Which was what she was. An employee.
‘I’m sure I’ll be able to walk if I get some flip-flops.’ She drew back and pressed her arms in front of her, shielding her bare breasts. ‘It may not be the most professional look, but as long as I don’t wear closed shoes I think I’ll be fine. There’s no need to imagine that I won’t be able to do my job.’
And there’s no need to imagine that because we’ve slept together I’m suddenly going to become anything less than the efficient person who reports to you... No need to fear that I’ll turn into one of those clingy types who don’t know when the party’s over.
She had a desperate urge to fill him in on how she felt—to let him know that she was still in the driving seat...to let herself know that she was still in the driving seat.
‘That’s not why I mentioned the feet,’ Alessandro drawled. ‘Although I’d be curious to see how flip-flops work with your navy suits...’
‘I did bring a beige one. It’s my summer suit.’
‘Oh, the levels of daring to which you’ve aspired... You forget: you can get rid of the suits. I’ve seen you in all your non-suited glory. You can actually feel free to dress down a little now when it comes to your work attire. I mentioned the feet because if you can’t walk then we might have to resign ourselves to being holed up in this suite for the next couple of days...’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. You can feel the chemistry between us. I can’t keep my hands off you.’
All her old principles rose to the surface but she fought them down—because hadn’t she wanted to embark on this challenge? She wasn’t going to get cold feet now.
‘But what about the client you wanted us to visit?’
‘He won’t be going anywhere. At least not for a couple of days.’
‘Is that the time limit you’ve set on this...er...situation?’
The sexy warmth on his face evaporated just like that. She could feel him pull back and knew that he was gauging the situation—weighing up the pros of having good sex against the cons of what might prove to be an awkward situation.
She hadn’t heard his warning speech about not getting wrapped up in him. Was he trying to work out how he could give it now, having had mind-blowing sex with her?
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said casually, lowering her eyes and trying to stanch the sudden pain twisting inside her.
‘Really? You’re a mind reader?’
‘I’m not a mind-reader, but I’m not stupid either. I’ve told you how I feel about meaningless relationships. I’ve told you that I’ve never seen the point of one-night stands and sex just for the sake of sex. So you’re probably scared stiff that we’ve slept together and now suddenly I’ll be trying to drag you down to the local jeweller’s to see what the rings there look like. But you couldn’t be further from the truth.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ Kate told him firmly. ‘I don’t know what happened here...things went down an unexpected road...but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re you and I’m me. For a start, I work for you. You’re my boss. And that makes this all wrong.’
‘Let’s get past the boss/employee situation...’
‘It’s all right for you to say that.’ Kate was suddenly angry at his complete self-assurance that he was entitled to do exactly what he wanted to do, without any repercussions whatsoever. ‘You can turn round and sack me if you decide I’m some kind of liability.’
‘And will you be? A liability?’ He hadn’t even thought of her as the sort to sell some tacky kiss-and-tell story to a newspaper—not that that would turn his world on its axis. He couldn’t care less what people thought of him. But the idea that she might go down the tawdry route of gold-digger, out to siphon off money after sleeping with him...well, that was a horse of a different colour.
And why hadn’t he thought of that possibility?
Because she’d struck him as a person of integrity. Was he about to be proved wrong?
But, no. He could tell instantly from the look of distaste that crossed her face that he had insulted her.
‘I had to ask,’ he said with cool detachment, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling with his arms behind his head.
‘Of course you did.’ Kate’s voice dripped sarcasm. ‘It’s only natural after you’ve slept with a woman to ask her whether she’s about to phone a tabloid and spill the beans about sex with billionaire Alessandro Preda. If you think that I hopped into bed with you because I fancied my chances of fleecing you for money—’
He turned to her and stared her down unsmilingly. ‘When you live my life you don’t take anything for granted.’
‘Then you must lead a sad life.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. But I don’t know how to behave around you now that this has happened. Every time I say something a little too frank I remember who you are. And then I start wondering how we got into this...this mess...’
‘Situations like this are only a mess if they get out of hand—and they only get out of hand if one or the other becomes too involved.’
‘And that would never be you.’ She shot him a rueful glance, because whatever mess she had found herself in she was too greedy to want to get out of it just yet.
But get out she would. And before he gave her his lecture she thought that she might give him hers—set his mind at ease, pave the way for a dignified retreat when this little one-week working holiday was over. Because, as sure as the sun rose and set every day of every year, there would be nothing between them when they returned to London.
‘Don’t worry—it won’t be me either,’ she added quickly.
‘I know.’
‘You do?’
‘You’re looking for a soulmate, and it’s not me. What we have is a purely physical thing.’
‘It’s not like me to do a purely physical thing...’
‘Which makes me feel sorry for you.’ He coolly returned her criticism of him back to her and she blushed. ‘You look very fetching when you blush,’ he murmured, distracted. ‘And, just as an aside, don’t feel that you have to tiptoe round me as though you’re walking on eggshells. When you’re lying in bed naked you cease to be my employee...’
