In one aspect they had been right—she was determined to succeed—but the totally unfair implication that she ever would demean herself by sleeping her way to the top... It had hurt and made her want to rush out and challenge the women cattily bitching about her, but just as well the tears streaming down her face had made her reject this impulse, because it was far better to make them eat their words by simply being better than them, and proving herself.
Blurting out that actually she was a virgin would not have improved the situation; it was almost easier all round to be considered an ambitious slut with no morals.
‘You look fierce!’ Louise, who had been the new girl in the corporate finance department before Gwen had arrived, looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Do you want another drink?’
Gwen shook her head and smiled as she held her hand over her full glass. She turned and caught sight of herself in the mirror that lined the wall behind the bar. Her loose hair had a mirror gloss, but the cost, which had initially seemed enormous, of having her thick chestnut waves tamed by the hand of someone who was a superstar in the world of hairdressing had proved to be a good investment, she decided, taking a sip of her wine. She intended to make it last all evening—the buzz of being here in this city was all the stimulation she needed.
Gwen leaned in to catch what the woman beside Louise was saying.
‘Your Scots accent is just so cute, everyone thinks so.’
When they’re not thinking I’m sleeping my way to the top, Gwen thought, hiding her flash of bitterness behind a smile. As she had to virtually yell to make herself heard above the competing conversations, Gwen decided it required less effort to smile and nod rather than correct the woman’s mistake over her nationality, even though it felt as though she was betraying her Welsh roots.
Not that anyone back home would have recognised her—the once awkward, intense swot with the glasses—in this place, she thought wryly, leaning in again to catch what Louise was saying.
‘Don’t look now but he hasn’t taken his eyes off you since he came in.’ Louise’s eyes widened as she tipped her head towards the smoky glass wall that screened the bar from the street. ‘I said don’t look!’
‘I wasn’t going to.’ Gwen was not averse to the idea of romance, at the right time, but it wasn’t scheduled at this point in her life. Right now it came under the heading of a distraction she didn’t need. Still it was always good if someone appreciated the effort she had made with her appearance.
Louise took a sip of her cocktail and sighed, leaning sideways to look over Gwen’s shoulder. ‘He really is totally...oh, my God!’ she yelped, before hissing, ‘He’s coming over, don’t panic.’
Gwen heard his voice before she saw him, deep, with a light gravel underlying the velvet and an intriguing hint of an accent. It made the half-smile she was wearing in response to her friend’s antics quiver and fade as for some inexplicable reason a deep shiver that made her toes curl passed through her body.
It was that same voice that dragged Gwen away now from the New York bar and the exact moment when her five-year plan—My God, was I really that arrogant, or was I just incredibly young and naive?—had started falling apart. She was back to sitting in the school’s assembly hall where for some inexplicable reason Rio Bardales, billionaire heir to the Bardales empire, was holding his audience in the palm of his strong brown elegant hand. Gwen had a sudden unwelcome image of that hand, those tapering fingers sliding over pale skin...her skin... She gulped and blinked to clear the unwanted images dancing in her head.
Everyone was clapping, except Gwen. She couldn’t have, even if she had wanted to. What she actually wanted, what every cell in her body was screaming at her to do, was to run as far away as she could.
Her head turned fractionally from side to side in mute denial—this cannot be happening!
‘He looks like a film star.’ Ruth’s awed whisper brought the past back with a rush she had no defence against. She remembered thinking exactly the same thing that night in the stylish New York bar where they’d met. He’d been wearing a suit then too but it had looked as though he might have slept in it, yet he’d still looked absolutely gorgeous—how could he not? Even if you discounted his physical attributes—several inches over six feet tall; long-limbed without being in any way lanky; lean and muscular with broad shoulders and a natural athletic elegance—Rio’s strong-boned symmetrical features were arresting enough to be a conversation-stopper. His eyes, dark and almond-shaped, were almost black, framed by dense long lashes and set beneath strongly defined flyaway brows, his carved cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and his square chin had the hint of a cleft, but it was his beautifully cut, overtly sensual mouth that did the most damage to her nervous system.
Gwen felt dizzy as the image from the past was overlaid by one of the man standing on the stage, his words just sounds that had a physical effect on her, sending successive shivers over the surface of her suddenly too warm skin.
She felt as though everyone must see what was happening, that they were all staring at her, but crazily they were completely oblivious. Now they were laughing, an appreciative ripple of sound that wafted like a breeze through the vaulted room—Rio was being amusing, entertaining. She knew full well, though, that he could get a lot more entertaining than this, especially when there was skin-to-skin contact involved.
Jaw clenched, lips compressed over the cry trying to escape her lips, she closed her eyes and thought, Do not go there, Gwen... But too late—she was already remembering that first shock of feeling skin-to-skin contact after he had
