by Trish Morey
And endless meetings and time differences and jetlag had all combined to press upon him one undeniable certainty.
He’d wanted her.
‘Eve,’ she’d told him when he’d cornered her during a break and asked her name. Breathless Eve with the lush mouth and amazing eyes and a body made for sin, a body all too willing to sin, as he’d discovered in that storeroom.
And he’d cursed when he’d had to leave all too suddenly for Santiago, cursed that he’d missed out on peeling her clothes from her luscious body, piece by piece. He’d had half a mind to return to Sydney after his business in Chile concluded, but by then something else had come up. And then there’d been more business in other countries, and other women, and she’d slipped from his radar, to be loosely filed under the-ones-that-got-away.
It wasn’t a big file and as it happened she hadn’t got away after all. She’d been right there under his nose, answering his emails, handling his paperwork, organising meetings, and she’d never once let on. Never once mentioned the fact they’d already met.
What was that about?
His hand drifted back to his pretend fiancée’s back, letting the conversation wash over him—something about an island the Culshaws owned in the Whitsundays—his fingertips busy tracing patterns on her satiny-soft skin as he studied her profile, the line of her jaw, the eyes he’d noticed and should have recognised. She was slightly changed, the colour of her hair more caramel now than the sun-streaked blonde it had been back then, and maybe she wasn’t quite so reed thin. Slight changes, no more than that, and they looked good on her. But no wonder he’d thought she’d looked familiar.
She glanced briefly at him then, as the party rose and headed for the dining area, a slight frown marring an otherwise perfect brow, as if she was wondering why he’d been so quiet. He smiled, knowing that the waiting time to meeting her again had passed; knowing that her time had come.
Knowing that for him the long wait would soon be over. She’d been like quicksilver in his arms that day, so potent and powerful that he hadn’t been able to wait the few hours before closing the deal to sample her.
There was no doubt in his mind that the long wait was going to be worth it.
So what, then, that he had a rule about not sleeping with his PA? Rules were made to be broken after all, some more than others. He smiled at her, taking her arm, already anticipating the evening ahead. A long evening filled with many delights, if he had anything to do with it. Which of course, he thought with a smile, he did.
Maybe it was the fact everyone so readily accepted Evelyn as his fiancée. Maybe it was the surprising realisation that playing the part of a fiancé wasn’t as appalling or difficult as he’d first imagined that made the evening work.
Or maybe it was the thought of afterwards, when he would finally get the opportunity to peel off her gown and unleash the real woman beneath.
But the evening did work, and well. The drinks and canapés, the dinner, the coffee and dessert—the hotel catering would get a bonus. It was all faultless. Culshaw was beaming, his wife was glowing and the Alvarezes made such entertaining dinner companions, reeling out one amusing anecdote after another, that half the time everyone was laughing too much to eat.
And Evelyn—the delectable Evelyn—played her part to perfection. Though he frowned as he caught her glancing at her watch again. Perfect, apart from that annoying habit she had of checking the time every ten minutes. Why? It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. Certainly not before they’d had a chance to catch up on old times.
Finally coffee and liqueurs had been served and the staff quietly vanished back into the kitchen. Culshaw stifled a yawn, apologising and blaming his habit of going for a long early walk every morning for not letting him stay up late. ‘But I thank you all for coming. Richard and Leo, maybe we can get those contract terms nutted out tomorrow—what do you think?’
The men drew aside to agree on a time to meet while the women chatted, gathering up purses and wraps. They were nice people, Eve thought, wishing she could have met them in different circumstances, and not while living this lie. She knew she’d never meet them again, and maybe in the bigger scheme of things it made no difference to anything, as they would all go their separate ways in a day or so, but that thought was no compensation for knowing she’d spent the evening pretending to be someone and something she was not.
‘Shall we go?’ Leo said, breaking into her thoughts as he wrapped his big hand around hers and lifted it to his mouth, and Eve could see how pleased he was with himself and with the way things had gone.
