She turned and their eyes collided, and her breath suddenly hitched in her throat.
‘I feel so tired,’ she murmured, fidgety all of a sudden. She couldn’t peel her eyes from him. She was still wearing his jacket and she politely reached to hand it over to him. ‘And you’re wrong. I’m fine. Just exhausted. You don’t need to stay here and babysit me.’
‘Maybe I want to,’ Matt murmured, his midnight-blue eyes guarded. ‘I saw a different Violet Dunn before you left.’ His voice roughened. ‘I’m seeing an even more different one now.’
‘I apologise,’ Violet said stiffly. Her eyes skittered away from his face, but nothing could hide the rapid beating of her heart.
‘For being human?’
The amused wryness of his voice would have been bad enough, but even more dangerously seductive was the touch of his hand against her cheek.
She curved her head, and it was such a simple, instinctive gesture, but it opened up the lid of that box she had kept so very firmly shut for over two years.
He lowered his head as she raised hers and the kiss was somehow inevitable.
The feel of his mouth over hers was electrifying. She’d been plugged into a live socket and every racing nerve in her body was suddenly and wonderfully sensitised in ways that were unimaginable.
She drew back, but reluctantly. Her body wanted more, but common sense recognised the need to slam shut the door that had been unexpectedly opened.
She couldn’t meet his eyes and she stared down at the biker boots.
‘What’s going on?’ she whispered. When she looked up at him, her brown eyes were filled with dismay and apprehension.
Matt raked his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m asking myself the same thing,’ he said gruffly.
‘You should go.’
‘Should I?’
Violet stared up at him. She wanted those lips on hers again so badly that it was a physical ache, spreading from her toes to her scalp and sending a wave of forbidden lust coursing through her.
It was the situation, all that pent-up tension desperate to find release, and Matt standing here was temptation beyond endurance. But, if ever a mistake were staring her in the face, then this was surely it.
She might not be his secretary over here, but she would be foolish to think that that made no difference.
Yet those lips... Firm and cool and so, so wonderfully sensual. And the way her body responded... It was as though she had discovered a network of nerves and tingling sensations she had never known she possessed.
‘Matt...’ Her voice was helpless and fizzled out into a strangled choke as he traced the outline of her mouth with one lazy finger. She caught his finger with her hand but the slight tremor was a giveaway that control wasn’t completely within her grasp. ‘This isn’t what we’re about.’
‘You no longer work for me, Violet. You’re shaken. I get that. If you want me to leave, then say the word and I’m gone. Want that?’
‘Of course I do,’ she said weakly.
‘I want to kiss you. You have the most tempting lips I’ve ever seen.’
‘Funny, you’ve never said anything like that before,’ she muttered, her skin burning.
‘Would you have wanted me to?’ Matt mused.
‘Of course not!’
‘You were like a cat on a hot tin roof the minute anything remotely personal left my lips.’ He caught her hand in his and lowered his head to trail his tongue over her mouth. ‘I would never have put you in the uncomfortable position of dealing with any advances from me. I was your boss and I have a lot of respect for what that entails. I’m not your boss here.’
No, she thought, he wasn’t. And that opened all sorts of doors, all of which should remain very firmly shut.
The guy didn’t do relationships and, when it came to guys, she needed the sort who did. She needed stability. In all areas of her life. She needed roots that could be put down and a guy who was willing to put those roots down with her. She wasn’t frivolous or flighty and, whether he said that he was attracted to her or not, he didn’t do serious. She should know. She’d seen his approach to relationships first-hand.
But her heart was beating very fast and her lips were tingling, along with everywhere else in her treacherous body.
‘I’m all shaken up,’ she muttered. She determined to listen to common sense because common sense was always right. ‘Thank you for dropping me back and for...for coming with me in the ambulance.’
Matt shifted back and looked down at her with brooding intensity, his fabulous eyes veiled.
‘I bet you didn’t think that you would end up being flung around in the back of an ambulance when you decided to pay me a visit this evening.’ This was more like it, she thought as self-control began to reassert itself and those unsettling, frightening feelings of helplessness started to recede. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes but her voice was normal and habits of a lifetime were settling back into place.
So she’d kissed him!
What of it? Everyone was entitled to a moment of madness and she never, not once in her entire life, had had a moment of madness.
‘Would you like a...a coffee?’ She nodded in the direction of the kitchen and began walking towards it—half hoping that he would say a polite goodbye and head off, disturbing kiss firmly forgotten, half hoping that he would follow her into the kitchen, because this tingling, scary as it was, was also so wonderfully, tantalisingly exciting.
‘That would be very nice.’ Matt followed her into a high-tech kitchen where the only signs of occupation were the plates and cups draining on a metal draining board by the sink.
‘Again. Thank you for being there for me this evening.’ His eyes were on her. She could feel it. She tried not to focus on the fact that she was wearing an outfit best suited for a raunchy fancy-dress party. He wasn’t her boss here and she certainly wasn’t his secretary, and common sense only very thinly managed to plaster over that fact.
