Читать книгу Innocent In The Boardroom: At Her Boss's Pleasure / Her Boss by Day... / How to Sleep with the Boss - Джанис Мейнард, Janice Maynard - Страница 9
ОглавлениеFOR THE PAST few years Kate had seen her place of work as a refuge. There, she had felt in charge of her life, had worked hard at putting together all the building blocks that gave it definition and purpose.
Now she felt jumpy. On tenterhooks. Always on the lookout for Alessandro who, for the past couple of days, had often appeared to talk to her. About a client with a thorny tax problem, two overseas companies whose vast returns had generated questions about splitting them into smaller fragments, an acquisition that would mark a significant branching out from electronics, shipping and the leisure industry into publications...
‘Cape would normally handle this, but seeing that he’s on an extended holiday abroad, and seeing that that extended holiday is likely to become permanent, you’d better start getting acquainted with some of his responsibilities...’
This at five-thirty earlier today, when most of her colleagues had mentally switched off in preparation for leaving and had been all agog at the appearance of the big man.
She had kept as cool and collected as she could but her nerves had been all over the place. Surely the head of finance should be handling this situation? she had ventured, watching askance as he had perched on the side of her desk and then dragging her eyes away from his muscular thighs and the way the fine fabric of his trousers was stretched taut over them. But, no. Watson Russell was swamped by several huge ongoing deals—and besides, these matters would qualify as fairly small peanuts for him.
Afterwards, some of the girls had hovered, waiting for her to emerge from her office, and had proceeded to ply her with questions. None of the questions had had anything to do with work. They had wanted her opinion of him. As a hunk. Kate had made it a point never to engage in conversations like that, but she had been pinned to the wall and had found herself admitting that he was all right but not her type.
So how come he’s been around so much...is something going on...?
Argh! She had become just the sort of giggly, girly type she had never been, and it had left her all hot and bothered.
And he still hadn’t committed to a meeting so that he could look through what she had found out—which, as it turned out, was not very much at all. George had been dipping his hands in the till, but it hadn’t been going on for very long and the amounts, in the big scheme of things, weren’t that significant.
She would talk to Alessandro about that—try and find some compassion in him for the older man—but she didn’t hold out much hope.
Now, at home far earlier than she normally would have been, on yet another hot summer evening, Kate looked at her work computer with jaundiced eyes.
It wasn’t yet six and she couldn’t face sitting in front of her computer and picking up where she had left off during the day.
Wandering through her very nice little ground-floor flat, she had plenty of time to think about the social life she lacked.
The back door was flung open and she could smell the neighbours barbecuing. Aside from the pleasant couple with two kids living next to her, she had no idea who her neighbours were.
At work, having almost given up on asking her, two of her colleagues had invited her to go to the pub with them and she had felt a little surge of panic because...
Because her whole life was devoted to work.
How had that happened? Okay, she knew how, and she knew why, she just didn’t understand how it had all run away with her so that she had lost all her perspective.
Not only was her social life practically non-existent, but where was the guy she should be dating? Where was the exciting sex life she should be having?
She had had one boyfriend, three years previously, and he had fallen off the face of the earth because he had wanted more attention than she had been prepared to give. He hadn’t understood that she had been taking professional exams and had had to study when she wasn’t holding down the demanding job at the accountancy firm she had left as soon as she had qualified.
At the time she had been miffed—because how hard would it have been for him to just give her some breathing space? Surely it had been enough that they’d had fun on the weekends? But he had wanted more than just fun on the weekends.
So now here she was—alone. She wouldn’t have wanted to be with Sam still. No, in retrospect, he hadn’t been the man for her, even though he had ticked a lot of the right boxes. But shouldn’t she have moved on? Be having a good time finding his replacement? Somewhere?
She lived in London, for heaven’s sake!
Frustrated with the direction of her thoughts, she slammed shut the French doors at the back so that she couldn’t be reminded of what she was missing by the smell of barbecue wafting into her house.
Then she had a shower.
Then, in a pair of tiny shorts and a cropped top, she prepared to wait out the annoying train of thoughts that were suddenly bothering her.
