Why wasn’t she dressed? It was the middle of the morning! He ran up the remaining stairs and paused in front of her, taking her in with one brief glance before letting his eyes drift to the small hallway behind her.
‘What are you doing here?’ She repeated the question, this time with a slight frown of puzzlement in her voice.
‘Files.’ He held out one hand and the convenient excuse he had brought with him.
‘Couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow?’
‘You might not be in tomorrow. You might be worse, and there’s no point asking anyone else to handle this. You have all the information. Perhaps I had better come in.’ His hand snaked out to rest on the door, which, he couldn’t fail to notice, had only been partially opened. Lucy had not expected him and she certainly did not want him to enter her flat. With grim determination he brought a little more pressure to bear on the door.
‘I really don’t feel very well, Nick…’
‘And you might well be worse tomorrow, like I said. At any rate, you can take your time with these. And it might be helpful having someone around if you’re not well. To fetch and carry.’
‘To fetch and carry what?’
‘Cups of tea.’ He shrugged impatiently. ‘Sandwiches. Bowls of soup.’
Lucy skitted a glance over her shoulder. The last thing she needed was Nick Constantinou in her flat, filling it with his domineering masculine presence. But he wasn’t going to go away and she was in no mood to prolong the debate, dressed as she was in a bathrobe with absolutely nothing underneath.
‘I’ll take the files.’
‘Wish I could just hand them over, but there are one or two things I need to go through with you.’
Lucy all but groaned in despair as he pushed back the door and swept past her into the flat, his quick, dark eyes darting around him, taking in the small dining and sitting room to the right and the spacious bathroom to the left, the door of which was slightly ajar. Thank God she had had the wit to close her bedroom door. It was her private space—and the thought of those shrewd eyes taking in the crumpled bed and her other personal belongings made her feel ill.
‘I’ll make you a quick cup of coffee,’ she suggested, reluctantly shutting the door behind her and following him to the kitchen, which he proceeded to inspect in depth.
Nick swung round to look at her, his eyes narrowing. The bedroom door had been shut. Purposefully? he wondered.
‘No, no. You sit and let me make the coffee.’
‘You don’t know where anything is.’
‘I doubt I will need a map to find anything in here,’ he commented drily. ‘Whoever designed this flat could not have made a kitchen any smaller if they had tried.’
‘It’s perfectly fine for me!’
‘How is it that you cannot afford anything better when you are paid so well?’ he asked bluntly, and Lucy flushed, seeing the flat through his discriminating eyes. The kitchen was poky, with a small table, big enough for two at a push, squashed against one wall. The fridge was small enough to be virtually useless and the paint on the cupboards, as on the walls, was grimy and in dire need of a coat of paint.
‘I’m saving up to buy a place of my own,’ Lucy mumbled. Of course, there would be no need if she accepted Robert’s proposal. He had already called her and, having clucked sympathetically down the line for a few minutes, gently asked her if she was remembering to give his offer some thought.
‘Well, sit down. You are not well.’ He felt an uncomfortable twinge of guilt that his words of commiseration were utterly meaningless in the face of his behaviour, namely showing up unannounced on her doorstep on the pretext of having to give her work to do when he knew full well that every single item of so-called pressing importance he had brought with him could happily wait.
‘No…I…I’ll just go and change into something…else. The coffee’s in the cupboard, the milk’s in the fridge and the kettle usually works, although it can be a little eccentric at times.’
She fled. This was the first time he had ever been to her flat and she didn’t like it. It was as intensely and painfully disconcerting as it had been on the dance floor, when his arms had been wrapped around her and the heat from his body had seemed to fuse with hers.
She kept her robe on for as long as possible while she rummaged in a drawer for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
She would just have to get rid of him quickly—and not because she was feeling under the weather. In fact, she was too aware of him to feel ill. She would just flick through the files, take a few notes and show him to the door. It was her flat, after all, and if she told him to leave then what choice did he have?
She dressed quickly, and just as she opened her bedroom door she was alarmed to find Nick standing just the other side of it.
He had had to follow her, to get a glimpse of what she was concealing behind the closed bedroom door. He could feel her frisson of shock as he took two easy steps into the room, his eyes drawn to her breasts rising and falling as she breathed quickly in dismay.
‘Please go back into the living room.’ Her voice was muffled but imperious enough to halt him in his tracks. When she turned around to look at him her cheeks were bright red.
‘Now!’
Ignoring her order for him to leave, he strolled further into the room so that he could check all possible hiding places. There weren’t many. The bedroom was only marginally bigger than the kitchen, with a double bed consuming most of the free space and what was left divided equally into battered dressing table and an ancient two-door wardrobe. There was just enough room for a small circular rug next to the bed and space sufficient to weave a path of sorts from one item of furniture to another.
‘I’m already dressed and ready,’ Lucy informed him through gritted teeth. ‘So if you don’t mind…’
‘Of course.’ He shot her a lazy smile and stuck his hands in his pockets. So small, so cute and so immensely flustered by his presence. He doubted Robert could do that to her, for all that she had said in the past about her attraction to nice, reliable, predictable, dull men.
