Bring the Heat, Margot Radcliffe [best novels to read to improve english .TXT] 📗

lamplit grounds of the Surrey mansion were doing their damnedest to warm up the abysmal temperature and failing, but I, for one, didn’t need their help.

My body had heated up the moment I spotted Wren Bingham, wearing a clingy jumpsuit that lovingly followed every curve of her spectacular body. Fringed, shoulder-length jet-black hair brushed the frilly-looking scarf wrapped around her shoulders. Stilettos on her feet and a diamond bracelet circling her wrist completed her outfit. Her guests wore double and triple layers but she was obviously nowhere near cold, either.

I didn’t mind one bit because she looked fuckable in the extreme—

‘Jasper?’

I reeled myself in at Aunt Flo’s sharper tone. An apologetic glance her way showed pursed lips and a disapproving glint in her eye. I was usually more circumspect but being in the same vicinity as Wren Bingham always scuppered my concentration.

I cleared my throat. ‘Of course I’ll behave. Scouts’ honour.’ The woman who’d been more of a mother to me than my own living parent snorted her disbelief.

‘As if they’d have let you anywhere near a Scouts camp. You’d have scandalised them all within an hour.’

I grinned at her no-nonsense reply because her tone was couched in familiar, reassuring warmth. Warmth I let wash over me to disperse the soul-shrivelling chill that came from thinking about my birth mother, which inevitably led to thoughts about my father. Specifically, their arctic wind of rejection, far more brutal than any winter I’d experienced since their desertion. No, tonight most definitely wasn’t the time to dwell on that noxious period of my childhood and how it’d ruined not just me but my siblings, too.

Tonight was about bringing recalcitrant business partners to heel. Mostly...

After another search failed to reveal my elusive prey, I focused once more on Wren, that compulsion since Aunt Flo and I had walked through the impressive double doors of the Bingham mansion in Esher forty-five minutes ago pulling at me.

So far I hadn’t spotted Wren’s brother, Perry Bingham, my primary reason for being here. Sure, I’d nodded and reassured my favourite aunt that accompanying her to this soirée was my pleasure and the right Mortimer thing to do. Also because, on some weird rota only Aunt Flo was privy to, it was apparently my turn to escort her to another social function. What I’d failed to mention was that I was on the hunt for Perry Bingham, CEO of Bingham Industries, who had stopped answering my calls for nearly two weeks, thereby threatening to throw one serious spanner into my latest project.

With my patience wearing thin, I’d grasped the opportunity to track him down at his family estate. Except it looked as if he was a no-show here, too.

But Wren was here, and I intended to drill his sister about his whereabouts. My choice of words brought an inner smirk I wisely kept off my face as I downed my whisky and turned to my aunt.

‘Can I get you another drink?’ I indicated her half-empty glass of sherry.

Several waitstaff circulated with trays of drinks but I didn’t plan to grab one from them. Not when Wren stood next to the bar, chatting with two of her guests. As I watched, she threw her head back in laughter, her smooth, swanlike neck thrown into perfect relief.

Immediately, I imagined my lips there, beneath her jawline, tasting her silky skin, then lower, tonguing her pulse. Would she cry out in delight or moan with pleasure?

‘We both know that’s an excuse to get away from me. Go on, then. Just don’t do anything we’d both be ashamed of come morning, would you? I could do without a Mortimer tabloid scandal before Christmas,’ Aunt Flo said.

Brushing a kiss on a well-preserved cheek, I muttered, ‘You’ve taught me the importance of not making promises I can’t keep. Don’t make me start now.’

She rolled her eyes but her smile deepened.

I grinned again as I made a beeline for the bar, and I wasn’t one little bit ashamed to admit that I was hard as stone.

I made sure to wipe the smile off my face, my eyes settling in the middle distance to prevent business acquaintances engaging me in conversation. A few feet from Wren, I paused to ponder why this woman, amongst so many others, had fired me up ever since she’d crossed my path five years ago.

Perhaps it was discovering that, far from being a superficial heiress and supermodel flitting around the globe between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three, she’d attained a master’s degree in business while slaying the runways of the fashion capitals of the world. More besides, she’d graduated top of her class and was, at twenty-eight, now on course to become one of the youngest power executives in the city. Or perhaps it was some twisted attraction born from our family being embroiled in a generations-old feud, which dictated we should hate each other on sight like some pathetic Roman tragedy.

Whatever. All I knew was that Wren had intrigued me with increasing intensity over the past few years.

Intense empire-building in order to establish my role in my family’s company as President of New Developments in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and perhaps even the arrogant belief that our chemistry was a passing whim and wasn’t worth turning my family upside down for, had so far kept me from pursuing Wren, but each encounter only deepened whatever this phenomenal chemistry was that stopped me from seeing any other woman but her whenever we were in each other’s orbit.

Lately, I’d accepted that it simply wasn’t going to go away by itself, as I’d assumed. Not until I did something about it.

I realised my motionless state was drawing curious attention from nearby guests, not to mention Aunt Flo’s disapproving glare from across the terrace.

Discarding my glass, I stepped beside Wren. ‘Good evening, Wren. You look incredible.’ I said, my voice pitched low.

She tried not to stiffen, but didn’t quite succeed, nor could she disguise the flare of awareness in her vivid green eyes