Читать книгу Overtime in the Boss's Bed - Nicola Marsh - Страница 11

STARR stared at the rumpled business card clutched in her hand and reread the address twice, before hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulder and pushing through the wrought-iron gate—the side gate, which would have been imposing in itself if it hadn’t been positioned next to the hugest pair of intricately carved black iron gates she’d ever seen.

Some place, she thought, straining for a glimpse of the house as she strolled up the hedged garden path.

Sydney Harbour was lined with posh suburbs, with mega-million mansions vying for the best views and highest position, but from what she’d seen of the swanky Melbourne suburb of Toorak, it had its fair share of ritzy manors too.

She’d once dreamed of living in a place like this—around the time she’d scored the coveted lead dancer role at Bossa Nova. Ironic that now she might be working in one.

With her résumé and reputation she should have waltzed into a top dancing role in Melbourne. But Sergio’s vengeance knew no bounds, and the few doors she’d tentatively knocked on had been well and truly slammed in her face.

He’d been at fault, unable to keep his tights hiked up while getting it on with a fellow dancer, and she’d gladly left him—yet she was the bad guy in all of this?

Prima donna. She should have left him a long time ago—had chastised herself countless times since for sticking around so long for the convenience of having a great apartment within walking distance of work, a partner who understood the demands of being a dancer, and a guy she felt comfortable around.

Waste of time and money, considering she’d ended up paying the rent while he invested in a new dance company for them.

He’d promised her stardom and she’d let her ego get the better of her—had ended up almost broke when she’d walked out on the jerk.

No home, no money and no dance prospects explained why she was here.

Now all she had to do was go through with it.

Battling a surge of bitterness, she picked up her pace, rounded a corner and caught her first glimpse of the mansion.

Absolutely breathtaking.

She’d devoured Jane Austen novels as a kid, and standing in the shade of towering hedges, staring at the grandeur, she could have sworn she’d stepped into the pages of Pride and Prejudice.

The house—though how anything this size could remotely be called a house—sprawled across a halfacre, its polished windows glittering in the morning sun, its pristine cream walls were blinding. Balconies dotted the upstairs rooms—elaborate twisted iron that accentuated the simplicity of the façade.

Classic, elegant, a grand old dame you couldn’t help but admire. If the house was a dance, it would be an elegant waltz, gliding into the present from a bygone era, demanding recognition, admiration.

I could work here, she thought, wriggling her backpack into position before continuing down the path, hoping this interview went well.

She might not want this job but she needed it—desperately.

Admiring the shining marble of the front steps, she traipsed up to the front door, stabbed at the intercom button. A crackly voice filtered through the speaker, ‘Around the back.’

Great. He wanted to make sure she knew her place right from the start. With a resigned huff, she followed the sandstone paved path to the rear.

If the front of the house had left her gob-smacked, the rear came a close second as she spied an Olympic-sized in-ground pool, a tennis court, a gazebo, and a terrace twice the size of the stage at the Sydney Opera House.

A lone figure sat a table on the terrace, phone glued to one ear, free hand hovering over a laptop keyboard.

He didn’t glance up as she dumped her backpack and tripped up the steps. She waited for him to finish his call, forcing her feet to settle as she realised she was en pointe, a nervous reaction she’d had since she’d first started ballet at five years of age.

When he flung the mobile on the table and didn’t glance up she cleared her throat, took several steps forward, hating how her knees wobbled a tad.

‘Thanks for seeing me.’

Callum stood, turned towards her, his lips thin, compressed, at odds with her memory of how warm and soft and sensual they’d felt against hers.

‘Good to see you again, Starr.’

His low, modulated tone reeked of formality, without a hint of what they’d shared.

‘Though I must say I’m surprised you called.’

‘Why? You gave me your business card, offered me a job.’

‘One you scoffed at, if I recall.’

Hating his coolness, she squared her shoulders. ‘Circumstances change. I’m interested in the position.’

His mouth quirked. ‘Oh, really?’

Heck, she had stepped into a Jane Austen novel, complete with her very own Mr Darcy: pompous, arrogant, and way too gorgeous despite the urge to slap him upside the head.

‘Is the job still available?’

‘Very available.’

There it was—the first hint of something more than a job interview, a subtle reminder of what they’d shared laced through his smoother-than-caramel voice.

And in that instant it all came flooding back. Every magical moment of their night together. Every cataclysmic, erotic detail.

How he’d stroked her to orgasm with his fingers, his tongue.

How he’d made her feel wanton and wicked and alive for the first time in for ever.

How he’d made love to her standing and sitting and in front of the bathroom mirror.

How she hadn’t slept over the last week, replaying every moment of that life-altering night.

Technically, that wasn’t right. Needing a job so badly she was now willing to work with the man she’d had an unforgettable one-night stand with rated right up there with life-altering.

Pressing her fingers to her eyes, she squeezed them shut in an attempt to block him out, blot out the enormity of all this. Spots danced and shimmered before them, and when she finally opened them, peeked between her fingers, her heart sank lower than the splits.

It was impossible to stand here and pretend to only view him as a prospective boss when she’d seen him naked.

‘Shall we start the interview?’

His mouth kicked up into a semi-smile—a simple action that slammed straight into her, its impact just as brutal as she remembered.

‘Yes, right. The interview.’

Inwardly cringing at her awkward response, she dropped her hands to her side, flexed her fingers, shook them out, mustered her best stage face.

‘What do you want to know? My typing speed? PC skills? Microsoft literate? Multi-tasker?’

Heck, she was babbling, sounding more moronic by the second, while his expression remained impassive. His gaze focussed on her with frightening clarity, and she suddenly knew she’d been a fool to mistake this man for anything other than an imperturbable, composed businessman who’d let nothing stand in his way of getting what he wanted.

