One Night On The Virgin's Terms - Melanie Milburne Page 0,2
to dismantle it then and there. He automatically checked her left hand for rings. Nothing.
He let go of a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. He lived in silent dread of her getting involved with the wrong man. It would be just his luck to have her fall for some totally unsuitable guy on his watch. Her brother had told him she’d been dreaming about getting married since she’d been given her first doll. He’d also heard she’d been unlucky in the dating game, no doubt because she was way too generous and trusting and not at all street-smart.
Louis leaned back in his chair and reached up to loosen the knot of his tie. ‘Would you like a drink? Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?’
Ivy glanced at him, her small white teeth snagging her bottom lip. ‘Do you have any brandy?’
He frowned. ‘Since when do you drink brandy? I thought you only drank white wine or champagne.’
Her lips twitched in a self-deprecating smile, her cute dimples appearing. ‘This is kind of a brandy situation.’
‘Now you’ve got me intrigued.’ Louis rose from his chair, walked over to his drinks cabinet and poured a small measure of brandy into a tumbler. He came over to where she was sitting and handed the brandy to her. Her fingers brushed his in the exchange and a current of electricity shot from her fingers to his and straight to his groin with lightning-bolt speed. What was going on with him today? He was acting like a hormone-mad teenager. Maybe his sex sabbatical wasn’t such a great idea. It was messing with his head, messing with his morals, messing with his boundaries.
Louis perched on the corner of his desk in front of her chair rather than go back behind his desk. He told himself it would make her feel more at ease, less intimidated without the barrier of his huge desk between them, but deep down he knew it had more to do with wanting to be close enough to study every nuance of her face. He watched her lips move against the rim of the crystal tumbler, imagined them closing around him and a wave of heat swept through his body.
Yep, he really needed to break his sex drought. Getting the hots for his best friend’s sister would be crossing a line he had sworn he would never cross. Ronan had issued him with the task of keeping an eye on her. Nothing else. Eyes on. Hands off. What else could there be between them? He wasn’t her type in any shape or form. Ivy was the sweet, homespun type who couldn’t walk past a jewellery-shop window without gazing at diamond engagement rings and wedding rings. The type of woman who tried on wedding dresses in her lunch hour. The type of woman who drooled over prams and puppies and dreamed of promises of forever love. He had no faith in that kind of love. How could he when he had watched his parents’ forever love turn into forever fighting over the years?
Ivy took three eye-watering sips, coughed twice and then leaned forward to put the glass on Louis’ desk with a grimace. ‘Gosh, how do people drink this stuff? I’m not sure I can finish it.’
‘Probably a good thing.’
She hunted up her sleeve for a tissue and, taking one out, mopped at her eyes, giving him a sheepish look from beneath eyelashes as long and spiky as spiders’ legs. ‘I’m sorry for interrupting you when you’re so busy. Is that a new secretary? She seems awfully nice.’
It was typical of Ivy to see the best in everybody. It was an endearing quality but not one he possessed. Maybe he was more like his father than he realised. Shoot me now. ‘Yes, she’s only been here a couple of months. My usual secretary, Natalie, is on maternity leave.’
Ivy leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and continued in a stage whisper. ‘I think she’s a little bit in love with you.’
Louis coughed out a laugh and pushed himself off the desk with his hands. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to sit so close to her. Her perfume was doing strange things to his senses—not to mention the glimpse he got of her delightful cleavage when she leaned forward. He moved back around behind his desk, sat on the chair and crossed one ankle over his bent knee in a casual pose he was far from feeling.
‘I never mix business with pleasure, and dating staff is