‘Why’s that? Don’t I look the part?’
Despite every self-preservation mechanism telling her not to look down, her gaze travelled from his chest lower and she exhaled in relief when she spied a towel. A towel loosely knotted in front. Where she might have glimpsed movement …
Heat surged to her cheeks, scorching a few choice parts in her body along the way, and she focused on his face.
Bad move.
The body was bad enough. Combined with the slashed cheekbones, cut jaw and dark blue eyes the colour of Melbourne’s night sky, the guy should be branded illegal.
‘Problem?’
Quelling the urge to turn and run, she frowned. ‘You’re not dressed.’
‘You noticed.’
Her heart leaped at the wicked glint in his eyes and she slapped it down.
‘Because if the towel’s a problem, I could lose it—’
‘I’ll give you five minutes.’
‘Or what?’
As he leaned forward a tantalising blend of expensive toiletries and freshly showered male washed over her, undermining her anger.
The guy was a player. He flirted for a living. So why was she tempted to broach the short distance between them, bury her nose in the crook of his neck and inhale deeply?
‘Just do it,’ she said, annoyed by the slightest quiver in her voice. ‘We have to hit the road.’
‘Your loss.’
He shrugged and turned away as she gaped at his insolence. Not that it stopped her watching him stride across the room, the thick white bath sheet draped provocatively low on his hips, clinging to his butt with every tempting step.
The man was a menace.
Whatever she’d expected, this wasn’t it.
Luca Petrelli in the flesh was a lot more disarming, a lot more charming, than she’d expected. And the fact she hadn’t had a date in ages went a long way to explaining why her hormones were shimmying along behind him, tugging at that damn towel.
He paused at the bathroom door and she quickly glanced up. Not quick enough if his smug grin was any indication.
‘You’ve misjudged me.’
‘How’s that?’
‘You don’t think I have what it takes to be a rock star?’ He pointed to the towel and smirked. ‘You should see my tat.’
In her imagination, her traitorous hormones couldn’t rip the towel off him quick enough.
In reality, she turned her back on his chuckles and prayed for immunity against rogue playboy charmers.
CHAPTER TWO
LUCA whistled as he zipped his oldest jeans and shrugged into a black cashmere pullover, grinning at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
By his reckoning, he had another three minutes before the fiery blonde pacing his suite barged in here and dragged him out.
She’d given him five minutes to get ready.
He’d deliberately taken ten.
Whatever he’d expected from Pop’s PA, Charli Chambers wasn’t it.
Sure, he’d been away awhile—give or take ten years—but Pop had always had sedate, subservient employees, women who wore bland grey trouser suits and conservative blouses. Stereotypical drones who wouldn’t say boo to Australia’s top musical entrepreneur.
Charli Chambers was far from stereotypical.
Her knee-length purple skirt hugged a butt made to be grabbed by a guy’s hand, her fitted jacket outlined a hand-span waist and the deep V of her crisp white shirt highlighted a very nice cleavage indeed.
As for those long stockingless legs … shapely calves, trim ankles, manicured silver nails peeping from open-toe designer sandals. Yep, he was a leg man and proud of it.
But it wasn’t her designer outfit or sexy shoes that surprised him as much as her lousy attitude. If her dismissive tone wasn’t bad enough, she’d looked at him as if he’d stolen every one of her favourite CDs.
She didn’t trust him.
He knew the look well: it was the same one he’d learned to hide from an early age, when he quickly learned you couldn’t trust anyone, even so-called family.
The thing was, Charli shouldn’t be looking at him with mistrust; it should be the other way around. He’d Googled Pop’s protégé and what he’d found raised hackles of distrust.
He’d expected to find the odd mention of her in an occasional newspaper article linked to Pop. What he’d discovered was a plethora of pictures: Charli hanging off Pop’s arm at some charity shindig, Charli dining with Pop at countless fund-raising balls, Charli accompanying Pop on his overseas jaunts.
Where Pop went, she shadowed and it immediately set his alarm bells ringing. He knew what it was like, having people fawn over him just because he had money, and if Charli thought she could take advantage of Pop.
His grin faded and he absent-mindedly rubbed his stomach at the sudden gripe. He might not be close to Pop but he owed him and if there was one thing he’d learned it was to pay his dues, and if that included protecting Pop from money-grabbers in designer PA clothing, so be it.
Pushing off the bathroom sink, he flung open the door.
He’d given Pop a fortnight. Two weeks to manage Landry Records’ finances of some over-the-hill rock star’s tour before he headed back to London.
Before he did, he had every intention of sussing out Miss Snooty Britches.
Charli glanced at the gold Tag Heuer Hector had given her on her twenty-first for the fifth time in as many minutes, cursed under her breath and glared at the bathroom door, ready to kick it down.
She’d thought it might take a pampered playboy longer than the average guy to get ready but he’d been in there for ten freaking minutes! What was he doing? Plucking individual nose hairs?
Having Luca Petrelli tag along on this tour had been bad enough. Then he’d opened the door wearing that damn towel and her misgivings had shot into the stratosphere.
The guy was cocky, brash and annoying.
Don’t forget hot, an annoying little voice in her head whispered, and she gritted her teeth.
As if she needed reminding. The image of that broad, tanned chest was imprinted on her brain like the passwords to all Hector’s accounts.
And that was what had her mad as hell. His disregard for punctuality stung but the fact her skin prickled with heat every time she closed her eyes and saw his naked torso burned into her retinas? Now that seriously peed her off.
Clenching her fists, she marched towards the bathroom, raised a hand to thump on the door at the exact second it opened and she stumbled headlong into the chest she’d been fantasising about less than five seconds ago.
‘Falling for me already?’
Luca’s deep voice murmured in her ear but that wasn’t what had her knees wobbling. Uh-uh, his hands grasping her wrists, pressing her palms against his chest, a chest radiating enough heat to warm the entire suite, took care of that.
‘I’m flattered, but shouldn’t we go through the motions first? A date? Dinner?’
‘You wish.’
She pushed against his chest and he released her. She should’ve been glad but as she reluctantly dragged her gaze upwards to meet his, saw the spark of heat