The Dare Collection: June 2018. Lauren Hawkeye

himself inside her again. What was it about her? And where could he get a shot to render himself immune?

      But the more he discovered, unearthing the conundrum that was Essie Newbold as an archaeologist scraped away a layer of ancient dirt, the more he wanted to know. Who was this woman who intrigued him so much?

      He had some answers—no wonder working for Ben, despite being overqualified, was so important to her. The need to connect with her brother shone from the vulnerable look in her eyes when she talked about him. And she wasn’t secure in their relationship, a fact confirmed by the brittle tetchiness at Ash’s clumsy comments.

      What the hell had Frank Newbold done to her? Was that what she’d meant when she’d said she was an expert at rejection?

      Well, they had an hour—plenty of time to fill in a few more blanks. He waited until she’d settled in the chair opposite his before he selected two glasses from the bar and an ice-cold bottle of white wine and then sat opposite. A small table separated them but it might as well have been a spider’s web for all the protection it afforded. And he needed as many obstacles as he could get—the struggle to keep his hands off her grew more urgent every second he spent in her exasperating, but highly addictive, company.

      He poured them both a glass while the two-man crew readied the plane for take-off. If he didn’t occupy his hands and his mouth somehow, he was going to splay her open and drop to his knees on the plush carpet and taste something other than her sassy mouth.

       Carbon footprints...

      The car journey alone had been an exercise in extreme gratification avoidance—he deserved a damned medal. He’d never had to work so hard to keep his hands to himself and his dick in his pants. And the novelty had grown pretty thin. An hour’s travel time to Paris... An hour of looking but not touching. Fuck, he was more of a mess now than when he’d left New York with his bags packed full of betrayal and indignation and paps nipping at his heels. But the conversation helped—he wanted to know what made her tick almost as much as he wanted to kiss her again and then lay her over this table at thirty thousand feet.

      Fuck.

      When Ben had suggested Essie accompany him to Paris, he’d baulked at the idea. But Ben’s proposal had made sense. After all, she was their temporary manager. This was the best way to iron out prospective teething problems before the doors opened. They’d only have one shot at making a first impression on the city.

      Professionally, everything he touched became a success—The Yard would be no different. He wouldn’t allow the failure that dominated his personal life to taint his work. And returning to Jacob Holdings with his tail between his legs after the public row between him and his father in their open-plan office area...not an option. The man was lucky Ash hadn’t laid him out.

      Ash took a slug of wine, wishing it were Scotch. He needed a distraction from the destructive thoughts and the dangerous urge to lose himself between Essie’s magnificent thighs.

      ‘What is your area of expertise?’ He picked up the earlier conversational thread. He imagined her doctorate wouldn’t be in bar work.

      His question startled her—good. If he was to be off balance in her company... ‘You said it’s not bar work’ He licked the wine from his lip and her eyes flared.

      Yes.

      Those pools of intelligence drew him in—she wanted him, too.

      ‘I have a psychology degree and I’ve just completed a PhD.’

      He frowned. Psychology? Well, that made sense. She was smart. She cared about people. And she could probably spot his bullshit a mile away. His collar tightened a fraction.

      And then a fraction more. ‘Why did you move from New York?’ She jutted her chin in his direction.

      Bingo.

      He wasn’t touching that one. Another millimetre tighter... New York was full of ghosts, full of reminders of his blindness and his failures and his guilt. And full of gossip on the state of his family and his past love life.

      While she waited for his answer, Essie took a sip of wine. Her lips caressed the rim of the glass and she hummed her appreciation—blessedly distracting sound that shot straight to his aching balls.

      At his prolonged silence she placed the glass on the table and narrowed her eyes. ‘So it’s okay to pry about my cheating father, my messed-up family, but you can’t answer a simple question? Interesting.’ She flicked her eyebrows up, her blue stare way too perceptive.

      Fuck, the last thing he needed was her probing his head. He threw her a bone. ‘Would it appease you to know I have a cheating father, too?’ She stared, open-mouthed. ‘That my sister, Harley, grew up knowing our father had cheated on our mother with an old family friend but only recently confided in the rest of us?’

      Ash had been defending Harley and his mother when he’d confronted Hal at the office that day. But all the arrogant Hal Jacob had heard was criticism—something the megalomaniac couldn’t tolerate.

      Essie’s eyes widened as she waited for more. But sharing his sob story wouldn’t change the outcome. She wasn’t the only one with a crappy father figure.

      Discovering his father had cheated on his mother and made Harley complicit in keeping the secret had turned his stomach. But it had been the blows to come that had nailed the coffin lid shut for good on his relationship with a man he’d worked for his whole adult life. A man who was supposed to love him.

      Essie leaned forward, placing her hand flat on the table between them as if offering the support of her touch, something he wanted but didn’t dare accept. ‘Does your mother know? Is that why you don’t trust people?’

      Ash forced himself to take a slow swallow of wine. Her questions left him raw, reeling, the truth too shameful to speak aloud.

      Half the truth. ‘She knows.’ Ash had been the one to tell her of Hal’s final revelation, thrown at his son in a fit of extreme spite during that fateful argument—that Ash’s fiancée’s affair with one of his co-workers had been a ruse, one big cover-up, to hide the fact that the man she’d been screwing was him, his own father.

      ‘It’s okay.’ She levelled sombre eyes on him, full of compassion. ‘I understand. When someone betrays our trust, we just want to protect ourselves.’

      Yes, Ash had battled betrayal. His fiancée had chosen the father over the son. Perhaps she’d hoped Hal would leave his wife. But his father’s involvement had shown Ash’s whole life to be one big lie. He swallowed the razor blades stuck in his throat.

      ‘Are your parents still together?’ Essie’s gentle probing continued.

      He should change the subject. She’d winkled out the truth as easily as if she’d stripped him naked. But he surprised himself by answering honestly, albeit a truncated version of the final shit storm that had had him walking away from his New York life.

      ‘No.’ He couldn’t add his part. He hadn’t thought the consequences through yet. The public row had been photographed by some Jacob Holdings employee, who’d passed the photos to the gossip rags. Ash had needed to ensure his mother wasn’t the last to know.

      He fought the urge to shrink down into the leather. His mother hadn’t known about the second affair with Ash’s fiancée.

      He looked away. Intelligent, compassionate Essie saw too much. And the inside of his soul, the hot pool of guilt simmering there, wasn’t pretty.

      He grabbed a lifeline, any lifeline would do. ‘Tell me about your PhD.’

      Essie stared him down. She saw through his pathetic deflection technique—had probably learned about the tactic on day one of her psychology degree.

      So his personal life had spiralled out of control. He focussed on the chemistry dogging his every interaction with this woman, present even in this quiet, albeit stilted conversation that dragged him too close to the edge of a cliff, but also offered deeper insights