His Rules: Ludlow Nights - Book1 (A Ludlow Nights Romance) (11 page)

Anastacia was so petite.

Vulnerable.

Fragile.

At least he'd thought she was.

To see the woman he couldn't stop thinking about, the woman he'd always imagined was so delicate and tiny and gorgeous, morph into
Xena
, was something he was having a difficult time getting used to and dealing with.
Cristo
, he'd been proud of her and petrified for her all at the same time. An unwelcome idea slid into his mind as it occurred to him for the first time that maybe he might not be enough of a man for Anastacia Morgan. Right from the very first moment he'd seen her at the semi-final at Wembley, she rocked his world. And he couldn't believe that it had been less than three days ago. On the one hand he felt as if he'd known her all his life. And on the other he wondered if he'd ever really know how she ticked because Anastacia was a woman of mystery. A conundrum. A puzzle waiting to be solved. Well, Olivier Conti was an expert at solving puzzles. Now he wondered how long it was going to take to find the heart of her. Something told him she wouldn't make it an easy ride for him. But then, when was anything worthwhile in life ever easy?

Anastacia's deep blue eyes found his and narrowed as if to say,
'What's up?'

He smiled and she smiled right back and Olivier immediately felt better.

What on earth was he worrying about?

He was more than man enough for Anastacia.

She'd made it clear that their relationship must remain on a professional footing and that she wasn't ready for anything more.

Okay.

He could deal with that... for now.

In less than two weeks he was playing in the biggest game of his professional career and it was crucial that he keep a clear head to focus. So he'd abide by her rules... for now.

And then Anastacia Morgan would learn how to play by
his
rules.

He couldn't wait.

Two weeks later, Anastacia and her crack team had all the logistics for the Ferranti Boutique Hotels campaign prepared and ready. At least, everything that could be coordinated without their leading man, was prepared and ready. Her bruises were improving nicely and had paled to a deep yellow. She was a fast healer. And much to her relief the twitter and Facebook posts about the event and her relationship with Olivier had died a natural death.

After a long soak in the bath, Friday night found her in bed, dressed in tiny pj's of tissue thin silk and leaning back against a waterfall of soft white pillows. Feeling lazy after a hectic week, she relaxed under the comforter keying last minute notes into her cell phone. It was a wise woman who readied herself for the week ahead. A week which was bound to be hectic. At the bottom of her bed, a huge flat screen TV showing twenty-four hour news babbled in the background. Placing her reading glasses and phone on the bedside table, she contentedly let her busy mind wander as she sipped camomile tea. Tea, according to Danni who swore by it, was conducive for a deep sleep.

Anastacia just adored her big bed. No, she
loved
it. She loved sleeping alone and being able to spread her arms and legs wide in a star shape. She loved the lavender smell of her pillows. She loved cosying right under the comforter all safe and snug as a bug in a rug. When she'd stayed at Ludlow Hall and waxed lyrical to Nico and Bronte about the best night's sleep, under fabulous Egyptian cotton, she'd had in years, they'd generously gifted her a similar bed and all the bedding when she'd moved into her new apartment. By most people's standards the apartment, in a converted building right on the edge of the river Thames, might be considered modest. However, space was at a premium in London. But for Anastacia the apartment, with its high ceiling and tall narrow windows, had the added advantage of being a stone's throw away from her office. She'd piled every single penny of her inheritance, her savings and taken out a small mortgage, for an interior with an open-plan kitchen/living space and one good-sized bedroom. It was all hers. Something no one could ever take away from her. And she loved it.

Her eyes went wide when she saw Breaking Sports News, the score for the European Cup Final tickered along the bottom of the screen. Milan had won by four goals to two. Two of the winning goals scored by Olivier Conti.

Anastacia might be a person who could, if the misdemeanour warranted it... hold a grudge. She still hadn't quite forgiven him for his cave-man impersonation after she'd kicked mugger-ass. But she was a fair-minded person, too, and admitted that the man was an excellent kisser. So she raised her mug in salute to Olivier on a job well done. He was definitely on a roll. The picture leapt live to the scene in the football stadium. She had to grin. There was the man himself, in the middle of his teammates, holding a majestic cup made of solid silver, leaping up and down like a fool.

Still grinning, Anastacia turned off the TV, the light, and snuggled down.