For which she blamed her wretched boss, who had somehow managed to get under her skin, to make her feel somehow inadequate...
And as soon as she started thinking about Alessandro she found that she couldn’t stop.
He was just so alive and vital and brimming over with restless energy. Next to him, she felt like a pale, listless shadow, going through the motions of having a fulfilling life when she wasn’t.
Absorbed in pointless speculation, she was only aware of the doorbell when it was depressed with such insistency that she was forced to dash and pull open the door or else risk her neighbours complaining about noise pollution.
Alessandro Preda was the last person she’d expected to see standing on her doorstep. In fact she blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision and turn him into someone else. But, no, he was still there. Tall, dynamic, broad-shouldered, and way too exotically good-looking for London suburbia.
He didn’t say a word. Just looked at her. He had obviously come straight from work because he was still in his work trousers—charcoal grey, super conventional, and yet on him somehow not quite. But there was no jacket, and he had shoved the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, revealing muscled forearms liberally sprinkled with dark hair.
She seemed to have forgotten how to speak.
‘Are you going to ask me in?’
Alessandro eventually broke the silence. It took some effort. He had wanted to catch her by surprise, had been driven by sheer curiosity to see her somewhere—anywhere—that wasn’t to do with the office.
But he hadn’t expected this.
This wasn’t the starchy woman who occupied her own office three floors down in his building. Removed from the files, the computers, the telephones and the uninspiring range of suits in various shades of grey, this was a different woman altogether.
This was the woman he had glimpsed at the restaurant.
She was in a pair of shorts and a small top, and her hair was long and tied back in a ponytail that swung down her back.
Where had that body come from? She was long and slender, her stomach flat, her breasts...
He broke out in a fine film of perspiration. It was the sort of reaction he never experienced, and his awareness of her, his physical awareness of her, was intense, immediate—a rush of blood invading his body in a tidal surge.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
‘What are you doing here?’
It was a breathless, angry question. She could barely deal with him at the office—was at war with herself and her puzzling reaction to him. How dared he now take himself out of that environment, which didn’t even feel safe any more, and superimpose himself here? On her doorstep? In her apartment?
Suddenly excruciatingly aware of just how much of her body was exposed, she hugged her arms around herself and remained rooted to the spot. She hadn’t shut the door in his face, but she wasn’t inviting him in either.
‘I’ve been busy this week,’ Alessandro imparted roughly, raking fingers through his dark hair and staring away to one side while he tried to do the unimaginable and compose himself. ‘I had every intention of going through this business with you, but I haven’t had time. Like you said, Cape deserves more than five minutes of my attention when I can grab a moment.’
‘You managed to grab lots of moments when you were in my office—piling work on me before George has even been given a decent burial...’
‘Hell, why do you have to be so dramatic? And are you going to ask me in? Or am I going to have to stand outside and have this conversation with you? The neighbours might begin to wonder what’s going on.’
Kate spun round on her heels, agonisingly conscious of her small shorts. She realized in a flash how important her formal work attire was. All those bland, off-the-peg suits in drab colours had been her way of keeping the rest of the world at bay. Even at the restaurant with him, when she had dropped her mask and actually spoken her mind, that suit of hers had still been a reminder of their respective roles.
But shorts and a cropped top? Since when could anyone call that armour?
Alessandro watched her extremely pert bottom as she stalked away from him. His erection was so ramrod hard that it was painful—and more than likely visible.
He wanted to ask her whether she made it a habit to open the door to anybody who might ring the bell dressed in next to nothing, because this wasn’t Cornwall. He shoved both hands into his trouser pockets in an attempt to do some damage limitation with the serious bulge of his arousal.
‘I’m going to change,’ she told him ungraciously as she stood aside and indicated that he could wait for her in the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry, Alessandro. I realize that you’re the boss, and you probably think that you can do whatever you please, but I really don’t think it’s on for you to just call by unannounced.’
Her arms were still folded as she swung to look at him. Her heart picked up pace as their eyes tangled and held. Her skin felt too tight for her body. His eyes on her made her nipples tingle, made her want to rub her legs together to ease the ache between them.
