by Nicola Marsh
The house—though how anything this size could remotely be called a house—sprawled across a half-acre, its polished windows glittering in the morning sun, its pristine cream walls were blinding. Balconies dotted the upstairs rooms—elaborate twisted iron that accentuated the simplicity of the façade.
Classic, elegant, a grand old dame you couldn’t help but admire. If the house was a dance, it would be an elegant waltz, gliding into the present from a bygone era, demanding recognition, admiration.
I could work here, she thought, wriggling her backpack into position before continuing down the path, hoping this interview went well.
She might not want this job but she needed it—desperately.
Admiring the shining marble of the front steps, she traipsed up to the front door, stabbed at the intercom button. A crackly voice filtered through the speaker, ‘Around the back.’
Great. He wanted to make sure she knew her place right from the start. With a resigned huff, she followed the sandstone paved path to the rear.
If the front of the house had left her gob-smacked, the rear came a close second as she spied an Olympic-sized in-ground pool, a tennis court, a gazebo, and a terrace twice the size of the stage at the Sydney Opera House.
A lone figure sat a table on the terrace, phone glued to one ear, free hand hovering over a laptop keyboard.
He didn’t glance up as she dumped her backpack and tripped up the steps. She waited for him to finish his call, forcing her feet to settle as she realised she was en pointe, a nervous reaction she’d had since she’d first started ballet at five years of age.
When he flung the mobile on the table and didn’t glance up she cleared her throat, took several steps forward, hating how her knees wobbled a tad.
‘Thanks for seeing me.’
Callum stood, turned towards her, his lips thin, compressed, at odds with her memory of how warm and soft and sensual they’d felt against hers.
‘Good to see you again, Starr.’
His low, modulated tone reeked of formality, without a hint of what they’d shared.
‘Though I must say I’m surprised you called.’
‘Why? You gave me your business card, offered me a job.’
‘One you scoffed at, if I recall.’
Hating his coolness, she squared her shoulders. ‘Circumstances change. I’m interested in the position.’
His mouth quirked. ‘Oh, really?’
Heck, she had stepped into a Jane Austen novel, complete with her very own Mr Darcy: pompous, arrogant, and way too gorgeous despite the urge to slap him upside the head.
‘Is the job still available?’
‘Very available.’
There it was—the first hint of something more than a job interview, a subtle reminder of what they’d shared laced through his smoother-than-caramel voice.
And in that instant it all came flooding back. Every magical moment of their night together. Every cataclysmic, erotic detail.
How he’d stroked her to orgasm with his fingers, his tongue.
How he’d made her feel wanton and wicked and alive for the first time in for ever.
How he’d made love to her standing and sitting and in front of the bathroom mirror.
How she hadn’t slept over the last week, replaying every moment of that life-altering night.
Technically, that wasn’t right. Needing a job so badly she was now willing to work with the man she’d had an unforgettable one-night stand with rated right up there with life-altering.
Pressing her fingers to her eyes, she squeezed them shut in an attempt to block him out, blot out the enormity of all this. Spots danced and shimmered before them, and when she finally opened them, peeked between her fingers, her heart sank lower than the splits.
It was impossible to stand here and pretend to only view him as a prospective boss when she’d seen him naked.
‘Shall we start the interview?’
His mouth kicked up into a semi-smile—a simple action that slammed straight into her, its impact just as brutal as she remembered.
‘Yes, right. The interview.’
Inwardly cringing at her awkward response, she dropped her hands to her side, flexed her fingers, shook them out, mustered her best stage face.
‘What do you want to know? My typing speed? PC skills? Microsoft literate? Multi-tasker?’
Heck, she was babbling, sounding more moronic by the second, while his expression remained impassive. His gaze focussed on her with frightening clarity, and she suddenly knew she’d been a fool to mistake this man for anything other than an imperturbable, composed businessman who’d let nothing stand in his way of getting what he wanted.
‘I need you.’
‘You need me?’
She laughed—a harsh, humourless cackle that startled a nearby magpie, which squawked in protest.
‘By the looks of this place you don’t need anybody. You’re doing quite well on your own.’
His eyes narrowed, appraising, and she squared her shoulders and tossed her hair, glad she’d gone to the trouble of blow-drying it straight.
She needed to present a confident front—something she had no trouble with on the stage. Yet here, now, standing in front of this powerful man, she felt something deep inside quiver at the enormity of what she was doing: aiming to work for a guy who’d initiated her into the joys of sex. In a big way.
‘I need a PA. Desperately.’
And she needed money. Desperately.
A win-win for them both.
If she could just forget the fact she’d had the best sex of her life with him.
She’d weighed her options and chosen to follow up his job offer when she’d withdrawn twenty bucks from an ATM this morning and seen her bank balance slip to under a hundred dollars.
Time for further job-hunting wasn’t a luxury she could afford, and his offer had niggled at the back of her mind—so tempting, so easy to chase up, so available…if only she could get past this. Him. The glorious memory of him naked that constantly flashed across her mind as she stood there.
