His Most Exquisite Conquest (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

E
VERYTHING
IN
M
ICHAEL
Finn’s mind was blown away by the vision of stunning femininity perched on the edge of Elizabeth’s desk. The legs hit him first—long, beautiful legs, glowing with a golden tan, their shapely calves accentuated by straps running up from her sandals. A white frilly skirt ended at midthigh. A white peasant blouse hung off one perfectly rounded shoulder. A mass of shiny blond hair was piled loosely on top of her head, some curly strands of it escaping whatever pins she’d used.

Her face was turned towards Elizabeth, but there was certainly nothing jarring about its profile, and a fascinating dimple kept flashing in her cheek as she talked, her voice lilting with animation. Arty earrings swayed against her lovely long neck, bangles jingled on her arms as her hands waved around in graceful gestures, and the story she was telling was as mesmerising as the rest of her.

‘Angels’ heads...?’

The words spilled from his mouth, escaping from the bubble of incredulity bouncing around his brain. He could hardly believe the heart-grabbing impact she was having on him, and her mention of angels added to the sense of an out-of-this-world encounter.

He was used to sizing women up before deciding if he was willing to put the time into having an ongoing relationship with them. He never rushed into a decision because it was so tedious breaking off the connection when he found it didn’t suit him. But the
rush
he was feeling with this woman in his sights triggered a wildly rampant compulsion to forge a connection with her right now before she could disappear on him.

Her head turned towards him. Surprise lit her lovely face, her eyes widening as she stared at him—big brown eyes with amber sparkles in them. Shiny coral lipstick highlighted her lush, sexy mouth as it dropped open to emit a breathy, ‘Wow!’

It echoed the
wow
zinging around Michael’s mind, and he felt himself stirring as her gaze flicked over him, uninhibitedly checking out his physique. Her open interest in him was like an electric charge. He had an erection in no time flat—which had never happened to him at a first meeting with any woman, not even when he was a randy teenager. At thirty-five, this was a totally new experience and a slightly discomforting one. He prided himself on always being in control.

‘Are you Ellie’s boss?’ she asked, her head tilting as though her mind was racing through possibilities between them.

Ellie...?
It took him several moments to wrench his thoughts away from the rage of desire burning through his bloodstream, and connect the name to Elizabeth. ‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ he finally managed to answer. ‘And you are?’

‘Lucy Flippence. Ellie’s sister. I work in cemetery administration, so I often have to deal with angels,’ she said, as though needing to explain to him that she wasn’t off the planet, but an ordinary human being with a proper job to do.

‘I see,’ he said, thinking she wasn’t the least bit ordinary.

She hopped off her perch on the desk and crossed the floor to him with her hand extended. Curvy hips swayed. Perky breasts poked out at him. She was tall, slim and so exquisitely female that all his male hormones were buzzing.

‘Pleased to meet you.’ Her smile was entrancing. ‘Okay if I call you Michael?’

‘Delighted.’ He took her hand and held on to it, the soft warmth of it making his skin tingle with excitement at this first physical contact.

He suddenly registered movement at his side, reminding him he’d just come out of a serious business meeting with his brother. Harry was stepping up, expecting an introduction. Was he feeling the same impact, wanting Lucy’s attention turned to him, centred on him? Michael fiercely hoped not. He didn’t want to fight his brother over a woman, but he would with this one. A highly primitive sense of possession was swirling through his gut.

His eyes telegraphed hard warning-off signals at Harry as he turned to make the introduction. This was no-go territory. Don’t make a contest of it. They had always respected each other’s interest in their targeted women, but Lucy had to be a magnet for any man. Even as he said, ‘This is my brother, Harry,’ Michael willed him to accept he had first claim.

His heart swelled with satisfaction when Lucy left her hand in his grasp and simply raised her other hand in a blithe greeting, tossing a ‘Hi, Harry!’ at his brother in a kind of bubbly dismissal.

‘Charmed,’ Harry purred at her.

The flirtatious tone didn’t raise so much as a flicker of response. Her gaze instantly connected to Michael’s again, the warm brown eyes appealing for understanding and, to his mind, much more than that to come from him. He felt her reaching out, wondering, wanting....

‘I don’t know if you know, but it’s Ellie’s birthday today,’ she said, ‘and I thought I’d treat her to a really nice lunch somewhere. You won’t mind if I take her off and she’s a bit late back, will you, Michael?’

Lunch...
yes,
he thought exultantly. He couldn’t wait to have more of this enchanting woman.

‘Actually, I’d decided to do the same myself,’ he quickly informed her. ‘Lunch at the Mariners Bar.’

