by Marsh, Susan
* * *
‘Damn and blast it!’
Dorothy sent her a scandalous glance as if she’d just dropped the F bomb. ‘Don’t worry, we’re only a few minutes late.’
Beth practically ran the last few metres to the museum entrance, uncharacteristically grateful she wasn’t wearing her stilettos for once. ‘I know, but I’ve got a teenage school-group tour I have to lead.’
And the boss is tagging along to see how I’m doing.
That thought alone lent her extra speed and she flew through the door and waved to Dorothy over her shoulder. ‘Later, Dot.’
‘Thanks for taking me shoe shopping,’ Dorothy called out, her wistful tone bringing Beth up short.
The young woman was a walking fashion disaster and she couldn’t leave her hanging, not when she’d promised her a makeover to go with her new outfits and shoes.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll tee up a time then for your makeover, okay?’
‘Great.’
Dorothy’s beaming smile could’ve lit a path for the space shuttle to follow. ‘I really appreciate what you’re doing for me, Beth. You’re the best.’
Ha! If only Aidan thought so too.
Waving, Beth dashed into the Mind and Body Gallery, tugging down her blazer with one hand while tucking a stray strand of hair back into the loose French twist at the nape of her neck with the other.
She didn’t know what was more annoying, the way the chartreuse jacket edged in ecru kept riding up over her hips or the headache that came with wearing her hair confined in a knot for a touch of added professionalism today. With Aidan watching her every move during her first tour in this new gallery, she had to look the part even if she felt like the least qualified person on the planet to conduct it.
Please let him be late, she thought, her gaze darting around the room while she simultaneously managed a confident smile at the biology students waiting for her.
While the kids crowded around her, thrusting their hands in the air and firing questions before she’d even started, her gaze collided with a cool grey one at the back of the group, disapproval clear in its depths.
Great. Looked like the punctuality professor had already chalked up another black mark next to her name.
Determined to ignore him, she focussed all her attention on the kids, who proceeded to make the next hour the most tedious, harassed, nightmarish sixty minutes of her entire life.
They hassled her.
They laughed at her.
One of the guys had the audacity to lay a hand on her butt as he pretended to jostle for a front position in the group.
If Aidan hadn’t been around she might’ve been tempted to do something very unprofessional—such as replace the human brain model with the real thing from that hormonal little creep—but as it was she grinned, she extolled the virtues of the human body and answered questions as best she could.
Which obviously wasn’t good enough considering Aidan summoned her to his office when the tour ended. He didn’t even have the decency to give her time for a recovery coffee.
‘I’ll see you in ten minutes,’ he said, tapping his watch as if she didn’t know what it was or couldn’t tell the time—okay, so he had a point there considering she’d been late several times—frown in place, not a glimmer of a smile.
She nodded, too tired to respond, too despondent to fire back a witty quip.
This was it. Her best wasn’t good enough.
And as she trudged the long corridor like a recalcitrant kid summoned to the principal’s office, she couldn’t think of one damn thing to do about it.
Pulling up outside Aidan’s door, she knocked sharply, all business and no play, the exact opposite of her visit to his inner sanctum last week.
However, while she trembled inside, she wouldn’t let it show. Brave front at all costs. It was a motto she lived by, a motto tried and tested many times with her dad as he’d shut the door on her needs time and time again.
Now, like then, she wouldn’t let her nerves get the better of her, wouldn’t let it rattle her.
Brave front, brave front, she mentally recited and at Aidan’s barked, ‘Come in,’ she took a deep breath, entered the room and stalked to his desk, shoulders squared and on the defensive.
‘What did you think of the tour?’
Admiration shot through Aidan as he stared at the pink-cheeked, unusually subdued woman standing before him.
She should be quaking in her boots right now, but, apart from the faint blush staining her cheeks and the rigid posture, Beth showed little sign of being flustered.
He had a feeling what he was about to say would change all that.
‘Take a seat.’
He waved towards the chair opposite, not surprised she sat quickly. For once he had Miss Fancy Feet on the back foot, no pun intended, and, rather than feeling good about it, he hated that she saw him as some bossy ogre.
Though maybe it was a good thing having her stare at him with wariness rather than her usual sassy sparkle. It was hard enough having her work here every day, bouncing around the place with a sunny smile on her face, without dragging her into this office with work the furthest thing from his mind. At least this way he got to play the big, bad boss and she’d maintain a circumspect distance. He hoped.
‘Let’s discuss your skills as a tour guide, shall we?’
Just mentioning the tour had him thinking icebergs and blizzards and anything frigid, for it had taken all his will-power not to haul her out of that tour and into the nearest janitor’s closet to have his wicked way with her. She’d been bold and sweet and oh-so-sexy and he couldn’t stand this tension much longer.
She didn’t blink or flinch or fiddle and his admiration went up another notch.
‘I wasn’t that bad.’
‘Actually, you’re right. I could tell you’d studied the information I gave you last week but, unfortunately, it isn’t enough.’
