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Jean settled herself at her desk and turned on her computer Perhaps that hy Mr Skouras had wanted all thoselike a monk for the next couple of months; he always did, after an affair ended What better tih, another stunning fe she was just a te to snare a prize catch like him
They always hoped, even though he never seemed to know it
Jean gave aThere’d been a ti to the belief that her boss would find hiood woe that he never talked about and it had left him a confirmed loner
A millions could refuse to take any risks at all, in matters of the heart
Da across his desk
Headlines screamed at him
Are You Sexy Enough to Keep Your Man Interested?
Ten Ways to Turn Him On
Sexy Styles for Summer
The Perfect Tan Starts Now
Was there really a market for such drivel? He’d seen Gabriella curled up in a chair, leafing through azines like these, but he’d never paid any attention to the print on the covers
Or to the h the glossy pages Why did so many of them look as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks? Surely, no real man could find wo through their skin
And those pouting faces He paused, staring at an e ith a heavily e with an expression that made her appear to have sucked on one lemon too many
Who would find such a face attractive?
After a azine and reached for another Laurel’s photograph wasn’t where Gabriella had said it would be Not that it ood reason to want to see the picture; he’d directed his secretary to buy these silly things on a whim
Co?
It hadn’t been a whi just after dawn froes he hadn’t had in years, his loins heavy and aching with need
And there it was The photograph of Laurel Bennett
Gabriella had been wrong Laurel wasn’t nude, and he tried to ignore the sense of relief that welled so fiercely inside him at the realization
She’d been posed with her back to the ca over her shoulder at the viewer Her back and shoulders were bare; a long length of ivory silk was draped froh to expose the delicate tracery of her spine almost to its base Her hair, that incredible any, tuues of dark flame
Daht, he told hi less Beautiful, yes, and very desirable, but hardly worth the heated dreaht
He closed the azine, tossed it on top of the others and carried the entire stack to a low table that was part of a conversational grouping at the other end of his office Jean could dispose of theive them to one of the clerks He certainly had no need for them, nor had he any further interest in Laurel Bennett
That was settled, then Da in the satisfaction that came of closure
His , but it never caain
There was a problem with a small investment firm Skouras International had recently acquired Damian’s CPAs had defined it but they hadn’t been able to solve it He did, during a two-hour brainstor session A short while later, he held a teleconference with his bankers in Paris and Ha, and fir for months
At twenty of twelve, he began going through the notes Jean had placed on a corner of his desk in preparation for his one o’clock business luncheon, but he couldn’t concentrate Words kept repeating themselves, and entire sentences
He gave up, pushed back his chair and frowned
Suddenly he felt restless
He rose and paced across the spacious roo for him on a corner shelf near the sofas that flanked the low table where he’d duazines
He paused, frowning as he looked down at the stack TheLaurel’s photo was on top and he picked it up, opened it to that page and stared at the picture Her hair looked like silk Would it feel that way, or would it be stiff with hair spray when he touched it, the way Gabriella’s had always been? Hoould her skin sraceful curve where her shoulder and her neck joined? Hoould it taste?
Hell, as theto smell this woman, or taste her, or touch her
His eyes fastened on her face There was a hands-off coolness in her eyes that seemed at odds with her ly vulnerable It had felt that way, too, beneath his own, after she’d stopped fighting the passion that suddenly had gripped theiven herself up to him and to the kiss
His belly knotted as he reh his body He couldn’t reht up in a kiss or in the memory of what had been, after all, a simple encounter