peeled off each shoe and in stockinged feet burst through the fire escape door. I descended fast, round and round, counting the floors as I went.
Breathing in the chilled air, I rekindled the feeling that what I’d done tonight was one of my better decisions. Clara was right. The security was great and the responsibility of protecting all of Dad’s other pieces would soon be lifted as they made their way here.
It made me happy to think of other people getting to enjoy them too, and my feet flew down with a bounce in my step.
With a shove on the security rail I pushed open the heavy fire door and went on through into the dimly lit hallway.
Realizing I’d gone too far I turned to go back. The door was locked from this side.
Ouch.
As if right on cue my garter belt snapped off my thigh-high stocking and I hurried onward to find somewhere private to fix it.
My feet carried me away from the lift and along the hallway. At the end was a door stamped with a sign: Staff Only.
I went on in and saw the long mirror right in front of me. I neared it and gave myself a reassuring smile. I looked pretty tonight and was actually a little less geeky than usual, having switched out my cardigan and flat heels for my favorite gold silk blouse and black skirt, and even my hair was miraculously behaving. After putting my shoes down, I eased up my hem and attempted to reattach my stocking top.
Fiddly thing.
My fingers slipped so I hiked my skirt higher to better work the intricate reclipping. With that accomplished, I straightened my eggshell-blue high rise panties.
And then I spotted a movement across the room—
I yanked my skirt down, my mouth forming words of apology but failing to say them. I bent over to scoop up my shoes and rushed toward the door, my hand reaching round to neaten my skirt.
Oh no, my hem still exposed my bum.
Cheeks reddening further, I grappled with the unreasonable material and sucked up my embarrassment so I could throw a wave of apology to the stranger.
My gaze fixed on the living, breathing sculpture.
Making it to the door, I tried to force my stare away from the strikingly beautiful specimen of a man who was looking at me with a mixture of surprise and delight.
Finally exhaling, I was riveted by his sun-kissed torso with its finely chiseled abs, his black trousers low and revealing a hint of a V. An intricate tattoo on his left upper arm that vaguely reminded me of a Polynesian design, with its swirls in black ink and an image in the center.
My heartbeat quickened as I searched my memory for where I knew him from. I was awestruck by this breathtaking Adonis, who was reaching for a white shirt hanging on the back of a chair. He was tall and devastatingly handsome in a rugged kind of way. Thirty, maybe? Those short, dark golden locks framing a gorgeous face, his three-day stubble marking him with a tenacious edge and that thin wry smile exuding a fierce confidence. His green irises were a startling contrast to his lightly tanned complexion; his intense, steady glare stayed on mine as he calmly pulled his arm through a sleeve and covered that tattoo before I could make out more.
A gasp caught in my throat as it came to me that we’d never actually met, probably because this was Tobias William Wilder, a billionaire. He moved in the kind of refined circles one would expect from a business magnate and inventor who owned TechRule, one of the largest software companies in the world.
And I’d given this playboy mogul his very own peep show.
He’d popped up on my radar a year ago when I’d read an article on him in Cosmo, featuring his Los Angeles–based art gallery, The Wilder. It was an acclaimed museum that was one of the most prestigious in the world and it was also right up there on my wish list to visit.
Wilder was even more dazzling in person.
I’d imagined one day I might bump into him with the art world being relatively small, but never had I imagined a scenario as racy as this.
Why the hell hadn’t I worn my sexy panties?
“I’m looking for the stairs,” I managed.
“That way.” His refined American accent felt like another blow to my reason.
That alpha-maleness made him look like he’d just returned from a dangerous adventure in the Himalayas or even the jungles of Peru—
Where he’d spent his days hunting in the wilderness, or naked while fishing in a fast-running stream, and then making a campfire at night with those elegant hands, and then saving his friends from beasties that attacked our campsite.
His smile reached his eyes. A blush burned my cheeks.
He arched an eyebrow, amused.
Was he mocking me?
“I was looking for a signal.” I broke my gaze to hide my lie. “For my phone. You know, Wi-Fi.”
“Try the foyer. It’s a security issue.”
“I know that.” Which made no damn sense.
It was impossible to think straight because someone had made the executive decision to suck out all the oxygen from the room, or so it felt.
With a tug of his shirt he hid that other tattoo to the right of his lower abdomen, a Latin inscription leading to his groin immortalized in italic black ink.
“Excuse the—” He gestured to his state of undress. “I’m running late.”
This kind of manly perfection obviously knew just how beautiful he was, the way he blinked at me casually: the way he firmly weaved that bow tie around his collar without using a mirror and making quick work of forming that silk into a neat knot, and all the while his eyes not leaving mine.
Until I dragged my gaze from his to look around the room. On a table close by to him rested a black motorcycle helmet with its tinted visor down. Leather gloves beside it.
He moved with a sophisticated elegance that had me doubting I’d caught his body inked so seductively. A waft of expensive musky cologne reached me with its sensuous allure and did something crazy to my body. Trembling slightly, I shifted my gait and leaned farther back against the door, spellbound.
Nature might have bestowed this man with the ability to leave a trail of heartbreak in his sexy-arse wake but it had also provided me with the ability to detect danger.
“You might want to put some clothes on,” I said firmly.
“Well, now I’m dressed.”
Yes, he was, and this was a changing room, apparently, and I’d not exactly represented a pillar of virtue.
“Well, that’s good.” I swallowed my pride. “Please keep it that way.”
His gaze lowered to my feet.
And I remembered my strappy stilettos were flirtatiously dangling from my left hand, those spiked heels hinting at a sexy
