A Groom For The Taking: The Wedding Date

Her eyes slid to his, a warm flicker coming back to life within. He couldn’t drag his eyes away even as he said, ‘Roger? Your favourite drink is …?’

‘I’d kill for a tequila slammer,’ Roger piped up.

The warmth in Hannah’s eyes sparked into a flickering fire, and her mouth turned up at the corners as she stifled a laugh. She had a great smile. Infectious as all get out. Bradley felt his own cheeks lifting in response.

‘Now, Roger, while you await your tequila slammer you should ask Hannah about her naked run down Main Street. It’s a classic.’

Hannah’s smile disappeared as she gawped at him—all hot pink cheeks and pursed red lips, bright eyes and huffing chest. Then she slowly shook her head. A warning of reprisals to come.

It was with that image in mind—that dark promise—that he turned and headed for the bar.

What a difference a day makes.

It had been less than a day since thought of Hannah jetting off for a wild weekend and a family wedding on an island she clearly adored had finally spooked him enough to abandon a long-planned New Zealand research trip on a plane.

Checking out Tasmania was a smart business move, but there was no avoiding the fact that the timing purely came down to his need to keep an eye on her. For losing her from the team at that point in time was exactly the kind of drama he did not need.

What with the Argentina show all but ready to fly, and New Zealand well and truly in the works. And now the germ of a new idea about Tasmania. He didn’t have the time to break in someone new.

He found a spot at the bar where he was a head taller than every other patron. Three rows back, he still caught the eye of a bored-looking barmaid. She perked up, fixed her hair, smiled, and ignored the throng between them.

He boomed out his order and mimed his room number for the bill. She pretended to write it on her hand. Or maybe she wasn’t pretending. She was cute. Willing. Lived miles away. But no part of him was stirred. Literally. Odd.

Drinks ordered, his thoughts readily skidded back to where he’d left them.

Breaking in a new employee was always frustrating. Not Hannah. She’d been a breeze from day one. With the stamina to keep up with him, the temperament to handle him, and a lighthearted nature that made her popular with staff, crew and station management alike. She could have said Yes, Bradley, you’re right, Bradley, a tad more for his liking—rather than contradicting him so readily. But all in all Team Bradley was the better for having her.

He was smart enough to know it wouldn’t last. Nothing ever did. One day she’d move on. It was the natural order of things. Every man for himself. No exceptions. Not for promises. Not even for blood.

It appeared as though she was sticking around for the immediate future. Hell would freeze over before she’d realise how much she missed living near her mum. As for the lightweight best man? Nothing to fear there.

A woman’s voice called out his room number. He reached over and collected the drinks. The barmaid batted her lashes and gave him an eyeful of cleavage. He gave her an appreciative smile, but nothing more. No need to raise the girl’s obvious hopes.

He was a busy man. On a mission to keep his assistant on the straight and narrow and out of the way of any who sought to knock her from her current path.

Hannah’s familiar laughter tinkled through the air. He turned to catch the sound. She was regaling the group with some story or another, and they were laughing their heads off. This was the Hannah he wasn’t ready to see go. Easy. Uncomplicated. Straight up.

She tossed her head and smiled widely at someone to her left, giving him a view of her profile. She waved and laughed. Bright and vivacious. Confident and extraordinarily sexy.

Several parts of him were stirred in an instant. Dramatically.

The fact that he seemed to be one of those with a craving to knock her from the straight and narrow was a whole other kettle of fish.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_87b3f857-4b5d-57ab-86b6-4ede2246e3fc)

HANNAH nibbled at her little fingernail until there was nothing more to nibble without taking the top off her finger.

For a weekend that was meant to be about relaxing and recharging, sorting out her head, she felt as if she’d been walking a tightrope blindfolded.

What with Elyse being so unexpectedly fabulous. Her mother driving her even crazier than she’d expected. And poor Roger flirting up a storm every chance he had while she thought him about as interesting as a potted plant.

But they were mere wallpaper compared with the most glaring factor in the story of her lack of a pinky fingernail.

What had got into Bradley?

Even thinking her boss’s name had her teeth aiming for a new nail.

No matter how she played out that first half an hour inside the bar, she kept coming back to the indisputable fact that Bradley had been hitting on her. The dark glances, the whispering in her ear, the unexpected touches …

She bit down so hard on her fingernail it stung.

Wincing, she snuck a glance across the table to where the man himself sat, all six feet four inches of him, sprawled out in his chair, long fingers clasped around a glass of beer, smiling contentedly as he watched Elyse and Tim belt out ‘Islands in the Stream’ on the karaoke stage.

‘I’m sorry?’

She blinked, realising he was leaning towards her, one eyebrow cocked, the edge of his mouth lifted in the remnants of a smile. How did the man manage to make even the word sorry sound so sexy?

‘Did you say something?’ he asked, almost shouting to be heard over the music.

‘Nope. Nothing going on over here. All quiet my end.’

He looked at her a beat longer. His deep grey eyes burning into her. Heat she’d never sensed from him before was now arcing across the table and turning her knees to butter. When he finally looked away she let out a long, slow breath.

Something had shifted back there. But how much? How far? She was confused and jumpy and prickling with anticipation all at once.

Then she asked the question she’d been finding any way to avoid. Was she looking at the early stages of a fling? She gave in to a delicious shiver that tumbled through her from top to toe.

But no. No way. Anything but that. Not with the boss. She’d worked too hard to prove herself indispensable—irreplaceable, even—to turn into a cliché now.

She leant her chin on her palm and bobbed her head in time with the music, all the while watching him from the corner of her eye.

She’d have to see something way beyond fling on the horizon to even consider that kind of risk. Whereas Bradley … She knew first-hand that the women who dated Bradley were lucky if they stayed on his mobile phone longer than a month.

Her enigmatic, heartlessly delicious, emotionally stunted boss suddenly picked up his chair and plonked it down beside hers.

She leaned away. ‘If you can’t see from there I’ll happily switch places.’

‘Stay.’ He placed a hand over hers, cupping it on the table. ‘I don’t plan on shouting to be heard all evening.’

She slid her hand away and used it to scratch her non-itchy head.

‘Elyse is a pretty fair singer too, you know,’ he drawled. ‘How did you miss that gene?’

Hannah shook the cotton wool from her head. ‘That’s what you came over here to say? Not Are you’re having a good time, Hannah? Or Can I get you another drink, Hannah? But what’s with the talent deficiency? You are a charmer.’

He laughed softly—a low rumble that whispered to all the deep, dark feminine places inside her. Serious face on, he was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Smiling, he was devastating. Laughing, he was … a dream.

This man had been hitting on her? Her? Sensible, back-chatting, small-town Hannah Gillespie? She felt it, but couldn’t quite believe it.