Socialite's Gamble. Michelle Conder
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she corrected herself, not endured so much as conquered.
She gave a faint smile as she took in her skinny arms and legs, her delicate high-heeled gladiator sandals. She wasn’t exactly ‘conqueror’ material. She never had been.
But still, she wouldn’t muck up tonight. Her pride demanded that she didn’t.
Hearing her phone ring, and glad for the divergence, Cara sidestepped a group of tourists and didn’t break stride as she reached into her bag to retrieve it.
Fumbling she glanced down and only just got the impression of a tall, well-dressed man in a hurry, his long legs eating up the space between them, a dark scowl on his square jaw as she sidestepped again and he ran right into her.
He didn’t make a sound but Cara gasped at the impact, her foot twisting alarmingly beneath her. She would have toppled right into him but his reflexes were lightning fast and he gripped her upper arms and held her upright. His hold was hard and firm and she felt the jolt of his touch almost as if she’d had an electric current pass right through her.
Shocked, she stared up at him and for a moment she forgot to breathe. Rich blue eyes stared—no, glared—back at her in a beautifully boned face that could only be described as hard. Angular.
In the blink of an eye she took in his short, dirty-blond hair, straight nose and a firm surly-looking mouth ringed by what looked like a day’s beard growth. It was a beautiful, masculine face that brought to mind a warrior battling it out on the Scottish highlands with nothing but a shield and a powerful sword.
A powerful sword?
Slightly flustered by her startling reaction to a stranger, Cara frowned. ‘Can you please watch where you’re going next time?’
‘Can I …?’ Aidan Kelly narrowed his eyes between thick lashes and stared at the woman in front of him. He’d just been in transit for thirty-three ungodly hours from Australia to get here and he was tired, hungry, aggravated and in a hurry, and this pink-haired waif had the audacity to accuse him of being in the wrong. ‘Lady, I was watching where I was going. You were the one with your head stuck in your bag.’
‘I stepped out of your way and—oh, no!’ She glanced down between them. ‘I think you broke my shoe.’
Aidan made a disgusted noise. ‘I haven’t broken anything.’
Twisting her foot out to the side she ran her hand down her long, slender legs and Aidan’s eyes couldn’t help but follow her movements. He felt an unexpected stirring of lust in his blood and his frown deepened. Had she just done that deliberately to get his attention?
‘Damn,’ she muttered softly. ‘It is broken.’
Aidan rolled his eyes. Not his problem. ‘Next time you might want to look where you’re going.’
She stared at him open-mouthed as if she couldn’t believe him and that made two of them because he couldn’t quite believe her, either.
‘And next time you might remember this is not a racetrack,’ she said prissily, moving her foot gingerly inside her sandals that hugged her slender calves all the way up to her knees. ‘These are my favourite shoes,’ she grouched at him. ‘I’ve had them for years.’
He cast them a disparaging glance. ‘Fascinating. Now excuse me, I need to be somewhere.’
She shook her head as if he completely disgusted her and hobbled over to a nearby seat, the words rude and irresponsible and typical male ringing in his ears.
Aidan’s back straightened. If there was one thing he was, it was responsible, and there was no way this pompous English totty was going to pin the blame for her broken shoe on him.
‘What did you just say?’ His voice was low, the softness of it underlying a lethal menace she would do well to heed in his current frame of mind.
He had important business to take care of at the Chatsfield Casino and every minute he spent with her was a minute he wasn’t focused on his end goal.
Her lower lip trembled as he towered over her and he planted his hands on his hips. ‘And here comes the waterworks,’ he scorned.
She stared at him and he had a moment of wondering where he had seen her face before. Then he discarded the thought. He didn’t know her and he didn’t want to know her.
‘You are really not a nice man, are you?’
He shook his head as if to say lame, very lame and reached into his pocket to withdraw his wallet. ‘Here’s a fifty.’ He held the money out to her. ‘That should cover it.’
She looked at his offering as if he’d just pulled it off the bottom of his shoe. ‘Hardly.’ She lifted her chin and her hair fell back from her face. She was really quite exquisite with her chin jutting out like that. Her lips a strawberry pink, her cheekbones high and her eyes heavily lashed. With mascara, no doubt.
‘These shoes are worth a thousand pounds.’
Aidan blinked, realising that he’d lost his train of thought while he’d been staring at her. Pulling himself together he raked her slender frame and let an insolent curl shape his mouth. ‘I doubt it, honey.’
‘Honey?’
‘Look, lady, I get it. Run into someone and then try to fleece them. Sorry, I’m not that gullible.’
‘Fleece them?’
If possible her eyes widened even more and he refused to let himself be drawn in by her. Refused to glance down at the sexy thrust of her small breasts or those long silken legs showcased to perfection in tiny denim shorts. ‘Look, I don’t know if you’re a broke tourist on the make or a working girl but I don’t like being played for a fool.’
‘A working …’ Her eyes narrowed and he felt pinpricks of heat on his skin as she dragged her eyes down over his lightweight suit and then back up. He saw her shoulders straighten and noticed that a hot flush had risen up along her amazing cheekbones.
Then she rose in front of him like Cleopatra on the throne and for a minute he expected to feel the sharp sting of her small hand connecting with his face. Lucky for her she pulled herself back in time and only stuck her nose up at him.
‘You really are a horrible man.’
Aidan shook his head. He didn’t have time for her games. ‘For all I know the shoe was already broken,’ he said curtly.
‘For all you care, you mean,’ she spat at him. ‘I hope you have an interesting life,’ she said, smiling coldly before grabbing hold of the handle of her suitcase.
If he wasn’t mistaken, Aidan thought, the little witch had just blessed him with a Chinese curse.
About to give her a true piece of his mind and tell her just what he thought of her benign attempts to extort money out of him, he heard his name being decimated by a shrill female voice.
‘Mr Kelly? Oh, Mr Kellllly?’
Aidan turned to find the stewardess who had dogged his every move during the flight from hell bearing down on him like a Hungarian linebacker. ‘Oh, Mr Kelly. I’m so glad I found you.’ She flashed all her teeth at him like a barracuda spying lunch. ‘I have something for you.’
He just had time to see the pink-haired woman roll her eyes heavenward before disappearing into the crowd. Frustrated that he hadn’t had time to deal with her impertinence properly, he glared at the stewardess in front of him. ‘This had better be good.’
As soon as the out-of-breath stewardess had placed her manicured hand against her chest in a move redolent of Scarlett O’Hara, her posture giving the impression that she’d like nothing better than to plaster herself all over the front of the man Cara had nicknamed ‘the cretin jerk,’ she knew it was her cue to disappear. No doubt it was her phone number that she wanted to give him. Or maybe