Playboy's Lesson Read Online Free

myself. He’s got that wild, bad-boy thing going on. That element of totally unapologetic outrageous wickedness that makes a girl go weak at the knees.’
    Lottie locked her knees together just in case they took it upon themselves to be influenced by her sister’s comments. Not that they hadn’t already been influenced, not by comments about the man, but by the man himself. As soon as Lucca Chatsfield had taken her proffered hand something had ignited inside her body like a match struck against dried-up tinder. It had raced like a runaway flame right to the centre of her being and had sizzled there in secret ever since. His glinting dark brown eyes had roved over her like a minesweeper, taking in every nuance of her appearance. The mockery in his gaze had infuriated her. She knew she wasn’t the beauty of the family, but did he have to rub her nose in it?
    Schoolmarm indeed!
    He was here to make trouble for her and she had to get rid of him as quickly as she possibly could. Her plans for a perfect wedding for her sister would be sabotaged if he got any say in it. He was an outright playboy. He didn’t date women. He slept with them and then left them before they had time to put his number in their phone. The press was full of his wild-partying, hooking-up lifestyle. He hadn’t had a single relationship that lasted more than twenty-four hours. He was a one-night-stand man. It was practically his brand, for God’s sake. What possible interest would he have in planning a wedding? She would be made a fool of and the whole world would be watching to see it. Argh!
    ‘You know he’s not going to do a minute’s work while he’s here,’ Lottie said, jutting her chin as she looked at her sister. ‘He’s only here for show. He’s using it as some sort of layabout holiday. He was disgustingly blatant about it. That shows how unprincipled he is.’
    Madeleine picked up her bronzing brush and swept it artfully across each of her regal cheekbones in turn. ‘Then perhaps you should take him on as a project. Put him to work. Get his nose to the grindstone and his shoulder to the wheel or whatever the saying is.’
    I’d like to get his back to the wall, Lottie thought with venom. I’d like to scratch his eyes out. I’d like to slap his arrogant face. I’d like to—
    Madeleine smiled at her in the mirror. ‘Well, look at you, Lottie, love. I’ve never seen you so fired up. He really has got under your skin, hasn’t he?’
    Lottie quickly refashioned her features into her customary ice-princess mask, although inside she was still seething like a kettle left too long on the boil. ‘I can handle him. He’s just a little boy who hasn’t grown up.’
    ‘He looks all grown up to me.’ Madeleine gave a twinkling smile and waggled her neatly groomed eyebrows as she added, ‘Or at least he did judging by that spread we saw of him in that London tabloid.’
    Lottie flickered her eyelids in disdain and swung away. ‘I do not want to be reminded of what that man gets up to in his spare time.’
    ‘Then make sure he doesn’t have any,’ Madeleine said. ‘Keep him busy with errands. You could do with a bit of practice at delegating. You know you have a tendency to overcontrol things.’
    ‘That’s because I’ve always found if I want a good job done I have to do it myself,’ Lottie said. ‘Every time I’ve trusted someone to do the right thing they let me down and I’m the one who ends up with egg dripping off my face.’
    Madeleine made a little moue with her lips. ‘You’re not including me in that statement, are you, ma petite ?’
    There was no point arguing the point. Madeleine liked to think she was the model older sister. Nothing she ever did was wrong. Their parents never criticised her because she had always done well at school and didn’t have to study for hours to get facts and figures to stay in her head long enough to recall them for an exam. The press never found fault with her. She never wore the