Ripped Read Free Page B

thinking choosing a dress that revealing?’
    ‘I didn’t choose it.’
    ‘Then you should have refused to wear it.’ His gaze was fixed on mine and didn’t waver.
    Clearly he’d had no desire to ogle my bare breasts. I told myself that didn’t bother me.
    What did bother me was the unconcealed look of disapproval on his handsome face.
    I was sure he was a very successful lawyer. I didn’t even know which bit of the law he dealt with, but whatever he did I was sure he was the best of the best. I knew that if I were on the witness stand and he fixed me with that penetrating gaze I would have confessed to pretty much anything.
    Yes, Your Honour, it’s true that on the twenty-second day of December I wore a giant condom to a wedding…. No, I had no idea I would be arrested for antisocial behavior—condoms are supposed to only have a 2 percent failure rate, but in my case it was 150 percent. Yes, I understand there were serious consequences. Wedding interruptus .
    I wondered why he was so angry.
    It wasn’t as if the groom had ended up with me. This episode could have just been labeled ‘narrow escape’.
    Outrage started to simmer inside me. I was the victim of a cruel fashion crime, blameless in everything except my proportions and I wasn’t about to apologize for my breasts.
    And anyway, I felt a bit funny inside. Not queasy exactly, but a bit dizzy and swimmy-headed. I thought it was probably hearing him speaking Italian. The only Italian I knew I learned from a menu and there was nothing sexy about Pizza Margherita even if you tried saying it in a sultry voice.
    This man, however, was spectacularly sexy and everything that came out of his mouth made me want to grab him and do very, very bad things which was definitely off limits because Nico was the sort who was always ruthlessly in control of himself and behaved impeccably in public. I assumed lawyers weren’t allowed to misbehave.
    ‘Why the fuck are you here, Hayley? You are the master of bad decisions.’ He spoke through his teeth as if he were afraid that if he opened his mouth a tirade of insults would escape.
    Frankly I was surprised to hear him say ‘fuck’.
    But now he’d said it, I started thinking about it. Not the word, but the act. I couldn’t help it. Truthfully I’d been thinking about it long before he’d said that word. I doubted any woman could look at Nico and not think of it. Not love or romance, you understand. He wasn’t the hearts and roses sort of man. I couldn’t imagine him risking his suit by changing a nappy or rolling up his perfectly ironed sleeves to wash a greasy saucepan, but sex? God, yes. All it took was one look to know this man would know everything there was to know about hard, hot, sweaty sex.
    For a wild moment I wanted to ask if he’d impart some of his knowledge, but then I remembered he’d just told me I made bad decisions. There was only so much abuse a girl could take in one day and I was right up to my limit. When you work in a male dominated profession as I do, you’re used to being judged. Most of the time I let it wash over me. If I threatened their masculinity that was their problem, not mine. Occasionally I fought back. Sometimes I took sadistic pleasure in surprising people, but I was damned if I’d allow myself to be told I made bad decisions by a man who never let himself go.
    I stood up straighter and pushed my chest out (good job I was wearing his jacket). ‘Excuse me , but what gives you the right to judge my decisions?’
    ‘We could start with the fact you’re currently naked from the waist up under my jacket. Fix the dress. I’m the best man. I have duties to perform.’
    And I was willing to bet he’d perform them well.
    Oh, God, I had to stop thinking like that .
    ‘The dress is unfixable. And I couldn’t refuse to wear it. This was what Cressida wanted.’
    ‘Your half-naked body on display? I don’t think so.’ He threw me a look that would have terrified an entire army into