by Diana Fraser
He sat back, put his feet on the table and plucked out a file at random.
“My God, but this is tedious work.” He pushed his hands through his hair as he flicked through the proposal with distaste.
“I’ve been through them and indicated whether I thought they were worth considering or not.”
“Really? Ah yes, the tentative tick or cross. Brief, direct, to the point. I like it. No waffling emails to wade through first.”
“Well, I thought it might give you a bit of a steer, save you reading the proposals in great depth.”
“Cassandra.” He put his feet back on the floor and leaned across the table. “Where have you been all my life?”
“Oh please. Let’s just get on.”
He grinned as he sat back to consider the proposal.
“You’re right. It’s rubbish. Tell him ‘no’ and that his proposal is a waste of my time.” He dumped the file into a clear space on the desk.
Cassandra nodded—somehow she didn’t think that would go down a treat with the wealthy businessman who had made the proposal—and made a note to let him down gently.
“Next. No, wait. I can’t be bothered with them. Do the same for all the ones marked ‘x’ and pass the ticked ones on to the legal team. They need to check them out first.”
Well, that was one way to deal with a month’s worth of correspondence.
“OK. We’ve the HR file next.” She swapped over files.
“Right. This job application. We have no jobs and even if we did I wouldn’t give it to him. Tell him he’s a boring bastard who doesn’t deserve a job with my company.”
Cassandra was beginning to see a common theme with his responses—accurate, but lacking finesse.
Cassandra made some notes for a reply to the verbose letter of application, tactfully expressing their hope that the applicant would soon find a job more in line with his personal skills and abilities.
When it came to concerns with his own staff, Dallas took more time. He gave his complete attention to each individual letter ranging from the lowliest employee to the highest: their concerns, their dissatisfactions.
“Tell Pete he’s right—I’ll have the equipment checked first thing Monday—but to stop moaning and get on with it.”
And so they went on, ploughing their way through the mountain of correspondence with Cassandra interpreting Dallas’s terse comments into a response that wouldn’t alienate people. It seemed Dallas had a talent for that.
But it was the last letter of the afternoon that floored her. It was from an employee on maternity leave, thanking Dallas for paying for the care that she required during her risky pregnancy and for the toys he’d given her.
“Tell her—no, well—just say…”
For once he seemed at a loss for words.
“Shall I say that you’re pleased you could help and you’re glad the baby is thriving?”
He nodded. “That’ll do.”
Well, well. This was a new side to his character. Concern not only for his employees but a real sense of caring for a pregnant woman and her baby. Health care maybe—at a stretch—although it was unusual for someone so low in the hierarchy. But toys?
“You seem to find something amusing, Cassandra.” His voice was hard and flat. Her amusement obviously rankled.
“Not really. But I just wondered…”
“Yes?”
“Were they fluffy toys? Bears, pandas? That sort of thing?”
He shot her a warning glance and stood up.
“Soft, cuddly…?” she let her voice trail off as she looked up innocently into his face. He leaned over the desk, his hands planted firmly either side of her.
“Soft, cuddly,” his low tones turned husky as if he were uttering endearments to her, “innocent. They’re all things I appreciate, in others, in their place. But don’t ever mistake me for being these things. There is no place in my life for them. My taste runs hotter than that.” His eyes flicked to her lips before arresting her gaze once more.
His roughened voice and hot gaze bypassed her defenses and triggered a surge of corresponding heat within her. The barriers were down and instinct made her want to keep them down.
“More passionate, perhaps?”
She saw him waver, could sense the struggle between responding to her flirtation and replacing the barrier of professionalism between them. She licked her lips, held his gaze and waited.
He reached over to her, gripped her chin with his fingers, “Don’t mess with me unless you’re prepared for the consequences, Cassandra.”
A blaze of need gnawed in her gut. She knew what he was talking about and it wasn’t business.
“I have no intention of doing anything other than work for you.”
He smiled grimly and released her chin. “Good. So we’re both in agreement—for now. But if you change your mind, let me know. I might be interested.”
Cassandra pressed her eyelids closed with her fingers, astounded by the arrogance of the man. She opened them to find his face closer, his eyes focused on her mouth, his lips near hers. She felt disoriented by his closeness.
“Well, perhaps not as disinterested as you appear, eh?” His eyes were cool and arrogant.
His tone effectively snapped her back to reality. “I am not some easily-impressed young virgin to seduce—”
“Cassandra. I have no illusions on that score. I have safely assumed you left your softer side behind years ago, if you ever had one. And that’s fine because my interest in things soft and cuddly apply only to other people’s children.”
The shock slammed in her gut as his words hit home in a way that he could never have imagined. He was right. That part of her was long gone, lost with her son. She pushed her chair back abruptly and rose to meet him eye to eye.
“We’re two of a kind then. A perfect business arrangement.”
“We’ll see about that. You’ve got a week to prove yourself to me remember.”
