Five Dates with the Billionaire - Alyssa J. Montgomery Page 0,14
he still had to lean down to plant a kiss on her cheek. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed? Where’s Dawson?’
‘No, I shouldn’t be in bed and I gave him the evening off. I think he and Nell went to the cinema.’
‘But—’
‘I have a fully qualified nurse living in now, so don’t start panicking. Lucy is also staying in tonight and we’re planning on watching a BBC documentary that starts in,’ she looked at her watch, ‘thirty minutes.’
‘Good.’ If anything went wrong Lucy, Gran’s housekeeper, would be there as an extra pair of hands for the nurse. Lucy was a sensible, middle-aged woman who often sat with Gran in the evenings. ‘I don’t want you to be alone until you’ve had the surgery and the doctor clears you.’
‘I know.’ She smiled and reached up to pat him on the cheek. ‘Thank you for caring, Connor.’
‘I love you Gran.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Promise me you’ll look after yourself.’
‘I love you too and I promise I will.’ After a quick hug, she pulled back. ‘Now, for heaven’s sake, come in. You need to get your skates on and go out for dinner.’
‘Miss Simms asked me to meet her here.’
‘Don’t be stuffy, Connor. Call her Mia.’ She turned on her heel as he shut the front door behind him. ‘She’s upstairs getting ready but will be down any minute.’ Gran paused, placed her hand on his right arm and steered him towards the small drawing room. ‘Thank you for agreeing to this, Connor.’
‘You left me with no choice and I’m not going to pretend to be happy about it.’
‘Mia said the same thing, but I think you’ll both change your minds.’ Instead of continuing, his grandmother stopped at the base of the grand curved staircase that swept up to the second floor. ‘I insisted Mia consult with some stylists this afternoon and I’ve had such a lovely time watching the butterfly emerge from the cocoon.’
Connor conjured up his employee’s image. She’d certainly need a team of beauticians and stylists to transform her. But, despite Mia’s high cheekbones and full lips, he doubted even the experts could produce a butterfly.
Not that she was ugly; she was just… plain. Though she hadn’t looked plain when she’d been railing at him this afternoon. Her cheeks had flushed and her eyes had been quite—
‘Ah, Mia. You’re ready!’ Violet announced.
Connor steeled himself to keep his features neutral. After having already been less than pleasant to Miss Simms he didn’t want to squash her self-esteem if she saw he was unimpressed with the stylists’ best efforts.
Polite, social mask in place, he looked up.
Good God!
A butterfly had indeed emerged from the cocoon. An exquisite butterfly.
For a split second he was disoriented. As disbelief pounded through him he forced himself to look away and marshal his thoughts. When he looked back, his attention was riveted on the woman in red making her way gracefully down the wide staircase.
Connor’s jaw slackened.
If it wasn’t for her hair colour and those same awful glasses, he would’ve sworn it couldn’t be Mia.
Rendered momentarily speechless, all he could do was stare as he tried to absorb her appearance. Her figure…
Hell! What had she been thinking hiding under the shapeless clothes she wore to the office? He would never have guessed in a million years that she had such a sexy figure.
Sexy?
Hell, yeah. Sexy.
He barely refrained from raising his hand to the side of his head and giving himself a whack to try to dislodge the thought.
Her legs—shown off to advantage by killer heels and a dress ending mid-thigh—her legs were amazing.
Even when he tore his gaze away from them and tried to banish the X-rated visions filling his mind about how those legs could be wrapped around him, his rapid pulse didn’t recover. He couldn’t stop assessing every little detail about her. Her hips curved perfectly from her slender waist and her breasts were more than ample.
Wavy dark hair framed her face, caressed her shoulders and cascaded down her back. Connor’s fingers wanted to thread through it to see if it was as silky as it looked. Who could’ve guessed that the tightly wound bun she always wore hid such lustrous hair?
This was Mia Simms, the frumpy member of his marketing team?
He couldn’t reconcile the woman he’d seen countless times with this vision of fabulous femininity who was descending the stairs in front of him. First, she’d stunned him with their verbal sparring match this afternoon and now this…