Wanton Heat (A Feel the Heat Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (3 page)

She’d been so wrong about this place, it wasn’t funny. Her research suggested Osturo wasn’t in major financial strife like the rest of Italy but the monarchs were figureheads not moving with the times. Thank goodness they’d modernized the castle. Light flooded the palace from the many floor-to-ceiling arched windows along the corridors leading to the guest wing, and her quarters were the epitome of style and elegance, not dreary and old-fashioned like she’d expected. What else had she been wrong about?

Not the surly prince, that’s for sure. She may have seen glimpses of a guy willing to have a little fun if the mood struck, but when he’d accused her of using her sexuality to get ahead, his coldness and instant withdrawal had confirmed what she’d expected: he was a somber recluse too stuck in the past to move his country into the future.

She planned on changing all that.

Her cell buzzed in her bag, and she dug it out, her quick glance at the screen an instant reminder of exactly why she was on this island.

Work.

Zoe swiped the answer button with her thumb and held the cell to her ear. “Hey, babe. How’s life on the Whitsunday Islands?”

“Just perfect.” Allegra Wilks, her BFF and partner at AW Advertising, sighed. “Was a brilliant idea, taking two weeks off after the launch of Kaluna’s new resort here. Jett and I…well, we’re…”

“Having sex on the beach? Doing the horizontal kangaroo hop?”

Allegra didn’t laugh as Zoe expected. Instead, she cleared her throat. “What I was trying to say is, Jett and I are engaged.”

Zoe squealed and hoped she wouldn’t get arrested for disturbing the peace by some security guard strolling the castle corridors. “Oh my God, that’s freaking brilliant. Congrats, hon, I’m thrilled for you.”

And she was, so where was the sliver of sadness coming from? Zoe liked being single. She’d made it into an art form. “Treat ’em mean; keep ’em keen” had been her motto forever. She didn’t do relationships or emotional entanglements or any of that sappy shit. She’d seen firsthand with her parents what that could do to a woman, and no way would she be any guy’s doormat. So why the fleeting yearning for there to be more to life than dating, parties, and transient sex?

“I know it’s crazy, because we’ve only known each other a few months, but I love him so much, Zo-Zo,” Allegra said, her joy audible. “Go on, tell me I’m nuts.”

Usually, Zoe would. She’d tease her reserved friend unmercifully. She’d done it all through college, when geeky Allegra would rather hide away in their dorm and study than attend frat parties. She’d done it when Allegra had first launched AW Advertising in LA, and Zoe had insisted on a role as her personal assistant rather than a partner despite an equal monetary start-up investment. And she’d done it all through Allegra’s engagement to that wiener Flint, her Hollywood producer ex.

But Allegra was finally happy. Zoe had never seen two people more in love, and she didn’t have it in her to rib her BFF over this. Besides, she had to wrap up this call so she could go meet the prince and coerce him into entering a mutually beneficial financial arrangement for them all. And ensure that she proved she could handle the responsibility of co-running a company to make up for the complete screw-up she’d made of it in LA.

Making this deal happen was imperative.

She may have left her home in Texas a long time ago, but she’d never forgotten the condescending stares, the deliberate taunts, because she came from “new” money. Her dad had flaunted his oil-subsidized wealth while she’d shunned it.

It was the sole reason she’d wanted to be a PA when Allegra first started up AW Advertising. She hadn’t wanted to buy her way into the company just because of the money. She’d wanted to prove herself, to work her way to the top.

And look how that had turned out
.

No way would she botch this deal. Kaluna Resorts had chosen AW to deliver on a promise, and that’s what Zoe intended to do.

Failure wasn’t an option.

“Oh my God, you’re too quiet, which is so not you,” Allegra said. “So you must definitely think I’m nuts. Shit.”

“You’re not nuts, babe,” Zoe said, unable to resist her impish side for long. “You’re just sexed up, and it’s turned you into a romantic schmuck.”

Allegra laughed. “Hey, you’ve been getting it on a lot longer than me over the years. I’m just making up for lost time.”

