Page 20 of The Tycoon's Shock Heir

‘We’ll see,’ she said, and she gave a tiny shrug, the twin hollows of her perfect collarbones softly shadowed in candlelight.

But with each second he could see her reaction deepen. He could feel it. Unless he was completely off his game, this was shaping up to be a night to remember.

He leaned forward and took her hand, secretly thrilled when she didn’t try to pull away. He traced the fine veins that lay across her wrist, circled them over and over with his thumb. Her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted.

‘Indeed we will.’

He brought her fingers to his lips softly, gently. Her eyelids dropped. He smiled and ran his fingers up and down the smooth skin of her forearm. She was visibly melting under his touch, but still she held something back.

‘I missed an evening at the casino tonight, but I’m willing to bet that I’ll have discovered every last one of your erogenous zones before dawn.’

‘I’d better warn you: I’m not really into sex,’ she breathed through a heavy-lidded smile.

He tipped her face towards him until her mouth was at the perfect angle. He looked into her eyes, and in that moment he saw the wariness of the little girl she must once have been, but quickly it was gone and desire swept her lids closed.

He angled his mouth and placed one slow, soft kiss on her lips. And then he slowly drew back.

‘That lengthens the odds, but I’m still willing to take the risk.’

A smile broke across her full, kissable lips. Her eyes opened slowly.

‘You’re on,’ she said.

CHAPTER SIX

RUBY STEPPED OUT onto the terrace and walked to the wall that separated Matteo’s penthouse apartment from the rest of the dazzling London skyline. Below her the glow of a thousand lamps lit up the Thames embankment. Boats glided this way and that on the mottled surface of the river, which rolled along under a clear night sky.

A tiny light breeze wafted over her bare skin and she touched her arms, holding herself close. She looked at the champagne flute, half full and balanced on the wall, and listened again for the sound of Matteo’s voice, rumbling low within the apartment—the third call he’d had to take this evening so far.

The life of a corporate exec.

She’d had no idea that people lived like this, in surroundings like this, on call day and night, and for a moment she let herself imagine becoming part of it. The money, the views, the parties. The meetings in boardrooms with demanding clients and hungry shareholders. She imagined him delivering a presentation in a glass-walled office, all eyes watching him, thought how impressive he must be in his world. How different that world was from hers.

The shadowy shape-shifting future that she’d always imagined only ever featured herself—alone. It was a world on-stage, pushing herself to her limits, twisting her body into the shapes that she had practised over and over in rehearsal, presenting to one audience after another, relishing their thrilled excitement and basking in their awe as they rose to their feet, applauding.

There was never any ‘afterwards’. No handsome husband to share the cab ride home with. No children waiting to say goodnight with the nanny, sleepy-eyed and pink-cheeked. No mother on the phone gushing with pride.

She’d never seen those things in her future, and until this moment she had never even known they might be missing. Her dream had been the same since the moment she could remember. Since her first ballet lessons at the church hall and the surprised pleasure of the teacher, telling her mum that her daughter was ‘very talented’. She’d danced everywhere she went—the bus stop, in the supermarket—and people had beamed at her, filling up that achy dark spot inside her with their happy smiles.

She would turn to her mother, expecting to see the same happiness, but it had hardly ever been there. She had been deep in her own world, her mobile phone never far away, her own heart broken and never healing. Not until she’d met George. And then it had all been decided.

In her mind it had felt like coming to the top of a road and seeing two paths going in totally different directions. The promise of a ‘new life’ in Cornwall, with Mum and George. New school, new friends. She would still dance. They did ballet in Cornwall for goodness’ sake. But Ruby had known—she had known what that new life would really be like. It would be all about George. There would be no dance—not like she’d had before—and there would be even less of her mother’s love...

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