Wickedly hot billionaire Bryce Mortimer always chooses “dare”—especially in this scorching-hot third book from international bestselling author Zara Cox’s series The Mortimers: Wealthy & Wicked.

The Truth:

Who the hell does Savannah Knight think she is? After three years without a word—after she shattered both our friendship and one undeniably hot night by marrying someone else—she’s back. Only I’ve forgotten Savvie’s effect on me. How the sight of her drives a hot spike of lust through my groin, and that compulsion to keep looking, to keep wanting, to keep devouring. So much so that I can’t resist one more game…

The Dare:

We’re not best friends anymore. She’s not married anymore. Which means there’s no need to hold back. I want her. I want her so badly I ache from the need of her. And so I dare Savvie to spend the rest of our time in Singapore together…exploring all her dirty little fantasies.

And the Dangerous Double-Dare:

I’m Bryce Mortimer. I always negotiate for the very maximum. But the moment I touch that soft, golden skin, I know that this time I won’t be able to walk away from this game a whole man. Not without gambling everything just to satisfy her every delicious need…

Mills & Boon DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Mills & Boon DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

ZARA COX writes contemporary and erotic romance. She lives in the Garden of England—aka Kent—with her hubby and two kids. She loves to read and travel. In 2017 she managed to visit her number one bucket-list destination—Hawaii—and is now actively pleading with her husband to live there! She loves to hear from her readers; you can get in touch with her via Twitter (@zcoxbooks), on Instagram (zaracoxwriter) or Facebook (zaracoxwriter).

Also by Zara Cox

Close to the Edge

Worth the Risk

Pleasure Payback

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Her Every Fantasy

Zara Cox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08719-3

HER EVERY FANTASY

© 2019 Zara Cox

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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This book is dedicated to friends and lovers everywhere.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Bryce

TWO DAYS, THREE HOURS and…seven minutes.

That was how long the email had been sitting in my inbox unopened. I detested that I was reduced to even knowing how long it’d parked itself in my consciousness, taunting me with its presence. Taunting me with that gut-twisting mix of hope and bitterness I thought I was finally rid of.

How I wished it were one of those mundane work emails I’d become so adept at passing to my assistant to deal with. Then, from a safe distance, it would’ve been so easy to tell her to handle it. Or, better yet, delete it.

But here it was. Not handled. Not deleted. And about as far from mundane as it could get.

Not when her name was blaring from the ‘sender’ line: Savannah Knight.

Not when the subject matter stated three simple words: I Need You.

I tossed my pen onto the desk in disgust and shoved my chair backwards, swivelling away from the offensive email for good measure.

Fuck this.

Who the hell did she think she was? Not a single word in three and a half years. Then this?

I’d held out for over two days. Long enough for her to know I wasn’t going to jump.

A fragile but welcome burst of satisfaction settled my ire a little. She needed to know I wasn’t the same person who’d stumbled away from that quaint little chapel in sunny Sittingbourne, Kent, three summers ago a pathetic, emotional wreck.

That man was long gone, after years of living on the edge of ‘Will we? Won’t we?’ was definitively answered once and for all: We won’t. We never will.

In his place was someone I respected better but didn’t always like. A man whose future and focus were as steadfast as a striking sledgehammer.

I might have deluded myself into thinking I was different once upon a time, that I could be softer, less… Mortimer, more…something else, but that time had long passed. For better and, I suspected, worse I was a bloody Mortimer down to my last cell. It’d just taken a little longer, and ironically her help, to make me accept my true self.

Ruthless. Competitive. Take no prisoners. Crazy ambitious. And yes, sometimes, utterly selfish in my quest to achieve all the above.

So why wasn’t that ruthless selfishness directing my finger to the delete button? One quick tap on the mouse and she would be erased as definitely as she’d erased me.

Teeth gritted, I fought and irritatingly lost the fight, compulsion swivelling me back around to face my laptop. To the neat little blue rectangle of temptation taunting me with its secrets.

Open me. Read me.

With a tight curse, I clicked on it, my greedy eyes devouring the words.

Bryce,

I know this is out of the blue so…surprise! It’s a been a while, huh? Guess we’ve both been crazy busy.

Anyway, a little bird told me you’re opening a brand spanking new building in Singapore. Congrats on all your awesome accomplishments, btw.

But I’ll get to the point. I need you.

I cursed that traitorous little flip in my gut when I lingered on those three words. Then forced myself to read on.

More specifically, I need a space in your building for the launch of my flagship store.

My team have researched several locations and they all agree your building will be perfect for my needs.

Another little bird told me you haven’t yet accepted a bid for the ground and first floors. If that’s true—and I really hope it is!—I’d love to be considered for an initial five-year lease of the space.

If my info is wildly inaccurate, then let me know.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Savannah

Anger blazed in my chest. Singeing. Devastating. So this was how she was going to play it? Act as if nothing had happened? As if we’d simply…fallen out of touch and she was initiating a reconnection while she had a few minutes to spare in her busy day?

Well, I could do cool and impersonal. Hell, I was a master at it.

I yanked my laptop closer and stabbed the keyboard with more force than was necessary.

Savvie,

No, scratch that. Best keep things formal.

Savannah,

It is a surprise. You’ll have to remind me how long it’s been if we meet in the future.

Sadly, my schedule is atrociously tight, so these days I delegate requests like yours to my commercial leasing team. I’ve passed your request on to them—see cc above. They’ll be in touch at some point, I expect.

Good luck with your launch, wherever that may be.

Bryce Mortimer

I hit ‘send’ with one last smug little stab at the button and lounged back in my seat.

An hour later my glee had turned to ash. The button I’d clicked to let me know she’d read my reply had been activated almost immediately.

She’d seen my email. Most likely read it.

Anticipation had risen like an unstoppable tide inside me, only to crash back as the seconds ticked by without a further response. What did I expect? Contrition? Hell, an apology? A plea for me to grant her wish for old times’ sake despite my rightful disappointment in her?

Delusion soured my mouth.

We were both equally successful in our chosen fields. Why would she need a helping hand from me when she could reduce grown men into drooling schoolboys with a flick of her long, seductive eyelashes?

Another sensation stabbed, this time the acrid jealousy I thought was long in my past.

Fuck it. I rose from my desk, determined to put greater distance between me and my laptop before I did something foolish—like fruitlessly click ‘refresh’ on my email. The ping of an incoming message arrested my movement.

Bryce,

Sorry for taking up your precious time. But thank you for the good wishes and for passing me on to your team. I’ve emailed them directly.

Excuse me for saying this, and perhaps it’s just in my imagination, but you sound…cold and distant.

But…whatever. I’m around from tomorrow until the launch date in a little over a month’s time.

I would like to see you again, Bryce, but I understand if your super-tight schedule doesn’t allow it. On the off-chance you haven’t turned into a robot and still like a good steak I’d love to buy you lunch.

Let me know.

Best wishes,

Savvie

PS Since you seem to need reminding, it’s been three years and four months since we last saw each other. Your memory used to be sharper than this. Guess some things do change!

I was torn between grinning at her sheer nerve and cussing at her unsubtle hints that my response was in any way defective. But even as I vacillated between anger and amusement, my gaze remained riveted on the eighth line:

I would like to see you again…

A pulse of resentment sizzled beneath my skin, laced with abrasive disappointment I hadn’t been able to let go in over three long years. That inability to let go, to consign her to my past where she belonged, where I’d successfully archived a lot of emotional crap, was what pissed me off the most.

