More Than a Fling? (2 page)

Ally chewed the inside of her cheek. ‘That’s not what my
brother Luc thinks. He sends his regards, by the way.’

Luc? Did he know a Luc? A memory of meeting someone called Luc
at his old school friend James Moreau’s thirtieth birthday party drifted into
his head. And later at James’ sister Morgan’s wedding...

‘Luc? Tall, dark, partial to smokin’ hot blondes?’

Ally nodded. ‘That’s the one. Luc Bellechier-Smith—CEO, my boss
and foster brother.’

Huh.
He’d instinctively liked
Luc—liked the Frenchman’s passion and sense of humour, his quick mind. He
couldn’t imagine how and why he’d ended up having Miss Carrot-Up-Her-Bum for a
sister—fostered or not.

‘What do you for the company?’

‘Brand and Image Director. Marketing and PR all falls under
me.’

‘And it was
his
idea to approach
me?’ he asked, now puzzled. He’d thought that Luc was smarter than that.

‘Yes. We’re talking at cross-purposes due to the fact that we
got distracted,’ she said, implying that the distraction was all his fault.
‘We’re launching a new line...would you give me five minutes to explain?
Properly?’ Ally looked at the building behind him. ‘Preferably inside, where I
presume it’s cooler?’

‘Here is good.’ He was far too attracted to her as it was, and
he really didn’t want to extend this torture session any longer. What was wrong
with him? He knew women—knew how to deal with them, how to control his reaction
to them. They
never
made him feel off balance,
slightly crazy.

‘A boardroom would be better,’ Ally countered.

His eyes narrowed in warning and he knew that she’d caught the
hint when she wrinkled her nose.

‘Okay, here it is, then. Never mind that my nose is going to
burn and I’m going to freckle...’

He looked for freckles and could find the hint of them under
her make-up. On her nose, across her cheeks.

‘Bellechier is launching a new line—’ Ally’s opening gambit was
drowned out by a piercing whistle from a balcony on the second storey of
RBM.

Ross excused himself and walked quickly towards the building.
Eli, his friend and number two, stood gripping the balcony railing, an anxious
look on his face.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘Jac-tech have picked up a bug in that app we sent them to test
and they are not happy. You need to smooth some ruffled feathers, pronto,’ Eli
told him, waving his hands in the air.

Along with computer games, RBM also designed game apps for
smartphones. It was a very lucrative part of their business.

‘It’s a brand new app...we told them it would have bugs.’ Ross
slammed his hands on his hips. ‘Who has their panties in a wad? The suits or the
tech?’

‘Suits,’ Eli replied. ‘Who else?’

Ross yanked the band from his hair and raked his hand through
it. ‘Figures. Why can’t they keep their noses out of it?’

‘Because they are power-hungry control freaks?’ Eli threw his
words back at him. ‘Get your ass up here and deal with it. I’m in development,
you deal with the suits.’

‘Yeah, coming.’

Eli jerked his head. ‘Who’s the babe?’

Ross grinned and dropped his voice. ‘Another co-branding offer.
Give me two minutes and tell Grace to video conference Paul at Jac-tech.’

Eli saluted and turned away. Conscious of the dull headache
brewing behind his eyes, Ross spun around and walked back to the source of the
pain in his butt. ‘I have to go.’

‘But—’

He should just tell her to get lost, that he wasn’t interested
in any branding deals, but there was something about her—apart from her
space-high hot factor—that intrigued him. It was those eyes, he realised, the
layers and layers of blue. Confidence, sassiness, intelligence, and once or
twice a flash of something deeper, darker. Wilder...

He knew he shouldn’t, but he did it anyway. ‘Where are you
staying?’ he asked.

‘The Riebeek.’

Of course she was. Stately, old, rich... His mouth twitched. It
suited the boring clothes and the severe hair, but not the shoes. Those shoes
intrigued the hell out of him. ‘Be in the lobby bar at seven-thirty. You can buy
me a drink and have your five minutes.’

‘At least thirty minutes if I’m buying,’ Ally stated, in a
don’t-mess-with-me voice.

‘Fifteen.’ Ross countered, backing away.

‘Twenty.’

