Read Online His Most Exquisite Conquest by Emma Darcy - Free Book Online

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    ‘There’s trouble coming our way,’ she said quickly.
    ‘What?’ He frowned, looking past her to spot what she found disturbing. ‘You mean Jason Lester?’
    ‘You know him?’
    ‘Played football against him in my teens.’
    She hadn’t imagined any connection between them and didn’t have time to ask Michael whether he’d liked Jason or not, which drove up her tension considerably when the guy arrived at their table.
    ‘Well, well, here’s the honey bee again,’ he drawled sneeringly, his gaze shifting to Michael, who was rising to his feet, half a head taller than Jason and more broad-shouldered, but apparently not intimidating enough to stop a jeer at him. ‘Pulling in bigger bucks with you, Mickey Finn.’
    ‘You’re being rude, Jason,’ Michael said tersely, his face set in stony challenge as he added, ‘inexcusably.’
    ‘Just thought I’d give you a friendly warning, Mickey. What looks like all sweetness has quite a sting in her tail.’
    ‘I’d prefer to discover that for myself,’ he replied coldly. ‘Now if you don’t mind...’
    ‘But I do mind. I want the honey bee to spell out why she turned her back on me when she’s slept with half the men in Cairns.’ The blue eyes lasered hers with vicious spite. ‘Well, sweetheart?’
    Her face flamed at the slur on her character. That he had made such a nasty crack about her in front of Michael goaded her into a wild reply. ‘Even a town slut can have standards, Jason Lester, and you don’t meet them.’
    ‘After richer pickings, aren’t you?’ he retorted, and threw a last mocking look at Michael. ‘Just so you know what you’re playing with, old friend.’
    He left.
    Lucy sat frozen, watching him saunter off. It totally appalled her that she’d used the term ‘town slut’ on top of Jason Lester’s numbering her ex-lovers as half the men in Cairns, making it sound as if she was actually acknowledging herself as a slut, which she wasn’t. Far from it. But Michael could be starting to see her that way—as a gold-digging slut who had drawn him straight into her bedroom on their first night together.
    If Jason Lester and Michael had been friends... If Michael believed him, one man to another... She couldn’t think past that, couldn’t bring herself to look at the prince who might at this very moment be turning into a frog.
    * * *
    Michael slowly unclenched his hands as he watched Jason Lester make a quick retreat back to the safety of a gang of mates seated at a table in the next restaurant. Typical of him to dive in, hit where it hurt, then run for cover. He’d always been a dirty player on the football field, grabbing guys’ crotches and squeezing whenever he could. Harry had got him back in one game, delivering a bit of justice.
    Certainly there was no friendship fostered between Lester and the Finn family. He hadn’t come to this table to do any favours. His only purpose had been to poison the happy flow of a relationship he wanted to destroy out of some malicious sense of envy. Michael knew this, but he couldn’t stop himself from wondering how much truth there was in the poison.
    The honey bee...
    It was an apt name for Lucy, flitting along in her free-spirited way and so sweet to be with in every sense.
    The burning question was how many men had dipped into her honey? He might have dismissed Lester’s snide crack about half the men in Cairns but for Lucy’s retort that even a town slut had some standards. It had been an angry retort, hitting back, yet his own experience with Lucy—her easy, uninhibited approach to having sex—suddenly didn’t feel so great to him.
    This past week he had been obsessed by the pleasure of her, at the cost of his usual complete concentration on work. Even tonight he’d cut short what he should have done in the office, impatient to be with her again. Had she deliberately gone after his balls because of his ‘big bucks’? He’d thought that her joy in sex was part and parcel