‘At this moment,’ he said, his voice a deep, dark warning, ‘I am so very, very glad you are my assistant and not in charge of PR.’

Hannah slid the paper into her overstuffed leather diary and said, ‘Yeah, me too. I’m not sure there’s enough money in the world that could tempt me to take on a job whereby I’d have to spend my days trying to convince the world how wonderful you are. I mean, I work hard now—but come on …’

Frown lines appeared above his glasses as he leaned across the table till his forearms covered half the thing. He was so big he blocked out the sun—a massive shadow of a man, with a golden halo outlining his bulk.

Hannah’s fingertips were within touching distance of his. She could feel every single hair on her arms stand to attention one by delicious one. Her feet were tucked so far under her chair—so as to not accidentally scrape against his—she was getting a cramp.

‘Aren’t we in a strange mood today?’ he asked.

His voice was quiet, dropping so very low, and so very much only for her ears she felt it hum in the backs of her knees.

He tilted his chin in her direction. ‘What gives?’

And then he slid his sunglasses from his eyes. Smoky grey they were—or quicksilver—entirely depending on his mood. In that moment they were so dark the colour was impenetrable.

The man was such a workaholic he never looked to her without a dozen instructions ready to be barked. But in that moment he just looked at her. And waited. Hannah’s throat turned to ash.

‘What gives,’ another voice shot back, ‘is that our Hannah’s mind is already turned to a weekend of debauchery and certain nookie.’

Hannah flinched so hard at the sudden intrusion she bit her lip.

Yet through the stinging pain, for a split second, she was almost sure she saw a flicker of something that looked a heck of a lot like disappointment flash across Bradley’s face. Then his eyes lowered to her swollen lip, which she was lapping at with her tongue.

Then, as though she had been imagining the whole thing, he glanced away, leaned back, and turned to the owner of that last gem of a comment.

‘Sonja,’ he drawled. ‘Nice of you to show up.’

‘Pleasure,’ Sonja said.

‘Perfect timing,’ Hannah added, her voice breathier than she would have hoped. ‘Bradley was just about to offer me your job.’

Sonja didn’t even flinch, but the flicker of amusement in Bradley’s cheek made her feel warm all over. She shut down her smile before it took hold. Not only was Sonja Bradley’s PR guru, she was also Hannah’s flatmate. And the only reason she knew how to use a blowdryer and had access to the kind of non-jeans-and-T-shirt-type clothes that filled her closet.

Sonja perched her curvaceous self upon a chair and crossed her legs, her eyes never once leaving her iPhone as one black-taloned finger skipped ridiculously fast over the screen.

In fact her stillness gave Hannah a sudden chill. She clapped a hand over her friend’s phone, and Sonja blinked as though coming round from a trance.

Hannah said, ‘If you are even thinking of Tweeting anything about my upcoming weekend off and debauchery and nookie, or anything along those lines—even if I am named “anonymous Knight Productions staffer”—I will order a beetroot burger and drop it straight on this dress.’

Sonja’s dark gaze narrowed and focussed on the cream wool of the dress Hannah had borrowed from her wardrobe. Slowly she slid her phone into a tiny crocodile skin purse.

‘Why do I feel even more like I’m on the other side of the looking glass from you two than usual?’

Hannah and Sonja both turned to Bradley.

He looked ever so slightly pained as he said, ‘I’m feeling like it’s going to give me indigestion to even bring this up, but I can’t not ask. Debauchery? Nookie?’

At the word ‘debauchery’ his eyes slid to Hannah—dark, smoke-grey, inscrutable—before sliding back to Sonja. It was only a fraction of a second. But a fraction was plenty long enough to take her breath clean away.

Boy, did she need a holiday. And now!

Sonja motioned for an espresso as she said, ‘For an ostensibly smart man, if it doesn’t involve you or your mountains, you have the memory of a sieve. This is the weekend our Hannah is heading back home to the delightful southern island of Tasmania, to play bridesmaid at her sister Elyse’s wedding—which she organised.’

His eyes slid back to Hannah, and this time they stayed. ‘That’s this weekend?’

Hannah blinked at him. Slowly. She’d told him as much at least a dozen times in the past fortnight, yet it had clearly not sunk in. It was just what she needed in order to finally become completely unscrambled.

Sonja had been spot-on. Bradley had a one-track mind. And if something didn’t serve him it didn’t exist.

‘I have the New Zealand trip this weekend,’ he said.

‘Yes, you do.’ Hannah glanced at her watch. ‘And I’m off the clock in ten minutes. Sonja? What are your plans?’

Sonja grinned from ear to ear at the sarcasm dripping from Hannah’s words. ‘I’ll be sitting all alone in our little apartment, feeling supremely jealous. For this weekend you will have your absolute pick.’

‘My pick of what?’ Hannah asked.

Sonja leaned forward and looked her right in the eye. ‘Oodles of gussied-up, aftershave-drenched men, bombarded by more concentrated romance than they can handle. They’ll be walking around that wedding like wolves in heat. It’s the most primal event you’ll see in civilised society.’

With that, Sonja leant back, wiping an imaginary bead of sweat from her brow, before returning to texting up a storm.

Hannah sat stock still, feeling a mite warmer in the chilly Melbourne afternoon. Having insisted on planning her little sister’s wedding in the spare minutes she had left each day, in a fit of guilt at being maid of honour from several hundred kilometres’ distance, she’d been so absolutely swamped that the idea of a holiday fling had not once entered her mind.

Maybe a random red-hot weekend was exactly what she needed—to unwind, de-knot, take stock, recharge, and remember there was a whole wide world outside of Bradley Knight’s orbit.

‘The groomsmen will be top of the list, of course,’ Sonja continued. ‘But they’ll be so ready for action it’ll be embarrassing. Best you avoid them. My advice is to look out for another interstate guest—more mystery, and less likely to be a close relative. Or a fisherman.’

Hannah scoffed, and shut her eyes tight against Sonja’s small-town-life bashing.

‘You’re on the pill, right?’

‘Sonja!’

Really, that was a step too far. But she was. Not that she’d found cause to need it much of late. Her hours were prohibitive, and her work so consuming she was simply too exhausted to even remember why she’d gone on the pill in the first place.

But now she had four whole days in a beautiful resort, in the middle of a winter wonderland wilderness, surrounded by dozens of single guys. A small fire lit inside her stomach for the first time in the months since she’d known she was going home.

