Burning With Passion
Burning With Passion
Emma Darcy
St. Valentine's Day is a special day for lovers all over the world . And this year it has a special significance for Caitlin Ross. This year she is sure that David Hartley will admit she loves her. But Caitlin has forgotten that Valentine's Day casts its own special magic.The surprises she receives, and the shocks that lie in store for David, make this a February the fourteenth they will never, ever forget… !
Burning With Passion
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Scott Brodie, our hero on many occasions.
Our thanks for his diplomacy, tact, understanding and caring
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#uf05b58bf-5745-5292-85c9-21538b34aead)
CHAPTER TWO (#u81e1b200-4f2f-5e1e-8ffc-e4b77e5f703e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u90d2669d-dcfa-58d4-bc9f-0d33615e2db7)
CHAPTER FOUR (#udd5d1633-e6d4-5318-9649-4f159958c736)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
LOVING David Hartley was like dancing with the devil. There was no telling where it would lead to, there was hell to pay for it, yet the temptation to go on with the dance was well nigh irresistible.
For Caitlin Ross, there was little of her life that did not revolve around David Hartley. Yet she was no closer to the quintessential man than she had been four months ago when she had been offered the job as his personal assistant.
Her promotion from personal assistant in the office to personal assistant in the bedroom had been extraordinarily rapid by any standard. Caitlin hadn’t said no to him because he simply hadn’t given her time to say anything. He had taken her over in the same way he did any competitor, company or conglomerate. It was breathtaking stuff.
It was only after they had made love for the first time that the situation became confused. Caitlin had discovered there were two distinctive features to David’s personality. The first was that he never referred to his family or his background; the second was that he had a very strict rule against the fraternisation of management and employees in sexual liaisons. He made no exceptions to this rule, apart from breaking it himself.
Caitlin reasoned that he needed someone attuned to his business life, someone with whom he could talk about the things that were important to him, someone who understood. Caitlin could supply that in a way no other woman could. She was closest to him. She loved being closest to him. But it was nowhere near as close as she wanted to be.
In far too many ways, David had made himself an island complete and entire in himself. There were gleams of the person he could be, shining through isolated chinks in his armour, but they were few and far between.
Only in bed did his control slip. When they were finished with their lovemaking he donned it again like impenetrable armour. When he left her, it was as though she no longer existed.
Caitlin had watched him do it again this morning. She wanted to fight it but she didn’t know how. It made her feel threatened and defeated. She couldn’t understand why he wanted, desired her so much, and then shut her out of the closeness she was sure he felt with her in the intimacy of making love.
He strode back into her bedroom.
He was freshly showered and shaved and unashamedly naked. She felt her innermost muscles spasm in response simply to seeing him like this. His body was perfectly proportioned and powerful. He was the ultimate male animal in his prime, although no longer primed for the passion he had already spent some twenty minutes ago. Burn-out for him. Caitlin wanted more. Much more than this.
He looked revitalised after his shower. He always did. His straight black hair was combed back, wet and shiny; his olive skin stretched glowingly over high cheekbones, a cleanly cut jawline and strong nose; his dark, cobalt-blue eyes were lit with purpose for the day ahead of him. A man of command, who drove forward unswervingly, touching everyone within his ambit.
Caitlin fiercely wished she could exercise some influence over his thinking. That had not proved possible. Yet.
He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her as he reached for the shirt he had tossed on to her dressing-table stool last night. ‘No coffee?’
Normally it was on the dressing-table, waiting for him, freshly brewed, black with one sugar. He drank it while he dressed. He never stayed to have breakfast with her. As far as Caitlin could discern, he didn’t eat breakfast.
It was six-thirty now. He would be gone by six forty-five. That was the ritual. He never varied it. Caitlin wished he would.
‘I don’t feel like moving,’ she answered his question on the missing coffee. It was the truth. It was also an act of rebellion.
The fractional tightening of David’s lower lip indicated the message had been received and understood. Caitlin wondered if it would induce David to change his schedule. Would it drive him to making some coffee for himself, and for her? It would only delay him five or ten minutes at the most.
She waited expectantly to see his choice.
He continued dressing, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his shirt, doing up the cuff buttons. He made no move towards the kitchen. Caitlin tried to suppress the nervous flutter that descended to the pit of her stomach.
She had done everything in her power to spin out the dance as long as she could. She had been so careful not to make a false step that would contravene his rules, always fulfilling his needs as she saw them, polishing her role as the perfect partner for him, telling herself that holding David Hartley was worth any effort.
The strain was beginning to tell. The piper had to be paid for the effort she had put in, and the list of dues owed was becoming longer and longer.
Caitlin knew she risked losing him if she tried to change their relationship. After four months of going all his way, Caitlin also knew she was losing too much of herself. She could not let things remain as they were between them. Change was inevitable.
David shot her a sharp frown. ‘Are you sick?’ He was trying to find some explanation for her behaviour which fitted into his pattern of thinking.
‘I’ve never felt healthier!’ she answered, forcing him to think again, thoroughly peeved with his rigidly kept schedule.
She stretched languorously, provocatively, wondering if it was possible to tempt him back into bed with her. She watched his response through her thick dark lashes, her green eyes glimmering a sultry invitation. His firmly delineated mouth quirked into a sensual little smile as his gaze flicked over her naked breasts.