He watched, transfixed, as she worried her bottom lip and he folded his arms, tucking them in nice and tight to avoid reaching out, tumbling her onto his lap, cuddling her close and wiping away the glimmer of fear in her eyes.
‘You’re not a very tolerant man.’
Her bravado was staggering. Even when faced with a performance review she continued to dish it out to him. And rather than getting riled, he fought the impulse to applaud.
‘On the contrary, I’m very tolerant. I’ve worked with people of different work ethics all around the world. I’ve worked through strikes, floods, even the odd plague of unwanted insects. But I must say I’ve never worked with anyone quite like you before.’
‘It takes all types to make the world go round.’
‘Correction, it takes all working types and that’s one thing you’re not quite up to scratch with, and that’s work.’
Though that wasn’t entirely true. Beth might not know how to work as a tour guide to the standards he expected, but she sure knew how to work it. With every step she took, with every sensual swivel of her hips, with every toss of her head and with every seductive smile, she knew how to work every gorgeous inch to her advantage.
Take today, for instance. Who else had the confidence to stroll in late for a tour group, pretend he weren’t there and then handle a bunch of hyperactive teenagers without losing control?
He’d been captivated from the second she’d locked gazes with him and proceeded to act as if he didn’t exist, and, while he’d been impressed by how much knowledge she’d crammed over the last week, it had been her natural exuberance that had more than made up for any shortfall in skills.
She attempted a haughty glare, but it didn’t work, considering her eyes shimmered with disappointment, and he fisted his hands to stop from reaching out to her.
The über-confident, sassy Fancy Feet he could handle; her subdued, chastened counterpart almost undid him completely.
‘I can assure you I know what hard work is and, if you’d just give me a chance, I can prove it to you. I ju
st need more time to get up to speed—’
‘That’s why I called you in here.’
He hated the slight shoulder slump, the dejection lingering around her down-turned mouth, the same mouth that felt so incredible moving with innate sensuality beneath his own.
After the way he’d been coming down on her, she probably thought he was going to fire her and it didn’t sit well with him. He was usually a fair boss, willing to cut his workers a little slack, but for some reason he’d been harder on Beth than most.
Some reason? Try the fact he couldn’t get her out of his head and the accompanying guilt of seeing an employee that way was the main reason for his strident, inflexible tyranny.
But not any more. He could see how hard she was trying and it wasn’t her fault he couldn’t keep his thoughts strictly professional.
‘Look, Beth, I can see you’ve tried and I admire that. But doing this job requires more than swotting up on a bunch of facts and flashing a charming smile. I want someone with a genuine love for this place, for the displays, someone who can impart that enthusiasm during their tours. You’re bright and bubbly and have put in a huge effort, but I want you to take this to the next level. And I’m willing to help you do it.’
She gnawed at her bottom lip, unwittingly drawing his attention to its plumpness, its softness and the way it moulded so perfectly to his when she kissed.
‘You want to help me?’
Her incredulous expression confirmed his suspicion that she’d expected him to fire her, making him feel lower than the deepest earth-bound fossil.
‘That’s right.’ He nodded and pushed a list across the desk towards her. ‘Here’s a list of the displays in each gallery. Reading a whole heap of facts from the manuals I gave you can be pretty dry, so why don’t I give you a feel for them firsthand? I love all the stuff in this place and it makes sense to get you up to scratch quickly so you’ll have an added authority when taking the tours.’
Shaking her head, she fixed him with a bemused stare. ‘Thanks for the offer, it sounds great, but, I have to tell you, I’m surprised.’
No more than him. If he’d been smart, he would’ve given her her marching orders, taking her out of arm’s reach before he took this attraction a step further than that unforgettable kiss.
But he couldn’t do it to her. He’d never met anyone so enthused, so hell-bent on succeeding with something they knew little about, and he admired her for it.
He’d always been a reasonable boss on the digs he’d supervised and, while being stuck behind this desk mightn’t be a career highlight for him, the time he was here he intended to make good. A good CEO would foster Beth’s professional development, not sever it because he couldn’t get a handle on his swinging libido.
‘You thought I was going to give you a hard time?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’m not that bad, am I?’
Her eyes lost their wary glint, replaced by her signature daring. ‘Fishing for compliments, Professor?’
‘I don’t need to fish.’
‘I guess you don’t, considering the bait.’
Oh, she was good. With her beguiling green eyes a sensual flinty jade as they slid over him and an enticing curve to her lips, she was a woman on a mission: to drive him slowly but surely crazy.
He needed to focus on business, keep his mind on the job. It was the only way to cope with his insane, driving need to possess this woman, every delicious inch of her.
‘Getting back to the displays, I’ll tee up a few after-hour sessions and we’ll get started asap, okay?’
Her lips curved into a smug smile as if she knew exactly how he’d like to get started—with her.
‘Thanks, you won’t regret it.’
As she sashayed out the door and he couldn’t tear his gaze off her long legs he knew it was too late. He already did.
CHAPTER SIX
‘I’vE READ a bit about this one. Could you tell me more about the history behind the Glozel Runes?’
