The Price of Seduction Read Free Page A

him into her field of attention, holding him with her gaze, pulling him in with invisible forces. Except her appeal was far from invisible.
    What man wouldn’t be captivated by such intelligent beauty? How could he have missed it earlier?
    There’d been many women in Conrad’s life. Women who wore only Versace and Collette Dinnigan, women who were constantly in the social pages and even a couple who’d graced the covers of magazines.
    Yet those women hadn’t done much except look beautiful. As if that was their full-time profession. There was a lot more to Bree than that.
    He stepped closer and as she glanced his way, the sparkle left her eyes, her expression becoming more distanced. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.
    The MC excused himself, leaving the two of them togeth er. Conrad asked Bree for a business card which she retrieved from her beaded purse and handed to him.
    He gave her one of his winning smiles. “Tonight has been full of surprises, hasn’t it?”
    “My job would be a lot ea sier with a few less surprises,” she said.
    “But you dealt with them so beautifully. You made it look easy.”
    “You have no idea how much work goes into making things look so easy.” Her eyes looked tired but there was the hint of a laugh in her voice.
    “Actually, I do,” he said. “You never know when I might need someone like you.”
    “Then you’d best speak t o my boss, Olivia Kelly, not me.” Bree looked around as though she had other tasks with which to get on.
    “You’ve done an excellent job. I’ve been to lots of these gala events and most of them are a little on the boring side.”
    She frowned. It would’ve looked unbecoming on anyone else .
    “Don’t forget there’s a very good reason we’re here,” she said. “It’s all for a good cause.”
    “I didn’t mean that this was a boring event. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think that’s largely down to you.”
    He was expecting to be thanked for the compliment. Instead she held his gaze as if she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He decided to press her a little further and see what happened.
    “ You were extremely pushy about the photos earlier on,” he said.
    “Was I? ” She lifted one finely arched brow. “I can be much more forceful than that when I need to. As, I’m sure, can you.”
    Very few people were this frank with him. He glimpsed a spark of fire beneath the previously cool surface.
    He smiled. “I can be many things.”
    Bree returned his smile as she stepped past him. “You must excuse me. My work isn’t over yet.”
    Clearly he hadn’t made a good impression.
    Sydney was a big city and she should be more careful rather than to assume their paths would never cross.
    She hadn’t seen the last of him.
    He’d make sure of that.

Chapter two
     
    Bree stood in the doorway of her boss’s office. “What do you mean we’ve got a meeting with Conrad Savage on Wednesday?”
    Olivia Kelly, owner of Kelly Communicati ons, was cool as always. She pushed her light brown bobbed hair behind her ears and leaned forward in her office chair. She was a mature woman, always well groomed and always direct. You knew exactly where you stood with Olivia and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
    “Don’t act so surprised,” she said. “You must have made a good impression on him when you met at the Indi-Art Ball.”
    Bree sat down on the edge of a chair opposite the desk. “I really didn’t spend much time with him and that was nearly a month ago. I haven’t seen or heard from him since then.”
    “Y ou shouldn’t be so modest. You’re the one bringing in this potential new client. I expected you’d bring more business to the firm but I didn’t think it’d happen so quickly.”
    “Surely he must have his own public relations people within Eden Enterprises,” Bree said. “And probably other consultants as well. Why do you think he’s coming to us now?”
    “He’s making a new investment and perhaps