It was purely an accident of birth that her ribcage was high enough to give her a tiny waist. It had the effect of making her hips and breasts look more voluptuous than they were. Caitlin knew David found the arrangement fascinating, provocative and exciting.
There was a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. No desire. His hands moved down his shirt, buttoning it at a steady pace. No hesitation. No wavering. No change of mind, or heart, or inclination. He had had his fulfilment for the moment. He had no need for more. She doubted he ever gave consideration to the possibility that some of her needs were different from his.
Caitlin was deeply wounded by his ability to love her and leave her. The urge to jolt him into reappraisal mode was overwhelming. She realigned her body across the bed for full visual impact, levered herself up on one elbow, rummaged the long, layered mane of her tawny hair with her other hand, and eyed him with smouldering challenge.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said quietly but firmly.
David rolled his eyes and threw a beseeching look towards the heavens. As his gaze was interrupted by the ceiling, there was no result to this supplicating action except to pique Caitlin somewhat more than she was already piqued.
He glanced pointedly at his watch and bent to pick up his underpants from the floor. ‘I have a busy schedule to keep, Caitlin. You know that. You entered it in the diary.’
She watched him draw on the black silk briefs. They formed a tantalising pouch for his virility and emphasised the powerful muscularity of his thighs. He looked sexy. He was sexy. But Caitlin wanted more than sexiness from him. She wanted to know how important she was in his life.
‘Please, David...couldn’t you give me today? I’ll make you happy.’
‘I am happy. I’m delirious with happiness. Thank you for already making me so happy.’
To Caitlin’s mind he didn’t look the least bit happy. His words sounded sarcastic. She was quite certain he wasn’t at all happy with the way things were developing between them.
‘I want you to stay with me.’
Caitlin knew she was on very dangerous grounds with that plea. She was also probably wrong to put such a demand on him, but her need was acute. In a desperate attempt to interest him she pulled a long tress of her hair forward to dangle between her breasts, reminding him of the foreplay he enjoyed.
He gave her a sharp, penetrating look. ‘Are you saying I didn’t satisfy you?’
She flushed, unable to deny that he had brought her to a tumultuous climax. He was well aware of it, too. But, in a far more important sense than the purely physical, he didn’t satisfy her. Caitlin wanted—needed—intimate contact with his innermost feelings.
‘I want us to spend more time together,’ she said, willing him to respond with some suggestion that would help make things better for her.
‘We spent the night together,’ he said drily. ‘How many nights do you want?’ He reached for his trousers.
Caitlin fought against a sense of worthlessness and failure. She knew that in David’s mind nights were associated with sex. He wasn’t getting the message at all.
‘I want to talk to you. About something serious.’
‘In another two hours we’ll be in the office together. Isn’t that serious enough?’
‘It’s not the same,’ she retorted, hurt by his lack of understanding, knowing she was losing but too frustrated by his intransigent attitude to back off from the disagreement.
‘You want more?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘I’d very much like, just for once, for our pleasure and togetherness to come before your business.’
The act of rebellion was complete. Words had been spoken which could never be retrieved. The Rubicon was crossed. Caitlin waited to see what stormy waves she had stirred. The cobalt-blue eyes took on a wary, calculating look.
David never mixed business with pleasure. It was one of his rules. In the office, he was the boss, she was his assistant and amanuensis, and he never did or said anything to lead anyone to suspect they were lovers. That was private. It was personal. It was never to be revealed.
The two separate phases of his existence were divorced from one another. Caitlin couldn’t help thinking the arrangement suited his convenience. She worked his hours. She was free when he was free. But business was business and nothing else was allowed to interfere with running that part of his life as he saw fit. Nothing!
‘It wouldn’t hurt to take one day off and spend it together,’ she pressed.
‘What would it achieve that we haven’t already achieved?’
‘It would be something spontaneous, unplanned.’ She made one last attempt to get through to him. ‘It would make me feel good.’
‘I left my schooldays behind me a long time ago, Caitlin.’
He was downgrading her to ‘petulant schoolgirl’ status.
‘You could cancel your appointments today. I’ll make the excuses for you,’ she pleaded.
‘No.’
‘You could come back to bed and hug and cuddle and kiss me.’
His look of disdain downgraded her from schoolgirl to child.
He tucked in his shirt, zipped up his trousers, then sat on the stool, stony-faced as he began to pull on his socks.
‘Those are yesterday’s socks,’ said Caitlin with an uncharacteristic spurt of bitterness. ‘You’ll have to go home and change.’
‘I know that,’ he replied with some asperity.
She had invited him to leave a fresh set of clothes in her apartment for the times he stayed overnight. It would have saved him the trouble of going home to change. He would not have to rise so early. He could stay and have breakfast with her.
His reply had been succinct and dismissive. He wouldn’t burden her with his dirty laundry.
He didn’t burden her with anything. His only concession to practicality about their relationship was to keep a toothbrush, a shaving kit and a comb in her bathroom. To Caitlin it smacked of a clinical detachment from getting involved in any way except the obvious. She didn’t like it.
It hurt.
It made her feel temporary.
She desperately wanted to feel special to him, more special than any woman he had been with before.
‘Why don’t you ever invite me to your home, David?’ she asked, driven to wring some sign from him that she meant more than a pleasurable convenience and receptacle.
‘It’s easier for you if we stay here. You can do as you please and be answerable to no one,’ he replied, not bothering to look up from tying the laces on his shoes.
