Trade Read Free Page B

handed
it back to the breathless fan.
    “Sholto. Jasper is here.”
    He looked up. Damn, he looks
good. He’d always been tall, but when she last saw him he was rangy to the
point of skinny. Now, he was all muscle. His navy tux fitted perfectly over his
wide shoulders and powerful chest. He wore a white shirt and a blood red tie
and even though every inch of his body was covered, it was a body women sighed
over. Hair dark as pitch tumbled over one eye and curled over the neckline of his
jacket. His attention was focused on Jasper as he shook his hand and said
something she couldn’t hear over the calls of the crowd.
    Then Jasper took her hand and
tugged her forward.
    And he, finally, looked at her.
    Had his eyes always been that
green? Dark forest green. The echoes of the boy he’d been were evident in the
slope of his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth. But his eyes were different
now, the expression in them more calculating, more direct.
    “This is Max,” Jasper said.
    She waited for the eye-widening
moment of recognition—even if he hadn’t thought of her in years, they’d spoken
mere hours before—but it didn’t arrive. Instead, his mouth curved in a smile,
and he held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Max.”
    Did he really not recognize her?
She placed her hand in his, and shivered as his cool fingers curled around
hers.
    “I need to sign a few more
autographs. See you inside?”
    She let go of his hand, and forced
a tight smile.
    Jasper took her arm, and walked
her into the cinema. “Cat got your tongue?” he teased. “I guess all the things
they say about the effect Sholto Kincaid has on women are true.”
    “What’s that?” She accepted a
glass of champagne from a waiter circling the foyer.
    “The Daily Mail said he stuns
women with his sexual aura…that no matter how immune to him women think they
are, once they get within a five yard radius they turn to jelly, and stop
functioning. They call him a sexy EMP.”
    She smiled. “Okay, I confess. I do
feel sort of fried.” Her hands trembled. No wonder Cam wanted to bring him to
the reunion, up close and personal he was the ultimate trophy date. She’d only
touched him for a moment, and her palm still tingled.
    There was movement from the
doorway—the actors were being positioned in front of a banner featuring the
movie’s title, and a cluster of photographers were readying their cameras.
    Larry walked over. “They’ll be a
couple of minutes. Let’s take our seats.”
    They followed him into the
theatre. “Sholto would like you to sit here, next to him, Jasper.” He indicated
a seat. He glanced back to the door. “Enjoy the movie. I’ll see you later.”
    Max waited for Jasper to move. He
didn’t. “Are you going to sit?” Patrons were filing into the cinema now, and
she didn’t want to keep standing in the aisle.
    “I don’t want to sit next to
him—he’s bound to try and talk business.”
    Business? Before she had a
chance to investigate that further, Jasper patted her arm. “You sit next to
him—running interference, remember?”
    She was here as Jasper’s guest,
and she’d promised. “I remember.” She started down the row and took the seat
earmarked for Jasper. Great . Not only did she have to deal with the
unexpected attraction to the guy who’d humiliated her years ago, she now had to
sit next to him while his on-screen self screwed his gorgeous co-star in a
movie critics were saying was so hot it would set women’s panties on fire.
    Good thing she wasn’t wearing any.
    *****
    Jasper’s date wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the room.
Nor the one showing the most skin. His co-star, Caro Michaels, was wrapped in a
long black dress with cutout panels. The sheer panels skated between the curves
of her breasts, revealed her smooth stomach, and then swerved just above the
cut of her bikini line to reveal the entire side of her hip and a hint of butt
before skimming down to the floor. She looked as though half of