alongside the impression of raw male power that hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.
She actually swayed!
He made the massive room suddenly seem a lot smaller; in fact, she experienced a wave of claustrophobia along with a cowardly impulse to beg her escort to wait for her.
You’re not a wimp, Kat, or a quitter. Appearances and first impressions, she reminded herself, were invariably misleading. She’d found the first man’s air of sleek, well-tailored affluence and accent off-putting initially, and yet now, a few floors up, he appeared cosy and benevolent. In a few minutes this dark stranger might seem cosy too. Her dark-lashed gaze moved in an assessing covert sweep from his feet to the top of his sleek dark head. Or maybe not!
Unless you considered large sleek predators cosy, and there was something of the jungle cat about him, in the way he moved with the fluid grace, the restless vitality you sensed beneath the stillness that a feral creature might feel in an enclosed space.
Aware she was in danger of overreacting and allowing her imagination to run riot, she huffed out a steadying breath between her stiff lips.
‘Good morning.’ She gave her best businesslike smile, aiming for a blend of warm but impersonal.
Easier said than done, when there were so many conflicting emotions jostling for supremacy in her head. Not to mention the fluttery pit of her stomach. She had no idea what she had been expecting, but it hadn’t been this, or him!
She never rushed to judgement. She prided herself on her ability not to judge by appearances, so the rush of antagonism she had felt the moment his dark eyes had locked on hers was bewildering—and it hadn’t gone away.
Her heart was racing, and it wasn’t the only thing that had sped up. Everything had, including her perceptions, which were heightened to an extraordinary, almost painful degree, though they were focused less on the room with its background scent of leather and wood and more on the man who dominated with such effortless ease.
She had taken in everything about him in that first stunned ten seconds. The man stood several inches over six feet, and inside the elegant suit his build was lean yet athletic, with broad shoulders that were balanced perfectly by long, long legs. The strong column of his neck was the same deep shade of gold as his face, the warm and vibrant colour of his skin emphasised by the contrasting paleness of his shirt.
He was sinfully good-looking, if your taste ran to perfect. Such uncompromising masculinity attached to perfect symmetry, hard angles and carved planes, a wide mouth that was disturbingly sensual and the dark-as-night eyes framed by incredible jet lashes set under dark, strongly delineated brows.
There was no reaction to the smile she somehow kept pasted in place. She told herself to keep it together as she struggled to make the mental adjustments required.
‘Oh, God!’ It wasn’t the pain in her knee when she hit the chair leg that made her cry out, it was the sight of the carefully arranged contents of the folder she carried sliding to the floor. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as she bent to pick up the scattered papers, jamming them haphazardly into the folder.
Walk, think and string two syllables together, Kat. It’s not exactly multitasking! It’s all on your phone so it’s not a disaster!
Cheeks hot, she straightened up. Forget old-school tie, this was who she was dealing with. Fine. Except, of course, it wasn’t fine; she was making an impression, but not the intended one. Having gathered the papers, she promptly dropped them again. She bit her tongue literally to stop herself blurting a very unladylike curse.
* * *
Zach watched her silky hair fall over one shoulder as she fumbled for the scattered papers. The action drew attention to the curve of her behind, and as the soft, silky dark material of her dress stretched tight so did his nerve endings.
He could not recall the last time he had needed to fight his way through a fog of blind lust. If Alekis had had a window into his mind at that moment he might have doubted casting him in the role of protector and mentor. Or maybe not. There was some sense in it. Who better to guard the fluffy chick than a fox? Always supposing the fox in question could keep his own baser instincts in check.
Not that this creature was fluffy, she was more silky-smooth. Smooth all over?
Calming down this illicit line of distracting speculation, he let the silence stretch. It was amazing how many people felt the need to fill a silence, saying things that revealed more than a myriad searching questions.
Unfortunately, and uncomfortably on this occasion, in a moment of role reversal his own mind felt the need to fill the silence.
Alekis trusted him. The question was, did he trust himself?
The moment of self-doubt passed; even taking the trust issue with Alekis out of the equation, the logic of keeping the personal and professional separate remained inescapable.
‘Won’t you take a seat?’
She responded to the offer with relief; her knees were literally shaking. ‘Thank you.’ At least the table between them meant she was not obliged to offer her hand. Instead, she tipped her head and smiled. ‘I’m Kat.’
‘Take a seat, Katina.’ He watched the surprise flare in her amazing eyes and slide into wariness before she brought her lashes down enough to veil her expression momentarily.
The use of her full name, which no one ever used, threw her slightly. Well, actually, more than slightly.
He couldn’t know it, but the last person to call her that had been her mother.
For many years Kat had believed that while she could hear her mother’s voice in her head, her mother was not gone...she was coming back. Nowadays the childhood conviction was gone and so was her mother’s voice. The memory might be lost but she did know that her name on her mother’s lips had not sounded anything like it did when this man rolled his tongue around the syllables.
‘Th-thank you,’ she stuttered. Recovering from the shaky moment, she gathered her poise around herself, protective-blanket style. ‘Just Kat is fine,’ she added finally, taking the seat he had gestured towards and reflecting that it wasn’t at all fine.
Though she was normally all for informality, she would have been much happier with a formal, distant Miss...or Ms or maybe even, hey, you. It wasn’t just her physical distance she felt the need to keep from this man. His dark gaze seemed able to penetrate her very soul.
She forced herself to forget his disturbing mouth, equally disturbing eyes, the almost explosive quality he projected, and move past the weird inexplicable antagonism. She was here to make a pitch, and save the precious resource that the community was in danger of losing. This was not about her—she just had to stay focused on the prize.
All great advice in theory, but in reality, with those eyes drilling into her like lasers... Were lasers cold? She pushed away the thought and tried to dampen the stream of random thoughts that kept popping into her head down to a slow trickle.
Reminding herself that a lot of people were relying on her helped; the fact she was distracted by the muscle that was clenching and unclenching in his lean cheek did not.
‘Water?’
