‘We? We?’ Violet parroted faintly.
‘You were in meltdown yesterday,’ Matt pointed out. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with that, Violet. There’s nothing wrong with having to lean on someone else now and again.’
Violet wondered whether she was now occupying a parallel universe. Since when had Matt Falconer ever prided himself on being a man that a woman in a meltdown could lean on? She opened her mouth tactfully to point that out, but he was gathering momentum, leaning forward so that he could direct the full blast of his concentration on her as he finished what he had to say.
‘You probably won’t want to admit it, but you will have woken up this morning just as anxious as you would have been when your head hit that pillow last night.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She had, but she was sticking to the brief, because if she strayed too far from it—and kissing him the night before in a moment of weakness definitely qualified for that—then who knew what might happen? She felt faint when her brain started travelling down that road and she very firmly put the brake on it.
‘I don’t need you to hold my hand, Matt. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with this situation on my own.’
‘Are you? Or are you just saying that because that’s the persona you’ve always cultivated?’
‘Don’t try to psychoanalyse me,’ Violet said sharply.
‘Why?’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘So the boot, for once, is on the other foot. Why don’t you relax and enjoy it?’
‘I’m not your responsibility.’ She bristled and shot him a fulminating glance from under her lashes. ‘And,’ she posed tartly, ‘since when have you ever seen psychoanalysing any woman as something to put on your list of good deeds for the day?’
Matt grinned. ‘I miss that. The way you can make me laugh. Most men would be cut down at the knees by that sharp tongue of yours, but it’s always done wonders for my frame of mind. Moving on, though. We go to the hospital, where it would be pointless for you to sit around watching your dad while he rests. So my plan is to take you to the company, and you can dive in and help me wade through these last-minute stumbling blocks.’
‘You want me to work with you?’
‘Do you have other plans for the day?’
‘Yes. No. I might.’
‘Mixed messages going on here, so I’ll interpret it myself and say that you have no plans except visiting your father and getting yourself knotted up, wondering if you could have done something to prevent it.’
He slapped his thighs and rose to his feet. ‘Some healthy distraction would work wonders for you and, as a bonus, you’d be doing me a favour. I hadn’t planned on coming over here, at least not at this point in time, and there’s more ego stroking, fine-tuning of detail and soothing than I’d banked on. The guys who run this show are like kids, and their paperwork, now that it’s all been excavated for inspection, is in total chaos.’ He looked at her seriously. ‘It would help having you there, Violet. We’ve always worked well together. No reason why you can’t take some time out to help me out now. And it would get your mind off things.’
‘I will need to go to the hospital. My dad will need me as soon as he’s out. I can’t just drop these responsibilities to help you out.’
‘At least a week,’ Matt told her without preamble and she blinked and looked at him, confused. ‘To clarify, I took the liberty of phoning his consultant. I thought I would come here the bearer of glad tidings. In times of stress, sometimes it takes a third party to look at things through independent eyes. You can count on me to be those independent eyes on your behalf.’
‘You took the liberty of phoning the consultant?’
‘Your father will be recuperating in hospital for at least a week, possibly a bit longer. He’s in a private ward with the best possible care, but his overall health has been compromised over the years, so recovery will take slightly longer than might have been the case for someone younger and stronger.’
‘You phoned and asked for an update on my dad?’
‘No need to thank me. I thought you might be nervous doing it yourself. Bottom line, he’s drugged up to the eyeballs at the moment and on a drip. He won’t really be conscious of you being there at his side, at least not for the time being. He certainly won’t be up for lengthy visiting and I doubt the hospital would encourage it. They want their patient to build his strength up, and he’s sure to feel guilty about what happened if you’re there 24/7 holding his hand and peering anxiously into his face.’
Speechless, Violet stared at him. ‘You can’t just appear on my doorstep and start micromanaging my life, Matt!’
‘No, but I can provide healthy distraction.’ He paused. ‘Unless you have more pressing options, then I’m at a loss as to why you won’t take me up on this offer. In a week, I’ll be gone and you can carry on with your life here and your father should be back at home. You can devote all your attention to him then. In the meantime, where’s the harm in burying your very justifiable worries into something productive and challenging?’
Where indeed? was what Violet thought ten days later. He had said that he would be in Melbourne for a week. His dulcet tones, and tantalising offer to take her mind off the horror of her father being rushed into hospital and all the attendant worry that went with that, had seduced her into doing as he’d asked.
Besides, she missed her job. She missed the adrenaline rush and the frantic pace of life. She missed being kept intellectually stretched. She loved her music, and enjoyed the freedom of being able to devote time to it—to help with the foundation her father had set up to give help, tuition and lessons to gifted kids—but she still missed the intellectual rush she had always felt working for Matt.
She’d agreed to work with him, safe in the knowledge that his time in the country would be limited. One week and he’d be off. That had been three days ago and counting.