Case in point: my parents.

Another case in point: my crappy relationship with my siblings, in particular. My extended family, in general.

But somehow, Savannah Knight remained a burr under my skin that wouldn’t be evicted.

Somehow, years ago she’d made it past the barricades I’d erected; somehow even set herself up in her own little bunker, immune from all the shit going on in my life. And every now and then…when I’d felt as if I were drowning, that bunker had been a godsend.

My safe place…until it and she wasn’t.

Maybe I hadn’t dug deep enough to evict her.

Maybe it was time to confront it…her…head-on. Thrash it out once and for all and put it behind me. It’d been festering for long enough and I knew that corrosive wound, coupled with my feelings towards my own family, had contributed to keeping people at arm’s length.

On the family front, I was more than okay with maintaining the status quo. Years of rebuffed advances and the eventual realisation that the Mortimers would never be a close-knit, happy unit like the ones I’d dreamed of had finally put paid to childish imaginings.

Even my brother Gideon’s out-of-the-blue phone call that he’d met the one a few months ago hadn’t dented my cynicism. As for my parents, they’d never wanted me, hadn’t hung around even long enough to see my first day of school before cutting me out of their lives.

But Savannah…

She’d let me believe that, despite hard-learnt lessons, there was a possibility for more…for joy…long after I’d sworn never to let anyone close. Long after a confused eight-year-old had been summoned into a cold study of one relative accompanied by a nanny and informed that the mother who didn’t want him was never coming back, having died when her car went off some cliff in Switzerland. That his hopes of a Disney-style reconciliation were turned to dust for ever.

That child had grown into a cynical teenager, fully steeped in the dysfunction that ruled his super-wealthy, super-emotionally-bankrupt family.

Somewhere along that journey as a fully-fledged teenage malcontent, one Savannah Knight had illuminated my dark soul with grace, humour and a megawatt smile.

And then taken it all away like a magician’s cruel trick.

If nothing else, she deserved a piece of my mind before I relegated her to the past for good. I’d done it with my siblings. I’d achieved it with my parents. With Savannah, all it needed was some good old-fashioned face-to-face.

My answer was shorter than the last. Straight to the point.

Lunch tomorrow. One p.m. My office.

Get your little birds to tell you where if you don’t know.

Bryce

She replied within seconds.

I’ll be there.

Savvie

I wanted to resent the shortened nickname that reminded me so much of our past. Of laughter and secret angst. Of beauty and betrayal. Of daring to stretch the limits of friendship and ending up with nothing but broken promises. And yes, for reminding me of giving in to uncontrollable urges in the privacy of my bedroom.

I wanted to remain steadfast on formal ground. What did it matter, though? Savannah or Savvie, she remained the same person.

The girl who’d been my best friend. My port in the storm. Who’d coaxed me with smiles and laughter to step onto the edge with her. Then left me there.

The woman she’d turned into had betrayed me, shown me in no uncertain terms that our friendship meant nothing.

The phone on my desk buzzed. I ignored it, my fingers creeping once more towards my mouse. The website I called up was one I was unwillingly familiar with, driven to all those years ago by that same crazy compulsion that fuelled everything to do with Savannah. That stuck onto my skin like an unwanted tattoo.

The page had been created before she’d become famous. Before she’d exploded onto the world stage and into the fantasy of every red-blooded male who set eyes upon her.

The Personal Fan Page of Savannah Knight: World’s Number One Plus-Size Lingerie Model.

Her pictures were plastered all over the page, each one more breathtaking than the last. Each shot showing a profusion of her signature dark gold corkscrew curls. Every single picture drove a hot spike of lust through my groin, and even before I was halfway down the page I was as hard as fuck, torn between frustration that she still had this effect on me, a hunger I couldn’t contain and a compulsion to keep going. Keep devouring. Keep salivating. Perhaps even unzip my fly, take out my cock and masturbate like a randy teenager right here in my damn office.

I resisted that last urge by pushing myself closer to my desk, as if shoving my lower half under my desk would kill the insane urge.

Mentally rolling my eyes at myself, I scrolled faster. An addict seeking his sweet spot.

Since launching her own lingerie brand, every runway show Savannah had staged had been a huge success. Every season had brought her more accolades until she now needed a couple of bodyguards for protection from sometimes overeager fans.

At one picture, I just stopped…stared.

Bloody hell, she was gorgeous.

Skin a dark sunset gold, so smooth and soft and warm, it’d been a challenge to keep from touching her when we were platonic teenage friends, when what we’d had between us had been too unique, too sacred to mess with. Adulthood had brought further challenges but, with more restraint, I’d had a better handle on it.

Or so I’d thought…

I shifted in my chair, forcefully reminding myself why Savvie Knight, the only person who’d made it onto a list of one labelled Friendship, no longer resided there. The memories kept tumbling through my mind as relentlessly as the pictures flowing up the screen.

She’d disparagingly called herself a mongrel. I’d thought her stunning beyond words.

Lucky enough to have the noble blood of African chiefs and the integrity of not one but two accomplished professors flowing through her veins. I’d listened with unbridled jealousy, sprawled at the foot of her teenage bed, as she’d offhandedly rattled off tales of her African heritage alongside vexed recounting of interminable Sunday family dinners where her parents had deigned to be present. Had had the audacity to ask her about her day, her month, her year.

So what if there’d seemed to be an underlying discontentment over her family’s single-mindedness about her life? I’d never drilled her over the details because I’d been too busy wondering why she wasn’t just…thrilled to have a caring family in the first place.

Experiencing that unique bond, even from the fringes, had been unparalleled. A reason to safeguard what we’d had.

It’d taken a full year of friendship to confess that Mortimers didn’t do Sunday family dinner. That we could barely tolerate one another even at Christmas. That birthday presents were often organised by executive assistants and presented by delivery men and one was lucky if one received a card. That to my memory and before she’d died, I’d never received a birthday or Christmas present directly from my mother, nor from my father.

That I’d swap my life for hers in a heartbeat. Hand over the multimillion trust fund with my name on it for a slice of the life she took for granted.

But all of that was before she’d shown her true colours.

Before she’d turned her back on me and married Daniel Fucking Wallis.

The name was enough to dispel my useless reminiscing and restore righteous bitterness to its rightful place. Enough for me to hit the X that closed the page and for my hard-as-rock erection to subside.

I slammed my laptop shut and veered from my desk. Across the bay my gaze flitted past skyscrapers and Singapore’s breathtaking Gardens by the Bay, with its hanging gardens and fifty-metre-tall supertrees, to the one building I’d placed my personal stamp on.

Originally named The Diamond Bay, but later changed to The Sylph, a better fitting name.

An iconic building already racking up international architectural awards.

My baby. My special once-in-a-lifetime project.

The one my ex-best friend wanted a piece of.

Savannah might not be my enemy in the true sense of the word but, after her singeing betrayal and dismissal of me from her life, we weren’t friends any longer. After my parents and family, she’d been the third and final strike.

My days of accommodating foibles and betrayals were behind me. She needed to be set straight on that score once and for all.

By this time tomorrow she would know in no uncertain terms that it was a mistake to resurface, to attempt to touch a place in my life that belonged on a crap pile of history.