Her convenience. That was a nice twist. In effect, she was kept excluded from his home life. Caitlin knew he lived at Lane Cove, not far from his business headquarters at Chatswood. Within the ambit of the northern suburbs of Sydney, it was no further away than her place at Wollstonecraft, but their intimacy was contained to her apartment.
Caitlin was chillingly conscious of how expedient this situation was if David chose to end their affair. No bothersome complications. He could simply walk out and never come back.
Her sense of insecurity with him deepened.
He rose from the stool, fully dressed apart from his tie and suitcoat. They had been discarded in her living-room. He would pick them up on his way out. His gaze skated over the long sprawl of her slender legs, paused at the deep indentation of her waist, skipped to the wild disarray of hair framing her face and shoulders, then fastened directly on her eyes. There was a dark, ruthless glint in his.
‘I hope you find the energy to move yourself in good time to get to the office at nine, Caitlin. I wouldn’t like to think you were taking advantage of your situation.’
It was a warning. Softly spoken, perfectly controlled, no direct threat involved, yet Caitlin’s spine crawled with the sense of having stretched beyond what was acceptable to him. The protective urge to quickly backtrack was shrivelled by a flare of burning resentment.
Did she have no importance in his life apart from being an efficient secretary and a ready source of sexual satisfaction? It was the final insult. She had worked herself to boneless exhaustion for David Hartley.
‘You have the sensitivity of a rhinoceros,’ she muttered darkly, more to herself than to him.
‘I’ll let that remark pass and pretend you never said it,’ he said testily.
‘Big of you,’ she complimented him.
The need to find out what she really meant to him surged through her with passionate intensity. Even if his heart was cold to her, his body wasn’t. She must mean something more than just being a body.
She swung her legs off the bed with a lithe, feline grace that captured his attention. She lifted her arms and flicked back her hair as she stood up and turned to face him, knowing the action tilted the firm fullness of her breasts into greater prominence. Her nipples hardened as the desire to seduce raged with white-hot heat. She rolled her hips, sliding her thighs against each other as she walked towards him, a sensual smile curving her generous mouth.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.
His chest expanded. His shoulders squared with tension. His hands clenched. He was definitely unhappy. He was tempted. His mind warred against the stirring of his desire. He had a schedule to keep. He didn’t allow anything to interfere with that. His face set with resolution but the glitter in his eyes had more to do with lust than determination. His feet stayed rooted to the floor. He didn’t move forward.
‘Is this the last time you want to see me like this?’ Caitlin taunted.
‘No,’ he cried hoarsely.
‘Stay with me. Hold me and cuddle me.’
‘I’ll be damned if I will.’
‘You’ll be damned if you don’t.’
‘I have the overseas delegation today.’
Caitlin knew she was being unreasonable but her need was great. ‘Defer it until tomorrow.’
His mouth thinned in frustration.
Caitlin moved in on him, playing the age-old role of seductive temptress. She had never done anything like this before, had never felt the need to, but the stakes were high.
All was fair in love and war.
Until now, David had always been one step ahead of her, taking the initiative with a boldness that could still leave her breathless. He had the primitive streak of a hunter who didn’t accept being thwarted. If one approach didn’t work, he used another, and another, until he had what he wanted.
Why shouldn’t she be the same? If this was the game he played, she would play it, too.
She slid her fingers out of her hair and dropped her hands on to his shoulders, kneading the tight muscles with varying pressures. ‘You need to relax, David,’ she said in a low throaty purr.
‘I need to go,’ he bit out.
She moved her hands to the back of his neck, caressing the sensitive nape as she lifted simmering green eyes to his. ‘Not before you kiss me.’ She moved up on tiptoe, brushing her breasts against the fine fabric of his shirt.
‘What are you trying to do to me?’
‘Find reassurance.’
His chin unbent enough for her mouth to reach his. She ran the tip of her tongue lightly between his lips as she pressed closer, arching her back, pushing her stomach into provocative union with his.
She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the tingling touch of his tongue as it moved in response to hers. His hands closed possessively over the soft mounds of her buttocks, lifting her higher to meet the burgeoning thrust of desire she had stirred.
She invaded his mouth, sweeping his palate with the feverish purpose of increasing his arousal. She rubbed her stomach and thighs against his in wanton incitement, determined on making him burn for her. There was a fire in her belly that demanded total commitment.
An animal growl came from his throat. One hand splayed across her lower back, crushing her softness around the rigid bulge in his trousers. His other hand thrust through her hair, gripped the back of her head, holding it still as he forcefully invaded her mouth, plundering its sweetness with a passion as feverish as her own.
A feeling of triumph tingled through Caitlin’s veins. At long last he had forgotten his schedule. ‘Take me,’ she whispered huskily as his chest heaved for breath. ‘Take me, David.’
She dropped a hand to his shirt, her fingers tearing at the buttons. His stomach contracted as he muttered some fierce imprecation. Then suddenly, brutally, his hands were encircling her upper arms, pushing her away from him. It startled her into a cry of protest. Her gaze flew up, wild and accusing and mournful, meeting a blaze of furious blue.
‘You take away a man’s brain and leave him witless.’
‘You want me,’ she cried. As she wanted him.
‘You tempt me beyond endurance.’
‘Isn’t that what men want from the women they never marry!’ she flung back at him.
‘I’ve never referred to or alluded to you in any way to imply that you were my mistress.’
