Читать книгу At His Service: His 9-5 Secretary: The Billionaire Boss's Secretary Bride / The Secretary's Secret / Memo: Marry Me? - Michelle Celmer, Helen Brooks - Страница 10

GINA didn’t know when she became aware that the sound in her dream was actually real. She lay in a state of muzzy half-awareness for a while, unable to come round fully, and then sat up in bed as reality hit. She was in Harry’s home, in his bed. Well, not in his bed, but in one of his beds.

Switching on the bedside lamp, she reached for her watch which she’d placed on the little cabinet earlier. Half-past three. And she knew she’d still been awake at three o’clock. She’d probably only had twenty minutes of sleep; no wonder she felt so out of it.

It was the puppies. The sound that had woken her was still there, a distant whining and yelping, and now she tiredly brushed the hair out of her eyes and reached for the towelling robe she’d found on the back of the en suite door. She’d have to go and see what was the matter. Harry was probably a typical man; once he was asleep nothing short of an earthquake would stir him. Her father could sleep through anything.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments once she’d pulled the robe on, feeling distinctly light-headed. Probably due to the storm of weeping that had ensued once she’d been by herself earlier, she thought dismally. And crying while trying not to make a sound had given her a headache. She’d hunt about for some aspirin while she was downstairs, but first she’d better see what was what in the utility room.

Considering she’d been a stranger to them a few short hours ago, the puppies gave her a rapturous welcome when she padded into the utility room, tumbling over each other in an effort to reach her. Laughing despite her tiredness, she changed the top layer of newspaper, where they’d obligingly done their duties, and then prepared some more food which they polished off in record time.

‘You were hungry.’ She looked down at them as they moved round the now-empty saucer, small pink tongues still licking for traces of food.

The smallest puppy made her way over to her, beginning to nibble at her toes as the others scrabbled round for attention. ‘You want some fuss, is that it?’ Curling up on the wad of towelling Harry had put down, Gina allowed the four little warm bodies to make their way on to her lap. ‘Missing Mum and home, I suppose,’ she murmured as she stroked their furry heads. ‘Although, if you did but know it, you’re far better off here. Who knows what would have happened to you if Harry hadn’t noticed that box?’

‘It’s ten to four.’

Harry’s voice from the doorway brought her head jerking up so fast, she heard her neck crack. He was standing leaning against the wall; she didn’t know how long he’d been watching her.

‘I know.’ Her mouth had gone dry. He was dressed in dark pyjama-bottoms and a black-cotton robe which was hanging loose. His thickly muscled chest was black with body hair, and his hair was tousled and falling over his brow. He looked … magnificent. ‘It was the puppies,’ she mumbled feverishly. ‘They were crying. They were hungry.’

‘You should have ignored them.’

‘I couldn’t.’ The virile masculinity just feet away reminded her she was stark naked under her robe. She wanted to tighten the belt, but with her arms full of puppies she couldn’t. ‘Anyway, you came down too, I wasn’t the only one.’

‘True.’

He didn’t elaborate as to whether she had disturbed him or he’d been awake anyway. She was aware he was looking at her with unconcealed scrutiny, and she wished she’d taken the time to at least brush her hair. She’d scrubbed at her face before she had gone to sleep in an effort to remove the last of the make-up her tears hadn’t washed away; she bet her nose was shining like Rudolph’s. When the smallest puppy made a valiant attempt to bury herself inside the top of her robe, thereby causing it to gape a little, Gina hastily tipped the four of them off her lap and pulled the belt tight.

Carefully rising to her feet, she said nervously, ‘I’m sorry if I woke you.’

‘You didn’t.’

She expected him to move from the doorway as she approached, and when he didn’t she stopped a foot or so away, praying the trembling deep inside wasn’t visible.

‘You’ve washed your face,’ he said slowly.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t need to be reminded of what she must look like.

‘I can see your freckles better,’ he observed, as though that had been the whole point of the exercise.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t remind me.’

‘I like freckles, especially with blue eyes and reddish-gold hair.’

‘Titian,’ she corrected automatically, glad he hadn’t said ‘ginger’.

‘Titian,’ he repeated softly. ‘But your eyelashes are dark brown. And thick.’

She’d always been glad about that. It was one of the few things about herself she liked. She tried to think of something to say, something witty and light, and failed utterly. It was the look on his face. He was staring at her as though she was a woman. Which she was, of course. It was just that he had never noticed before.