I should’ve arranged lunch in my office just as I’d planned.

I knew I’d made a mistake even before the buzzer sounded in my Marina Bay penthouse apartment. I’d talked myself into the argument that geography didn’t matter.

Straight. Sharp. To the point before zàijiàn. Sayonara. Goodbye.

Easily accomplished in any language and as effective here as in my office half a mile away. So I’d arranged for my executive chef to prepare lunch here.

In my private space.

Where she could read into it. Where signs of my existence were everywhere. Where everything now seemed…way too personal.

Clever, clever Bryce.

I grimaced at the very vocal inner voice and pressed the button that activated my private lift. The ding sounded in seconds. My stomach muscles tightened as I pulled the door open and awaited my first glimpse of Savannah in three and a half years.

The lift doors parted.

My first reaction was a filthy curse at the internet for the shoddy portrayal of the woman who would turn heads wherever she went. Because the real-life version was so much better than the pitiful digital imitation.

Vibrant. Vivacious. So fucking beautiful.

Dressed in a blush-pink floaty top and skin-tight, chocolate-coloured leather trousers, she was a magnificent vision, powerful enough to slacken my jaw before I caught myself and pressed my lips into appropriately neutral, downright unfriendly lines. Her curvy hips and endless legs were balanced on sky-high heels matching her trousers and, with that combined with her bouncy curls and flawless make-up, I felt my breathing fracture into useless silent hiccups as I stared.

Mine was the only apartment on this floor, a request I’d worked into the architect’s plans when I’d built the luxury complex. It meant that, with over seventeen thousand square feet to play with, the distance from the lift to my front door was substantial. Long enough to broadcast any nerves from my visitor.

There were none.

She effortlessly projected an ingrained confidence and inner strength I’d secretly envied for a long time before finding my own rightful place in the world. She’d exuded that same vibe on her debut runway show, earned herself positive adoration and cemented herself on the fashion landscape in one fell swoop.

That had been my one and only attendance of her show, and I’d silently watched, smiled proudly and applauded her then.

I wasn’t applauding now as I watched Savannah saunter towards me, that heart-stopping smile curving her luscious lips.

I stayed put, let her come closer, looked deeper into her stunning eyes to spot the first signs of wariness.

Three feet from me, she stopped. ‘Hello, Bryce.’

I shoved my hands into my pockets and narrowed my eyes, almost deluding myself that minimising my vision would lessen her physical impact. ‘Hi, yourself.’

‘It’s good to see you,’ she murmured and I gritted my jaw against the evocative effect of her voice. Warm honey. Sultry nights. Hot tangled sheets. The stuff of a thousand wet dreams.

All forbidden best-friend territory.

Except we weren’t best friends any more. Hell, we weren’t even friends.

So I raised an eyebrow, deliberately, but didn’t answer. The faintest flush stained her cheeks.

A little appeased at that reaction, I waved towards the open door. ‘Come in. Lunch is just about ready and I need to get back to work within the hour.’

She studied me for one second longer, either reacquainting herself with my face or assessing my mood before walking past me into my personal domain. My involuntary swallow at the rich, flowery scent that trailed her was annoying but I gave myself a pass, extracting a hand from my pocket long enough to shut the door before I jammed it back into safety.

I arrived in the living room to find her examining every square inch of it. Yeah, definitely the wrong move, bringing her here. When she was done, she faced me with another tentative smile.

‘Your place is amazing. Very stylish. Very…suave.’

I nodded briskly, totally dismissing the pulse of warmth that attempted to steal through me. ‘Thanks. Would you like a drink? I have white wine chilling. Or I can offer you something else?’ No reason not to be civil before the takedown began.

She shook her head. ‘White wine is fine, thank you.’

My living room was a wide, open space with the dining table tucked beneath a slanted floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Currently at a setting that dulled the blinding sun’s rays by a fraction, the glass threw back a dozen perfect reflections. Through one, I saw her staring after me as I went to the silver ice bucket set up on its pedestal next to the dining table. Saw her avert her gaze as I plucked the Chateauneuf from the ice and turned around. I uncorked the bottle, poured two glasses and returned to the living room.

‘Sit down, Savannah.’

Watchful honey-gold eyes ringed with lush eyelashes met mine as she accepted the wine. ‘Are you sure you want me to?’

I froze. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I wasn’t imagining it. You’re cold. And distant. And seriously pissed off with me for some reason. So why invite me to lunch, Bryce?’ she demanded.

One thing I’d forgotten about her. Savvie always shot from the hip, no holds barred. But I was determined to do this on my terms. I shrugged. ‘It seemed as good a time as any to set a few things straight.’

She tensed. ‘Things like what?’

I shook my head. ‘Not until we’ve eaten.’

‘I’m not sure I want to break bread with someone who’s going to spend the whole meal glaring at me.’

‘You’re a grown woman, Savannah. I’m sure you can take it.’

‘I can. But do I want to? There’s such a thing as free will, you know?’ she challenged without losing an ounce of warm seduction from her voice.

It really was the most maddening thing.

Irritated, I shrugged again. ‘You’re the one who reached out. You’re the one who wanted to see me. And unless I’m mistaken you want something from me, correct?’

She opened her mouth, most probably to deny my crisp assessment. Something stopped her response, something apprehensive that raised my hackles. ‘Fine. Let’s eat,’ she replied abruptly, heading across the room before I could respond, but she paused when she reached the table.

The table was set at perpendicular angles, one place at the head and the other at ninety degrees. I dragged my gaze from the tight, plump globes of her arse and the waist I knew I could span with my hands, and pulled her seat out. After casting another furtive glance at me, she set her suede clutch on the table and sat down.

I took the other seat, aware that neither of us had taken a sip of our wine. Again she latched on to my thoughts, reminding me of her uncanny ability to do so from our youth. ‘Is it worth making a toast to a reunion or am I wasting my breath?’

I snapped out my pristine napkin with unnecessary force before draping it across my lap. ‘Sure, I’ll drink to something. Go ahead and make a toast.’

She stared at me a taut few seconds. ‘To old friends and acquaintances?’

‘Is that a toast or a question?’

My chef’s arrival in that moment from the kitchen with the first course stalled her answer. My brief to the chef had been simple—my guest loved everything except string beans and had no allergies. The rest I’d left to his culinary expertise. He must have done his own homework because he’d pulled out the stops. The seafood starter smelled incredible even before he’d placed it on the table.

‘Oh, lobster thermidor! My favourite,’ Savvie gushed when the dish was uncovered, eliciting a wide, slavishly happy smile from my usually pompous Michelin-starred chef.

‘Bon appétit, mademoiselle. And if you wish for anything else, don’t hesitate to let me know.’

I swallowed an irritated snort. Jacques was only half French and grew up in Michigan but he loved to emphasise his accent in the presence of a beautiful woman. I uncovered my own dish as Savvie picked up her fork. ‘I suppose we can drink to good wine and great food?’

‘Why the hell not?’

She tensed, her eyes flashing at me. ‘Bryce…’

I reached forward with my glass, clinked hers and took a large gulp. ‘Let’s not invite indigestion to a great meal, shall we? Jacques seems taken with you. You don’t want to upset him, do you?’

‘I don’t want to upset you. You’re more important to me.’

