I huffed. “That would be none of your business.”

  He’s definitely a creeper if he’s digging for information about my nonexistent sex life.

  “Maybe I want to make it my business. Maybe I want to understand,” he answered in a deceptively casual tone. “And I’d love to know what happened with Lancaster International.”

  I kept my head turned toward the window as I snapped, “Do you always get what you want?”

  “Yes. Almost always,” he answered.

  I ignored his arrogance as I realized that he’d asked about Lancaster International.

  Holy shit! Had he been reading my texts for that long? The knowledge that he’d been surveying my conversation with Kylie since the very beginning made me livid. “Lancaster International would also be none of your business,” I said in a snippy tone that I hoped would shut him up.

  God, he really had to stop talking. I didn’t want to hear another word spoken in that annoyingly hot accent.

  Not that it’s really getting to me. Because really, how could there be anything sexy about a man who wants to play me like I’m an idiot?

  The bastard could just use the in-flight entertainment system if he wanted some kind of distraction to pass the time on this ridiculously long flight.

  Gorgeous or not, this man was trouble, and I needed to just stop holding a conversation with him. Period.

  I felt his body shift, and I peeked sideways as he stood up to take off his suit jacket to hand it to the flight attendant to hang up in a closet.

  Sweet Jesus!

  I hated myself for feeling breathless because he was so incredibly tall, bulky, and built like a Greek god. Broad shoulders tapered down to a very fit waist. I was almost certain that he had some mouthwatering six-pack abs underneath the expensive linen of his stark-white dress shirt.

  Put your tongue back in your mouth, Nicole! He might be physically stunning, but he’s also a crazy man, and not in a good way.

  I forced my eyes away from the Adonis, disgusted with myself as my hands fumbled with my seat belt to get it fastened. The huge jet had started moving, but I’d been too caught up in lust to notice that immediately.

  I kept my eyes glued to the window as we prepared to lift off.

  Once the plane was in the air, I could pull out my laptop and try to get some work done. It would be as if the smoldering-hot man beside me didn’t even exist. Once I was buried in work, I could block out everything.

  I felt his movement as he took his seat again. I heard him fasten his seat belt as he said, “We do have twelve hours for me to get the information out of you.”

  His highhanded tone set my teeth on edge, and it pissed me off that he hadn’t just kept that gorgeous mouth closed. “I don’t like to talk when I’m traveling. I have work to do.”

  He let out a long, masculine sigh. “As a matter of fact, I have a rather large amount of work to accomplish myself. But I’m afraid that my laptop isn’t as intriguing as you are right now. Care to satisfy my curiosity so I can concentrate on my own work?”

  “No,” I answered sharply. I decided to keep things simple. “I’m tired. My business in London was a failure, and I’d prefer a silent plane ride back home to contemplate my utter humiliation, if you don’t mind.”

  I had no idea why I’d decided to tell him that my London venture had been a gigantic fail. Maybe I was hoping it would make him mind his own business.

  “You know you want to talk about it,” he said persuasively—in that damnably sexy British accent. “I’m a stranger, right? You’ll never see me again. Why not vent to somebody you don’t know, and will never see again?”

  Ugh! Didn’t this guy have an Off switch attached to those sensual lips of his? “Has it occurred to you at all that maybe I just don’t like you? You were reading my text messages, for God’s sake. It’s nearly impossible to like or confide in a disturbed individual who does something like that.”

  I hoped that comment would offend him just a little, that he’d…Just. Stop. Talking.

  Oddly, I seemed to have absolutely no filter when it came to my frustrating seatmate. Usually, I could ignore what was going on around me, especially when I was working, but I couldn’t seem to keep my own mouth shut at the moment.

  When I heard a low rumble of laughter next to me, it was pretty annoying to admit to myself that my tactic to silence him had been completely unsuccessful.

  Hadn’t he just said he almost always got what he wanted?

  The obnoxious man obviously wasn’t going to give me the peace I now craved until he was satisfied.

  I sighed. He was right about one thing. Underneath my anger, I really did want to vent about what happened at Lancaster International because I wanted to make sense out of why a perfectly intelligent woman had managed to screw up a presentation that meant so much.

  I just didn’t want to do it with a guy who got a kick out of using me as a source of entertainment.

  Maybe, if he was a decent guy, I would have spilled my guts to Mr. Orgasm. The fact that I’d never see him again made the prospect pretty damn tempting.

  If only he wasn’t the most annoying guy I’d ever met.

  CHAPTER 3

  Damian

  IF THIS WOMAN had done some kind of business with Lancaster International, I was surprised that she didn’t recognize me.

  Even stranger, I’d never seen her before, and I never forgot a face.

  Granted, I wouldn’t recognize every one of my employees since Lancaster International had hundreds of thousands of them around the world. However, she’d obviously just come from my headquarters in London, and I was familiar with every upper-level executive who had an office there. I made it a point to know their business because it was ultimately my business, too, and I’d never seen this gorgeous blonde American woman strolling around the executive floors to meet with any of them.

  I definitely would have remembered her.