The final act, she thought as his lips brushed her hand and his eyes simmered with barely contained desire. A look filled with heated promise, of a coming night filled with tangled limbs in tangled sheets. The look a man should give his fiancée before they retired to their room for the night. The final pretence.
No pretence necessary when her body responded like a woman’s should respond to her lover’s unspoken invitation, ripening and readying until she could feel the pulse of her blood beating out her need in that secret place between her thighs, achingly insistent, turning her thoughts to sex. No wonder everyone believed them to be lovers. He acted the part so very well. He made it so easy. He made her body want to believe it.
A shame, she thought as they said their final goodbyes and left the suite. Such a shame it was all for nothing. Such a waste of emotional energy and sizzling intensity. Already she could feel her body winding down, the sense of anticlimax rolling in. The sudden silence somehow magnified it, the hushed passage devoid of other guests, as empty as their pretend relationship.
‘Will the car be waiting for me downstairs?’ she asked, glancing at her phone as they waited in the lift lobby. No messages, she noticed with relief, dropping it back into her purse. Which meant Mrs Willis had had no problems with Sam.
‘So anxious to get away?’ the man at her side said. ‘Do you have somewhere you’re desperate to get to?’
‘Not really. Just looking forward to getting home.’ And she wasn’t desperate. There no point rushing now, Eve knew. She’d been watching the time and chances were Mrs Willis was well and truly tucked up in bed by now, which meant no picking up Sam before morning. But equally there was nothing for her here. She’d done her job. It was time to drop the make-believe and go home to her real life.
‘No? Only you kept checking your watch every five minutes through dinner and you just now checked your phone. I get the impression I’m keeping you from something—or someone.’
‘No,’ she insisted, cursing herself for being so obvious. She’d gone to the powder room to check her messages during the evening, not wanting to be rude or raise questions. She hadn’t thought anyone would notice a quick glance at her watch. ‘Look, it’s nothing. But we’ve finished here, haven’t we?’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What?’ He took her hand and lifted it, the sapphire flashing on her finger. ‘Oh, of course. I almost forgot.’ She tried to slip her hand from his so she could take it off, but he stilled her.
‘Not here. Wait till we get to the suite.’ And she would have argued that it wasn’t necessary, that she could give it to him in the lift for that matter, only she heard voices behind them and the sound of the Alvarezes approaching and knew she had no choice, not when their suites were on the same floor and it would look bizarre if she didn’t accompany Leo.
‘Ah, we meet again,’ Richard said, coming around the corner with Felicity on his arm as the lift doors whooshed open softly behind them. ‘Great night, Leo, well done. Culshaw seems much more comfortable to do business now. He agreed to call to arrange things after his walk in the morning.’
Leo smiled and nodded. ‘Excellent,’ he said, pressing the button for the next floor as they made small talk about the dinner, within seconds the two couples bidding each other goodnight again and heading for their respective suites.
And, really, it wasn’t a problem for Eve. Leo had told her
his rule about not mixing business with pleasure. So she knew she had nothing to fear. She’d give him back the ring, make sure the coast was clear, and be gone. She’d be in and out in two minutes, tops.
He swiped a card through the reader, holding the door open so she could precede him into the room. She ignored the flush of sensation as she brushed past him, tried not to think about how good he smelt or analyse the individual ingredients that made up his signature scent, and had the ring off her finger and back in its tiny box before the door had closed behind her. ‘Well, that’s that, then,’ she said brightly, snapping the box shut and setting it back on the coffee table. ‘I think that concludes our business tonight. Maybe you could summon up that car for me and I’ll get going.’
‘You said you didn’t have to rush off,’ he said, busy extracting a cork from what looked suspiciously like a bottle of French champagne he’d just pulled from an ice bucket she was sure hadn’t seen before, and felt her first shiver of apprehension.
‘I don’t remember that being there when we left.’
