The Weekend Read online

  ‘Hello, miss. I’m Martin, Mr Beckett’s personal assistant,’ the man says with a crisp British accent. He’s sitting in an antique chair that’s been drawn up to face the sofa, wearing a suit over his thin frame, and looks like the highly competent sort who could balance the national budget with one hand while cooking a gourmet meal with the other. Sunlight from the windows glints against his silver hair. ‘Try not to move too quickly. From what Jase has told me, you took quite a few knocks to your head.’

  Jase? Who the hell is Jase? ‘Where am I?’ I ask, surprised by the throaty rasp of my voice.

  ‘In Jase’s – that is Mr Beckett’s – private office.’

  Licking my lips, I replay the last things I can remember through my aching head, but still can’t come up with an explanation for my current situation. ‘How did I get here? I remember a group of jerks trying to mug me at the station . . . but that’s it.’

  I have a feeling the pink tinge blooming in Martin’s cheeks means I’m not going to like his answer. ‘Er, well, he carried you here.’

  Ohmygod, I mutter to myself, so mortified I could die. I suddenly know exactly who this man means by he, my poor brain finally figuring out who that intoxicating scent had belonged to when I’d been lifted from the floor. And he’d carried me all the way here? Just . . . no, I think, shuddering with embarrassment. It’s too much. I mean, I was probably drooling all over his priceless suit!

  Oh . . . and Jesus, I hope I didn’t say anything. I’ve been told by my friends that I talk in my sleep, but who knows if that extends to blacking out. With my luck, I could have spent the whole trip up to his breathtaking office mumbling about how gorgeous he is. Or how I planned on using him for inspiration during my next date with my vibrator!

  Honestly, if there were a hole in the floor right now I would freaking crawl right into it.

  Martin clears his throat, drawing my attention back to his friendly face. ‘Do you mind if I ask your name, miss?’

  ‘Emmy. Emmy Reed,’ I murmur, managing to get myself up into a sitting position and swing my legs down to the floor without Martin’s assistance, even though his hands are lifted, as if he expects me to tumble back over at any moment. I can only imagine how wrecked I look. My skirt is twisted around my knees and my slouchy cream shirt is hanging off one shoulder, showing the strap of my camisole.

  ‘Emmy’s a lovely name,’ he says with a smile, once he seems confident I can sit up without toppling. He leans back in his chair with his elbows braced on the armrests, his hands clasped before him. ‘If you’ll just stay put, we’ll have you better in no time, Miss Reed. The doctor is already on his way.’

  ‘What doctor?’ I wince as my sharp words ring through my head.

  ‘The Beckett family’s personal physician, Dr Riley.’

  Panic starts to sweep through me in a slow, dizzying surge, killing the embarrassment. ‘Why do I need a doctor?’

  A faint crease appears on his brow. ‘You’re lucky no skin was broken, but I’m afraid you might have a concussion. Before you move around, it’s best to have the doctor take a look at you.’

  ‘Shit,’ I blurt, then immediately wince again. Martin doesn’t look as if he’s ever cussed a day in his life. He probably thinks I’m an uncouth, potty-mouthed American redneck. ‘Uh, sorry,’ I murmur, biting my lip.

  Another gentle smile tugs at his mouth. ‘No apology necessary. I’m afraid you could curse until you were blue in the face and it wouldn’t even put a dent in the mountain of foul language I’ve heard during my years with Mr Beckett.’ He leans toward me and lowers his voice. ‘I might have actually picked up a few of his more colorful phrases over the years, but don’t tell anyone.’

  I laugh, and his eyes twinkle. It’s a relief that ol’ Martin isn’t as stiff-upper-lipped as I’d suspected. And speaking of Mr Beckett, I’m about to ask where he is, hoping I can get out of there before he returns, when a movement across the room catches my eye. He stands on the other side of the expansive office, his deep voice clipped as he says something into a cell phone that I can’t make out. But I hear enough to confirm that he’s definitely British – and he sounds irritated.

