moved to stand only to find he’d retrieved the bag and held it for her.
He looked at her then, no pretense. No artifice. No sexy banter. It was that look, hunter to hunted. “I’ll see you to the bottom of the stairs. It is, after all, the least I can do.”
“Thanks,” she managed, the sheer sexual pull of his person making her fight the urge to rub her thighs together. Nothing like starting the most critical job she’d ever had by engaging in seriously unprofessional behavior with a gorgeous man.
And she was here for a job. No, not a job. The job—the one that would revive a career that had been on life support ever since her business partner, Rob Darlain, had bailed on her.
Rob had taken their pitch for a TV show to a local cable network. They’d offered him the gig, which catapulted him to regional fame. Then the national network had come calling. Ella had been left to plan children’s birthday parties and bar mitzvahs instead of the exclusive, high-end events for which she and Rob had become recognized. And it didn’t help that he’d claimed to be the exclusive coordinator/designer while labeling Ella the help. The contract she had in her bag was her shot to not only prove her ex-partner wrong but to really, truly make a comeback. This event would park her business, her name, at the top of the list of event planners favored by society’s upper echelon.
Ella preceded the stranger to the exit, hunched over due to the low ceiling made lower by her heels’ height. Every woman had a list of things she refused to cut corners on, from the brand of her coffee to the skin care line she used to the gym membership she ate noodles to afford. For Ella, her shoes were near the very top of that list. The heels she’d worn today had been a careful choice. They were her only pair of Louboutins, and she’d saved for months to buy them when times had been good. They were her power shoes, her I-can-do-anything-I-set-my-mind-to shoes. They were ass-kicking, name-taking shoes. She saw them as her personal totem, her symbol of power and control. Some might find her foolish. But those people didn’t fuel the voice in her head, the voice that demanded she be the best at what she did.
Ella sighed.
If she could pull this job off... No. When she pulled this job off, it would mean no more choosing between groceries or gas, electricity or water.
With the Los Angeles elite being what they were, the culture being what it was, she’d been required to sign a confidentiality clause. She wouldn’t even know who the bride and groom were until the day before the rehearsal. So instead of dealing with the bride, Ella had agreed to work with the bride’s personally appointed representative. She, or he, would have the final say in approving the plans and could, per contractual agreement, make suggestions and changes as she saw fit. If Ella hadn’t been desperate to relaunch her career, and if she wasn’t sick and tired of eating noodle packs to survive, she’d have balked at that stipulation. But she needed this. More than the bride needed an “unrecognized” event planner no one would suspect had been hired to coordinate the wedding of the year.
Whatever. It would work.
It had to.
Ella was prepared to realign the heavens if it meant making this wedding go off without a hitch. She’d worked too hard and for too long to settle for anything less. If she failed?
“Not going to happen,” she said to herself.
The resort’s shuttle pulled up near the plane. Stepping around several chickens that had wandered back onto the tarmac, she hoisted her messenger bag onto her shoulder, extended her suitcase handle and headed toward the vehicle.
She had seven days to pull off the social event of the year—the event that would put money in her account, restore her professional reputation and maybe, just maybe, give her back the most valuable thing she’d lost over the last couple of years.
Self-respect.
* * *
Liam Baggett made his way from the plane much slower than the woman he’d crashed into. Pity he’d failed to charm her. Had he possessed an ounce of the infamous Baggett charisma, he’d at least have procured her number. No reason this whole trip had to test his moxie. Especially not when there was a gorgeous distraction within easy reach.
He glanced her way again and watched as she dodged a rather large rooster. The woman was stunning in a nontraditional way. Mouth a tad too wide but lips decidedly lush, eyes a devastating green, her hair varying shades of brown that said someone with talent had taken what nature gave her and enhanced it to suit that pale complexion. She possessed a lovely figure he’d briefly—far too briefly—had his hands on. He hadn’t noticed her legs until she’d made for the plane’s front exit. In truth, he’d been so distracted as he admired their toned length that he’d nearly knocked his skull on the door.
Blinking rapidly, he chastised himself for allowing the distraction, no matter how fine. He had one life to save and another to destroy before he returned to London and resumed the helm of his late father’s empire.
Trade winds blew with predictable unpredictability, tousling his hair.
Should have cut the damn mop before flying out. “If there’d been time, I would have,” he groused to no one save the hen who’d taken a liking to the shine of his shoes. “Bloody bird. You’re a barnyard animal, not a magpie.” He scooted her away with his foot, but she returned post haste to continue the burgeoning love affair.
The one benefit to the breeze was that it kept the temperatures tolerable. For an Englishman who saw the sun roughly every third day, and only if he was able to leave the office before dark, it was bloody warm.
Searching the tarmac, he found the shuttle to the resort waiting, both side and rear doors open and the driver posted at the back to load passengers’ bags. Liam gathered his bags and briefcase, strode to the van and delivered all but his briefcase into the driver’s care. He rounded the passenger doors, set one foot on the running board and stopped. The woman who’d fascinated him only minutes before was in the far seat and rapidly entering notes on her iPad.
He wordlessly moved into his seat, all the while keeping watch on his travel companion.
The driver shut the doors with authority before clambering into his seat. Putting the van in gear, he took off down the road. Less than one hundred yards later, he was looking in the rearview mirror instead of out the windshield and talking to the woman with an easy demeanor. “The roads between here and the resort can be a bit trying, miss, so you may want to forgo typing until arrival.” Then he hit the gas and they shot away at breakneck speed...right through a massive pothole.
The woman fumbled her iPad, recovered it before it hit the floor and caught the driver’s stare. “A bit trying, huh?”
He laughed. “Wait until we hit traffic. Here in Bora Bora, traffic includes cars, motorcycles, scooters, and even the occasional cart and donkey.”
She stuffed her iPad into her bag without further comment, yet Liam couldn’t help but notice the way her shoulders didn’t move with the bus’s motion. The muscles in her neck were visible and appeared rigid. And despite her sunglasses, there were faint lines that radiated from the corner of each eye. Lines that clearly represented both stress and worry.
He was about to speak, to restart the banter they’d shared on the plane, but she turned away, reaching in to her bag and retrieving a travel pack of ibuprofen. She ripped the package open, retrieved two pills and tossed them into her mouth. Without water available, she struggled to get them down but managed.
What could be so bad a woman lands in paradise and has to take something for a headache? And why am I obsessing? I have my own issues with this godforsaken trip.
Still...
The gentleman’s code Liam lived by demanded he do something to distract her. Leaning toward her, he said, “My travel agent assured me the resort was a guaranteed headache-free zone.”
The woman whipped her entire upper body toward him, eyes wide as she pushed at a strand of hair that had worked