leaned against the wall of the lift, crossing one ankle over the other in an I’ve-got-all-the-time-in-the-world pose. ‘I know what you’re up to, you know.’
She hitched one of her shoulders in a guileless manner. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.’
He gave one of his low deep laughs that made her insides stumble. ‘You’re going to drag me to every mind-numbing inspection or appointment you can think of until I walk off the job in boredom. But it won’t work.’
We’ll see about that, Lottie thought as she pressed the floor to the ballroom again. ‘What’s taking this lift so long?’
As if to spite her, the lift gave a shuddering jolt and then hissed to a halt.
Fear scuttled up her spine like the sticky legs of a spooked spider. She stabbed at the button again. Frantically. Manically. ‘Come on! Get moving, you stupid thing!’
‘Looks like we’re stuck.’ He didn’t sound too worried about it. In fact, his tone contained a hefty measure of amusement.
‘Stuck?’ Lottie rounded on him, her heart feeling as if it was beating inside her throat instead of her chest. ‘We can’t be stuck! I have things to do. People to see. A wedding to plan!’ I have to get out of here before I get into a claustrophobic meltdown!
He pushed himself away from the wall of the lift to inspect the computerised control panel. ‘We’ve stalled between floors.’
She glared at him crossly, trying to control her fear with anger instead of blind panic. ‘You don’t seem the least bit put out. This is your family’s hotel. Doesn’t it worry you that the lifts are faulty? That surely can’t be good for your reputation.’ She put her fingers up in quotation marks and put on a posh travel guide voice. ‘Come to the Chatsfield and get stuck in a lift for hours.’ She dropped her hands and arched a brow. ‘Not going to look too flash on the website, is it?’
‘Not all the lifts are faulty. Just this one.’ He leaned back against the wall again. ‘This is a private one to the penthouse suite. I reckon you confused it by stabbing at the button too hard. You should try a softly-softly approach next time. Trust me—’ his sleepy, half-lidded gaze slid over her like a caress ‘—you’ll get way better results.’
Lottie ground her teeth. ‘Thanks for the lesson in managing temperamental lifts, but don’t you think you should do something like call someone for help? We could be stuck in here for hours.’
‘What fun.’ His dark eyes glinted, his mouth lifting in a slant of a smile. ‘How do you propose we pass the time till help arrives?’
A tiny shiver raced over her skin. A different one this time, not of cold primal fear but hot primal attraction. The lift wasn’t small by any means, but with him looking at her with those devilishly sexy eyes, and that wickedly tempting mouth smiling in that incendiary way, it felt like the space had shrunk to the size of a cereal box.
She could smell the sharp clean citrus scent of his aftershave, a mix of lemon and lime and some other exotic spice that intoxicated her senses like a potent drug.
She couldn’t seem to drag her gaze away from his mouth. It was quite possibly the most attractive male mouth she had ever laid eyes on. The laughter lines either side of it only added to its knee-wobbling gorgeousness. Was that why women in their hundreds fell over like drunk dominoes whenever he beamed that bad-boy smile their way? He represented everything that was sinful and tempting, wicked and hedonistic.
Lottie swung around and stabbed wildly at the button again. ‘I need to get out.’ Right now.
He stepped up close behind her and covered her hand with the broad span of his. Her heart did a crazy somersault as those long strong fingers touched hers, sending a current of high-voltage electricity through her entire body. ‘Don’t stab at it so savagely.’ His breath teased the hair around her ears in a warm minty-and-martini-scented caress as he took her fingertip between his index finger and thumb and guided it to the button pad. ‘Press softly. There, just like that.’
Lottie could feel the tall lean frame of him behind her from her cheeks of her bottom to her wings of her shoulder blades. She hadn’t been so close to a man since … since for ever.
Her boyfriend in Switzerland had been a boy.
Lucca Chatsfield was unmistakably A Man.
Her senses were not just intoxicated—they were sloshed, smashed, stoned. His hand felt so strong around hers, it made hers feel small and dainty and feminine. His body was so male. She could feel its latent strength in his light hold and in the way his hard and leanly muscled thighs brushed hers from behind.
She could not get her brain to work. It was a swirling mess of jumbled thoughts. Wanton thoughts. Wicked thoughts. Tempting thoughts.
Was he going to turn her around and kiss her? Her heart banged against her breastbone at the thought of that sensual mouth touching hers.
Should she stop him or should she just go with it to see what happened? What would it hurt to have one little kiss? She hadn’t been kissed in years. She had practically forgotten what a man’s mouth felt like. Would his kiss be hard or soft? Rough or smooth? Would it be passionate or beguilingly slow and tempting? Would he taste sweet or salty? Warm or cool?
Yikes! He hadn’t even turned her around and she could already feel the earth moving beneath her feet….
But then she realised it was the lift.
Lucca stepped back with a lazy smile as the lift doors glided open on the ballroom floor. ‘What did I tell you, little princess? Softly-softly works like a charm every single time.’
LOTTIE MARCHED INTO the ballroom with her cheeks still glowing hot enough to cook a couple of eggs on. He was playing with her like a mean-spirited cat does with a hapless little mouse. Teasing her, toying with her, making sport of her to pass the time. He was mocking her for her gaucheness, laughing at her. He wasn’t interested in her. He was playing a game. He was here under sufferance so what better way to amuse himself than to have a little flirtation just for the heck of it?
Softly-softly indeed! Nothing about him was subtle. He was blatant. Flagrant. Shameless.
And oh-so-tempting.
She knew what he was up to. She was a challenge he hadn’t encountered before, but she would show him that there was at least one woman in the world that wasn’t taken in by sexy chocolate-dark eyes, a silver tongue and a body built for sin.
She had to get him out of her hair before he tempted her to let it down … and she knew just the way to do it.
The grand ballroom was as wide as it was long, and decorated in a Venetian palazzo style with a high ceiling painted a soft shade of grey with ornate crown mouldings of white and inlaid with gold. A series of archways lined three of the walls with plush crimson velvet curtains, and crystal chandeliers hung like giant handfuls of glittering diamonds, sending prisms of light over the highly polished parquetry floor. It was a perfect setting for a wedding reception. It had the signature Chatsfield style, glamour
