Читать книгу By Request Collection Part 2 - Шантель Шоу, Natalie Anderson - Страница 40

SETH wasn’t in when Grace arrived at the office the following morning and she couldn’t have been more relieved.

After all her protestations yesterday about not winding up in bed with him, it had taken only one kiss from him to show her that, where he was concerned, she had no more control over her physical responses than she did over the weather.

As she slipped off her jacket, hung it over the coat stand and then tried to settle down to work she wondered—just as she had done until she’d fallen into a heavy slumber the previous night—she wondered why she had responded to him so disgracefully. Why, when his only interest in her was to seek revenge?

Was it because all her emotions had been so highly charged yesterday—because she had been shattered from a sleepless overnight flight, even before she had suffered the shock of Culverwells being taken over? Or was it simply because she had no resistance whatsoever where Seth Mason was concerned, and that nature—or whatever one could call it, she thought witheringly—would try its utmost to get them into bed whenever they were alone together?

She groaned to herself as she opened her post, staring down at a letter she had unfolded and reading it without digesting a word.

She was still the same woman who had got into that taxi yesterday morning, determined to fight Culverwells’ new CEO for all she was worth, wasn’t she? So, she might have played right into his hands and made a total fool of herself, but she still had her fighting spirit and her determination to do what was right for the company.

When the internal phone on her desk buzzed, though, and Seth’s deep voice came over the line insisting that she came up to his office, Grace’s heart started to pound.

Was he going to fire her, now that she had been weak and stupid enough to show him that she was still as affected by him as she had been as a senseless teenager? she worried. Or was he determined to hold out for the ultimate prize that would make his vengeance complete—her total capitulation in his bed?

He was rifling through the filing cabinet when she walked into his office and she gritted her teeth, steeling herself for the worst.

‘Good morning, Grace.’ He pushed the drawer closed without even looking up. ‘I trust you slept well?’

Following his impeccably clothed figure with mutinous eyes, she had the strongest desire to hit him as he moved back to his desk.

Restraining the urge, she dragged her wayward appreciation from the silver-grey jacket spanning his broad shoulders to answer bitingly, ‘I’d had less than three hours’ sleep the previous night. What did you expect?’

He sat down, picked up a gold pen and began writing with it. ‘Does that mean you’re in better shape to deal with more pressing matters today?’

‘What’s come up?’ She swallowed, despairing at the way her voice faltered. Did this mean that he hadn’t summoned her here to fire her?

‘The Poulson account. I believe you were dealing with it.’ He looked up at her now, and she could have kicked herself from the way the smouldering intensity of his eyes made her stomach flip. ‘It seems they’re quibbling over assignment dates. It appears from previous correspondence that they can be very difficult to deal with. It also appears that they will only listen to you.’

Grace tried to steady her voice, even though her whole body seemed to be trembling. ‘I’ve built up a rapport with them.’ It seemed wrong, talking to him like this, discussing business like formal colleagues, as though those impassioned moments in her flat a little over twelve hours ago had never happened. ‘They can be rather awkward at first, but I’ve found that with a little bit of diplomacy and persuasion they come around.’

From his position of authority his eyes made a cursory survey of her dark-blue slimline skirt, the rather prim little green and navy blouse and her neatly swept-up hair. ‘Most people do.’

He applied just the right amount of sexual undertone in the way he said that to bring the colour flooding into her cheeks. There had certainly been nothing diplomatic or persuasive about the way he had urged her into responding to him!

Trying not to look at him, she moved around the desk to pick up the letter he had laid aside for her to look at, at the same time as he reached for his memo pad. His sleeve brushed her bare forearm, a touch so light and yet so sensual that she recoiled from the contact, feeling as though an electrical current was suddenly zinging through her.

Breath held, she urged her feet to carry her over to the filing cabinet, her head swimming. She couldn’t concentrate, or even think straight, when he was near her.

‘What’s wrong, Grace?’ He was there, his tanned, very masculine hand rammed flat against the drawer, preventing her from opening it. ‘Unwilling to acknowledge what I can still do to you? What we still do to each other?’

Every muscle locking rigid, Grace could scarcely breathe from the alluring, masculine scent of him, from that lethal sexual magnetism that seemed to be pulling her into its dangerous sphere.

‘If you’re referring to last night, I scarcely knew what I was doing.’

‘No?’ He looked sceptical.

As well he might! she thought despairingly.