‘Why?’
He was now sitting at the kitchen table. Thank God. What the hell was going on here? He’d had his fill of stunning women, and none had had such an instantaneous effect on his libido. Was it because of the dichotomy between the consummate professional and the rangy, leggy, sexy woman she was under the uniform she chose to wear? Maybe it had been too long since he had had sex... He was a man with a high sex drive, and using his hand to do the job was far from satisfactory, given the choice of a woman’s mouth doing the job for him.
He thought of Kate’s mouth there, her pink tongue delicately flicking over his arousal, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
‘Yes...’ He cleared his throat. ‘Go and change if it would make you feel better to slip into your suit because I’m here and you find it impossible to be anything in my company aside from an employee.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Kate enquired tightly.
Alessandro sighed and sat back. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, Kate.’
It means you should leave now and return decently clothed. Sackcloth might do the trick.
‘And you’re right. I had no business showing up here on your doorstep without calling you in advance.’
‘How did you know where I lived anyway?’
‘Jackson was kind enough to provide me with the information.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ she retorted, bristling as she thought back to her colleagues at work and their reactions to Alessandro descending from Mount Olympus to grace them with his presence. ‘People have been talking...’
She reddened, but now that it was out what choice did she have but to stand her ground and say what was on her mind? Besides, he was in her territory now. If she couldn’t speak freely in her own house, then where could she? He might be the ruler of all he surveyed in his towering glass house in the City, but he wasn’t out here.
She quailed. Did he have to look so...so ruler-like even when he wasn’t in his domain? She wished he would just look a little more normal, a little less...intimidating. Or sexy. Take your pick.
She suddenly felt her youth, her lack of experience.
‘Talking?’ Alessandro tilted his head to one side and looked at her intently. ‘Talking about what? And who are these “people” who have been talking?’
‘I maybe shouldn’t have brought this up...’ she began, chickening out.
‘But you did, and now that you have you might as well finish. And for God’s sake don’t launch into any full-blown apologies when you’ve said what you want to say.’
‘You seldom come down to our floor. In fact, I can only think of one time when you actually came to see me in my office, and George was there as well. Suddenly you’ve been appearing out of the blue and people...well, people have been wondering what’s going on. They think... I don’t know what they think... But I don’t want them to think it. Whatever it is.’
‘So these people think something...you’re not sure what...and you don’t want them to think it...?’
‘I’m a very private person. Always have been.’
Except for one night in a restaurant, when I spilled my guts about my background to you...
‘I’m at a loss as to what I can do to resolve this issue...’
He spread his arms wide in a typical gesture that was at once rueful and ridiculously phoney, because there was just a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that made her feel like an idiot. His brows knitted in a frown which was also phoney.
‘I guess you must think that Jackson thinks something too...although who knows for sure...?’
‘It’s all well and good for you to sit there sniggering, but I’m the one who has to live with other people’s stupid speculations!’
‘That’s office life for you. Maybe you should climb out of your ivory tower and experience it. And don’t worry about Jackson, by the way. Whatever he might think, or not think, he’ll keep it to himself.’
Kate gritted her teeth together and remembered diplomacy. He was rich, and immune to the opinions of other people. Not that there would be many people willing to shoot their mouths off at him. The man was unbearably arrogant in his self-confidence. And he talked about her living in an ivory tower!
‘Maybe I should,’ she said, with a tight, forced smile.
‘You look as though you’ve swallowed a lime.’ Alessandro grinned. He hadn’t noticed her freckles before, or the fact that her dark hair was more chestnut than brown, and golden at the ends.
‘I’m going to change. If you want something to drink there’s an opened bottle of wine in the fridge, or you can make yourself tea or coffee. It’s not a big kitchen. I’m sure you’ll be able to find what you need.’
With that she swung round and headed to her bedroom, fuming at the way he had invaded her privacy, fuming at the way he saw fit to say exactly what happened to be on his mind, fuming at her evening, which she had had neatly planned and which would now be spent in a state of edge-of-the-seat nervous tension.
