Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionai - By Bretton, Barbara Page 0,4

that made the color all the more striking. A slow heat radiated out from her core.

"Do my back, would you?" he asked. His wicked grin said something else entirely.

"I'll do your back," she said lightly, "if you promise to do mine."

"Anything you want." His dark gaze lingered on her breasts which strained against the two triangles of fabric covering them.

No, she'd never seen a man like him before, not anywhere. Everything about him, from his chestnut hair streaked from the sun to his bronzed frame screamed danger. He wore cut-offs and a wicked grin and she knew that if she lived to be a thousand years old she would never find a man more perfect for her.

Nothing else mattered. Not reason or propriety or the fact that they hadn't a chance in the world to make it work.

One month later they were married.

One year later they divorced. Clean, neat, and painless.

Except for the fact that Megan was pregnant with his child.

#

Val's voice brought Megan back to the present.

"Look at that," said Val as Sandy accepted an invitation to dance from a balding man with a wide smile. "I would've figured he was on his way to ask you to dance. I saw the way he was checking out that strapless gown of yours."

"We had a run-in on the stairs earlier," Megan said with a rueful smile. "I'm afraid he can't control those hands of his. The sea air must do something to their hormones."

As if on cue, a young man in an Armani jacket sidled up to her and held out his hand.

Be nice, she warned herself. His daddy might own the company.

"Yes?" she asked, as politely and sweetly as she could manage.

"Dance," he said, obviously a man of few syllables. "How 'bout it?"

She upped the wattage on her smile. "Sorry," she said lightly. "Not tonight."

He hesitated, debating the wisdom of pursuing the issue, but she swiveled her chair around once again, cutting short the encounter.

Val looked at her with open curiosity. "A bit brusque, weren't you?"

"Why lead him on?" Megan said.

"That wasn't a marriage proposal," said Val. "Just your run-of-the-mill rhumba."

She shrugged, feeling the uncomfortable pinch of the truth. Just yesterday Ingrid had lectured her on her non-existent social life. You have a wall around you, Megan. There's a big wide world out there beyond work. It's time you took a bite out of it.

She'd convinced herself that being Jenny's mother was enough, that The Moveable Feast could fill whatever empty spaces remained inside her heart at night when she was alone in bed with the sultry breeze whispering through the curtains at her window, reminding her that before she knew it she'd be thirty, then forty, then grandmother to Jenny's children and sensual love would be a distant memory as faded as flowers in a forgotten scrapbook.

She laughed softly at the lie. Every caress, every hot wet kiss, every second of exhilarating passion that she and Jake had shared seemed as if they had happened last night.

Memory was a treacherous thing. Arguments and unpaid bills were long forgotten, but the freckle on his left shoulder blade or the way he looked at the moment when he . . . oh, those memories were still there, waiting.

If only she could see him again, talk to him, be with him, burn him from her memory once and for all so she could get on with her life. Was that so much to ask?

"Save me from travel agents with dancing feet." Sandy reclaimed her seat next to Megan.

Megan spun around in her seat, grateful to be pulled away from her thoughts. "That bad?"

"The worst. Someone repossessed his sense of rhythm and forgot to tell him." She sipped her creme de menthe. "Of course, there was one good thing about the experience: I got a close-up of that gorgeous piano player." She sighed dramatically. "Now that was one fine specimen."

"I hadn't noticed."

Sandy lowered her voice conspiratorially. "My dear, this one is hard to miss. Tall, dark, golden brown eyes to die for. And that voice! I tell you it just doesn't get much better than that boy."

An odd sensation grabbed Megan by the throat. "What about his voice?"

"Oh, you know," said Sandy, waving a hand in the air as she searched for the right words. "One of those gritty voices that manage to sound smart and sexy and savage at the same time. An Aussie, I think."

Megan glanced across the room toward the man at the piano. He sat in shadow, head