and a blonde.
Startled by his latter wish, he gazed at her again and his groin tightened in appreciation.
She might not be his type but for a wild, wistful second he wished she could be.
Eight years of setting up his own publishing business in London had sapped him, sucking every last ounce of energy as he’d worked his butt off. When he’d initially started he’d wanted a company to rival his father’s but had chosen to focus on the e-market rather than paper, trade and hardbacks. Considering how dire things were with Qu Publishing, his company now surpassed the one-time powerhouse of the book industry.
He rarely dated, socialised less. Building a booming digital publishing business had been his number-one priority. Ironic, he was now here to save the business he could’ve been in competition with if his dad had ever moved into the twenty-first century. And if he’d been entrusted with the truth.
Not that saving Qu mattered if Babs had her way.
The muscles in his neck spasmed with tension and he spun away, needing air before he did something he’d regret, like marching over to stepmommy dearest and strangling her.
He grabbed a whisky from a passing waiter and downed half of it, hoping to eradicate the bitterness clogging his throat. Needing a breather, he made his way to the terrace that wrapped across the front of the function room in wrought-iron splendour.
Melbourne might not have the historical architecture of London but the city’s beautiful hotels, like the Westin, could hold their own around the world.
He paced the marble pavers in a vain attempt to quell the urge to march back into that packed function room and blast Babs in front of everyone, media be damned.
Wouldn’t that go down a treat in tomorrow’s papers? publishing ceo bails up socialite stepmother, a real page-turner.
He wouldn’t do it, of course. Commit corporate suicide. Qu Publishing meant too much to him. Correction, his dad had meant everything to him, and Wade would do whatever it took, including spending however long in Melbourne to stop Babs selling his legacy.
Qu Publishing needed a saviour. He intended to walk on water to do it.
He cursed and downed the rest of his whisky, knowing he should head back inside and make nice with the publishing crowd.
‘Whatever’s biting your butt, that won’t help.’
Startled, he glanced to his right, where the bronze-clad blonde rested her forearms on the balcony, staring at him with amusement in her eyes.
Blue. With tiny flecks of green and gold highlighted by the shimmery dress. A slinky, provocative dress that accentuated her assets.
The whisky he’d sculled burned his gut. His excuse for the twisty tension tying it into knots.
Her voice surprised him as much as her guileless expression. Women who dressed like that usually wore calculating expressions to match their deliberately sexy garb and spoke with fake deference.
She sounded...amused. Concerned. Normal.
It threw him.
He prided himself on being a good judge of character. Hadn’t he picked Babs for a gold-digging tart the moment his dad had introduced her ten years ago?
His people radar had served him well in business too, but something about this woman made him feel off-kilter. A feeling he wouldn’t tolerate.
He needed to stay focused, remain in charge, to ensure he didn’t lose the one thing that meant anything to him these days.
And as long as she was staring at him with that beguiling mix of fascination and curiosity, he couldn’t concentrate on anything.
‘Can’t a guy have a drink in peace without being accused of drowning his sorrows?’
He sounded abrupt and uptight and rude. Good. She would raise her perfect pert nose in the air and stride inside on those impossibly high heels that glittered with enough sparkle to match her dress.
To his surprise she laughed; a soft, sexy sound that made his fingers curl around the glass as she held up her hands in a back-off gesture.
‘Hey, no accusations here. Merely an observation.’
A host of smartass retorts sprang to his lips and he planned on using them too. Until he glimpsed something that made him pause.
She was nervous.
He saw it in the way her fingertips drummed delicately on the stem of the champagne flute she clutched. Saw it in her quick look-away when he held her gaze a fraction too long.
And that contradiction—her siren vamp appearance contrasting with her uncertainty—was incredibly fascinating and he found himself nodding instead.
‘You’re right. I was trying to take my mind off stuff.’
The corners of her mouth curved upward, the groove in her right cheek hinting at an adorable dimple. ‘Stuff?’
‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’
‘I used to worry about stuff once.’
Intrigued by the weariness in her voice, he said, ‘Not anymore?’
‘Not after today,’ she said, hiding the rest of what she was about to say behind her raised glass as she took a sip.
‘What happened today?’
Her wistful sigh hit him where he least expected it. Somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.
‘Today I secured a future for someone very important to me.’
He didn’t understand her grimness or defensive posture, but he could relate to her relief. When he secured the future of Qu Publishing in memory of all his dad’s hard work, he’d be pretty damn relieved too.
‘Good for you.’
‘Thanks.’ She smiled again, sweet and genuine, and he couldn’t fathom the bizarre urge to linger, chat and get to know her.
She wasn’t in his plans for this evening. Then again, what did he have to look forward to? Putting on a front for a bunch of back-slapping phoneys and gritting his teeth to stop from calling his stepmother a few unsavoury names?
He knew what he’d rather be doing.
And he was looking straight at her.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’
Her eyes widened in surprise before a disapproving frown slashed between them. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me? I make polite small talk for two seconds and you’re propositioning me?’
She shook her head, her disgust palpable.
‘Let me rephrase that.’ He tried his best smile, the one he used to win friends and influence colleagues. Her frown deepened. ‘What I meant was that I’ve had a long day. Landed in Melbourne this morning,
