Page 1 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU’RE A LITTLE bit curious though, right?”

Ivy stared across the room, past the women and men in impossibly beautiful dresses and suits, past the carved marble statue of Winston Churchill in all his cherubic glory, to the bay window that jutted out above Queens Gate.

“No,” she lied through her teeth, wondering how someone dressed in a ten thousand pound suit could manage to look so … savage. His size? He was, after all, nothing like the elegant bankers and lawyers that filled out the poker room of the high-end, high-stakes private casino. He was big. Tall and broad, it was a body that could undoubtedly terrorise as well as pleasure with equal strength.

Pleasure?

Her mouth went dry as she turned her attention to his face. Not handsome in a traditional way. He was too angular. Too harsh. Cheekbones that looked set in defiance to his nose, as though his face were constantly at war with itself; eyes that were the colour of battle-hardened steel surrounded by thick, clumped lashes. A mouth that was wide and deliberate sat above a jaw line that was almost square. Okay, maybe he was a little bit handsome in a traditional way.

“You want to get stuffy old whatsisname out of your head once and for all? A night with that guy would do the trick.” Lisette’s accent was broad, shaped by life in Las Vegas. So too were her attitudes.

Although, Ivy had to admit her cousin had a point. Steve certainly hadn’t had any issues in moving on from her in double quick time. His engagement to the stunning in-a-vintage-Kate-Moss-Sienna-Miller-bohemian-off-to-Glasto kind of way had come only two months after he’d moved out of their lovely little home on the edge of the Thames.

Two months! After ten years together, he could have at least had the decency of waiting a bit.

“He is seriously sexy,” Lisette murmured, her blonde head tilted to the side and her eyes busy scraping over him as if mentally removing his suit.

“Yeah, and given the chance he’d choose you over me any day. Men like that always do.”

“Whatever,” Lisette shook her in disagreement.

“You’re all Jessica Rabbit-slash-Marilyn Monroe and I’m …”

“Audrey Hepburn at her Holly Golightly best.” Lisette was emphatic, her eyes sweeping over Ivy’s beautiful face, with her wide-set, almond-shaped eyes, the colour of poured caramel, a nose with a little dip at its end and a tiny hint of freckles across the bridge, and the kind of dimples Lisette had always envied, scored deep into Ivy’s cheeks whenever she smiled or thought mischievous thoughts. Ivy was beautiful, but there was an ethereal grace to her that transcended simple looks. She was elegant and refined, and utterly captivating.

“Come on,” Ivy muttered, shifting her gaze to one of the poker games and watching with no interest and even less comprehension. “This is boring. Let’s go.”

“Nuh uh. How often do you get to come to one of these places?”

“Never, and with good reason,” Ivy couldn’t help laughing. “The drinks are exorbitantly priced, labels I’ve never heard of, I know nothing about poker, and I feel like I’m about to break something!” She lifted the delicate champagne flute she held to emphasise her point. Its cut crystal bowl was so thin it felt almost as though made from lace.

Lisette grinned. “Yeah, well, I’m having fun. And you said this weekend was about me, me, me.”

“Actually, I think I said it was about showing you around.”

“Right,” Lisette nodded. “So show me around here first.”

“Well,” Ivy pretended to think about that. She nodded towards the closest table and lowered her voice. “Here we have some of London’s most pretentious snobs in their natural habitat. That smell in the air is eau de entitlement mingled with lingering notes of the City and just-minted hundred-pound notes.”

Lisette laughed. “You act as though you’re not earning a fortune!”

Ivy shook her head, though it was true, her recent promotion to a management role at GB Radio and TV had earned her a nice little salary hike. “These people sleep on pillows of money and bathe in champagne.”

“Sounds heavenly,” Lisette blinked her long dark lashes and turned her attention back to the room. “He’s looking at you,” she mumbled through lips that were held intentionally still, in a bad attempt at ventriloquism.

“He is not,” Ivy said with a roll of her dark eyes, moving her attention back to the guy with the mop of black hair that fell to the crisped collar of his shirt.

“Oh, shit.”

Because he was in fact looking at her. More specifically, at her pale skin revealed just above her breasts and shown in its natural ceramic state by the red dress she’d chosen to wear when Lisette had sprung this plan on her at the last minute. His eyes dropped lower then, to the curve of her breasts. Ivy was under no illusions with regards to her figure. Where Lisette was all curves and dimples, Ivy was tall and slim, her cleavage a disappointing non-event.

Except that wasn’t how she felt under this man’s determined, insouciant inspection. Her skin flamed beneath the silk of her dress as his eyes travelled slowly, purposefully lower, to the slight swell of her hips and then, where the dress ended several inches above her knees. Thanking the heavens she’d shaved that morning, it felt almost as though his fingertips were running lightly over her skin. Goosebumps travelled the distance.

His eyes lurched upwards, slicing through hers as though with a blade. She startled and desire pooled in her stomach. Or was it anxiety? She smiled out of habit. When someone made eye contact with you, whether in Waitrose or the post office, you smiled back. Ivy was one of those rare people who even smiled at others on the tube, finding it impossible to curb that natural instinct.

>

This man apparently didn’t share that sentiment. His lips stayed as they were, a gash in his face that made her wonder what it would be like to be kissed by him. Those lips looked like they knew what they were doing.

The thought bloomed colour in her cheeks.

“He’s really hot,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth, forcing herself to turn away from him, to face Lisette. But she could feel him in her peripheral vision and heat was spreading through her limbs, making her want him, need him, with an intensity that was utterly foreign.

Panicked, she spun around bodily, to block him from view.

And knocked Lisette’s drink in the process, so that ice cold Scotch sloshed out in slow-motion and bloomed across the front of her dress.

“Crap!” Lisette said, loud enough that Ivy felt a ripple of curiosity form in the people closest.

---