Admittedly, there was a lot to do. They got stuck in. The very brainy, gifted but juvenile owners of the start-up had to be yanked down to earth at frequent intervals. Their lawyers were all university friends and conversation went off-piste at an alarming rate. Violet, attuned to Matt’s personality, was adept at guessing when he was being pushed to the limits, and she liked being able to step in and defuse potentially awkward situations.
In between all the captivating, time-consuming and thorny issues that had to be untangled, Violet went to see her father. Sometimes Matt came with her and she was ashamed to find that she enjoyed those visits. Her father came alive in Matt’s presence, opening up to his charm and his obvious enthusiasm for the rock history that defined him.
And they’d gone sightseeing. A little, here and there. Perfectly normal—except she was uneasily aware that they weren’t a ‘normal’ couple, taking in the sights.
‘I’m pretty happy to do my own thing,’ he’d shrugged on the first night. ‘I’m staying at one of the Hyatt hotels. There’s a bar. Food will be available. I’m perfectly capable of lending a helping hand to people when it comes to getting them to talk to me.’
Violet could believe that. The man could charm anyone.
She was working with him, quite out of the blue, and that was one thing. It was quite another thing to start socialising with him, but the lines between them were now so blurred. And she was enjoying his company. She had forgotten how witty he could be. She’d not really made any friends out here and it was nice having an escort. One dinner became two, and two merged into three, and she began blanking out the issue of his departure, not wanting to think about it.
It felt good to talk about her dad. When she talked about him, surprisingly she found herself talking about her past, lulled into confidences that would never have happened when she had been working for Matt in London.
‘I like the new Violet Dunn,’ he had murmured the night before when he had seen her to her front door and had been about to take his polite leave, as h
e always did. ‘Long may she live.’ His eyes had rested on her, hooded and lingering, sending a shiver of racing excitement skittering through her.
She hadn’t forgotten that kiss. It was never mentioned. But it had lodged there in her head like a burr, escalating feelings inside her that made her feel as though she were on a rollercoaster ride, soaring up and swooping down so that her stomach was constantly flipping over.
Now at six thirty in the evening, with business finally reaching a satisfactory conclusion and signatures all on paper, they were relaxing in one of the coolest bars in Melbourne. The curved walls were simply bottles of alcohol upon bottles of alcohol on glass shelves, and the lighting was mellow and subdued. They were sitting in two turquoise chairs, facing one another, and as yet the place was uncrowded.
‘You’ve been invaluable.’
Violet blushed. She guiltily thought of all the other non-business entertainment they had enjoyed. At first, it had been hard to overcome her ingrained reticence, but it had been stupidly easy to move on from that place and to start enjoying his company. Way too easy.
‘Thank you,’ she replied huskily, then added tentatively, ‘You were right. It’s done me good. Taken my mind off...everything. And with Dad coming back home tomorrow and in such a good place, thanks to your bracing chats and positive encouragement, well, all told it was a good idea. And I’ve enjoyed getting back into the swing of working to a deadline.’
‘The offer still stands,’ Matt drawled. ‘There’s still work to be done now that the takeover has been completed. It wouldn’t have to be a permanent situation. A few weeks, no more.’
Violet thought of having a link remain between them—exchanging emails, hearing his voice down the end of a line, even if the conversation was work-related.
‘It’s fine.’ She smiled politely and bid a mental farewell to her momentary weakness. She remembered why she had known that walking away would be for the best. She remembered those stirrings of attraction she had felt, the way he had consumed her thoughts.
‘In which case, this...’ he raised his whisky glass in salute ‘...will be our last drink shared. I leave tomorrow. Been here slightly longer than anticipated, but needs must.’
She kept on smiling, but suddenly the bottom of the world had dropped from beneath her. She hated it. Hated the surge of fear that swept over her in a tidal wave. Fear of the void he was going to be leaving behind.
‘Of course. I’m surprised no one’s sent a jet over to ferry you back.’
Matt looked at her steadily, slightly twirling his glass between his fingers.
‘I wouldn’t have taken the ride back,’ he murmured softly.
‘Too much work to get through?’
‘All Work and No Play has always been my motto. The play here has been too enjoyable for me to have accepted an early ferry back to base camp.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You, Violet. I mean you.’
There was a potent, masculine charm he always reserved for women. She had never been in the firing line of that charm. She was now, and she licked her lips, nerves stretched to breaking point. There was no point asking him what he meant because she knew what he meant. She’d known it for a while, had sensed the frisson of electricity between them, had enjoyed it.
‘This is my last night here and I’m going to put all my cards on the table. I want you. I want to go to bed with you.’ He relaxed back in the chair, watching her over the rim of his glass as he sipped the amber liquid. They could have been casually talking about the weather.
‘I...’
‘One night,’ he murmured. ‘And then I’m gone. I don’t want for ever. I don’t even want tomorrow. But tonight... That I do want.’
Violet could hear her heart beating hard like a drum and the blood pounding in her ears.
One night. It was such a tantalising thought.
