Chapter One
“So. Would you like to dance?”
Marisa, leaning up against a pillar in the hotel ballroom, didn’t turn around. She knew exactly who that deep, dark masculine voice belonged to. The man Caleb had just dumped on her before he walked off not ten minutes earlier. The man she’d been trying to avoid for the past few hectic days leading up to Christie and Joseph’s wedding.
The man with the biggest stick up his butt she’d ever seen.
Luke McNamara, owner of the media company that had bought Total Tech, the magazine where she worked, only last month.
She’d tried to make nice after Caleb had abandoned her because (1) since Compass Media had bought Total Tech, that made Luke the big boss and she couldn’t ignore him, and (2) he was Caleb Steele and Joseph Ashton’s friend and since this was Joseph’s wedding, she couldn’t blow him off, no matter how awful the conversation.
But after five minutes of feeling as if she were playing a one-way tennis match, where she kept serving conversational balls without any answering volley, she’d given up and turned around to watch the dance floor instead.
The guy might have been sexy as all hell, but quite frankly there was only so long a girl could stand there admiring him.
The waterfront hotel where her best friend, Christie, and her tech billionaire husband were having their reception was beautiful. The lights of Auckland’s harbor were visible through the big windows that lined one side of it, small twinkles of color that echoed the fairy lights strung around the interior of the ballroom.
Not far away from where she stood was the head table where Christie was sitting, currently sending meaningful glances her way.
Probably wanting her to dance with Luke. Bah. She didn’t want to dance with Mr. Smiling-Will-Kill-Me. He’d given a very stiff and not particularly engaging speech the day his company had taken over Total Tech. A speech that mainly seemed to be concerned with all the new rules he was going to institute. Such as crackdowns on e-mail and Internet usage. On punctuality. Some completely stupid restriction on workplace relationships. She hadn’t paid much attention initially—at least until the tersely worded e-mail from HR had arrived telling her to cease and desist the mild flirtation she’d been having with one of the seriously hot IT guys. Then to make matters worse, a couple of days earlier he’d instituted regulations about skirt length and “revealing attire.” And sure enough, another tersely worded HR e-mail had found its way into her in-box, detailing her “breach” of the new regulations with the cute dress she’d bought only last week. Sure, maybe it was a little short and maybe the neckline was a bit low, but it could hardly be termed “revealing.”
The first e-mail had been annoying. The second had been more personal and that in itself was enough to make her dislike him.
Then they’d been formally introduced at Christie’s little pre-wedding get-together and her initial dislike had cemented into disdain. He’d been so formal and unfriendly. And now she couldn’t really be bothered with making an effort. She was only a tiny cog in the vast wheel of his company anyway, and life was too short to spend time with a guy you didn’t like, right?
Then again, you didn’t say no to the bride.
Behind her, Luke McNamara let out an impatient breath. “I said, would you like to dance?”
Christie’s expression was pleading. Clearly all the “the guy’s a tool” comments Marisa had made to her friend didn’t count.
She rolled her eyes and Christie mouthed, “Do it. For me.”
Dammit. Christie was the only real friend she’d ever had. And sometimes you just had to suck it up and deal for your friends.
Even do something she didn’t want to do, such as dance with Luke McNamara.
Marisa braced herself. Pasted on her trademark sweet-with-a-touch-of-sauce smile and turned around.
Luke was standing behind her, looking as if he’d been born in a three-piece suit. The tux he wore was pristine, not a speck on it. Every lock of his ink-black hair in place. His bow tie straight, immaculately placed.
He was as perfect as a doll just taken out of its box and not yet played with.
Her fingers itched. For all his stiffness, he was damn sexy. All broad shoulders and lean hips, with a dark, brooding kind of vibe going on. It made her want to play with him just a little bit. Because she did like men in suits. Especially tall, powerful, buttoned-up type of men. Men just begging to have their ties tweaked, their hair ruffled. Lipstick on their collar…
Dear God, girl. You don’t like him, so quit it with the ruffling fantasies. And anyway, he’s your boss.
Good point.
Luke’s attention was on the phone he held, long fingers working the screen. Each time she’d seen him, he’d had that thing in his hands. Maybe it was surgically attached.