Bought: Damsel in Distress. Lucy King

She felt a fierce urge to run her hands over them. Her eyes fell to the long brown fingers idly twirling the pen as he concentrated on the report. Compared to the speed with which he’d read the last document, this one seemed hard going. In fact, he hadn’t turned the page once, and he hadn’t underlined a single word or made any notes whatsoever. If pressed, she’d have sworn he was distracted.

      She would do the decent thing and rescue him from his torturous report by dazzling him with her conversational skills. But before she could make a start on finding out what made this enticingly enigmatic man tick, Luke shot to his feet and went to pour himself some more water.

      ‘Don’t you drink?’ she asked when he returned. She’d been merrily sipping away at her champagne since take-off, but he hadn’t touched a drop.

      ‘Not on a Friday when I’ve got meetings in the afternoon.’

      She nodded sagely. ‘Very wise. On the other hand, who arranges meetings on a Friday afternoon? It’s practically the weekend.’

      ‘I have clients in Monte Carlo. And it’s not the weekend.’

      Mmm. ‘What do you do?’

      ‘I’m a fund manager.’

      ‘Ah, interesting.’

      Luke smiled. ‘Not really. Unless you happen to have an obsession with derivatives and index futures.’

      ‘Which you do?’

      ‘I seem to have a knack for making money out of them.’

      And didn’t that neatly avoid the question? She nodded in what she hoped was a knowledgeable fashion. ‘I should imagine there are quite a few high net worth individuals in Monte Carlo.’

      Luke’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You know about high net worth individuals?’

      ‘Don’t sound so surprised. I know a little about lots of things.’

      ‘Like what?’ He linked his hands together and leaned forward.

      ‘Like how City boys like you can spend ten thousand pounds on a gold leaf cocktail,’ she said, giving him a small smile to show she was half joking.

      Luke frowned. ‘A few do. I don’t. And nor do any of my staff. They don’t have time. Plus, they know they’d be fired if they did.’

      She shuddered. Ruthless as well as gorgeous. A dangerously attractive combination.

      He shot her a sudden killer smile that had her blood racing round her body. ‘Besides, I prefer to spend my money on rescuing damsels.’

      ‘You mean there are others?’ she said, trying not to sound too curious.

      ‘Not at the moment. It’s very distressing.’

      Emily let out a burst of laughter.

      ‘What about you? What do you do?’

      ‘A bit of this, a bit of that.’ Emily smiled at the quizzical look on his face. ‘I’m a professional temp, currently resting.’ She waited. This was the moment when people usually scoffed at her, or told her what an idiot she was for not pursuing a proper career.

      Luke leaned back. ‘What made you choose to be a temp?’

      Emily was taken aback. He sounded genuinely interested. Most people assumed that she was temping until she could find a proper job. Whereas she’d made a deliberate decision to make it a career. ‘I like the flexibility. Days off when I want. It’s perfect. It gives me time to do the things I love doing.’

      He was looking at her as though she was speaking in a foreign language. ‘Such as?’

      ‘Spending time with my sister and her twins. Seeing friends, potting, that kind of thing.’

      ‘Potting?’

      ‘Potting. Making pots.’

      ‘Are you any good?’

      ‘No idea. But I don’t have to be. It’s a hobby. I do it for fun.’ That wasn’t strictly true. She’d love to make a living out of it, but she suspected she wasn’t much good. ‘Temping is really just a way of paying the bills. Funnily enough, I once worked at a fund manager’s.’

      ‘Oh? Which one?’

      ‘JT Investments. Do you know it?’

      Luke nodded. ‘I know the CEO.’

      ‘Jack Taylor? I never met him, but the work was interesting. Challenging.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s what I mean. I like the variety of the work. Meeting new people, discovering new gossip without any need to get involved in office politics. And then, just when you start thinking it’s getting a tad monotonous—which, let’s face it, most jobs are—you get to leave and try something else. It’s great.’ She grinned at him. He still wasn’t getting it, but that was all right, most people didn’t. She leaned forward. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to give me a lecture on the folly of my decision? About how unstable temping is, and how my brain must be atrophying, and that at my age I really should be sprinting up a career ladder?’

      ‘Why would I do that? You clearly enjoy what you do.’ He frowned slightly at this, as if it was an unfamiliar concept to him. ‘And it’s none of my business.’

      Emily sniffed. ‘That doesn’t stop most people.’

      He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I know...I’ve been on the receiving end of something similar.’

      ‘Really?’

      Something in his voice—bitterness, weariness, maybe—had her senses leaping to attention. ‘What would people lecture you about, I wonder?’ she said.

      In the long silent seconds while he regarded her, Emily’s heart began to beat faster.

      ‘Apparently I need more fun in my life,’ he said eventually, his tone leaving her in no doubt about what he thought of that piece of advice. ‘Apparently I work too hard.’

      ‘Do you?’

      ‘Perhaps.’

      ‘Why?’ she asked, suddenly feeling that she was entering into choppy water.

      ‘Habit,’ he said flatly.

      ‘What do you do to relax?’

      ‘Relax?’ His brows snapped together.

      ‘Yes, you know. Relax. Chill out, unwind.’

      ‘I don’t have time to relax.’

      Okaaayyy. ‘What about the fun part?’

      His eyes glittered. ‘If I needed fun in my life,’ he said, his voice rumbling over her, ‘I’d be perfectly capable of finding it.’

      The way he was looking at her, his gaze scorching over her face before resting on her mouth, set her blood to boiling. His eyes had turned the colour of the sky at midnight and his expression shifted, darkened, intensified—as if there was only one thing on his mind. Then it vanished and his face was impassive once again.

      But Emily had caught it. She hadn’t been mistaken about what exactly it was that had been disturbing him earlier.

      For that brief moment Luke had considered finding fun with her.

      Her heart pounded and her ears popped. The problem was, she mused, as the pilot’s voice advised them they were starting their descent, that once they’d landed and gone their separate ways there wasn’t anything that could be done about it.

      He should have left her at the bloody airport, thought Luke grimly, handing the porter a crisp note and watching him disappear with Emily’s suitcase.

      That would have been the sensible, logical, rational thing to do. It was a shame, then, that sense, logic and reason had taken a hike hours ago.

      ‘Are you sure this is the right