She smoothed her hands over the silk of her dress and sat down.âBetter than a bathrobe, then?â
His lips quirked. âDepends,â he said, âon what youâve got on under it.â
With his emerald eyes hot on hers and his devastating face relaxed in a challenging grin, Kate felt all her good intentions shoot out of the window. âGosh, are we talking about your knicker fixation already? I thought youâd at least get me a drink first.â
He barked out a laugh. âOkay, letâs get you a drink.â He summoned the waiter and she ordered one. âBut Iâve got to warn you,â he continued, âthis fixation is fast becoming an obsession.â
âReally, Zack?â The corner of her mouth inched up. âMaybe you should stop sending underwear to women you donât know.â
âThat might work,â he said. âOr maybe I should just get to know her first.â
He reached across the table and stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. The light touch had heat spearing up her arms and across her chest.
âAs long as youâre not talking about getting to know her in the Biblical senseâ¦because thatâs just going to bring us right back to your knicker problem, isnât it?â
He arched one black brow, the heat in his gaze undimmed. âIt wonât be a problem for long, Kate. I guarantee it.â
Heidi Rice was born and bred and still lives in London, England. She has two boys who love to bicker, a wonderful husband who, luckily for everyone, has loads of patience, and a supportive and ever-growing British/ French/Irish/American family. As much as Heidi adores âthe Big Smokeâ, she also loves America, and every two years or so she and her best friend leave hubby and kids behind and Thelma and Louise it across the States for a couple of weeks (although they always leave out the driving off a cliff bit). Sheâs been a film buff since her early teens, and a romance junkie for almost as long. She indulged her first love by being a film reviewer for the last ten years. Then two years ago she decided to spice up her life by writing romance. Discovering the fantastic sisterhood of romance writers (both published and unpublished) in Britain and America made it a wild and wonderful journey to her first Mills & Boon novel, and sheâs looking forward to many more to come.
Recent books by the same author:
BEDDED BY A BAD BOY THE MILE-HIGH CLUB
Dear Reader
With Mills & Boon celebrating their centenary this year, I wanted a really special love story for my first book of 2008. While it didnât take me quite 100 years to create Zack and Kateâs story, it seems the two of them have been waiting to have their story told for almost as long.
It all began four and a half years ago, when my best mate Catri and I were on one of our biannual road trips to America. We were staying at the fabulous Flamingo Hotel in Vegas when I got the inspiration for Zack Boudreaux. A gorgeous ex-gambler turned hotel tycoon, Zack was a guy who knew something was missing from his life, only he didnât know whatâand it was frustrating the hell out of him. Unfortunately, it frustrated the hell out of me, trying to think up a heroine for Zack, so he got left to brood alone for several years.
Then last year Catri and I started planning a trip to California, and I discovered Big Sur. Its raw, timeless, elemental beauty captivated me, and had Kate Denton popping into my head. Smart, sassy, impulsive and fiercely independent, she was the perfect woman to captivate Zack, show him what he was missingâand then drive him nuts while he tried to grab hold of it.
After finally finishing Zack and Kateâs story, I went to Big Sur and watched the sun set over the Pacific. It lived up to all my expectations. I hope this story does the same for youâand helps to keep Mills & Boonâs torch burning bright into their next century.
I love to hear from readers, so if you want to chat about Big Sur, or Vegas, or even my latest book, you can contact me through my website at www.heidi-rice.com
Cheers
Heidi x
To Chessie Welker, my American dialogue coach, for telling me that rubbers went out in the fifties and rich guys donât drink cheap beer!
CHAPTER ONE
âI TOLD YOU Iâm not a working girl.â Kate Denton shifted on the stiff leather chair and shot the man sitting on the other side of the mahogany desk her donât-mess-with-me look. Jet-lagged, shaken and as good as naked under the hotel robe she had on, Kate knew the look wasnât one of her best.
He didnât reply. The insistent tap of his pen against the desk blotter seemed deafening in the silence. Bright Vegas sunlight shone through the wall of glass to his right and cast his face into shadow, making it impossible to tell his reaction.
Oh, goody, Kate thought grimly. After the most humiliating experience of my entire life, I get interrogated by a hotel manager with a God complex.
Apprehension slithered around in Kateâs stomach like a hyperactive snake. Why on earth had she demanded to see the hotel manager in the first place? It had seemed like a good idea when the concierge had started making noises about calling the police, but once sheâd been whisked up to the penthouse suite of offices and ushered in here, sheâd started having serious doubts. The guy wasnât behaving like any hotel manager sheâd ever met.