‘Why would I want that?’ she croaked, clutching the letter she was holding to her breast like it was a lifeline. ‘Why, when I despise you? When there aren’t words strong enough to describe what you’re doing?’ A jerk of her head indicated what had been her grandfather’s desk and the power it gave the man who sat behind it.

‘Because you can’t help yourself, Grace, any more than I can.’ He was leaning on the cabinet now, his indolent manner unable to conceal that underlying restless vitality about him as he stood supported by his bent arm, one long finger resting against his tough, implacable jaw. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong—you aren’t my idea of the perfect partner, either. But we aren’t talking about a loving, trusting relationship, are we?’

As that finger moved to touch her cheek, Grace twisted her head away in angry rejection.

‘I wouldn’t have a relationship with you, Seth Mason, if you were the last man left on earth!’

‘Such a cliché!’ He laughed, a flash of perfect white teeth. ‘But I’m not the only man left on earth, am I?’ he drawled, that steely gaze dropping to the soft pink bow of her trembling mouth. ‘Just the only one you want. And, if that response last night was anything to go by, in as intimate a relationship as it’s possible to get.’

As if she needed reminding!

Her throat tight with tension, she flung back at him, ‘I had no resistance. I was exhausted—jet-lagged, for heaven’s sake!’ She brought her chin up to face him squarely, trying to convince him, if not herself, that that was all it had been.

‘And have you recovered from your jet lag?’

‘Just about. But I…’ The pale curve of her forehead puckered, and a guarded look sprang into her cool, clear eyes as she realised where his question was leading. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she warned, backing away from him.

‘I told you not to present me with a challenge, Grace,’ he reminded her, his arm shooting out as she almost tripped over the waste-paper basket. ‘And you seem to make a habit of not looking where you’re going.’ He laughed softly as that arm snaked around her, but it was the laughter of a victor, of the conqueror claiming his prize.

‘Let me go!’

As he swivelled her round, he was still laughing, ignoring the pummelling of her fists against his shoulders as he took her mouth with his in a brutal kiss.

‘Why must you always put up a show of fighting me when you know you’ll only respond to me eventually?’ he mocked softly, lifting his head when her hands gave up trying to make an impression on his hard shoulders. They were now clenched against them in a vain effort not to show him how much they wanted to slide over the smooth cloth spanning his broad back. ‘You couldn’t help yourself then, last night, and you can’t help yourself now, can you?’ She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t say anything, because right at that moment she was too affected by him to speak. ‘Perhaps you’re one of these women who get their kicks out of being subdued by a man? Is that what it is? Because I’ll play that game with you if you want me to—only we’ll both know that that’s all it is, won’t we, Grace? A game.’

Despising herself, Grace wondered how her body could still continue to react to him in the way it did in the light of what was only his need to avenge himself for what she—her family—had done to him in the past. She dragged herself up out of a cauldron of traitorous sensations to toss up at him, ‘Go to hell!’

‘Oh, I’ve been there, my love. And I can promise you, it isn’t very pleasant.’ His features were chiselled into uncompromising lines. ‘But, if making love to me is hell to your pride, then you’re going to have to get used to it being scorched raw. Because we’re going to burn this thing out between us until there’s nothing left but cinders. So don’t worry—what we want from each other is so fierce it can’t fail to consume itself in the end.’

‘And then what?’ she asked, shuddering from his determination and the furore of sensations his words were producing in her. ‘We both walk away?’

His heavy lids drooped so that she couldn’t see the expression in his eyes. ‘Naturally.’

Only she wouldn’t be able to do that; she was jolted into realizing it. But why? Why, when he meant nothing to her, nothing beyond someone she had had the briefest fling with once? Yet someone whose child she had carried and then lost, as though life had been ridiculing her, exacting payment from her for her naïve and unfeeling indifference.

She closed her eyes against the memories, against the anguish that remembering caused—the longing, the loneliness, the confusion.

‘I can’t do that.’ Involuntarily, the words spilled from her lips; to deflect the meaning he might put on them, she quickly tagged on, ‘Contrary to what you might think, I don’t go in for casual relationships.’

His lips were but a hair’s breadth from hers, so close that even the denial of their consummate touch was a turn on. She brought her eyelids down so that he wouldn’t recognise the hunger in her eyes.

‘Oh, I think you can.’

Her lashes fluttered apart. His face appeared out of focus, a dark, inscrutable image, mouth hard yet oddly vulnerable, cheeks taut, black lashes drawn down against the wells of his eyes.

He was so incredible. So uncompromisingly handsome. And yet so vengeful.