‘Oh, wow! The Mariners Bar!’ Her eyes sparkled with golden lights. ‘What a lovely boss you are to take Ellie there!’

‘Why don’t you join us? It will be a better celebration of her birthday if you do.’

‘I’ll come, as well. Make a party of it,’ Harry put in, instantly supporting the idea.

Four was better than three, Michael decided. Harry had to know now that Lucy wasn’t interested in him, and he could entertain Elizabeth, which took the onus of doing that off him.

‘I only booked a table for two,’ his PA inserted, pulling them back to arrangements already made.

‘No problem. I’m sure the maître d’ will make room for us,’ he stated, oozing confidence as he smiled at Lucy. ‘We’d be delighted to have the pleasure of your company.’

Her smile of delight was turned to her sister. ‘Well, a foursome should be more fun, don’t you think, Ellie?’

There was a touch of irony in Elizabeth’s reply. ‘Certainly no awkward silences with you, Lucy.’

She laughed, seeming to sprinkle sunshine at everyone as she happily declared, ‘That’s settled then. Thank you for asking me, Michael. And it’s good of you to join in the party, too, Harry.’

Michael wasn’t interested in having a party.

What Harry called his tunnel vision—usually applied only to his work on the franchises—had kicked in with a vengeance on Lucy Flippence. He saw no one but her. His entire focus, physical and mental, was on her. He wanted her completely to himself.

It didn’t occur to him that it might not be a good idea to bed his PA’s sister.

All he could think of was how to get her there as fast as he could.

CHAPTER THREE

L
UCY
COULDN
’
T
BELIEVE
her luck. The prince liked her, wanted to be with her. And what a prince he was, not only drop-dead gorgeous, but a billionaire to boot! Ellie had said enough about the Finn Franchises for her to know this guy was seriously wealthy, but had never mentioned he was also seriously sexy.

Which gave Lucy pause for thought as they made their way out of the building and across the Esplanade to the boardwalk that ran along the water’s edge of the park leading to the marina. Was there something
wrong
with Michael Finn, something that had put Ellie off being attracted to him? Was he a terribly demanding boss? Lucy wasn’t keen on
demanding
men. If he had struck himself off Ellie’s possibility list, Lucy needed to know why before jumping in the deep end with Michael Finn.

Though it was a beautiful day and her heart was singing. There was no reason not to enjoy this exciting attraction while it was still lovely and shiny. As soon as they paired off on the boardwalk, the two of them in front, Ellie and Harry behind, Michael gave Lucy a smile that tingled right down to her toes.

‘Tell me about yourself, Lucy,’ he invited. ‘How did you come to be in cemetery administration? You look as though you should be a model.’

He had silver-grey eyes—very distinctive, like the rest of him—and she was thrilled that he was interested in her, if only for a little while. Words bubbled out in an effervescent stream. She told him about her experience of modelling—its advantages and disadvantages—then tour guide jobs she’d had, and he laughed at the amusing stories about people who’d made guiding both difficult and hilarious at times. Moving on to her stint in the dance studio, she was prompted to ask, ‘Do you dance, Michael? I mean, do you like dancing?’

It was a strike against him if he didn’t.

He grinned at her, half singing, ‘I’ve got rhythm...you’ve got rhythm....

She laughed in delight.

‘Our mother insisted that Harry and I have dancing lessons when we were kids,’ he went on. ‘Said it was a mandatory social skill and we would enjoy it in the end. We grumbled and groaned at having to miss sport for girlie dancing, but she was right. You could get the same adrenaline rush out of dancing as you can out of sport.’

‘A case of mother knows best,’ Lucy remarked.

He winced ruefully. ‘She always did.’

Seeing the change of expression, Lucy softly asked, ‘Does that mean your mother is not still with you?’

It drew a quizzical look. ‘Don’t you recall the plane crash that took both my parents?’

‘No. I’m sorry, but...’

‘It was all over the newspapers, the media....’

She wasn’t about to admit that her dyslexia made reading newspapers too difficult. ‘How long ago was this?’

‘Close to ten years.’ His frown lifted. ‘Maybe you were too young to take much notice. How old are you, Lucy?’

‘Twenty-eight. And just over ten years ago my mother died of cancer. I didn’t take much notice of anything for a while, Michael.’

‘Ah...understandable.’

His face relaxed into a smile again and Lucy was highly relieved that a sympathetic bond had been established. She pushed it further, saying, ‘I don’t have a father, either. He deserted us before Mum died. It’s just me and Ellie now.’

‘Do you live together?’

‘Yes. We share an apartment. Ellie is a wonderful sister.’

