by Anna Cleary
‘Oh, Joe.’ Tonia’s voice purred down the phone, and he relaxed and allowed the anger to drain out of him. ‘About Stella’s replacement—what about that new girl, Mirandi? Her office still hasn’t been decided and Ryan’s EA comes back next week, anyway.’
‘No, no, Tonia. Not possible.’ Hell, that would open a can of worms.
Although… Would it necessarily?
‘Ah-h-h… Leave it with me,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll think about it and get back to you.’
He replaced the phone very gently in its cradle. No, no, no. He couldn’t do it. Out of the question. Though…well, certainly it would provide a neat system solution. He could see the appeal from Tonia’s point of view. Business in the office would tick over as usual without anyone being disturbed.
But it was far too dangerous. Fraught with risk. Dynamite in what it could unleash. Possibilities flashed through his mind, some of them quite scintillating, but he thrust those away. No rational man would ever open that door again.
Still…
He felt his pulse quicken.
Why not? Those old issues from the past were over and done with now. He could contain the situation, keep it on an even keel. He’d always been able to control it. Come to think of it…maybe this was the very thing needed to defuse the past and its grip on his imagination.
He flexed his shoulders, then strolled out to the sitting room in time to catch her in the act of sneaking to the door.
‘Hey. Now, don’t run away,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to ask you. Oh, and—sorry about that interruption.’
Mirandi surrendered her escape bid and turned to examine him with curiosity. Was she imagining it, or was there an added bounce to his step? His eyes were alight with positivity. She felt a bitter pang. Was this what finishing with a woman did for him? Smiling, brisk Joseph Sinclair, CEO? In charge, his lean, tanned hands clean, with no clinging traces of the woman he’d just dusted off?
He hesitated a second, searching her face.
‘Do you have a current passport?’ When she nodded his eyes lit with satisfaction.
‘Great. I’m needing an assistant for my trip to France and it might as well be you.’
‘Me?’ Stunned, she took a second to collect herself. ‘Are you kidding? I mean… Isn’t Stella going?’
‘She can’t come. Her son’s been in an accident and she needs to be with him.’ He brushed all that aside in a gesture. ‘So? I need an assistant. Can you be ready by noon tomorrow?’
She searched his face for signs of derangement. Could he be serious? Had he forgotten who she was?
But no, he was back to behaving like the office Joe, crisp and businesslike, focused and professional. Trouble was, with her emotional deeps still in disturbance, her sexual sensors in a spin from the Joe she’d been with a few minutes earlier, the whole world felt as if it were spinning too fast. What about the cool head she’d sworn to hang onto from now on?
‘Well,’ she dithered. ‘But…but what about Ryan?’
‘Ryan? Oh, forget Ryan.’ He gave the name an inflection, as if there were something wrong with Ryan. ‘Leave him to me. I’ll fix Ryan. So?’ He advanced on her, smiling, his masculine assurance so attractive, persuasive. She caught the scent of him, that faint appealing tang of soap and sandalwood. ‘It’ll only be a few days on the Riviera.’
While her senses responded to Joe-Sinclair-induced sensations, her giddy head whirled with visions of charming seaside resorts, villages and little bays with fishing boats tied up in their marinas. For an instant visions swayed in her mind of the two of them together, swimming in the Mediterranean, lazing side by side on golden sands.
‘Oh, gosh,’ she said weakly. ‘The Riviera does sound—lovely.’
‘You think?’ To her surprise he gave a small grimace. ‘Yeah. Well, I admit the possibilities are improving.’ His voice deepened the tiniest fraction, and his glance flickered over her with a sudden mesmeric gleam that made her catch her breath. There’d be the hotel, of course. Her mind shied away from that risky image.
He strode into his study and came back with a thin sheaf of papers and a laptop, murmuring something about flights.
Visions shimmered in her mind. Surely he wouldn’t be suggesting she go unless he was planning it as some sort of interlude. Though warning bells clanged from some distant horizon, part of her was warming to the notion of a French fling with her old lover. How thoroughly sophisticated. How delicious. And why not? She was an adult, wasn’t she? She could handle it.
