CHAPTER ONE

      ‘ADAM,’ Bianca said in that softly persuasive voice he knew oh, so well. ‘I...er...I...um...Well, I have this little problem, you see, and I’m afraid I need your help...’

      Adam’s stomach contracted. He turned slowly from where he’d been pouring himself a drink, the whisky decanter and glass still in his hands. He’d just walked in the door after one hell of a Saturday afternoon at Randwick races and wasn’t in the mood for one of Bianca’s ‘little problems.’

      All sorts of possibilities flittered through his mind. She’d clobbered some poor bloke who’d patted or pinched her on the bottom—Bianca had one of those bottoms men could not resist.

      Or she’d given all the housekeeping money away to a good cause. Again.

      Or...His eyes darted swiftly around the unit. God, don’t tell me she’s brought home some starving stray dog or cat she’s found on the streets!

      This she did with regular monotony, even though she knew the lease didn’t allow pets in their apartment block. It always fell to him in the end to take the damned bag of bones to the RSPCA, after which Bianca would glare balefully at him for days, as though he himself had personally murdered the wretched worm-ridden animal.

      Relief flooded through him when the spacious and relatively uncluttered living room showed no sign of such a stray. Besides, Bianca wouldn’t be nervous about something like that, he finally realised. She would be defiant and rebellious.

      And she was nervous. More than he could ever remember seeing her before.

      His stomach tightened another notch.

      Hell, he hoped she wasn’t pregnant by her latest beefcake boyfriend, and wanted him—her schnookhead flatmate and first best friend—to pay for an abortion.

      Oh God, not that. Anything but that!

      ‘For pity’s sake, Bianca,’ he said, almost despairingly. ‘What have you done this time?’ Adam’s normally cool grey eyes projected total frustration as he glared at the woman he’d loved and hated for the past twenty-eight years.

      No, not twenty-eight, he amended bitterly in his mind. Only twenty-three. He hadn’t met her till their first day at kindergarten together, when he’d been five.

      He’d been blubbering in a corner of the classroom, all by himself, when this amazingly grown-up and self-assured four-year-old, with big blue eyes and a glossy black ponytail tied with a red ribbon, had put an arm around his shaking shoulders and told him not to worry. She’d look after him. She wasn’t at all scared because her mummy was a scripture teacher at this school and she’d been coming here for simply ages.

      This little she-devil—who had been cleverly disguised as a guardian angel back then—had even known where the toilets were, which had been of real concern to him at that moment in time.

      He’d been her devoted slave from that point.

      He still was.

      And she knew it!

      He watched wryly as she made those big blue eyes look oh, so innocent. If there was one thing Bianca should not have been able to look these days, it was innocent. But she could, and it always made him melt.

      ‘It’s nothing bad, Adam,’ she said, as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘Really.’

      ‘What about dangerous?’ he muttered drily. Bianca thrived on danger of the physical kind.

      As a kid she’d been a tomboy and a thrill-seeker, always having to climb the highest tree in the yard, always having to play whatever sport the boys were playing and then become the best at it. She’d been able to run faster, throw further and jump higher than any of the boys in her class.

      But that had all changed when she went to high school and puberty pulled her back on the field. Talent and determination alone hadn’t been able to compete with the boys once the sheer disadvantage of height, weight and size had become evident.

      To Bianca’s chagrin, she had stopped growing at five feet three and a half, and she was burdened for ever with a very slender fine-boned figure. Even so, she’d fought to be allowed to play with the boys’ soccer team, going on to become their highest goalscorer each season.

      ‘You’re not going to try out for the Australian male soccer team now, are you?’ he asked, somewhat caustically.

      Bianca was still into sport in a big way. And sportsmen. If there was one thing guaranteed to turn her on, it was broad shoulders and a bulging set of biceps. Brains didn’t come into it. Only brawn. She liked her men tall too, which was rather ironic considering her own lack of height.

      Though six feet tall himself, with a far better body than Bianca gave him credit for, Adam knew he would never fulfil the criteria necessary to capture Bianca’s sexual interest. Nothing sparked when she looked at him. There was no chemistry—on her side.

      Adam