‘Seth, please…’ It was uttered from the depths of her longing for the warm and tender lover he had been all those years ago. A tenderness that had been destroyed by the way both she and her family had treated him. ‘Don’t do this.’

He moved back a little so that he could see her more clearly. ‘Begging, Grace?’

That cruel curve to his mouth showed her, with deepening despair, that there was going to be no reprieve for her.

‘No, just trying to appeal to your better nature, but that’s obviously a waste of time!’

‘Obviously.’ He smiled, an action still devoid of any warmth. ‘How can you expect restraint from someone who’s…what was it you called me?…basic? Now, let me see: what does that mean? Rough? Primitive? Lacking in social graces? Well, don’t worry. I’m sure I can knock all your ex-public-school lovers into a cocked hat! When I make love to you there’s going to be none of the haste or urgency that we were driven by the first time. You’re going to have all the benefit of my cultivated experience in a long slow night of love play befitting a woman of your…sophistication. And you’re not going to get out of that bed until you’re so drunk on sex with me you’ll be unable to stand. Is that clear?’

The hot retort that sprang to Grace’s lips was stalled by a sudden knock on the door.

Pulling out of his orbit, she was still tugging her blouse straight when Simone came in carrying some files.

‘You wanted these, Mr Mason.’

Distractedly, Grace noticed her PA’s eyes dart from her to Seth and then back to her again; she noticed, too, the crisp white handkerchief stained with her lipstick that Seth was pocketing as he turned round, calmly, coolly, as though the air wasn’t charged with a sexual tension so thick that it left Grace trembling, and which she knew the other woman must surely be able to feel.

‘Yes, thanks, Simone. Did you bring your note pad as well?’

He had known her PA was coming up here, Grace thought, aghast, as the other woman laughed a little nervously at something else he said before sitting down. Yet he had still tried to seduce her again in spite of that? What had been his intention? she wondered, fuming—to hope that Simone was the type of tactless employee who thrived on office scandal and would let everyone in the office know that they were having an affair?

His upward glance at Grace from where he was sitting now was almost one of surprise to still see her there.

‘Thank you, Grace, he said, his tone crisp, cold, formal. ‘That will be all.’

He had the audacity to dismiss her, like she was some temp he could call up or dismiss whenever the fancy took him! Or, worse, some fawning little sex-slave at his beck and call.

Well, if he wanted office gossip, she decided, grabbing the letter off the top of the cabinet she realised he’d taken from her, then she’d let him have it.

‘Don’t keep him too long,’ she uttered, bending, piqued, towards Simone. ‘He’s got a heavy appointment coming up this afternoon. Nasty maintenance case.’ Voice lowered, she wrinkled her nose in a knowing little gesture. ‘Best keep it under your hat.’

From Simone’s obvious discomfort, the woman was clearly unsure whether Grace was joking or not. Although Grace knew that her PA would keep any personal information about her employers to herself, Seth didn’t know that.

She didn’t even bother looking at him again before sweeping out of the office, a tight little set to her mouth, her head held high.

The next couple of weeks passed in a hectic blur of board meetings, legal work and negotiations, then Seth was away for a few days, engaged in aspects of his diverse business-interests elsewhere.

There had been too much to do in the office for other, more personal distractions, and when Seth was called away unexpectedly to sort out yet another problem in his business empire that couldn’t be delegated, Grace couldn’t have been more relieved.

Just like everyone else, she had worked hard over that initial period to get the transition of management running smoothly, staying late at the office, sometimes going without meals—something she had often done in the past, much to her grandfather’s disapproval. But Seth was a phenomenon with reserves of energy that outstripped hers and even the most dynamic of the other executives and she was determined, if she could, to try to keep up with him. How he managed to control his business interests, keeping them all running efficiently even from a span of hundreds of miles, was beyond Grace—although it did give credit to his judgement in engaging only the best staff needed to run each and every enterprise he presided over.

Which made his decision to have her working closely with him something she might have taken a pride in, if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that he harboured a bitter desire to make her pay for her actions in the past—and in the most basic way possible. So whenever he was around, his presence alone seemed to shatter her equilibrium, stretching her nerves as taut as guitar strings, so that she began losing sleep as well.

‘You look ghastly,’ he remarked when he returned briefly late one afternoon on a flying visit to the office. ‘Simone tells me you’ve been working all hours and neglecting to look after yourself—like missing lunch on more occasions than is healthy—and we can’t have that, can we? I don’t want a weak, undernourished lover in my bed.’