‘I need you.’

‘You need me?’

She laughed—a harsh, humourless cackle that startled a nearby magpie, which squawked in protest.

‘By the looks of this place you don’t need anybody. You’re doing quite well on your own.’

His eyes narrowed, appraising, and she squared her shoulders and tossed her hair, glad she’d gone to the trouble of blow-drying it straight.

She needed to present a confident front—something she had no trouble with on the stage. Yet here, now, standing in front of this powerful man, she felt something deep inside quiver at the enormity of what she was doing: aiming to work for a guy who’d initiated her into the joys of sex. In a big way.

‘I need a PA. Desperately.’

And she needed money. Desperately.

A win-win for them both.

If she could just forget the fact she’d had the best sex of her life with him.

She’d weighed her options and chosen to follow up his job offer when she’d withdrawn twenty bucks from an ATM this morning and seen her bank balance slip to under a hundred dollars.

Time for further job-hunting wasn’t a luxury she could afford, and his offer had niggled at the back of her mind—so tempting, so easy to chase up, so available…if only she could get past this. Him. The glorious memory of him naked that constantly flashed across her mind as she stood there.

But memories were worth nothing. The cost of starting a new life in a new city was way beyond her means if she didn’t start working ASAP, and right now she’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity like this for the sake of her inner vixen, cringing with embarrassment at working for a guy she’d bedded.

‘How soon could I start?’

He didn’t blink, didn’t move a muscle, his expression patient, as if dealing with a problem child.

‘Immediately. You have all those skills you mentioned earlier?’

She refrained from rolling her eyes. Not good interview skills for a woman desperate for this job.

‘I’ve temped before, in my early days as a dancer. Helped pay the rent.’

‘Good.’

‘Will I need book-keeping skills? Because—’

‘Your duties may include some housekeeping, alongside the personal assistant stuff.’

‘Housekeeping? But—’

‘You’ll find your remuneration more than fair.’

He ran roughshod over her, treating her like a subordinate, and she bristled, pulling herself up to her impressive five-ten. Pity it wasn’t a patch on his six-four.

‘Thanks. How much—?’

‘And of course you’ll be living in. The cottage will be yours, as part of your salary package, for as long as you work here.’

A cottage? All hers?

The next question died on her lips as she envisaged where she’d been staying for the last week: at a friend of Kit’s, whose ramshackle inner city rental doubled as a local hangout for uni students without a place to sleep.

If she hadn’t been haunted by memories of Callum she wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway—not with the crush of bodies littering the floor, the constant doorslamming at all hours, and the noisy bodily functions of uni students existing on a diet of stale pizza and baked beans.

She’d crashed there out of desperation and a lack of funds—counted on this job to get her out, depended on it for her first decent meal, something other than instant noodles and a recycled green teabag.

‘You’re welcome to check it out.’

Inwardly shuddering at the thought of any more tasteless noodles and weak tea, she said, ‘Great.’

She followed him past the pool and a glass poolhouse, tucked behind immaculately trimmed hedges, and into a small clearing.

A small clearing that featured the most gorgeous little house she’d ever seen.

A cottage, just as he’d said, but what he’d failed to mention was its lemon rendered exterior trimmed in duck-egg blue, a criss-cross veranda housing a white wicker love-seat with striped cushions, and a border of petunias.

It was beyond cute, and the terracotta-tiled roof, reflecting the sun, seemed to shine directly into her eyes with some secret code that said Live here!

‘Go on—take a look inside.’

He flung open the door and she exhaled, confronted by paradise. Her version of paradise: buttercup walls, their rich gold depths enhanced by honey floorboards, solid pine furniture, pot belly heater, monstrous suede sofas piled high with scattered cushions and a four-poster bed straight out of a fairytale.

This wasn’t just any old ordinary cottage, no sirree. This place was a home—a place where she could start to rebuild her life, a place where she could instigate plans to get where she wanted to go.

‘What do you think?’

‘It’s nice.’

Nice? Nice? The place was a flipping palace compared to the dumpster she’d been living in the last week.

‘So you’ll take the job?’

Ah…the job…The major catch in all this.

If she wanted to live here, she needed to work for His Lordship.

Whom she’d seen in all his naked glory.

Whom she’d kissed and caressed and kept up all night.

Oh, heck.

Folding her arms, she propped herself on the back of the sofa’s headrest, ignoring how comfy it was.

‘Isn’t this at all awkward for you?’

There—she’d said it, flung it out there, trying to get a reaction out of him.

It didn’t work. He didn’t flinch, cringe, move a muscle. His expression was impassive.

‘Why? Because we slept together?’

‘You and I both know there was very little sleeping involved.’

It had been incredible—one of those once-in-a-lifetime nights that you stored away for wistful reminiscing in your old age.

The problem was the object of that fantasy night was standing right in front of her, looking way too cool in his designer duds, and the memory of the magic they’d shared was way too fresh.

‘That night was a little crazy. I guess we both felt like company. Let’s just leave it at that.’

She wanted to push the issue, wanted him to acknowledge there’d been far more between them than two people seeking company, but what was the point?

Nothing she could say or do would erase that night, and it sure wouldn’t make working for him any easier.

Working for him.

She was seriously contemplating working for a guy she couldn’t get out of her head, no matter how hard she tried?

‘Fine, we’ll leave it at that.’

It wasn’t fine, but what choice did she have?

The old cliché ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ sprang to mind, and as she cast a longing look around the cosy cottage she knew what she had to do.

‘I’ll take the job.’

She stuck her hand out to cement her decision, but as his hand enclosed hers, firm, solid, way too warm, she wondered if she still had time to flee.