  So here I was, in a position that should have been awkward, but it really wasn’t. Not for me, anyway. It was just…different. The woman had no idea who I was, nor did she seem to care about getting to know me.

  To her, I was just some totally random, unpleasant guy who was sitting next to her on an airplane.

  Not that I blamed her for having that initial impression of me. Reading her text messages had been way out of line, and obnoxiously intrusive, but she was so damn intriguing that it had been impossible to resist finding out why she’d looked so defeated when I’d taken the seat next to hers.

  My actions had been so out of character for me that I was still trying to figure out why I’d invaded her privacy.

  I’d never felt like I had to solve all the world’s problems like my brother, Leo.

  Normally, I never had any desire to carry on a conversation with a stranger when I was traveling. Like her, I preferred to keep to myself on the rare occasions I flew commercial.

  I should be satisfied that no one had recognized me, and eager to pull out my laptop so I could get to work. I could knock out a significant number of things that had piled up on a long flight like this one.

  I was nothing if not disciplined, to keep my focus on Lancaster International at all times.

  I’d never been distracted from my single-minded purpose…until I’d taken my seat next to the most intriguing female I’d ever met.

  This time, for some unknown reason, all I wanted to do was watch her.

  Damned if I knew where that beautiful comment she’d disliked so much had come from, or why I’d said it. I wasn’t exactly a slick operator. Dylan had always been the charming one. And me? I’d always been the quiet, keep-to-myself Lancaster who followed a meticulous schedule that left little or no time for anything else but my obsession to make Lancaster International stand out from any of my competition. My twin had been the one who could lavish people with outrageous flattery without making it sound insincere or cheesy.

  Honestly, I hadn’t meant to flatter the female next to me, exactly. She was, in fact, beautiful, and it was incredibly provocative that she didn’t seem to know it.

  I was a big man who appreciated a statuesque, curvy female like her, so I’d noticed her from the first moment I’d sat down in the seat next to her.

  Generally, I could blow off a mild attraction and get back to whatever business was at hand.

  I didn’t have time to flirt. I’d never even had the inclination.

  I didn’t push anyone for any kind of conversation because I wasn’t exactly a talker myself.

  I used my available time wisely, which meant I focused on Lancaster International.

  Normally, I didn’t even notice who occupied the seat next to me on one of my rare commercial flights.

  But things weren’t exactly normal this time. Not with her sitting next to me. Something about this particular female completely fascinated me. I felt like she’d curled those elegant fingers around my balls the second I’d found my seat, and now she refused to let go.

  I wanted to know more about her.

  And hell, yes, I wanted to know what kind of idiots she’d dated who had been unable to satisfy her.

  No orgasm? Ever? Not once?

  My cock had immediately stood up for the challenge. Literally.

  It didn’t seem to matter that she’d just professed not to like me.

  In fact, her attempt to dissuade me had completely backfired.

  There were very few people in the world who would actually call out Damian Lancaster for anything, and I was discovering that I actually…liked it.

  I wanted to know how she was connected to Lancaster International. It was my company, after all.

  Granted, her sex life was probably none of my business, but I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I knew why she’d dated so many wankers.

  I cleared my throat. Since I’d never had to ask twice for much of anything, I wasn’t exactly sure how to be more persuasive. “You’ll like me more once you start talking. Tell me about Lancaster. What business did you have with them? But before you start, tell me your name.”

  My dick twitched as she folded her arms across a pair of very ample breasts.

  I wasn’t sure she’d answer. Her internal war between the need to talk and her desire to stay silent was evident in her expression.

  I wanted to win. I always did.

  I waited…

  And waited…

  “Nicole.” She sounded exasperated. “My name is Nicole.”

  I released the air in my lungs. Maybe she hadn’t shared her last name, but I was relieved that she’d said something, because I was certain she still thought I was a complete tosser for reading her texts.

  “Damian.” I hadn’t even thought about the wisdom of using my real name, which was a little concerning since I made it a point to never do anything impulsively.

  Luckily, I didn’t see any obvious signs that my name meant anything to her.

  “I’m not sure I really want to talk about the Lancaster disaster,” she said. “And talking about my failures with a man I don’t know, and who seems to love making fun of me, would be a pretty bad choice of people to discuss my disappointment with, don’t you think?”

  I frowned. “I never made fun of you, Nicole. If you were under any impression that I was insincere, you’re wrong.” What kind of asshole would do something like that to her? “If I didn’t honestly want to listen, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  Her voice had been reluctant, but I could tell she really did want to talk to someone, and I really wanted to be that confidant right now. Especially if the story had anything to do with Lancaster International. “Like I said, I’m a stranger. Shoot. I’m not about to judge.”

  I could feel the jet lifting off, but I ignored it. I was too eager to hear what Nicole had to say, and being in an aircraft was like a second home to me.

  She let out a sigh of submission, and I wanted to celebrate because I knew that sound meant she was going to talk, whether it seemed like a wise decision to her or not.

  I calculated that my best course of action was to stay silent until she spoke, which she eventually did.

