Jax Maroney cared about the bottom dollar—his—and to hell with everyone else.
She didn’t know whether the stress of the last few days had caught up with her or she just wanted to vent and he happened to be handy, but she downed her second Chardonnay and marched towards him.
He glanced up, the flicker of pleasure lighting his face quickly masked by a deliberate aloofness he probably practised in the mirror every morning.
‘Stalking your next victim?’
His eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?’
She waved at the crowd. ‘Most of Melbourne’s jewellers are here. Scoping out someone else to muscle in on and drive out of business?’
The corners of his mouth curved into an infuriating smirk. ‘I’m guessing you’re not here to agree to my proposal, then.’
‘You guessed right.’
Proposal...probably some fifty-page document designed to bamboozle.
She hated feeling this helpless. ‘Are you ochlophobic?’
He shook his head. ‘Why?’
‘You’re always hanging around the outskirts, avoiding crowds.’
‘More like people avoiding me,’ he muttered, bitterness tightening his mouth as his brooding stare swept the crowd.
Maybe her earlier assumption hadn’t been too far off the mark, then? While Mr. Moneybags wore his aloofness like the finest designer duds, being shunned because of his name obviously did rankle.
‘You look like you don’t want to be here. Maybe that scares people off.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t care what people think. I’m here on business.’
‘Funny business, I bet,’ she muttered, earning another slight twitch of his mouth.
‘Don’t you have people to schmooze?’
‘Don’t you?’ she fired back, ashamed by her cheap shot considering he’d just told her this crowd were avoiding him and she’d seen the evidence firsthand with the Meyers.
His imperious gaze swept her from top to toe, visually stripping her black-silk-imprinted-with-crimson-roses strapless dress from her body. Her skin pebbled and prickled with awareness; she’d never felt so exposed.
‘I’m right where I want to be.’
It meant nothing, a line from a guy used to having women falling at his Prada-loafered feet. But in that moment, with warmth flowing through her body like liquid honey, she wished she could believe him.
As if sensing her reaction, he pushed off the wall and took a step forward. In her face, in her personal space.
Her senses went on high alert: too close, too hot, too much.
His lips kicked into a sexy grin. ‘Nothing to say? That’s a first.’
Biting back the irrational urge to reach up and pull his head down to within kissing distance, she eyeballed him. ‘You don’t know me.’
He leaned down and she braced against the incoming assault of hot male and crisp citrus.
‘Maybe I’d like to?’ He murmured in her ear, his warm breath tickling her and her eyelids fluttered shut, lost in the heat of undeniable attraction.
Before reality set in. That was all she needed: to get involved with the enemy.
His fingertip touched her ear lobe, trailing across her jaw, setting her alight.
Desire streaked through every common-sense reason for not grabbing his hand, dragging him out of here and back to her place.
She’d always been spontaneous when it came to guys, not following convention of waiting to be asked out. If she liked a guy, she let him know.
But as Jax stepped away, leaving her hot and bothered and yearning, she knew he was no ordinary guy.
She couldn’t toy with him. He wasn’t the type to tease or taunt without serious repercussions.
Considering the dire circumstances at Seaborn’s, did she really want to play with fire?
‘I’d like you to leave our mine alone.’
The glimmer of lust in his eyes didn’t dim. If anything, her feistiness seemed to turn him on.
‘And I’d like this city to acknowledge I’m nothing like my father and do business with me but we don’t always get what we want.’
His honesty stunned her and when his lips clamped and he tried to turn away, she grabbed his hand.
‘So you have a heart beneath that tough-guy exterior after all.’
He frowned but the rigidness around his mouth softened. ‘Nope.’
He tapped his chest. ‘No heart here; call me Tin Man.’
She loved The Wizard of Oz as a child and the fact this big, bad business bully knew the movie endeared him to her as nothing else could.
‘You want acceptance—’
‘For my business.’ He waved a dismissive hand at the crowd. ‘Couldn’t care less what they think of me.’
His clarification only solidified her impression that this deliberate ostracism had to mean more than he was letting on.
‘Okay, you want them to accept your business, and I want my family business to survive intact. Maybe we should brainstorm a solution to our problems?’
The frown deepened. ‘Why? As you pointed out, we barely know each other. Why the hell would I discuss my private business with you?’ He shook his head. ‘Business proposals I understand. This?’ He pointed at the crowd. ‘Not a hope.’
She stared at him, something tugging at the edge of her consciousness.
He’d used the word proposal again... What if they could nut out a proposal to benefit them both?
The idea shimmered and coalesced, detonating like an ill-timed bomb and she gasped.
‘What’s wrong?’
She glanced at his left hand.
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘Involved with anyone?’
His frown eased, that sexy grin back. ‘If this is your way of asking me out—’
‘I’m not asking you out.’
She placed her palms against his chest, slid them across to his lapels and tugged him closer.
‘I’m asking you to marry me.’
When Denver had been arrested, Jax had been subjected to some pretty outlandish proposals from the media desperate to get the inside scoop.
None as outrageous as Ruby Seaborn asking him to marry her.
‘You know you don’t have to go to those lengths for me to put out. I’m good for it.’
She laughed, a genuine belly laugh that made something inside him twist with longing.
‘This isn’t what you think.’ She darted a glance over her shoulder—yeah, as if anyone would approach them as long as he was part of this twosome.
‘It’s a business proposal.’
She beckoned with a crook of her finger. He didn’t need to be asked twice to get up close and personal with her. When he’d whispered in her ear he’d smelled summer berries. Strawberry? Raspberry? Blueberry? A delicious compote that had him yearning to