The unexpected response disarmed me for all of two seconds before I rallied. ‘Am I? If I’m so important why have you done such a bang-up job of avoiding me for the last three years? Tell me, if it hadn’t been for that prime piece of real estate you currently covet, would I have heard from you at all?’ I asked with every scrap of bitterness broiling in my gut.

And watched all the warmth leave her face. ‘You think I reconnected with you because of the lease?’ she asked through stiff lips.

‘Didn’t you? Perhaps you should go back and read your email. See how many lines referred to me and how many stated what you need from me.’

Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. ‘I was wrong. You haven’t just become cold, Bryce. You’ve also turned nasty.’

The barbs bounced off me. ‘I state things as they are. Sugar-coating is for little boys and girls. If that’s too much for you to handle, we can end this right now.’

Eyes one shade darker with an emotion I didn’t feel like examining stared back at me for several taut seconds. Then she picked up her fork. ‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’m going to eat this starter, Bryce, because you’re right, I don’t want to upset your chef. And because for whatever reason he’s known to prepare one of my favourite dishes even without having met me before. After I do it justice, we’re going to settle whatever it is that’s bugging you—’

‘Are you really going to sit there and plead ignorance, Savannah?’

She flinched. ‘I’m not going to accept blame for anything until the charges are spelt out. But if you think I don’t have a few bones to pick with you too, think again, Bryce James Mortimer.’

For some absurd reason, hearing her say my full name made my stomach flip. Followed swiftly by a twitch in my trousers.

I took another sip of wine, watched as she tackled a bite of succulent lobster before washing it down with a mouthful of wine. Watched her swallow with a little hum of pleasure, a habit she seemingly hadn’t curbed.

‘Is that so?’

‘Hmm, very much so. Now, shut up for a minute and let me enjoy my food.’

She forked another bite of juicy lobster, brought it to her mouth and wrapped her plump lips around it.

Then closed her eyes and moaned with zero shame.

I cursed that thick heft of lust that dropped into my groin and wrapped itself sinuously around my cock. With a disgruntled shift in my seat, I set my glass down and picked up my own cutlery. In silence we polished off the starter, and I watched her charm the chef with effusive thanks as he cleared away and hurried off to fetch the main course.

The main course of creamy chicken risotto with shaved truffles went down a treat with her too, while my appetite dwindled in contrast, and I was staring at Savvie’s lips when she opened them after the last bite and said the one word that knocked dread into my stomach. ‘Truth.’

CHAPTER TWO

Savvie

THE MAN I’D called my best friend until a dizzying series of events dissolved the title like sugar in hot water stared at me dispassionately. It was a good thing I’d finished my meal or I’d have lost my appetite. The look wasn’t just in his eyes. It seeped through every shrug, every curl of lips I’d once thought were the most perfectly created set of lips on earth. Every indifferent sip of excellent wine.

I looked deeper, pathetically desperate to find something else. Something more. A reminder of those semi-carefree years when we’d talk on the phone for hours, sleep for an hour and resume conversations the moment we saw one another in person.

But the man I knew had been replaced by a harder, edgier version of a Bryce Mortimer who’d been hard and edgy and cynical to start off with. I’d only fooled myself into thinking our friendship had softened those hard edges, that being around me and my eclectic family he’d believed was perfect had smoothed a few jagged spikes embedded by his family and his emotionally stunted upbringing.

More fool me.

For the longest time, I’d hoped and prayed, hinted and whispered, while silently screaming, See me. Me. Choose me.

Bryce had seen. And concluded I wasn’t enough.

Nothing and no one would ever be enough. It’d taken me far too long to accept that. Even longer to get over it. All he’d ever wanted was low-maintenance friendship, something to take the edge off his hectic social and dysfunctional family life. And stupidly, I’d forced myself to fit the mould, to be whatever I needed to be to stay in his life. Unfortunately by doing that, I’d almost lost myself. And yes, a part of me hated Bryce for it.

Well, he’d made it clear he was all about settling scores.

I had a few of my own to put to bed.

‘Truth,’ I repeated after I refused dessert and the chef had departed.

He sipped his drink, then gave a wry smile as he lowered it. ‘You’ve always been terrible at this game. You’re supposed to give me two options, remember?’

I remembered. Truth or Dare had always been our game. I’d loved it a little too much because it’d skated close to secret desires I’d tried to suppress for a long time. ‘What’s the point when you always choose dare?’

He shrugged. ‘Dares are way more exciting.’

‘Why? What’s so wrong with choosing truth every now and then?’

He tensed ever so slightly. ‘Sadly, the truth means different things to different people.’

‘Not to me, and you know that.’ He didn’t answer. Now it was my turn to tense. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Leave it.’

‘Leave what? I haven’t even asked you anything yet.’

‘Exactly,’ he replied tightly. ‘And already you’re getting bent out of shape. So let’s drop whatever it is you think you want to know before things get more fucked, shall we?’

‘More fucked? So you know things are fucked?’

He grimaced and for some reason stared at my mouth for an eternity before his gaze swept away. ‘You know the one thing I haven’t missed about you? This dog-with-a-bone inability to let things be.’

Maybe he was right and I needed to let things go. But I’d let too many things go for far too long. First by being too afraid to ever dig beneath the surface with Bryce to what I’d really wanted. Then with Dan and all the signs I should’ve heeded when things had started to go bad and he’d turned from sarcastically cruel to deliberately verbally abusive. Then the one thing I’d never thought would slip through my fingers—my friendship with Bryce.

I watched my best friend now. Correction, my ex-best friend. Outwardly, he appeared unaffected but years-long experience had taught me that his still waters ran deep and dangerous. He was also uncomfortable about something.

Something my instinct pushed me not to let go.

‘Truth,’ I demanded for a third time.

‘Fine,’ he griped, with less heat than a minute before.

‘How long have you held this…grudge?’

He didn’t hesitate. ‘Three a half years, give or take.’

My heart dropped to my heels.

A large part of me had hoped he’d do the quintessential English thing and reply that of course he didn’t hold a grudge. That I was being silly. That his cold email and general attitude were my overactive imagination.

But they weren’t. His stark words landed and burrowed deep, robbing me of breath until I tightened my gut against the acute loss. Until I reminded myself that he’d absented himself, deliberately, for much longer than those three-plus years.

‘Then why am I here?’ I asked. ‘Why not tell me to piss off if you don’t care any more?’

‘Because you’ve always been as stubborn as a mule when you get an idea into your head. Anyone else who believed I was cold and distant would’ve taken their business elsewhere. Instead here you are, thinking you can turn this around. Or it because you want to lend credence to the assertion that I’m important to you?’

His tone chafed. ‘It wasn’t a lie.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

Irritation snapped my spine straight. ‘Watch it, Bryce, or you’ll seriously piss me off with that tone that suggests I’m lying. You don’t want to believe it, that’s up to you and that cynicism you wear like a second skin. I know my truth. As for the implication that I have ulterior motives for not taking my business elsewhere, you’re right. And why should I? I checked out your place before coming here. It’s perfect for my needs. So pardon me for not wanting to cut off my nose to spite my face.’

He appeared nonplussed for a moment. ‘Fine. Calm down. Are you quite done?’

‘No.’ I took a large gulp of my wine, and totally denied it was for Dutch courage, even though it was. ‘I want another truth, Bryce.’

His lips tightened but he didn’t forestall me. Just fixed those signature piercing hazel Mortimer eyes that had the uncanny ability to sink hooks into me, and waited me out.