“Getting it on?” Zoe snorted. “What are you, fifty?”

“Fifty times this week and counting.” Allegra snickered. “Jealous?”

“Make it a hundred, and you’ll come close to one of my quiet weeks,” Zoe said, enjoying how much her friend had loosened up since she’d met Jett. Hooking up with the laid-back Aussie had been the best thing to happen to Allegra in a long time.

“I’m not sure whether to scold you for bragging or hang up now, so I can go haul Jett off the reef, rip off his snorkeling gear, and try to beat your record.”

“You know I’m full of crap,” Zoe said, waving to a security guard strolling the outer perimeter of the garden. He glowered in return. “Gotta go, babe. I’m being given the evil eye by some guard in an Armani suit.”

“You okay?”

She laughed off Allegra’s concern. “Kidding. But I do need to attend my first meeting with the prince and suck up to him.”

“You’re going to nail this, Zo-Zo. I have full confidence in you.”

Glad someone does
, Zoe thought, and not for the first time. For a woman confident in her life and her sexuality, she wasn’t such a tough girl professionally. From the moment she’d accepted Allegra’s offer of partnership in the advertising agency last month, she’d second-guessed her decision.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that she’d lost the company’s most important clients, she’d heard the office rumors, the ones that implied she’d only gotten the massive promotion because of her friendship with the boss. It pissed her off, but no way would she reveal her real reasons for staying in the background all these years despite being an equal equity partner.

Her boisterous, loud rambunctiousness may come from her brash dad, but she’d also inherited a smidgeon of her mom’s circumspection when it came to private matters, and no one knew the real reason why she’d made the professional decisions she had.

But she’d been restless over the last six months, wanting to do more, wanting more responsibility. So while Allegra had been away in Palm Bay wooing their new number one client, Kai Kaluna, Zoe had tried to solidify deals with their existing clients with her usual pushy flamboyance.

And lost them in the process.

Which made it imperative she do a kick-ass job with the Kaluna Resorts campaign here and prove to everyone, including herself, she had what it took to make it in business.

“Thanks, I’ll e-mail you regular updates,” Zoe said. “Now go jump that hot Aussie.”

“Will do.” Allegra made a smoochy sound. “You know, that prince is pretty hot. Shame you can’t mix business with pleasure—”

“You’re breaking up, babe.” Zoe rapped a manicured fingernail against the screen. “Bye.”

She hit the end call button and slid the cell back into her bag.

The moment she landed this deal, she’d tell Allegra the truth. All of it.

And her plans all hinged on getting a recalcitrant prince to change his mind. Lucky her. Not.

Zoe ditched the terry robe wrapped around her body and changed into a black pin-striped business suit: fitted knee-length skirt, nipped-at-the-waist jacket, with a white silk blouse underneath. It was the most conservative outfit she owned, the one she pulled out for important business meetings, like the one she was about to attend.

She hated it. So she added more product in her hair to accentuate the razor cut, applied shimmery silver eye shadow to highlight her heavily lined eyes, and slicked a vivid crimson gloss on her lips.

She looked like a mix between corporate chic and sexpot vixen. Perfect. The first would show Prince Pedantic she was serious about her business proposal; the second would show him what he was missing out on.

Their first meeting had been disastrous. Nothing like how she’d imagined. Though it hadn’t been all bad, considering she’d gotten to grope royalty.

Okay, so a hand on his chest wasn’t exactly in the groping category, but it had felt mighty fine.

Crap, had she really come on to him? Not good. A professional disaster in the making. So much for redeeming herself at AW Advertising. If she kept it up, the only thing she’d prove with her first attempt at securing a mega-deal as partner would be how to make a mess of a key presentation and alienate a chunk of Europe in the process.