Beth exhaled, a long low breath that whooshed out of her lungs and sounded like a childish huff in the silence as she waited for her first history lesson of the evening.
She should be home sculpting the latest shipment of metal delivered that morning, but instead here she was, alone, with her sexy boss—not that she should be noticing that sort of thing—swotting up on boring artefacts to keep her job.
Crooking his finger at her, he leaned forward and laid his palm against the glass cabinet, the excitement in his face showing her how much he’d like to touch the ancient stones for real.
‘In nineteen twenty-four, a farmer ploughing in Glozel, near Vichy in France, discovered an underground chamber. His grandson pulled out a clay tablet covered in characters they couldn’t decipher so they found a local amateur archaeologist who said the tablets dated back to eight thousand BC. However, some experts now think the runes are forgeries so there’s always been a bit of a battle over them. There have been similar rune finds in China and even here in Australia but the writing can’t be deciphered.’
She leaned forward till her nose almost pressed against the glass cabinet, squinting and tilting her head. ‘Looks like a bunch of squiggles to me. Though some of the shapes look vaguely like the alphabet?’
He sent her a speculative glance. ‘You’re right, but deciphering what they mean is still considered to be almost impossible by the experts. Some say Celtic pilgrims inscribed some of these pieces later, around seven hundred to one thousand BC, but no one knows for sure.’
‘Interesting.’
When Lana had been expounding the virtues of various museum displays Beth had been bored out of her brain and her eyes had glazed over. However, something shifted as Aidan’s encouraging smile lit her from within, his animated expression turning his face from ruggedly handsome to drop-dead gorgeous.
Nothing like a man with passion for his job, and if he was this passionate about work, imagine what he’d be like at play …
‘Okay, I think I’ve got a handle on the runes. How about we move on to the Ica Stones next?’
She needed to refocus on work, had to concentrate her attention on the display in front of her rather than the ardent gleam in his eyes.
He clearly loved what he did and as he beckoned her closer to look at the strange, misshapen hunks of stone she couldn’t help but absorb some of his excitement.
‘This group of stones was found near the Peruvian city of Ica in nineteen sixty-one. An analysis of the geological sedimentation indicated the images were over ten thousand years old but the date was contradicted by the objects and living creatures depicted in the images because they couldn’t possibly have existed at that time.’
‘What were the pictures?’
‘Check it out.’
She had no option but to almost snuggle into him, peering through the glass where he pointed, trying not to inhale his delicious spicy blackcurrant scent and blow her concentration sky-high.
‘See over there? That image looks like a person using a telescope to observe the heavens. And that one over there looks like tools performing heart surgery on an anatomically correct heart.’
‘Weird.’
But there was nothing weird about her visceral reaction to the sexy archaeologist with fervour in his voice and passion in his eyes.
He made the artefacts come alive and for a brief, irrational moment she could see herself exploring alongside him, absorbing his energy, fascinated by his finds.
‘You’re enjoying this more than you expected?’
Her rueful grin spoke volumes. ‘I am. You’re a good teacher, Professor.’
‘I love what I do.’
‘It shows.’
Beth didn’t know how long they stayed there, shoulder to shoulder, staring into each other’s eyes, but the electricity between them was palpable, the air fairly crackling with it, and she found herself gravitating towards him, wishing he’d kiss her, hold her, do a million and one wild things with her.
‘Let’s move on.’
He sprung up, unfolding his long frame from its squatting position to perch on a nearby chair in typical alpha male pose, towering over her in an attempt to regain the upper hand after she’d rattled him.
‘If you’ve had enough in this gallery, we can move on to the next.’
She had two options: pretend the unbelievable sexual tension between them didn’t exist or push him to acknowledge it and do something about it.
The first would be the safe, sensible option. Since when had she done sensible?
‘Ignoring this won’t make it go away.’
His gaze snapped to hers, the smoky grey depths unreadable, but he didn’t speak, just folded his arms, maintaining his distance, trying to appear the cool, unflappable boss. He would’ve pulled it off too if it weren’t for that scar under his right eyebrow that moved imperceptibly, the same small movement she’d noticed right before she’d kissed him at the bar on her first day.
She affected him no matter how much he wanted to ignore her or pretend the spark between them didn’t exist.
But she’d never been any good at pretending; just ask her dad, who’d known her enthusiasm for every new place they’d settled was fake no matter how hard she’d tried to disguise it. She’d eventually given up the act and had pleaded with him countless times to stay in one place long enough to build a life for them, but it hadn’t changed a thing.
‘I’m not ignoring anything,’ he said, his offhand tone at total odds with the banked heat simmering in those mysterious grey depths.
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
She took a step towards him, enjoying the slight flicker of alarm flash across his face, as if he expected her to launch herself at him and ravage him on the spot.
He wished. Actually, no, that was her.
Frowning, he swiped a hand over his face. ‘I can’t discuss this with you. You just have to leave it alone.’
Reaching out, she laid a hand on his arm and he jumped as if she’d electrocuted him, and as his gaze riveted to hers she knew this definitely needed confronting.