But somehow the prospect of being Daniel’s sister-in-law didn’t come with quite the same thrill. That was the down side of families, she supposed: you didn’t always get to choose your relatives.
What was taking the man so long? Impatiently she crossed and uncrossed her ankles, unclipping the portfolio to check its contents were all present and correct before snapping it shut without having registered a thing. Damn the man and his arrogance! If he’d just bothered to talk to her brother, she wouldn’t have to be here at all.
The girl shrugged apologetically at Sophie’s questioning glance, and Sophie sighed and turned her attention out of the full-length windows to where the palm-fringed, sandy shore met the Coral Sea. Some PA’s office, she thought. It was a million times better than her own office in Brisbane which boasted not even a sniff of river view between the multi-storey office blocks. Maybe there were compensations for working for the boss from hell. At least his PA had a decent view between the no-doubt frequent ear-bashings.
‘Mr Caruana will see you now.’
Sophie jumped, her insides lurching at the announcement, and not entirely with relief. Sure, she’d got what she’d come here for—admittance to the hallowed inner sanctum for an audience with Mr High and Mighty—but there was no sudden burst of enthusiasm at the prospect. The time he’d taken to make up his mind was hardly welcoming, and if it was up to her she’d like nothing better than to turn and snub one Daniel Caruana’s churlish and clearly reluctant agreement.
But this wasn’t about her. She was here to champion Jake and Monica, and telling the man where to get off was hardly going to help. So instead she took a deep breath and smoothed the silk of her skirt as she rose, doing a last-minute check of her sheer stockings for ladders, and putting a hand to the sleek coil behind her head for any escaping tendrils.
Cool, poised and professional was the look and manner she was aiming for. The Daniel Caruana she’d researched demanded first-class presentation and she intended to deliver. Later, in the afterglow of a successful wedding between their respective siblings, and when they knew each other better, there would be time to relax in each other’s company.
Because, while the prospect seemed unlikely at the moment, it would be nice if she could at least like the man who was soon to be her brother-in-law.
Though given what she’d experienced so far of Daniel Caruana, she wasn’t too confident.
She smiled her thanks to the PA, whose colour had returned and who managed to smile back, clearly relieved she wasn’t going to have to ring her boss a third time. Sophie rapped her knuckles lightly on the door and let herself into the largest office she’d ever seen.
She stopped dead, stunned by the sheer dimensions of the room. All this space for one man? Maybe he needed it to accommodate his ego. She shoved her scorn back where it belonged. He had agreed to see her, even if it had taken an eternity; maybe the man wasn’t completely beyond redemption.
She worked up a smile, remembering the old adage that to think positive was to be positive. ‘Mr Caruana,’ she offered with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel and that barely cloaked her nerves. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.’
He was standing with his back to her against the wall of windows that brought the best of the far-north Queensland beach views into the office, his arms crossed and feet planted wide apart. Maybe it was because she’d already witnessed the view that five storeys could offer over the coast line that Sophie found herself assailed with impressions that had nothing to do with the view outside and had no place on today’s agenda.
Broad shoulders.
Narrow hips.
Long, lean legs.
Then he turned and the view outside faded to grey. She blinked, wondering what it was exactly that the pictures on the Internet had missed. Sure, they might have captured the short, tousled black hair, the steel-like gaze and the wide, generous lips. They might have contained a hint of the aura that surrounded him of power and success and raw masculinity. Yet they’d been unable to capture that grace of moment, that animal-like quality that turned even his slightest movement predatory.
His head tilted and his narrowed gaze assessed her, as if he had stripped through all her professional-development bluff and seen her for the nervous sister of the groom anxious to make a good impression that she really was. ‘Is it a pleasure?’
Maybe not. Not that he was waiting for her answer. She got the distinct impression Daniel Caruana wasn’t used to waiting for anything, even before he continued, ‘You wanted to see me?’
‘Ah.’ She swallowed, his prompt reminding her why she was here, and that it wasn’t to ogle the brother of the bride or lose herself in her thoughts. ‘Of course.’ She forced her frozen legs into motion and crossed the space between them, holding out her hand. ‘Sophie Turner, from One Perfect Day. One Perfect Day makes perfect memories to last a lifetime.’ The business’s advertising blurb rattled off her tongue before she could stop herself. She was proud of her business and all she’d achieved. She believed that she offered her clients as perfect a wedding day possible, but right now in this office, faced with this man and battling her own rattled thought-processes, her words sounded trite and hackneyed.
He surveyed her hand for what felt like an eternity before his eyes once again lifted to snag on hers. This close she could see the dark shadow of a beard accentuating the strong line of his jaw. This close his dark eyes seemed to swirl with unplumbed depths, the hint of a smile in those ever-so-slightly-upturned lips.
Then he finally took her hand in his and sent a jolt to her internal thermostat. She dragged in much-needed oxygen, only to find it fuelled with the warm, spiced tang of male. She pressed on, trying to ignore the feel of her hand in his, trying to discount the skin-on-skin contact and the scramble it was making of her senses. ‘Monica has told me a lot about you. She wishes she could have visited you herself, to tell you about her plans, but—’
‘But she was suddenly whisked away to Hawaii?’ His voice was deep and rich and with the merest trace of an accent. It rolled over her senses much like the way his thumb seemed to be skimming the back of her hand. ‘By the latest man she’s apparently fallen head over heels in love with?’
The tension hummed through his words, an obvious cynicism shining in the gleam of his dark-as-night eyes, despite the easy smile that revealed a line of perfect white teeth.
That man, she wanted to say, is my brother, and he loves Monica as much as she loves him. But right now all her thoughts and senses were centred on the hand that somehow still remained firmly lodged within his.
Power, she felt in his touch, and a heat that radiated up her arm to fan out to her extremities in a delicious wave.
She tugged her hand free, sensing a slight reluctance on his part to let her go, and then wondered if she’d just imagined it.
Wished it were so.
Now she really was losing it.
Her eyes scanned the spacious office and fell on a nearby suite, three leather settees arranged in a U formation around a glass-topped coffee table. She sensed an opportunity to escape his close proximity and gather her scattered thoughts to the deal. ‘Perhaps we could sit there?’ she suggested with washday brightness laid on thick. ‘And I can fill you in on Monica and Jake’s plans.’
She was already seated, her briefcase beside her on the floor and unclipping her portfolio, when she realised he was still standing there, his lips curled again, a facsimile of a smile fading before reaching his eyes.
Then he seemed to shrug, making even that slight gesture look elegant and full of animal grace. ‘Perhaps we could,’ he agreed, before surprising her completely by ignoring the other sofas and sitting down alongside her, as if determined to turn her escape into purgatory.
He liked the way she seemed to shrink back against her armrest after that initial look