Page 4 of The Player

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 downed 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 deliberate 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-digger the moment his dad 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 to ensure he didn’t lose the one thing that meant anything to him these days.

And as long as this woman 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. I was merely making an observation.’

A host of smart-ass retorts sprang to his lips and he planned on using them, 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 any longer?’

‘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 of his dad’s hard work, he’d be relieved too.

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