she’d forgotten all about that. Her hands shot to her head and she carefully pulled out her makeshift hairpin. She combed her fingers through her hair and thanked God that it appeared to have come through recent events unscathed.
Jo glanced down. ‘What on earth is that?’
‘A twig.’
‘What was it doing in your hair?’
Phoebe tossed it into a flowerbed and waved a vague hand. ‘Oh, I was simply experimenting with an idea.’
‘Thinking of branching out?’
‘Ha ha,’ she muttered, and then clamped her lips together to stop a sudden bubble of hysterical laughter escaping.
Jo peered at her closer. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit flushed. And flustered.’ She paused and tilted her head. ‘I’ve never seen you flustered.’
That was because she took great care never to appear flustered, even when inside she was a mess. Regardless of the situation, triumph or disaster, she was always the epitome of cool, unflappable collectedness. She never let anything get in the way of her commitment to her job. And she never ever lost control.
Well, except for just now…
But that was totally understandable, she assured herself. After all, she’d been flung around like a sack of potatoes and then kissed senseless without any say in the matter whatsoever. Who wouldn’t feel a tiny bit on the flustered side?
Phoebe took a deep breath and channelled her inner calm. ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she said.
Jo shot her a knowing smile. ‘If you weren’t out here alone, and if I didn’t know that you never mix business with pleasure, I’d have sworn I’d interrupted you in the middle of a clinch.’
Phoebe felt colour hit her cheeks and edged away from the light. It was high time to deflect this line of conversation. ‘Hmm. So. You were looking for me?’
‘Yes. I came to tell you…’ But what Jo had come to tell her never made it out of her mouth.
Phoebe didn’t need to look round to know that Alex was standing behind her. The hairs at the nape of her neck had leapt up like an early-warning system and her whole body quivered with awareness.
As Jo’s gaze slid over Phoebe’s shoulder her smile disappeared, the blood drained from her face and her eyes widened in horror.
‘Hello, Jo.’ Alex’s voice was as cold as ice and Jo seemed to deflate right in front of Phoebe’s eyes.
‘Oh, no,’ Jo said with a deep sigh. ‘What are you doing here?’
Well, that was a relief, thought Alex darkly, thrusting his hands in his pockets and keeping his eyes fixed on his sister. Jo’s reaction to his presence at the party was the only thing so far this evening that had turned out as he’d expected.
Ever since he’d learned that she’d gone behind his back and hired her own PR representative without his approval, he’d planned to pitch up, demand to know what she thought she was up to and replace whoever she’d hired with his own team.
He’d intended to swoop in and be done within a matter of minutes, and if things had gone according to plan, he’d now be passed out in his penthouse, battling jet lag.
Instead, over the course of the last half an hour he’d fought a drunken idiot in a pond, been thwacked by a deluge of painful memories he’d really rather forget and been forced to face the uncomfortable realisation that for the first time in years he’d been wrong. As if all that weren’t enough, it appeared he’d also caught a severe case of lust.
Alex flicked a quick glance at Phoebe, standing there with her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders and looking like a fallen angel, and felt desire whip through him all over again.
Kissing the life out of one of the guests had definitely not been part of the plan. But the moment he’d held her against him he’d been able to think about little else. He could still feel the imprint of her hand on his chest while she’d been ranting about dealing with cavemen or something, her eyes flashing sparks of green and gold at him. When his resistance had finally crumbled she’d fitted against him so perfectly, responded to him so passionately that he hadn’t been able to stop. Who knew what might have happened if Jo hadn’t interrupted them?
Alex ground his teeth against the urge to drag Phoebe back into the shadows. There’d be plenty of time for that later. Once he’d achieved what he’d come here to do, he’d take her out to dinner. See where a few more of those kisses might end up and maybe find a new way to get over jet lag.
In the meantime, he told himself, blanking Phoebe from his head and training his full attention on Jo, he had work to do.
‘Surprised to see me?’ he said coolly.
‘Somewhat,’ Jo muttered. ‘But thrilled too, of course,’ she added hastily.
She didn’t look in the slightest bit thrilled. She looked wary, as if she’d been caught red-handed. Which she should, because she had. If he’d vaguely entertained the idea of giving her the benefit of the doubt over the absence of his invitation, it vanished.
‘Of course,’ he replied dryly.
‘How did you find out?’
‘Did you really imagine I wouldn’t?’
‘I had hoped.’
Alex frowned. Since when had she started keeping secrets from him? That rankled almost as much as the fact that she’d deliberately kept him out of the loop.
‘Er, excuse me for interrupting, but would someone mind telling me what’s going on?’ said Phoebe, edging towards Jo in an oddly protective fashion. ‘Because I’m guessing you don’t have an invitation, and, if Jo wants, I can have the bouncers here faster than you can say “gatecrasher.”’
Alex’s gaze swivelled back to his sister. ‘Well?’ he said in a deadly soft voice.
‘There’s no need to call the bouncers.’ Jo pulled her shoulders back and shot him a defiant look. ‘Alex, I’d like you to meet Phoebe Jackson, managing director of Jackson Communications, and my PR.’
Jo’s words hit him with the force of a swinging boom and his blood turned to ice in his veins. He glanced at Phoebe, who was staring at him with a determined tilt of her chin and an arched eyebrow.
This was the woman he’d come to fire? The ravenhaired goddess in the tight gold dress, who’d piqued his interest the second he’d laid eyes on her sneaking out of a side door? The woman he’d been imagining naked and warm and writhing in his arms? Something curiously like disappointment walloped him in the solar plexus. Alex rubbed his chest and frowned.
Then suspicion began to prickle at the edges of his brain. If she and his sister were working together had she colluded with her to deliberately keep him out of the proceedings? Even taking into account his natural mistrust of anyone and anything that he personally hadn’t tested to the limit, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
Whether she had or not, dinner was off. With the ruthless control he’d honed over the years, Alex crushed the lingering flickers of desire and stashed any attraction he felt towards Phoebe behind an unbreachable wall of icy neutrality.
Hmm, thought Phoebe, watching his whole body tense and sort of freeze. For some reason the news of her identity hadn’t gone down well at all. Which was odd—she didn’t normally incite such a violent reaction in people.
‘And, Phoebe, this is Alex Gilbert. My brother.’
She was so busy trying to work out what objection he could possibly have to her that she almost missed Jo’s words. But as they filtered into her head Phoebe found herself in the unusual position of being rendered speechless. And then a dozen little facts cascaded into her brain, each one hot on the heels of the other, and she inwardly