Читать книгу It Started With... Collection - Miranda Lee - Страница 35

A COPY of a book called Winning at Work was sitting on Jessie’s desk when she got in the next morning.

‘Is this from you?’ she asked Michele, who was already there at her desk, beavering away.

‘Nope. It was there when I got in. I imagine Kane dropped it off for you to have a look at.’

Jessie recalled he’d said something about a book.

She picked it up and turned it over, blinking at the sight of Kane’s photo on the back.

‘Good lord!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s the author!’

Michele glanced up with a surprised look on her attractive face. ‘You mean you didn’t know the man who drove you home yesterday was the Kane Marshall, management guru and motivator extraordinaire?’

‘No! I’ve never heard of the Kane Marshall.’ Other than his being the twin brother of Curtis Marshall, possible philanderer.

‘Something tells me that’s about to change,’ Michele muttered under her breath.

‘He actually wrote this?’ Jessie said, still stunned.

‘Sure did. I gather it’s been a runaway best-seller in the USA. It hasn’t come out here yet. We Aussies aren’t into self-help books as much as the Americans. But we’re getting there.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Nope.’

Jessie stared at the bio inside the front cover. Kane had a list of professional credits a mile long. Degrees in business and marketing. And a degree in psychology. This was his first book, but he was apparently well-known in the business world for his weekend seminars called ‘Solving Work Problems’. He was described as a gifted after-dinner speaker, with his services being highly sought after by companies as a consultant and an educator.

Jessie sighed. Any secret hope she’d been harbouring that Kane Marshall might change his mind about what kind of woman he was looking to have that real relationship with just went out the window. He was a workaholic!

‘You sound tired,’ Michele said. ‘Late night?’

‘No. Just not enough sleep.’

‘Aah. Man trouble.’

‘What?’

‘When a mother can’t sleep it has to be man trouble. And it doesn’t take much to guess which man. Although I’m not sure what the problem is. Do you already have a boyfriend? Is that it?’

‘Goodness, no, I haven’t had a boyfriend since Emily’s father.’ She and Michele had chatted a bit about their backgrounds over coffee yesterday, so Michele knew about Lyall.

‘Aah…’ Michele nodded. ‘The once-bitten, twice-shy syndrome.’

‘Can you blame me? After Lyall died, I found out he wasn’t just two-timing me. He was triple-timing me.’

‘Not nice,’ Michele agreed. ‘But that was Lyall, not Kane.’

‘Maybe, but in some ways they’re alike. Both tall, dark and handsome, with great smiles and the gift of the gab. Those sort of guys are hard to trust.’

‘So you didn’t say yes when he asked you out?’ Michele ventured.

Jessie sighed. ‘Yes. I did. We’re on for Friday night,’ she confessed.

‘Playing hard to get, I see. Smart girl.’

‘You call that playing hard to get?’ Jessie put Kane’s book down on her part of the work station and pulled out her chair.

‘Sure. That’s five whole days since you met him.’

Jessie sank down into her chair. ‘Actually, it will be a week since I met him.’

Michele’s eyes widened. ‘Really? You’d met him before the interview on Monday?’

‘Yes. In a bar in town last Friday night. But we didn’t exchange names. I—er—drank with him and danced with him, but I did a flit when he wanted more than dancing. He was as shocked as I was when I showed up here yesterday.’

‘Shocked, but still pleased. He’s obviously very taken with you, Jessie.’

‘You think so? It’s hard to tell with men. It could just be sex, you know.’

‘Nothing wrong with that. Lots of relationships start with sex. Don’t fall into the trap of being too cynical about men, Jessie. There are some genuinely good ones out there. I don’t know Kane all that well, but what I know I like. Everyone here thinks he’s great. So give him a chance. Oh, and don’t forget to go thank him for the book. He’ll be dying to know what you think, I’ll bet. Lunch-time would be a good time, when Karen’s out. She and Margaret have lunch together at a café up the road every day at one. Kane has his lunch delivered, Margaret tells me. He’s an obsessive reader and usually stays at his desk. You could pop along any time after one and he’d be all alone.’

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

‘Why not? What do you think he’s going to do? Ravish you on his desk?’

Jessie didn’t like to admit that that was exactly what she thought he might do. Worse was the reality that she wouldn’t mind one bit.

She’d already come into work wearing a skirt, instead of jeans. And no stockings.

The clear blue sky this morning had promised a hot summer’s day, so her selection of a pink and white floral wrap-around skirt, a simple pink T-shirt and slip-on white sandals was really quite an appropriate outfit for work. No one could have guessed by just looking at her that whilst she’d dressed she’d secretly thrilled to the thought of how accessible she was, if by some chance Kane found the time and the place to seduce her at work.