She was about to get herself a whole load of time, space, and the chance she might meet an actual guy. Heck, what were the chances she’d find The One back on the island from which she’d fled all those years ago?

When she opened an eye it was to find Bradley frowning. Though if it was about anything to do with her she’d eat her shoes.

She shoved the last of her papers into a large, heavy leather satchel. Her voice was firm as she said, ‘I’m heading to the office now, to make sure Spencer has everything he needs in order to be me this weekend.’

‘That’s your replacement for a major location scout?’ Bradley asked. ‘The intern with the crush?’

Her hand turned into a fist inside the bag, and she glanced up at her boss. ‘Spencer doesn’t have a crush on me. He just wants to be me when he grows up.’

One dark eyebrow kicked north. ‘The kid practically salivates every time you walk in the room.’

That he notices …?

‘Then lucky for you. With me gone, you’ll have a salivation-free weekend.’

‘That’s the positive?’

Hannah shrugged. ‘Told you—I suck at PR. Lucky for me I’m so good at my actual job you are clearly pining in advance. In fact, it’s so clear how much you’ll miss me I’m thinking the time’s ripe to ask for a promotion.’

It was a throwaway comment, but it seemed to hang there between them as if it had been shouted. His eyebrows flattened and his grey eyes clouded. Behind them was a coming storm. He reached distractedly across the table and stole the small sugar biscuit from the edge of Sonja’s saucer.

Blithely changing the subject, he said, ‘Four days.’

‘Four days and enough pre-wedding functions you’d think they were royalty.’ But, no, the bride was simply her mother’s daughter. ‘The wedding’s on Sunday. I’ll be back Tuesday morning.’

‘Covered in hickies, no doubt,’ Sonja threw in, most helpfully. ‘Her mother was Miss Tasmania, after all. Down there she’s considered good breeding stock.’

Thank goodness at that moment Sonja spied someone with whom to schmooze. With a waving hand and a loud ‘daaaarling’ she was gone, leaving Bradley and Hannah alone again.

Bradley was watching her quietly, and thanks to Sonja—who’d clearly been born without a discreet bone in her body—the swirl of sexual innuendo was ringing in her ears. Hannah felt as if all the air had been sapped from the sky.

‘So you’re heading home?’ Bradley asked, voice low.

‘Tomorrow morning. Even though last night I dreamt the Spirit of Tasmania was stolen by pirates.’

‘You’re going by boat?’

She shuffled in her seat. ‘I thought you of all people would appreciate the adventure of my going by open sea.’

A muscle flickered in Bradley’s cheek. Fair enough. A reclining seat on a luxury ferry wasn’t exactly his brand of adventure. Sweat, pain, hard slog, the ultimate test of will and courage and fortitude, man proving himself worthy against unbeatable odds—that was his thing. She was secretly packing seasickness tablets.

Every time she’d been on a boat with him she picked the most central spot in which to sit, and tended to stare at the horizon a good deal of the time. Trying to keep her failing hidden in order to appear the perfect employee. Irreplaceable.

She was hardly going to tell him that the real reason she’d booked the day-long trip rather than a one-hour flight was that, while she was very much looking forward to the break, she was dreading going home. A twelve-hour boat trip was heaven-sent! She’d been back to Tassie once in the seven years since she’d left home. For her mother’s fiftieth birthday extravaganza. Or so she’d been told. It had, in fact, been her mother’s third wedding—to some schmuck who’d made a fortune in garden tools. She’d felt blindsided. Her mother hadn’t understood why. Poor Elyse, then sixteen, had been caught in the middle. It had been an unmitigated disaster.

So, if she had to endure twelve hours of eating nothing but dry crackers and pinching the soft spot between her thumb and forefinger to fight off motion sickness, it would be worth it.

‘Ever been to Tasmania?’ she asked, glad to change the subject.

He shook his head. ‘Can’t say I have.’

Hannah sat forward on her seat, mouth agape. ‘No? That’s a travesty! It’s just over the pond, for goodness’ sake! And it’s gorgeous. Much of it is rugged and untouched. Just your cup of tea. The jagged cliffs of Queenstown, where it appears as though copper has been torn from the land by a giant’s claws. Ocean Beach off Strahan, where the winds from the Roaring Forties tear across of the most unforgiving coastline. And then there’s Cradle Mountain. That’s where the wedding’s being held. Cold and craggy and simply stunning, resting gorgeously and menacingly on the edge of the most beautiful crystal-clear lake. And that’s just a tiny part of the west coast. The whole island is magical. So lush and raw and diverse and pretty and challenging …’

She stopped to take a breath, and glanced from the spot in mid-air she’d been staring through to find Bradley watching her. His deep grey eyes pinned her to her seat as he listened. Really listened. As though her opinion mattered that much.

Her heart began to pound like crazy. It was a heady thought. But dangerous all the same. The fact that he was unreachable, an island unto himself, was half the appeal of indulging in an impossible crush. It didn’t cost her anything but the occasional sleepless night.

She stood quickly and slung her heavy leather satchel over her shoulder. ‘And on that note …’

Bradley stood as well. A move born of instinct. It still felt nice.

Well, there were millions of men who would stand when she stood. Thousands at the very least. There was a chance one or two of them would even be at her sister’s bigger-than-Ben Hur wedding. Maybe looking for a little romance. A little fun. Looking for someone with whom to unwind.

Maybe more …

She took two steps back. ‘I hope New Zealand knocks your socks off.’

‘Have a good weekend, Hannah. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

She shot him a quick smile. ‘Have no fear. I have no intention of dropping off or picking up any dry-cleaning this weekend.’

He laughed, the unusually relaxed sound rumbling through her. She vibrated. Inside and out.

As Bradley curled back into his chair Hannah tugged her hair out from under the strap of her bag, slipped on her oversized sunglasses, took a deep breath of the crisp winter air, and headed for the tram stop that would take her to her tiny Fitzroy apartment.

And that was how Hannah’s first holiday in nearly a year began. Her first trip home in three years. The first time she’d seen her mother face to face since she’d married. Again.

Let the panic begin …

CHAPTER TWO

HANNAH was in the bathroom, washing sleep out of her eyes, when her apartment doorbell rang just before six the next morning. It couldn’t be the cab taking her to the dock; it wasn’t due for another hour.

‘Can you get that?’ she called out, but no sound or movement came from Sonja’s room.

