Hot and Bothered(3)

                Haven was conscious, as she walked, of his eyes fixed on her back, boring into her. Her heart beat fast with nerves from the near confrontation.

                She didn’t bother to wait for him to pull out her chair for her—she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She sat, and he dropped into his chair with a masculine nonchalance that made her breath catch. He shrugged the mangled bomber jacket off his shoulders and let it drop down the back of his chair. His fitted gray T-shirt revealed sculpted biceps and well-defined pecs. He’d apparently been working out, between bouts of hiding in dingy bars and getting himself photographed staggering drunk. She could do a lot with a body like that.

                In the purely professional sense, that was.

                She’d been at this restaurant Friday night with a very nice, painfully boring hedge-fund manager. All of her recent blind dates had been as stimulating as a trip to the grocery store. Haven had to admit that, as messy as Mark was making this lunch, it was a hell of a lot more interesting than any of those dates. He was a lot better looking, too. Gruff, badly dressed, in need of a shave, but he still had presence. Another point in his favor.

                He pulled out his phone and studied it as if it was going to save him. From her?

                From himself, she suspected. Because whatever had brought him to Charme today, he really didn’t want to be here.

                Might as well get it out on the table. “You’re not meeting me of your own volition, right?”

                “No.” He had nice eyes, gray-blue under slashes of brow, a mobile mouth and amazing bones. She’d have to make sure he got some sleep and quit—or at least cut back on—the partying.

                “You want to tell me why you came?”

                “They have some look-alike they say they’ll use instead of me for the tour if I don’t clean up my act. And apparently you are the official act cleaner upper.”

                She smiled at that. “I am the official act cleaner upper.”

                “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

                He wasn’t the first client to have said that to her, but he was the first to have said it with such belligerence. Most were apologetic. On the other hand, most hadn’t been photographed nude with five women at once or been kicked out of several newsworthy A-list parties.

                “So you’re thrilled to be here.”

                “Here in the specific sense of Charme—” he pronounced it “charm” with no hint of French “—or in the larger sense of in your hands?”

                She wouldn’t mind having him in her hands in the nonprofessional sense. Yikes, had she actually thought that? He was so not her type, great body or not. “I meant in my hands, but clearly you’re not thrilled to be here, either.”

                “That depends entirely on who’s picking up the tab.”

                Oh, she did have her work cut out for her.

                Haven had debated whether or not to take Mark on, knowing he was going to be a royal pain. She’d consulted some of her colleagues, who’d also been split on the question. Some thought it would be the perfect opportunity for another high-profile coup to cement Haven’s recent successes—her elevation of Amanda Gile and of party-girl Celine Carr. Others warned her that it was one thing to rehab the image of a rising star with some impulse issues and quite another to try to bring back a man who’d been a celebrity zombie for close to a decade.