Stupid fantasy, really. But darned exciting to think about.

By lunch-time, every nerve-ending in Jessie’s body was tap-dancing. She was grateful when Michele left to do some shopping. A trip to the ladies’ room assured her that her make-up was still in place. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it had melted all over her face. But she looked OK. Her hair was up, secured by a long pink clip. She toyed with taking it down, then decided that would be on the obvious side. The last thing she wanted was to be obvious.

Thankfully she had a good excuse for going to his office. She didn’t want to show up looking like a desperate. Even if she was fast becoming one.

Another attack of nerves sent her bolting into a toilet cubicle. Five minutes later, she was back at her desk, where she skip-read a few chapters of the book to get the gist of it whilst she stuffed down one of the two sandwiches she’d brought from home. That done, she made her way to Kane’s office. It was one-twenty.

Karen’s desk was blessedly empty. Fate hadn’t made her stay back for some reason. Jessie’s heart sank, however, when she saw the door to the inner office was half open and a woman’s voice was emerging.

Don’t tell me Karen is in there with him, she thought.

Jessie took a couple of steps towards the door, grinding to a halt when the woman—who didn’t sound like Karen—said something about being pregnant.

‘Pregnant!’ Kane exclaimed in a shocked voice. ‘Good God, Natalie.’

Jessie sucked in sharply. Natalie. That was his ex-wife’s name.

‘Don’t worry, darling,’ the woman said in a droll tone. ‘It’s not yours. I’m only a month gone and it’s at least a couple of months since we were together. Besides, if I recall rightly, you used a condom.’

Jessie’s heart squeezed tight. A couple of months ago Kane had still been sleeping with his ex. Yet he’d made her think he’d been celibate since they split up over a year ago. She’d thought at the time that was unlikely. What other women had he lied to her about?

‘Who’s the father?’ she heard Kane ask.

‘Some guy I met at a party. A lawyer. I didn’t even find out his last name, would you believe? But I could find it out if I want to.’

‘What are you going to do about the baby?’

‘I know you’ll think I’m mad, but I’m going to have it.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘No. No, Kane, I’m not.’

Jessie couldn’t bear to stand there, listening to any more of this conversation. She turned and fled back down the corridor as quietly as her pounding heart would permit. Tears threatened, but she made it back to the toilet cubicle, dry-eyed. Even then, strangely, she didn’t cry. She wanted to, but something inside her was damming back the tears, a big, cold, angry lump.

One part of her wanted to go back and confront him, throw his lies in his face. But another part of her argued that to do that was to finish it between them.

Could she bear that? To walk away without going to bed with him, at least once?

Jessie supposed she could. She could do just about anything once she put her mind to it.

But it would be hard, especially with his being here at work every day. She would keep running into him. And wanting him.

So, no, she wouldn’t be confronting him, Jessie decided as she made her way back to her desk. Or accusing him. She would use him as he was using her. For sex.

At least this added knowledge of his character would stop her from falling in love with him. The man was a lying scumbag, like most men. An empty charmer. Just because he’d made a raging success of his professional life didn’t make him a good guy, as he claimed to be.

When she thought about his choice of career it suited him very well. What was he, really, but a glorified salesman? A con artist. A seller of dreams. Such seminars as he conducted preyed on people’s weaknesses, making them think they could be winners too, if only they listened to him. He’d spin her a whole world of dreams too, if she let him.

But she wasn’t going to let him. Or listen to him. He could talk all the bulldust he liked. None of it was going to get to her any more.

‘What are you muttering to yourself about?’

His voice behind her came out of the blue, startling her.

Jessie swallowed, then spun slowly round on her office chair, a cool smile at the ready.

‘Just thinking of all the things I have to do before Christmas,’ she said, her eyes running over the man himself for the first time that day.

Yes, he was gorgeous. Utterly. With that air of masculine confidence which she found almost irresistible.

But she was ready for him now, ready and armed with the knowledge of his true self.

‘I did offer to take you shopping,’ he said with one of his winning smiles.

‘So you did. And I might have to take you up on that by this time next week.’

‘What about this Saturday? Emily could come with us. I promise I’ll have a proper car seat by then.’

Jessie found her own smile. A slow smile. A saucy smile. ‘Do you think you’ll be capable of getting out of bed after Friday night?’

His blue eyes registered shock. But then he smiled back. ‘Is that a challenge of some sort?’

