
First published in April 2007 Boardroom Hotshots collection eBook out now!

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS :: ebook

The city:

Melbourne has played a huge part in the tone and feel of many of my books and this one was no exception. Melbourne has such an easy elegance, a cosmopolitan charisma. The hero, Flynn, fit it like a glove.

The excerpt:

Two hours later Abbey and Flynn stood leaning their forearms on a bridge rail overlooking the Yarra River as decorative flames did their hourly dance, leaping high into the air from the waters outside the Crown Casino complex.

Abbey let out a sigh as the warmth from the latest burst of flame cooled on her cheeks.

‘What are you thinking?’ Flynn asked.

Abbey laughed. In the real world that was meant to be her line. If this was a real date. If she wasn’t Clarissa Parrish’s uptight granddaughter and he wasn’t Flynn Granger, the playboy of the western world.

‘You say you’ve read Chic Magazine,’ she said, grinning up at him.

‘I have, on occasion,’ he said, spinning to lean his back against the rail so he could see her better.

She breathed in deep through her nose and looked out towards Flinders Street train station slumbering along the other bank of the river. Better that than finding herself further lost in those hard planes, and that titling smile, and those eyes.

‘Then you should know that’s the one thing you never ask on a date,’ she said. ‘Especially a first. Or it will definitely be the last.’

‘So are you suggesting that before I made that tiny faux pas, there was the possibility of more?’ he asked. She gave in and glanced his way in time to see him lift one perfect dark brown eyebrow.

‘Did I convince you, even a little?

So she’d had a little too much white wine. So she’d laughed so hard during their main course her cheeks still hurt. So she’d actually been bowled over when from nowhere he’d pulled out a fluffy toy goldfish, the kind to be found in the Aquarium gift shop, wrapped in a blue satin bow and presented it to her. So she’d felt like she was walking on air as Flynn had held her hand protectively in the crook of his arm as they’d ambled the length of Southbank to walk off dinner.

She still knew the best thing to do, the best thing for the column and for her self was to not admit a lick of it. To say she was utterly unmoved. To say he’d tried to prove his point and failed and that the battle would continue.

But the truth was, he’d gone out of his way to try to show her how nice it felt to be on the receiving end of romance and gentlemanly behaviour, and instead of being unimpressed and indifferent, she’d turned into a completely gooey female and fallen for it hook line and sinker.