my dad’s—the first Bellechier watch he owned. He bought it before he even started working for Bellechier.’
‘Your real dad or foster dad?’
From a flyaway comment of hers he’d remembered that she was fostered. That was impressive, she thought. ‘My real dad. He was CFO of Bellechier for ten years and Justin Smith’s best friend.’
Ross frowned. ‘Justin Smith? Don’t know him. How does he fit into the picture?’
Ally sipped her wine before she explained. ‘Quick Bellechier history lesson: Sabine Bellechier is my foster mum and her great-grandfather established Bellechier watches in the early twentieth century. Sabine was an only child and she inherited Bellechier. She fell in love with the Bellechier Sales Director—Justin Smith. Justin then took over the CEO position and together they expanded into apparel and accessories. Their sons, Luc and Patric, have a double-barrelled surname: Bellechier-Smith.’
‘Ah, okay. I get it.’ Ross nodded at her wrist. ‘So how did your dad die? And when?’
Ally’s mouth dropped open. ‘God, you are so nosy!’
‘Then tell me to butt out.’
‘Butt out,’ Ally shot back, but she couldn’t help but like his straightforward attitude. After the fake politeness she endured day after day it was refreshing.
She leaned back in her chair and played with her belt buckle. The words were out of her mouth before she could haul them back.
‘He died of a heart attack when I was fifteen.’
In a foreign country halfway across the world. But Ross didn’t need to know that—and, besides, she never spoke about those dark weeks after his death. To anyone.
‘My mother left when I was a baby.’
‘That sucks,’ Ross said with no hint of morbidity, which she appreciated. After a little silence he sent her a mischievous look. ‘You can ask me about my family if you want to. I might not answer, but you can ask.’
‘Thank you, but I’m not nosy. And I’d really prefer it if we kept this conversation to the business at hand.’ Mostly because she wanted to ask him a whole bunch of personal questions...which was very, very out of character for her. She’d learnt a long time ago about the notion of quid pro quo.
Ross slapped his hand on his chest. ‘Ouch. Touché.’ He rested his elbow on the bar and pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘So, no personal stuff. Damn, that’s boring. Are we going to talk about clothes now?’
‘No, the campaign.’
‘Ugh,’ Ross replied, taking a long swallow of his beer. ‘Let’s go back to talking about your clothes, then. Specifically these shoes of yours. How the hell do you keep them on your feet?’
‘You’re beginning to sound like you’re slightly obsessed with my clothes,’ Ally said, and made the mistake of slamming her eyes up to his. Green deepened to gold as she watched them heat and she could almost hear his words... I’m obsessed with getting you out of them.
Oh, wait—maybe that was her silently saying, yelling, panting that phrase. But there was definitely heat in his gaze...something she was pretty sure she hadn’t imagined.
Ross just looked at her as she fumbled around for something to say. She was so out of practice with this man-woman attraction thing, Lord, she hadn’t even been on a proper date since who could remember when.
Blow her down with a feather... And that made her imagine Ross drifting a feather over her torso, lower, lower, and following its path with his wicked mouth.
Feeling herself starting to ignite from the inside out, she fumbled for her wine glass, lifted it up to her lips and allowed the icy liquid to slip down her throat. She drained the glass and gestured to the bartender for a refill.
‘I would pay a lot of money to be on the road trip you just went on,’ Ross drawled in a husky voice...a bedroom voice.
‘Uh, yeah...sorry about that.’ Ally shook her head and held up her hand. ‘Would you excuse me for a minute? I need to...take a...Ladies’.’
Ross stood up as she did and somewhere, in a part of her brain that still had some sort of cognitive thinking, she appreciated his manners. Pulling her bag over her shoulder, she quickly walked over to the Ladies’ restroom, slammed the door open and paced the small area in front of the basins.
She wanted him in the worst take-me-now, stop-this-throbbing way. Every pore on her skin was prickling, and she was intensely aware of every breath he took, each flick of his eyelids, every movement of his strong thighs, each bob of his throat. His deep voice sneaked into places that had been so cold for so long and set her nerve-endings on fire...
She wanted to ask him up to her room for a one-night stand and the thought terrified and shocked her. They hadn’t even discussed the launch of the new line, but at this moment it didn’t matter and she so didn’t care.
Ally shoved her hands into her hair and pulled. She’d never not cared. Who was this stranger in her head?
Ally looked at herself in the mirror above the sink and didn’t recognise the flushed, wild-eyed woman looking back at her. Lifting her finger to her lips, she closed her eyes in horror. This crazy, sexy-looking woman wasn’t her. She looked out of control and fairly unhinged.
Ally ran the tap and flicked some cold water onto her cheeks, patting them dry with a paper towel, taking long deep breaths to get her heart-rate to slow down. She didn’t do crazy and she didn’t do unhinged and she didn’t put herself into situations that could get complicated...
And she never mixed business with pleasure. Ever. Or she wouldn’t if she allowed herself to have a social life.
She’d never felt so attracted to a man. He set her libido alight with his masculinity and his hottie factor, and she could dismiss that a lot more easily if she wasn’t so mentally attracted to him. She liked the fact that he was an alpha male—smart, decisive, mentally strong. He was a lot like her brothers and it annoyed her—scared her, kicked her off-balance—to realise that he would be the type of man she’d look for in the future, if or when she got her act together.
Well, this wasn’t the right time, and she wasn’t ready for a relationship.
But Ross isn’t about a relationship, her lady bits protested. He is pure lust...biology at its most basic form. He would be about pleasure and relief and hot, raw sex...we could do with a whole bunch of that!
Ally gripped the edges of a basin and dropped her head. Even if she threw every caution she had to the wind—and she had a truckload—she might still have to work with him. Because, despite his current opinion, Win! was a perfect match to their new line, and it was her job to convince him of that. She was good at her job and she rarely failed. So when Ross became the new face of Bellechier it would be rather awkward to work with him and keep a ‘pretend you haven’t licked me from top to toe’ expression on her face.
Because she just knew that he would lick her from top to toe. And back up again...lingering in certain places... Ally squirmed against her damp panties and scrunched up her face. Damp panties...? This man was more lethal than she’d thought.
Get a freaking
