The three partners who had obviously been aware of Dell’s relationships with the secretaries glared at him, but the others looked interested, and Felix thought they were probably well aware of the failure of the branch to meet its overheads. “What would you suggest to rectify this?” asked one of the slightly younger men.
“A radical overhaul,” Felix said. “Either a redecoration of the offices or a move to a new building. A slash in the expense accounts. A complete renovation of the secretarial system to keep things as digital as possible. And someone at the helm who’s prepared to accept that women form half of the population and therefore should represent as near that percentage as possible at the higher levels.” A couple of the partners nodded, and he let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.
“Do you have anyone in mind to carry out these renovations?” Jack’s voice dripped with sarcasm, as if he expected Felix to put himself forward for the role.
Felix nodded. “I believe Rob Drake would make an excellent partner and business manager for the firm.” Rob looked startled. “He’s astute and forward thinking, flexible and motivated. I also think Miss Stark would be an excellent choice to carry out the move to digital.” It wasn’t false praise, nor an attempt to get back into her good books—he was aware that bird had long since flown. But it was the truth. She was smart and not averse to technology, and he knew instinctively she’d enjoy taking on the task.
Christopher nodded. “Thank you, Felix. If I may now ask everyone who isn’t a partner to leave the room, we’ll discuss the situation and let you know our thoughts.”
Felix picked up his iPad and headed for the door. He held it open for Rob, and then for Coco, who walked past without looking up at him.
He closed the door behind him. “Coco, wait.” She ignored him and walked off. He strode past Rob to her and caught her arm. “Please.”
She stopped and turned to him, eyes blazing, twin spots of scarlet on her cheekbones. “Let me go.”
He released her arm. “Don’t be angry with me.”
“I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “He deserved to be punished, and you’ve practically said I and all the women he treated like shit deserved it.”
He caught her arm again and manoeuvred her into the smaller boardroom next door, casting an apologetic glance at Rob, who just nodded and closed the door behind them. She ripped her arm away, but to his relief she remained in the room, even though her eyes blazed.
“That’s bullshit,” he said. “Nobody thinks that at all.”
“You don’t know that.” Now she looked upset and close to tears. “They all know you were talking about me, and now they think I asked for it—either that or I’m weak because I didn’t complain. You’ve undermined the reputation I spent years building up.”
“Coco, for God’s sake.” Please don’t let that be true. “One or two of them might be sympathetic to Dell but the majority had no idea what was going on, I could tell by their faces.”
She looked into his eyes, hurt glimmering in their depths. “I really thought you had feelings for me.”
“I do. You know I do. But this wasn’t about us. I couldn’t find Dell guilty just because I was in love with his office manager and I felt sorry for her.”
She stared at him, and he realised it was the first time he’d said he loved her.
Then she shook her head as if dismissing the point. “Of course it was about us. You knew about all his other conquests and what he’d done to me. It was the perfect opportunity to make him pay, but obviously your feelings weren’t strong enough to give you the courage to go through with it.”
Irritation rose inside him. “That’s unfair. Sasha lied, Coco. Whatever Dell has done in the past, I couldn’t let her get away with such an untruth. And when it comes down to it, Dell hasn’t done anything legally wrong. Morally—yes. He’s an adulterer and he obviously uses his position of authority to charm women into sleeping with him. But that’s not a crime, sweetheart. I understand your resentment toward him because I feel the same, but I can’t punish a man just because I dislike him.”
She bit her lip. Her shoulders slumped. She understood, he thought. She wasn’t stupid and she knew he couldn’t have gone against his conscience. That wasn’t what this was about. This was about the fact that he was leaving, and neither of them wanted to end it, but they couldn’t see a way out.
“Forget it,” she said tiredly. “It’s too late to do anything about it now. It’s done and dusted.” She gave him a brief, sad smile. “I had a good time with you, and I’m sorry it had to end this way. I wish you all the best for the future—I’m sure you’ll be a big star, Mr. Hotshot.”
He stared at her, his stomach knotted. I love you. He wanted to say the words, but what was the point in delaying the inevitable?
Their eyes met, and he had a flash of memory, of her naked in his arms in the heat of passion, so passionate, so different from the cold woman standing before him now. And then Coco was gone and only Miss Stark remained, stiff, unyielding and hard.
She turned and walked out of the door, and he didn’t bother to stop her.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Coco sat on the bench overlooking the harbour and tipped her face up to the sun. There were only two days until Christmas, and the weather had warmed significantly over the past week. She wore a thin orange sundress and sandals, and although her hair wasn’t in its usual bun, she’d still looped it up with a clip, finding the weather too hot to wear it loose around her neck.
It was still relatively early on Friday morning, not even ten o’clock, but usually she would have been at work several hours by now, already dealing with phone calls and customers and sorting out disputes amongst employees. For the past few days, however, since the hearing, she’d been on vacation, unable to summon the energy or the enthusiasm to return to work.