“That’s all I’ll need.” I can ruin you in a week, no sweat.
When she turned she saw his sharp gaze upon her. She swallowed down the panic as she realized something in her tone must have revealed the double entendre of her words.
“Umm, one week. I can’t help feeling it will be an interesting one.”
It was only after he’d swung the door closed behind him that she exhaled shakily. She had to be careful.
Cassandra ate alone.
She’d accompanied Dallas back in the helicopter but might just as well have been alone for all the conversation they’d had. He definitely seemed to be avoiding engaging with her at any level.
She didn’t need his attentions, she told herself firmly. Not for what she wanted to do with him. But even as she told herself this, she sat back, pushed her unfinished dinner to one side and sighed.
To say she was confused was an understatement. She was clear what she wanted. She wanted to ruin Dallas Mackenzie; she wanted to make him pay for her son’s and her father’s deaths. But what she wasn’t clear about was why her body reacted to him without engaging her brain. Why his accidental touch burned through her clothes, torching her skin and conjured images of their bodies moving together, slickly, intimately.
She shook her head in an effort to banish the unwanted images and then rose and backed out of the room, taking the plates back to the kitchen.
Dallas had been avoiding Cassandra all evening.
He’d eaten alone and he’d stayed away with the sole intention of making sure he didn’t stray from the original agreement with her.
It was business, not pleasure.
But it had been a pleasure to see how her elegant hands moved across the laptop, gentle, yet in control and how she walked—upright, lithe—the walk of a dancer.
But it must be about business. And her manner was perfect with his team: professional, but slightly aloof.
Except when she’d teased him about the toys he’d given to Emma’s baby. That lapse had nearly undone him. The smile shinin
g in her dark blue eyes—the color of the sea after the sun has slipped beyond the horizon—taunting him to respond. And he damn near had.
Yep, a professional relationship it had to be. And it could be. Hadn’t he learned to curb his own feelings in the interests of business? Hadn’t he learned that he would never be able to marry or have children? The risk of repeating his father’s history was too great. He was his image: physically he was the same, large and strong; emotionally the same, swift to anger and physiologically he was the same, allergic to alcohol. The writing was on the wall and he’d read it.
Despite what Rosa hoped, there would be no marriage, no commitment for him. And so far he’d managed it. As soon as women discovered he would never marry, they were off. As soon as he discovered a woman hoped to change him, he was off.
Then why, since he’d met Cassandra, had he been unable to control his own thoughts and feelings? He wasn’t some adolescent boy, God damn it. But it was no good avoiding the situation. He’d confront her, show her they could work together without letting their instincts take control. Anything to ease the frustration.
Immersed in his own thoughts, Dallas hadn’t seen the door begin to open until he collided with Cassandra. He grabbed her in time to stop her from falling, but the dishes went flying, skittering across the polished floor. Broken dishes and food were scattered everywhere.
But it was the effect of her warm body close to his that scattered his own thoughts and the intentions that he’d just spent the past few hours trying to stick to.
“Leave it.”
“I was taking it to Rosa.”
“Leave it. Someone else can clear it up. I want to talk to you.”
All thoughts of keeping a professional distance from her had fled when their bodies had collided. He wanted to feel her lips against his, he wanted to stir the passion he sensed within her.
“But, the dishes—Rosa…”
“Rosa’s left early for the week-end.”
“So we’re alone.”
Dallas could hear the huskiness of desire creep into her low voice and it led to an unalterable decision on his part. This felt too important, too out of control, to stop.
“You uncomfortable with that?”
She shook her head but before she could say anything further, Dallas breached the gap between them and slid his fingers into her long, glossy hair. He held her head in his hands and tilted her face to his, searching her expression for resistance but, finding none, he tightened his grip and pulled her towards him. His mouth sought hers, hungrily intent on satisfying the need that had been growing all day.
He tensed as he felt her initial jolt of surprise. But the unformed sound in her throat turned into a breathless gasp that dissolved into his mouth as she relaxed in his arms. He slid his hands around her back, pulling her to him, needing her to be tight against him.
Cassandra had nowhere to move: his grip around her body was complete. She couldn’t pull away even if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. She was unprepared and running on instinct alone: an instinct that responded at a basic level to the domination of his mouth over hers and the slide of his tongue against hers. It invaded her, ignited her passions and mimicked the penetration that she wanted elsewhere.
He moved his hand slowly and firmly down her back, pressing her closer to his body, forcing her to succumb to his power. But the blaze of passion his kiss ignited demanded her own satisfaction and she met his force with her own, her tongue entwining sensually and strongly with his, resisting surrender and challenging his domination.
She moved against him more closely still, pressing her breasts against his chest, feeling them tighten and harden, intoxicated by the sudden intimacy. He groaned deeply in response and the last shreds of coherent thought fled as passion—unadulterated and raw—overtook her.