He was waiting for her in the tiny living room when she emerged a few minutes later, her colour back to normal.
‘You do look a bit peaky,’ he commented, indicating her cup of coffee with one finger and waiting until she had perched herself on the sofa next to him.
He would have to take things slowly. No fast moves, no obvious indication of underhand motives. The dull dissatisfaction that had been plaguing him for the past eight months had lifted and now all he could feel was the tantalising thrill of the chase, a gut-deep craving to have her again.
‘Right.’ He leant towards the table to rest his cup on some free space, brushing her thigh with his in passing. ‘The files. Just three of them, but the Rawlings one is the most urgent.’
‘What was the outcome of your meeting yesterday?’ Lucy asked, edging slightly away from him. She was finding it hard to focus. Had he been about to barge into her room? She had been in such a panicked frame of mind, having him invade the privacy of her small flat, that her thoughts had been whirling and it was quite possible that he had knocked and she just hadn’t heard. And, in all fairness, he had not seemed the slightest bit disconcerted by her response. He certainly hadn’t displayed any signs of being sexually aware of her.
Thank goodness, she thought, frowning at the papers in front of her and trying to ignore the chemistry emanating from the man sitting inches away from her.
‘Tried phoning the damned man,’ Nick grated, ‘who was unavailable, as usual. But I did speak to his underling and, from what we gather, there seems to be certain discrepancies with the allocation of money. Business has been pretty healthy so where the hell is the money going?’
He reached for his cup and then sat back against the sofa so that he could watch her as she flicked through the pile of letters in the file.
‘Embezzlement?’
‘Distasteful thought but it very well could be.’
‘What will you do about it?’ With her elbows on her thighs, Lucy turned her head to look at him.
‘Get proof and then have him sacked if that’s the case.’ His black eyes were brooding as they met hers and Lucy hurriedly looked away.
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘We need to work on a letter that’s cleverly phrased. Nothing threatening, but enough for Rawlings to know that we’re on his back now and we’re not going to get off until we have answers.’ His eyes drifted to the vulnerable nape of her neck. With just the smallest of efforts he could have reached out and grasped it and drawn her against him so that he could taste the delicate contours of her face. Her T-shirt camouflaged the curve of her breasts but his imagination, he found, could easily supply the missing details. The thought of large, rosy nipples made him harden in dramatic response. God, he would have to drive back to his place once he left here and have a cold shower before he went back into the office.
‘If he’s embezzling money,’ Nick continued, every word perfectly assured although his mind had taken flight and was basking in the giddy anticipation of cupping those breasts, licking them, feeling her writhe with pleasure, ‘we do not want to frighten him away. We want to catch him with his hand in the till. Tell me your suggestions.’
She had a beautiful face, a face that had no need for thick make-up. It was expressive and artlessly transparent, and as he sat back and watched her concentrate on the problem he had posed he idly compared it to the faces of the women he had been seeing over the past few months. Not one of those would ever have dreamed of stepping foot out of the house without a full covering of warpaint and at least two would go nowhere near a pool if it entailed getting their faces wet.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’ Nick blinked and realised that she had been asking him something while he had been busy speculating.
‘Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve just said?’ Lucy snapped irritably. ‘You’ve barged in here with armfuls of work, and the least you could do is pay some attention to me when I’m talking to you.’ She scowled, knowing full well what had been going on in that beautiful head of his. Lingering memories of the brunette who had adorned his arm the night before, she thought sourly.
‘Of course I’ve been listening,’ he said irritably, impatient with himself for allowing her innate concentration to drift. He couldn’t carry on for too long playing the waiting game, he decided. He would never get any work done! He dutifully and seriously discussed what she had been talking about, working his way through the letter she had outlined, approving of her ability to be tactful without losing a sense of urgency.
‘The other two files are fairly straightforward,’ Nick said eventually, ‘and, in fact, there is no need to rush and work on either of them.’ He stood up and flexed his powerful body. ‘Will you be all right on your own? I could go and get you something to eat.’ Regrettably he would be unable to join her, enticing though the prospect was. There were only so many meetings he could cancel without his people getting suspicious. Although…
‘Oh, I’ll be absolutely fine,’ Lucy said quickly, firmly squashing even the remote possibility of Nick returning to her flat and this time to share a meal. ‘I’ll do this work and Robert is coming round at four this afternoon.’
Nick’s eyes narrowed and he strolled towards the door, chewing on this little piece of information.
‘Taking valuable time off work?’ He gave a hearty chuckle, his back to her. ‘Must be serious!’
‘Oh, yes,’ Lucy said spontaneously, frowning at the thought that Robert would resume his gentle persuasion in the direction he wanted to lead her. ‘He’s asked me to marry him.’
