by Trish Morey
But Sam might.
When the masks had come off he was sure he’d seen Sam dressed up as a nun. There’d been a nun in the group where he’d first seen the woman standing. He might know. And if Sam didn’t someone else had to. She’d been there for hours waiting for him to return. Someone had to have spoken to her, someone had to know who she was.
‘Sam,’ he said, adding a smile for good measure. ‘Did you have a good time on Saturday night?’
Sam chortled and sat up, eager to please. ‘A great time. Wonderful party. Just wonderful. The staff are very grateful to you—’
Damien held up one hand. ‘Good, that’s fine. But I wonder if you can help me with something.’
‘Anything—name it.’
‘Only there’s someone there I meant to catch up with before the end but I missed her. She was dressed up as Cleopatra. Dark hair, white gown—sound familiar at all?’
‘Too right, she does,’ said Sam enthusiastically before he suddenly frowned. ‘Not sure where she got to, actually—one moment she was there and the next—poof—she was gone.’
Damien felt his pulse kick up. He was on the trail. Hot on the trail. She wouldn’t stay out of his clutches for long. ‘And her name,’ he prompted. ‘Can you tell me her name?’
Sam thought for a moment. ‘She did tell me.’ He looked ceilingwards and scratched his chin while Damien resisted the urge to slam his fist into it. If he thought it would jog his memory the fist would have won hands down.
‘Oh, that’s it. I remember now.’ Sam looked triumphant. Damien tried to remain seated.
‘And?’
‘Marie, from the Sydney office I think she said. Didn’t catch a surname. She was a little bit wary of going in—must have been off-putting, not knowing anybody at one of those things. Awkward when you hardly know a soul. She came in with us but then we lost contact with her.’ He frowned, contemplating his nails. ‘Wonder where she got to?’
Damien knew something of where she’d disappeared to. He’d asked her to dance and at first she’d seemed reluctant but then something had changed and she’d moved like warm chocolate in his arms—soft, luscious and ready to be consumed.
Very ready as it later turned out when he’d returned from his calls. She’d waited for him for way longer than what he’d promised. But she’d waited for him as if she could no sooner forsake the hope he’d return than he could abandon the absolute necessity to get back to her.
Then she’d fallen into his arms and the tension had built between them again. The trek to the boardroom had been an exercise in restraint but he’d made it and she was every bit a willing partner when they’d got there. More than willing, he recalled, as she’d practically invited him to enter her. And he had.
It had been like a dream. The sex had been everything he’d anticipated with the promise of more, even more mind-blowing. And then she’d gone and his evening had turned into a nightmare.
Sam continued to prattle on, openly contemplating where Marie might have gone. Damien ignored him, diving instead for his internal phone directory, scouring the lists. The Sydney office wasn’t large and the name didn’t ring any bells but the way this company was growing there was no way he could keep up with all the new staff.
He made one unsuccessful pass through. No luck. Too fast, he decided, and set his eyes to something less than warp speed as he scanned the lists.
No Marie!
He picked up the phone, oblivious to the stream of consciousness coming from Sam’s direction. ‘Enid,’ he snapped as soon as she answered, ‘have we taken on anyone recently in the Sydney office called Marie? There’s no one on the phone lists.’
He waited the few seconds while Enid responded in the negative before then throwing the phone down in disgust.
‘Are you sure it was Marie?’
‘What? Oh, er…’ Sam thought for a moment before nodding his head. ‘Pretty sure. I tend to take more notice of what people say when they’re such stunners, if you get my drift.’
Damien sent him a look that would curdle milk and watched Sam shrink down in his chair with some satisfaction. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the thought that every other man in the room had felt the same powerful attraction to his mystery woman. ‘No, I’m not sure I do.’
But what Sam had said bothered him. His mystery woman had chosen a fake name to go with her fake outfit. Now how was he going to find her?
It had to be someone who worked in the company. One of maybe three hundred women. Half of them he could write off as being too old, a good percentage of those left didn’t have the same kind of head turning figure. There couldn’t be more than one hundred who’d qualify. He’d find her, whatever it took. And when he found her…
A tap at the door shifted his attention from Sam.
‘You wanted to see me?’
Miss Brown Mouse stood at the door, looking even more timid than her creature companion as her eyes scampered around the room, settling finally somewhere near Sam.
‘Ms Summers,’ Damien said, turning his mind back to business. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. Come in.’
She took tentative mouse steps across the room, finally lowering herself into a vacant chair alongside Sam. She was wearing the same brown jacket as the first time he’d met her, but this time with matching trousers. They fitted her better than the skirt; at least they gave some sense that she had legs, decent ones by the look, under all that tweed.
For just a second his gaze narrowed, his thoughts scrambling for sense. Surely she couldn’t be one of the one hundred most likely? He looked to her face, pink and shy, her lips tight and her eyes skittering from side to side.
No, no chance. But she might know who his Cleopatra was. ‘Were you at the ball on the weekend?’
She jumped as if she’d been shot but it was Sam who responded. ‘Philly wasn’t there.’