Hannah ran her fingers through her still messy bed hair and rushed to the door.

She opened it to find herself looking at the very last view she would ever have expected. Bradley, in her favourite of his leather jackets—chocolate-brown and wool-lined—and dark jeans straining under the pressure of all that hard-earned muscle. Tall, gorgeous and wide awake, standing incongruously in the hallway outside her tiny apartment. It was so ridiculous she literally rubbed her eyes.

When she opened them he was still there, in all his glory—only now his eyes were roving slowly over her flannelette pyjama pants, her dad’s over-sized, faded, thirty-year-old Melbourne University jumper, her tatty old Ugg boots.

Even while she fought the urge to hide behind the door, the feel of those dark eyes slowly grazing her body was beautifully illicit.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked, eyes sliding back to hers.

No good morning. No sorry to bother you. No I’ve obviously arrived at a bad time. Just right to the point.

‘Now?’ She glanced over her shoulder, glad Sonja’s makeshift clothesline, usually laden with silky nothings and hanging from windowframe to windowframe, had been mysteriously taken down during the night.

‘I have a proposal.’

He had a proposal? At six in the morning? That couldn’t wait? What could she do but wave a welcoming arm?

He took two steps inside, and instantly the place felt smaller than it actually was. And it was already pretty small. Kitchenette, lounge, two beds, one bath. Small windows looking out over nothing much. Plenty for two working women who just needed a place to crash.

She closed the apartment door and leant against it as she waited for him to complete his recce.

Compared with his monstrous pad, with its multiple rooms and split-levels and city views, it must seem like a broom closet.

When he turned back to her, those grey eyes gleaming like molten silver in the early-morning light, the pads of her fingers pressed so hard into the panelled wood at her back her knuckles ached.

But he was all business. ‘I hope you’re almost ready. Flight’s in two hours.’

She blinked. Suddenly as wide awake as if she was three coffees down rather than none. Had he forgotten? Again? She pushed away from the door and her hands flew to her hips. ‘Are you kidding me?’

His cheek twitched. ‘You can get that look off your face. I’m not here to throw you over my shoulder and whisk you off to New Zealand.’

She swallowed—half-glad, half-disappointed. ‘You’re not?’

‘The ferry would take a full day to get to Launceston. I looked it up. It seems a ridiculous waste of time when I have a plane that could get you there in an hour. As such, I’m flying you to Tasmania.’

‘What about New Zealand? It took me a month to organise the whole team to fly in from—’

‘We’re making a detour. Now, hurry up and get ready.’

‘But—’

‘You can thank me later.’

Thank him? The guy had just gone and nixed her brilliant plan to take a full twelve hours in which to rev herself up to facing her mother, while at the same time putting lots of lovely miles between herself and him. And he was doing so in what appeared to be an effort at being nice. If things continued along in the same vein as her day had so far, Sonja would walk out of her room and announce she was joining a nunnery.

‘It’s decided.’ He took a step her way.

She held her hands out in front of her, keeping him at bay and keeping herself from jumping over the coffee table and throttling him. ‘Not by me it’s not.’

He was stubborn. But then so was she. Her dad had been a total sweetheart—a push-over even when it came to those he’d loved. Her occasional mulishness was the one trait she couldn’t deny she’d inherited from her mum.

‘I know how hard you work. And compared with most people I’ve come across in this industry, you do so with great grace and particularity. I appreciate it. So, please, hitch a ride on me.’

The guy was trying so hard to say thank-you, in his own roundabout way, he looked as if a blood vessel was about to burst in his forehead.

Hannah threw her hands in the air and growled at the gods before saying, ‘Fine. Proposal accepted.’

He breathed out hard, and the tension eased from him until his natural energy level eased from eleven back to its usual nine and a half.

He nodded, then looked over his shoulder, decided only the couch would take his bulk, and moved past her to sit down. There he picked up a random magazine from the coffee table and pretended to be interested in the ‘101 Summer Hair Tips’ it promised to reveal inside its pages.

‘We leave in forty-five minutes.’

Well, it seemed happy, lovely, thank-you time was over. Back to business as usual.

Hannah glanced at her dad’s old diving watch, which was so overly big for her she had to twist it to read it. Forty-five minutes? She’d be ready in forty.

Without another word she spun and raced into her room. She grabbed the comfy, Tasmania-in-winter-appropriate travel outfit she’d thrown over the tub chair in the corner the night before, and rushed into the bathroom.

Sonja was there, in a bottle-green Japanese silk kimono, plucking her eyebrows.

Hannah’s boots screeched to a halt on the tiled floor. ‘Sonja! Jeez, you scared me half to death. I didn’t even know you were home.’

Sonja smiled into the mirror. ‘Just giving you and the boss man some privacy.’

The smile was far too Cheshire-cat-like for comfort. Hannah suddenly remembered the unnaturally underwear-free window. ‘You knew he was coming!’

Sonja threw her tweezers onto the sink and turned to Hannah. ‘All I know is that from the moment we got back to the office yesterday arvo he was all about “Tasmania this, Tasmania that.” Everything else was designated secondary priority.’

Hannah opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Sonja pouted. ‘He never offered to fly me home for the holidays, and I’ve been working for him for twice as long as you.’

‘Your parents live a fifteen-minute tram-ride away.’ Hannah shoved her friend out, slamming the door with as much gusto as she could muster.

With time rushing through the hourglass, she whipped off her pyjamas and threw them into a pile on the closed lid of the toilet, then scrunched her hair into a knot atop her head as she didn’t have time to do anything fancy with it, before standing naked beneath the cold morning spray of the tiny shower. Sucking in her stomach, she turned up the heat and waited till the temperature was just a little too hot for comfort before grabbing a cake of oatmeal soap and scrubbing away the languor of the night.

A plane ride, she thought. Surrounded by camera guys, lighting guys, and Bradley’s drier than toast accountant. Then at the airport they’d go their separate ways, and she could get on with her holiday and remember what it felt like to live a life without Bradley Knight in the centre of it.

A little voice twittered in the back of her head. If you’d taken either of the perfectly good jobs you’ve been offered in the past few months you’d know what that felt like on a permanent basis.

Swearing with rather unladylike gusto, Hannah turned her back to the shower, letting the hot spray pelt her skin as she soaped random circles over her stomach. She let her forehead drop to thump against the cold glass.