‘Twenty minutes, two drinks.’ Ross whirled around and walked
away. At the door, he glanced over his shoulder and sent her a wicked grin.
‘Kick-ass shoes, by the way.’

‘They’re from the new line—the one we want you to endorse. It’s
not boring or snooty!’ Ally shouted at his back.

Ross had to smile.

He liked women who could think on their feet. And women with
dimples.

* * *

Sitting at the long dark bar in the hotel that evening,
Ally felt out of her depth—and she knew that it was all Ross Bennett’s
fault.

She crossed one leg over the other and stared at her glass of
icy white wine. She’d completely cocked up their first meeting and that
never
happened to her... She was always professional,
calm and collected. She just hadn’t expected the CEO of RBM to be playing
basketball at noon and looking so...

Incredible? Amazing? So super-freaking-perfect that her heart
had tripped over itself and bounced off the inside of her ribcage? Ally bit the
inside of her lip. Within ten seconds of seeing him she’d known that Ross
Bennett had the elusive X-factor she needed for the face of the new line. In
fact he had it in spades—along with the sexy-factor and the hot-factor and any
other damn factor she needed. That meant that Luc and Patric—the
know-it-alls—had, essentially, done her job for her.

Ross would be abso-freaking-lutely perfect as the new face of
Bellechier. If she, social hermit that she was, was conjuring up fantasies of
ripping his clothes off with her teeth and getting him naked and on top of her
as soon as humanly possible, then normal women—and not a few men—would do the
same when they saw the commercials. At the very least it would make them buy
Bellechier...

Lots and lots of Bellechier products. Holy smoke. The couple of
random pictures she’d found on the net had not done justice to the sheer
presence of the guy. He practically radiated charisma and testosterone and heat
and sexiness, and that meant...dammit...that meant Luc and Patric were
right.

Blergh.

Ally glanced at her watch, realised that she still had a while
to wait for Ross and returned to the primary source of her
aggravation—specifically her brothers. Ally wrinkled her nose, as always
uncomfortable with the word. She wasn’t technically their sister—because the
Bellechier-Smith family had never formally adopted her—but she had been part of
their family since she was fifteen years old so what else could she call them?
Anyway, they were the reason she was in Cape Town, and she was not amused
because she now had to eat her words.

She hated it when that happened.

She adored Luc and Patric, and she knew that they were fond of
her, but they weren’t close. When she’d arrived at Bellechier Estate as their
foster sister they’d both been at university and living their own lives. To
their credit, they had initially tried to connect with her but she’d been
distant and wary and had resisted their easily offered comfort and
compassion.

Because pushing people away and stuffing her emotions down
rather than expressing them was what she had been taught to do. Her father’s
motto had always been:
Buck up, don’t cry, deal with
it
. That was just what he’d done when her mother had dumped on him
the six-month-old daughter he’d never known about, and she supposed that was the
way he’d dealt with life. How well he had taught her to do the same.

After losing her dad at fifteen, it had been easier, and far
less scary, to withdraw into the bubble of self-sufficiency and emotional
independence she’d created while living with her introverted, just-deal-with-it
father. Thirteen years later and that bubble now had the thickness of a Sherman
tank.

She’d had some therapy, and had attended sessions long enough
to learn that she was ‘emotionally unavailable’—that her father’s insistence
that emotions were wrong had, in the therapist’s words, ‘mucked her up’ for
life. He had tolerated her only if she was reasonable and unemotional and,
despite her foster parents’ encouragement to express and display her emotions,
she’d never quite got the hang of it.

Emotions were messy and ugly. Indulging in them, allowing them
to be a factor in her life, was like climbing into a small car the size of a
sardine can and playing chicken with a F-17 fighter jet. Something was going to
crash and burn and it wouldn’t be the fighter jet. No, it was far better to be
sensible and safe.

Why was she even thinking about her past? Ally wondered,
switching her thoughts back to the task on hand. She was good at that, she
thought with a twist to her lips. She could always focus on work...it was the
best way to distract herself from the memories and to keep her from thinking how
empty her life was. Work was where she found silent companionship, where she
felt safe, needed and valued. It was a harmless place to invest time and
emotions.