She got to her bedroom and gazed at her mutinous reflection in the mirror. Her colour was up. Her hair was not in the neat little bun he was accustomed to seeing. The ponytail was coming undone and wisps of long brown hair trailed around her face. Which was completely bare of make-up...
She peered at the freckles which had always made her look so young.
Freckles, dishevelled hair, a pair of shorts that she would never in a million years have worn had she known that he—or anyone else, for that matter—would be turning up on her doorstep, and a small stretch top with no bra. The top might be navy blue, but she had generous breasts and it was perfectly obvious that they were not constrained.
If she half squinted and stood back just a tiny bit...well, she might pass muster as one of those cocktail waitresses she scorned. Small clothes, busty, legs everywhere, hair everywhere...
In the rational part of her mind Kate knew that it was just her imagination playing tricks on her. She wasn’t dressed any differently from any young woman hanging around in her own home on a balmy summer evening.
But this was her tender spot—the place where her imagination took flight. She was ultrasensitive to any suggestion that she and her mother had anything in common when it came to the way they saw themselves and their bodies. Her mother had always been a benchmark as to how she, Kate, would never conduct herself.
She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and hurriedly removed the offending attire, replacing the shorts and cropped top with a pair of jeans and a very sensible baggy tee shirt which revealed nothing but a faded logo on the front. She neatened up the ponytail, but drew the line at turning it into a bun.
When she made it back to the kitchen it was to find Alessandro well ensconced at her kitchen table, a glass of wine next to him, long legs extended to one side, relaxing back with his hands folded behind his head.
‘I like your place.’ He watched as she hovered for a few seconds by the kitchen door, the very picture of the disgruntled and reluctant host. ‘Cool, airy, light colours... And nice that it’s not in a big, impersonal block of flats as well. I take it there’s just the one other flat above you...?’
‘You’ve been poking around...’ she said, eyes narrowed.
‘You disappeared to change your clothes. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘You were supposed to make yourself a cup of tea and stay put.’
‘Wine seemed a better alternative. I try and avoid caffeine after six. You look nothing like her, you know.’
Kate stiffened. She took a couple of steps into the kitchen with about the same enthusiasm as someone entering a lion’s den. This was her house and her kitchen, and yet he seemed to dominate it with his presence, making her feel as if she needed to ask permission to open the fridge.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ She helped herself to a glass of wine and took up position at the opposite end of the table. ‘And I would rather not get into any of that.’
‘Any of what? If you don’t know what I’m talking about?’
He slung his long body out of the chair and headed to the fridge, opened the door and peered inside.
‘I see you’re a very healthy eater,’ he said conversationally, helping himself to the bottle of wine and bringing it back to the table, where he proceeded to pour himself another glass. ‘Although the box of chocolates is a giveaway of a more...decadent nature...’
‘If you give me five minutes, I’ll go and fetch the file on George.’
‘But returning to what I said...’ This time his dark eyes were thoughtful, serious. ‘And that remark you so adroitly tried to avoid. You’re nothing like your mother. I looked at some of the pictures you have framed in your sitting room...’
‘You shouldn’t have come here and you shouldn’t have nosed around...’ For a few appalling seconds, Kate felt as though her little world was in the process of being tilted on its axis. ‘I should never have told you any of that stuff.’
‘Why? Is there something wrong with confiding in other people?’
‘Do you?’ She turned the question right back at him. ‘Do you run around spilling your guts to all and sundry? What about all those models you go out with? Do you get deep and personal with them? Do you hold hands and sob over a bottle of wine while you pour your soul out?’
This was what it felt like to lose control. She had always had control, and now here she was, sitting at her own kitchen table, losing it with a guy who had the power to terminate the career she had so carefully built.
And the worst of it was that she didn’t want to retract the accusation.
She was aware of him with every pore of her being. He swamped her. When she breathed she felt that she was breathing in his clean, masculine scent. When she leaned forward she could feel his personality wrap around her like tendrils of ivy.
She felt...alive.