Of course she knew she’d have to go back eventually—she couldn’t afford not to work. But she’d needed time to process the events of the previous weeks, and Christopher McAllister had somehow recognised this and granted her a week’s holiday.
She’d thought she’d take the time to think things through, to purposefully process the sequence of events and their outcome, but in the end she’d just spent the time being, drinking coffee and walking, her mind filled with memories of her time with Felix, her heart filled with sadness that he’d gone and the knowledge that she’d probably never see him again.
Eleanor hadn’t mentioned moving out again since he left, and Coco was relieved, knowing that her mother saw her unhappiness and recognised that she couldn’t deal with that particular problem at the moment.
Amy had returned from her holiday, heard about all the drama of the previous week at work, demanded to know what had been going on, and then had to deal with a sobbing Coco as it all came spilling out—what had happened when she was seventeen, the time she’d spent with Felix and how she felt about him, and what had happened after the hearing in the boardroom.
Basically, Christopher and the other partners had agreed with Felix’s suggestion that Sasha be offered a position in another department, but she’d handed in her resignation immediately and left the same day, and they’d let her go without working her notice, glad to see the back of her.
What to do with Peter Dell and the Wellington branch had proved a trickier problem. On the surface, Peter had been exonerated and therefore the reputation of the company was safe. However, Rob Drake rang her at home on the Monday evening to say that Christopher had announced that at the end of a decent period of time—maybe three months—he expected Peter to announce he was taking early retirement, and someone else would take over as head of the Wellington office.
The victory had tasted sour in Coco’s mouth. She was glad he’d finally got his comeuppance, but it was a weak triumph—his transgressions would be swept under the carpet, and he was a rich enough man to be able to live a life of luxury until the day he died.
“I suppose the problem is th
at he didn’t actually do anything legally wrong,” Amy had said to her. “Many men wouldn’t turn down sex if it was handed to them on a plate, and it sounds like everyone who had an affair with him went willingly.”
Coco had had no reply to that. Amy’s comment had stung, because she knew it could relate to her relationship with Felix, too. She’d handed herself on a plate to a young, virile, single male—of course he was going to say yes! No doubt he’d seen her claim of being sexually inexperienced as a challenge. What a boost to his ego to teach her the ways of love. Yes, he’d said he’d fallen in love with her, and she knew it was unfair to blame him for not finding Dell guilty just to please her, but ultimately she didn’t know whether she could believe him. If he’d loved her, wouldn’t he have found a way for them to be together?
Then she’d cried again, because she knew it was wrong to blame him for what had happened between them. He’d flown back to Auckland the afternoon after he delivered his findings, clearly unwilling to stay there once the deed was done. His career was in Auckland and her mother was in Wellington, and nobody could be blamed for that. It was unfortunate, as well as magical, the way they’d felt about each other after such a brief time, and all she could do was treasure those memories and be glad that she’d experienced real love, even though it had been so brief.
She closed her eyes and let the sun warm her lids. She’d cried so much over the past few days, she hadn’t thought there were any tears left, but they still threatened to fall.
The bench she was sitting on creaked as someone sat beside her, and she cursed under her breath. The quay was practically empty and there were a dozen benches along the path—couldn’t the person have picked somewhere else to sit?
She opened her eyes to see whether an impatient glare would send the person on their way, and then stared.
It was Felix, sitting there with one arm hooked over the back of the seat, watching her.
Her heart banged against her ribs and she couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath and the “Oh!” of surprise spilling from her lips.
His warm brown eyes surveyed her. “Hey.”
She scrambled to gather her wits and sat up straighter, blinking against the bright sunlight. “Hey.”
For a moment, his gaze moved across her with a gentle caress that took her breath away, and then he looked out to sea, watching the gannets diving into the waves to emerge with fish in their beaks.
She supposed she should be angry, or resentful, or feel something negative at the thought that she’d been trying to move on and now he’d upset the applecart of her emotions once again, but all she could summon was a flood of relief and pleasure at the sight of him. He looked young and hot in his Levis and an open-necked white shirt, his dark hair more ruffled than usual, as if he’d spent a while running his hands through it. The thought that maybe he was more nervous than he looked at seeing her again gave her courage to ask, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” His gaze came back to her. He still didn’t smile.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I went to your house. Your mum said you’d been walking a lot lately.” Emotion flickered in his eyes, but it was gone before she could catch it.
They sat silently for a while. It was as if there was so much to say, they didn’t know where to start. Coco watched the waves, then risked a glimpse back at him. He continued to look at her, thoughtful and serious, and she could tell by the way he moved a hand down his shirt from button to button as if checking they were all done up that he was on autopilot, thinking about what to say.
In the end, however, all he said was, “Nice to be out in the old currant bun, eh?”
“I’m guessing you mean the sun.” She smiled wryly. “Enough of the small talk. Felix, for God’s sake. Spit it out.”