Temptation trickled along her veins like silky honey. She could see the movie version now. Rapprochement on the Côte D’Azur. Nothing so sexy had come her way in years, though of course there were dangers involved.
As she eyed his handsome, assured face frowning into his screen she reminded herself of how weak she’d been with him in the past. Putty in his hands. Her eye fell on the smooth, bronzed, clever hands that had broken her heart.
Could she really betray her younger self like that? All the pain she’d suffered, her sad little loss? The trouble was, gorgeous though he might be, the beloved object of her passionate young heart, Kirsty’s call rang fresh in her ears. And what about those other women, the chicks who’d come after her?
Regrettably, reality fastened its grip on her and shook her wandering brain cells back into place. ‘I don’t think so, Joe.’
He glanced up from his screen. ‘What?’
She placed her hand on the door handle, smiling, though she sensed a sudden strain. ‘Thank you, but no. Why not ask Kirsty?’
He blinked and sat very still. Then he said, ‘Kirsty isn’t in my employ.’ There was a dangerous quietness in his deep voice.
It occurred to her that this was probably the first time she’d not fallen in with anything he suggested. Ten years ago she’d been the junior partner. So madly, joyously in love. So eager to please.
He got up and strolled towards her, his hands shoved in his pockets. ‘What makes you think you have a choice?’ He spoke casually enough, but there was an autocratic note in the words that disconcerted her.
‘Well… You must see it’s not a good idea.’
‘In what way isn’t it?’ His blue eyes narrowed, making an infinitesimal flick to her mouth even in his displeasure. Though cool, relaxed, there was alertness in his stance. ‘This is a perfect solution to a glitch in the system. Do you have some commitment that prevents you from travelling?’
She shrugged. ‘Not really.’
‘Then what’s the trouble? Is there something you’re afraid of?’
Her heart thumped into its adrenaline rhythm. ‘You could say so.’ As he tilted his handsome head interrogatively she said, ‘We’re finished, Joe. Remember? That book is closed.’ Adding softly, ‘The song has ended, lover.’
For seconds he looked thunderstruck. Then he gave a small, incredulous laugh. ‘You’re leaping to conclusions, Mirandi. You’ve misunderstood what I…’ A flush darkened his lean cheeks. ‘That brief song was a lifetime ago, darling. You need to get over it.’
Her anger surged. ‘As I recall it lasted a whole year. I wouldn’t have called it brief. And I am over it. Well and truly, Joe, though I wonder if you can say the same.’ Her treacherous voice wobbled.
He looked amused, though his eyes blazed bright in a way she recognised as signalling he was angry. It was such a rare look with him, the few times she’d seen it she’d been shaken, since there had to have been some major cause to disturb his usual lazy good humour.
But he controlled it, challenging her assertion with an infuriating crispness. ‘On what grounds do you say that? Because I asked you on this trip? The trip is about business, pure and simple. It’s an assistant I’m in need of here, not a—a—sleeping partner.’
‘All right. If you say so.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. Though I’m not an assistant, am I?’ she couldn’t resist pointing out. ‘I’m a market analyst, though people could be forgiven for not knowing that. Even poor Ry
an seems to think I’m there as his assistant.’
Blue sparks flared in his eyes. ‘You were never there as his assistant, but I’m glad you brought up the subject of Patterson.’ His accusatory gaze lasered through her skull. ‘Before you fling yourself into his bed you should know the firm doesn’t encourage liaisons between personnel.’
She laughed in his face. ‘What? Oh, that’s… That’s just ridiculous.’ Then she stared at him in shocked disbelief as the import of his words sank in. Had she heard aright? ‘I don’t know what you’re even talking about. As if I would…’
He rode roughshod over her denial, striding about with an imperious air and flinging his hands about to defend himself.
‘My choosing you is purely a business decision. As CEO I seek ways of wringing the best from my staff. You seem so—volatile whenever we meet…’
‘I seem volatile?’