But memories were worth nothing. The cost of starting a new life in a new city was way beyond her means if she didn’t start working ASAP, and right now she’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity like this for the sake of her inner vixen, cringing with embarrassment at working for a guy she’d bedded.
‘How soon could I start?’
He didn’t blink, didn’t move a muscle, his expression patient, as if dealing with a problem child.
‘Immediately. You have all those skills you mentioned earlier?’
She refrained from rolling her eyes. Not good interview skills for a woman desperate for this job.
‘I’ve temped before, in my early days as a dancer. Helped pay the rent.’
‘Good.’
‘Will I need book-keeping skills? Because—’
‘Your duties may include some housekeeping, alongside the personal assistant stuff.’
‘Housekeeping? But—’
‘You’ll find your remuneration more than fair.’
He ran roughshod over her, treating her like a subordinate, and she bristled, pulling herself up to her impressive five-ten. Pity it wasn’t a patch on his six-four.
‘Thanks. How much—?’
‘And of course you’ll be living in. The cottage will be yours, as part of your salary package, for as long as you work here.’
A cottage? All hers?
The next question died on her lips as she envisaged where she’d been staying for the last week: at a friend of Kit’s, whose ramshackle inner city rental doubled as a local hangout for uni students without a place to sleep.
If she hadn’t been haunted by memories of Callum she wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway—not with the crush of bodies littering the floor, the constant door-slamming at all hours, and the noisy bodily functions of uni students existing on a diet of stale pizza and baked beans.
She’d crashed there out of desperation and a la
ck of funds—counted on this job to get her out, depended on it for her first decent meal, something other than instant noodles and a recycled green teabag.
‘You’re welcome to check it out.’
Inwardly shuddering at the thought of any more tasteless noodles and weak tea, she said, ‘Great.’
She followed him past the pool and a glass pool-house, tucked behind immaculately trimmed hedges, and into a small clearing.
A small clearing that featured the most gorgeous little house she’d ever seen.
A cottage, just as he’d said, but what he’d failed to mention was its lemon rendered exterior trimmed in duck-egg blue, a criss-cross veranda housing a white wicker love-seat with striped cushions, and a border of petunias.
It was beyond cute, and the terracotta-tiled roof, reflecting the sun, seemed to shine directly into her eyes with some secret code that said Live here!
‘Go on—take a look inside.’
He flung open the door and she exhaled, confronted by paradise. Her version of paradise: buttercup walls, their rich gold depths enhanced by honey floorboards, solid pine furniture, pot belly heater, monstrous suede sofas piled high with scattered cushions and a four-poster bed straight out of a fairytale.
This wasn’t just any old ordinary cottage, no sirree. This place was a home—a place where she could start to rebuild her life, a place where she could instigate plans to get where she wanted to go.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s nice.’
Nice? Nice? The place was a flipping palace compared to the dumpster she’d been living in the last week.
‘So you’ll take the job?’
Ah…the job… The major catch in all this.
If she wanted to live here, she needed to work for His Lordship.
Whom she’d seen in all his naked glory.
Whom she’d kissed and caressed and kept up all night.
Oh, heck.
Folding her arms, she propped herself on the back of the sofa’s headrest, ignoring how comfy it was.
‘Isn’t this at all awkward for you?’
There—she’d said it, flung it out there, trying to get a reaction out of him.
It didn’t work. He didn’t flinch, cringe, move a muscle. His expression was impassive.
‘Why? Because we slept together?’
‘You and I both know there was very little sleeping involved.’
It had been incredible—one of those once-in-a-lifetime nights that you stored away for wistful reminiscing in your old age.
The problem was the object of that fantasy night was standing right in front of her, looking way too cool in his designer duds, and the memory of the magic they’d shared was way too fresh.
‘That night was a little crazy. I guess we both felt like company. Let’s just leave it at that.’
She wanted to push the issue, wanted him to acknowledge there’d been far more between them than two people seeking company, but what was the point?
Nothing she could say or do would erase that night, and it sure wouldn’t make working for him any easier.
Working for him.
She was seriously contemplating working for a guy she couldn’t get out of her head, no matter how hard she tried?
‘Fine, we’ll leave it at that.’
It wasn’t fine, but what choice did she have?
The old cliché ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ sprang to mind, and as she cast a longing look around the cosy cottage she knew what she had to do.
‘I’ll take the job.’
She stuck her hand out to cement her decision, but as his hand enclosed hers, firm, solid, way too warm, she wondered if she still had time to flee.
CHAPTER FIVE
CALLUM strode towards the house without looking back, annoyance lengthening his strides.
He’d miscalculated.
Made a big mistake.
Hiring Starr Merriday should have barely caused a blip in his busy schedule, but the moment he’d seen her standing on the veranda, wearing a black pencil skirt that accentuated her long legs and a tight ivory satin blouse, her hair silky-straight around her perfect heart-shaped face, he’d known.
He was in serious trouble.