‘I asked the wait staff to organise it,’ he explained. ‘I thought a celebration was in order.’
Another tremor. Another tiny inkling of…what? ‘A celebration?’
‘For pulling off tonight. For having everyone believe we were a couple. You had both Eric and Maureen, not to mention Richard and Felicity, eating out of your hand.’
‘It was a nice evening,’ she said warily, accepting a flute of the pale gold liquid, wishing he’d make a move to sit down, wishing he was anywhere in the suite but standing right there between her and the door. Knowing she could move away but that would only take her deeper into his suite. Knowing that was the last place she wanted to be. ‘They’re nice people.’
‘It was a perfect evening. In fact, you make the perfect virtual fiancée, Evelyn Carmichael. Perhaps you should even put that on your CV.’ He touched his glass to hers and raised it. ‘Here’s to you, my virtual PA, my virtual fiancée. Here’s to…us.’
She could barely breathe, barely think. There was no us. But he had that look again, the look he’d had before they’d left the presidential suite that had her pulse quickening and beating in dark, secret places. And suddenly there was that image back in her mind, of tangled bedlinen and twisted limbs, and a strange sense of dislocation from the world, as if someone had changed the rules when she wasn’t looking and now black was white and up was down and nothing, especially not Leo Zamos, made any kind of sense.
She shook her head, had to look away for a moment to try to clear her own tangled thoughts.
‘Oh, I don’t think I’ll be doing anything like this again.’
‘Why not? When you’re so clearly a natural at playing a part.’ He nodded in the direction of her untouched glass. ‘Wine not to your taste?’
She blinked and took a sip, wondering if he was ever going to move away from the minibar and from blocking the door, moving closer to the wall at her back in case he was waiting for her to move first. ‘It’s lovely, thank you. And the Culshaws and Alvarezes are lovely people. I still can’t help but feel uncomfortable about deceiving them that way.’
‘That’s something I like about you, Evelyn.’ He moved at last, but not to go past her. He moved closer, touching the pad of one finger to her brow, shifted back a stray tendril of hair, a touch so gentle and light but so heated and powerful that she shivered under its impact. ‘That honest streak you have. That desire not to deceive. I have to admire that.’
Warning bells rang out in her mind. There was a calm, controlled anger rippling through the underbelly of his words that she was sure hadn’t been there before, an iron fist beneath the velvet-gloved voice, and she wasn’t sure what he thought he was celebrating but she did know she didn’t want to be any part of it.
‘I should be going,’ she said, searching for the nearest horizontal surface on which to deposit her nearly untouched drink, finding it in the credenza at her side. ‘It’s late. Don’t bother your driver. I’ll get myself a cab.’
He smiled then, as lazily and smugly as a crocodile who knew that all the efforts of its prey were futile for there was no escape. a smile that made her shiver, all the way down.
‘If you’ll just move out the way,’ she suggested, ‘I’ll go.’
‘Let you go?’ he questioned, retrieving her glass and holding it out to her. When she was so clearly leaving. ‘When I thought you might like to share a drink with me.’
She ignored it. ‘I had one, thanks.’
‘No, that drink was a celebration. This one will be for old times’ sake. What do you say, Evelyn? Or maybe you’d prefer if I called you Eve.’
And a tidal wave of fear crashed over her, cold and drenching and leaving her shuddering against the wall, thankful for its solidity in a world where the ground kept shifting. He knew! He knew and he was angry and there was no way he was going to move away from that door and let her calmly walk out of here. Her tongue found her lips, trying valiantly to moisten them, but her mouth was dry, her throat constricted. ‘I’m good with either,’ she said, trying for calm and serene and hearing her voice come out thready and desperate. ‘And I really should be going.’
‘Because I met an Eve once,’ he continued, his voice rich and smooth by comparison, apparently oblivious to her discomfiture, or simply enjoying it too much to put an end to it, ‘in an office overlooking Sydney Harbour. She had the most amazing blue eyes, a body built for sinful pleasures, and she was practically gagging for it. Come to think of it, she was gagging for it.’
