The Party Starts at Midnight. Lucy King

course not,’ said Leo with a short laugh that didn’t sound as dismissive as he’d intended.

      ‘You did.’

      ‘Don’t be absurd.’

      ‘I’m not the one being absurd. You did. You really did. And you claim to prefer subtlety.’

      As this was a conversation he really didn’t want to be having Leo ran a hand along his jaw, shifted his attention to the party going on in front of them and, in a probably pointless effort at distraction, said, ‘Did I mention how great this place looks? Excellent tree.’

      ‘Forget the decorations,’ said Jake, sounding astounded, incredulous and appalled. ‘How on earth could you think I’d ever do something like that?’

      Leo arched an eyebrow and swung his gaze back to his brother. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’

      Jake looked as stunned as if he’d thumped him in the stomach. ‘What?’

      ‘Remember the stripper?’

      ‘That was twelve years ago,’ said his brother, after a moment. ‘For a mate for his eighteenth birthday, and he’d specifically requested it. Don’t you think I might have matured a bit since then?’ He ran his hands through his hair and then shook his head in disbelief. ‘Jeez,’ he said, blowing out a breath. ‘Thanks for that. I think I might be seriously offended.’

      ‘I think Abby might have been too.’

      There was another stunned silence as Jake stared at him apparently briefly lost for words. ‘You confronted her with it?’

      Leo shrugged, keeping the cringing very firmly on the inside. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. Half asleep, in fact. Disorientated. Like I said, jet lag.’

      ‘Not an excuse.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘How did she take it?’

      ‘How do you think?’

      Jake, who wasn’t nearly as good as Leo at containing his emotions, winced. ‘Did you apologise?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And explain?’

      ‘I didn’t get the chance. She didn’t stick around.’

      Now he thought about it, he hadn’t had a woman flee from him quite so fast since the excruciating afternoon exactly five years ago when Lisa had raced back down the aisle the wrong way, leaving him standing, jilted, at the altar. But he could hardly blame Abby. He’d probably been lucky to get away without a slap to the face.

      ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Jake.

      ‘Neither am I.’

      There was a moment’s silence during which Jake, presumably struggling to come to terms with what had happened, gave his head a couple more shakes in disbelief. Then he sobered, fixed Leo with a look that spoke volumes and said, ‘So do you think it’s going to be a problem?’

      ‘Not if I can help it,’ said Leo darkly as a pair of doors swung open and dinner was announced.

CHAPTER THREE

      FOR SOMEONE WHO didn’t merit a moment’s thought, Leo was remarkably difficult to ignore.

      It wasn’t as if Abby had had time to daydream about him or what had happened up there in his apartment. She’d had more than enough to keep her occupied: timings to keep track of; a supper of turkey with all the trimmings followed by Christmas-pudding-flavoured ice cream to get out; the blowing of the lights on the tree that had required a couple of tricky bulb replacements; a DJ who’d spent half an hour grumbling about the inadequate positioning of his speakers and had taken ten minutes to mollify.

      Yet even though their paths hadn’t crossed, if someone asked her where he was she’d be able to tell them.

      Right now, for example, she was taking a moment to watch the heaving dance floor, and she didn’t need to look around to know that he was lounging at a table on the far side of the room, nursing a glass of whisky and looking as if he’d rather be anywhere than here, despite being the sole focus of an attractive brunette.

      It was strange. And baffling, because yes, at well over six feet tall he stood head and shoulders above almost everyone, and yes, he had that presence that had had such a troubling effect on her when she’d been within a couple of feet of him, but so what? She’d met many tall, imposing men in her line of work and she’d never had a problem with not thinking about them.

      But with Leo it was as if she were a satnav and he were her destination. When she was out of his orbit she felt oddly disorientated and a bit lost, and when she did spot him she instantly felt compelled to make her way over to him.

      The awareness was weird. Confusing. And for someone who liked to be in control of the situation at all times, not a little disconcerting. All the more so because fancying a man who was a deplorable jerk—no matter how good-looking he was—was simply downright perverse.

      But that was another thing that had been perplexing her as the evening had ticked along. If he was so tactlessly awful, wouldn’t people have been avoiding him all night? There would have been a sycophantic few, of course, but this was a party where the guests were out to enjoy themselves and she’d have thought the majority would have steered well clear.

      Yet all night he’d been surrounded. She’d seen him smiling and chatting, albeit with a faintly cool, aloof air about him, and there was no doubt that people seemed to actually like him. They’d sought him out, and then hung around. Especially the women. They still were, even now, when everything about him indicated he’d rather be left alone.

      All of which made her think that while she was pretty sure she hadn’t misheard or misinterpreted his words or the outrageous way he’d checked her out, maybe he wasn’t the man she’d assumed him to be, and therefore perhaps she was as guilty of leaping to the wrong conclusion as he was.

      Maybe he was just one of those people who took a while to wake up properly and had been a bit disorientated. Maybe there was some kind of explanation for what had happened and maybe she should have stuck around and asked for it instead of overreacting and fleeing the scene as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

      Not that it mattered. Maybes were all very well but the time for clarification was long gone. And she could find him as devastatingly attractive as she liked but nothing would ever come of it, would it?

      The guy was way out of her league, and, even if he weren’t, even if he weren’t a client, he’d made it spectacularly clear that he wasn’t interested in her, so there was no point secretly wondering what might have happened if she’d thrown caution to the wind and actually kissed him when she had the chance. No point at all, and it was therefore annoying in the extreme that the idea of it had been—and still was—buzzing around her head like some kind of manic bee.

      Abby rubbed at her temples as if that might somehow miraculously make the thought go away, but it didn’t. Perhaps actually getting on with the long list of things that still needed doing instead of dreamily and wistfully watching the dance floor, and very definitely not Leo, would.

      Pulling herself together and focusing on that mental list, she spun on her heel. And went slap bang into a tall male figure.

      ‘Oof,’ she mumbled as she recoiled off a hard chest, and a pair of hands gripped her shoulders.

      ‘Steady on.’

      Taking a moment to catch her breath as the hands released her, she stepped back and looked up into the face of Jake. And dammit if she wasn’t somehow disappointed.

      Dismissing that as completely nuts, instead Abby ran a quick check of her heart rate and her body temperature, and briefly marvelled at how Jake, in contrast to his brother,