Damien looked from Sam to Philly. ‘Why was that?’
‘Well, you see,’ she said, licking her lips, not wanting to add lying to her list of transgressions, ‘my mother isn’t well…’
He seemed to think about it for a while and then he nodded.
Philly couldn’t wait to get out of there. She wasn’t sure what had just happened here, but it looked as if she’d managed to survive, her secret identity intact.
‘So,’ she said. ‘If that’s all?’ Her hands were already pushing her up out of the chair.
‘No, that’s not all. Sit down.’
She obeyed him, not because she wanted to, but more to do with the fact that her knees had turned to jelly, the exhilaration at her near escape evaporating.
‘I asked you in here because I need someone to work closely on a new project with me. After that presentation you delivered the other week, I figure you’re just the person for the job so I asked Sam if he could do without you for a few days.’
She looked desperately at the man next to her. Surely he wouldn’t let anyone else get an opportunity this good? ‘And Sam said?’
‘Sam said he couldn’t spare you.’
She let go of a breath she’d been holding. Good old gatekeeper Sam—never let someone else get an opportunity you might want yourself. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad supervisor after all.
‘But I told him he had no choice.’
His words were like a punch to her lungs and she scrambled for air in the wake of his announcement.
‘So it’s all settled.’ He turned to Sam and gave him a brief nod and a look that had him dismissed and heading for the door before Damien turned his focus back on her. ‘Enid will arrange to have your work station things moved up here—there’s a spare office just down the hall. We’ve got three days before we have to be in Queensland for meetings at the Gold Coast. We have to move fast on this. It’s an opportunity too good to miss. Palmcorp is a rapidly growing business whose needs have outstripped their current systems. If we get on the ground floor with this company, it will be worth millions to us.’
‘The Gold Coast,’ she
muttered. With Damien. She gulped. No, that was the last thing she needed. ‘But I can’t…’
He looked up sharply. ‘Can’t what?’
‘I can’t go with you.’
‘What do you mean?’
I don’t want to go with you!
‘Well, for one thing I can’t just up and leave my mother. I told you. She’s ill.’
‘So who looks after her now, while you’re at work?’
‘No one.’ She noticed the victorious look in his eyes, as if he’d just scored a winning goal in the dying minutes of the Aussie Rules football grand final, and she longed to vanquish it, longed to have the umpire declare it a no goal. ‘But I don’t like to leave her alone at night, just the same.’
‘I don’t want anyone else for this presentation. I want you.’
‘Well, you’re just going to have to find someone else. I can’t go. I won’t go.’
‘I see.’
The grinding of his teeth told her he didn’t see at all.
‘And what’s the other reason?’
She looked up, confused. ‘Other reason?’
‘You said before, for one thing you had to look after your mother. What’s the other reason you don’t want to come to Brisbane with me?’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged as she felt the colour and heat flood back to her face. ‘It’s just a… a figure of speech.’
His piercing eyes continued to assess her, as if weighing up her words, stripping right through the layers of her deceit. But he couldn’t see that far. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.
She shrugged. ‘What other reason could there be?’
‘Are you worried I might seduce you? Is that what this is about?’
Her lungs sucked in air like a drowning woman coming up for oxygen.
‘Because, let me assure you, there is no chance of that. Absolutely no chance. This is a business deal. I need your professional help, so if that’s what’s worrying you, forget it. Right now.’
Philly battled to regain her mental balance. There he was trying to put her mind at rest. If only he knew! She could ignore the implication that she wasn’t worth seducing if she didn’t have to explain her real reasons for not wanting to go with him.
‘Of course. That’s what I’d expect.’
‘Good. Now that we’ve established that, once I arrange for round-the-clock nursing for your mother, I take it you’ll have no objections to accompanying me?’
His words were framed as a question but the tone he used made them more like a challenge. She opened her mouth to talk but nothing came out.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That looks like it’s settled then.’
He picked up the phone and started issuing instructions to Enid regarding moving Philly’s office upstairs, arranging their flight bookings and organising a round-the-clock nursing service. She sat there, looking across at him, her blood heating at his complete disrespect of her wishes, not to mention her desires.
She still hadn’t agreed to go with him. How was her mother going to react to having a stranger in the house, even if there was the bonus that she’d have someone to look after her twenty-four hours a day? He hadn’t even given Philly the chance to ask her.
‘How dare you?’ she said, rising to her feet as finally he returned the phone to the cradle. ‘How dare you make arrangements for my family to suit yourself? How would you like it if I went around organising your family, so you could fall in with whatever my plans were?’
He looked up at her, his eyes for once strangely empty.
‘If that pleases you, go right ahead. But you might have some trouble. My whole family was wiped out when I was nine years old.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE words hung between them like lead weights in the still air of the climate-controlled office, the hum of his laptop the only sound.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, standing there awkwardly, unsure whether to stay or leave.