‘You just have,’ she said with infinite regret and a deadness of soul.
‘You goaded me into this, Caitlin,’ he responded. ‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re playing at, but this isn’t the time for it.’
‘When will there be time for it?’ she fired at him, seething with frustration, crushed by his remorselessness.
A shutter came down on the blue blaze. ‘Maybe never.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said heavily. It justified everything she had said and done. Her voice shook with the vehemence of her feeling of rejection. ‘I won’t be here tonight.’
If he had ever liked her he would have known that already. He would have found out. The truth was that he wasn’t interested in what made her tick, what made her the person she was.
His eyes narrowed. He plucked his hands away from her. ‘Neither will I,’ he snapped, not understanding what was happening but not bending a millimetre.
‘Just as you have a life I don’t share, I have a life you don’t share,’ Caitlin threw at him. Her chin tilted defiantly. ‘You can take me now or leave me now. If you leave, I don’t know when I’ll be free again.’
His mouth took on a cynical twist. ‘Barter-time, is it?’
Her eyes flashed contempt. ‘Sorting out priorities.’
That gave him pause for thought. She could almost see his mind clicking over with calculations. ‘We’ll talk about this later,’ he said, and turned to go.
‘Don’t worry about turning on the percolator in the kitchen for me. I’ll do it myself.’
His eyes turned back to her with a dark, turbulent glare. His trousers still bulged. It had to be causing him some physical distress to leave her like this. His head jerked away.
Caitlin didn’t follow him out of the bedroom. She stood precisely where she was until she heard the door to her apartment click shut behind him. He still hadn’t asked her what she was doing tonight, why she wouldn’t be free for him. He didn’t care what she did when she wasn’t with him.
She shivered.
It spurred her to a burst of activity. She grabbed a robe from her cupboard and marched out to the kitchen, wrapping herself tightly in the all-enveloping garment. She filled the coffee-maker and switched it on, feeling furiously justified in not having done it for David this morning. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything from her.
Her eye caught the calendar hanging below the kitchen clock. Today’s date was ringed. It was important. February the fourteenth. St Valentine’s Day. The day her mother and father were married thirty years ago. The day she was given Dobbin as her very own pony. The day for lovers to declare themselves. A day to concentrate on romance. A day which would be as bleak as Hades because she had danced with the devil.
A wave of nausea cramped Caitlin’s stomach and pushed a choking lump into her throat. She tore off the offending page of February and crushed it in her hand. She didn’t need the reminder of her parents’ wedding anniversary any more, and she certainly didn’t need a reminder of what she didn’t have with David Hartley.
She opened the lid of the kitchen tidy and threw the crumpled wad of paper into the bin. She wished she could get rid of her unrequited love for David Hartley just as easily.
She looked up at the clock. She had an hour and forty-two minutes to don her role as his personal assistant and wear the label ‘For Office Use Only’. That was what David was going to get from her from now on until he decided differently about sex, sensuality and sharing.
CHAPTER TWO
CAITLIN stepped off the bus at Chatswood at five minutes to nine. Normally she would take that amount of time to arrive at the Hartley building. Today she was not eager to get to work.
The morning was fine and sparkling. A continuation of last night’s violent thunderstorm with its torrential rain would have been more in keeping with Caitlin’s dark misery. The intense blueness of a cloudless sky appeared to mock the bleak prospect of her future.
She had made the effort to present a meticulous appearance. David paid her a large salary. He expected her to perform well and look stylish and sophisticated.
Pride insisted she give him no grounds for any possible criticism where her job was concerned. It also insisted that she show no sign of the deep distress he had given her. As a result she looked particularly bright and shiny, so much so that she attracted a second look from many other pedestrians as she crossed the road to her place of business.
Her hair was freshly washed and blow-dried into a gleaming cascade of waves. It brought out the gold streaks in the darker tawny mass. It also provided a strikingly sensual frame for what was an essentially feminine face, oval in shape and set on a long Nefertiti neck. Her eyes were large, deeply lidded and emphasised with finely arched brows. Her nose was small and straight, the slight flare of her nostrils balancing a generous mouth.
Caitlin had applied a soft and subtle make-up; only a fine touch of shadow and eyeliner to emphasise the green of her thickly lashed eyes, a barely discernible brush of colour to highlight her cheekbones, and a dusting of very expensive powder to give her skin a smooth lustre. The curves of her mouth were perfectly outlined with a tan lip-pencil and filled in with peach gloss.
She wore an elegant long-sleeved blouse in a soft cream voile with lace inserts running down the bodice. Her long button-through crêpe skirt was of a darker cream, slim-lined and fitted snugly to her small waist. Her stockings were of fine quality, her court shoes taupe suede to match her shoulder-bag.
She looked a picture of style, which was what David Hartley expected of her. As Caitlin walked up the steps to the main entrance of the Hartley building, the showroom manager hurried forward to open the door for her, casting an appreciative eye over her appearance and giving her a welcoming smile. ‘Good morning, Miss Ross,’ he said cheerfully.
She dredged up a smile. ‘Good morning, Mr Jordan.’ He was a slickly handsome man in his early forties, always a bit too effusive for Caitlin’s liking, but that probably went with being a top salesman. David did not employ second-rate staff.
He grinned. ‘May I wish you a very happy St Valentine’s Day. And lots of lovers!’