But this was Harry. The warning screamed through her head. Harry, the self-determining. Harry, the mother and father of non-involvement. Harry, who didn’t want a woman in his life other than to take care of his sexual needs. And that was what was happening right now, or would happen if she let it. She loved him too much to become just another notch on his bedpost. She wouldn’t be able to stand it when he dropped her off later in the morning with a cheery wave and a casual goodbye. Because that’s what he’d do.

Lowering her head, she tightened the belt of her robe still more. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ she said, hearing herself with a touch of hysteria. Tea. Tea?

There was a brief pause, and then his voice came cool and easy. ‘If there’s toast to go with it. I’m starving.’

So was she, but not for tea and toast. But she’d had her chance and blown it, she thought with burning regret.

The puppies had settled down again, all but the smallest, who now had her two front paws scrabbling at the wood barrier as she whimpered pitifully. Glad of the diversion, Gina retraced her footsteps and lifted the little scrap into her arms, whereupon the puppy immediately snuggled against her and shut its eyes.

‘What?’ she challenged as she caught Harry’s eyes. ‘The poor little thing’s due some cuddles after all she’s been through.’ She was also a welcome third-party if they were going to indulge in tea and toast.

‘Will you spoil your children, too?’ he murmured smokily, amusement colouring his voice.

‘With cuddles, if they’re frightened or upset?’ she said tartly, ignoring the pang her heart gave. She would never have children because they couldn’t be Harry’s. ‘Absolutely.’

Once in the kitchen with the puppy cradled against her chest, she didn’t try to clamber onto a stool, but stood and watched him as he filled the kettle and then placed two slices of bread in the toaster. ‘Mind if I go through to the sitting room?’ she asked as casually as she could. ‘My feet are cold on these tiles.’

‘Be my guest. I’ll bring the tray through in a minute or two.’

There was a dark stubble on his chin. He was as unlike the perfectly groomed, smooth operator of daylight hours as the man in the moon. And a hundred times more dangerous.

Tingling with something she didn’t want to put a name to, Gina made her way to the sitting room and chose a big, plumpy chair to curl up in, carefully positioning her feet under her and making sure the robe was discreetly in place. The puppy stirred briefly and then settled itself again as Gina gently stroked the plump little body. She gazed down at the sleeping animal, a sense of surrealism taking hold.

How on earth had she come to be in this position? Practically naked—apart from one piece of cloth—in Harry’s house at four o’clock in the morning, with him equally partially clothed making tea and toast in the kitchen? Worse, with her hair probably resembling a bird’s nest, and her face all shiny and devoid of even the tiniest touch of make-up. Even in her wildest dreams—and there had been more than a few where Harry was concerned—she wouldn’t have been able to come up with this scenario.

She’d had fantasies, more than she could remember, but they had all featured her perfectly made up and looking ravishing, and Harry suddenly realizing the error of his ways and falling at her feet in adoration before whisking her off to bed. After that, it had been roses round the door and a ring the size of a golf ball.

She sighed. Impossible dreams. Impossible happy-ever-after. Impossible man. Still, at least the ‘roses round the door’ bit was in place. She smiled ruefully. And this was one hundred per cent the sort of house made for a family—babies, children. Harry’s babies. She shut her eyes, her heart actually paining her.

Harry had made it clear he would never consider matrimony again, let alone becoming a father. He was now a ruthless bachelor, married to freedom, and only dating women who were happy to embrace their temporary place in his life gracefully. A wife and babies didn’t come into the equation anywhere. Perhaps it was a blessing she wasn’t his type. If he had fancied her she wouldn’t have been able to resist for long, and a brief affair would have left her in a worse emotional mess than she was now.

Hearing his footsteps, she arranged her face into an acceptable expression, even managing a smile as her eyes met his. He was carrying a tray on which reposed two mugs of tea and a large plateful of buttered toast, along with several preserves. ‘You have been busy,’ she said lightly, thinking how unfair it was that men could look drop-dead gorgeous when they were at their most dishevelled, whereas women merely looked bedraggled. At least, Harry could. She didn’t know about other men, never having spent the night with one.

‘Dinner seems a long time ago.’ He grinned at her, putting the tray down and gesturing towards the puppy in her lap. ‘She’s adopted you. Sensible puppy.’