‘Why did you come to my wedding?’

His glass clicked sharply onto the table and his tension grew. ‘You know why I came. Because you sent me a bloody gold-embossed invitation. Because I was your friend.’

‘My best friend. A best friend who never bothered to RSVP. A friend who turned up almost an hour late without so much as a phone call and then left thirty minutes after the ceremony.’

‘Right, so I’m a mannerless bastard. I’m sure you’ll find it within that over-generous heart of yours to forgive me at some point.’

‘Oh, please. You don’t give a rat’s arse whether I forgive you or not. And what’s that supposed to mean, over-generous?’

He shrugged again. ‘You were always giving to a fault. And very early on in our friendship I remember you pointing out to me that we balanced each other out because I was selfish to a fault. It stands to reason that you’ll forgive me for any atrocities, no?’

‘People change, Bryce. I’m not that gullible person you think me to be any more.’

He frowned, then pointed an index finger at me. ‘I never said you were gullible.’

I sighed. ‘You don’t have to spell it out—’

‘No, rosebud, don’t do that. Don’t put words in my mouth. You know I’d have no problem calling you gullible if I thought you were.’

Something inside me clenched tight at the endearment. God, how long had I waited to hear it again? How often had I heard it in my dreams? ‘Well, I don’t forgive you, then. My generosity doesn’t stretch to making allowances for you barely showing up for me on that day.’

‘That day? You mean the most important, most magical day of your life, don’t you? The day when all your dreams came true?’

His sneer cut me sharp and deep.

And yet I couldn’t scream the yes that should’ve come readily to me. Because the day hadn’t been magical. Not by a long shot. And it wasn’t just because of Bryce’s barely-there attendance, although that too had contributed to the curious hollow in my stomach. I’d woken that morning, like all the days before, with doubts. Doubts which I’d let a smooth-talking Dan sweep away with promises of the one thing he knew I yearned for. Acceptance. I’d believed every yarn he’d spun. Every promise broken with a glib, sugar-coated excuse. Right until the scales had been cruelly ripped from my eyes.

The reminder both hurt and angered me now. And justified or not, some part of me held Bryce responsible for it. He’d been my crutch until I’d needed him most. Then he’d simply…walked away.

‘Just tell me, Bryce. Don’t pick now to be a damned gentleman and spare me from whatever it is you’re too afraid to spit out!’ I knew taunting him was dangerous. He’d changed. We both had. He no longer even tried to mask his feelings behind dry, acerbic wit.

When his eyes met mine, I knew whatever was coming would be unvarnished. But still I held his gaze, daring him with mine. ‘Truth,’ I insisted, girding my loins nevertheless.

His face turned hard and bleak but no less breathtaking for its austerity. ‘You really want to know? I came to find out whether you were really going through with it. Whether, after what you knew about Dan, you would still go anywhere near that bastard, never mind letting him put a ring on your finger.’

My gut turned to ice, which was curious because several inches below that the reminder of what had happened three nights before my wedding between Bryce and me was sending white-hot heat shooting into my pussy.

‘And that was the only reason you came? To see whether I would compound the mistake you thought I was making by marrying him?’ The whispered words left my lips with muted hope shrouding them. A hope that maybe he’d prove me wrong this time. Indicate that I’d been foolish to fear that deep down the reason I’d clung to friendship while secretly wishing for more wasn’t because he wouldn’t want more. That friendship wasn’t all we’d ever have.

And that I was desperate enough to cling tight to that rather than have nothing…because there was more.

‘Why else, rosebud?’ he asked softly. A little too softly. As if he knew the chaos running wild and unfettered through me. As if taunting me over it. He’d always been so good at that. Now, though, there was a dangerous edge to it that… God, turned me on.

Jesus.

I shook my head. A moment later, he stilled my movement by leaning forward to capture my chin in his hand.

‘You seem to be on some sort of journey of self-discovery for both of us, so let’s have it. Why else do you think I put a business deal I’d been working on for months on hold to fly five thousand miles to your wedding?’ he asked.

My tongue slid out almost of its own accord. Licked my lower lip. His gaze followed the slow, languorous movement with eyes that grew steadily heated.

After a moment when words still failed to form in my throat, his eyes rose to capture mine. ‘Would it be because the same night I warned you not to go back to Dan the Dickhead because he wanted you just for your money, you nodded that beautiful head and used that indecently sexy voice to reassure me that it was over? Did you not give me your word that you would end it?’

‘Bryce…’

‘There it is,’ he breathed. ‘That was the same tone you used that night. The one that curls around my cock and strokes me until I’m hard as a fucking rock every single time.’

My jaw dropped. ‘Bryce!’ My heart kicked at the fact that we were talking, really talking about the stuff we’d always seemed to skirt around. Even if it was just about the physical. For now.

‘You wanted honesty, rosebud. You assured me it was over, that you no longer belonged to another man, so I spread you out on my living-room floor and I finally got a taste of that incredible pussy, finally had the privilege of feeling your tightness around my fingers, of you gripping my hair as you screamed my name and came on my tongue. Only to have you go back on your promise to call off the wedding and marry the bastard three days later.’

The growled, hot words filled with deep censure robbed me of speech, shamed me and turned me on in equal measures.

His thumb rose from my chin, drifted at leisure over my lower lip as he continued to watch me with dark, hooded eyes. ‘You want to know if that changed things between us?’

I licked my lip again, my heart pounding with apprehension and a whole load of sizzling lust. ‘Did it?’

His hand dropped like a stone and he surged to his feet. ‘What the hell does it matter?’ he asked.

‘How can you ask me that? You know why it matters. You never answered my phone calls after that and I haven’t seen you for years! It’s not like you not to call me out if you think I’ve done something wrong.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘If?’

‘Fine, when. Whatever.’

He spiked his fingers through his hair. Then he threw me another of those indifferent shrugs that seemed to find the centre of my hurt with bullseye accuracy. ‘I was busy. So were you. We were both busy empire-building, if I’m not mistaken.’

I scrambled to my feet too. ‘Don’t give me that. We were never too busy for each other before…before…’

‘Stop clinging to this idealistic version of what you thought we were or would be. You want the truth? I stopped trusting you after you stopped trusting yourself. After you went against your every instinct and married that bastard.’

Hurt lanced deeper through me. ‘How dare you?’

‘Oh, come off it. I know you. Sometimes maybe more than you know yourself. You think I didn’t see the doubt on your face when I walked into that church as you promised to honour and cherish? Not so deep down, you knew he was wrong for you, that you were making a mistake. And you married him anyway.’

‘So you chose to punish me for it?’

He exhaled harshly. ‘Damn it, I don’t have time for this.’

‘Really, then I ask you again, why did you invite me here? I may be stubborn but I don’t trespass where I’m not wanted. If you don’t have time for me or our friendship, then why did you agree to see me? You could’ve done what you did before and ignored my email, continued your grand empire-building. So why didn’t you?’

He stilled as if my words had turned him to stone. For the longest moment, we stared at each other across the living room. Then, driven by that same instinct that had started this reckless path of discovery, I slowly made my way towards him, aware of every cell in my body, every stretch of heated skin as I’d never been before. Also aware of his intense scrutiny as his gaze raked me from head to toe and back again.