Caitlin barely stopped herself from wincing. The greeting was undoubtedly meant as today’s variation of ‘Have a nice day.’ Paul Jordan made it sound offensive.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and hurried past him into the foyer.
She didn’t so much as glance at the vast showroom that took up most of the ground floor. It was packed with state-of-the-art office furniture, all designed to accord with David Hartley’s specialised standards. These were directly related to his study of the engineering aspects of the relationship between workers and their environment. When it came to ergonomics, no one knew more about it, or had cornered the market more effectively.
Caitlin headed straight for the elevator that would take her to the administrative offices on the first floor. Jenny Ashton, the telephonist and receptionist, looked up from her desk. She was two years younger than Caitlin, a pretty blonde with an infectious smile. The smile broadened to full beam as though she was bursting with good news.
‘Hi, Jenny!’ Caitlin greeted her briefly and quickened her step. She didn’t have the time or the inclination for chat this morning.
‘Great day!’ Jenny returned, her brown eyes sparkling.
‘Sure,’ Caitlin agreed. She forced another smile. ‘Did your boyfriend give you something special?’ she asked in passing, trying to look pleased for her.
Jenny rolled her eyes expressively. ‘I’d certainly call it special.’
‘Good for you!’ Caitlin called back to her as she pressed the elevator button.
The door opened immediately. It was a relief to relax her facial muscles as she stepped into the compartment. Common sense argued that she should break with David right now. He was never going to give her what she wanted. To stay on as his assistant could only be a torment to her. She told herself he had dazzled her into a love-affair. Her eyes were now well and truly open, and she knew where it was all leading to. Nowhere!
The problem was, she was addicted to him. The thought of never again experiencing the wild passion they shared together sent a wave of empty desolation through her body. Nor were there jobs of this quality lurking around every corner. Would she ever get another that would match this one?
David emitted a charge of electricity that made even the most mundane work appear exciting and fulfilling. She felt his intensity and responded to it. Would she ever meet another man to match him?
Was she prepared to end the addiction...cold turkey?
The thought was depressing.
Feeling emotionally torn by the prospect, Caitlin stepped out of the elevator and walked to her office on automatic pilot. She checked her watch as she opened the door. It was precisely nine o’clock.
Her timing was perfect, not a minute early, not a minute late.
She sniffed in puzzlement. A sweet, rich scent seemed to permeate the room. She looked up, then stared in astonishment at the magnificent arrangement of red roses sitting on her desk. There had to be dozens of dark velvety buds beginning to unfurl into full bloom. Incredibly beautiful, marvellous, heart-kicking extravagance!
Warmth flooded through her veins. Red roses were for love. Red roses were for eternity.
David must have relented. He had seen the errors of his ways. He didn’t want to lose her. Maybe he did love her.
Or perhaps he had ordered the roses yesterday. Which was why he wouldn’t consider any change in his schedule today. He knew what was to be delivered this morning. He wanted her to be surprised by his gift of love.
Caitlin moved forward like a sleepwalker. Her mind was abuzz with exciting possibilities. Attached to the decorative basket from which the roses sprayed in luxurious splendour was a large and fabulously elaborate St Valentine’s Day card.
A red satin heart was outlined in lace and seed pearls. The card itself had a mother-of-pearl sheen and above the heart was a fat little cupid set in gold, shooting an arrow at a heart. Her heart!
Caitlin’s fingers trembled as she opened it. Her pulse raced with the hope that David had written something personal and meaningful, something that might indicate his real commitment to her.
The hope was somewhat deflated. Within a wreath of roses was printed ‘Be My Valentine’. No address to her. No signature. Only the single message of the card.
But that was something. It was an advance on what had gone before. A lilt of happiness dispelled the disappointment. It was certainly more than she had ever expected from David. He was not given to sentimentality. He did not celebrate anniversaries.
She grinned as the realisation struck her that Jenny and Mr Jordan had both seen the roses arrive. Jenny had probably shown the delivery person to her office. Did they realise that David would not put his name on the card? Did they even suspect what was going on between them?
He certainly wouldn’t hand-write anything on such a public gift. Other employees would see he was flagrantly breaking his own rules. That would not be good for morale. But she knew, and she was the only one who was meant to know. Their love-affair was a private thing. She would make certain it was kept that way.
Caitlin breathed in the wonderfully intoxicating scent, then with a happy sigh set about preparing for work. She hung her shoulder-bag on the coat-stand, grabbed her shorthand pad and pen from the top desk drawer, and headed for the door that led into David’s office.
It was amazing. Five minutes ago she would have approached this door with every muscle in her body twanging and twitching with tension. Now she was eager to face David again, delighted he had unbent so far for her sake. He understood. He had given her a pleasure that he wouldn’t care about for himself. It was a turning point, a concession, a gesture that proved he cared about her feelings.
She opened the door and breezed in, bubbling with new confidence. David’s eyes snapped up from the papers on his desk. There was a fractional tightening of his jaw. He had the gritty look of a man who had been placed in the front line of battle, determined not to be seen shirking his duty, but hating the position of vulnerability. His eyes bored into Caitlin; angry, distrustful, broodingly belligerent.
‘You’re late,’ he accused bitingly.
Caitlin barely repressed what was almost an irrepressible smile. Then it burst on to her lips like irradiating sunshine. ‘I was thinking of you.’