‘Then you’ll just have to find yourself one with more generous proportions, won’t you?’ Grace threw back, refraining from telling him that she’d had a recent stomach upset, which was probably why she looked so pale. She was unwilling to acknowledge how fit, strong and how terrifyingly attractive he looked in comparison, with the brilliant white collar of his shirt emphasising his olive skin and his black, untameable hair and that fine-tailored dark suit he was wearing accentuating the lean, hard lines of his body. ‘I’m sure you’ll find plenty at Weight Watchers!’

He laughed, as he always did when she tried to fend off his determined remarks about making her his mistress.

‘You’ll eat,’ he ordered, catching her hand. ‘Starting now.’ A glance at the clock on the wall showed that it was already four-thirty.

‘Not with you.’ She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened in response.

‘With me. And on my expense account. This is a business dinner, and one I expect you to honour.’

He meant it; she could always tell when business came uppermost on his agenda. Which was how, twenty minutes later, she found herself being handed out of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes he often used around the city and guided into the tastefully furnished little restaurant which was glowing with seasonal warmth and which, Seth had told her on hte way there, served exquisitely cooked meals throughout the day.

‘I hadn’t realised how hungry I was,’ she accepted reluctantly as she tucked into a home-made lasagne with salad and huge chunks of crusty bread, while Seth had a gammon steak with all the trimmings.

‘I thought you might want to see this,’ he said when they had finished.

It was an email addressed to Seth, from the customers that Grace had visited in New York, agreeing to continue to trade with Culverwells now that it was under Mason’s corporate umbrella.

‘That must make you feel quite smug,’ she remarked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice.

‘Not at all.’ He wiped his mouth with his napkin, laid it down on the table. ‘The PR job you did in New York obviously paid off.’ So he was acknowledging now that she hadn’t flown off to the Big Apple just to go designer shopping, as he’d originally accused her of doing. ‘And I’m in this simply to restore Culverwells to a healthy balance sheet.’

‘And to make yourself even more millions while doing so.’

‘Well, naturally. I’m a businessman,’ he stressed, pushing his empty plate forward before sitting back on his chair. ‘That would obviously come into the equation. But one thing I’m not in this business for is to antagonise you.’

‘Really?’ She looked at him dubiously, picking up her glass of sparkling water, which reflected the festive, coloured lights adorning the bar. ‘You could have fooled me.’

‘That’s a totally separate issue,’ he stated, ignoring the jibe. ‘One thing I learned on the road to where I am now is never to let personal and business dealings overlap. Did you know your grandfather took risks in other areas that weren’t always to the good of the company?’

His question, coming out of the blue, threw her for a moment. She looked at him over her glass, a mixture of puzzlement and wounded accusation in her eyes.

‘My grandfather would never have done anything underhanded.’

‘I’m not saying he did.’ He had ordered one small glass of wine for himself—rich and ruby red—which left tears around the bowl as he finished drinking, and put the glass back down on the oak-stained table. ‘He invested unwisely—with the best intentions, I’m sure, but against the advice of more circumspect members of his board. By then his judgement was probably clouded by more…personal matters.’ Which, as he had already pointed out, he himself would never allow to happen. ‘Ones that, I believe he realised at the end, hadn’t really been worth risking his company for.’

He meant Corinne, but Grace wasn’t sure what else he was driving at.

‘What do you mean?’ she queried, her forehead pleating.

‘Did you know that your grandfather had made an appointment with his solicitor for the day after he died with the intention of changing his will?’ Grace felt the colour drain from her face. ‘You didn’t.’ Amazingly, that strong-boned face was etched with something almost close to commiseration.

She shook her head several times as though to clear it. ‘How did you find out?’

‘I have my sources.’

Of course. He would have access to everything now—letters. Files. Company diaries. Even her, if she allowed herself to succumb to that lethal attraction.

‘Perhaps he realised the mistake he was making and had decided to do something about it,’ he said.

But instead he had had that heart attack, and his real wishes had never been known. She wondered if Seth was thinking what she was—that if Lance Culverwell hadn’t died when he had things could have been so different. Grace would probably have control of the company, and Seth could never have taken it over as he had.

‘I’m afraid all your admirable efforts to save Culverwells wouldn’t have amounted to anything without the injection of cash it sorely needed for reinvestment,’ she heard Seth telling her, as if he knew the path her thoughts had taken.

Which only a man with his obvious wealth and influence could provide, she acknowledged reluctantly.