So, Ross Bennett... He wasn’t a celebrity, an actor, a musician
or a sportsperson. He was—she glanced at the folder on the seat next to her—an
entrepreneur and the creator of a computer game. A computer game that was
selling squijillions, apparently.

Ally recalled the conversation at a family dinner a couple of
nights ago that had led to her leaving Geneva and heading south.

‘Run it by me again, Luc.’

Luc had tapped the stem of his glass with his finger. ‘Today’s
heroes are not always sportsmen or actors or models. There are others who are
doing amazing things...explorers, eco-warriors, conservationists.’

‘Titans, pioneers, visionaries...’ Patric added, leaning
forward and placing his arms on the table. ‘Social media has changed the way we
live our lives.’

‘Computers, gaming, technology.’ Luc snapped his fingers.
‘Entertainment, but not films or music.’ Luc’s face broke out into a smile as he
snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it... That’s who I want.’

Oh, good grief
, Ally thought,
this is going to come out from left of field—far, far
left.
‘Who?’

‘Ross Bennett.’ Patric leaned back in his chair and Luc raised
his hand to high-five his brother. ‘Well, him and his game.’

‘Win!?’ Patric asked.

‘Win!’ Luc confirmed.

Patric whistled. ‘That’s pure genius.’

Win what? Ally wondered, seeing Luc’s satisfied smile. She
exchanged a confused look with Gina, Patric’s wife. ‘Who?’

‘Ross Bennett,’ Luc said, as if she hadn’t heard the first
time. ‘Win!’

‘Win what?’ Ally demanded, frustrated. ‘Stop talking in
code!’

‘Ross is an ex-London-based entrepreneur who relocated to Cape
Town. He is responsible for bringing some of the brightest computer geeks in the
world together to create the best-selling computer game...
ever
. It’s a sports and leisure game called Win! He’s recently been
named one of the most influential people in the world under thirty-five. He is
also the founder of... Jeez, I can’t remember its name. but it’s some kind of
technology think-tank that takes the brightest of the bunch—inventors,
visionaries—and lets them work on developing new tech and systems to benefit
developing countries.’

Blah, blah
, Ally thought,
scrabbling in her bag for her smartphone. ‘Yeah, but is he hot?’ She caught the
dual rolling of eyes and prayed for patience. ‘He’s selling one of the most
iconic brands in the world, hot is the minimum I require!’

‘He’s tall.’ Luc offered.

God save her from cretins, Ally thought, pulling up her search
engine and typing his name in. Twenty seconds later her small screen was filled
with a masculine, angular face dominated by a long nose and a rather gorgeous
pair of hazel eyes. The goatee would have to go, and the highlights in his brown
hair would need to be redone or taken out altogether. He wasn’t, looks-wise, in
the league of their other ambassadors—although she was, admittedly, making that
call on the basis of a couple of grainy photos on a very small screen.

But still...on a scale of one to ten he clocked in at seven,
eight... She needed at the very least a twelve.

‘Jeez, Luc, I really don’t think so.’ Ally thought that they
needed to play it safe, stick to what was trusted and true. ‘He just isn’t
popping for me.’

Yeah, he was cute—but cute didn’t sell high-end merchandise.
‘Look, if you want someone different, who’s related to sports, then I’ll have
another list of suitable candidates by morning. Suave, debonair, sophisticated
candidates who match the brand.’

‘I don’t want someone who matches the brand. I want someone who
brings a little extra. My gut instinct tells me that this is the guy,’ Luc
stated, his voice taking on that tone that suggested that he was digging his
feet in. ‘He’s a new breed of CEO—part bad-ass—’

Patric leaned across the table to interrupt him. ‘Did you hear
about how he walked into a meeting with the boss of the biggest movie studio in
Hollywood and then refused to give them the rights to adapt Win! into a movie
because they were too—as he later explained— “up their own ass corporate”?’

‘I read that he’s sold the rights to an independent, small
company because they understand the vision of Win!. He’s very determined, very
focused, and he marches to the beat of his own drum.’

Direct translation
, Ally thought,
prima donna
. Just what she needed.

‘Luc, trust me on this. He’s not the right guy,’ Ally said in
her most rational voice. She didn’t work well with people who coloured outside
the lines. They confused her.