But not, she told herself uneasily, in a good way. There was nothing about Alessandro Preda that could make her feel anything in a good way. She felt alive in a very, very annoying way.
‘At least you’re not apologizing for asking that daring question,’ Alessandro drawled.
So she had ditched the shorts and the cropped top, but the jeans and the baggy shirt did nothing to reduce her sex appeal. Now he had seen that body shorn of its camouflage outfits the image was imprinted in his brain with the force of a branding iron.
‘And you’re right. I don’t tend to do the personal touchy-feely business with the women I go out with. I can’t recall pouring my soul out and sobbing in recent times.’ His mouth twitched with amusement. ‘In that we’re strangely alike. But you wear your defence system on the outside. You cover up from neck to ankle but there’s no need. You’re not your mother. You may want to make sure you don’t follow in her footsteps, but you don’t have to dress like a spinster schoolteacher to do that.’
‘How dare you come here and try and analyze me?’ Tears stung the back of her throat but thankfully she was far too reticent a person to allow them access.
‘I’m not trying to analyze you,’ Alessandro told her in just the sort of gentle voice that she knew might prove her undoing if she let it. ‘Don’t you feel a little trapped by all the hoops you make yourself jump through?
‘I don’t feel trapped by anything. This is the life I’ve chosen to lead. You have no idea what it’s like to be...insecure when you’re growing up...’
‘How do you know that?’ Alessandro asked softly.
Her eyes widened. She paused for thought. How did she know that? Because of who he was? Rich. Powerful. Confident. Arrogant. Those were not the hallmarks of someone whose upbringing had been anything but exemplary. Besides, he was the sole issue of the union of two wealthy families. If you looked him up on the internet—which she never had—you would discover that. She had overhead one of the giggly girls from the legal department imparting that titbit one day in the office restaurant. He occupied a stratosphere that was quite unlike hers. Actually, quite unlike most peoples.
‘But you were right when you said that we’re here to talk about Cape.’
For a minute there Alessandro had felt the pull to trade one set of confidences for another. He didn’t know where that had come from, but it wasn’t something he was going to give in to. Probably hearing her talk about her mother had naturally led him to think about his own parents. They too lived on the coast—probably not a million miles away from her mother. Small world...
‘Of course. I’ll just go and fetch the file I’ve compiled. I’ve summarized all my findings. I thought it might be easier for you to go through rather than follow the trail piecemeal.’
‘Highly efficient, and just what I would expect of you!’
Kate frowned, but before she could rise to the bait he interceded with a grin.
‘And, before you jump down my throat, I wasn’t being sarcastic...’
‘I wasn’t about to imply that you were.’ But she had been. And that made her feel a little uneasy. Either she was as transparent as a pane of glass, which was a bad thing, or else he could read her mind—which was a bad thing.
And what had he meant when he had hinted that it wasn’t true that he wouldn’t know what it might feel like to have an insecure background?
She felt her pulse race at the thought of him confiding in her and had to yank herself back to the reality that, when all was said and done, he was her boss and they had nothing in common.
Maybe he was right about that ivory tower, she thought feverishly as she fetched the file and headed back to the kitchen. Not as it applied to her in an office scenario but as it applied to her in a life scenario. Maybe she had lived life in the safe middle lane for too long. Maybe she had detached herself too much from the highs and lows of getting involved with people...with men. Maybe that was why she was behaving like this with him: disobeying common sense and flirting with something dangerous...
Flirting with an impossible attraction.
Shoot me in the head first, she thought.
But she had to take a deep, steadying breath before she pushed open the door and stepped inside where, thankfully, he was still in the same place and not snooping through the kitchen drawers and making himself even more at home.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked politely, and Alessandro raised his eyebrows.
‘I don’t need sobering up,’ he told her drily. ‘So no, thank you. Besides, what did I tell you about caffeine after six?’
‘Yes, you did say that—but I do remember you helping yourself to several cups of strong black coffee a few months ago, when we were working with George and a couple of others on that deal late into the night...’
‘I didn’t realize that you had been keeping a watch on what I was eating and drinking...’