‘Just tonight,’ she whispered, barely able to meet his eyes.
‘You know I don’t do for ever.’ He paused. ‘I don’t speak that language and I never will. No permanence, no cosy family life, no pitter-patter of tiny feet.’ He had a rare moment of introspection, thinking of his own dysfunctional family life, of his parents, uniting two wealthy families, a complicated union involving assets and holdings. His father’s grand country estate had needed his mother’s lavish wealth. He had brought class to the table and she had brought hard cash. A perfect union on paper, but in practice, as he had grown from boy to man, what he had seen was the reality of a loveless marriage, and how a loveless marriage made for an unloved child.
‘He’ll never take over the estate,’ his father had once said. Standing outside the formal living room, the fourteen-year-old Matt had paused and listened, every muscle in his body tensing at the dismissive tone of his father’s voice. He had heard the clinking of glasses as they had drunk the sherry they always drank at exactly the same time very evening, brought to them by the butler.
‘The boy doesn’t want to have anything to do with the land. Might just as well not have had the little blighter for all the good he will do when it comes to perpetuating this legacy. Bloody disappointment.’
He’d wondered then whether his cold, silent parents would have stayed together had they never had him. Would they have gone their separate ways and searched for more than life had dished out for them? He hadn’t stayed to hear his mother’s response but something inside, already toughened over the years, had crystallised into ice.
If his parents were what marriage was all about, then he would always be better off without it. Sure, he knew that there were families out there who interacted and looked out for one another, but he’d never had that. Not only had he come to the conclusion that that sort of emotion was beyond his remit, but it was something he had no intention of seeking out. He’d stopped looking for parental approval, even though the search had pretty much ended long before then, and had devoted his life to doing what he loved and what he was good at. The land and the estate could go to any one of his useless cousins. He didn’t give a damn.
Hell, where had that come from? Frowning, he slammed the door shut on memories he had little time for. He’d moved on from there.
‘Sex, Violet,’ he said roughly. ‘One night. I want to make your body sing.’
She wasn’t aware of nodding. This wasn’t romance. What it was, was irresistible. Fantasy could become reality, a few hours of stolen bliss. How could she refuse? The prospect of playing with fire had never felt so good. She was barely aware of finishing her drink and making her way back with him to the house. She was a different person and everything around her was different. Somehow altered.
Everything changed when they were standing outside her front door. Outside, night was a black velvet throw covering the world, capturing them in a bubble of heightened intimacy.
The trip back to the house had been a silent one, charged with anticipation. They had held hands in the taxi and Violet had felt sick with excitement. Now there was a thrilling urgency as he nudged open the front door with his foot and, before they could step inside the house and into a bedroom, he swept her into his arms and kissed her. A long, hungry, demanding crush of mouth on mouth.
She reached up and curved her hands around his neck. He was forbidden territory... She shouldn’t be doing this, but then hard on the heels of that thought came another—she no longer worked for him—and, just like that, freed from the captivity of being his employee, and suffused with release from the tension that had gripped her ever since her father had been rushed to hospital, she freely gave herself to the thrill of the unknown.
He swept her up in his arms and began searching for a bedroom, heading up the stairs and pausing only to peer briefly into the rooms he walked past until he landed on hers.
He didn’t bother switching on any lights, but the curtains were pulled back and the moon was sending slivers of silver into the bedr
oom.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ Violet thought out loud. She looked around at the familiarity of the room she had made her own since moving to Melbourne. She had brought over her most treasured score sheets and recordings of her favourite classical tracks, some by obscure but brilliant pianists. Aside from a handful of personal touches, the room was anodyne—pale-grey walls, a mirrored dressing table and cool, high-gloss fitted furniture.
‘No? I thought it was pretty obvious over the past few days where I stood on the subject of wanting you...’
He had lowered her and now they stood, facing one another in the darkened room.
‘It feels like we’re breaking all the rules. I’m hardly your type. You shouldn’t be wanting this.’ She thought of the blondes who cluttered his life and she thought of herself, so serious, so adamant that there was no room in her life for a guy like Matt Falconer.
‘Here’s what I don’t want,’ Matt responded gruffly. ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to take advantage of you because you’re in a vulnerable place right now. That’s what I don’t want.’
‘That didn’t even cross my mind.’
‘Good. And don’t think that I don’t fancy you. Trust me, I’ve never wanted someone more.’ He guided her hand to his erection and Violet nearly passed out from the surge of terrifying, overwhelming craving that rolled through her like a tsunami, inexorably obliterating every single shred of doubt in its path.
He was so hard beneath the jeans and she was wet between her legs, hot, wet and aching for him.
And scared as well.
Scared because she had never done this before...and her inexperience was like a weight on her shoulders, stifling her desire.
She placed flat hands against his chest and breathed in deeply. She was shaking as she found herself propelled back towards the bed and, when her knees hit the side of the mattress, she sank down with relief and he sat next to her.
His Secretary's Nine-Month Notice (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 8