The voice of her wonderful sister shattered the lovely build-up of understanding. It was raised in extreme vexation, crying out, ‘That’s because you’re so annoying!’

Startled, Lucy instantly swung around, anxious that nothing go wrong today. Michael turned, too. Seeing that she’d drawn their attention, Ellie rolled her eyes at her companion and huffed in obvious exasperation before saying, ‘It’s okay. Harry was just being Harry.’

Guilt swirled around Lucy’s mind. Had she inadvertently lumped Ellie on her birthday with a man she didn’t like, spoiling the nice lunch her sister had been anticipating with Michael? Being completely star-struck by the storybook prince, Lucy might have been blindly selfish in so quickly agreeing to a foursome, not really consulting Ellie about whether it was okay with her.

‘Be nice to Elizabeth, Harry,’ Michael chided, ‘It’s her birthday.’

‘I
am
being nice,’ he protested.

Ellie didn’t lose her temper over nothing, Lucy thought, taking proper stock of Michael’s brother. He was a very manly man, his white T-shirt and shorts displaying a lot of firm muscle and smoothly tanned skin. The slightly bent nose stopped him from being classically handsome, but the riot of black curls and the bedroom blue eyes gave him a strong, rather raffish attraction. He exuded a confidence that probably meant he was used to being popular with the opposite sex, but he’d be dead in the water with Ellie if she perceived him as a playboy.

‘Try harder,’ Michael advised, dismissing the distraction by lightly grasping Lucy’s elbow and turning her away with him to continue their stroll together.

She couldn’t dismiss it so easily. ‘Does Ellie dislike your brother, Michael?’ she asked, hating the feeling that this foursome had been a very bad idea.

If it was, she had to break it up, regardless of the miracle meeting with this man. A real prince who was truly, deeply attracted to her would pursue a relationship, anyway. It wasn’t fair to Ellie, messing up her birthday with a man she found hard to tolerate. Better for them to dump the men and go off together, though that was tricky with Michael being Ellie’s boss.

‘I don’t think it’s a case of
dislike,
’ he answered with a slightly wry grimace. ‘I’ve never known anyone to dislike Harry. He’s a natural charmer, but he does tend to ruffle Elizabeth’s feathers with his flirting.’

There was flirting and
flirting,
Lucy thought, and some of it could get a bit icky.

‘Don’t worry,’ Michael went on. ‘He’ll behave himself now. I’ve warned him.’

That made no difference if, deep down, Ellie couldn’t abide the man. Lucy needed to have a private word with her, suss out the situation to her satisfaction. Impossible right here. They had walked past the park with the children’s playgrounds, and were level with the swimming lagoon. Another ten minutes’ stroll would bring them to the Mariners Bar, Hopefully, she would get the chance to be alone with Ellie in the cocktail lounge before they went into the dining-room.

In the meantime there was no point in not making the most of Michael’s company.

‘We’d got up to dancing,’ he reminded her with a grin, the grey eyes lit with amused curiosity. ‘Modelling, tour guiding, dancing—how did this lead to cemetery administration?’

‘Oh, there’s a lot of stuff in between,’ she said airily. ‘I was doing a beautician course while the dancing was paying off. That led to jobs in a department store and two of the holiday resorts up here.’ She slanted him a twinkling look. ‘I do a great foot massage and pedicure if you ever need one.’

He laughed. ‘A woman of many talents.’

She loved the sound of his laugh. It echoed in her ears and seemed to ripple down to her heart, where it tripped her pulse into racing overtime.

What was she going to do if his brother was a frog?
Please don’t let him be,
she silently begged. It would ruin this highly promising lunch.

Michael kept asking her questions, seemingly intrigued by her, which was a lovely feeling. Most guys wanted to talk about themselves. He gave her the sense that he’d never met anyone like her before and he couldn’t get enough of her, not right now, anyway. Whether that would last... Well, nothing usually did, not on this kind of high, but Lucy couldn’t help revelling in it.

Of course, he wouldn’t be intrigued by her at all if he knew the truth—that she didn’t just flit from one job to another because she was attracted to something new and different. More times than not she ran into an unavoidable snag because of her dyslexia, and she was either let go or moved on before she had to suffer the humiliation of being found wanting again. Her disability was a curse she had to live with, but she was determined to enjoy the good times in between being stumped by it and having to pick herself up and try something else.

Right now the promise of having a very good time with Michael Finn was thrilling her to bits, though she still had to check with Ellie that what was happening was okay with her. She wanted her sister to have a happy birthday. Men came and went in Lucy’s life. Ellie was the only person she could count on to always be there for her.