  Oh, dear. My rescue has probably kept him from something important, like trashing some poor country’s economy, I think snidely, and I’m more than a little surprised by my vehemence. I guess there’s just something about this guy – and all the obvious signs of his extreme wealth that are currently surrounding me – that’s really setting me on edge.

  ‘Are you in a relationship, Miss Reed?’

  I start, swinging my gaze back to Martin. ‘Why on earth do you need to know that?’

  ‘I don’t.’ He grins a bit shyly. ‘But I know Jase – that is, Mr Beckett – is wondering, so I thought I’d help the boy out.’

  I give a soft snort. ‘He’s hardly a boy. And I can assure you that I’m the last woman he’d be interested in.’

  As if to validate the fact that I have the worst luck in the world, Beckett chooses that precise moment to end his call and head our way. He’s removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt, and he casually pushes his hands into the front pockets of his trousers as he walks toward us. When he finally comes to a stop, I have to tilt my head back to keep looking at his face. He’s tall, and seriously gorgeous, but he does not look happy. ‘Why would you say that?’ he asks in a deliciously masculine voice, standing no more than a few feet from where I’m sitting on the sofa.

  ‘Uh, say what?’ I sound like an idiot, but his husky voice is so incredible it’s left me a little stunned. Tyler, my best friend back in San Diego, would be freaking drooling right about now. But then Tyler is all about the testosterone-oozing, rough-voiced alphas.

  Beckett comes even closer, the tips of his polished dress shoes touching the toes of my ballet flats as he towers over me. ‘That I wouldn’t be interested in you.’

  Laughing off my unease, I scoot a bit down the sofa so that I’ll be able to move to my feet without brushing against him when I finally feel stable enough to stand. The guy apparently has some kind of problem with personal space, since he’s invading mine. And here I thought the British upper class were supposed to be all stuffy and reserved. Beckett could give any hard-core, hot-blooded American male a run for his money. The sexy-as-hell accent is just overkill. He probably has women at his beck and call, triple booked and ready to preen and pounce to whatever tune he chooses – which makes me really want to know what he’s messing with me for.

  ‘Sir, this is Miss Emmy Reed,’ Martin interjects, clearly trying to relieve the tension that’s arcing in the air between his employer and me.

  ‘You know damn well that any man would have to be blind not to be interested,’ Beckett says in a quieter tone, as if his assistant hasn’t even spoken.

  ‘Oh, sure,’ I scoff, not liking the way this ass is screwing with my head. ‘And I bet this is the part where I’m meant to melt all over you, making a fool of myself. You put that smoldering vibe in a woman’s face and she normally just drops her panties. Am I right?’

  Martin’s trying not to laugh, but failing miserably, while Beckett gives me a slightly crooked, impossibly wicked grin . . . and slowly drops his gaze to my lap. ‘Apparently not, seeing as how you’re still wearing yours.’

  I give another feminine snort, a little relieved to realize he’s every bit as arrogant as I’d assumed he would be. ‘Trust me, I don’t count. But I can definitely see how you must affect the women in your crowd.’

  ‘My crowd?’ His brows nearly lift to his hairline, his eyes turning dark with some indecipherable emotion.

  ‘Oh, you know. All the “divine” and “dahling” and “kiss kiss” on the cheeks kind of girls. I bet you have them all panting for it, don’t you?’

  With a low, dry laugh, he sticks a big, masculine hand toward me and says, ‘I’m going to ignore that for the moment and just introduce myself. Jasper Beckett, but my friends call me Jase.’

  ‘Emmy Reed
,’ I practically croak, my throat working with a hard swallow the moment his large hand envelops mine. How can I be so attracted to someone who’s the antithesis of everything I know I should want in a man? My more devout Women’s Studies friends would be shaking their heads at me in disgust, but there’s no hiding from the hormone frenzy going on inside my overwhelmed body.

  ‘And your friends call you?’

  I pull my hand back out of sheer self-preservation. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  He shakes his head a little as he holds my gaze, probably at a loss for how to handle a woman who isn’t fawning all over him. A heavy silence settles between the two of us – three of us, actually, since poor Martin’s still sitting there all proper-looking in his chair – until I finally relent. ‘My friends call me Em, and you don’t look at all like a Jasper.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that a lot.’ His beautiful mouth twitches as he slides his strong hand back into his pocket. ‘The only thing I can think is that my mother must have hated me.’