Gina grew hot. It was absolutely stupid to be so affected by the soft warmth in his voice, but she couldn’t help it, in spite of knowing this was Harry in flirt mode. It didn’t mean anything, not to him at least.

Drawing on the iron self-control that had got her through the last months since that Christmas kiss, she said flatly, ‘Hardly sensible. I’m leaving at the weekend for good, and a puppy definitely doesn’t feature on my agenda.’

He handed her her tea and offered the plate of toast. She took a triangle, not because she really wanted it, but more to give herself something to do. She had never felt so vulnerable and exposed in all her life.

‘You’re sure you want to go?’ he said after a moment or two had ticked by.

Want to go? She had never wanted anything less. ‘Absolutely,’ she said firmly. To add weight to her words, she looked him straight in the eye, steeling herself to show no emotion as she said, ‘And we had this conversation during dinner.’

He nodded. ‘I wasn’t convinced then either.’

‘I thought I’d made it clear, I need to leave Yorkshire.’

‘Ah, but need isn’t necessarily want.’ There was a significant little silence as he fixed her with a hard, meaningful look. ‘You’ll be miserable in London,’ he declared authoritatively.

‘Thanks a bunch. Some friend you are.’ Sarcasm was a great hiding place.

‘You told me I wasn’t a friend.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘What exactly am I, Gina? How do you see me?’

She didn’t like the way this conversation was going. He was playing games, probably just to kill a few minutes as far as he was concerned.

Fighting for composure, she took a deep breath and lifted her head. She smiled thinly. ‘You’re my boss’s son.’

‘Ex-boss’s son,’ he returned drily. ‘OK, what else?’

‘You’re very good at what you do—accomplished, experienced.’

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. ‘What else?’

‘Does there have to be more?’

‘I should damn well hope so.’ He paused and studied her face. ‘As a man,’ he said quietly. ‘A person. Do you like me?’

‘You shouldn’t have to ask that, we’ve worked together for just over a year,’ she said weakly.

‘My point exactly. And I would have termed us as friends. You, on the other hand, would not. So I’m beginning to realise I don’t know how your mind works, which means I perhaps don’t know the real Gina at all. In fact, I’m sure I don’t. I didn’t know you had a lover somewhere in the background, for example.’

His eyes were tight on her, questioning. Rallying herself, and aware she was as taut as piano wire, she said coolly, ‘Forgive me, Harry, but I don’t remember you discussing your personal life, either. Any part of it. Whereas you know about my family, friends—’

‘Not all of them, obviously.’

Ignoring that, she continued, ‘My childhood, my youth, my time at university—I’ve discussed all that—whereas you’ve been … guarded.’

There was an awkward silence. He stared at her, all amusement gone. ‘Yes.’ His voice sounded odd. ‘I have. I was. But for what it’s worth I’ve never told anyone the full story about Anna before. Apart from my parents at the time I left the country, that is. Does that count for anything?’

She looked down at the toast in her hand. Her heart was a tight ball of cotton wool in her throat, choking her. ‘I didn’t mean I expected you should have necessarily talked to me, just that you can hardly take me to task for the same thing.’

The silence stretched longer this time. ‘I appreciate that,’ he said at last.

It was still quite dark outside the windows; the rest of the world was fast asleep. It added to the curious sense of unreality which had taken over her. The puppy stirred in her sleep, grunting and snuffling, before becoming quiet as Gina began to stroke her again.

‘So you can’t be persuaded not to go?’

His voice had been husky, and as Gina raised her head she saw his face was dark, brooding. ‘Of course not,’ she said bleakly. ‘It’s not feasible. Everything’s been arranged. I’ve got to move out of my flat Saturday morning; I wouldn’t even have anywhere to live.’

‘You could use my spare room till you find something else.’

There was something in his eyes that made her feel suddenly light-headed and treacherously weak. Painfully, she said, ‘I’ve got a job in London, a flat. I couldn’t let people down. Anyway, the reason I wanted to leave in the first place is unchanged.’ It was. It was. This sudden interest on his part was all about sex, plain and simple. But it wouldn’t be simple where she was concerned. It would be horribly complicated.

‘I hadn’t been to sleep when I heard you come downstairs,’ he said suddenly.

Her throat felt dry. She took a sip of the tea before she could say, ‘I was worried I’d woken you.’ She was prevaricating; she knew it.

It appeared Harry knew it too. ‘Don’t you want to know why?’