The kind of trouble that couldn’t be eradicated with a stab at the delete key. The kind of trouble that couldn’t be fixed with money. The kind of trouble that would gnaw away at his subconscious until it drove him crazy.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He’d made that job offer on the spur of the moment—had flung it out as part of their sparring on an evening when he would have said and done practically anything to obliterate his memories.
He’d been disconcerted, on edge, considering the date—an anniversary he couldn’t forget no matter how hard he threw himself into work, no matter how many millions he made.
Later, after Rhys’ unsettling phone call, she’d helped him forget. Had blown his mind with hot, wild sex the likes of which he’d never had, and he’d lost himself in her rather than stew.
The way he’d seen it, the sex had guaranteed she’d never call him.
Yet she had. And when he’d answered the phone that morning, heard her voice as husky and sexy as he remembered, he’d agreed to see her.
For business purposes, of course. He was desperate, having had four temps walk out on him in the last twelve months, and he’d reached the end of his tether.
He’d tried every temp agency in Melbourne over the years, had been pushed to the limits every time. The temps they’d sent had covered the spectrum from too timid, too slow, too unmotivated, all the way to over-efficient, controlling, bossy types who’d tried to tell him how to run his business.
He refused to settle for anyone less than capable any more, and only worked with the best agency—the only one he trusted to deliver exactly what he needed. The one that couldn’t send him anyone for eight weeks, apparently.
Then Starr had called, conjuring up an instant reminder of her feisty attitude, her dedication to her dancing in travelling to a new city to follow her dream, and the undeniable spark between them.
He’d had to hire her.
Desperation might have been his primary motivator, but he knew in his gut she’d be as driven to succeed in this job as in the rest of her life.
But working with the woman who for one unforgettable night had brought out an inner wildness he’d gone to great lengths to tame? Crazy.
He’d been determined her reappearance wouldn’t rattle him. Yeah, that had worked.
Rattled? He was beyond rattled. Try unsettled, agitated, perturbed. Seriously perturbed on a level he didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone recognise for what it was.
Seeing her again had resurrected the arguments he’d been having with himself since that night in Sydney: his voice of reason urging him to forget her while he’d contemplated looking her up, the impact she’d made on him versus concentrating on work, the one solid, dependable thing that had got him through the last fourteen years.
That was part of the problem too: his business had suffered because he couldn’t stop thinking about her—something he wouldn’t tolerate.
So he’d come to a decision: wait another week, then instigate steps to find her. If he saw her again, got this ‘thing’ for her out of his system, his equilibrium would be restored and everything back to status quo.
All nice in theory, and he should be thankful she’d approached him, but…he still burned for her. Seeing her in the flesh had dealt a total whammy to the cool, unemotional persona he’d spent half a lifetime developing.
And that didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t have time for emotions, let alone for a woman with a cheeky smile and twinkling eyes.
While he might have solved his PA dilemma, he had a feeling his troubles were only just beginning.
Starr waited until Callum had disappeared up the garden path before plopping onto a lovely squishy sofa and fishing her mobile out of her bag.
Hitti
ng number two on her autodial—number one had been reserved for Sergio, and now stood satisfyingly empty—she waited for Kit to pick up.
‘Hey, guys and dolls, you’ve called Kitty. Leave a message. I’ll get back to you pronto. Toodles.’
After wrenching the phone from her ear and glaring at it, she shouted into Kit’s answering machine.
‘It’s just after eleven so I know you’re there. Pick up or else.’
She waited, counted to ten on her fingers, and had just raised her pinkie when a loud click signalled her nocturnal friend had finally surfaced for the day.
‘Whaddayawant? Can’t a girl get a little beauty sleep—?’
‘Rise and shine, cupcake. Because I have news!’
Kit grunted in response, a loud rattle indicating she’d pulled her Roman blind down further.
‘I found a job.’
Another grunt, followed by a muffled, ‘What?’ as Kit snuggled further under her duvet.
‘It isn’t a dancing position, but the cottage I get to live in is sublime, and I’ll keep job-hunting for something suitable, and—’
‘Who you working for?’
‘Callum Cartwright.’
‘Hot.’
‘Pardon?’
More duvet-ruffling before a much clearer and more exasperated sigh filtered down the phone line. ‘I said hot. Apparently Callum Cartwright is a babe.’
‘That’s not the problem.’
‘Problem?’
‘He’s the guy from the party.’
‘What party—? Ooooh! That party. Working for a sexy boss. Putting in some serious overtime. Lucky you.’
‘Lucky? I have to act all professional and organised and immune, when all I can think about is—’
‘How hot he was in the sack?’ Kit let rip with a big fake sniffle. ‘Boo-hoo.’
Starr smiled and tapped the phone.
‘Hello? Looking for a little sympathy here. A little Ooh, you poor thing, Starr, having to work for a guy you feel uncomfortable around. Some of that wouldn’t go astray.’
Kit snorted. ‘Give me a break. You don’t need sympathy—you need a wake-up call.’