It was getting impossible to maintain eye contact, but I would not cower. Instead, I blinked away from his gaze and continued my conversation with Mr. Reed. “If you have any luggage, leave it in Bangkok,” I suggested. “I’m very good at what I do, but this is a tight one.”
“Understood,” the man on the laptop replied. He met my gaze. “Thank you.”
I smiled, and this time it was genuine. “It’s what I do.”
Getting businesspeople from A to B in the thick of the December holiday chaos was no easy feat, but I’d been doing this along time. Every time one of my itineraries worked out, it gave me a little jolt of pride—in myself, in my business, in my abilities.
Pride that I’d gotten this far without having to shackle myself to a man and make myself smaller in the process.
Jack Reed ended the call, and silence settled over the room. I busied myself adjusting the cuffs of my white shirt under my blazer, then smoothing my hands over the soft wool of my pants. It was my one very expensive suit—the one I wore when I had to fit in with men like Callum Frost. Conscious that I was fidgeting, I straightened my shoulders and turned to face the man himself.
His eyes bore into me, icy and pale and unsettling. His features were chiseled with the precision of a master sculptor, his nose long and his lips full. He had dark slashes of eyebrows that only emphasized the remarkable color of his eyes. He was an exceedingly handsome man, and the power of his presence struck my gut like the tolling of a big bell.
I didn’t trust good-looking men. But I couldn’t deny this particular one was attractive.
All I could do was shove that feeling down, down, down, and pretend I was unaffected. “Deena Brand, at your service,” I said, sticking my palm out toward his middle. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Frost.”
TWO
CALLUM
Her hair wasa wild riot in shades of brown and blond, half-tamed into a bun at the crown of her head. Tendrils framed her face, emphasizing big brown eyes and pink, lush lips. Lips I wanted to suck and bite and punish for speaking to me so impertinently. Heat burned through my chest, half of me so angry I couldn’t breathe, the other half full of desperate want.
It knocked me sideways, and I resented her for it. I hated when my emotions got in the way, when things happened that I didn’t expect.
And I hadn’t expected her. The chaos of her presence, and the way everything went silent in her wake. The way her eyes challenged with nothing but a guileless blink.
Deena Brand was not like our last travel coordinator. She wasn’t like anyone I’d hired before. She faced me, her hand hanging between us for a long moment before I lifted mine to shake it. I hid the jolt that went through me at the touch of her skin against mine. She was soft, her bones fine—but her grip was firm.I wanted to pull her closer and make that lush mouth soften. I wanted to tell her to get out of my face and never come back.
“Ms. Brand,” I repeated. “How nice of you to finally show up.”
Her eyebrow arched in response, lips twitching. Mocking me. The suit she wore looked wrong on her. It fit her perfectly, but the austere lines and plain gray of the weave looked too drab for the fire raging in her gaze. Her ears and hands were adorned with multiple glinting jewels and rings, hinting that in another environment, Deena Brand would not be wearing a staid, gray wool pantsuit.
She enraged me, marching into my office like she owned it, fixing problems that had stumped my entire team like it was nothing to her. I was angry that she’d made a fool of me and vaguely embarrassed that she’d done it in front of my staff.
Even still, I was impressed, and because of that mix of fury and admiration, I wanted to own her. I wanted to see her melt, to bend her to my will, to pick apart every knot that kept her tied together so tightly.
Standing so close to her, I inhaled her scent. It was sweet and complex, amber and orange blossom. It went straight to my head, and I forgot to be mad while it filled my nose.
“According to my watch, I’m right on time,” she said, pulling her hand away so she could shake the watch down from her cuff.
My hand flexed as I dropped it to my side, a huff slipping through my lips. “According to me, you’re not.”
“That’s not a metric I’m interested in using to assess my punctuality.” A sharp, insolent smile.
The clatter of a key ring and stomping of heavy boots preceded the arrival of the security team. I kept my eyes on the woman before me as they hovered at the doorway.
“Sir?”
“False alarm,” I grated, and Deena smiled. It was an impudentcurve of her lips that did nothing to lessen the hostility in her eyes. If she hadn’t just saved my company from disaster, I’d have her thrown out. Maybe. Probably.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked sweetly.
She could get on her knees and beg for forgiveness with that obscene mouth of hers. She could surrender to me and maybe—maybe—it would scratch the itch her presence ignited under my skin.
I did not like this feeling. As a result, I did not like her.
“You’ve done enough,” I replied, knowing I should be grateful. If Jack made it to Mexico City on time, Deena had saved the biggest deal of the year, right in time for a nice little holiday bonus for the team and a jump in my own net worth.