She couldn’t answer, and it was a moment before he said softly, ‘It was the thought of you just a couple of doors away.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Inane, but the best she could do.

‘I like you, Gina.’

The atmosphere in the room had changed several times in the last minutes, now it was thick with an electricity that quivered in the air.

She couldn’t speak, her only movement her hand on the puppy’s silky fur as she continued to stroke it, her eyes fixed on the little body.

‘I realised tonight I don’t want you to leave Yorkshire.’

Taking all her courage into her hands, she raised her face and looked straight at him. She had to kill this stone-dead, right now. The agonies of mind she’d endured over this man had brought her to the inevitable conclusion that she had to walk away from him, and that had not changed. Sooner or later she’d be old news. The only difference was, if she went sooner rather than later, she would still have her self-respect. ‘I don’t do one-night stands, Harry,’ she said flatly, her pain making her stiff.

‘I wasn’t talking about a one-night stand.’

‘Yes, you were.’ She moistened dry lips. ‘Perhaps a series of them, but essentially that’s all an affair would be to you. You told me yourself, that’s all you can offer a woman.’

She saw anger flare in the beautiful grey eyes. ‘I don’t want the full domestic-scene, admittedly, but that doesn’t mean I’m quite the heartless so-and-so you’re painting. I’d like to show you that you can find fun and happiness after this guy, if nothing else.’

‘How noble.’ Suddenly she, too, was furiously angry. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

‘You’re not listening to me.’

‘Oh, I am.’ If the puppy hadn’t been in her lap, she would have liked to empty her mug of tea straight over his unfeeling head. ‘Believe me, I am. Out of the goodness of your heart, you’ll take pity on me long enough to take me to bed a few times. About right?’

His face a picture, Harry said, ‘I don’t know what’s got into you.’

‘Into me?’ He took the biscuit, he really did. ‘Harry, if all I was looking for was sex, I could get that anywhere. I’m not quite so desperate, OK? I have to engage my heart and my mind as well as my body.’

‘I know that.’ He glared at her. ‘I know that about you. But we get on, we get on really well in my opinion, and I don’t think you find me totally repulsive. Do you?’ he added a trifle uncertainly.

It was nearly her undoing. Her fingers holding onto the puppy hard enough for it to raise its head and squeak protestingly, Gina said tightly, ‘Harry, I’m sure ninety nine out of a hundred women would take you up on your offer, but I’m the hundredth. Can we leave it at that?’

‘You’re determined to let this man ruin your life? Force you away from your home and friends, everything you’re used to? And don’t tell me you want to go, because we both know it isn’t like that. You’re running away, taking the coward’s way out.’

‘What about you?’ she demanded, her blue eyes flashing. ‘Isn’t this slightly hypocritical? You’ve let Anna turn you into someone else, someone you were never meant to be. Oh, you can prattle on about life changing and shaping us and all that waffle when it applies to you; that sounds quite lofty. But, where I am concerned, it’s ruining my life. Well, let me tell you, Harry, I don’t intend to let my life be ruined, but I think yours has been. You’ve become selfish and shallow, without anything of substance to offer a woman beyond the pleasure of your company in bed. And that wouldn’t be enough for me, not by a long chalk.’

She stopped, aware she’d said far more than she had intended. The silence seemed to stretch for ever until Harry finally spoke. ‘I take it that’s a no, then,’ he said acidly.

Her eyes snapped up to his, but she could read nothing in his expressionless gaze. His face had become the bland, smooth mask he adopted at times, a mask she hated. It spoke of withdrawal and control, and it was forged in steel. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have expressed myself quite that way, but you shouldn’t have pushed me.’ Her voice was calm now, but a part of her was dying inside. For it to end like this—it couldn’t be worse.

‘I see. It’s all my fault.’ He nodded. ‘I had no idea your opinion of me was so low.’

She watched him stretch out a hand for another piece of toast, as though the opinion he’d spoken of mattered not a jot. Slowly she took a sip of her tea. It was cold. Like his heart, she thought, a little hysterically. ‘It’s an opinion formed from the image you project,’ she countered shakily.

He seemed to consider this for a moment, his features in shadow as he leant back in his chair. Gina was glad she could tilt her head and let her hair fall in a curtain as she concentrated on the puppy; the angle of her chair cause the light to fall directly on her, and she needed some help in hiding her turbulent emotions.