I was treading dangerous, familiar waters. The same undertow that’d sucked me in that night, three days before my wedding, when I’d thrown caution to the wind and ended up almost drowning. This thing could blow wide open, be irreparably damaged.

But then…wasn’t Bryce already claiming we were beyond repair? That in not heeding his warning and marrying Dan I’d broken our friendship? For all I knew if I walked out of this apartment I wouldn’t see him again for another three years. Or ever.

So what the hell did I have to lose? A friendship I’d treasured while wanting more, only for it to fall apart anyway?

I stopped a mere foot from him. The intensity of the emotions vibrating from him wrapped around me but I didn’t let it deter me. I’d come through a very bitter divorce with a stronger spine and steely resolve never to doubt myself again. And now he was in front of me, six feet three inches of raw masculinity and long-denied secret craving.

A craving I’d received a quick, highly addictive but maddeningly brief taste of.

‘Why did you change the venue for this meeting? Didn’t you originally ask me to come to your office?’ I modulated my voice to that tenor he’d confessed minutes ago turned him on.

As if on cue, his eyes darkened, his jaw clenching as he struggled to remain unaffected. When he swayed just that tiniest fraction towards me, I knew I had him.

For how long remained a mystery, but right now, in this moment, he was mine. And I wasn’t about to lose my chance.

‘Is it because you wanted something else besides telling me everything you think I’ve done wrong?’ I didn’t give him a chance to reply.

A simple step and I closed the gap between us. A slow tilt onto the balls of my feet and I was sliding my palms over his rock-hard abs and up his chest. I registered the fierce pounding of his heart echoing mine. Felt and revelled in it.

‘Was it because you wanted another taste of me, perhaps?’ I whispered on a soft breath right before I let my lips brush the skin beneath his earlobe.

A deep shudder powered through him. ‘What the hell are you doing, rosebud?’ he rasped.

‘Dare,’ I breathed.

‘You’re still playing the game wrong.’ His voice was a night-dark rumble, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as if he was stopping himself from reaching for me. That glimpse of power over him spurred me on.

‘Am I? Then I guess you don’t want to hear my dare?’

I dropped my head a fraction to lick at the frantic pulse beating at his throat. His next breath hissed out. ‘Just fucking say it already.’

‘I dare you to do it again. I dare you to drag me to that sofa and use your tongue and your mouth and your hands on me. Just like you did last time. See if you can work some of this…angst out of your system.’

A pure, animalistic groan rumbled from his chest. ‘And what makes you think I’ll stop at just tasting you? That I won’t demand a hell of a lot more?’

My answer emerged with more than a vein of anguish. ‘You say you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t trust you not to abandon me after this lunch either. But I know you enough to know you’ll stop when I say. And I’m telling you I’ll let you…process your charged state if that’s what you want too.’

His hands found my hips then, roughly tugging me back from my whisper-light exploration of his throat, to stare deep into my eyes. ‘You think you still know me that well?’ he asked darkly.

Maybe not, but some things never changed and Bryce had more integrity in his little finger than most men did in their whole life. ‘Guess we’ll find out. Unless you’re too scared to take the dare?’

The words were barely out of my mouth before he was plucking me off my feet, the rugby-honed body he’d achieved in his time at Cambridge making light of my considerable weight. Bryce was the first and last man who’d been able to carry me without making me self-conscious about the extra pounds I carried. And while I’d shed a good few pounds during and after my divorce, I’d never quite achieved that golden figure of perfection in my head. And lately, I’d tried to be okay with that. It was, after all, what had earned me a dream career and sustained my growing empire.

But I still had moments of anxiety, moments when the mocking taunts and cruelty broke through my often solid barriers.

They tried to do so now.

But the moment Bryce tossed me onto the sofa and speared me with his dark hazel eyes, I let thoughts of the perfect BMI and cellulite melt from my brain. Instead I gave over to the tingling filling me from the inside out, registering in my peaked nipples, the dry anticipation in my mouth and the wet desperation between my legs.

He was still super pissed from our heated conversation and my final taunt, but already the anger was receding from his eyes, replaced by something earthier, something carnal that made my pulse stutter wildly before thundering even faster.

‘You’ve always been bold. But you seem to have developed a penchant for the downright reckless.’

I toyed with the long ties of my favourite wraparound top and slowly inched the hem up until a sliver of my belly was revealed. ‘I don’t see you throwing me out the door, so I’m guessing you still love a good challenge.’

A blaze flared in his eyes as he followed the path of my fingers over my taut stomach. In honour of this visit and simply because great lingerie always boosted my confidence, I’d donned one of my latest creations: fire-engine-red French knickers with delicate lace and cheeky ribbon ties and a matching balconette bra. With my reclined position, the bodice of my top had gaped to reveal my deep cleavage.

Another breath hissed from him as his eyes darted between my face, my full breasts, and the thighs I was slowly spreading. He stumbled forward and gripped the back of the sofa the moment I loosened the top to reveal the full effect of the bra and bullet-hard nipples.

‘Fuck.’ The word shot from his throat.

My gaze went its own journey, over the ripped chest I knew was hidden beneath his dark burgundy shirt to the bold outline of his cock beneath the fly of his tailored trousers. My mouth watered at the heat he was packing. Heat I’d secretly craved for as long as I could remember. But as much as I wanted to touch and explore, the need to experience what he’d given me that night in our distant past burned even hotter.

And Bryce felt the same if the rough hands that hooked behind my knees and spread me wide were an indication. My already rough breathing turned choppier.

‘Stop playing with that tie and open your top for me,’ he said gruffly as his hands trailed over soft leather to wrap around my ankles.

With a shrug and tug, I opened it, then arched my back to give him a full and unfettered view of my ample breasts.

He swallowed, then began to tackle my trousers with a wild little light in his eyes that triggered my own arousal. I should’ve been pleased that at least in this, we seemed to be in accord, but a tight little ball of anxiety wouldn’t shift from my belly. What if we never found common ground again? What if the friendship that had been my whole world was never salvaged?

The questions evaporated when Bryce discarded my trousers and leaned forward to brace himself over me. For several seconds, he didn’t move, simply stared into my eyes. Was he thinking the same? I never found out because his eyes swept over me, singeing every inch of me until his gaze was once again riveted between my thighs.

‘Did you wear this underwear for me, rosebud?’

‘Nope. They were for me.’

He dragged his gaze from my silk-covered sex to meet mine. ‘You needed to shred my control that much?’ he muttered.

‘Maybe.’ It was a little unnerving how well he knew me. To throw him off, I trailed a manicured fingernail over one heavy breast to my lace-covered nipple and slowly circled it. He caught and mangled one corner of his lower lip between his teeth as his gaze latched onto the tightened peak. After watching for a tense few seconds, he brushed my hand away and replaced it with his. Sensation screamed through me as he fondled me, his gaze darting between my face and my boobs, avidly absorbing my reactions, before he dropped his head to suck lace and flesh into his mouth.

My hot little gasp eroded my intention to tell him that, technically, my boobs weren’t part of the deal. That his task was situated much farther south. But the havoc he was wreaking was too thrilling to deny, his fingers plucking at the nipple he wasn’t sucking, a sweet torture that dragged a keening moan from my throat, and I lost the battle to curl my hands over his broad shoulders, to take a bite out of his gorgeousness.

God, he was far too good at this. My panties were already damp and he wasn’t anywhere near my pussy.