They’d passed the yacht club and were on the path to the cocktail bar adjoining the restaurant when Harry called out to them. ‘Hey, Mickey! I’ll buy the girls cocktails while you see the maître d’ about our table.’

Mickey? Mickey Finn.
Lucy rolled her eyes. That was such
boy stuff!
Maybe Harry was simply an overgrown boy, irritating Ellie with his silly immaturity.

‘Okay.’ Michael tossed back the response, apparently accustomed to being called Mickey by his brother, and not minding it.

Whatever... The arrangement between them would give her some time alone with Ellie in the cocktail bar—time enough to check if the current scenario sucked for her sister.

Michael left them at the bar, striding swiftly into the restaurant to speak to the maître d’. Harry led them to a set of two-seater lounges with a low table in between, and saw them settled facing each other.

‘Now let me select cocktails for you both,’ he said, the vivid blue eyes twinkling confidence in his choices. ‘A margarita for you, Elizabeth.’

It surprised her. ‘Why that one?’

He grinned. ‘Because you’re the salt of the earth and I revere you for it.’

She rolled her eyes at his linking her character to the salt-encrusted rim of the glass that was always used for a margarita cocktail.

Though it was clever, Lucy thought, openly conceding, ‘You’re right on both counts. Ellie loves margaritas and she
is
the salt of the earth. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s always been my anchor.’

‘An anchor,’ Harry repeated musingly. ‘I think that’s what’s been missing from my life.’

‘An anchor would only weigh you down, Harry,’ Ellie put in drily. ‘It would feel like an albatross around your neck.’

‘Some chains I wouldn’t mind wearing.’

‘Try gold.’

He laughed.

This quick banter between them gave Lucy pause for speculation. ‘Do you two always spar like this?’ she asked.

‘Sparks invariably fly,’ Harry claimed.

Ellie gave him an arch look. ‘I would have to admit that being with Harry is somewhat invigorating.’

Lucy laughed and clapped her hands. They were playing a game, scoring points off each other. It wasn’t bad at all. ‘Oh, I love it! What a great lunch we’ll all have together!’ She cocked her head at the man who was certainly ruffling Ellie’s feathers, but quite possibly in a way her sister found exciting under her surface pretence of indifference. ‘What cocktail will you choose for me?’

‘For the sunshine girl...a pina colada.’

She clapped her hands again. ‘Well done, Harry. That’s
my
favourite.’

‘At your service.’ He twirled his hand in a salute to them both and headed off to the bar.

A charmer, Michael had said, and Lucy could now see how it was. Ellie was attracted to Harry but she didn’t trust his charm, maybe thinking he was a bit too slick with it. She should just ride with it, enjoy it, let her hair down and not care where it led.

Lucy leaned forward to press this advice on her sister. ‘He’s just what you need, Ellie. Loads of fun. You’ve been carrying responsibility for so long, it’s well past time you let loose and had a wild flutter for once. Be a butterfly instead of a worker bee.’

An ironic little smile tilted Ellie’s mouth as she drawled, ‘I might just do that.’

‘Go for it,’ Lucy urged, excited by the possibility that both the brothers could be princes. ‘I’m going for Michael. He’s an absolute dreamboat. I’m so glad I wasn’t held up any longer at the cemetery. I might have missed out on meeting him. Why didn’t you tell me your boss was gorgeous?’

‘I’ve always thought him a bit cold.’

Lucy threw up her hands at her sister’s lack of discernment. ‘Believe me. The guy is hot! He makes me sizzle.’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I guess it’s a matter of chemistry. Harry is the hot one for me.’

Chemistry...yes! That explained everything. There was nothing
wrong
with Michael. Quite simply, there was no chemistry between him and Ellie, and no one could make that happen. It either did or it didn’t. Lucy had met some really nice guys in her time, but there’d been no point in dating them. They just didn’t do it for her.

She sat back contentedly, the narky questions that had been niggling at her making a complete exit, leaving her free to fall in love again.

She grinned at Ellie. ‘Brothers and sisters...wouldn’t it be great if we ended up together, all happy families?’

It was a lovely fantasy! Totally off the wall, because Lucy knew she wasn’t good enough to hold on to a man of Michael Finn’s calibre. Today was hers. Probably tonight. Maybe she would have him for a week or two if she could manage not to be found wanting by him.

‘I think that’s a huge leap into the future,’ her sister commented, rolling her eyes at Lucy. ‘Let’s just take one day at a time.’

Sensible, as always.

And completely right, as always.

But Lucy was flying high and didn’t want to be brought down to earth.

That could happen tomorrow or the next day or the next....

Today she was over the moon and wanted to stay there.