  ‘Must have?’

  ‘She died when I was six.’

  ‘Oh.’ Now I feel like a bitch moron who’s just stuck her foot in her mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ he murmurs. ‘It was obviously a long time ago.’

  There’s something there, in the things he isn’t saying, that tells me his mother’s death is anything but a blasé, forgotten part of his past.

  Changing the subject, he asks, ‘How are you feeling?’ A hard, sharp-edged glint flashes through his sinful blue gaze. ‘I could have dismembered those little shits for touching you.’

  ‘I’m fine, except for a slight headache. It could have been so much worse if you hadn’t helped me, so thank you.’

  ‘In the future, you need to keep an eye out for men like that when you’re on your own,’ he lectures.

  I clench my jaw, since I can’t very well tell him that I normally would have been doing exactly that, but I’d been too busy thinking about him to pay any attention to what the thugs were doing. But the smirk sneaking on to his lips says that he’s already guessed where my attention had been focused. I roll my eyes, mouthing the word ‘ass’ at him, which for some reason makes his smirk slip into a full-fledged grin. Seriously, what is up with this guy?

  ‘The doctor will be here soon,’ Martin says, sounding a bit worried now. He is no doubt at a loss over what to make of Beckett and me.

  I catch my lip in my teeth, hating the idea of an unknown doctor coming here to check on me. ‘I really don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t bother arguing,’ Beckett cuts in, ‘because you are seeing him.’

  I bristle, but don’t kick up a stink. Instead, I just glare at him and ask, ‘Where’s my bag?’

  He jerks his chin toward the far side of the room, where his massive desk sprawls before the wall of windows, the summer sky becoming a gray blur of rainclouds beyond the tinted glass. My bag is sitting on a corner of the desk, looking completely out of place. Make that my recently opened bag, since my phone is lying beside it.

  As I swing my gaze back to Beckett, I’m wondering where he gets off thinking he can just go through my personal things like that. Then I find myself wondering what his cock looks like, and color floods my face. What in the world is wrong with me? Yeah, I have as many hormones as the next girl, but I don’t let them rule me. Not when it comes to men. That’s what I have my vibrator for, damn it.

  ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

  I blink, positive I’ve heard him wrong. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Have dinner with me,’ he says again. ‘It’s going to take a few hours for your new bank cards to arrive. In the meantime, you don’t have any money to go anywhere. What will it hurt to spend that time with me?’

  ‘What are you talking about? What happened to my cards?’

  ‘Everything’s being taken care of.’ He stares down at me with an inscrutable expression that’s impossible to read, but the palpable force of his intensity makes my chest tight, my breath quickening. ‘So there’s no reason we can’t enjoy a meal together.’

  I fist my hands as I realize what’s happened. ‘Are you telling me those jackasses stole my cards?’ I’d brought two debit cards and a credit card with me when I’d left San Diego, which I’d meant to keep in separate places, in the event anything like this happened while I was traveling. But like an idiot, I hadn’t gotten around to separating them yet. They’d been in a card holder in the inside pocket of my bag.

  ‘One of the men pulled some cards from your purse while I was dealing with the bastard who hurt you,’ Beckett explains, rubbing a hand across the dark five o’clock shadow on his jaw.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Now I’m pissed.

  He narrows his eyes, as if he doesn’t like seeing me lose my temper. Not that I give a damn. ‘Don’t worry about the cards. I’ve called your bank and they’re already issuing new ones. Plus, they’ve safeguarded your accounts.’

  ‘They let you do that?’

  He shrugs. ‘I had to pull a few strings.’

  I want to shout that my bank accounts are none of his fucking business, but choke it back, seeing as how I would have probably had to wait a few days for the bank to move at its usual leisurely pace. ‘Are the cards being delivered here? I’m meant to travel to Surrey tonight and stay in a B&B.’

  Instead of answering my question, he asks, ‘Where are your things?’

  ‘What things?’

