grimaced. ‘Can we drop this bloody Mr Mortimer crap? It’s getting a little tedious, don’t you think, Neve?’ he asked pointedly, and raised a hand when I opened my mouth. ‘We’re supposed to be business competitors but only up to a point. You throwing out that rigid formality I hear in your voice won’t make for good television.’
‘On the contrary, I think the high prospect of me clawing your eyes out for a deal is exactly what will keep viewers’ interest.’
His gaze dropped to the fingers wrapped around my coffee cup. ‘I think you should save the clawing for something more...beneficial.’
I thoroughly despised myself for the hot throb that started between my thighs. I counteracted it by moving to the seat farthest from him. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Mortimer. I’m great at multitasking.’
He muttered something under his breath. Something that made my temperature kick up for no reason. ‘What did you say?’
His mocking smile said he wasn’t going to repeat it. ‘You’re in the wrong seat.’
‘I didn’t realise the seats were assigned.’
‘They aren’t. But as Executive Producer, I have a little discretion. And I prefer you next to me. Besides, Nate has already bagged that seat.’
I gave a challenging little laugh. ‘Are you sure you want me next to you?’
The rapier-sharp retort I expected didn’t materialise. Instead a cloud drifted over his face, his expression mirroring the one I saw yesterday when his phone rang. Now, like then, I wanted to ask if everything was okay. If he was okay. I staunched the absurd urge. If I wanted to play in the big leagues, I couldn’t be blinded by emotion. Not unless I wanted to be chewed up and spat out again.
‘It makes for good optics, according to those who’re fussed about such things,’ he replied in his crisp accent. Except his voice was colourless. Flat. As were his eyes. ‘Totally up to you whether you want to take it up with the producers, of course.’
Oh, how very neat of him to lob the ball back in my court. Make it impossible for me to do anything but take the seat he preferred. Because how much of a diva would I be if, as one of the newest members of the group, I started throwing my toys out of the crib over seating arrangements?
I swallowed my reservations, urged my runaway pulse to calm the hell down and took the seat to his right.
A hint of a smile twitched his mouth. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet. You might live to regret it.’ A part of me already regretted it after one whiff of his aftershave immediately threw me back to when I’d experienced that scent up close and very personal.
‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ he answered cryptically.
The other mentors’ arrivals put paid to our conversation. Final instructions were given, we were miked up and official shooting began.
The first contestant’s pitch was mediocre and unanimously dispatched. Nate snapped up the second participant’s golf-ball-retrieving invention suited to his golf-based hotels.
Brian and Gary battled over the next two contestants and decided to partner up in the end.
I swallowed my disappointment as the last contestant of the day pitched a sex-centric app that held zero interest for me.
It set the tone for the next few days.
By Friday afternoon my nerves were fried from being subjected to Damian for several hours a day. It was no use telling myself I shouldn’t have let him goad me into taking the seat next to him. I was committed for the duration of the series.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to deny with every ounce of my being the hyperawareness generated by being this close to him. It really wasn’t fair that he was so jumpable. And the guy didn’t just look good. His aftershave made my mouth water with every breath I took and the smug bastard knew it, if his lingering glances when the camera swung away from us were any indication.
I gritted my teeth and attempted to focus on the producer’s notes. Three more presentations before filming ended for the next five days. Another couple of hours and I’d be on my way home. I loved hotels, especially boutique hotels with their own charming identity, but I’d grown tired of New York.
I preferred the tranquillity and fresh air that surrounded my Westport resort, had done ever since my first visit to my grandparents’ B & B when I was eight. The unforgettable summer when the planets had aligned and my mother and her estranged parents had attempted to patch up their differences.
The trip had been an unmitigated disaster, and by the time Mom had bundled me into her beat-up Corolla, their relationship had strained beyond repair. Somehow the blame for that had landed at my feet, just as every misfortune that occurred to Priscilla Nolan somehow found its root cause at my existence.
Of course, that hadn’t stopped my mother from dumping me on my grandparents every school holiday after that summer.
But as much as it’d hurt to know I was a burden she couldn’t wait to be rid of whenever the opportunity arose, I’d treasured the visits to Connecticut, had grown to love the quaint Quaker two-storey characterful B & B painted a buttercup-yellow.
Almost as much as I’d treasured the relationship with my grandparents. In their eyes, I’d seen the dashed hopes and dreams they’d harboured for their own relationship with my mother and had striven to make up for that emptiness, selfishly absorbing the affection lacking in my own relationship with my parent.
Finding out they’d left their beloved property to me in their will had seemed like a sign, a way to hang onto their legacy and to keep their memory alive; a way to hold onto a precious connection filled with love and compassion, not disappointment and bitterness.
The moment I’d scraped a decent business plan together, I’d poured my heart and soul into making my dream come true. I might have five other resorts on the East Coast, but the Westport branch of Nevirna remained my favourite place in the world.
I couldn’t return just yet though. Not until I’d achieved my end goal and knocked Damian Mortimer to his knees.
‘Something wrong with the notes?’ the man asked, igniting a deeper awareness that made my body hum as he approached where I stood in one corner of the converted warehouse.
‘What?’ This little light-headedness whenever his raw masculinity hit me was becoming a problem.
‘You’ve been staring at that paper for the last five minutes and you’re wearing an adorable little frown. Did the producers miss something?’
I opened my mouth to chastise him for ruining my concentration but the words that tumbled from my lips were the last I expected. ‘Did you just call me adorable?’
His lips twitched. ‘What if I did?’
‘I’d remind you that we’re in the workplace. I could sue your ass for saying things like that.’
One eyebrow lifted. ‘You’re in a tetchy mood. Anything I can help with?’