God, but she was sexy when she blushed like that and looked away, as though she was in danger of giving away state secrets if she met his eyes. He felt himself stir again, aroused by images that had no place in his head.
He waved his hand for her to hand over her findings and started reading. There wasn’t a great deal to get through—less than he had been expecting.
‘So all in all,’ he said slowly, raising his eyes to hers, ‘he hasn’t been at it for very long...’
‘Which I think is in his favour...’
‘We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. The fact is that the man has stolen from me...’
‘He must have had a reason.’
‘Of course he must have had a reason. Greed. Possibly linked to a debt which had to be paid off. My money is on a gambling debt. Unless you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary? Vodka bottles in his desk drawer, perhaps?’
‘I can’t imagine that George is a gambler,’ Kate persisted, thinking furiously, trying to remember if she had noticed anything unusual about his behaviour over the past six months and coming up with nothing. ‘And he certainly isn’t an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re implying!’
‘How would you know, unless you socialize with him out of work? On a regular basis?’
‘He’s a good guy.’
‘Who has just happened to steal over a hundred grand from me over a five-month period. His halo’s slipping slightly, wouldn’t you agree? Still, he will have the opportunity to explain his borderline saintly status to a court of impartial jurors, and you are more than welcome to sign on as a character witness.’
‘Sometimes—’ She swallowed back something she would instantly regret saying and took a deep breath. ‘Surely you could at least hear what he has to say before you condemn him and throw away the key...?’
Could he? Well, under any other circumstances there would be no question as to what course of action he would take. There could never be any excuse for fraud. Life was full of people forgiving the idiocy of other people, but in the end idiots deserved the punishment they got. The feckless deserved their fate.
He looked at that earnest face. That beautiful, earnest face. She should be as tough as nails—immune to feelings of empathy given her background. But she wasn’t.
She was complex, intriguing, quirky... And all of this despite the fact that she was so desperate to be just the opposite.
He liked that.
Was there anything wrong with that?
When it came to women he had always been able to have what he wanted. This woman introduced a challenge to his jaded appetite and what was wrong with that? What was wrong if he wanted to explore that just a little bit further?
‘I could...’ he admitted, watching her carefully. ‘Everyone has a story to tell...’
‘I know!’
She hazarded a smile, leaned forward.
‘You think I’m mad, but I just know that George isn’t a bad guy. He...he’s actually one of the kindest men I’ve met in my entire life! Although...’ She laughed, and the sound was light and infectious, ‘Compared to some of the guys I’ve had the misfortune to meet, thanks to my mother, that’s not hard! Not that any of them threatened me in any way,’ she added hurriedly, ‘but I certainly grew up having first-hand knowledge of how scummy guys can be...’
She smiled shyly at him, marvelling that underneath that forbidding exterior and arrogant self-assurance he might not be quite as unrelenting as she’d thought.
‘I’m really glad you’re prepared to at least listen to what he has to say.’
Alessandro made a non-committal sound under his breath and smiled at her lazily. ‘And wouldn’t it be so much fairer if I had this discussion with him face to face? Outside the office? After all, the last thing I want is for the world to see him being marched out in handcuffs...’
‘Absolutely,’ Kate agreed, delighted at his turnaround. ‘That sort of thing would just...destroy him...’
‘Which is why we are going to fly to Canada and confront him there. Find out just what the hell has been going on. Surprise him, so to speak. But it will be a far less unpleasant surprise than if I do it in the office, with all those curious eyes peering through the glass, people jumping to conclusions and gossiping...’
‘Sorry...we...?’
‘Of course!’
He smiled broadly at her while she stared back, her brain moving sluggishly to compute the message it was receiving.
‘You’re the one who has influenced me into a decision I would never have otherwise taken. It’s only right that you be there when the questions get asked...don’t you agree?’
‘Well...’
‘Congratulations on changing my mind! It’s a rare occurrence. I’ll get my secretary to book flights out first thing on Monday morning. I take it you have a current passport? Yes? Well, then...’ He looked at her with satisfaction. ‘That’s settled...’
