Page 198 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

His eyes rested on her flushed face, then dropped to the curve of her mouth.

Such a thing had never happened before and knowing that this woman was the reason, that she was causing this uncharacteristic reaction, made him feel more tense than he’d ever felt. He wasn’t that man; had never wanted to be the kind of man who let his need for a woman dictate his behaviour.

His jaw tightened. Unsurprisingly, given that ever since he was four years old he’d watched his father make a total fool of himself with women, watched him confuse lust with love. Gerry McIntyre could casually mention a woman’s name over breakfast one day and the next he would have proposed to her.

It was a pattern that had repeated itself over twenty years and cost his father a fortune. By the time Tiger took over following his father’s premature death at fifty-nine, the medium-sized mining business Gerry had inherited from his father had been whittled away, hollowed out to fund his multiple divorces. All that had remained was the name, a whole heap of debt and a bunch of unpaid, understandably unhappy employees. Oh, and some very rich former wives.

Not substitute mothers, none even attempting to be. He had been nothing to them. Just a rival pull on his father’s time. Not that his father had needed much pulling. Whenever he’d fallen in love, Gerry had been like a blinkered horse galloping for the finishing line.

Tiger had so longed for his father’s attention. And there had been times when Gerry would remember he had a son, like when he’d wanted to watch the game. Mostly, though, Tiger had been easily forgotten, a lonely little boy who’d had to be self-reliant to survive. Who’d grown up to become a solitary, elusive man.

Because he wasn’t like his father. He had no intention of marrying one woman, let alone six. As for letting Sydney Truitt near his business, forget it. He’d seen his father lose too much from trusting the wrong people. He preferred to put his faith in the evidence to hand and, on that basis, Sydney was not someone he could trust.

His gaze moved to where she stood a few feet away. Anyone else in her position would be pleading by now, or need restraining by the security guards, but there was a stillness to her as she waited for his next move and he found himself admiring her composure.

What the—?

Clearly, he needed a break more urgently than he’d thought if he was starting to admire someone he’d just caught stealing from him. He was obviously suffering from nervous exhaustion. Only, from somewhere at the margins of his mind, an idea was taking shape. Briefly, he tested it for weakness.

But it was sound. Pragmatic. A near-perfect solution to a problem that he had shelved on the flight back to New York.

It was also completely insane, he told himself.

Or was it? In business, if you had your rival over a metaphorical barrel, you took what you wanted, what you needed, and right now he needed a no-strings partner. But just because Sydney would be given access to his private life, it didn’t mean that it was personal. This was a transaction like any other.

‘You react well to pressure,’ he said after a moment.

She stared at him, those brown eyes confused, but curious. Because his non sequitur had piqued her interest. And that in turn had piqued his. Curiosity, the desire to know more and so be more, that he understood. More than understood, he thought, remembering the first time his father had taken him to the copper mine in Colorado. It had propelled him forward, given him wings.

The need to have control over what was his. To not have to sit by, powerless to intervene as it slipped through his fingers, that was the engine that drove him onwards, but his curiosity was the fuel.

‘Yes.’ As she nodded, the slight movement of her head made another curl slip free of its moorings and watching its progress made him feel light-headed.

‘It’s part of the job. If you get emotional then you lose focus.’

True, he thought, dragging his eyes away from the distracting curl back to her face. Only that didn’t help because now the part of his brain that should be cool and clinical was distracted by the freckles on her face.

She had beautiful skin, smooth and pale aside from a faint flush of pink along her cheekbones, so a perfect canvas for that mesmerising sprinkling of sun kisses. A beat of heat danced along his limbs. Was that all there were or were there others elsewhere?

‘That’s good to know,’ he said, shutting the door on that thought. ‘You see, while we’ve been talking, I’ve realised I have got a use for you after all. A short-term contract.’

He watched as her shoulders dropped fractionally. ‘You won’t regret it. I can start tomorrow.’ She hesitated. ‘But I’ll need some kind of security clearance to get into the building. My pass expired today.’

He let her wait, as she had made him wait earlier in the day, liking how it made the colour in her cheeks spread like spilt wine.

Finally, he shook his head. ‘You won’t need a pass. I don’t want you anywhere near my office. But you will need a passport.’

Her forehead creased. ‘Where do you want me to go?’

My bed,he thought, his body suddenly hot and tight.

Without the pants, but she could keep that blouse on. His gaze dropped to her spiked heels. And those shoes. It was a cliché, but clichés became clichés because they spoke to something true.

But not enough to act on. Coming to his senses, he met her gaze. ‘Venice,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s where I want you to go. Where you need to be.’

‘You have an office in Venice?’

‘No, I don’t. And I don’t need your hacking skills. I have a big event coming up. In Venice. I need a date, a girlfriend of sorts. Just for a week.’

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