CHAPTER FIVE
NICK was waiting for her the following morning. In fact, he had been sitting in his office since six-thirty that morning and had managed to complete a staggeringly negligible amount of work. He had printed out reams of pressing e-mails and they stared accusingly from the corner of his desk.
She was in his head. He couldn’t quite understand why but assumed that it was because she was the one to have been there when he had most needed someone. He had been shattered on the night of the funeral, torn apart by guilt, rage and regret for a wasted life, and drowning in the fickle arms of alcohol, and she had been the one to take him in, to provide the comfort he had desperately needed.
All the women who had followed in his futile search for some kind of fulfilment had only served to remind him of the emptiness of relationships.
Was that what was driving him now? Some crazy desire to recreate the solace he had found with her? Or had she simply become a challenge which had been lurking there for months and which he had only recently acknowledged?
It didn’t matter.
He just knew that when she had informed him that Robert had proposed to her he had felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. And Nick Constantinou did not take kindly to being punched in the gut. What red-blooded man did?
He glanced at his watch and then tensed as he became aware of her opening the outer office door.
He had kept his interconnecting door closed, all the better to get his self-composure fully in place before he said what he had to say.
By the time she knocked on his door, he was ready.
‘How are you feeling? Better?’
‘Much better.’ She smiled sheepishly. ‘I thought I was coming down with some kind of bug, but I think I may just have had too much to drink the night before, hence the aching limbs and screaming headache. I’m not accustomed to alcohol.’ She paused. ‘Would you like me to bring you in some coffee? By the way, I’ve managed to go through all those files after all.’ She took a few steps into his office and handed him the lot. ‘Shall I fax the letter to Joe Rawlings or do you want me to e-mail it to him?’
‘Yes, bring me in a cup of coffee. We’ll discuss Rawlings when you come in.’
He watched, sitting back in his swivel chair, as she departed his office and wondered what her reaction was going to be to what he had to say. Then he smiled lazily. He had been thrown by her shocking news that Robert had proposed but had noticed that there was no engagement ring on her finger. He had spent a restless night trying to tie things up in his mind, and at least on this count he figured he had fitted all the pieces together.
He had proposed and she had told him that she would think about it, that she needed time. Hence his overheard remark about her being sensible. He, Nick figured, was keener on putting the gold band on her finger than she was. He hoped for a celebration; she, however, still hadn’t made up her mind.
He was still smiling when she walked back into his office a few minutes later, primed with her notepad and her most severely businesslike expression.
‘Close the door, would you?’
‘I thought,’ Lucy said, sitting down and crossing her legs primly, ‘I might begin work on the end-of-month accounts once I’ve done all the usual jobs. Also, on my way in, Ann in Accounts Receivable told me that two of her girls have gone down with flu and she’s asked whether she can call a temp agency for them to send someone along to cover for a couple of days. I thought, though, that I might lend a hand down there if it’s all right with you.’
‘No.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No, it is not all right with me.’ He leaned forward, joining the tips of his fingers at his chin and regarded her for a few long, thoughtful moments.
‘Oh.’ Something about his focused silence made the hairs on the back of her neck stand uneasily on end, and she licked her lips nervously. ‘May I ask why?’
‘Because as of tomorrow you will not be here to lend a hand to anyone.’
The unexpectedness of his flat statement made her mouth drop open in surprise, and then she was besieged by frantic thoughts as she wondered what she had done or said to have warranted being sacked. Because that was what he was saying, wasn’t it?
It suddenly occurred to her how much this job meant to her. She
might have kidded herself that she could walk away from it without blinking an eye, but, faced with the reality of doing just that, she realised that she needed this stability. It wasn’t just the pay. It was being with him, filling herself with his life force even though she knew that it was wrong and stupid.
‘You’re firing me,’ Lucy said numbly. ‘Can I ask why?’
Nick shot her a surprised look. ‘Firing you? What on earth are you talking about?’
Relief washed over her like a tidal wave.
‘I assumed… I thought…’ she faltered.
‘You assumed and thought wrong. I have no intention of firing you. Just the opposite. You are to accompany me on a one-week trip to the Tradewinds. If Rawlings wants to try and avoid me, then he is going to have a hard time of it when we show up on the doorstep tomorrow.’ It hadn’t taken Nick long to arrive at that plan. In fact, it had been staring him in the face. The Tradewinds needed sorting out on a face-to-face basis, and he needed to get her out of London, away from the possibility that she might be idiotic enough to accept that man’s proposal when marrying him would do her no good at all. He had no idea how he knew that, he just did, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he wanted her in his bed.
‘Tomorrow?’ Lucy squeaked. ‘But…’
‘I know, I know. You think that there is no way that we could possibly get out there that quickly, but I have a number of connections. We will fly to Barbados and then we can reach the island by a combination of small plane and boat. It will be a long journey, granted, but…’ he mused on the irony of what he was about to say next ‘…worth it.’
‘Actually, I was more thinking that there’s no way I can just up sticks and leave without a minute’s notice.’
‘You have a passport, do you not?’
‘Yes, of course I do, but…’
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