And when I’m no longer lying in bed naked...? When I’m back sitting at my desk, wearing one of my many suits...? Working on the deals you’re throwing at me...?
She had got caught up in a riptide, had lost all her prized control, and there was only one sure way she could think of regaining it—because if she didn’t then she would be lost. It was a terrifying prospect. If she got lost where would she be? How would she ever be able to find all the landmarks that defined her life?
‘You have to promise me something,’ she told him seriously.
‘I dislike making promises. Especially to women.’
‘Well...’ She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘You’re going to make this promise—if you don’t then I’m going to...to get dressed and hobble back to my room...’
‘Is that blackmail?’ Alessandro asked coldly. ‘Because that’s something I dislike even more than I dislike making promises.’
‘No, it’s not blackmail. Are you always so suspicious of everyone’s motives? No, don’t answer that. You are. You can’t help yourself. I want you to promise me that when we return to London this ends. And we never talk about it. Ever again. We pretend none of it happened and I go back to being your employee and nothing more.’
Alessandro raised his eyebrows, for this was the first time in his life he was being dismissed prematurely. Actually, it was the first time in his life he was being dismissed at all.
He shrugged and decided that it was a promise he was more than happy to make. He would have her for a week, and by the time the week was done he would be ready to move on. Kate Watson, stunning and sexy as she might be, wasn’t his type. She wanted more from a man than a passing fling, and he suspected that if they were to continue their lia
ison all her good intentions not to get wrapped up in someone who wasn’t her soulmate would be ground down—because that was just the way it was.
‘So it’s a deal?’
‘It’s a deal, and we can shake on it—but who’s to say that you won’t find it impossible to stick to your side of the bargain?’
‘I may have...given in...but...but...I see this as a kind of adventure. I mean, I’ve never allowed myself to get carried away. I never thought I would either. But I’m glad that I have. I suppose, in a weird way, I should thank you...’
She looked at him with shining sincerity and Alessandro looked back at her, amused.
She was complex. An ambitious professional who was endearingly inexperienced, a sensible suit-wearing employee who still blushed like a teenager. She was scrupulously honest, and seemingly unaware that scrupulous honesty was not part of the game when it came to sex and seduction. She spoke her mind and ignored the potential fallout.
All told, she challenged him.
Women generally didn’t.
He wondered idly whether he had just been looking in the wrong places. He wondered whether the time wasn’t drawing near for him to move on from hit-and-run romances with obliging but empty-headed supermodels. He was no believer in romance, but maybe the time was drawing near for him to test the waters for something more solid.
Kate Watson had shown him that a good brain certainly broadened the appeal. Tie that up with a woman who wasn’t searching for love and romance, who was as down to earth as he was when it came to relationships—a woman who could challenge him intellectually, could see marriage as something blessedly free from the vagaries of so-called love—and who was to say that it couldn’t work?
He had become jaded. This interlude had demonstrated that. The novelty of having someone out of his comfort zone had been telling. Hell, he could hardly think straight with her lying here next to him! He needed to move on...
‘Maybe...’ he pulled her towards him ‘...I should be the one thanking you...’
CHAPTER NINE
[ALESSANDRO SWIVELLED HIS leather chair away from his desk towards the floor-to-ceiling windows through which, at several floors up, he had nothing more inspiring than an uninterrupted view of grey skies. In the week and a half since they had returned from Toronto the blue-sky summer had morphed into a more traditional London summer of leaden skies, intermittent drizzle and the low-level complaints of a nation who had become accustomed to going out without the back-up of brollies and cardigans.
His temper should have improved by now. It hadn’t. He scowled and allowed himself a few satisfying seconds of thinking that change might be on the way in the form of a very shapely, very sexy lawyer, who had been nestling in his little black book, waiting for him to get in touch after their brief meeting several months previously. At the time he had been involved with a frisky little redhead, but frisky was no longer on the agenda and the lawyer seemed a far more promising bet.
True to her word, Kate had shut the door on him the second they had taken off from the airport in Toronto.
‘It’s been fun,’ she had informed him, with a cheerful smile.
Thoughts of the sexy, shapely lawyer vanished as he remembered his response to that.
‘I’m not ready for the fun to end just yet,’ he had told her in a lazy drawl, absently noting that the suit was back in place.
And he hadn’t been. As far as he’d been concerned the fun had only just started—so why should it end the second they touched down at Heathrow Airport? His diet, when it came to women and sex, didn’t include self-denial, and he had seen no reason why that should change.
They had had an outrageously sexy week in Toronto, only just managing to squeeze in a brief visit to his potential client. It had been enough to secure the deal, and the remainder of their time in the city had been spent exploring the tourist attractions, getting more adventurous as her feet had healed, and making love. Surprisingly, he hadn’t tired of her. He had felt none of his usual irritation or mildly suffocating claustrophobia at being in a woman’s company even when they hadn’t been in a bed.
That being the case, why should they have called it a day? She hadn’t been of the same opinion.