‘Let’s just say it’s been a while for me. I might take some satisfying.’

A flicker of a frown skittered across his face. ‘Boy, when you decide to do something you do it full throttle, don’t you?’

‘I have a take-no-prisoners attitude to life sometimes.’

‘That’s what I like about you. You’re so damned honest and upfront. Except when you’re cruising bars looking for straying hubbies, that is,’ he added ruefully.

Jessie shrugged. ‘That’s all in the past now that I have a decent job. And it’s not as though most of those guys didn’t deserve to get caught. So tell me, Kane, were you ever unfaithful to your wife?’

‘What a question!’

‘One you don’t want to answer, I see.’

‘No, I don’t mind answering it. I was never unfaithful. I sowed my wild oats plenty in my younger years. Once I got married, however, I put all that behind me.’

‘One of the good guys,’ she said just a fraction tartly.

He frowned. ‘I take it you’re still not convinced.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It matters to me.’

Jessie decided this conversation was running off the rails. ‘By the way, thank you for your book. I was suitably impressed. And a little surprised. I didn’t realise you were famous.’

‘I’m not so famous,’ he said modestly.

‘But you will be. Your book is fabulous.’ Jessie knew you could never flatter a man enough. Flattery, she could handle. And flirting. Just no falling in love.

He looked so ridiculously pleased, she felt guilty. ‘But you can’t possibly have read it yet.’

‘Well, not properly. But I will. Before Friday night.’

‘Stop talking about Friday night!’ he suddenly bit out in an agitated fashion. ‘I know it’s only three days away, but after last night it seems like an eternity. I don’t think I slept a wink.’

He did look tired, now that she came to think of it. There were dark circles under his eyes.

‘I didn’t sleep very well myself,’ she confessed.

‘Jessie, this is ridiculous. Why should we torture ourselves? Be with me tonight. Get Dora to mind Emily. She told me last night that she’d be quite happy to mind Emily any night we wanted to go out. I asked her. I even offered to pay her but she refused. She said she’d be happy to do it any time.’

Jessie felt both flustered and furious. ‘You had no right to go behind my back like that.’

‘No right to do what?’ he countered. ‘Try to organise things so that I can spend some time with a woman I’m crazy about?’

Jessie flushed at the passion in his voice. ‘I told you. I don’t like to be rushed.’

His sigh was ragged. ‘OK. Yes, I am rushing you. I’m sorry. It’s just that life is so short and when you see something that you really want, you have to reach out and grab it before something happens and it gets away from you.’

‘Is that what you tell people in your book?’

‘Not that I recall. This is something which has come upon me just lately. It’s possibly worse today.’

‘Why is it worse today?’

‘Would you believe my ex-wife has just been in to see me? And guess what? She’s pregnant, by some guy she doesn’t even know the name of. And she’s going to keep the baby.’ Kane shook his head in utter bewilderment.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Jessie challenged. For pity’s sake, did he expect her to have an abortion? He’d divorced her because she wanted children. The man just didn’t understand how strong the maternal impulse could be. She could never have terminated her baby, and she hadn’t even been craving one at the time.

‘You don’t know Natalie,’ he muttered. ‘She’s not the single-mother type.’

‘Is there a single-mother type?’

‘No. I guess not. It was just so unexpected, not to mention quick. Our divorce papers only came through three months ago. You can imagine how I felt when she announced she was pregnant.’

Actually, Jessie didn’t have to imagine anything. She’d been there and heard his reaction. He’d been worried sick that it was his.

‘It’s not as though you’re still in love with her,’ Jessie said impatiently. ‘Are you?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘Then her having another man’s baby is irrelevant. Leave her to her life and you get on with yours.’

He stared at her for a second before his mouth broke into a wry grin. ‘Yes, Dr Denton. I’ll do just that. Which brings me back to tonight. What do you say, Jessie? Would you let me take you out to dinner? Just dinner.’

That was about as believable as ‘the cheque’s in the post’!

Jessie scooped in a deep breath whilst every pore in her screamed at her to agree. But to say yes would be the kiss of death. She’d show her weakness and then he’d have her right where he wanted her.

‘I’m sorry, Kane,’ she said, quite truthfully. ‘I make it a policy never to go out during the week. You’ll just have to wait. You can always have a lot of cold showers,’ she suggested with more than a hint of malice.

Their eyes met, and held.

‘I don’t think there’s enough cold water in the world to fix my problem,’ he bit out. ‘Still, I guess I’ll survive. But I would suggest that if you’re going to come into work each day looking good enough to eat, then for pity’s sake, keep well out of my way!’