The part where Dominic seemed to be affected by the instantaneous attraction between them? Unexpected. As was the size of his impressive hard-on…but she wouldn’t go there. If she had no scruples, she’d appeal to his male side and seduce the guy into giving her what she wanted. But Zoe had sworn she needed a new start along with her new role in the company, so she was ditching the casual dates and easy sex in favor of…what? A steady relationship for the first time in her life? A chance at falling in love? Risking her sense of identity for the sake of an emotional attachment?

She hadn’t quite gotten that far in her new plans for the future, but she knew one thing: she couldn’t keep doing what she’d been doing. After her last one-night stand, she’d bolted from the guy’s apartment before she’d broken down in tears, saving those for the sanctity of her car, where she’d sat for an hour, bawling. That meltdown had scared the crap out of her, and she’d vowed right then to shake things up a little. Which for her meant toning down her sexuality and ditching the casual encounters.

“That’s going to be fun. Not,” she muttered, swiping pages on her iPad, doing a final check on her proposal. She’d put in an inordinate amount of time ensuring this proposal was the best damn thing she’d ever done. The prince had to be impressed. He just had to.

Confident all was well with her presentation, she slipped the iPad into her portfolio case.

She could do this.

But as she retraced her steps along endless corridors to the den she’d been shown as they entered, her confidence dwindled.

Allegra had been the spokeswoman for every pitch their ad agency had ever done. Zoe had been content to do the background work, something she was damn good at. She could research and collate and brainstorm like a pro, but being front and center with a client? Not her style. As she’d already discovered the hard way.

Even the success with landing the highly lucrative Kaluna Resorts worldwide ad campaign had been done with Allegra as the boss and her along for the ride. Allegra begged to differ, but Zoe knew where her strengths lay, and schmoozing clients she’d rather slap upside the head probably wasn’t one of them.

She was too outspoken, too brash to charm VIPs. Her bullshit meter was set to low, and the moment anyone started spouting crap, she called them on it. But with Allegra busy launching the new Kaluna Resort in the Whitsunday Islands, and Zoe a newly appointed partner, she’d been thrown in the deep end.

Allegra had insisted she take on the Mediterranean job, and Zoe couldn’t have continued protesting without Allegra’s getting suspicious. So here she was, desperate to make a good impression and secure the deal of a lifetime. And hopefully, make up for her monumental gaffe in the process.

Dominic stepped out of the den at that moment. Hot damn. The prince could fill out a suit. The designer charcoal jacket and pants fit like he’d been poured into them, while a sky-blue shirt made his eyes look impossibly indigo.

Her lungs seized a little as he locked gazes with her, his insolence both annoying and a turn-on. Then he smiled, a confident smirk that implied he could read her mind.

Man, she was so screwed.

“Ready for our meeting?” She managed to stride toward him without stumbling, clutching her portfolio tighter. “I’ve got a ton of information you should see.”

“I doubt that,” he said, his laconic drawl making her bristle. That was his intention, and she couldn’t react, couldn’t let him deliberately rile her when she had to nail this meeting. “But why don’t you come in and give it your best shot?”

He gestured for her to pass him but didn’t move, meaning she had to squeeze past him to enter the den. So His Highness didn’t like to play fair? Too bad for him—she was a killer poker player and had called many a bluff.

“I guarantee you’ll be impressed,” she said, pausing in the doorway, ensuring their bodies were less than a few inches apart.

Heat flared in his eyes, and she resisted the urge to say “gotcha!”

If he intended to undermine her, he’d have to do better than that. She was a master flirt, one of the best, and no way would she let some high-and-mighty prince play mind games with the sole intention of rattling her.

“I already am,” he said, not moving a muscle. “Very impressed.”

Zoe had no idea how long they stood there, locked in a standoff, neither of them willing to back down. She could smell his expensive citrus aftershave, could see the tiniest scar beneath his right ear, could feel the heat that radiated off him. It overwhelmed her. Dominic Ricci was too arrogant, too cynical, too much.

“Good, then you’ll be even more impressed when you see this.” She practically shoved her portfolio in his face before slipping past him into the den.

She made it as far as a small conference table before her legs wobbled. Damn the man for having such a potent effect on her.