He ignored her interruption. ‘Taking you on this trip seems like a way to develop a—a working relationship with you. Investment banking can be a soulless world. People feel out of place in it. I was hoping to establish some trust with you, to help you feel—’
She made a smouldering grimace. ‘Oh, trust. Have you ever known what that was?’
He spun around to impale her with a glare. She felt the blue flash sear straight through her and knew she’d struck home. Truth to tell, she was feeling a little volatile right then, what with Kirsty and the shot about Ryan and all. Her heart was pounding like a mad thing, and she was trembling, no longer in total control of her tongue.
‘On what grounds should I trust you, Joe? I was hired as a market analyst, and I’ve been sidelined into fetching and carrying for Ryan Patterson for the last month. I’m sure that was a perfect system solution for you, but it’s not what I was promised. It’s an outrageous breach of—the law.’
An angry flush darkened his harsh cheekbones. ‘It’s perfectly within the law, Mirandi. The—the arrangement was purely for your own benefit. While you work for me you fulfil any role I assign to you.’
A red-hot wave sizzled her face then rushed straight up through the top of her scalp. ‘Oh, no, I don’t,’ she snapped. ‘Because, as of this moment, I quit.’
He stilled and stared at her, his narrowed eyes glittering. ‘You can’t be serious. For what good reason?’
‘For the good reason that I don’t want to work for a man who doesn’t keep his word.’ Her voice shook with emotion. ‘You haven’t changed, have you? I don’t know why you’re so bothered about me refusing to go with you. I bet you’ve got stacks of reserves you could draw on.’
He froze and his eyes iced over, as chill as an arctic waste-land. After a nerve-racking second he said in a dangerous voice, ‘Are you sure it’s me you don’t trust, sweetheart, or yourself? How long is it since I found you lolling on my bed? A whole thirty minutes?’
She couldn’t trust herself to reply coolly, that much was certain. But she did manage to retort in a gravelly voice, ‘I’m not your sweetheart, Joe. And that’s the point.’ Then she walked out and flung the door shut.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOE was running along the familiar pavement, past the garden house with the roses, around the corner house with the stone lions, and into the leafy street winding up to his place, his cricket bag knocking against his hip with every stride.
Someone would be there waiting for him. Home again at last to fill the house with flowers, laughter and her own sweet fragrance. Dinner in the oven. He felt a sudden cold fear that he wouldn’t be in time. If he didn’t hurry faster she wouldn’t be able to wait and she’d be gone. He tried to run faster, but the way was uphill, his bag heavy and his legs wouldn’t work properly.
He tried and tried to make them work, until his breath was coming in painful gasps, his lungs ready to burst, his cricket bag a leaden weight on the steep slope. With all his might he fought to gain traction on the cement path, but it was futile, the ascent changing to slippery glass and almost vertical, then just when he thought he must slide backwards he saw the yellow taxi.
It came down the hill fast, the passenger in the rear. It slowed as it approached him, and this time he could see the passenger’s face. With a sickening shock he saw it was his mother. He waved at her, then as it drew level he ran shouting into the street, frantic to attract her attention, but though she looked right at him she mustn’t have recognised him, because she turned her face away.
He woke with a start and lay there in the dark, bathed in sweat, waiting for the pounding brick in his chest to slow its wild ker-thunk. After a while he reached for the light, and the familiar solidity of his room swam into reassuring focus.
He rubbed his eyes. For God’s sake, he hadn’t dreamed of the yellow taxi in years. After a few minutes of slow, calm breathing he got up and thudded to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and drank long and deep.
Something had stirred up the old nightmares, and it hardly took Sigmund Freud to work out what it was. Who.
In some bizarre way, Mirandi seemed to have become tangled up with his subconscious dramas. The afternoon’s scene swam back to him with its astounding conclusion. Probably because of his tension about the trip, he’d felt quite churned up for a minute or two there. Completely out of character for him these days.
Mirandi was like a clover bindi underfoot. Soft, lush and enticing on the surface, with an ability to prick a man where it stung, work her way under his skin and give him everlasting grief.