That made the corner of his mouth quirk up. “Yes, Miss Stark.”
She laughed and looked down at the floor. “Miss Stark’s gone for good, I’m afraid. Somehow half the staff knows my nickname’s Coco now, and I think the partners look at me quite differently now they see me as a real person and not as the Dragon.”
His smile faded. “I’m sorry for any part I’ve played in that.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. You were right. We were all stuck in the Stone Age there. Something had to change.”
“Yeah,” he said. “About that.”
She looked up at him. “What?”
“I have a proposition for you.”
Coco’s eyes widened and her heart pounded.
That made Felix grin. “Actually I wasn’t referring to that kind of proposition—yet. It’s about McAllister Dell.”
She blinked and struggled to concentrate, her head spinning at his use of the word yet. “What do you mean?”
He sighed and looked out to sea again. “I flew home on Monday. I was like a bear with a sore head for the rest of the day, and the whole of Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, I finally admitted why to myself.” His gaze came back to her. “I missed you.”
She held her breath. “Oh.”
He studied her mouth for a moment, making her moisten her lips nervously, and then he watched the waves again. “While I was in Wellington, I kept telling myself it was ridiculous to jack in my whole career for a girl I’d only known for a week. Obviously I was infatuated—I had a teenage-style crush. It was the only explanation. I couldn’t possibly be in love after such a short time.”
Her heart pounded, but she made herself sit still and listen.
“And I realised,” he continued, “that even if it was only an infatuation, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t or couldn’t develop into something more.” He looked back at her again, and this time turned on the bench to face her, his face intense with his need to make her understand. “I haven’t felt this way about anyone else since Lindsey. I loved her, and I thought I’d never feel that way about a girl ever again, but when I look at you…” He reached out a hand and brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. “It feels as if something’s moving beneath my feet, as if tectonic plates are shifting.”
“The earth moved for me too,” she said breathlessly, then cursed herself for sounding glib.
But he just smiled. “I know. And that made me decide—I had to do something, to give us a chance. I had to make a gesture to show you how serious I was about you—to show you that I thought we could work. So I went in to see Christopher, and I handed in my resignation.”
Coco stared at him in horror. “Felix, no!”
He held up a hand. “Hold on. I was fully prepared to leave there and then, but he made me sit down. We talked for ages. I ended up telling him everything, about Lindsey, about you… And he understood. Coco, he knew all about Peter. I don’t think he knew about the two of you, but he certainly knew what Peter was like. That was why he asked me to investigate him. He wanted Peter to be found guilty.”
His lips twisted in a wry smile. “He didn’t bank on the fact that I’d find him innocent. He’d assumed Dell had sexually harassed Sasha and that I’d come to that conclusion. I think I made things more difficult by deciding he hadn’t done it. But the outcome was that the rest of the board decided to force him to take early retirement, and even though Peter kind of gets away with it, at least it means the company saves face.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“But he had an offer for me. Coco, he wants me to move to Wellington. Four older partners are also taking early retirement, including Jack Lawson. The board have agreed to make Rob Drake and me partners, and they want us to co-manage the Wellington branch and drag its sorry arse into the twenty-first century. We’re to have a budget to redecorate it however we see fit. And they want you to help us digitalise everything and make it into a proper modern office.”
She stared at him, her head spinning. “Jesus.”
“I know. He’s going to speak to you about it when you return to work.”
She shook her head, amazed at th
e turn of events. “What do you think?”
“I’m flattered, of course. It would be an exciting challenge.” He leaned forward and took her hand. “But that’s why I’m here. I said I had to talk to you first.”
Her mouth had gone dry, and she swallowed several times, trying to concentrate on what he’d said. But her mind just kept coming back to the fact that he’d said he was moving to Wellington. “What do you need to talk to me about?”
A look of impatient amusement crossed his face. “Honey, Wellington is your home. You practically run the branch as it is on your own. I’m not going to march into the city and just take over. You’ve got to want it too.”
Was he asking her permission to take the job? Was that all?
“That’s not all,” he said as if reading her mind. He bent his head and kissed her fingers. “I like my job. I’m happy at Auckland. My making partner isn’t reliant on moving here. The new job would be fun, but, sweetheart, that wouldn’t be why I’d move here. Part of the reason Christopher offered me the job was because you’re here. I’d move here to be with you.”
“With me?” She blinked stupidly. “At work?”
“Coco…” He sighed. Then, as if deciding words weren’t going to work, he pulled her into his arms and lowered his lips to hers.
She warmed from the top of her head to the tips of her toes as his lips moved across hers tenderly, then more passionately as she responded, and when her mouth opened and his tongue brushed against her own, the heat kindled between them as quickly as if they’d never been apart. By the time they pulled apart, they were both breathing heavily.
Five Exotic Fantasies: Love in Reverse, Book 3 Page 32