Supermodel and businesswoman Brooke Madden is used to calling the shots. But getting with sinfully hot bodyguard Nick Rivers means giving up some control... Can she let go enough to enjoy some naughty client privileges?
Read on for a sneak peek of Bad Mistake, the latest sizzling romance from JC Harroway!
CHAPTER ONE
Nick
MY MISTAKE-MAKING DAYS are in the past. That’s what I repeat as the lift ascends and I brace myself for the vision that I’m certain awaits me on the other side of the doors. Even for a guy who likes to watch, four months is a long time to ignore the ultimate in female temptation. Especially a woman who’s paid to showcase her astounding body. But I’m here to protect my client for the next five days while ignoring all the parts of her that make this assignment torture.
I release a sigh, calling on the last line of defence—my hard-won control—in order to face the many challenges I’m up against. The most infuriating is my client’s inability to follow the simplest of safety instructions: wait in your room.
The lift doors part, the humid, chlorine-scented air rushing in like fog. Of course she chose to hang out at the hotel’s pool—a move probably designed to taunt me to the max. Because the pool most likely means a bikini. A bikini means I’ll have to avoid looking at her long legs and womanly hips, her sensational arse and pert breasts. All that topped off with the face of an angel wearing a playful smile that could charm the birds from the trees...
I deserve a fucking medal.
I exit the lift and enter the indoor pool-complex, trepidation a tight ball in my gut. My eyes latch onto the object of both my drool and my dread.
Lady Brooke Madden. Model, socialite, businesswoman. The only thing currently in my life that I can’t control.
Adrenaline smacks me in the head. As predicted, she’s bikini-clad. The sight of her relaxed and being herself, not the polished, bubbly, untouchable version the public see, is like walking into a lamppost. Every damned time.
Her name and title scream breeding, class and elegance—and there she doesn’t disappoint. But her being everything I’m not, and the opposite of my usual type of woman, is not what causes my sleepless nights and vivid dreams, nor what wakes me rock-hard and dreading another day at the ‘office’.
It’s the less obvious parts of her I’m drawn to. That almost childlike concentration—as she stoops over her knitting, which makes her seem younger than almost thirty. Her sexy, world-famous body is sprawled over a pool-side lounger, shapely legs casually bent at coltish angles. And her signature white-blonde pixie cut frames a face of doe-eyed sweetness that’s too girl-next-door for the savvy businesswoman and brand ambassador who’s here in Milan to walk Europe’s most prestigious runways.
I shove aside the irrelevant attraction and search my bottomless supply of patience. I’ve been staring for at least a minute. She hasn’t once looked up.
I clench my teeth, chasing the calm I’ve honed to perfection over the years since I last gave free rein to bursts of emotion. Why couldn’t she simply wait for me as instructed while I made a sweep of tonight’s fashion-show venue? Despite employing me for her safety, she seems to think the only dangers out there are people toting cameras equipped with tele-photo lenses, sniffing out a story worth selling.
I ignore the pulse thumping in my head as I skirt the otherwise deserted pool. It won’t do to show any sign of exasperation. One thing I’ve learned about Brooke Madden in the four months since she first contracted me for her security—she loves to push boundaries, especially mine.
My fingers curl into fists as I formulate the verbal bollocking I’m obliged to deliver. This twenty-four-seven detail is new territory for us, but my rules are the same. There will be no international scandal—not on my watch. After all, I too have a business to run.
I wait next to her lounger, my rigid body fighting frustration. Does she have no regard for her personal safety? I’m six-foot-four and I keep the physique of a heavyweight boxer, my body the tool of my trade. I’m standing a foot