A text message from her was waiting when he turned his phone back on. He replied immediately.
Jess: Are we still on for next weekend?
Evan: Can’t wait. I’ll pick you up. What time? What’s your address?
Instead of getting ready for the gala in Wardham and then driving up, he booked a hotel suite in London for the night, and got ready there. It was a short drive from the hotel to her cozy turn of the century home just south of downtown, in a village inside the city.
Over the last month, he’d gotten to know Jess—on a business level, and as friends. Tonight he needed to switch gears and act like an adoring date. It wouldn’t be hard. She was a stunning woman.
Still, it was one thing to know that, and have a plan of attack.
It was another to walk up to her house and have his breath taken away when she swung open the door.
“Hey,” he said, stretching the word over two long syllables.Heeeey-eyyyyy.If he were less classy, he’d have whistled. Hell, maybe he should have whistled anyway, the way her eyes lit up at the appreciative noise.
She was dressed like a movie star. Red lips, smokey eye, glossy hair falling perfectly around her face in bouncy waves. She cocked her hip, swinging the slinky skirt of her black floor-length gown back and forth, revealing a long slit up one thigh. “Yes?”
“You look gorgeous,” he found himself growling.
Her eyes twinkled. Good. If she thought this was him putting on an act, that was even better. It would keep his reaction contained to a role-play between them—and for her ex, which was the whole point.
“Come on in,” she said, stepping back. “I need to just grab my purse, and then we can go.”
He followed her into the foyer, enjoying the way her ass moved in that dress right in front of him, the way it bounced as she strode away.
“Nice place,” he said, raising his voice as she disappeared down the hall toward the back of the house.
She reappeared a moment later, a bright red clutch in her hand. “Thanks. We bought it for the neighbourhood, thinking we would have to renovate if we stayed here long term, but now that it’s just me…it’s the perfect size for a single woman.”
“Three bedroom?”
“Only two. At one point it had been three, but a previous owner combined two of them to make a master bedroom suite. And the other is my office.”
“The one you’re always in when I call.”
“That’s the one.” She winked, her dark eyelashes brushing the apple of her cheek. Jessica Rabbit had nothing on Jessica Doran, that was for damn sure.
He shouldn’t have a sudden urge to ask for a tour of that office. Sit her in her chair and whisper filthy things in her ear as she tried to work, ever so diligently. Late into the night, as the big, bad man kissed the back of her neck, then knelt between her legs and licked—
“Evan?”
“We should go,” he grunted.
She smiled brightly. “Great.”
* * *
Jess wasn’t surprisedthat Evan had a nice car.
Shewassurprised how much his nice car turned her on, after a month of very firmly convincing herself that a crush was a no-good, very-bad idea.
And yet his car smelled good. Great, in fact. Which was a direct side effect of the fact that Evan smelled great. Like wood and spice.
She’d stood pretty close to him at the meeting in his office. He hadn’t smelled like this then. If he had, she’d have propositioned him on the spot, their friends being in the room not a factor in the least.
This was sex cologne, obviously worn to signal to Brent—when they saw him—that Evan intended to take her home and ravish her.
What a marvellous, glorious lie.
