A microphone was shoved in front of her face. Rose looked down at it and back up into those spectacular, mesmerising eyes that were … Why was he looking at her like that?

Ask a question, Rose. He wants you to ask him a question.

Her throat, already dry and unaccountably scratchy, was constricted. She ran her tongue along her bottom lip. From somewhere her voice came, all high and breathy and really, really Texan.

‘Are y’all single?’

PLATO was not a fan of the media, but he knew how to play their game. You turned up; you used the publicity; you told them nothing.

Not that it would stop the tabloid reports, but it might deflect somewhat from the constant stream of drivel emanating from his last five-minute girlfriend about blondes and orgies on super-yachts. The bath of vintage champagne a burlesque dancer was supposed to have performed in at his recent twenty-eighth birthday celebration was the most current story doing the rounds. Yet, despite that last report actually being true, there was something belittling about seeing it all strung out like so many coloured lights—as if in the end this was his net worth. Lurid entertainment for the masses.

His media profile, however, helped out the team, and he had turned up today to give the coach and the boys the benefit of his press exposure.

It was a simple meet-and-greet before the match, but his mind was elsewhere. He’d spent this morning at a local gaol as his lawyers went through the paperwork to get two of his best players out of the cells. They were both currently holed up in a hotel room with Security. He didn’t trust them on their own. But it was only a matter of time before the story broke.

For the time being, though, he needed to keep a cap on it.

Then he saw her.

She gazed unblinkingly back at him, and if eyes were the windows to the soul these eyes had the curtains wide open, the bed unmade and a woman lying bare naked, all hot and flushed and bothered. And waiting.

For him.

Oh, yeah, this was enough to take his mind off the team.

Big blue eyes, round cheeks dusted with rosy colour, and a ruby curve of a mouth that made her look on the verge of a smile. He catalogued every one of her attributes and found his own mouth predictably returning that smile. Until this moment he’d had nothing to smile about all day. Things had just turned around.

Plato found himself standing a little straighter, with purpose edging back his shoulders. She was an angel, he thought, amused at his own susceptibility. The subtle fullness of her face made him unaccountably think of Renaissance Madonnas.

Da, a stunningly beautiful girl. In any era.

Aware she had completely stolen away his attention from the event at hand, he asked for her question.

For a moment her blank expression had him about to redirect to someone else, but then the little goddess licked her sweet ruby lips, opened her mouth, and asked the only question that needed no answer.

The entire world knew he was single.

At this moment, thanks to the disgruntled ex-girlfriend, he was possibly the most single man on the planet.

As the room reacted with laughter the girl, goal achieved, gazed levelly back at him.

Wealth and good-looks had given him rock star privileges when it came to women—privileges he was no longer so quick to indulge in. But she was not to know that. For a moment he allowed himself the fantasy of having her brought up to his suite. He’d have her run that accent over him on her knees, bury his hands in that thick dark hair. He’d …

… lost his goddamned mind.

Another question came at him. This time something about the national team. He could answer that in his sleep—which was just as well because Blue Eyes was making her way to the front of the room and she had taken his full attention with her.

She was bold. He had to give her that. A member of his security team intercepted her, and from the corner of his eye he watched as she remonstrated with the man.

Then a sharp-eyed rep from the Moscow Times lifted a hand, and the questions zeroed in on the rumour that Sasha Rykov would be signing with a Canadian team. Plato’s attention swerved back to doing an effective job of spin to keep the question at the forefront of everyone’s mind. As long as the press were asking about Rykov they wouldn’t be asking any uncomfortable questions about the absence of two of their best players.

The coach, Anatole Medvedev, fielded the next question, and after several more it was meet-and-greet time. He made it a practice to keep moving in these situations, keeping any interaction brief. There were corporate sponsors and a lot of journalists. He’d keep his eyes on the boys. A few of them were still wet behind the ears, but the language barrier would solve any concerns about an info leak.

Blue Eyes had vanished, taking his sexual fantasy with her.

Feeling a little shaky after her encounter with the big, bad boss of the Wolves, Rose looked around the room, knowing it was better to get this done fast—kind of like pulling a tooth. All she needed was two definite takers.

It crossed her mind that it still wasn’t too late. She could walk out of here, go home, forget about the publicity. She was uncomfortably aware her behaviour could be perceived as a little underhand. But this was about more than her business. It was about the women’s shelter where she volunteered, and where she hoped to be able to offer more than just her professional counsel. If Date with Destiny was the success she hoped it could be, there was a real chance come the end of the year, when the lease on the shelter came up, that they could move to larger, better premises.

And there was no way she was going to get even one of these players on side through legitimate avenues. She’d tried. No one would speak to her.

On a less important but personal level, today was also about firming up her confidence in herself. If she could do this—if she could take on an entire Russian ice hockey team with a bit of charm and a line of chat—she could finally put the past into a box and ship it to Utah. She was done with being that unhappy, humiliated girl who had fled Houston two years ago.

She spotted a couple of team members gripping wineglasses like life jackets, clearly cut off by the language barrier. They would have been easy pickings—they reminded her of herself once—but they weren’t the ones she wanted. She wanted confident, a bit brash, hard to pin down. Those were the guys who would sell her business.

It was absurd, but it was human nature. You always wanted what you couldn’t have. A guy who had the world at his feet, who could have any woman, who could walk away at any time, was not long-term material. That was certainly not the type of guy she wanted on her books. Too much hard work.

But they were perfect for publicity purposes.

She just realised she’d described Plato Kuragin to a tee. Not that she would be approaching him any time soon. She was confident, but she wasn’t delusional.

Her plan was to send a couple of these hockey boys out on dates, add a film crew to the mix, and pull in a favour with a local TV producer who was the friend of a friend who had assured her a spot if she could pull it off.

Now she only had to find a couple of photogenic specimens and run her little pick-up spiel by them.

She had a lot of competition. There were some seriously gorgeous women here. But attracting a man’s attention had less to do with looks and more to do with confidence—and it helped to have a plan.

She fixed herself in front of the dark-haired athlete she’d seen earlier, smirking for the press corps.

‘Oh, my, nobody move!’ She made a helpless gesture, lifted her gaze so that they made definite eye contact, and then dropped to her knees. ‘My contact lens!’ she wailed.