LITMIR.BIZ

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when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon® author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.

      Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends, and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside. Visit Susan’s website: www.susanstephens.net —she loves to hear from her readers all around the world!

       CHAPTER ONE

      MAGENTA yelped with alarm as a scuffed biker’s boot slammed onto the ground within inches of her feet. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? ‘ she exploded, frantically clutching the armful of documents threatening to spill from her arms.

      Taking off his helmet, the man shook out a mop of inky-black hair. He was exactly the type of man you didn’t want to see when you’d had the day from hell and looked like you’d been dragged through a hedge backwards: gorgeous, cool, and commanding. He had ‘danger’ flashing round him like neon lights.

      ‘Well?’ Magenta demanded furiously. ‘Do you always ride a motorcycle like a maniac? ‘

      ‘Always,’ he drawled.

      ‘I should report you.’

      Eyes the colour of a storm-tossed ocean laughed back at her.

      And she would report him, Magenta determined, just as soon as she sorted out the flat on her car, along with a million and one other things.

      Such as her father deciding to retire and sell his shares to some stranger without a word to her. Such as saving her colleagues’ jobs from this unknown predator. Such as wanting to get back to her team and their fast-moving, retro ad campaign set in Magenta’s favourite era, the sixties.

      ‘Do you mind?’ she said, trying to skirt around the man’s monstrous, throbbing machine. ‘Some of us have work to do.’

      ‘Is that why you’re leaving the office early?’

      ‘Since when are my working hours your concern?’

      The biker shrugged.

      Magenta’s glance swept the car park. Where was the security guard when you needed him? She had been loading up the car with things she intended to finish over the weekend in her own time—not that she was about to explain that to this guy, who looked like he spent his weekends in bed. And not alone.

      ‘You’re leaving me?’ he demanded as she made a move to continue on her way.

      ‘Somehow I’m managing to drag myself away.’

      What was he doing in the car park of Steele Design anyway? Was he a courier? ‘Do you have a package?’

      His grin made her cheeks blaze red. She had to watch her words in future, Magenta concluded. They were about the same age—maybe he was a year or two older—but his eyes held infinitely more experience. ‘If you don’t have anything to deliver, this is private property and you should leave.’

      He raised an eyebrow.

      Oh, good. He was really impressed by her command of the situation.

      The biker’s self-confidence was making her edgy—that and his manner, which was cool, when she was fuming. Some men were just comfortable in every situation and this man was clearly one of them.

      A sharp flurry of snow kept her hurrying along but the man’s laugh was warm and sexy on her back. ‘What’s so urgent you can’t spare a moment to chat?’ he called.

      She stopped and turned to confront him. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours, but I am going inside to put on the clothes I wear in the gym so I can change the tyre on my car.’

      ‘Can I help you?’

      ‘No.’

      Perhaps she should at least have thanked him for the offer.

      Now she felt guilty?

      Settling the helmet on his head again, he revved the engine. ‘You’re going? ‘ she said, perversely wanting him to stay.

      Powerful shoulders eased in a careless shrug.

      Why exactly was she driving him away, when he was the most interesting thing to have happened in a long time? Because she had more sense than to prolong the encounter, Magenta reasoned, crunching snow underfoot as she started on her way again. But, instead of riding off, the man kept pace with her, scuffing his boots on the surface of the road as he kept the engine purring along in neutral. ‘Haven’t you gone yet?’ she demanded.

      ‘I’m waiting to see you in gym clothes.’ He grinned.

      She huffed at this, all the time trying to work him out. He was dressed too casually to be a businessman and his voice was low and husky with an accent she didn’t recognise. Perhaps he was a mature student; there was a college across the road.

      ‘I could give you a lift.’

      I bet you could. A face and body like his could give any woman a lift. But something about him warned her that this was a man who could switch in the blink of an eye from humorous and warm to the modern-day equivalent of Genghis Khan—and she’d had all the aggravation she could take for one day.

      ‘You are one stressed-out lady. Don’t you ever relax?’

      Was he kidding? Who had time to relax? Plus, she shouldn’t even think about relaxing while this guy was around. He looked too fit, too dangerous. ‘My car is shot. Bust. Broken. What part of that should entice me to relax? ‘

      ‘Like I said, I’d be happy to give you a lift.’

      She might have given his well-packed leathers a thorough inspection and found them more than to her liking, but she didn’t know him from Adam. ‘I never accept lifts from strangers,’ she informed him, tilting her chin at what she hoped would pass for an unapproachable angle.

      ‘Very wise,’ he said, calmly wheeling along at her side.

      ‘Don’t you ever give up?’

      ‘Never.’

      Her heart was thundering. Why?

      She was heading off towards the side entrance and the employee lockers where her gym clothes were stowed, and was looking forward to closing the door on his arrogant face… right up to the moment when he gunned the engine and rode away.

      She stared after the streak of black lightning until it disappeared at the end of the road, feeling…wistful.

      Well, she’d blown it, so it was no use crying over lost opportunities now.

      Had there been something special about him—an instant connection between them? Or was that the wanderings of an exhausted mind?

      Far more likely, Magenta decided. The biker could have insisted on fixing her tyre if he’d really wanted to.

      Whatever happened to chivalry? Women like her, Magenta concluded, women who accepted equality as their right and who scowled if a man so much as offered to open a door for them.

      Having retrieved her gym clothes from her locker, she threw them on, together with a warm jacket and a scarf. Returning to her car, she lifted the cover concealing the spare.

       No spare!

      She stared in disbelief at the empty space, and then remembered her father saying something about a puncture a few months back. They had matching cars, which at one time Magenta had thought cute. Not today; her father must have told the mechanics to help themselves

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