Both jobs had sounded fine. Great, even. Leaps along the career path she sought. But working on studio-based programming just didn’t hold the same excitement as travelling to places for which she needed a half-dozen shots. Trudging up mud slopes and down glaciers, canoeing rivers filled with crocodiles, even if she had to count back from a hundred so as not to heave over the side.

At some stage in the past year, small-town Hannah had become a big-time danger junkie. Professionally and personally. And it had everything to do with the man whose impossible work ethic had her feeling as if she was teetering between immense success and colossal failure in every given task.

It was crazy-making. He was crazy-making. He was a self-contained, hard to know, ball-breaker. But, oh, the thrill that came when together they got it right.

She shivered. Deliciously. From top to toe.

She just wasn’t ready to let that go.

Suddenly she realised she had the shower up so high she was actually beginning to sweat. She could feel it tingling across her scalp, in the prickling of her palms. She licked her lips to find they tasted of salt.

She turned to lean her back against the cool of the door, only to find the water wasn’t so hot after all. And she was still sliding the slick soap over her shoulders, down her arms, around her torso, in a slow, rhythmic movement as her head was filled with impenetrable smoky grey eyes, dark wavy hair, a roguish five o’clock shadow, shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of the world …

Heat pulsed in her centre, radiating outwards until she had to breathe through her mouth to gather enough oxygen to remain upright. She wrapped her arms tight around her.

Brilliant, beautiful, intense—and literally on the other side of the door. With no sound in the apartment bar the sound of the running shower. And the door was unlocked. Heck, the walls were so old and warped she had a floor mat shoved at the base of the door to keep it closed. With his bulk, if he walked too hard on the creaky floorboards the thing might spring open.

What if that happened and he looked up to find her naked, wet, slippery? Alone. Skin pink from the steaming hot spray. More so from thoughts of him.

What would he do? Would it finally occur to him that she was actually a woman, not just a walking appointment book?

No, it wouldn’t. And thank God for that. For if he ever looked at her in that way she wouldn’t even know what to do. They worked together like a dream, but as for the paths they’d taken to stumble into one another? The man was so far removed from her reality he was practically a different species.

‘Perfect, safe, fantasy material for a girl too busy to get her kicks any other way,’ she told the wall.

But somehow it had sounded far more sophisticated in her head than it did out loud. Out loud it sounded as though the time was nigh for her to get a life.

She determinedly put the lathered soap on the tray and turned off the taps.

She then reached for her towel—only to find in her rush she’d left it hanging on a hook on the back of her bedroom door.

She glanced at the musty PJs piled on the lid of the toilet, and then at the minuscule handtowel hanging within reach. She let her head thunk back against the shower wall.

The pipes in the pre-war building creaked as the shower was turned off in Hannah’s bathroom.

Finally. Bradley had told her they only had forty-five minutes, and the damn woman had been in the shower for what felt like for ever.

Bradley loosened his grip on the magazine he’d been clutching the entire time the shower had run—to find his fingers had begun to cramp.

‘Coffee?’ Sonja said, swanning out from nowhere.

He’d been so sure they were alone—just him in the lounge, Hannah in the shower, nothing but twelve feet of open space and a thin wooden door between them—he jumped halfway out of his skin.

‘Where the hell did you spring from?’ he growled.

‘Around,’ Sonja said, waving a hand over her shoulder as she swept towards a gleaming espresso machine that took up half the tiny kitchen bench. It was the only thing that looked as if it had had any real money spent on it in the whole place.

The rest was fluffy faded rugs, pink floral wallpaper, and tasselled lampshades so ancient-looking every time his eyes landed on one he felt he needed to sneeze. He felt as if he was sitting in the foyer of an old-time Western brothel, waiting for the madam to put in an appearance.

Not what he would have expected of Hannah’s pad—if he’d ever thought of it at all.

She was hard-working. Meticulous. With a reserve of stamina hidden somewhere in her small frame that meant she was able to keep up with his frenetic pace where others had fallen away long before.

What she wasn’t was abandoned, pink … froufrou.

Or so he’d thought.

‘I’m making one for myself so it’s no bother.’

Bradley blinked to find he was staring so hard at Hannah’s bathroom door it might have appeared as though he was hoping for a moment of X-ray vision. He threw the magazine on the table with enough effort to send it sliding onto the floor, then turned bodily away from the door to glance at Sonja.

‘Coffee?’ Sonja repeated, dangling a gaudy pink and gold espresso mug from the tip of her pink-taloned pinky.

It hit him belatedly that the apartment was pure Sonja. Of course. He vaguely remembered her telling him Hannah had at some stage that year moved in with her.

For some reason it eased his mind. The trust he had in Hannah’s common sense hadn’t been misplaced.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. Though if she didn’t get a hurry on he was ready to revise that thought.

‘A quick one,’ he said.

Coffees made, Sonja perched on the edge of the pink-striped dining chair that sat where a lounge chair ought. ‘So, you’re schlepping our girl to the wilds of Tasmania?’

‘On my way to the New Zealand recce.’

‘Several hundred miles out of your way.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘It’s not my job to have a point. You pay me to build mystery and excitement,’ she said, grinning. ‘And what’s more exciting and mystifying than you and Hannah heading off to have a wild time in the wild?’

‘A wild—?’ This time his frown was for real. He sat up as best he could in the over-soft old chair, and pointed two fingers in the direction of Sonja’s nose. ‘She works damned hard. I’m saying thanks. So don’t you start cooking up any mad stories in that head of yours. You know how I don’t like drama.’

Sonja stared right back, and then, obviously realising he was deadly serious, nodded and said, ‘Whatever you say, boss.’

And with that she got up and strode back towards what must have been her bedroom.

‘So long as you promise I’m the first one you’ll tell when you have something else to say. About New Zealand,’ she added, as an apparent afterthought.

And with a dramatic swish of silk she was gone.

Bradley sank slowly back into the soft couch and downed the hot espresso in one hit, letting it scorch the back of his throat.

If the woman wasn’t so good at her job …

But he hadn’t been kidding. He abhorred gratuitous drama. He’d gone miles out of his way to avoid it his whole life. Up remote mountains, down far-flung rivers in the middle of nowhere, deep into uninhabited jungles. Dedicating his life to concrete pleasures. Real challenges he could see and touch. Facing the raw and unbroken parts of the world in order to discover what kind of man he really was, rather than the kind life had labelled him the moment he was born.