David looked taken aback by her response. He was uncertain of her. That was the problem. He didn’t like being uncertain of her, but he was. She had acted in an unpredictable manner this morning. He wasn’t sure which way she would jump now. His applecart had been upset, his sense of purpose and direction severely changed.
To Caitlin this was proof enough that she was important to him. She did have some influence over his thinking. This was not the time, however, to break any more of his rules. She was not supposed to be a recipient of roses from him, so it would be unwise to thank him openly for them until they were out of the office and away from work. Nevertheless, she could let him know her feelings without being direct.
‘I didn’t mean to hold you up, David,’ she said in quick apology, ‘but you’re full of surprises today.’ She looked at him meaningfully.
‘So, too, are you,’ came the somewhat uncertain reply.
She gave him another brilliant smile as she walked briskly forward and sat in the chair she used for taking dictation. Even looking as stern as he did, David was devastatingly handsome. He was wearing a navy-blue suit. It was the fashionable colour in the corporate world. It looked superb on David. A silk tie diagonally striped in red and navy and silvery grey was perfectly aligned on his white shirt. Very impressive. As he always was with business.
‘Ready when you are,’ she prompted.
He stared at her for ever so long, as though weighing her present mood against the crackling hostility that had burst upon him earlier. He did not relax and smile, but his expression softened.
‘The German delegation will be here in less than an hour,’ he stated, perhaps as a reminder of how unreasonable she had been in asking him to take the day off.
‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ she said, letting him know she was in a far more reasonable frame of mind now.
‘So am I,’ he murmured reasonably, and immediately came back to business. ‘The delegation desperately want the licence to manufacture, but they’ll try to work the price down by finding faults in our design.’
‘I know this deal is important to you,’ Caitlin added, reassuring him of her complete co-operation. It made her happy to think he was genuinely sorry for their earlier contretemps.
His brows lowered. His eyes sharply probed hers. ‘Are you concentrating on what I’m saying?’
‘Every word. All the unsaid ones, too.’ She smiled again to show there were absolutely no hard feelings left on her side.
His face took on a wary expression. He rapped out his instructions as though testing her shorthand speed. ‘Arrange for Paul Jordan to come in and announce that we have the Sutherland contract. That’s to be half an hour after we start. Make sure his timing is perfect. When I want you to come and sit in on the meeting and take notes, I’ll buzz you on the phone.’
‘Fine,’ she said, her pen flashing over her notepad.
He seemed bemused momentarily. ‘Is the boardroom fully prepared?’
‘I haven’t checked it yet. I’ll do that immediately.’
Caitlin rose to her feet with crisp efficiency. She was in such buoyant spirits that her walk to the door was unconsciously jaunty.
‘Wait!’
She swung around, her eyes brightly expectant. Anything David asked her to do she would carry out to the very best of her ability. She would most certainly be an assistant he would be proud to present in front of the German del-egation.
He appeared to be wrestling with some private dilemma. She could feel tension flowing from him, swirling around her. His penetrating blue eyes were intensely concentrated on hers, as though trying to read her mind.
‘I want to say...’ He paused, cleared his throat. ‘How much I appreciate...’ Again he stopped, seeming lost for words.
‘Understood,’ Caitlin responded, realising he was trying to bridge the awkward gap left by their previous parting. ‘I do, too.’
‘What?’
‘Appreciate the...uh...what you’re trying to say.’
He weighed that for a moment, then looked relieved. ‘Well, as long as everything’s working out all right...’
‘Yes. I hope it is.’ A new dance was definitely in progress, although where it would lead was by no means settled yet.
‘Good!’ He nodded his approval. The apples were back on his cart.
Caitlin had a moment’s disquiet. She recollected his cynical taunt, ‘Barter-time, is it?’ Were the roses simply a timely gift to keep her sweet? Caitlin didn’t like the thought at all. She brushed it aside, not wanting to spoil her pleasure in the gift. Besides, David had returned his attention to the papers on his desk and it behoved her to get about her busi-ness immediately.
CHAPTER THREE
CAITLIN set out everything that might be required on the boardroom table, then zipped back to her office to put in a call to Paul Jordan before heading to the kitchen to load up a traymobile with the usual refreshments.
The call to Jordan was deferred by the arrival of a delivery boy with another gift basket for her.
Caitlin was stunned by the contents. Nestled in a froth of red ribbons were a heart-shaped box of hand-made Swiss chocolates, and an enormously expensive set of Beautiful toiletries by Estee Lauder. These included perfume, skin lotion, bath oil and talcum powder. Most amazingly and endearingly of all, there was also a soft toy puppy.
Of all the soft toy animals David might have chosen, that was the second-best. The perfect choice for her would have been a pony, but Caitlin couldn’t remember having ever talked about Dobbin to him. Therefore he wouldn’t, couldn’t, know any better.
Surprises were certainly coming thick and fast this morning! Caitlin’s head was spinning with them. It was the way David did things, turning situations around so quickly. He was leaving her breathless and utterly enthralled by what he could do when he set his mind to it.
She suddenly realised time was slipping by. She postponed the call to Paul Jordan and raced to the office kitchen. Coffee, tea, milk, cream, plain and fancy biscuits and mixed sandwiches from catering were mandatory. By five minutes to ten it was all in the boardroom, ready for her to serve when needed. She had barely returned to her office when Jenny called to announce the arrival of the German delegation. Caitlin buzzed David, then went to meet the visitors at reception and escort them to the boardroom.
