CHAPTER ONE
THEREMUSTBEa German word for that near unendurable feeling of wanting to punch someone and make out with them at the same time.
At least, Olive Monroe felt there should be. She had a passable understanding of German and had never heard that word though. Neither was it in English, Japanese, Chinese or any of the other languages she’d learned to foster her career in business.
It was what she felt every time she looked at Gunnar Magnusson.
Billionaire, philanthropist, possibly part-time Viking, and full-time pain in her ass from the first moment she could remember.
Gunnar being an impediment was an early childhood memory.
The first time she’d seen him, she’d been six, he’d been sixteen.
Their fathers had been locked in competitive negotiations, and she’d been sitting outside on a bench, just outside the conference room. There had been a spread of goodies on the table, and her father had warned her not to touch anything. But she was certain it did not include a chocolate cupcake that were sitting out there for anyone to take.
But just as she’d steeled up her confidence to take it, a tall, blond man had walked into the room—at the time she’d thought he was a man—and had eaten the cupcake in one bite.
He’d turned and looked at her then and there had been something like embarrassment in his blue eyes, which had quickly turned to haughty disdain.
It was later she would find out that he was the only son of her father’s greatest business rival.
Gunnar Magnusson, son of Magnus Ragnarson, the most hated man in the Monroe household. And he had eaten her cupcake.
It had been a very disappointing birthday.
It could be argued perhaps that her father had contributed at least in some part to the disappointment of the birthday, given that she had spent it sitting outside of his tense negotiations.
Her mother had died when Olive was only a baby, the love of her father’s life, gone. And rather than leave her with nannies, he had taken her into his world. He had never acted like she should be a boy, or like he would have been better off without her. He treated her like she was an integral part of this world—his company, which had been his one true love before meeting her mother, before having her.
She knew he didn’t mean to give her a bad birthday. He meant to give her a birthday with him. And he had taken her for sushi after, so that had been nice.
Her father was all she had. If she felt disappointment about not having a birthday party with other children, a pretty cake and pony rides, it didn’t matter. It was easier to make Gunnar the bad object.
It wasn’t as if he took any great care to avoid irritating her. No. They had clashed constantly over the years.
It was the trouble of their fathers being in the same industry. Constantly competing for the same tech contracts.
There had been a space of time when she’d had some relief from Gunnar. When he’d been eighteen he’d gone off on his own and started his own corporation in manufacturing and had been absent from her sphere other than industry events, which he’d often come to, dressed in tuxedos and wreaking havoc on her sanity.
She could remember—vividly—the time she’d been fifteen and he’d showed up at a charity event. He’d walked into the highly polished hotel and everything had seemed to stop.
Most men looked tamed in a tuxedo. It was the fashion of the sleek and sophisticated. But Gunnar, all broad shoulders, chest and muscular arms, slim waist and hips, looked all the more dangerous.
And Olive had fallen into a potted plant.
To her horror, it was Gunnar who appeared to lift her out, his large, warm hand, so rough and masculine, wrapping itself entirely around hers and making her feel small and fragile. Red, and hot.
Very like he had eaten her cupcake all over again, except there was something different too.
She was not fifteen now, she knew what it was now. She was just thankful fifteen-year-old Olive hadn’t known, because the poor thing had already been overcome by shame at her graceless tumble into the greenery.
She hadn’t needed to know she was experiencing sexual attraction for the first time in her life on top of everything else.
When she had been seventeen, Gunnar’s father had died.
“We must go to the funeral, Olive.”
She’d looked at her father in confusion. “But you hated him.”