Far, far away from the histrionics he’d endured as a kid, both before and after his hypersensitive mother had decided that being his mother was simply too hard. Leaving him to the mercy of whichever relative had had the grace to take him that month and increasing the drama tenfold. Every one of them had expected him to be volubly and effusively grateful they’d taken on such an encumbrance as he. The telling of it had become a daily litany. But that had been nothing compared with the horrendously uncomfortable drama that rocked each household the moment the inhabitants realised that they were not, in fact, as altruistic as they’d imagined they were.

Then they’d each and every one whispered behind half-closed doors, perhaps it wasn’t their fault. His own mother had given him away after all.

A flash of something appeared out of the corner of Bradley’s eye, slapping him back to the absolute present. He sat forward, leant his elbows on his knees, and ran his hands hard and fast over his face in an effort to rub the prickly remnants of memory away.

Then all thought fled his mind as he realised what the flash had been. Hannah. Dashing from the bathroom into her bedroom. Naked.

He slowly turned his head to look at the empty spot where the vision had appeared. Piece by piece it slipped into his mind.

A wet female back, a pair of lean wet legs, and a small white handtowel covering nought but what must have been wet naked buttocks.

Hannah. Naked. And right at that moment behind that door, towelling down with something about the size of a postage stamp.

From nowhere a swift, steady heat began to surface inside him. An unmistakable heat. The kind he’d usually invite with open arms.

He dragged his eyes back to the front and stared hard at a pink quilted lamp covered in so many tassels it made his eyes hurt. Better that than focus on the image seemingly burned into the backs of his eyes.

Hannah was hard-working, meticulous, with a reserve of stamina … He stopped when he realised he was repeating himself to himself.

A loud bang came from Hannah’s room, after which rang out a badly muffled oath and what sounded like hopping.

He found himself coughing out a laugh. Relief flooded through him, and the unfortunate heat brimming inside him dissipated, somewhat. That was the Hannah he knew. Hard-working, meticulous, and singularly likely to snap him out of the labyrinth of his mind right when he needed it most.

At that moment Hannah came bounding out of her room. Fully dressed. In fact she appeared to be wearing a grey blanket as she dragged a big black suitcase behind her.

He managed to pull himself from the clutches of the soft couch to stand, just as she plonked her suitcase by the door and turned to face him. Lips parted, breathless. From the suitcase? The hopping? The exertion of running to her room wet and naked?

He gave himself a mental slap.

‘You made yourself coffee?’ she said, staring at the coffee table.

‘Sonja.’

‘Oh. Oh!‘ Her eyes opened unnaturally wide, then flicked to the room into which Sonja had disappeared. ‘Did she …? Did you …?’

He raised an eyebrow.

But she just shook her head, a new pinkness staining her cheeks and a telling kind of darkness in her eyes. It was the kind of look that told a specific story without need for words. It was the kind of look, when added to the image of naked female flesh, that could turn a man’s blood to hot oil.

Though it was far more likely he simply hadn’t fully moved on from the ‘flash’ after all.

You’re a man, he growled to himself, not a rock. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

Suddenly Hannah held up a finger and headed over to the small round table behind the couch, flicked through a bunch of papers.

Ignoring him completely. He gave his head a short, sharp shake.

As she moved, Hannah’s voluminous blanket—which turned out to be some kind of poncho—shifted, revealing that in lieu of her usual filmy, elegant work number she wore dark skinny jeans tucked into cowboy boots, and a fitted black and red striped, long-sleeved top. Truly fitted. Giving him glimpses of the kind of gentle curves that her filmy, floaty, elegant work numbers had clearly never made the most of.

Curves he’d glimpsed naked, with no embellishment. Curves he could almost feel beneath his hands.

Gritting his teeth, Bradley leant his backside against the edge of the couch and waited. And watched. With the early-morning sun streaming through the old window behind her she looked so young, so fresh. Her nose was pink in the morning cold, her cheeks even pinker. Her lips were naturally the colour of a dark rose. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose he’d never before noticed. And her usually neat, professional hair was kinky and shaggy, as if she’d come from a day at the beach. As if she’d just rolled out of bed.

She glanced up to find him staring. After a beat she smiled in apology. ‘Two seconds. I promise.’

He cleared his throat. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you were purposely delaying getting moving.’

She blinked at him, several times, super-fast. Then shook her head so quickly he wondered if his sorry excuse for a joke had actually hit its mark. But he knew so little about her outside of how well she did her job he couldn’t be sure.

‘Sonja is clueless about paying bills,’ she went on. ‘It’s too cold a winter for me to risk her getting the heating cut off—even though I can think of a dozen reasons why she might deserve it.’

He found himself stepping over a line he didn’t usually breach as he asked, ‘Why do I get the feeling there’s some other reason you’re avoiding heading out that door?’

‘I—’ She swallowed. Then looked him dead in the eye for several long seconds before offering a slight shrug and saying, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to go back home. I love that island more than anything. I’m just bracing myself for what I am about to encounter when I step across the Gatehouse threshold.’

‘The Gatehouse?’

‘The hotel.’

‘Regretting your choice?’

That earned him a glance from pale green eyes that could cut glass. ‘You truly think I would organise for my only sister to get married in some dive?’

‘I guess it depends if you like your only sister. How long did you say it’s been since you’ve seen her?’

Her cheeks turned pinker still: a bright, warm, enchanting pink as blood rushed to her face. But she chose to ignore his insinuation. ‘The Gatehouse, I’ll have you know, is a slice of pure heaven. Like a Swiss chalet, tucked into a forest of snow-dappled gumtrees. A mere short hike to the stunning Cradle Mountain. A hundred beautiful rooms, six gloriously decadent restaurants, a fabulous nightclub, a cinema, a state-of-the-art gym. And don’t even get me started on the suites.’

Her eyes drifted shut and she shuddered. No, it was more like a tremble. It started at her shoulders and shimmied down her form, finishing up at her boot-clad feet, one of which had lifted to tuck in tight behind her opposite calf.

Sensation prickled down his arms, across his abdomen, between his thighs. He could do nothing but stand there, grit his teeth, and hope to high heaven she’d soon be done and he could get away from this crazy pink boudoir before it fried any more of his brain cells.

Hell. Who was this woman, and where had she put his trusty assistant?

If it were not for those wide, wide, frank pale green eyes that looked right into his, not the tiniest bit intimidated by his infamy, bullheadedness or insularity, he’d be wondering if he was in the right apartment.

