It was time to go home and forget him. She’d done it with Charles. She could sure as hell do it with this brief fling. Even if he had made her climax harder than she’d ever imagined possible, numerous times over. Even if he did make her feel so desirable, so alive—stop it!
She cut the flashbacks threatening her sanity and moved to lift her mobile just as its screen lit up, a number she didn’t recognise calling.
She frowned, checking the time. Cold callers? This late? They were clearly sinking to a new all-time low.
She cut the call and started packing up, shoving her laptop into her bag and lifting her mobile to go the same way. The thing came alive again, its chassis vibrating into her palm and that same number burning into her, unease creeping up her spine. It couldn’t be...he wouldn’t...and yet, the feeling was there, as if he were in the room with her.
Don’t bloody answer it, said her sanity as her thumb hovered over the acceptance button.
She looked to the creased-up article, to his body engulfing blondie, and her anger trampled all over her sanity.
Fuck that, she thought, he deserves my wrath.
She answered the call and raised the phone to her ear, forcing calm into her tone.
There was a chance it wasn’t him.
‘Hello, Zara Anders.’
‘Zara, it’s Daniel.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Her brain screamed over him, his voice instantly recognisable and sending fire through her veins. And not of the kind that she needed. She was struggling to think straight, her words coming out automatically as her brain tried to articulate exactly what she wanted to throw at him. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Lazenby?’
‘Please don’t call me that.’
‘Why?’ she said simply. ‘Would you prefer one of the names the press are so willing to dish out for you? They make excellent use of alliteration.’
He gave a heavy sigh down the phone. ‘If it’s going to make you feel better...’
She cracked a little. ‘Do you honestly think me slinging their abuse at you is going to fix how I feel?’
‘It’s better than your professional front,’ he said. ‘Your anger I can deal with, you shutting me out I can’t. And you have every right to be angry. My sister shouldn’t have said what she did. It wasn’t her place.’
‘No, it was yours,’ she bit out. ‘Not that she really told me anything, she simply warned me off you.’
‘And she shouldn’t have done.’ She could hear his frustration down the phone.
Poor rich playboy, pissed off that his little sister had ruined his plans to get laid again.
She would have thrown that at him if he hadn’t added, ‘She should’ve given me chance to explain.’
‘Which bit exactly?’ she blurted. ‘Your infamous family, your business stature or the best thing of all, your renowned status as a male slut?’
‘Kristus.’
‘What? You can’t take the truth?’
‘I didn’t purposefully keep anything from you,’ he argued. ‘It’s not like I go around introducing myself based on my status in life. I mean, skit, how would that go down? Hey, my family are media whores, my business makes me billions and I like sex, fancy a fuck?’
She inhaled sharply, his words hitting more than a nerve; they hit a truckload sitting right at her apex.
‘It would’ve beaten being made a fool of,’ she said through her teeth. ‘To have known who I was getting into bed with.’
‘I get that, but you’re no fool,’ he rasped, ‘and I hate that you think I made you one.’
In the call background, she could make out a door opening, wind buzzing down the phone as he carried on. ‘I didn’t tell you because it was refreshing, meeting you, knowing you didn’t know who I was. Surely you can forgive me for relishing in that.’