HEIDI RICE was born and bred and still lives in London, England. She has two boys who love to bicker, a wonderful husband who, luckily for everyone, has loads of patience, and a supportive and ever-growing British/French/Irish/American family. As much as Heidi adores ‘the Big Smoke’, she also loves America, and every two years or so she and her best friend leave hubby and kids behind and Thelma and Louise it across the States for a couple of weeks (although they always leave out the driving off a cliff bit). She’s been a film buff since her early teens, and a romance junkie for almost as long. She indulged her first love by being a film reviewer for ten years. Then she decided to spice up her life by writing romance. Discovering the fantastic sisterhood of romance writers (both published and unpublished) in Britain and America made it a wild and wonderful journey to her first Mills & Boon novel, and she’s looking forward to many more to come.
To Chessie Welker, my American dialogue coach, for telling me that rubbers went out in the fifties and rich guys don’t drink cheap beer!
‘I TOLD YOU I’m not a working girl.’ Kate Denton shifted on the stiff leather chair and shot the man sitting on the other side of the mahogany desk her don’t-mess-with-me look. Jet-lagged, shaken and as good as naked under the hotel robe she had on, Kate knew the look wasn’t one of her best.
He didn’t reply. The insistent tap of his pen against the desk blotter seemed deafening in the silence. Bright Vegas sunlight shone through the wall of glass to his right and cast his face into shadow, making it impossible to tell his reaction.
Oh, goody, Kate thought grimly. After the most humiliating experience of my entire life, I get interrogated by a hotel manager with a God complex.
Apprehension slithered around in Kate’s stomach like a hyperactive snake. Why on earth had she demanded to see the hotel manager in the first place? It had seemed like a good idea when the concierge had started making noises about calling the police, but once she’d been whisked up to the penthouse suite of offices and ushered in here, she’d started having serious doubts. The guy wasn’t behaving like any hotel manager she’d ever met.
She felt more intimidated now than before.
Obviously hotel managers had a much higher profile in the States. This guy’s workspace would have made the Oval Office look tacky. A lake of luxurious blue carpeting flowed to floor-to-ceiling windows, showcasing the hotel’s enviable position towering over the Las Vegas Strip. The view wasn’t the only thing giving Kate vertigo. The room was so big it accommodated a separate seating area with three deluxe leather sofas, and Kate had recognised the striking canvas on the far wall as that of a modern artist whose work now went for millions. She’d also noticed the guy had not one but three secretaries standing guard outside.
No wonder he had a God complex.
‘A working girl? You mean a hooker?’ His deep voice rumbled out at last, sending an annoying shiver of awareness up Kate’s spine. ‘I don’t recall saying I thought you were a hooker, honey.’
Kate heard the hint of amusement and her jaw tensed. ‘Who gave you permission to call me honey?’ she said, grateful for the crisp note of condescension in her voice.
‘I don’t need permission,’ he replied dryly, ‘when the lady in question was trying to break down a door in my hotel wearing nothing but a bra and thong.’
Kate swallowed. Okay, there was that.
‘It’s not a thong. I have proper knickers on,’ she blurted out, and then winced.
The memory of getting caught by the bell captain and bundled into a robe flooded back to her. Embarrassment scorched her cheeks. The fact she had something slightly more substantial than a thong covering her bottom suddenly didn’t seem all that relevant. That she’d mentioned it to him was mortifying. She’d yet to get a proper look at the guy and already he knew far too much about her underwear.
The metronome taps of his pen interrupted her thoughts. ‘Proper panties or not, you were causing a disturbance.’
The heat in Kate’s cheeks soared. What was this guy’s problem? She was the one who’d been manhandled. So she’d raised her voice and kicked the door a little, but wouldn’t anyone who got stranded in a hotel corridor practically naked?
‘I was trying to get back into the room.’
‘Yeah, but it wasn’t your room, was it?’ He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk, and the sunlight illuminated his features at last.
Kate’s heart pulsed hard. Hooded green eyes studied her out of a tanned face that was quite simply dazzling in its masculine beauty. Sharp black brows, chiselled cheeks and short dark hair that curled around his ears only added to the firepower. Even with his face carefully devoid of expression, the guy might as well have had a huge neon sign over his head flashing the word ‘irresistible’ at her.
From the way he was watching her, she wondered if he was waiting for her to swoon. She tightened the tie on the robe, absolutely determined not to start drooling.
Luckily for her, she was currently immune to the alpha male of the species.
‘It was my room, or at least it was supposed to be,’ she said, annoyed by the quake in her voice. She wrapped her arms round her waist, far too aware of the air-conditioned breeze chilling her bare legs.
His gaze swept over her and Kate felt the throb of response. All right, maybe not completely immune.
‘You’re not registered here.’ His emerald eyes shifted back to hers. ‘Mr Rocastle, who is the registered guest, has made a complaint against you. So, why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t just kick you out in your proper panties?’
There it was again, the tell-tale lift in his voice. Kate went rigid. Was he making fun of her?
Andrew Rocastle had duped her, practically assaulted her and then humiliated her into the bargain. And now this guy thought it was funny. When had this become stomp-all-over-Kate day?
‘It’s not my fault Mr Rocastle didn’t put my name on the registration card when he checked us in this morning. I thought he’d booked us separate rooms,’ she ground out, angry all over again at Andrew’s underhanded attempt at a seduction. ‘And anyway, I don’t have to explain myself to you. None of this is any of your business. You’re a hotel manager, not my mother.’
Zack Boudreaux’s eyebrow winged up. For such a little thing, she sure had a big mouth. He didn’t consider himself arrogant, but women were usually a lot nicer to him. He’d certainly never encountered this level of hostility before.
In the normal course of events, he wouldn’t even know about this type of minor disturbance, let alone be asked to deal with it. But with The Phoenix’s manager on vacation for the day and his deputy on a training programme, the concierge had referred the matter up to Zack’s PA. He’d heard the commotion in the outer office and buzzed the woman in out of curiosity. Truth be told, after clearing his calendar for the rest of the week in preparation for his trip to California, he’d found himself with nothing to do for the first time in close to ten years and he was bored.
One thing was for sure, the minute this feisty little firecracker had waltzed into his office wrapped in her bathrobe and a very bad attitude, he hadn’t been bored any more.
He knew it was perverse, but for some weird reason he found her sassy comebacks entertaining. Imagining her in the corridor without the bathrobe was doing the rest.
‘I don’t manage this hotel,’