The Contract by Marsh, Nicola (read aloud books .txt) 📕

dress. She didn’t belong here and the sooner she escaped the better.

“What’s wrong?” He laid a hand on her arm and she found his touch strangely comforting.

She glanced down at her dress, feeling like Cinderella without the Fairy Godmother and twice as ugly as the Stepsisters. “I don’t fit in.”

He placed his thumb under her chin and tilted her head up. “You look beautiful.”

His eyes darkened to pewter and sent her pulse rate accelerating at a frightening speed. Though she knew she didn’t look it at that moment, she felt like a princess.

Desire skittered across her nerve endings as his thumb wandered up to lightly brush her bottom lip.

“In fact, you’re the most stunning woman in this room. Now, let’s eat.”

They followed the maître d’ to a cosy table for two, shaded from the other diners by strategically placed palms. It overlooked the ocean and the twinkling lights of the Surfers Paradise strip created the illusion of being suspended in air.

Combined with his compliment, which had rendered her speechless, she could scarcely concentrate on the menu.

“See anything you fancy?”

She looked up, biting back her first response concerning the man sitting opposite. “I’ll have the King prawns please.”

“Excellent choice.” He placed their order with the waiter and handed her one of the delicate flutes that had been filled. “How about champagne to celebrate?”

He must be buttering her up for something but she couldn’t figure out what. “To celebrate?”

He clinked glasses with hers. “To the start of a long and prosperous relationship.”

“For who?”

“Both of us.”

She almost choked as the effervescent bubbles tingled down her throat. She had no idea how closing down her family business could benefit him or result in a long relationship, but she had an inkling she was about to find out.

“Tell me how you’d save the business.” He sat back and folded his arms, his expression curious.

She ignored the flare of hope, knowing his interest had to be purely speculative. “We need more capital to pay off our existing debts. Once they’re cleared I have a few marketing ideas to boost business. We still have our regulars plus the tourists and I know I can increase the profits.”

“What makes you so sure?”

She didn’t let his intense scrutiny unnerve her. “I took marketing as part of my business degree. I have a few tricks up my sleeve but unless we clear the debts we’ll go under.”

“You’ve got a business degree?” His eyebrows shot heavenward and his mouth dropped open, like one of the sideshow clowns at the carnival. Pity she didn’t have any balls handy to shove into his gaping mouth.

“With honours. Why, did you think I was a carnival hick?”

His lips twitched and he avoided her stare, focussing on refolding his linen napkin. “I didn’t pick you to be the type.”

Damn him, she hated being labelled. “And what type is that? Uptight, stuck-up, pretentious, like you?”

He shrugged as if her barbs meant little. “I’m proud of what I am. At least I don’t have some hang-up about wealth.”

Anger surged through her. Easy for him to judge, when he obviously had money to burn.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but you wouldn’t know the first thing about making it in this world the hard way without daddy’s purse strings to tide you over.” She barely paused for breath, her bitterness rising with every passing second as she ticked the list off on her fingers. “Let me guess. You went to private schools, graduated from university top of the class, had the weekend beach house, played golf with daddy and dated the princesses hand-picked by mummy. Correct?”

Her tirade had a strange effect as he blanked all expression from his face, casually picked up his glass and drank as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Like I’ve said before, you’re clairvoyant skills amaze me. You left out the part about owning a yacht.” His deadly calm unnerved her, though he didn’t look up.

Her anger deflated, gone as quickly as it had come as guilt flooded her. She shouldn’t have pushed him so far. She was here to broker a salvage operation, not blow the whole thing out of the water. “Look, you don’t know the first thing about me. I don’t like being put inside a box.”

“Then tell me.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, drawing her attention to the way his shirt moulded to his biceps. He had a great body for an office-worker. “What makes Amber Lawrence tick?”

She squirmed, uncomfortable beneath his probing gaze. “I’m a free spirit. I love Nepalese food, bushwalking and exquisite Mexican jewellery. Not that I own any of the latter yet. And as you probably noticed, my taste in clothes is far from the usual. There, does that satisfy you?”

Interest flared in his eyes as his gaze swept her body, sending her heart hammering. “On the contrary. It arouses my curiosity further.”

She blinked to break the hypnotising eye contact, imagining the many ways she could arouse him and vice versa. Thankfully, the arrival of their meal put paid to any further interrogation and Amber breathed a sigh of relief. This man had the power to twist her into knots and she had no idea how to untangle herself. The sooner he laid his cards on the table and left her alone, the better.

They ate in relative silence and once she’d finished the last of her delicious prawns smothered in garlic and chilli, she sat back and patted her stomach. “That was fantastic.”

Her action drew his stare to that region of her anatomy like a magnet and she quickly sat up, disconcerted by the heat unravelling in her belly and spreading to lower regions.

“Can I tempt you with dessert?” His low,