She carried out her duties with the charm David expected of her. Once everyone was settled around the table, she was free to prime Paul Jordan with what was expected of him. She would drag the Sutherland contract out of the filing system. Paul might as well take that with him.
David smiled at her as she left the boardroom. She hugged the smile to her heart, drifting back to her office on a cloud of happiness.
She couldn’t resist dabbing some Beautiful on. It was wonderful perfume, well named. She hadn’t been in the mood to bother with perfume this morning. She was now. She hoped David would recognise and appreciate the scent when she sat near him to take notes of the meeting. This was turning out to be a lovely morning, a really beautiful morning.
The phone rang just as she reached for it. Caitlin lifted the receiver, intending to take a very quick message so she could call Paul Jordan straight afterwards.
‘Caitlin?’ Her mother’s voice.
‘Hi, Mum! Happy wedding anniversary! How’s everything going for the party? Anything you need?’
The sound of sobbing. ‘Mum, what’s wrong?’
More sobbing. ‘Mum, please, please, please tell me what’s happened.’
‘There isn’t going to be a party.’
Caitlin was staggered. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. ‘Why?’ she asked, then collected her wits sufficiently to enquire, ‘Why not?’
‘Your father...’ Her mother’s voice quavered. She burst into more tears.
Caitlin’s worst fears were aroused. Her father had a history of heart disease. ‘Tell me the worst,’ she said bravely.
‘He...he...he...’
‘Yes, yes, yes?’ Caitlin prompted.
‘He walked out on me!’
Caitlin’s head spun. This wasn’t making sense at all. ‘What do you mean—he walked out on you?’
‘I mean what I said!’ her mother replied, a touch of asperity in her voice. She didn’t like to be contradicted or have her communications misunderstood.
Caitlin used her most sympathetic voice. ‘He couldn’t do that to you.’
‘Thirty years of looking after him hand and foot,’ her mother wailed. ‘I’m disgusted at what he’s done. I’ll never forgive him. Never! Even if he is your father.’
‘There must be a reason,’ Caitlin soothed gently. ‘Perhaps if I talk to him.’
‘You can’t do that,’ her mother snapped peremptorily.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know where he’s gone to.’
‘He can’t go too far without money,’ Caitlin suggested.
‘Oh, he’s got money. Too much of it, if you ask me. He’s been secretly hoarding everything I gave him without telling me what he was doing.’
‘Mum, there has to be a way.’
‘Oh, there’s a way,’ her mother said grimly between sniffles. ‘He’s done this as a symbol. When I catch up with him, I’ll give him a symbol. I’ll kill him!’
‘Mum, let me think about this.’ Caitlin had the feeling that time was passing very rapidly. She still had to get in touch with Paul Jordan. ‘Can I get back to you?’
‘There’s no need, Caitlin. I’m on my own. After thirty years of suffering through your father’s moods, this is all the thanks I get. There isn’t going to be a wedding anniversary party tonight. There’s nothing for you to do. There’s nothing anyone can do.’
Caitlin had had no idea that her parents’ marriage had been cracking up. On her recent visits home, her father had occasionally been somewhat withdrawn about her mother’s current projects and plans, but there had been no indication of a serious falling out. After all the years they had spent together, surely there was some meeting ground left?
‘Mum...Mum...’ Caitlin tried to catch her mother’s attention.
‘Everything’s ruined. It’ll be the talk of the town!’ her mother cried.
And that, Caitlin thought, was probably the crux of the matter. Her mother had always worried too much about what others thought. ‘I’ll do my best to patch things up,’ Caitlin said on a rueful sigh.
‘My life is in tatters, Caitlin. Totally and irretrievably ruined.’
Caitlin tried to give a glow of hope. ‘Somehow it will turn out right.’
‘No, it won’t.’ Her mother gave another wail of absolute distress and despair, and hung up.
Caitlin ran through a mental list of places where her father might have stormed off to. Before she recollected the important business tactic she had to set in motion, the door to her office opened and in strode David Hartley, emitting enough sparks to start a conflagration.
Caitlin’s mind exploded in horror. Time had passed too quickly. It was now too late to call Paul Jordan!
David came to an abrupt halt. He glared at the splendid arrangement of red roses. He glared at the beribboned basket containing the puppy and the chocolates and the luxurious toiletries. His glare swung back to the roses, fastening even more fiercely on the elaborate Valentine Card. Finally, he fired bolts of blue fire straight at Caitlin.
‘What the hell is going on out here?’
Caitlin started guiltily from her chair. ‘Nothing.’
‘Well, something has been going on in there.’ David pointed to the boardroom. ‘The delegation is not only muttering about alleged design flaws, they’ve been talking to Crawley.’
Michael Crawley was David’s main rival. The mere mention of his name was enough to set David aflame. There was litigation pending between the two companies over patent infringements.
‘I’m sorry...’
‘I’ve been trying to contact you for the last twenty minutes,’ he grated. ‘Your line has been tied up. You’ve made me look like a first-class idiot.’
She flushed. ‘My mother called.’
He looked at her incredulously. ‘Where’s Jordan?’
Caitlin tried to think of an appropriate reply.
His gaze flashed savagely to the roses, then back to her fiery cheeks. ‘Did your mother send the roses?’
‘No. You did,’ she reminded him.
He looked at her as though she had gone stark raving mad. ‘I did no such thing. What do you mean...I gave them to you?’
