Ways To Ruin A Royal Reputation (Mills & Boon Modern) (Signed, Sealed…Seduced, Book 1) by Dani Collins (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

Whatever color had risen to her cheeks must have drained out of her because she went absolutely ice cold.

“Why do you say that?” she asked tautly.

His brows tugged in faint puzzlement. “The way you countered the defamation of that woman who was suing the sports league. It was a difficult situation, given how they’d rallied their fans to attack her.”

Amy released a subtle breath. He wasn’t talking about her past.

“It was very challenging,” she agreed with a muted nod.

She and her colleagues-slash-best friends, Bea and Clare, had taken on the case for a single pound sterling. They’d all been horrified by the injustice of a woman being vilified because she’d called out some players who had accosted her in a club.

“I’m compelled to point out though—” she lifted a blithe expression to hide the riot going on inside her “—if you wish to be ruined, the firm we were up against in that case specializes in pillorying people.”

“Yet they failed with your client because of your efforts. How could I even trust them?” He swept a dismissive hand through the air. “They happily billed an obscene amount of money to injure a woman who’d already been harmed. Meanwhile, despite winning, your company lost money with her. Didn’t you?”

His piercing look felt like a barbed hook that dug deep into her middle.

Amy licked her lips and crossed her legs. It was another muscle memory move, one she trotted out with men in an almost reflexive way when she felt put on the spot and needed a brief moment of deflection.

It was a power move and it would have worked, buying her precious seconds to choose her words, if she hadn’t watched his gaze take note of the way the unbuttoned bottom of her skirt fell open to reveal her shin. His gaze slid down to her ankle and leisurely climbed its way back up, hovering briefly on the open collar of her maxi shirtdress, then arrived at her mouth with the sting of a bee.

As his gaze hit hers, his mouth pulled slightly to one side in a silent, Thank you for that, but let’s stay on task.

It was completely unnerving and made her stomach wobble. She swallowed, mentally screaming at herself to get her head in the game.

“I would never discuss another client’s financial situation.” She would, however, send a note to Bea advising her they had some confidentiality holes to plug. “Can you tell me how you came by that impression, though?”

“Your client was quoted in an interview saying that winning in the court of public opinion doesn’t pay the way a win in a real court would have done, but thanks to Amy at London Connection, she remains hopeful she’ll be awarded a settlement that will allow her to pay you what you deserve.”

Every nerve ending in Amy’s body sparked as he approached. He still seemed edgy beneath his air of restraint. He dropped a slip of paper onto the coffee table in front of her.

“I want to cover her costs as well as my own. Will that amount do?”

The number on the slip nearly had her doing a spit take with the air in her lungs. Whether it was in pounds sterling, euros, or Russian rubles didn’t matter. A sum with that many zeroes would have Bea and Clare sending her for a cranial MRI if she turned it down.

“It’s...very generous. But what you’re asking us to do is the complete opposite of London Connection’s mission statement. I’ll have to discuss this with my colleagues before accepting.” Why did Clare have to be overseas right now? Starting London Connection had been her idea. She’d brought Amy on board to get it off the ground, and they usually made big decisions together. Their latest had been to pry Bea from slow suffocation at a law firm to work for them. Bea might have specific legal concerns about a campaign of this nature.

“I don’t want your colleagues,” Luca said. “The fewer people who know what I’m asking, the better. I want you.”

His words and the intensity of his blue eyes were charging into her like a shock of electricity, leaving her trying to catch her breath without revealing he’d knocked it out of her.

“I don’t understand.” It was common knowledge that the new king of Vallia was nothing like the previous one. Luca’s father had been... Well, he’d been dubbed “the Kinky King” by the tabloids, so that said it all.

Amy’s distant assumption when she had recognized Luca was that she would be tasked with finessing some remnant of Luca’s father’s libidinous reputation. Or perhaps shore up the cracks in the new king’s image since there were rumors he was struggling under the weight of his new position.

Even so... “To the best of my knowledge, your image is spotless. Why would you want a scandal?”

“Have I hired you?” Luca demanded, pointing at the slip of paper. “Am I fully protected under client confidentiality agreements?”

She opened her mouth, struggling to articulate a response as her mind leaped to her five-year plan. If she accepted this assignment, she could reject the trust fund that was supposed to come to her when she turned thirty in eighteen months. Childish, perhaps, but her parents had very ruthlessly withheld it twice in the past. Having learned so harshly that she must rely only on herself, Amy would love to tell them she had no use for the remnants of the family fortune they constantly held out like a carrot on a stick.

Bea and Clare would love a similar guarantee of security. They all wanted London Connection to thrive so they could help people. They most definitely didn’t want to tear people down the way some of their competitors did. Amy had no doubt Bea and Clare would have the same reservations she did with Luca’s request, but something told her this wasn’t a playboy’s silly whim. He looked