He scowled and glanced at his watch. Every time he thought about the outcome of that conversation he wanted to hit something. She hadn’t only kindly, gently, told him that it was over, she had also carried on smiling, a little puzzled smile, as though she hadn’t quite understood why he wasn’t getting it.
His ground his teeth together in smouldering fury as he recalled that.
He’d had no idea that a little dented ego could prove so difficult to shift. Was he really so conceited that he couldn’t handle someone wanting to quit an affair before he was ready? Especially when he knew it was something that wasn’t destined for the long haul anyway?
Because it wasn’t. Simple as that. Kate Watson might have stepped out of her box, to do something that had never been on her agenda, but that didn’t change the fact that what she wanted in life was completely different from what he wanted.
She wanted a long-term, no-holds-barred relationship, and that came with all the trappings he had no time for. Getting wrapped up with someone wasn’t for him. Long-term, for him, would be something far more controllable—something that didn’t risk disrupting the primary focus in his life, which was his work, something that wasn’t...intrusive.
His cell phone buzzed.
Rebecca—or Red-Hot Rebecca, as she was called in certain legal circles. Long legs. Short hair. Good-looking with a seriously high-powered brain. Once upon a time, the seriously high-powered brain would not have been in his search engine, but now—yes, it definitely worked. In fact he couldn’t understand what he had seen in his previous girlfriends. He couldn’t envisage dating anyone now who didn’t have a brain. The long legs helped—as did the attractive short bob. And when he had bumped into her a few months ago she had left him in no doubt that she was up for some quality time together.
And she wouldn’t be on the hunt for romance and fairy-tale endings. She wouldn’t want to take him over. She was a career woman, on her way to becoming the youngest ever lawyer to take silk. She didn’t give the impression of someone who would be ready to jack all that in for a guy—any guy.
Big plus.
He picked up the call. She was on her way over. Opera was to be followed by a slap-up meal at one of the most expensive restaurants in the city. And then...who knew? Actually, he did.
His brain skidded to an inconvenient halt and veered off in a completely different direction.
Kate. In his bed at the hotel. Her long hair spread across the pillows, her arms resting lightly on her flat stomach as he undressed. Her eyes heavy with desire, turning him on until he could barely control himself—and that had been before he had even touched her.
Kate laughing, her hair blowing around her face, in the car they had rented so that he could show her some of the wild scenery that lay just a hop and a skip out of the city. She had insisted on taking a picnic and he had concurred, even though there had been a string of more-than-decent restaurants along the way.
Kate asking him gently about his past, trying to work out why he was anti-love and all its trials and tribulations... And him talking to her, telling her things he had never shared with anyone else...
He focused on that, pushing aside every other memory that threatened to rise to the surface.
He had been so damned wrapped up in the whole mind-blowing sex thing that he had dismissed her curiosity as an inconvenience rather than what he now knew it to be.
A way in.
It enraged him that even with that evidence of boundary-crossing he still hadn’t been able to get her out of his head—still found himself taking cold showers in the middle of the night.
He had made sure to stay clear of her ever since they had returned to London. She was back in the bowels of the office, several floors down, busy as a little bee, he presumed. Her promotio
n was now general knowledge, as was George Cape’s early retirement, which had been put down to him wanting to spend more time with his family during difficult times. Not untrue. Happy campers all round. Which was not what he had originally foreseen when this mess had erupted.
Kate: new job. Cape: retired with his dignity intact—a decision for which Alessandro had not catered but one with which he was pleased. Several members of the accounts team had been reshuffled, much to their individual satisfaction.
Unfortunately he didn’t feel like a happy camper, and it was getting on his nerves.
He was pinning a lot on the curative powers of Red-Hot Rebecca.
On the spur of the moment he dialled through to Kate’s cell phone, wanting to remind himself of what was history. He was branching out in a different direction with a different woman, and from nowhere came the urge to satisfy himself that he was over his brief liaison with Kate. Aside from which he had a couple of things to ask her. Rebecca would be more than happy to wait for five minutes for him downstairs if traffic was light and she arrived sooner than expected. She wasn’t the clingy sort who would throw a fit if he was a little late.
Her cell phone was answered immediately.
‘It’s Alessandro.’
On the other end of the line, Kate felt her heart skip a beat.
There had been no need for him to announce himself. She would have recognized that deep, dark, lazy drawl anywhere. And after nearly two weeks of trying to get it out of her head she found that it still did the same crazy things to her nervous system it had done when they had almost lived in each other’s company.
She had done the right thing in ending it. She knew that. He had wanted to carry on until he got bored, but she had noticed that he hadn’t put up much of a fight when she had swept past that interruption. Just as she had noticed that he had made no effort to try and contact her since they had arrived back in London.
He had delegated all the work for her hand-over to his financial director. She had got the message loud and clear. If she’d been up for a little more fun and frolics then he would have happily obliged, but the second she had refused he had shrugged, backed away and headed off in the opposite direction. No big deal.
At Her Boss's Pleasure Page 14