Something about her had always made him feel twitchy and energised, even after a fight, though this one had ended entirely the wrong way and left him hanging off a cliff.
He set down his glass and sank onto the bed. Why did she have to be so prickly? She’d never been like that before; he remembered her as always being so soft and giving. Hell, today she’d been downright forceful.
For God’s sake, the past was gone with all its wounds and it was time to move on. There was hardly a thing a man could say to her that didn’t arouse some sort of touchy rejoinder. It wasn’t as if he’d been unpleasant to her. Most of his employees would have jumped at the chance to accompany him to Monaco.
He felt a burning sense of injustice. A boss had every right to expect compliance from his employees. He’d only wanted to be generous with her. Why had she taken such a suspicious view of his perfectly appropriate proposition? How dared she challenge his authority. Dammit, who was running the show, he or Mirandi Summers?
He sprang to his feet again and paced the room.
It was clear she was still hooked on the dynamics of the old relationship. He should have made her understand somehow that now he was her boss the old formula could no longer work.
But for a few minutes there today… Guilt crept through him and he was swept with remorse. Now she was out of a job. Wasn’t he responsible in some part at least for failing to help her make the transition? He really should have taken more care with her. Talked with her more, shown her how things stood between them now. The Patterson strategy hadn’t helped either. She seemed to feel so confident she could hold her own, perhaps he should have just thrown her into the deep-end and let her sink or swim.
The image rose before him of her shapely form lying indolently on that very bed like some dreamy Lorelei. He’d rarely been so ravished. That intriguing glimpse of her private self had delivered the sweetest shock he’d known in years. He couldn’t remember feeling so affected. Not since…the old days.
Had her breasts always been so full? Memories of an afternoon in Lavender Bay with her lissom body astride him, her naked breasts, their sweet taut raspberries in tantalising proximity to his mouth, made a sudden alluring appearance in his mind and he felt his blood quicken with sweet, heavy heat.
Strangely, today things had spun out of control. How much had been his fault? All he’d wanted was a little conversation, some civilised attempt at smoothing the way between them for the sake of future intercourse.
He closed his eyes. Oh, Joe, Joe. Where had that sprung fr
om? Of all the Freudian slips.
Call it regret or natural concern, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe he’d allowed her to walk out so abruptly. Was he to just let her go and make no effort to fix things? Surely masculine honour demanded that when he strolled onto that plane tomorrow, Mirandi Summers should be right there beside him.
Filled with sudden purpose, he strode into his study and picked up his diary to riffle through to the page of last month’s board meeting. Here it was, the place where he’d absent-mindedly doodled her address.
3/ 357 Lilac Crescent, Lavender Bay.
At sight of the address a dark claw pinched his gut. The pretty little corner of Sydney he’d sworn never to set foot in again in his life. Nightmare territory.
Mirandi tossed on her bed, trying to find a comfortable position. Had her pillow always been so flat and hard? She tried to punch it into some sort of supportive mound.
Her angry tears had left a damp patch right in the spot where she wanted to rest her cheek. She hadn’t felt so awful in years. Her chest hurt as if she’d swallowed something nasty that had failed to sink beyond a certain point. And the worst part was, she knew she deserved it. She’d sunk her own boat.
What sort of fool was she to have taken the job at MPI, anyway? Joe didn’t want her there. He’d never wanted to see her again in his life. He’d made that plain ten years ago.
As for letting herself be caught on his bed…
She couldn’t restrain a moan. How could she have? Was she insane?
Hot waves of anguish swept through her every time she thought of the moment he’d appeared in his bedroom doorway, and she couldn’t hold back the tears of mortification. To be found like that after he’d rejected her. Even a village idiot would have had more control. More self-respect.
No one would be so stupid as to let themselves be caught in that situation after that devastating rejection. No one.
As for walking like a goddess… It was all very well to stride out of his apartment triumphant, crowing to herself over having shown him, but she’d done herself out of a job, after boasting to all her friends about having won it. Her father and Mim had been so proud. Her first proper opportunity to be a straight market analyst. Now what would she tell them?