  He merely raises his brows at me. ‘Surely you planned to take your clothes with you to Surrey.’

  ‘Oh. I left my suitcase with a friend,’ I mutter, this emotional rollercoaster making my head hurt even worse. I lift my fingertips to my temples and rub. ‘I’m meant to pick it up before leaving town.’

  ‘Give me the address and I’ll send someone for the case. Then, this evening, you and I can have dinner and I’ll get a room for the night.’

  I slowly lower my hands to the sofa, digging them into the plush leather. This man might have helped me out, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse to spread my legs for him. ‘You think I’m just going to spend the night with you? I don’t even know you.’ And I’m not his type! Which makes this whole situation seem like a farce. Is he playing some kind of game with me?

  His head tilts a bit to the side in response to my strained, get-a-clue tone. ‘All I’m asking for is dinner. My family owns a hotel in Chelsea. The room will be yours alone, Emmy.’

  Oh. Now I kinda feel like a fool.

  Mentally running through my options, I realize I don’t actually have any. Lola lives with her boyfriend, who I can’t stand. And Ben, the friend whose flat my suitcase is currently stored at, has his mother visiting him for a few days, which means he’ll be sleeping on the sofa I usually crash on when I’m in London. I met Ben at the same time as Lola, when he was living in the university flat just below ours, and we bonded over our love of the Foo Fighters and Thai takeaway.

  Beckett is still waiting on a response, so I clear my throat a bit and say, ‘Then, um, thanks. But I’ll pay you back for the room and the meal as soon as I have my cards and find a cash machine. Then you can be on your way and I’ll be out of your hair.’

  He laughs, and this time I’m the one who narrows their eyes. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Not funny. Just –’ he seems to be searching for the right word – ‘refreshing.’

  My voice is almost painfully tight. ‘Because?’

  Another shrug lifts his broad shoulders. ‘You’re not interested in my money. And you honestly don’t want to spend time with me. It’s not what I’m used to.’

  ‘Wow,’ I laugh, shaking my head. ‘Ego much?’

  He grins, showing his straight, white teeth. ‘Not ego, sweetheart. It’s just the way it is. But I like this – that you’re not like the other women I know. Which is why I want to make you an offer. One you’re going to find impossible to refuse.’ The heat in his blue eyes has me full-on blushing, my heart beating so hard I know
he can see my pulse pounding at the base of my throat. ‘I’ll see to it that you have complete access to J.J. Harrison’s private collection of his work and, if we’re lucky, an interview with the man himself,’ he says in a low, deceptively casual tone. ‘And in exchange, you’ll agree to be my date at a family wedding this weekend in Kent.’

  I jolt to my feet, forced to place a steadying hand on Martin’s chair. Date? Family wedding? An offer I can’t refuse? ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Beckett had started to reach for me when I wobbled, and only lowers his arms when he sees that I’m not going to fall. ‘You want information about Harrison, and I don’t want to spend an entire weekend listening to another woman prattle on about shopping or her nails and making catty comments about everyone she sees.’

  My eyes are wide. ‘How do you know about my research?’

  ‘Your phone call,’ he answers simply.

  I think back, remembering that he’d overheard my conversation with Lola on the Tube. ‘Oh.’ I try to get my thoughts straight, but my head is still pounding. ‘Um, I need to—’

  As though he’s reading my mind, he says, ‘Don’t worry about your friend. I used your phone to call her. She knows you’re all right.’

  I screw my face up, wanting so badly to tell him that he didn’t have any right to go snooping through my phone – not to mention using my thumbprint to unlock it when I’d been unconscious – but stop myself at the last second. The man did save me, so I’m going to sound like a raging bitch if I call him out for contacting Lola for me. But it still rankles.

  ‘So about this weekend?’ he prompts, and there’s the slightest edge of command in his deep voice that makes me bristle, as if he’s fighting his natural instinct to tell me what’s going to happen between us, instead of waiting for my response.

  Taking a shaky breath, I say, ‘Aside from the obvious fact that I would have to be crazy to go somewhere with someone I don’t even know, you mentioned that you didn’t want to spend time with a woman who makes catty comments.’