‘Be careful,’ she murmured. She was choked by her feelings for the grandfather she’d been unable to help believing had let her down, on top of a barrage of conflicting emotions towards the man sitting opposite her—although for reasons she didn’t dare to question. ‘That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.’

‘Your ability as a businesswoman, Grace, has never been in any doubt.’

She made a sceptical sound down her nostrils. ‘But other aspects of my character have?’ When an elevated eyebrow was his only response, she went on, ‘Anyway, that isn’t what you said the day you took over Culverwells.’

‘I know what I said,’ he rasped. ‘That was before I’d had a chance to study just how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve put into the firm, given of yourself, to get the best out of your fellow directors and your staff.’ He lifted his glass again. ‘I salute you, Grace. It isn’t every day, in my experience, one comes across such single-minded dedication—particularly in a woman. And before you say I’m being sexist—’ he put up his other hand, staving off the retort that was teetering on her lips ‘—I’m not. I merely stated in my own experience. Most of the women I’ve known in top management have had to split their time between their jobs and their families, particularly their children, which makes it very hard to remain ruthlessly single-minded indefinitely. You, fortunately, have had no such distractions.’

‘No.’ With a rueful curl to her mouth she looked down at her glass, wondering what he would have said had he known that if fate hadn’t intervened she would have had a child now. And not just any child. His child.

‘Come on,’ he said, surprisingly gently, perhaps sensing her sudden change of mood, probably thinking it was because of losing her previous position in the company. ‘I’ll take you home.’

The gallery lights below her flat had only just gone out when the huge white car pulled up outside.

‘Beth’s been working late,’ Grace commented, getting out of the car just as the gallery door opened and the curvy little brunette came out.

Exchanging a few words with her friend, Grace couldn’t help noticing the way Beth looked appreciatively at Seth who was moving around the bonnet of the gleaming white Mercedes.

‘How do you do it?’ she whispered to Grace, clearly awestruck.

Reluctantly, because Seth had overheard, Grace introduced Beth to him. What woman was safe from him? she despaired as the two of them shook hands and the gallery manager seemed to visibly melt beneath Seth’s devastating smile.

‘So, you’re the Seth Mason I’ve been hearing all about!’ All smiles herself, Beth sounded slightly breathless as she let Seth know with that unusually tactless remark that Grace had been discussing him with her. ‘Didn’t I see you at the opening night?’ She looked at Grace then back to the tall, rather untamed-looking man beside her for confirmation.

‘It’s…possible,’ Seth answered rather evasively.

‘It’s all right, Beth, I’ll lock up,’ Grace offered, relieved when her friend took the hint and tripped lightly away without causing Grace any further embarrassment, after falling over herself to express her pleasure at having met Seth.

‘Going to ask me in for coffee?’

He was standing there just behind her and, after he had just bought her the meal, Grace didn’t feel she could refuse.

When she complied somewhat uneasily, she saw him nod briefly to his driver.

‘You said coffee—not breakfast,’ she reminded him with her heart racing as the large saloon pulled away.

‘He was parked on double yellows. He’ll amuse himself without breaking any traffic regulations until I give him a call.’

Which told her, she thought, feeling suitably chastened. She was relieved though that the gallery door was still unlocked, which meant that she could take him through to the small sitting room at the back of the shop rather than up to the crowding intimacy of her flat.

Flicking on the lights and securing the doors behind him so that no one would think the gallery was still open, she left him browsing the display of paintings while she went through to the tiny kitchen behind the stock room and made two mugs of instant coffee, pouring milk into her own and remembering that, in the office, Seth always drank his black.

He was studying a simply framed pen-and-ink seascape which was concealed from public view in a small recess behind the counter when she came back. He stooped closer, reading the scrawled signature at the bottom.

‘Matthew Tyler.’

‘My father.’

He took the mug she handed to him. ‘Of course. I understand his paintings sell for thousands—tens of thousands—these days.’

Grace nodded.

‘I believe his sculptures aren’t doing so badly, either.’ When she didn’t respond with so much as a gesture this time, he tagged on, ‘You must be very proud of him.’

Was she?

To avoid answering, she took a hasty sip of her coffee and burnt her tongue in the process.

‘I didn’t really know him,’ she said, trying to sound noncommittal when she had recovered enough to speak.

‘And is this the only thing you have of his?’ He glanced at her briefly.

‘Besides this shop?’

She was reminded from his lack of surprise that he knew about that already. ‘No loft full of unsold masterpieces?’