‘Don’t be,’ he said without looking up. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘No, I mean…’ Her hands found each other, together they wrestled for the right words. ‘I mean—’
‘Forget it,’ he said with a sweep of his hand, as if it meant nothing to him. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through today so I suggest you get yourself organised. I want you back here in half an hour so we can get started.’
Fine, she thought, whatever you say, her compassion evaporating at his dry tone. She nodded though she was sure he didn’t notice; his head was already focused on the papers in front of him. She turned to leave.
‘Oh, and Ms Summers—’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have anything to wear that’s not brown?’
Philly looked down at her jacket and trousers. Okay, so what was wrong with her clothes? Maybe the suit didn’t have an expensive label, but it was a good name brand and it had been an absolute bargain, even if the jacket was a size too large.
‘You have a problem with brown?’ She could, of course, tell him she had a little Egyptian number stashed away at home waiting to be returned that was a real crowd pleaser, but somehow she didn’t think that was what he had in mind.
‘This deal’s worth a lot to Delucatek. The people we’ll be dealing with are real high-flyers. We should look the part. Do you have anything suitable?’
Meaning she should look the part. His suit smacked of designer while hers screamed bargain basement. She mentally flicked through her wardrobe’s contents, more spartan than ever after a pre-wedding economy drive. Bryce had been keen to get a property portfolio established between them as soon as possible and she’d been on a strict budget. Of course, she hadn’t realised that at the same time that she was budgeting, he was out splashing everything he could on the other woman, Miss Hot-Property.
All her scrimping hadn’t left much in the way of spending money though, especially for new clothes. Three suits, one tan, one summer-weight beige and the tweed she had on, plus black trousers, assorted blouses and a winter jacket was all that quickly came to mind if she didn’t count one pristine wedding dress still in its cellophane wrapping. She really ought to think about returning that some time. She wouldn’t be using it now.
She could have used her savings to buy new clothes since then, of course. But there was every possibility she’d need all of that and more once her mother got too sick to stay at home.
She was no fool. As much as she wanted to be able to care for her mother, there would come a time when it just wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t be able to be there twenty-four hours a day and she’d need to move somewhere with better care options. And from the enquiries she’d already made, good hospice care didn’t come cheap.
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘What will I need?’
He barely looked up. ‘See Enid later. She’ll have the schedule and you can work out what you have to get and go shopping this afternoon after we’ve worked out a strategy. I’ll arrange an allowance.’
‘Fine,’ she said, feeling totally aggrieved, ramming her glasses up her nose defiantly as she turned on her heel. ‘I just hope it’s enough.’
It was more than enough. Philly surveyed the figure on the letter of authority Enid handed her with shock. Surely someone had made a mistake?
‘I think there’s one too many zeroes,’ she suggested.
Enid glanced over, eyes peering through her bifocals. ‘No, that’s right. Now there are three boutiques listed where this authority is valid. They should be able to supply everything you need. If you have to go elsewhere, keep the receipts and you’ll be reimbursed.’
‘But this is a fortune.’
Enid smiled at the younger woman. ‘He just wants you to look nice. It’s important to him.’
‘It’s important to the deal, more like it,’ she said, certain that nothing Damien thought about her would be personal. It would all relate to business.
The older woman’s head tilted to one side.
‘I think you’ll find he’s right. This deal’s
very important to the company and we have to do everything we can to ensure it comes off. I’m quite sure you’ll feel more confident and more professional with a couple of new outfits and much more capable of holding your own. And I know Damien can seem a little tactless at times. But you mustn’t take it too seriously. He simply hasn’t had the same start most of us have had.’
If Philly hadn’t heard his comment about losing his family earlier, she’d think Enid was mad. The guy was a multimillionaire, for goodness’ sake, and here was someone practically feeling sorry for him.
Could Enid be right? The question plagued Philly’s mind as she spent the next two hours searching for outfits suitable for meetings, possible cocktail parties and flash dinners in boutiques she’d only ever dreamed about entering before.
Was the early tragedy in his life the reason why he was so driven to succeed? So demanding of everyone around him? Was he trying to show the world he could make it on his own? Was that why he rode roughshod over everyone else’s feelings—because his own had been so desperately and critically shattered at such a tender age?
Whoa! Next thing she’d be feeling sorry for him too. She didn’t need that—not with the secret of last Saturday night playing on her mind.
And she couldn’t afford to feel anything for Damien. If he’d thought he was easing her mind by declaring there was no way he’d be tempted to seduce her, he had another think coming.
He’d no doubt thought he was being considerate, allaying a sweet innocent nobody’s fears of seduction at the hands of her boss. When it was already too late for that. Much too late.
All he’d done was insult her. Making love with Cleopatra was one thing but making love with Philly Summers was never going to happen.
How reassuring! He’d made it clear that the man she couldn’t stop fantasising about had her pegged around at the level of the woman least likely. How flattering—and yet here she was, supposed to feel relieved.
And all he’d done was to reinforce her resolve not to reveal her secret. Given his attitude he would be less impressed with the revelation. Clearly he would be embarrassed at the thought—probably even humiliated. Well, she would save them both that. She would forget it had ever happened. He need never know.