Legally Addicted - By Lena Dowling Page 0,27

his thumb. He hoped it would be enough for her to jump the divide and kiss him. It would have to be; he didn’t dare do any more.

Brad’s touch was an electric charge that sent Georgia’s hormones colliding like a bunch of excitable atoms as the realisation hit her.

He wanted her.

So why was he mucking about gazing into her eyes instead of jumping her?

‘So are you going to hurry up and kiss me?’

In one swift movement he withdrew his hand.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

She wrinkled her face as she tried to work him out. He obviously wanted to spark this thing between them back up again, but he had put himself in a professional position where that would be near impossible, and now he wouldn’t even so much as kiss her?

‘Georgia, you have to make the first move.’

His voice was matter of fact as if he had just stated some irrefutable aspect of common law, and yet she knew Brad was right. Dayton and Llewellyn were already salivating piglets at the trough at the thought of cornering the celebrity break-up market. If she couldn’t handle working with Brad, she would have to leave the firm. Without a partnership track record it was terrible timing for her to be trying to break into another firm. If Brad left, Dayton and Llewellyn would forever blame her for the derailment of their gravy train.

He sounded confident, and while his features gave no discernible expression, his eyes exuded the same intense vulnerability as when he was talking about the history of the beach house. Right now, Brad Spencer, who usually wanted for nothing, wanted something he couldn’t automatically have.

Her.

Brad wanted poor disadvantaged downtown girl Georgia. It was thrilling and sexy all at the same time.

Part of her wanted to pull herself out of the canvas chair that was now ensnaring her, and haul him by the hand down onto the sand. The other part of her was freaking terrified.

After barely a second’s worth of consideration the terrified part won and she bolted back inside, almost running through the now empty living room, down the hall, and into her bedroom. Once in the comparative safety of her own room, she shut the door and leaned back against it until her heart stopped leaping out of her chest, and her legs were steady enough that she could stand up straight without structural assistance.

How had this happened? No man had ever gotten to her before. She almost wished one had, because then she wouldn’t be faced with this decision; a choice that Brad had foisted all onto her. She fumbled on either side of the doorframe and found the light switch. The harsh light bounced off the white walls and brought her crashing back to reality. She had worked her butt off to get where she was now. She couldn’t throw it all away on a man, not even one as hot as Brad Spencer, and not even, as Caro had alleged, for the purpose of securing funding support for the addiction centre.

She unzipped her bag and found her nightdress. Not bothering to remove her make-up, she slipped off her dress, shoes, and underwear and pulled the nightgown over her head. The last thing she wanted was to run into anyone on the way to the bathroom, least of all Brad.

Turning on the bedside lamp, she walked back across the room and flicked off the main light, but the moment she got into bed she was too hot. She pulled off the throw and then, when that didn’t cool her down sufficiently, she thrust back the doona, but the dank humid air was still suffocating.

She stuck out her bottom lip and forced all the air out of her lungs, fanning it upwards onto her face.

How had someone as rich and powerful as Brad not yet discovered the miracles of retrofitted aircon and ensuite plumbing?

She pulled back the curtain and then the mosquito screen to open the window, but facing away from the beach, there was no relief from the light sea breeze.

Unable to sleep, her brain replayed all the reasons why she had done the right thing beating a hasty retreat to her room, and why she should never ever sleep with Brad Spencer again.

And then it started listing all the reasons why she should.

She knew where his room was. He had made sure of that, she now realised, with the comment he had made over his shoulder about where everything was when he was showing her around. At the