‘I should be so lucky,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I don’t think he’d done anything for a long time before he died. Anything that wasn’t unfinished or crossed through had been sold, or thrown away. I’ve been told he was an obsessive perfectionist.’

‘So this was all he left you to remember him by?’ He was still studying the sketch, his Adam’s apple working as he took sips of his coffee.

‘Well, no, to be fair, there was one other item.’

He sliced her a glance, obviously expecting her to enlarge, but she didn’t.

With her head tilted to one side, she gave her attention to the drawing. ‘It’s good,’ she appraised a little stiffly. ‘But it isn’t one of his best.’

His best, according to the experts, was the bronze figure she had sold, created from a sketch that Matthew Tyler had made of his daughter during one of his rare and fleeting appearances in her life. He had only come to see her then, during those agonising weeks after her miscarriage, because Lance Culverwell had sent for him, because she had been so unwell, so low…

‘The sculptures were his forte,’ she told him with her gaze still trained on the wall, wondering if those intelligent eyes she could feel suddenly resting on her profile could guess at the tension behind her tightly controlled features.

How could she talk about that bronze to anyone—least of all him? Explain the emotions that had driven her to selling it?

She didn’t even chance looking at Seth, afraid that he would see those emotions now scoring her face.

‘What is it?’ he asked quietly, far, far too aware.

She gave a gasp as the lights in the gallery suddenly went out, leaving them in darkness.

‘Oh, no, not a power cut,’ Grace groaned, though she was grateful for the diversion from his probing question in spite of the inconvenience of having no electricity.

‘I…don’t think so.’ Seth was looking at the festively lit shops on the other side of the road and the street lamp that was glowing brightly immediately outside the gallery. ‘It might be that something’s blown your fuses,’ he stated.

She uttered a nervous little laugh. ‘Just my luck!’

‘Do you know where your trip switch is?’

When she told him he went through without any hesitation to fix the problem. A couple of seconds later, the lights came on, but then instantly went out again.

‘Do you have any other appliances switched on?’ he queried.

‘Only the fridge.’

‘Anything upstairs?’

‘Again, the fridge…’

‘What is it?’ he asked, seeing her frown.

‘I put the dishwasher on before I left this morning. But that would have finished hours ago.’

‘I think you’d better let me check.’

As soon as she opened the door of the flat to let them in, she could feel the heat coming from the kitchen.

Seth shot her an urgent glance. ‘What time did you say you put it on?’

Grace looked at him anxiously. ‘Before I left for work…’

Three strides brought him across her tiny kitchen. He cancelled the switch on the wall above the worktop before opening the door of the overheated appliance, stepping quickly aside as a cloud of steam gushed out.

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that your dishes are clean,’ he remarked dryly. He was down on his haunches now, pulling the lower basket towards him, and Grace felt her gaze drawn to the way the dark-grey fabric of his trousers strained across his thighs as he inspected the shiny interior of her dishwasher for any obvious damage.

‘It’s been going all this time?’ It was an amazed little utterance, dragged from a throat suddenly dry from a riveting sexual awareness.

‘Seems like the programmer’s stuck,’ he diagnosed authoritatively. He was pushing the basket back in, but stopped in mid-action. ‘Hardly a load worth putting on, was it?’ he commented, noting the sparsity of dishes in both baskets.

Grace made a small gesture with her shoulders. ‘Believe it or not, I don’t spend all my time in this flat cooking.’

‘Obviously not.’ His speculative smile left little doubt as to what he thought she spent most of her time doing. Probably entertaining a steady stream of boyfriends! she thought hopelessly. ‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that you’re not eating enough.’ His eyes, skimming over her willowy figure beneath her black executive suit, admonished as much as they admired. ‘Worrying about something, Grace?’ The sound of the dishwasher door clicking closed only added to an air of menace Grace could almost touch as he got to his feet, so that she was far too affected by him to answer. ‘We’re going to have to do something about that, aren’t we?’ he said.

Aware of the worktop against the small of her back, Grace swallowed, feeling absurdly trapped. The way he was looking at her with that smouldering regard—as though he knew that the reason she couldn’t eat or sleep properly was because she was so wound up over him—left her in no doubt, after that last remark, as to what he was going to do about it.

One of the sleeves of his suit was pushed up, exposing a good deal of immaculate white cuff. Those loose strands of hair that fell tantalisingly over his forehead even though he’d raked them back were curling damply from the steam. He looked flushed, dishevelled and incredibly sexy.

‘Come here, Grace,’ he urged softly.