Spirits would be merry, indiscretions would doubtless abound, especially considering that employees on either side of the Atlantic would be meeting for the first time, without the annoying presence of spouses or partners to cramp the merriment. In the morning hangovers would probably be rampant, but at least for the while some very thorough guilt-free drinking would be done. Of that Rafael was utterly sure. And never mind the jet lag.
He downed his drink and breathed a hearty sigh of relief that he was to be spared the fun and games.
He really didn’t know any of the people who had been invited to the bash. James had told him that the accountants and the managers and the marketing crew, who always basked in the limelight when it came to credit and applause for company profits, would be given a bonus, but the ‘forgotten crew’ would glory in their once-in-a-lifetime experience of the East End of New York’s Long Island. Rafael’s mind had boggled at the speculation of what his brother meant by the ‘forgotten crew’, although he had to admit that the sentiment was in the right place. Rewards should not be confined to the obvious but should filter down the line into the pockets of those whose profiles were less highly visible.
As he stood on the small wooden porch, staring out to the ocean, Rafael mused on how vastly different he was to his half-brother. They might well have been strangers, so great was the chasm between them as far as their personal tastes in friends, women and lifestyles were concerned.
He was idly speculating on how two people who shared at least some of the same DNA code could be so wildly different when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Something or someone. A faint rustling amongst the lush, perfectly landscaped vegetation that signified a presence.
And a presence could only mean one thing. A party-goer, in the heat of the moment and with the wine flowing like a fountain, had failed to realise that he had strayed out of bounds.
Rafael carefully put his glass down and turned towards the direction of the rustling. The light might be fading, but he wasn’t blind and the bimbo trying to tiptoe away from the scene of the crime must have had all of one brain cell to imagine that he couldn’t see her. And he could. Blonde hair, of course. Faded cut-off jeans worn very tight. Naturally. Cropped top with obligatory slither of stomach exposed. In other words, just the sort of woman Rafael found deeply unappealing.
‘Hey, you!’
Lord, his voice ricocheted around Amy and she gave a little startled yelp as she turned tail to flee. One glance at the man, all shadow and substance at the same time, was enough to warn her that, whoever the hell he was, he wasn’t the sort to chuckle over the fact that she was probably trespassing on his property.
Not that it was easy to tell where James Lee’s property began and ended.
The place was just so big! Even with a severe case of jet lag kicking in, it was still impossible to miss the fact that ‘the family house’ stopped only a few polite centimetres short of being a hotel. And the grounds! Succulently tempting. Even with her body clock warning her that it might be time to head for her bedroom, the verdant lawns with their masterfully landscaped grounds had egged her on, tempting her to explore just for a little while.#p#分页标题#e#
Hence the fact that she was now trying to dodge a giant of a man who seemed to be rapidly closing ground between them.
She was barely aware of his stealthy movement towards her and was, in fact, breathing a sigh of relief that she had escaped, when a hand closed over her shoulder, yanking her to a sudden, painful halt, before swinging her around so that she was forced to look up…and up…until she was staring into the most forbidding face she had ever seen in her life. Black eyes glared down at her from a face that was all disturbing angles and shadows. His mouth was a thinly drawn line of suppressed anger. Amy’s breath caught in her throat as she stared up at him, her eyes widening as her brain rapidly went through the various possibilities for danger that were confronting her.
Fortunately for Amy, danger, the unknown and certainly threatening oversized strangers were not things that could keep her exuberant nature suppressed for too long.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’
They spoke at the same time, glaring at each other with equal ferocity, until Amy slapped his hand off her shoulders and stepped back, her blue eyes spitting fire.
‘I asked you first!’ Amy decided to go on the immediate attack because, for once, her vocabulary was threatening to let her down when she needed it most. She rubbed her shoulder meaningfully, every inch of her five-foot-three frame emanating anger.