That would teach him to try and do something nice for somebody else. Another lesson learnt.

Her foot slid down her calf, and as though nothing had happened she went back to the pile of papers.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I think we can safely assume Sonja will survive till Tuesday.’ She ruffled a hand through her hair, and it ended up looking even more loose and carefree and sexy as hell. ‘I’m ready.’

She ruffled a hand through her hair, and it ended up looking even more loose and carefree, and sexy as hell.

His hands grew restless, as if he wasn’t quite sure where to put them. As if they wanted to go somewhere his brain knew they ought not.

So he gave them a job and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. One yank and his stomach muscles clenched. ‘What did you pack in here? Bricks?’

A hand slunk to her hip, buried somewhere deep beneath acres of grey wool, temptingly hiding more than they revealed.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have filled the bag with bricks—not, as one might assume, a long weekend’s worth of clothes, shoes and under-things that will take me from day to night, PJs to wedding formal. Have you never been to a wedding before?’

‘Never.’

‘Wow. I’m not sure if you’ve missed out or if you’re truly the luckiest man alive. While you’re trekking through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world—bar Tasmania’s, of course—I’ll be changing outfits more times than a pop singer in a film clip.’

Bradley closed his eyes to stop the vision that throwaway comment brought forth before it could fully manifest itself inside his head.

‘Car’s downstairs,’ he growled, hefting the bag out through her front door. ‘Be there in five minutes or your—’

Underthings that will take you from day to night.

‘Your gear and I will be gone without you.’

‘Okey-dokey.’

With a dismissive wave over her shoulder she went looking for Sonja to say her goodbyes.

Feeling oddly as if a small pair of hands had just unclenched themselves from the front of his shirt, Bradley was out of that door and away from all that soft velvet, stifling frills and froufrou pink that had clearly been chosen specifically in order to scramble a man’s brains.

To the airport, up in the plane, drop her off, thanks gifted—and then to New Zealand he and his research crew would go. He, his research crew, and a juvenile intern who could spend half the day discussing ‘underthings’ and not affect his blood pressure in the slightest.

CHAPTER THREE

HANNAH stood in the doorway of the Gulf-stream jet.

Place? Launceston, Tasmania.

Time of arrival? Mid-morning.

Temperature? Freezing.

She breathed in the crisp wintry air though her nose. Boy, did it smell amazing. Soft, green, untainted. She could actually hear birds singing. And the sky was so clear and blue it hurt her eyes. A small smile crept into the corners of her mouth.

She hadn’t been sure how she’d feel, stepping foot back on Tassie soil after such a long time in Melbourne. How parochial the place would feel in comparison with her bustling cosmopolitan base.

It felt like home.

A deep voice behind her said, ‘What? No “welcome home” banner? No marching band?’

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said as she jumped. Then, ‘I’m going, I’m going! You can get on your way. Go back inside. It’s freezing.’

‘I’m a big boy. I can handle the cold.’ Bradley threw the last of a bag of macadamia nuts into his mouth as he looked over her shoulder. ‘So this is Tasmania.’

She looked out over Launceston International Airport. One simple flat-roofed building sat on the edge of acres of pocked grey Tarmac. A light drizzle thickened the cold air. Patches of old snow lay scattered in pockets of shade, while the rest of the ground was covered in little melted puddles.

As far as first impressions went it was hardly going to ring Bradley’s adventure-savvy bell.

‘No,’ she said, ‘this is an airport. Tasmania is the hidden wonder beyond.’

‘Get a move on, then. I don’t have all day.’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Of course. Thanks. For the lift. But, please, I don’t need one back. I’ll see you Tuesday.’

With that she gave him a short wave, before jogging down the stairs—only to see the pilot had her bags plonked on the Tarmac next to another set of luggage that looked distinctly like Bradley’s.

‘What’s he doing?’ she asked. Then turned to find Bradley was right behind her.

Instinct had her slamming her hands against his chest so as not to topple onto her backside. Her hips against his thighs. Her right knee wedged hard between his.

Hard muscles clenched instantly beneath her touch. Hot, hard, Bradley-shaped muscles.

All she could think was that, God, he felt good. Big. Strong. Solid. Warm. All too real. She blinked up into his eyes to find glinting circles of deepest grey staring down at her.

‘You’re shaking,’ he said, glowering as though she had somehow offended his sensibilities.

She curled her fingers into her palms and hid them beneath her poncho as she took a distinct step back, her body arching towards him even while she dragged herself away. ‘Of course I’m shaking. It’s barely above zero.’

He looked out across the Tarmac, as though for a moment he’d forgotten where they were. Then his hand hovered to where her hands had been against his chest. He scratched the spot absent-mindedly. ‘Really?’ he rumbled. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

Truth was, neither had she. For, while the wind-chill factor had probably taken the temperature below zero, she was still feeling a tad feverish after being bodily against a human furnace.

Hannah took another step back. ‘Why has James deposited your luggage beside mine?’

‘I’m researching.’

‘What? The difference between Tarmac in Tasmanian and New Zealand airports?’

Humour flickered behind his eyes. It made her senses skedaddle and a purely feminine heat began to pulse. Then he slid his sunglasses into their usual hiding place and she had no chance of reading him.

‘Less specific,’ he said dryly. ‘Try Tasmania.’ Then he sauntered on past.

‘Wait!’ she called. ‘Hang on just a minute. What am I missing here?’

‘You sell yourself short on your PR abilities. You sold me.’

‘Sold you what?’

‘Tracts of wild, rugged, untouched beauty. Jagged cliffs. Lush forests. Roaring waterfalls. Lakes so still you don’t know which way is the sky. Sound familiar?’

Sure did. One of her many effusive speeches about her gorgeous home.

He continued, ‘It got me to thinking. So it’s decided. The team know what to do in New Zealand. They’ll go that way, while I do a solo recce of this area this weekend.’

So that was what they’d been cooking up in the back of the jet. She’d been busy playing holiday, so as not to get caught up in office stuff—sipping on a cocktail, reading a trashy magazine and listening to the music blaring from her iPod—and she’d blissfully let it all go by.

She must have been gaping like a beached fish, because he added, ‘Don’t panic. I have no intention of invading your holiday. Spencer’s hired me a car and planned me a course.’