My fingers tunnelled into his hair, holding him prisoner as his teeth grazed over one aching bud. Like a willing magnet, my back arched into his ministrations, desperate for more.

He raised his head a fraction. ‘Tell me this thing has a front fastening. I don’t want to ruin it.’

Breath in my throat, I shook my head.

‘Bloody hell,’ he growled, then dipped his hands into the lace and scooped out my boobs.

The erotic sensation of my double Ds spilling out made us both groan.

‘Christ, you’re so fucking lush,’ he muttered, slashes of colour staining his chiselled cheekbones. ‘There isn’t an inch of you I don’t want to taste.’

With needy hands I dragged him back, crying out when he latched onto my peak again. The suction was even more intense, tongue and teeth coming into deeper play.

‘God, yes,’ I gasped as he mercilessly tormented me.

Maybe the crazy depth of sensation careening through me was because I hadn’t had good sex for so long.

By our first wedding anniversary, Dan had been hard-pressed to perform the bare minimum. By our second, we’d been down to the cursory once-a-month three-minute humping in the shower to convince ourselves we had something remotely resembling a marriage. The transition from there to divorce had been a measly miserable nine months.

Or maybe I was feeling like this because this was Bryce. An older, edgier version of the boy who’d blazed a memorable trail in the public school I’d despised until his arrival had made my existence bearable, the rugby-loving hunk I’d hung out with in Cambridge, and the man who’d been my best friend for years before he’d removed himself from my life.

Whatever the reason for my heightened emotions, a particularly clever twist of his fingers dragged me back to the present, to the heated blaze of his eyes fixed on me as he tormented me.

I gasped again as he lowered his head, flicked his tongue brazenly over my wet flesh and then blew on it.

‘Bryce…’

He kept hold of one globe as he trailed kisses down my midriff and belly to the edge of my panties. Crouched over me like some dark overlord, he scoured his nails lightly over the skin above the panty line, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. He repeated the action a few times, his other hand still tormenting my nipple, and each time I felt myself getting shamefully wetter.

By the time his fingers dipped beneath the scrap of silk, I’d forgotten to breathe.

One bold finger glided between my folds and he groaned. ‘You’re so fucking wet. You’re close, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I panted, my hips lifting off the sofa to meet his next glide.

He circled slow and sure, then dragged wetness to my clit. At the first touch, I let out another cry. He removed his hands from my body, repositioned himself with one knee on the floor while dragging my panties down my legs. Tossing the knickers aside, he spread me wide, his gaze zeroed in on my pink, glistening flesh. A rough breath shuddered from him.

‘Ah, rosebud. You’re still as beautiful as I remember.’ The quiet, almost reverent murmur made my heart lurch and, with his gaze fixed on my face, he slowly slid his middle finger inside me. ‘And just as bloody tight.’ He buried his digit to the hilt, then flicked it upward.

‘Oh, God.’ My thighs shook as pleasure rained through me.

Slowly, he finger-fucked me, his breaths harsher the louder I moaned. ‘Is that the spot?’ His voice was thick and hoarse.

‘Yes!’

He gave a low, masculine laugh, then proceeded to pile up the torturous pleasure. One finger became two, but, although the pressure was deeply satisfying, it wasn’t enough.

‘More,’ I demanded. ‘Put your mouth on me.’

He shifted again, dropping his head between my legs. My fingers immediately buried themselves in his hair, a part of me terrified he would stop.

He didn’t. And at the first glide of Bryce’s tongue over my clit, I screamed. By the third glide I was pleasure blind. But not deaf to the decadent sounds of his fingers inside me or his pained groans as I grew wetter, screamed my way to the edge and flung myself over it as he sucked my clit into his mouth.

Reality returned in a cascade of harsh breathing. When I opened my eyes, Bryce was standing at the window, his back to me, his shoulders rising and falling in a rapid movement that attested to his scramble for control.

Tension screamed in the distance between us as I hastily fixed my clothes.

When I was reasonably decent, I exhaled. Now what? I’d dared him and he’d gone for it. But from his rigid stance, nothing much had changed, except maybe for the worse.

I went for the direct approach. ‘Bryce?’

He turned without answering, his gaze heated but hooded.

‘Is our friendship worth salvaging or am I wasting my time trying?’

His shoulders stiffened harder. ‘You just exploded back into my life, rosebud. I’ll need a minute to consider that.’

My shoulders slumped. ‘I guess that’s that, then. I sent you a save-the-date for the launch. It’s going ahead whether I get a lease in your building or not. So I guess I’ll either see you there or I won’t?’

He shoved his fingers through hair I’d gloriously dishevelled, his eyes still a touch wild as they roved over me. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. You can sleep soundly tonight knowing you’ve proved whatever point you wanted to prove. Let that be enough for now.’

‘And if it’s not? What if I want my friend back?’

He stared at me in that unique way that always made my skin feel tight and raw and exposed. That way that said he saw and knew much more than he should. But while in the past I would’ve dropped my gaze, mumbled something along the lines of never mind or whatever, this time I met his gaze full on.

Dared him to say the words I knew in my heart would flay and wound. He didn’t disappoint me.

‘The guy you knew is gone. You’re doing us both a disservice by clinging to the past. It’s time to move on.’

I didn’t speak as he slowly strolled back to where I stood, praying my eyes wouldn’t mist with the tears prickling wildly.

‘My executive assistant will let you know if I can make it. If I can’t, have a great opening. I’m sure you’ll blow their socks off.’

‘Bryce—’

‘I have a meeting to get to. I’m sure you can find your own way out.’

And then, just as he’d done on my wedding day, he calmly walked out of the living room, the deafening silence left by his departure confirming what I already knew.

We’d crossed a line that night three years ago when I was forced to face the fact that the dream I was secretly chasing would never come true. That Bryce would never belong to me the way I fully and desperately wanted him to. That walking away instead of clinging to false hope had been the right thing to do then, and probably was now.

That really, when it came down to it, he didn’t want or need me. I was the girl who’d made him laugh when he was bored, who’d challenged his intellect and dug him out of his funk when the family drama he’d always been so tight-lipped about drove him into deep, scary silences.

Basically, I’d been useful as a crutch until he hadn’t needed me any more. Then when I’d needed him the most, he’d simply…walked away.

I’d seen the signs long before Bryce had left for good. The anguish of that distance, of being thrust farther and farther into the fringes of his life was what had made me give in that night, then made me deliver a promise I hadn’t been able to keep in the long run, my need to belong sending me down the wrong path.

And as much as I wanted to blame him, the one thing Bryce had never misled me on was that he would never become something more to me than a friend. No, that layer of torment was all down to me and my foolish yearning.

With a thick swallow, I crossed his stunning living room to retrieve my clutch. I paused for a beat, toying with the idea to confront him wherever he’d disappeared to, then dismissed it.

The best way to tackle an intransigent Bryce was to let him cool off. But if nothing else, this particular dare had proved one thing.

Bryce was still hot for me. I could either test the boundaries of this strange new world we found ourselves in, or heed his warning and back off.

In the lift, I leaned back and let a small smile slip free while the after-effects of the incredible orgasm trailed through my bloodstream as I contemplated my next move.

Twenty minutes later, I was back in the apartment I’d rented for the duration of my stay in Singapore. Padding on bare feet to the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of wine and sipped, my mind whirling with possibilities.