‘There’s no need to thank me, Violet,’ Matt said drily. ‘I’m very happy that I was there for you, although I’m sure you would have had your pick of volunteers for the role of shoulder to cry on.’
‘What do you mean?’ She glanced round at him, startled, and then handed him his mug of coffee, strong and black just as he liked it, and settled into the chair, facing him with relief.
‘I mean you had a very appreciative audience. I’m guessing you heard the roars of approval when you walked in.’
‘My father has a lot of fans still left.’ She blushed furiously and sipped some of her own piping-hot coffee.
‘I’ll let that one go, but you know exactly what I mean. You looked the part. How are you doing over here? Your emails back to the home front are stunningly lacking in detail.’
Violet reddened further. Of course, he wouldn’t know the effect he had always had on her, so would never guess that the paucity of her responses had all been tied in with her just trying to forget about him, which was the healthy way forward.
‘I’m doing very well, Matt. Very busy.’
‘With your father’s school?’
‘How did you know about that?’
‘I have friends in high places.’ His dark eyes were watchful as he sipped the coffee and he stole a look at her from under his lashes. ‘I asked around, just out of curiosity. Your father has quite the reputation over here. Seems the bad boy of yesterday has become a pillar of the community.’
Violet smiled, relaxing, because this was the Matt she was so familiar with—a guy of such abundant, lazy charm that it had never been any source of wonder for her that he could attract women without having to lift a finger or make an effort.
‘I’m not sure he would be comfortable with the pillar of the community moniker. He still likes to think that he’s got a wild side left in him.’
‘He’s certainly still g
ot the talent,’ Matt observed. ‘You played well together.’
‘Were you surprised?’
‘It’s fair to say that pretty much everything about you surprises me,’ he murmured.
She shifted and harked back to how he had reacted when he had seen where she lived, discovered a past he had never suspected—that fleeting look of betrayal on his face.
She wondered whether the fact that she had surprised him accounted for that kiss. She wasn’t the woman he had categorised as his predictable secretary with no personal life to speak of. She’d broken out of the convenient mould and exposed a side to her that had taken him by surprise—and surprise, for a man like Matt Falconer, might prove a very enticing proposition. And then tonight, vulnerable and in her hour of need, she had revealed yet more about herself, as he had pointed out.
Could she, suddenly and unexpectedly, have provided an element of novelty that had roused the interest of a man drawn to the same type of woman?
Violet knew that she would be better off not giving house room to seditious thoughts. The more she tried to analyse the situation, and the raging fire that had ignited between them with such shocking speed, the more her thoughts kept returning to the feel of his mouth on hers and the responses it had generated.
Dangerous.
‘You should go.’ She dumped the cup on the table and abruptly rose to her feet. ‘I probably won’t see you again before you leave and I...er... I hope your trip over here proves successful.’
‘Is this the bit where we shake hands and pretend we’re strangers?’ But there was amusement in his voice and, when he rose to his feet, he moved just a little too close to her for comfort. ‘I’ve got a few days left here, Violet, and I wouldn’t dream of leaving you to manage by yourself while your father remains in hospital. You can count on me. It’s what any good ex-boss would do...’
CHAPTER FIVE
TRUE TO HIS word about not leaving her to manage for herself—a sweeping statement that had filled her with dread—Matt turned up at eight the following morning. Violet had already been up for an hour and was pointlessly pottering around the house, waiting for the hours to slip by before she could go to the hospital and visit her father.
‘He’s out of the woods,’ she had been told when she had telephoned for information at six that morning. ‘But he’s heavily sedated and won’t be able to respond to visitors for at least a couple of days. The body can take only so much stress and I suspect your father has been ignoring warning signs for a number of weeks now.’
She would go and sit by her heavily sedated father, she decided, even if he was sleeping and out of it.
She couldn’t bear the thought of twiddling her thumbs. All the caring instincts that had been her faithful companions for so many years had risen to the surface. She almost felt guilty that her father had collapsed in such a dramatic fashion. Surely, she should have been able to see the signs of something more serious than him looking a little peaky? She should never have been swayed by his hearty reassurances that the concert should go ahead, even if he was a bit under the weather.
All this was in her head when she pulled open the door to find Matt standing outside, lounging against the door frame, his blue eyes keenly observant as she gaped at him.
‘What are you doing here?’ Instinctively, she touched her mouth with her fingers, an unconscious gesture as she remembered the power of that kiss they had shared. She dropped her hand and gathered herself but her skin was prickling all over and her face was red. She had been very grateful for his presence the day before, when everything had been in turmoil and her nerves had been shattered, but in the cold light of day, alarm bells were ringing in her head.
They had kissed.
They had broken a barrier that had been firmly in place for years. Now, out here, it was all a muddle and his presence on her doorstep was the last thing she felt she could deal with.
‘I’ve brought you breakfast.’ Like a magician, he whipped a bag out from behind him and dangled it in front of her. ‘Thought you might not have eaten.’