Hannah snapped her mouth shut. The fact that he was staying was still beyond her comprehension. But mostly she was struggling with the intense sense of envy that the one time she’d cut herself off was the one time she could have proved her producer potential. Sure, Spencer was great with an online map, but nobody in Bradley’s circle knew the island, the detail, the most TV-worthy spots of her home island more than her.

Her timing couldn’t have sucked more.

An insistent voice knocked hard on the back of her brain. Let it go. Give yourself a muuuuuch needed break. And come Tuesday sit him down and tell him exactly why he needs to put you in charge of the project.

‘Okay,’ she said, overly bright. ‘Well, that’s just … excellent. Truly. You won’t regret it.’

With that she turned away and headed towards her luggage. And that was when she heard it. A penetrating feminine voice shrilled thinly in the far distance.

‘Yoo-hoo! Hannah! Over heeeeere!’

Her conflicted emotions fled in an instant at the sound of that voice. And, boy, did she not blame them?

Why? How?

The text! She’d sent Elyse a quick message saying she’d be getting in early, and how. Dammit!

‘Hannah!’

She frantically searched the small crowd awaiting the arrival of loved ones from behind a chicken wire fence. With their matching long, thick and straight dark brown hair, pale skin, shiny baubles, and head to toe pink get-ups, Hannah’s mother and sister stood out from the small, chilly, rugged-up crowd like flamingos in a flock of pigeons.

As though the years hadn’t passed—as though she didn’t have an amazing job and a great apartment, cool friends and real confidence in where she’d landed—Hannah’s hand went straight to her hair. Only to remember she’d done nothing with it that morning and now, as she stood on the windy Tarmac, it was making a fly for freedom in just about every direction possible.

In about five seconds flat she went from respected ace assistant to a TV wunderkind to skinny tomboy shuffling a soccer ball around the backyard while her glamorous mother and sister shopped and groomed and giggled about boys.

Her mother pushed through the crowd, opened a gate that probably meant she was breaking about half a dozen aviation safety laws, and headed her way. Hannah knew the grown-up thing to do was walk towards her, waving happily, but she was so deep into meltdown mode she began to physically back away.

And that was when she felt an arm slide beneath her poncho to settle gently but firmly in the curve of her back. The wall of warmth that came with it stopped her in her retreat as nothing else could have.

She must have been putting out such a silent distress call even her famously self-contained boss had felt it. Had come to her defence. Gallantry was becoming a bit of a pattern, in fact. If only the feel of him so close didn’t also make her knees forget how to keep her legs straight.

And she needed every ounce of strength she had for what was about to happen. For coming up against her mother unprepared and un-liquored-up. And for subjecting her fuss-phobic boss to the living soap opera that was her family.

Bradley and her mother. Oh, no.

Brain suddenly working as if she had a sixth-sense, Hannah leaned in closer and said, ‘Take a sharp left now, head into those bushes to the east and you’ll hit the main road in about three minutes. Hail a cab from there. Go!’

His eyebrows came together and he laughed softly. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’

‘See that vision in pink hurtling our way? That’s my mother. And if you don’t run now you’ll feel like you’ve been hit by a hurricane.’

But it was too late.

She felt Bradley stiffen behind her. His fingers dug into her skin. If her brain hadn’t been working overtime on how to keep her boss from going into a meltdown right alongside her she might just have groaned with the intense pleasure of it.

Virginia’s eyes had zeroed in on Bradley with a vengeance. No wonder. A six-feet-four hunk standing in the shadow of his own private jet wasn’t something any woman could easily ignore. Especially a strikingly beautiful woman currently between rich husbands.

Elyse, ever the mini-Mum, tottered in her wake.

Hannah felt Bradley grow an inch behind her as he breathed in deep. Then he broke the tense silence with, ‘So, to downgrade the hurricane to mild sun shower, what do I need to know?’

Just like that, the Tarmac beneath her feet felt like familiar ground. At Knight Productions they never went into any meeting without being completely prepared for any outcome. Without knowing they’d never accept no for an answer. And Bradley always got his own way.

‘Number one: call her Virginia,’ Hannah punched out. ‘Not Mrs anything. She’s never liked to be thought of as a wife or mother. If people think she is either, it’s proof she’s of a certain age. Do that and you’re ahead of the curve.’

Bradley’s eyebrows all but disappeared into his hairline, but at least his death grip relaxed. ‘Who does she think people think you were? Her fan club?’

Hannah laughed. Unexpectedly. She turned to find he was looking far more relaxed and less rock-like than she could ever have hoped. And as she turned his hand slipped further around her waist. Her breath went AWOL.

‘Relax,’ he murmured, leaning closer. ‘You are so wound up you’re actually beginning to scare me just a little. Don’t panic. Mothers love me.’

She shot him a look of despair. ‘That’s not the problem. I mean, look at you. I have no doubt my mother will adore you.’

A muscle twitched beneath his eye and his mouth lifted into a sexy half-smile. ‘You think I’m adorable?’

‘To the tips of your designer socks,’ she said, her voice as blank as she could manage. ‘And, just for the record, along with tall men who own private jets my mother also adores rhinestones, tight pink cardigans and fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them.’

The second the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. But it wasn’t as though she never ribbed the guy. Working sixty-hour weeks a girl had to have a sense of humour. And he was oak-like enough to take it.

But comparing him with rhinestones …?

Maybe it was the comfy outfit. Maybe it was giving her brain cells a day off from the blowdryer. Or maybe her body had gone into some kind of holiday-mode shutdown. Either way, her tongue had come dangerously loose.

So dangerously Bradley’s hand slid even further—till it rested possessively on her hip, till his little finger slid between T-shirt and jeans and found skin. A silent signal that if she went one step too far she was at his mercy. As a comeback it was effective. Debilitatingly so.

Hannah was so tense she was practically vibrating.

She didn’t have time to think before Virginia was upon them, long hair swinging like a shampoo commercial, high heels clacking loudly on the asphalt.

Then her mother’s eyes zeroed in on the lack of sunlight between the two of them. Hannah wished she was wearing work stilettos so she could have kicked her boss in the shin.

‘Hannah! Darling!’ Virginia’s eyes were gleaming, her arms outstretched, and she was looking Bradley up and down as though he was a two-hundred-dollar Hobart Bay lobster even while she reached out for the daughter she hadn’t seen for three years.

Virginia’s arm wrapped around her none too gently just as Bradley’s hand slipped away. She gave in to one while missing the other.

