know each other. They never had. Beyond an intimate knowledge of each other’s bodies that haunted him to this day.
‘You need my IT expertise on getting a new business started, correct?’
She nodded, and absent-mindedly worried that bottom lip again. Yep, he should never have agreed to meet her.
‘I want the coding on the site to be state-of-the-art. Up to date, with the latest technology, and no room for error.’ Sadness clouded her expressive eyes. ‘That last one is imperative. I want to ensure every donation is easily accounted for and properly allocated.’
Something had happened. He saw it in her look-away glance, in the sudden rigidity of her jaw. But now wasn’t the time to delve. He didn’t want to complicate their business arrangement with anything messy and that was exactly what would happen if he started asking questions regarding her motivations.
‘You want to know what happened,’ she said, her tone soft. ‘You’re pretty easy to read.’
Bullshit, because if he was she would’ve known he’d had a permanent hard-on for her all through uni.
Feigning lack of interest, he shrugged. ‘You’ll tell me if you want to. Otherwise it’s not relevant to our prospective working relationship.’
She hesitated, as if contemplating the wisdom of divulging something to him, before giving a brief nod. ‘While working for my folks I discovered discrepancies in their accounting. At first I thought it was a software error but then I delved deeper.’
She dragged a hand through her hair when a thick lock tumbled across her face. ‘Turns out the only reason they wanted me working for them was because I’m a stooge, someone they can easily control and have done for longer than I care to admit.’
She took a sip of her soda. ‘So here I am. Utilising my trust fund and wanting to do some genuine charity work, making sure it’s all top notch before I launch.’
She pinned him with a piercing stare. ‘Think you can help me?’
Brock should say no. He could delegate this task to any one of the highly skilled staff he employed to run his IT empire. That way, he could be the good guy helping her out but from a much-needed distance. It was the logical thing to do and he always relied on logic.
Instead, he found himself nodding.
He’d once been a putz around this woman and it looked as if nothing had changed.
JAYDA HAD ENVISAGED this meeting in her head so many times since she’d realised she’d have to approach Brock Olsen to foster her dream.
She’d imagined swanning into a place of her choosing, a low-key cafe, while she appeared confident and bold and totally immune to him. Pity she’d only been able to fake one out of three. The confidence she’d achieved by wearing her favourite dress and a face full of make-up. As for being bold and immune to him, she had a long way to go.
He’d picked the venue, a swanky sky-high bar in a trendy inner-city hotel. Probably to prove a point of how far he’d come from his uni days financially, but he didn’t need to. Money had never impressed her, people did, and she’d never forgotten that Brock had been there for her when she’d needed him most.
Until graduation night, he’d bugged the hell out of her. He’d always looked down his nose at her, as if she was stupid or annoying or both. So she’d reacted in kind, pretending not to notice him, or feigned fun in everything she did, being an exaggerated extrovert when nothing could be further from the truth.
They’d had the occasional run-in back in uni, butting heads over problem solving, but she’d liked that he didn’t defer to her because of her wealth as some did and their differing opinions often made her evaluate her own more carefully.
Shame that hadn’t extended to the douche she’d sacrificed her virginity to.
Brock had expressed his opinion about Deon far too late, on the night she’d broken down. The night he’d shown her exactly how beautiful sex could be with the right guy. The night that had spoiled her for other men.
She’d tried to forget that night several times over the years by hooking up with guys the opposite of Brock. Rich guys who were friends of friends, guys who moved in the same social circles as her parents. Each encounter had been as lacklustre as the last. Not that she’d actually had sex with those guys but they’d fooled around, indulged in some oral, but she’d shut down each and every time it came to taking her clothes off.
She didn’t have issues with sex; she had issues with her body. Though after incredible, memorable sex with Brock, deep down she’d always feared no guy would live up to it. That they wouldn’t appreciate her curves the way he had, that they wouldn’t make her feel adored and beautiful. She blamed Brock for that. He’d set the bar incredibly high.
Which made this meeting awkward before it had begun. It didn’t help that Brock had improved with age. The last six years had brought creases that fanned from the corners of mesmerising eyes so dark they resembled obsidian, and the faintest groove between his brows. His olive skin glowed beneath the bar’s muted lights, the end-of-day stubble lending ruggedness to his classically handsome face.
As for those lips...no, she wouldn’t go there. She couldn’t. Not without squeezing her thighs together or a stupid revealing blush staining her cheeks. And he’d know. Know that she remembered every exquisite detail of that steamy night; the night he’d worshipped her body and soothed her soul.
No man had come close since and she hated him for it. Hated that even now, as he studied her with that enigmatic stare, she couldn’t forget his fingertips tracing the dip at her waist, his mouth trailing from one breast to another, his tongue on her clit... Heat surged to her cheeks. So much for not blushing.
‘Are you okay? Would you like another drink?’
He knew. The smirk playing about his mouth screamed smugness. He’d always been too smart for his own good.
‘I’m fine.’ She sounded snappish and that damn mouth eased into a grin. ‘When can you start?’
‘When do you want me?’
‘As soon as possible.’
It had been so long since her last date she had no idea if Brock was flirting or not. What if she’d misread his smirk? What if he was having a little fun at her expense because she’d been uptight ever since she walked into this place?
‘You’re in luck. I’m in Melbourne for the next two weeks, then I’m moving on to a job in Sydney.’ He slid his mobile out of his jacket pocket and scrolled through the calendar. ‘I can take a look tomorrow afternoon, if that suits?’
‘Perfect.’
Some of the tension holding her spine rigid eased and she relaxed into the chair for the first time since she’d got here. She could do this. Work with him for a week or two, get her business up and running, put the past few years as her parents’ general dogsbody behind her and pay homage to Sasha the way she wanted and should have done years ago.
She