Although her administration team had kept Olivier in the loop via email with the ever changing programme for the next six weeks, she hadn't heard a peep out of him. She hadn't expected to, not really and certainly not before the game. Olivier had had a job to do, without distractions. She could respect his focus, his discipline, his ambition. After all, she was focused, disciplined and ambitious herself.

The trouble was that two long weeks had given Anastacia plenty of time to examine her feelings and admit that she was incredibly attracted to a man she hardly knew. Fiercely attracted. So much so, she was seriously questioning her 'no dating clients' rule.

No matter how hard she tried not to, she dreamed of him. Every night. Dreams filled with lurid imaginings of hot kisses, slow hands, clever fingers, low moans and hot sex. Hot jungle sex. Lots of hot jungle sex. Her nipples tingled deliciously. She was turning herself on. Arousal, Anastacia told herself, was not conducive to a decent night's sleep. With an annoyed huff, she tossed onto her other side, found the cool part of the pillow and closed her eyes. Winding herself up like this was not a good idea, not when they needed to work closely together for six long weeks.

What if they became lovers and she discovered it didn't work for her, not that that was likely she admitted.

What if it didn't work for him?

Why wouldn't it work for him?

Her eyes flew open.

She liked sex.

She was a generous lover.

However, something was telling her that a relationship, even a casual relationship, with Olivier might be tricky to navigate without one of them getting hurt. She knew he liked her and was attracted to her. And she was self-aware enough to admit that she liked him, too.

From bitter experience, Anastacia knew what it was like when deep feelings entered a relationship and that relationship became one-sided. Knew what it was like when a man fell madly in love with a woman and those feelings were not returned. She'd been on the receiving end of an unwanted love. She'd badly hurt a man. The experience had made her leery of commitment and had put her off dating for a long time. It had taken many months of deep soul searching to admit that she hadn't made a mistake, hadn't given out the wrong signals to Jake. To admit that she was not responsible for another person's feelings.

These days she was careful to lay all her cards on the table.

Her career came first.

No wedding bells.

No children.

End of.

Pleased she'd sorted out that knotty little issue in her mind, Anastacia mulled over the source of her attraction to Olivier. Not that it was hard to find the source, after all she'd just be joining a legion of women world-wide who openly lusted after the soccer star and were happy to share proof of their devotion on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Her jaw had hit the floor when she'd realized he had over fifty million rabid fans on his Facebook page, twenty million followers on Twitter, where he regularly updated fans after a match. Not once was there mention of his private life. Naturally, in a strictly professional capacity of course, she'd done a bit of digging. The last thing she and her team needed was an old girlfriend, feeling neglected, upsetting their tight schedule. She hadn't found much, apart from the very tall, very leggy, blondes. It appeared Olivier was happy to spread the love. He hadn't lived like a Trappist monk. Who'd want one? But there hadn't been a lengthy or serious relationship. If there had been, Anastacia couldn't find it. So she'd put the bloodhound that was Linda on the case. Linda had her own sources for digging up dirt. But it appeared no dirt was lurking in Olivier's past. He was close to his mother and two younger sisters. No pictures of those. His father, a professional footballer, had died when Olivier was fifteen. His father's car had missed a coastal bend and plunged off a cliff. Losing a parent at any age was a hard knock to recover from, but for a pubescent teenager it was doubly hard, Anastacia knew.

Since she'd had two long weeks to think about it, Anastacia reckoned her lusty response to the force of nature that was Olivier Conti was perfectly normal. The response of a healthy, single female attracted to a healthy single male. Thinking back to his face and those dark eyes and the way they'd stared into hers, made her belly quiver. Her belly had been doing a lot of quivering lately. Now a voice whispered he might be out of her league. Too handsome. Too rich. Too much?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

It wasn't as if she was champing at the bit to marry him or have his babies, was it?

And the big bonus was that
she
had the upper hand.

So there wasn't a problem, was there?

Anastacia nestled further into comforter heaven and, with a sigh of contentment, admitted there was no problem at all.

The seven-thirty wake-up call the next morning came as something of an unwelcome surprise to a woman who fiercely protected her basic human right to lie in bed on a weekend as long as she liked.

Rrrrrrrring!

Blearily, Anastacia groped for her cell as it emitted another high pitched sound. A sound that did her head in, and in the process her searching hand managed to knock over her camomile tea. The sound of her favourite china mug smashing into the oak floor had her swearing like a trooper.

