He still didn't know who she was. It wasn't unusual: her stage persona required so much make-up and embellishment that few people made the real life connection instantly. Genie sensed that Abel Kingdom hadn't slotted the pieces together, and she was perfectly happy for it to stay that way, at least until she found out the precise nature of his business with her uncle.

She'd tried unsuccessfully to winkle information from Davey earlier in the afternoon, but he'd clammed up tighter than an oyster being ransacked for its pearl. She'd made the spot decision not to tell him about her dinner meeting with Abel Kingdom, even though keeping secrets from him left her feeling shoddy and underhand. She wasn't accustomed to there being anything but easy honesty between herself and her uncle, and she could only pray that she was doing the right thing. She uneasily squared it with herself by thinking of it as protecting him, although G.o.d knew what from. Abel Kingdom didn't seem like a loan shark trying to extract debt by force, but there was an undeniably ruthless edge to him that had her watchful all the same.

Is now a good time to tell you I want to f.u.c.k you tonight?

Any man with the b.a.l.l.s to drop that into an opening conversation with a stranger needed watching closely.

And that was another reason to keep an eye on him. He didn't feel like a stranger, even though she knew nothing of him aside from his name and that he felt like silk. He was different from any man she'd ever met before. It wasn't just his physical presence, even though he stood a good head taller than she was. And it wasn't just his beauty, or the edge of arrogance threaded through his words. It was all of that and more. He radiated danger, and for some unfathomable reason Genie found that his s.e.xiest trait of all.

She stilled for a second on the steps of the swish old hotel Abel's text had suggested they meet at, taking a moment to prepare herself. She could do this. She could do this. Painting a faux confident smile on her face, she stepped up towards the waiting doorman and pa.s.sed through the gla.s.s doors into the marble vestibule. She was a few minutes early, deliberately so in order to be there before him. If she was going to lay a honey trap, she needed to be in complete control from the moment they met.

Abel sat at the sweeping bar, nursing a scotch between his hands. People milled around him, businessmen and lovers making the most of a quiet Sunday evening before the grind of a new week. Being back in London didn't suit him. He missed the wide skies and open s.p.a.ces of home, not to mention the warmth of both the sunshine and the people who'd welcomed him as one of their own.

All of his memories of London were bad ones. Would tonight be more pleasurable, perhaps? It was business on one level, but then... it hadn't been business on his mind when he'd thought of her earlier as he'd showered, and again as he'd dressed. He didn't even know her f.u.c.king name, yet he was thinking about f.u.c.king her and making her forget it.

He watched in the bevelled mirrors behind the bar as a woman came in, pausing in the doorway to sweep her gaze around the room.

His body reacted before his head had time to, alerting him like an early warning system. She looked a world away from the fresh-faced girl he'd propositioned that morning. Gone were the jeans and messy hair, replaced with a midnight blue silk dress that wrapped around her body and knotted on her hip in a way that suggested one good tug on those trailing ties and the whole thing might fall off. It was almost demure, aside from the fact that it highlighted the curve of her waist and the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a way that told the world that beneath that dress, the woman was pure f.u.c.king dynamite.

He found himself breathing in sharply as her gaze finally came to rest on him, and he slid to his feet as she moved across the room. He was a man, which made him aware than every other man in the room had noticed her too with varying degrees of obviousness. This morning she'd looked like a college student. This evening she looked like a highly f.u.c.kable business executive. She was a chameleon, and it only served to make her all the more intriguing.

'Abel,' she said, and hearing his name on her lips for the first time made him want to hear her say it again when he was buried b.a.l.l.s deep inside her.

'You look incredible,' he murmured, intoxicated by the sweet, clean scent of her as he dipped his head to brush a kiss across her cheek.

She drew back her head a little and looked at him with those incredible clear green eyes. 'I have a mouth. Kiss it.'

Did she actually just f.u.c.king say what he thought she said? Shock registered first, then a bolt of l.u.s.t that shot straight to his c.o.c.k.

'Christ all-f.u.c.king-mighty,' he ground out, pulling her against him, one hand clamped around the nape of her neck, the other sliding over her silk-encased a.s.s. He moulded her to him and lowered his head, noting with satisfaction the momentary flare of apprehension that registered in her eyes a second before his lips touched hers.

Kissing someone for the first time generally involved a degree of antic.i.p.ation and build up. Not this time. He took her mouth hard and heavy, licking his tongue over hers when she opened up for him. Seriously, the girl had him so hot that if he could have rucked that dress up around her hips and screwed her bent over the nearest bar stool, he would have. A low s.e.xual sound of appreciation drifted from her mouth into his, an involuntary reaction to a kiss that came out of nowhere and melted your bones. It was the French kiss of lovers on Parisian street corners: intense, deep, and open mouthed; drenched in s.e.xual potential. He bit down on the softness of her bottom lip when she wrapped her arms around him, her fingernails raking over the skin at the nape of his neck.