After a while, when he remained silent, she sighed inwardly. This was awful. So much was going on in this room that the air was crackling. She’d offended and annoyed him, and she couldn’t take this deafening silence one more moment.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he was there a second before her. ‘The image isn’t all of me,’ he said gruffly.

She knew that. The man she loved was a hugely complicated human being. Enigmatic and cold, funny and warm. The sort of man who could slaughter an opponent on the telephone with a few well chosen, crisp words, and yet who would stop to rescue four little breathing pieces of flotsam and jetsam the world had abandoned.

The first time she’d accepted her heart was irrevocably his was when she’d discovered he’d delved into his own pocket to pay the rent arrears of a house one of their ex-employees lived in. The man had a drug problem, and had worked one day in five in the couple of months before Harry had sacked him. When the man’s wife had come to the works hoping to find him—and it had transpired he’d been even less at home that he’d been at work and she hadn’t seen him for weeks—Harry had taken her home to find three young children were also in the equation. He’d paid the rent arrears, found the woman a job at the works, and arranged for nursery care for the children.

She bit her lip and tried to control the tears that were threatening. ‘I didn’t think it was,’ she said. ‘But you have to understand where I’m coming from, Harry. In the matter of love, relationships, togetherness—call it what you will—we’re aeons apart. I—I don’t want to waste any more time on hopeless liaisons.’ That was the truth at least. ‘I—I want my heart to be my own again, and I’m the sort of woman who couldn’t sleep with anyone, even once, without being involved. It … well it wouldn’t be a fun thing for me. At least, it being fun wouldn’t be enough without love as well.’

She saw him nod. ‘I’d like to know his name, just to be able to tell him what a damn fool he is,’ he said so softly she could barely hear him.

Gina gulped. ‘I’m a fool as well. I knew what I was getting into but I couldn’t find the brake. I don’t think I ever will. That’s why I need to move away. I don’t want to become someone I don’t like.’

‘You love him very much.’

It was a statement, not a question, but Gina answered anyway. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Life’s not all it’s cut out to be at times, is it?’

It was fine until he’d come along. The puppy had never really settled since she’d half-strangled it, and now it began to squirm with definite intent. ‘I’ll put her back with her sisters.’ She stood up, aware of him following her as she walked through to the utility room.

Outside the window, the first pink streaks of dawn were beginning to creep into a charcoal sky, and the dawn chorus was in full song. It was going to be another beautiful spring day.

After depositing her charge with the other sleeping puppies, Gina left the utility room and walked through to the kitchen where Harry was waiting for her. ‘We might get in an hour’s kip before the alarm goes,’ he said, half-smiling. ‘Or they wake up.’

She tried to match his easy manner. ‘I don’t have an alarm.’

‘I’ll bang on your door, don’t worry.’

When they reached the landing, he paused with her outside her room, his voice soft as he said, ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Gina.’

‘What?’ For an awful minute she thought he had guessed.

‘By rubbing salt in the wound about this guy.’

Her limbs turning fluid, she managed to say fairly coherently, ‘You didn’t,’ as relief flooded her.

‘And you’re not a coward. Far from it.’

She had leant against the wall when he’d first spoken, needing its support, and he’d propped one arm over her head, his fingers splayed next to her hair. She was aware of the faint lemony smell of shower gel, the same make as she had found in her ensuite, presumably, but mixed with Harry’s body chemicals it was altogether more spicy, sexier. Summoning brain power from some deep reserve, she murmured, ‘Leaving is more an act of self-survival, Harry.’

He nodded. ‘I’m beginning to understand that. And if you need a friend, any time, any place, call me, OK? I’ll be there.’

He wasn’t a man to offer empty platitudes. Touched and very near to bursting into tears, she didn’t dare to attempt to speak. Instead she leaned forward on tiptoe and kissed him swiftly on his cheek.

She heard his quickly indrawn breath, but he remained quite still as she slipped under his arm and opened her bedroom door. It was only when it was shut that she let out her breath, her heart pounding.

She stood frozen inside the room, her ears straining to hear any sound from the landing, but it was absolutely silent. After some minutes she walked over to her bed, the tears streaming down her face, but her mind too weary to struggle with the reason why. With the robe still intact she pulled the duvet over her, shutting her eyes as the tears continued to seep under the lids.

She fell asleep within a minute, her face damp and salty, and her body and mind utterly spent.