‘Matt...’ she dithered, self-conscious in her cut-off jeans and small, faded tee shirt. She recalled the outfit of the evening before and shuddered. ‘There was no need for you to come and check up on me. I’m very grateful that you were around yesterday, but Dad’s settled, and I’ll be fine.’
Matt looked at her with brooding interest.
Point taken, if he were being honest. There was no need for him to be here, standing on her doorstep with a bag of bread in his hand. He was no one’s knight in shining armour, and he didn’t do rescuing of damsels in distress, but yesterday...
Yesterday had been a revelation.
He’d gone to that concert as a token nod to the boss-secretary relationship they had successfully shared for over two years. Admittedly, he had been curious to see how she was faring. First and foremost, he was here on business, but she had departed British shores a slightly different person from the one he had boxed, labelled and filed away. And, yes, he had been curious to see how Violet Dunn Mark Two was doing on the other side of the world. That was the story he had spun to himself and he was sticking to it.
When she’d walked out onto that podium and sat at the piano, he’d stopped breathing. The crowded room had melted away and he had only had eyes for a woman who had shed the chrysalis and emerged a butterfly.
And then, to compound the impression, he had seen her without her customary veneer of efficiency and self-control. He’d seen her vulnerable and dependent and the combination had kick-started something inside him that had...brought him right here to her door. With a bag of bread.
‘Are you going to ask me in?’ He lightly rested his hand on the door. Violet sighed and stepped aside as he brushed past her into the house, heading directly to the kitchen like a man with a purpose.
‘Tell me how your father is doing,’ he threw over his shoulder as he dumped the bag of bread on the table and spun round to look at her.
Violet watched, noting the way he automatically took charge, the way he dominated and owned the space around him, the way he took her breath away—especially now, when she could no longer depend on the natural divide of him being her employer. They were standing here in this kitchen as equals and it was disconcerting.
To lessen the tension building inside her, she picked up the bread and began busying herself with plates and some mugs for coffee, directing him to a chair so that he could sit down and not tower above her in a way that made her nerves jangle.
‘He’s resting.’ She wasn’t looking at him but she was very conscious of the waves of intense masculinity he was exuding. She marvelled that she had been able successfully to withstand his physical impact for all the time she had worked for him, but then again a starched suit and patent pumps had been excellent deterrents for the devastating effects of her volatile boss. Jeans and a tight tee shirt were proving a flimsy barrier, and the memory of that kiss was the icing on the cake.
She produced a plate with some of the crusty bread on it, dumped some preserves and a mug of coffee in front of him and stood back, her body language polite but unwelcoming. And he knew it. She could see that in his shrewd, amused eyes as he briefly looked at her before diving into the bread, lathering it with some of the wild lime marmalade she loved.
‘Understandable,’ Matt commented neutrally.
‘I’m going to visit him...’ she glanced at her watch ‘...very soon.’
‘I’m guessing he’s going to be out of it for a while.’
Violet narrowed her eyes and wondered whether he had somehow managed to prise information about her father’s condition out of the hospital.
‘I’m surprised,’ she said, hurriedly changing the subject, ‘that you’re not at work. I know you’ve always liked an early start.’
‘So much you know about me,’ Matt drawled, voice lazy, amused, intimate. ‘Your
successor, capable though he is, lacks your intuitive feel for my movements.’
‘It’s something that comes with time,’ she said briskly.
‘But, of course, you make a valid point. I do enjoy an early start. My early starts, however, appear to have hit a brick wall with the guys here. Their preferred day starts at ten.’
‘Tough.’ Violet tried to hide a sudden smile because he had always been impatient with anyone who didn’t view rising with the larks as a golden opportunity to brainstorm or catch up on emails.
‘Isn’t it? Although,’ he said pensively, ‘it did mean that I could drop by here with this bread. Excellent bread, by the way, and I like the jam.’ He turned the bottle in his hands and inspected the label before dumping it back on the table. ‘Also means that I could take you to the hospital to see your father, and I’ve had some thoughts on the rest of the day.’
Violet’s mouth dropped open and she looked at him in consternation.
‘You’re going to tell me that there’s no need.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘But it’s not an issue. I’m more than happy to be of help in this hour of need for you. You’ve spent many an overnighter with me, burning the midnight oil and ploughing through reams of legal paperwork that needed to meet a deadline. Never a complaint. So don’t even think for one moment that this will be putting me out.’
Since Violet had not been thinking any such thing, she could only continue to gape at him in silence, temporarily lost for words.
As was his way, he had brought his own picnic to the party and was happy barrelling ahead with his game plan. Which was... What, exactly? What thoughts did he have for the rest of the day?
She quailed.
‘Here’s my plan,’ Matt told her crisply, the consummate professional now, which should have been reassuring but somehow wasn’t. He pushed his plate to one side and tilted his head to look at her appraisingly. ‘We go to the hospital so that we can find out how your father is doing.’
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