He held her a.s.s hard against him as he spoke to her softly, a lethal whisper, his mouth now pressed to her ear.

'Say something like that to me in public again and it won't be my tongue in your mouth. It'll be my c.o.c.k.'

Her sharp intake of breath gratified him. She'd deliberately set out to shock him, and to give her her dues, she'd caught him off guard for a few seconds back there.

'I have a mouth. Kiss it.' f.u.c.k, he'd have been proud of that line himself. He was already enjoying the evening even more than he'd hoped.

Genie reeled as Abel set her back down on her feet. Hers had been a line designed to show him that she was no pushover, but his kiss and his comeback had shown her in no uncertain terms that she was playing the game with a master.

Right. Regroup required. She smoothed her hands down her dress and then looked up at him with a sweet smile. 'Is that the usual way to greet your date in Australia?'

'Only dates with a smart mouth.'

Abel's gaze dropped to her lips, and she traced the tip of her tongue slowly across her top lip for his benefit. Or to be more precise, for his downfall.

'You don't like my mouth?'

'I liked kissing it just fine.' He looked at her mouth for a few long seconds, as if he were about to do it again.

Genie nodded. 'That's good, Abel, because if you're really nice to me tonight, I might let you do it again later.' Quite how such brave words were leaving her mouth she had no clue, because inside she felt anything but brave. 'Shall we eat?'

Abel folded his menu and handed it to the waiter after they'd ordered. 'So. What does the G stand for?'

Genie had expected the question to come up.

'G?'

'You still haven't told me your name. Your uncle called you G. What is it? Gina? Gayle?' He shrugged. 'Gert?'

She laughed lightly, affecting nonchalance. 'It's Gigi, but most people just call me G.' It wasn't really a lie. Gigi had been her childhood nickname, even if it wasn't technically her given name.

'Gigi.' Abel said it as if he were testing it, and his face said he wasn't especially impressed. 'Sounds more like a circus horse than a woman to me.'

Genie almost spat her wine back into her gla.s.s. 'I'm sorry?'

If he didn't like Gigi, he was going to be even less impressed with Genie.

He shrugged, thoroughly unfazed by her shock. 'No offence.'

She placed her wine gla.s.s down on the table. 'Do you think you could at least pretend to be polite?'

'It doesn't mean I like you any less because I don't like your name,' he said. 'I'll just think of something else to call you.'

Genie opened her mouth to answer him and then closed it again as the waiter reappeared with their starters. She was actually quite glad of the interruption, because the idea of him inventing his own private name for her did weird things to her insides.

The food was every bit as glamorous and grand as the hotel, and delicious enough to stall their conversation in order to appreciate it fully. She looked up as Abel reached for the chilled Sauvignon.

'More wine... red?'

She glanced at the white wine in confusion. 'Red?'

'A potential nickname. a.s.suming you are actually a redhead?' He topped up her gla.s.s. 'Actually, no. Forget it. It doesn't suit you anyway.'

Ouch. This guy had a lot to learn about charm.

'My hair colour doesn't suit me?'

'Your hair colour suits you just fine,' he said. 'But the nickname doesn't.'

'I'm almost afraid to ask why not,' she muttered. This was becoming less like a conversation and more like a verbal a.s.sault course.

Her eyes were drawn to his hands as he picked up his wine gla.s.s. Strong, tanned and sure, the impossibly delicate crystal he held looked in dire danger.

'It's too hard. Too factual. Too... newsreader.'

'I could be a newsreader if I wanted to,' she shot back, nettled by his a.s.sumption.

'No way,' he laughed lightly. 'You'd be too much of a distraction.'

It was a compliment of sorts, even if not of the usual sort.

Their main courses arrived, stalling conversation for a second time; thick, pink lamb rump for Abel, coral bright salmon in a delicate watercress sauce for Genie.

'Tell me more about what you do, Abel,' Genie said, sipping her wine and glancing at him casually over the rim of her gla.s.s. 'Is it just the one gym you have, or a whole chain of them?' She needed to get him talking about his business, steer the conversation around to the nature of his interest in her uncle.

He sliced his lamb through and looked at her across the table.

'I'm not fond of the word chain, but I guess it works. Seventeen and counting.'

Genie's eyes widened. 'Wow. All in Australia?'

'For now... Bunny.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Bunny. As in Jessica Rabbit.' He placed his knife and fork down as he regarded her across the table. 'Red hair. Ivory skin. And...' his voice trailed off and his eyes flickered briefly down her body. 'Curves.'

'Do I have a say in this?' she said. In truth, she was a little disappointed in him. It seemed a lazy comparison, especially given her occupation, even if he wasn't yet aware of it.

'No. But don't worry, it won't be Jessica. I'm looking for something more... personal.'