  “My mom passed away from cancer a year ago. Her company…my company now…was her baby. She built Ashworth Crisis Management from the ground up, and she was really, really good at it. I came to London to pitch our services to Lancaster International. I had no idea that the owner is some kind of man-whore, and that I’d only find that out a couple of minutes before my presentation. Because I wasn’t prepared for some real-time scandal to happen, I completely blew it. I froze instead of changing things up to address the imminent problem they were facing.”

  I didn’t speak. I waited for her to go on. I sensed that she needed to keep venting, and I was a very willing audience.

  “I bombed my presentation in front of the Lancaster executives. I just…choked. I’m a planner. I’m not good at just…winging things. I was all over the place, and I never got to really tell them what we could do for them in their current situation.”

  She looked so forlorn that it made my damn chest ache. I could relate to what had happened to her. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Spontaneous. I was a meticulous planner, too. “Something came up suddenly that you weren’t prepared to handle at that meeting, Nicole. It’s not your fault.”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it’s ever going to come naturally to me. I went to school to become a corporate attorney, and I was a damn good one. Sure, I had to talk to executives, but it was normally a few at a time. And I knew what I was doing. Trying to step into my mother’s shoes is just so…difficult.”

  God, could I relate to that. “Believe it or not, I get that, too. I stepped into my father’s shoes five years ago when he died unexpectedly from a heart attack. They were big shoes to fill, and I didn’t feel like I was ready. It’s going to take some time for you to feel comfortable. Why did you leave corporate law?”

  Nicole was obviously intelligent and highly educated. She’d just stepped into a world she knew nothing about after her mother’s death. I had to respect the balls it took to take that leap. Dylan and I had had the benefit of being groomed to step into my father’s shoes one day.

  I had to admire this woman’s strength and determination. She’d dropped everything in a world where she was comfortable to enter an entirely different universe. My question would be…was she happy where she was right now?

  She started to speak before I could ask. “I suppose I just didn’t want to let go of ACM because it was so successful, and I was there to see her fight for that success. I wanted to keep it going because she…couldn’t. I couldn’t sell something that was that important to her.”

  Nicole had wanted to keep some part of her mother alive, even after her parent was gone. I understood that. “Did she ask you to do it?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No. She knew I was happy as a corporate attorney. My mother wasn’t like that. All she ever wanted was for me to be happy. She expected me to sell, but I couldn’t do it. So I moved from New York back to California permanently after she died to see if I could make a go at ACM.”

  I really fucking hated the crushed look on her face. I wanted to say the right words to make it go away, but I wasn’t Dylan. The right words weren’t always there for me, and I wasn’t really good at blowing sunshine up anyone’s ass, but in Nicole’s case, I wanted to try. “It’s just one botched presentation. You’ll get another chance.”

  What I definitely couldn’t tell Nicole was that I should have been at her presentation. The meeting had been on my schedule. I’d had to bail out of that commitment because I’d wanted to drive to Surrey to see Mum after I’d seen the tabloids with Dylan’s bare-naked ass exposed to the entire country.

  Nicole’s voice sounded desperate as she told me, “You don’t understand, Damian. It wasn’t about getting another deal. It was about accomplishing something my mom always wanted. I got the opportunity that she didn’t, and I fucked it up.”

  Ahhh…so it wasn’t about the money for her at all. It wasn’t financial; it was personal.

  I hated the fact that I hadn’t been at that meeting, and she’d left Lancaster International headquarters feeling like she’d failed.

  For some strange reason, I wanted to reach out my hand and turn her face to me so I could see her expression, but I didn’t.

  Number one…I wasn’t sure that seeing an injured look in her gorgeous blue eyes wouldn’t be akin to a swift kick in the gut for me.

  And number two…I didn’t want to invade her space again. Okay, maybe I did want to invade her space, but I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. I’d probably already done enough to make her wary, and the last thing I wanted to do was shut her down for the rest of the flight.

  I wanted her to keep talking to me, which meant I needed to stop doing impulsive shit that was so contrary to my normal personality.

  Hell, just wanting somebody to talk to me was highly abnormal.

  What in the fuck can I do to make her understand that what happened at Lancaster isn’t the end of the world?

  Maybe she just needed some kind of…do-over. “Then tell me right now, Nicole. Tell me what you could have done for Lancaster. What would you say if you got the chance to do that meeting all over again?”

  She didn’t hesitate to answer. “I’d tell them that what the CEO is doing will probably catch up with them if they don’t try to fix this right now, and put a kibosh on anything else similar happening in the future. I’d say that they’ll eventually see a decrease in their business if it continues because people don’t always buy with their wallets. Sometimes, they buy with their instincts and their heart. At some point, if the owner of the corporation doesn’t stop the bullshit, Lancaster is going to become a company with an ‘ick factor.’ Some people will be turned off, and buy the product right next to their product, one that doesn’t sport the Lancaster name.”

  I had no desire to defend my brother, but I did feel the need to champion Lancaster International. “What if they don’t see a decrease in sales trends? It’s the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. Not everyone is a prude.”