He was right. We weren’t the same people we were three years ago.

But he was very much a man. And I was a woman with needs who was done relying on the cosmos to dictate my destiny.

Friendship or sex?

Friendship and sex. I’d settled for one over the other once upon a time.

This time…

My heart lurched wildly as it accepted my truth.

This time I wanted both.

CHAPTER THREE

Bryce

‘MR MORTIMER, I have Miss Knight on the line for you again?’

I smothered a groan and raked a hand across my face. A small, non-disgruntled part of me was thankful she hadn’t kept that bastard’s name. I wasn’t sure how I would’ve handled hearing her addressed as Mrs Wallis.

Nevertheless, her persistence had grown beyond just a pain in my arse. If I weren’t frustrated and in danger of dying from blue balls, I’d admire her tenacity. She’d called every hour during business hours for the last couple of days. I was running out of excuses and my EA was using that put-upon voice that said come Christmas she would be expecting a hefty bonus.

I didn’t want to lose Tandy. As an executive assistant she was second to none. And normally, she was good at dispatching unwanted calls. So why not now? What the hell was stopping me from instructing her to bar all calls from Savannah?

Because she was under strict instructions to pay special attention to all clients with a stake in The Sylph. And since my commercial team, without any involvement from me whatsoever, had all but fallen over themselves to fast-track her lease, she now fell firmly under that purview. And, as my commercial director had also informed me, having Savannah Knight open her flagship store in my building would garner the kind of publicity I’d be a fool to reject. So whether I liked it or not, she was now a top Mortimer Group client with access to me whenever she chose.

Access she was fully capitalising on.

‘Sir?’

With a grimace, I hit the intercom button. ‘Put her through.’

Soft breathing flowed from the phone a second later. ‘Bryce, how wonderful of you to take my call,’ she murmured in that sultry voice that came second in the instant-hard-on-achieving status only next to those sexy little whimpers she made when she was fully turned on.

Fucking hell.

I gritted my teeth and thumped my head against the leather headrest. I’d jacked off to the sound of that breathy voice fifteen minutes after I’d heard her leave my apartment after our doomed lunch ten days ago.

Since then, I’d masturbated a hell of a lot more times than I could recall in recent memory. Each time I reassured myself I had finally got her out of my system, I’d hear that voice in my head, demanding, ‘Put your mouth on me.’ And I’d be rock hard all over again.

‘Seriously? You’re giving me the silent treatment? When you said you’d changed, I thought you meant in the direction of evolution, not a regression to adolescence.’

‘What do you want, rosebud?’

It was disconcerting how the nickname I’d coined for her rosebud lips fell so easily from mine. How calling her name while I jacked off in the shower felt so bloody right and hellishly wrong at the same time.

‘Besides your overdue response to my invitation? We’ll leave that for now. I have a more urgent problem.’

My back stiffened as a fierce urge to demand what it was so I could fix it scrambled up my spine. Had she missed me? Was she calling to demand a repeat of what happened on my sofa? The sofa I hadn’t been able to sit on without recalling her stretched out on it in all her dark golden glory, her beautiful back arched and her juicy lips parted in delicious pants?

‘Shoot,’ I answered with more vim than I’d intended.

‘I put in a request for a Venetian chandelier for the main showroom a week ago and I haven’t heard back from your people yet as to whether it’s arrived or when it’ll be installed. It’s the centrepiece of the store. Everything else revolves around it,’ she stated crisply.

I struggled to change lanes from lurid to business, unwillingly admitting that Business Savvie turned me on just as much as Sexy Savvie. ‘I employ an excellent team. It’s on their radar. I’m sure they’ll get around to it—’

‘I’m afraid that’s just not good enough. I’m paying extra for an expedited service and I was assured things would be handled smoothly and in a timely manner. I don’t feel efficiently or smoothly handled, Bryce,’ she murmured, evoking another bout of racy images that made me bite back a groan. ‘In fact I’m feeling the opposite. And not in a good way.’

I wanted to handle her in a great many ways, all guaranteed to leave her with that rosy afterglow and breathlessness I couldn’t get out of my damned head.

‘I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of your lease. I’ll get Jerry to personally give you a call with an update. Will that suffice?’

‘I called your site director this afternoon. His son is having his tonsils taken out today. The poor man was distraught. I didn’t think it was fair to bother him.’

Damn it, I’d forgotten about Jerry’s email telling me exactly that this morning. The man had done a stellar job managing a team of over three thousand workers getting my building ready and within a whisker of the projected schedule. It wasn’t his fault his son had fallen ill. And none of the contractors would be around at this time on a Friday evening to confirm her request.

Even if they were, I couldn’t very well pass her off to anyone but Jerry. The Mortimer Group was renowned for its top-notch reputation. I’d met every single one of my long-and short-term investors, taken a personal interest in their wants and desires.

Like my building, my singular attention to detail was what had made me a success. There were several rungs in the hierarchy before a client would normally request my personal input but, once they did, it went against my principles to pass them back down the chain or fob them off simply because the client at the end of the phone happened to make my cock react as if I were fifteen instead of thirty-one.

Yeah, time to stop hiding and man up, Bryce.

‘I can be there in half an hour. Can you make it there by then?’

‘I’m already here, Bryce. I’ll be waiting.’

She rang off before I could reply. I dropped the phone back into its cradle, my bloodstream already humming as the pressure behind my fly grew.

Jesus.

Where the hell was my common sense? You’d think I’d learned my lesson after the one person I’d trusted had let me down so spectacularly. I might not have given her the unsavoury details about my family life and especially my parents—simply because I never discussed that…ever—but she’d known enough about dysfunctional Mortimers. Enough that I’d thought I could trust her with what our safe space meant. But the moment some idiot had clicked his fingers, she’d trotted off without so much as a Goodbye, Bryce.

When that same idiot had shown all the signs of being a complete and utter bastard much like my father, I’d tried to warn her. She’d lied to my face, demonstrating that the woman I’d thought I knew and trusted was just a figment of my imagination.

What the hell had Dan given her that I couldn’t?

You know exactly what! She never made it a secret.

I smothered the voice in my head and rose from the desk. What the hell did it matter now? She’d broken a trust that had probably been only one-sided to begin with, all so she could chase some stupid dream of happily-ever-after. A dream I’d tried to tell her was a figment of her imagination.

And, like me, she’d been left with a pile of ashes. Only problem was, our friendship had been sacrificed in those flames too. Worse thing was, even after all that, a part of me had yearned to reach out, to ease the pain she must’ve been feeling during her acrimonious divorce.

Or perhaps I was projecting…

Whatever. I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth, made my way to the door and dismissed Tandy for the evening.

Downstairs, I slid behind the wheel of my Ferrari and lost myself for a moment in the smooth throb of the engine.

All too soon I was pulling up to The Sylph.

Normally this was the moment I took a minute or three to look up at the building I’d poured my heart and soul into. The steel and blue-green smoked glass masterpiece that had taken two long years, singular focus and some deep, untapped desire to leave something beautiful, something memorable behind.

Without looking I knew the structure in the pleasing shape of a slender woman’s torso, half turned, perhaps to view her lover over her shoulder, would be gleaming beautifully against the dying rays of the setting sun. That soon lights from within and those reflected from surrounding buildings across the bay would bathe it in a stunning silhouette that drew awed gasps.

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