Glad as she was to hear that 'Jessica' was off the menu, Genie didn't want to spend the evening talking about nicknames. She toyed with the stem of her wine gla.s.s.

'Have you always worked for yourself?'

'Pretty much.' He shrugged unapologetically. 'I don't get along well with other people telling me what to do.'

Well, that came as a surprise to no one. 'You didn't seem to mind back in the bar earlier.'

Abel's dark eyes glittered. 'I made an exception to my rule for you.'

'Thank you... I think.'

'No need. The pleasure was all mine.'

It wasn't true and they both knew it. They each had their own agenda for the evening, which the other wasn't privy to, but there was no hiding the fact that the attraction smouldering between them was mutual, s.e.xual, and lethally combustible.

Delicious as her dinner was, Genie found it difficult to swallow more than a few mouthfuls as their earlier kiss replayed on a loop in her mind. Flicking her eyes up from her plate to his face, she found him watching her again, his plate almost empty.

'Dessert?' he asked, laying his cutlery down.

She didn't want dessert, but she was far from done with Abel Kingdom. So far she'd learned barely anything. Was he an investor? Was her uncle courting him in the hope that he might save the ailing theatre with a cash injection? A sleeping partner... the idea caught her imagination and she had to make herself refocus on the business sense of the phrase.

'Coffee, maybe?' she said.

'Brandy?' he countered. Brandy was a good idea. It might loosen his tongue. Genie nodded, and then silently checked herself as her mind went in all sorts of directions at the mere thought of his tongue. She wanted him to run it down her spine.

Chapter Five.

In the bar a few minutes later, Abel sat down beside Genie on the low, plump couch she'd chosen. Few customers remained, mostly couples, with the odd small group dotted here and there, their low chatter underscored by the un.o.btrusive pianist accompanying a smoky-voiced singer. Genie's professional eye lingered on the act, admiring the vintage ruby velvet dress worn by the vocalist.

'So, tell me what being a.s.sistant manager of a London theatre involves,' he said easily. He needed to know how much of an obstacle she was going to be, and getting her talking about her work seemed the best place to start. The knockout smile that lit her face at the mention of the theatre caught him unawares. f.u.c.k. She loved the place even more than her G.o.dd.a.m.n uncle did.

'Everything really,' she laughed. 'I do whatever needs doing. Booking acts. Planning the seasons. Marketing. Admin.' She sipped her coffee, her eyes dancing with mischief. 'Even cleaning, sometimes.'

Abel glanced down as her knee brushed his when she moved to place her coffee cup back down on the table. He had ordered both their choices of digestif. The balance of power was equal... for the moment.

He was aware of every inch of her, and of how many inches away she was. Too many.

'It must get hard sometimes though? An old place like that, a young woman like you...' he let his words tail off, the implication that she should be out enjoying the world hanging in the air between them.

'I love it,' she said, without hesitation. 'It's not just a job. It's my home. It's been in my family for generations.'

'Your home? As in you actually live there?'

She nodded. 'Upstairs. My uncle has one half of the top floor and I have the other.'

s.h.i.t. He knew Divine lived there, but not his niece too. Not only was he planning to buy the theatre she loved, now he was evicting her from her home too? This was getting worse. She glanced down as she accepted the brandy gla.s.s he held out, and the sweep of her exposed neck made his mouth ache to kiss it. Her hair was drawn back, a more grown up, sophisticated version of her hairstyle from earlier.

'Do you ever wear it down?' he asked, on instinct. 'Your hair?'

'Sometimes,' she murmured, and he picked up his own gla.s.s to stop his fingers from reaching for the clip that constrained her curls.

He wanted to see it down. He wanted to see it fanned out over his pillow as he f.u.c.ked her.

Abel wasn't an unethical man; it bothered him that he wanted to f.u.c.k her senseless and then f.u.c.k her over. Business and pleasure, a bad mix as always. He sighed heavily. The honourable idea of letting her walk out of the hotel unscrewed pushed its way into his head, even though he fought it tooth and nail.

Genie sipped her brandy, completely thrown by his question about her hair. She'd fastened it back earlier knowing that he was less likely to place her as the burlesque dancer he'd l.u.s.ted after if she kept it out of the way. Was it a wilful deception? Not exactly. She just wanted to help her uncle, and preserving her anonymity for long enough to find out what motivated Abel Kingdom was the way to do it.

'Can I ask you something, Abel?' she said, as he leaned back and placed his arm along the back of the sofa. Did his fingertips brush against the back of her neck? She couldn't be sure, but her jumping pulse and racing heart said yes.

'Shoot.'

Definite fingertips, stroking slow and light over her nape. Barely there, and yet it took her breath.

'Why are you interested? In our theatre, I mean?' She kept her tone as light as she could, given that the question meant so much to her.