flash of emerald silk caught his attention. Elise sat perched on a stool with a drink in her hand, behind her the lights of the city dazzled in winking shades of yellow and orange. The green of her dress shone against creamy, bare skin. He had a weakness for her in that colour, and he’d told her so frequently. There was something about green in any shade that caused her skin to glow as if she were a naked flame.
The dress hugged her curves but draped modestly where it counted; a small side split in the knee-length skirt taunted him with a sliver of thigh. Her hair was carelessly piled on her head, the river breeze ruffling it out of formation, and two emerald-coloured stones hung from her ears.
‘You’re late,’ she said, a half-empty cocktail in front of her. ‘Later than when you originally rang.’
‘I’m worth the wait.’ He dropped down to the stool next to her and motioned for the bartender.
‘Hardly,’ she said, but the flicker of her tongue against the corner of her glossy pink lips gave her away. That tongue had given her away before.
Col fought the urge to dip his head to hers and pull her tongue into his mouth. This was supposed to be about business. An unexpected wave of guilt rocked in his stomach—so much for all those journos who said he was cold as a New York winter. He still had the capacity to know when he was doing wrong by someone.
‘You look amazing.’ Okay, so maybe some of it wasn’t about business.
The corners of her lips pulled up into a forced smile. ‘Are you going to tell me why you dragged me out here?’
‘Why don’t we catch up first?’ He accepted the tumbler of soda water from the bartender. He didn’t need any alcohol affecting his judgement tonight, not when Elise seemed to do that so effectively on her own. ‘It’s been a while. What have you been doing with yourself?’
‘I’ve been keeping busy.’ She sipped from the edge of her glass delicately, her eyes fluttering closed as she savoured the liquid. He’d brought her here because he knew for a fact that they made a good Manhattan.
Part of him was comforted by the fact that her favourite drink hadn’t changed. She shifted on the bar stool and her dress moved, exposing more of her slender thigh. A gold anklet winked at him from the delicate joint of her ankle; he had an almost uncontrollable urge to run his tongue along the length of it. Enough!
‘Seriously, tell me what’s happened since I left. I’m interested.’
‘In the last five years?’
‘Has it been that long?’ Funny how half a decade could pass when you were sticking your head in the sand.
‘It most certainly has.’
‘And we’re both now responsible adults and entrepreneurs.’
She scoffed. ‘I would hardly call myself an entrepreneur, especially around you.’
‘You’re running your own business, doing well for yourself.’
‘And if by doing well for myself you mean running my business into the ground...’ She frowned, tipping her head back to enjoy the last mouthful of her drink.
‘The GFC has been rough on everyone, Ellie. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’
‘Sure looks like it affected you. Do you have to fly Economy now?’ Sarcasm was her defence of choice, another thing that hadn’t changed.
He drew his mouth into a line. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him, that was for sure. But he always found himself attracted to her ferocious will. Besides, having her at arm’s length would be a good thing. He couldn’t afford to get too emotionally tangled with Elise Johnson. The woman had a way of breaking his heart without even trying, and Lord knew he had enough emotional baggage when it came to rejection.
‘So what have you been doing with yourself, Mr Forbes Young Rich List?’ She gestured to the bartender to bring her another drink. A river cruise boat drifted past them.
He grunted. ‘God, I hate that label.’
‘You should be proud. The Old Rich List is so passé.’ Her voice was teasing but there was a hard glint in her twilight eyes.
He cringed. ‘You know I don’t keep up with trends...unless they involve a circuit board, that is.’
‘Seems to me like you managed to use your status to have a little fun after you moved.’
‘How so?’ He frowned, instinct telling him he was about to walk into a trap.
‘I happened to be reading the paper a while ago and saw a rather compromising photo of you and the daughter of a certain rival technologist.’
Ah, so they were back to this again. Despite what the gossip columnists made out, Col usually ensured any ‘itches that needed to be scratched’ were done so with the utmost discretion. No supermodels, movie stars or society darlings for him. Until he met heiress Tessa Bates, though she had been going under a false name on the night he met her. She turned out to be rebelling against her father and had scouted Col out on one of his ultra-rare public appearances. He’d walked straight into her trap and now there were pictures of him naked on her supposedly private balcony that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
‘You seem rather preoccupied with my sex life.’ He attempted to redirect the conversation.
‘Hardly,’ she scowled.
‘Well, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned it in as many meetings.’ He leant forward on his stool, his knees knocking against hers.
She stiffened. ‘Who you sleep with is up to you.’
‘Well, it was a mistake in any case.’ He shrugged as though it bothered him less than it did.
‘What about you? Are you seeing anyone?’
She pondered his question for a moment. ‘No. I don’t have time for messing around at the moment.’
‘I thought you told me all work and no play made for a dull existence.’
She wrinkled her pert, upturned nose and changed the topic. ‘So tell me, what is it that you think I can help you with?’
‘That’s it? After five years you give me a two-minute catch-up?’
‘It was hardly two minutes.’ She shrugged, unflinching. ‘But it’s more than you deserve.’
Col drew a long breath; he’d known this moment would come. The one where he’d need to open himself up and admit something that had plagued him since childhood. For someone who’d worked with the toughest investors in the world, the sharpest minds in the technology industry and the most vulture-like journalists, he shouldn’t have any fears left. But he did. This one was buried so deep that it had rooted itself into the core of who he was. It was unshakable, unsurpassable. And he needed to confess it to Elise, the one person left in the world that he still admired.
‘I have a very important event coming up, a conference.’ He cleared his throat and took a sip of his drink. ‘I’ve been invited to be the keynote speaker and I need to give