"What the
hell
is it?" she yelled into her cell, groggily trying to work out the time.

Silence.

"Anastacia?"

"Yeah, what?" 

"It is Olivier."

She rolled onto her back, counted to five, tried to kick-start a brain that was still dead to the world. For some weird reason her mind computed the reality that birds were singing and riverboats were sailing down the Thames. One eye checked the time on her cell, making her scowl. Gnawing back a stream of language better suited to the gutter, she took a deep breath.

"Who?"

"Anastacia," the sexy voice of wicked sin whispered in her ear. "Open the door."

Rrrrrrrring!

Not only her cell, but her front door?

Olivier was here?

As she staggered out of bed, Anastacia didn't stop to question why Olivier was now banging a fist on her door first thing on a Saturday morning. All she wanted was the racket to stop. Muttering curses under her breath, she snapped open the locks on the door of her apartment and flung it wide open.

To find a big tall, dark and handsome man leaning against the door frame. A man who looked as happy as a pig in shit, gripping a huge bunch of bright pink roses. Roses that, true, looked more than a little bedraggled. A bit like the man himself. His strong jaw hadn't recently been up close and personal with a razor. His short hair was standing on end.

His dark eyes went on a long voyage of exploration over her face to study her bruise, down her pj's to her bare feet and up again. When those dark eyes met hers, he gave her a slow appreciative grin that had her belly dancing and her heart skipping.

Brain still not firing on all cylinders, she accepted the roses thrust into her hands. And without a peep permitted Olivier to stroll right past her and into her home. She shut the door as he dropped a large black leather holdall at his feet, shrugged off his leather jacket, rolled his shoulders and turned to her.

"We won," he said.

She couldn't help it.

The smile splitting his face made her smile, too.

She placed the flowers on a side table and held out her arms to him.

"I know. And you scored two goals. Congratulations."

He stepped right in.

His hands rested on her waist, but he didn't draw her close.

Instead he rested his forehead on hers.

"Miss me?"

She blinked.

Yeah, baby.

"Well..."

He dragged her into his arms.

The hard contact with his chest stole her breath.

As did the way his arms tightened like steel bands around her.

But before she could say a single word his mouth savaged hers.

Anastacia's vision glazed.

She fought to bring it back, to focus her eyesight. She couldn't concentrate. Couldn't think. She struggled not to taste the red-hot, commanding flavour of his mouth, to feel the sharp nip of his teeth that called for her to part her lips. Her own helpless moan as she opened to him sounded too loud in her ears. Then his tongue was ravaging, laying waste, even as it enticed hers to respond in kind. This was a brutal seduction of the senses and Anastacia knew she was drowning.

She struggled futilely against him, but her movements only pressed her heat closer to his.

Little by little, the kiss changed. The hard insistency of his skilled mouth on hers became soft, quite delicate. He nibbled at her mouth, as if relishing the taste of her, sucking her bottom lip so gently. And all the time his arms held her tight. Abruptly, Anastacia's glassy vision fell away and her will to struggle went right along with it.

Olivier felt the change in her, the sudden docility. And that docility, the way she yielded to him, aroused him. Instinctively he knew Anastacia was not a woman to sacrifice or give-up control. Not easily. And a part of him dimly realized that he'd taken that control from her, not by force, but by kindness. In two weeks she hadn't phoned him once. Not once. How many times had he almost given in and called her? Too many times to count. They were playing by her rules. But now that the football season was over he could focus not only on the Boutique hotels campaign, but on Anastacia Morgan, too. A woman, he was coming to realize, who liked to win, who liked to keep control. The only information he'd received about plans for the hotel campaign had come from her team. Never directly from her herself. That fact told him she was determined to keep him at arm’s length. And that fact had annoyed him, a lot. Now all residual anger with her, anger that he'd done nothing but think of her for too long, leaked away, too. It was kindness that had made her weak. Whereas he knew that if he pushed her, that push would be met by a hard shove back. Now he gave himself up to the heady sensation of losing himself in the scented softness of her warm body, the silky feel of her clothes under his hands, her tongue, and the sweet flavor of her mouth. Everything combined together and the tables were turned and Olivier found himself utterly seduced by the way she'd yielded to him.