‘I was not!’ she blurted, immediately regretting her outburst, wishing the shifting ground would crack open and swallow her whole, or that her pounding heart would break the door down so she could escape. Because she was kidding herself. Even if it hadn’t been how she usually acted, even if it had been an aberration, he was right. Because if that person hadn’t interrupted them in the midst of that frantic, heated encounter, she would have spread her legs for him right there and then, and what was that, if not gagging for it?
And afterwards she’d been taking minutes, writing notes, even if she’d found it nearly impossible to transcribe them or remember what had actually been said when she’d returned to her office because of thoughts of what had almost happened in that filing room and what would happen during the night ahead.
He curled his fingers under her chin, forced her to look at him, triumph glinting menacingly in his eyes. ‘You’ve been working with me for more than two years, sweet little Miss Evelyn don’t-like-to-deceive-anyone Carmichael. When exactly were you planning on telling me?’
She looked up at him, hoping to reason with him, hoping that reason made sense. ‘There was nothing to tell.’
‘Nothing? When you were so hot for me you were practically molten. And you didn’t think I might be interested to know we’d more than just met before?’
‘But nothing happened! Not really. It was purely a coincidence that I came to work for you. You wanted a virtual PA. You sent a query on my webpage. You agreed the terms and I did the work you wanted and what did or didn’t happen between us one night in Sydney was irrelevant. It didn’t matter.’ She was babbling and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself, tripping over the words in the rush to get them out. ‘It wasn’t like we ever had to meet. If you hadn’t needed a pretend fiancée tonight, you would never have known.’
‘Oh, I get it. So it’s my fault, is it, that all this time you lied to me.’
‘I never lied.’
‘You lied by omission. You knew who I was, you knew what had so very nearly happened, and you failed to tell me that I knew you. You walked in here and hoped and prayed I wouldn’t recognise you and you almost got away with it.’
‘I didn’t ask to come tonight!’
‘No. And now I know why. Because you knew your dishonesty would come unstuck. All that talk about not deceiving people and you’ve happily been deceiving me for two years.’
‘I do my job and I do it wel
l!’
‘Nobody said you didn’t. What is an issue is that you should have told me.’
‘And would you have contracted me if I had?’
‘Who knows? Maybe if you had, we might be having great sex right now instead of arguing.’
Unfair, she thought as she sucked in air, finding it irritatingly laden with his testosterone-rich scent. So unfair to bring up sex right now, to remind her of what might have been, when she was right here in his suite and about to lose the backbone of her income because she’d neglected to tell him about a night when nothing had happened.
‘Let me tell you something, Evelyn Carmichael,’ he said, as he trailed lazy fingertips down the side of her face. ‘Let me share something I might have shared with you, if you’d ever bothered to share the truth with me. Three years ago, I was aboard a flight to Santiago. I had a fifty-page report to read and digest and a strategy to close a deal to work out and I knew what I needed to be doing, but hour after hour into the flight I couldn’t concentrate. And why couldn’t I concentrate? Because my head was filled with thoughts of a blonde, long-limbed PA with the sexiest eyes I had ever seen and thinking about what we both should have been doing right then if I hadn’t had to leave Sydney.’
‘Oh.’ It had never occurred to her that he might have regretted his sudden departure. It had never occurred to her that she hadn’t been the only one unable to sleep that night, the only one who remembered.
‘I felt cheated,’ he said, his fingers skimming the line of her collarbone, ‘because I had to leave before we got a chance to…get to know each other.’ His fingers played at her shoulder, his thumbs stroking close to the place on her throat where she could feel her pulse beat at a frantic pace. ‘Did you feel cheated, Evelyn?’
‘Perhaps. Maybe just a little.’
‘I was hoping maybe more than just a little.’