She slipped her hands around his body and drove her hands up under his shirt, fanning her fingers over his heated skin, desperate to feel the contours of his body: its muscles, sinews and skin moving under her touch as his own hands moved under her top, echoing her exploration with one of his own.
As his hands swept up the sides of her body, his thumbs pushed over her nipples under her sheer bra and she gasped and pulled away from his lips, allowing his mouth access to her jaw, her neck and lower. She closed her eyes under the sensory overload of his warm lips against her throat and his finger nails as they raked down her body and over her bra. It was as if a switch had been flicked, destroying in one fell move all her composure and guard, making her forget everything except the fire that ran through her body, everything except the anticipation of where his fingers and tongue would go next.
She hadn’t been touched intimately for such a long time that the friction of his thumbs and bra moving against her nipples—so hard, so tight—was utterly mind-blowing. It was as if she were teetering on the edge of an abyss of ecstasy, wanting to fall, desperately wanting to descend with him into oblivion.
But the oblivion didn’t come.
He pulled away suddenly. Bereft and needy she sought his lips out once more with her own, but he pulled back, breathless, his dark impassioned eyes full of her, only her.
His hands ran down her body and cupped her bottom, shaping her to his hips, pulling her yet more intimately towards him. She wriggled against him, desperate for the thin layer of clothing separating them to be gone. To feel him, skin to skin.
What was he waiting for?
“Cassandra, are you sure?”
It was all that it took. One moment of hesitation, one moment for her thoughts to take control.
What the hell was she doing?
She pulled away slowly and looked down at her shirt that hung open. She didn’t remember him undoing the buttons, she remembered nothing but the feel of his skin against hers, his breath against her body, his hands stirring a passion she’d long-presumed dead. While her heart still hammered, it was from another emotion now.
Humiliation.
She’d just shown him that he’d been correct all along. She was just like the other PAs. But more than that, she was shocked at how easily she was able to betray her son.
A shutter came down in her heart.
“No, I’m not sure. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”
She could hear the icy edge to her tone and could see its effect in Dallas’s eyes.
His arms slipped slowly off her, the old cold, hard expression fell back into place, sealing over the raw, open passion of only moments before.
“A few moments ago, it seemed you very much could do this. What’s changed? Or were you just teasing the boss, having a bit of fun?” He stepped away.
“No! It wasn’t like that. You kissed me, if you remember.”
“Sure I remember. But I hardly think you were unresponsive.”
“No. But—”
“But what Cassandra? What do you want? I know what I want. I want to make love to you. And I know you want the same. What’s wrong with that? We can still work together if we sleep together. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“Then tell me!” Exasperated at the loss of control, he walked to the drinks cabinet where he hesitated, looking around, suddenly aware he was about to pour a drink. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll get us a coffee. We need to talk.”
She nodded. If she was to work with him she couldn’t run away now. She had to face him, get it over with, get out of the mess she’d created somehow and then resume her plan.
As he walked out to the kitchen to get them coffee, she sat down and took a deep, unsteady breath.
She had to do better than that. For Christ’s sake, she wasn’t some inexperienced teenager. She’d nearly undone all her work. For what? A quick screw with the boss?
But even as her mind formulated the thought, her memory taunted her with the heat of his lips searing her neck and of his hips pressed against hers. It would be more than a brief sexual encounter. She knew it, deep down. But that only ma
de it worse.
She would be betraying her son and her father! The two men who meant the most in the world to her.
He was responsible for their deaths, she reminded herself. But nothing she’d seen or learned about him fitted the profile that she’d been clinging to. Nothing. What if she had been wrong? The thought floored her.
What if she had been wrong? The thought would not go away.
His hand touched her arm. Electrified she look up and met his gaze.
“Your coffee.”
He sat down opposite her and from his expression she knew he wasn’t going to make this easy for her. Why didn’t he take his eyes off her? She lifted her coffee and took a sip, looking up at him over the rim of the cup. He was watching her lips. She shivered and sat back, willing herself to be relaxed but on guard. God, it had been years since she’d been so confused.
“Why are you here, Cassandra?”
If there was one thing about Dallas, it was that you never knew what he was going to say next.
“To work, of course.”
“I knew you weren’t like other women when I first saw you.”
Despite herself, a bubble of laughter surfaced from nowhere. “All the other women, they—”
“Want to screw me, of course—either physically or financially. It often amounts to the same. But you? I think we can safely rule out you wanting to screw me now. And, as for being my PA, there’s an intensity in you that makes me question your motives. You’re not here for that either, are you?”
“Of course I am. Why else do you think I’m here?”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned forward and ran his hand along her bare arm, trailing his nails against her flesh. She drew a breath in sharply as her body reacted of its own volition. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m your PA, not your—not anything else. You didn’t mention this in the ad.”
“It’s not required. And it’s not something I’ve ever done before, if you must know.” He slid his hand along to her wrist and held it, his thumb rubbing inside her palm.