‘Virginia,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s so nice of you to meet me, but you really shouldn’t have. This weekend of all weekends.’

Over her mother’s shoulder Hannah saw Elyse hovering. Her chest pinched at the happy tears in her little sister’s bright green eyes.

She mouthed, Hi. Elyse did the same.

And then, in her ear, Hannah heard, ‘He’s very handsome.’

Not even a whisper. An out-and-out declaration. Heck, even James the pilot, who was now taxiing Bradley’s jet down a nearby runway, had probably heard.

‘He’s my boss,’ Hannah blurted, just as loud. ‘Thus out of bounds. So leave him alone.’

Elyse hid a shocked laugh behind a fake sneeze.

Her mum pulled back and looked deep into her eyes with what looked like a flicker of respect. Wow. That was a first. Hannah’s chest squeezed as she waited for … more. Sadness, poignancy, guilt, regret.

Until Virginia took a step back, flounced a hand up and down Hannah’s form and said, ‘Jeans, Hannah? Must you always look like a bag lady?’

And there you have it, folks. My mother.

‘My work means I fly a lot. All over the world, in fact. I’ve learnt it pays to be comfortable.’ She mentally blew a raspberry, not much caring that it made her feel five years old.

Having said all she apparently felt the need to say, Virginia slid her eyes back to Bradley. In his jeans and fitted shirt, and the soft old leather jacket, he looked extremely comfortable. He also looked good enough to eat.

The scent of macadamia emanating from his direction only made that thought solidify. And expand. Hannah had to swallow down the sensation that rocked through her, finishing in a slow burn shaped very much like a large handprint upon her back.

‘It seems my daughter hasn’t the manners to introduce us …’

‘Forgive me,’ Hannah leapt in. ‘Virginia, this is Bradley Knight—my boss. Bradley, this is Virginia Millar Gillespie McClure. My mother.’

Virginia’s smile was saccharine-sweet, her eyes cool as she said, ‘Darling, you forgot the Smythe. Though Derek was rather forgettable, I’m afraid.’

Bradley took off his sunglasses and hooked them over the neckline of his T-shirt before grasping the manicured hand coming at him at pace. Hannah held her breath. Rock was about to meet hurricane. She squinted in preparation for being in the line of fire of flying debris.

‘A pleasure to meet you, Virginia,’ Bradley said, his deep, sexy voice as smooth as silk. ‘And, considering the fact that I’ve never seen anyone with quite the same stunning colour eyes as Hannah’s, this must be Elyse.’

Virginia blinked her own dark brown eyes slowly as she uncurled her hand away from Bradley’s and made room for him to pass her by in favour of her daughter. Not used to being upstaged, she stood there a moment in silence, regathering herself.

Hannah placed a hand over her mouth to cover her grin. If she hadn’t had a soft spot for her boss before, she had one now.

Elyse’s pale green eyes—eyes so much like their dad’s—all but popped out of her head as she gravitated towards Bradley. ‘Boy, it’s an honour to meet you, Mr Knight. I love your shows. So much. Adore them. Not just because Hannah works on them. They’re actually really good too!’

Bradley laughed. ‘Thank you. I think.’

Hannah slid the thumb of her right hand between her teeth and nibbled. Amazing. For a guy who usually turned to stone at the first sign of such dramatic declarations of adoration he was handling himself mighty well. She watched him carefully for signs that he was about to cut and run. But his smile seemed genuine.

Bradley’s smiling gaze slowly swung to Hannah. His eyes widened just a fraction, enough to let her know that he was well aware he’d stepped into a little bit of crazy but was content to stay a while.

And the only reason she could think of for him to do such a thing was because of her. He’d known her trip home was short, and important, so he’d stepped up to the mark and helped her get there sooner. He’d realised that reuniting with her mother was not quite so looked forward to. So he’d moved in to protect her.

The ground at her feet suddenly felt less like Tarmac and more like jelly.

And then she realised that Elyse was still talking.

‘Hannah never mentioned she was bringing a plus one, but of course we’ll make room—right, Virginia? Hannah’s so secretive about her life in Melbourne—the yummy celebrities she meets at all those TV parties and the guys she’s dating. We can get all the goss from you instead!’

‘No, no, no,’ Hannah leapt in. ‘Elyse, Bradley’s not here to—’

‘You are coming to the wedding,’ Virginia insisted, stepping smack-bang between Hannah and her boss. ‘The accommodation is six-star. The food to die for. Cradle Mountain is the most beautiful spot on the entire planet. Bar none. You simply cannot come to Tasmania without experiencing her raw beauty for yourself. In fact it’s just the kind of place you should set one of your little shows.’

Hannah shook her head so hard she whipped herself in the eye with a hunk of hair. She slid into the fray and grabbed Bradley by the elbow, practically heaving him out of the clutches of her wily relations. ‘Bradley’s not here for the wedding. He’s here on business. He doesn’t even have a minute to spare and stand around here nattering. Do you, Bradley?’

‘I couldn’t possibly impose so last-minute,’ was his response.

She glared up into his eyes to find he was refusing to look at her. Then he shifted his stance, so that her hand slid into the all too comfortable crook of his elbow. Heat slid slyly down her arm.

She tried to pull away. He only clamped down tighter. Then he smiled at her, a quicksilver gleam in his deep, smoky grey eyes.

Her heart tumbled in her chest and she slipped her hand free. Oh, God. Oh, no.

She should never have compared him with rhinestones, or tight pink cardigans, or fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them. He wasn’t protecting her. He was punishing her!

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Virginia said, linking her hand through his spare elbow. ‘Great-Aunt Maude left word last night to say she’s entirely sure she’s come down with consumption.’

Elyse rolled her eyes. ‘For the engagement party it was malaria. Apart from the hypochondria she’s the perfect great-aunt. She sends gifts ahead of time!’

Virginia turned towards the terminal and tugged Bradley in her wake. Hannah, as always, had no choice but to follow.

Virginia was saying, ‘So there’s a spare meal already paid for.’

Elyse, who had taken Bradley’s now free other elbow, said, ‘And the gift’s taken care of too! We’ll just pencil your name alongside Great-Aunt Maude’s on the card. She’ll never know. You won’t be sitting with Hannah, as she’ll be with Roger all night. But you seem like a man who can take care of himself.’

Hannah rolled her eyes. When they settled back into their normal position she realised Bradley was frowning at her.

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