A great bottomless pit formed in Caitlin’s stomach. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. She fought down the feeling of emotional panic. ‘If you didn’t send them, who did?’
‘Ask your mother.’ His voice dripped acid. His eyes raked hers with scathing disbelief at her dereliction of duty. ‘In the meantime, can we get back to running this business?’
Her chin came up in fighting mode. Everything had to be done to the beat of his drum. He didn’t listen to her. He didn’t understand that she had problems as well as he. He didn’t give her roses or consideration or caring. She had duped herself into thinking David had relented in his tyrannical attitude towards her. He had not bent one iota.
‘David, I think we’re finished,’ she said tightly.
‘Damned right!’ he agreed. ‘Get Jordan up here. He might do the job required of him.’
A stinging rebuff.
She watched him as though from a far distance as he swung on his heel and headed back to the boardroom.
Cold, hard and ruthless. As his competitors saw him. As Michael Crawley must see him. As the German delegation must see him. As Caitlin now saw him.
With a heavy hand, she lifted up the phone. There was no answer from Jordan’s office. She rang Jenny.
‘Where’s Paul Jordan?’ she asked bleakly.
‘He stepped out for half an hour. Call that the rest of the morning. He thinks he’s got a potential deal with the Kirrawee Business College.’
Caitlin’s hand was even heavier as she replaced the phone. She had done a thoroughly comprehensive job in stuffing up both her personal life and professional life.
She couldn’t rescue the former. That required the impossible to happen. As for the latter, there was only one thing left to do. She went to the filing cabinet and dragged out the Sutherland contract.
She would give the presentation herself.
Not Jordan’s way.
Not David’s way.
Her way.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAVID, of course, sat at the head of the table in the boardroom. The four men from Germany were spread on either side of him, two on his right, two on his left. Herr Schmidt, the leader of the delegation, was pointing out something in the documents in front of him when Caitlin entered. The attention of the five men swung to her.
David glowered at her. Herr Schmidt frowned at the interruption. The expressions on the other men’s faces ranged from interested spectator to a deadpan weighing of what her unheralded appearance meant. They all looked tough, experienced, executive businessmen. None had the magnetic charisma that David could exude so effortlessly.
To Caitlin he dominated the room, just as he had dominated her life for the last four months. The thought spurred her to renewed determination.
No more domination.
This was her swan-song. She would use David’s tactics and give them her own twist. She might not be special to him, but he wouldn’t forget her in a hurry. Not for what she was about to do. She hoped it would make him burn. In the right places.
She walked briskly to the end of the table, facing David down the length of it. ‘Mr Hartley, we have chaos in the office,’ she announced, showing no perturbation at all at dropping bombshells in the boardroom.
‘I know that.’ His voice had the low rumble of an incipient earthquake.
‘You’ll be pleased to hear that the Sutherland contract has arrived. All signed, sealed and delivered,’ she stated wearily, as though it was one more chore to deal with on top of everything else.
‘Good.’ He gave her a frozen smile.
‘How we’re going to get that amount of product out on to the market in time, I do not know.’
‘Miss Ross...’ he looked sharply at the German delegation ‘...please take control of yourself.’
‘Fifteen hundred units,’ she burbled on. He knew as well as she knew how grossly exaggerated that figure was. The German delegation did not.
‘Miss Ross,’ he said sharply, ‘this is confidential information. Please be careful what you say. Where’s Jordan?’
She aimed a sigh of exasperation at him. ‘Mr Jordan left to clinch a huge deal with a string of business colleges,’ she went on, treating his warning about confidentiality as totally irrelevant in the circumstances. ‘Sell, sell, sell. That’s all he can do. The man is like a robot.’
‘I didn’t know he’d gone.’ David looked vexed. ‘He’s supposed to be here.’
‘I haven’t had a moment to tell you.’ Caitlin put some vexation into her voice. ‘As you’re aware, the phone-lines have been engaged all morning. All the other salesmen are out, too. Every blasted one of them. We can’t cover the volume of work that’s pouring in. For one thing, we need more phone-lines...’
David passed a weary hand over his face. ‘What point are you coming to, Miss Ross?’
‘There’s an overload of work. I’m needed elsewhere. The matter is urgent,’ she stated emphatically. ‘I require permission to leave the office. It’s mandatory. I need to take the afternoon off to attend to what has to be done.’
Danger signals glimmered in his eyes. ‘I have guests here from a foreign country who have to be attended to and looked after with the proper courtesy and respect, Miss Ross. Permission refused!’
Caitlin set her mouth into a long-suffering line. She threw a glance at the heavens as though praying for patience. She had seen him do the same action this morning, so had no trouble in duplicating it. It didn’t work any better for her than it did for him.
Patience was not bestowed on her.
She dropped her gaze to David and gave him a long, glittering glare. Then she tossed her hair in defiance, flounced around the table to where he sat, and slapped the Sutherland file down in front of him.
‘Sir!’ She took a deep breath. Her breasts lifted, drawing every eye on either side of the table to the lace inserts of her blouse. Her hands planted themselves on her hips. ‘Something has to give,’ she declared with passionate conviction. ‘It’s prob-ably me!’
Everyone was quite fascinated by now. She had their full attention. Including David’s. Especially David’s. She hoped he was getting the underlying personal message loud and clear. She was not going to go his way any more.
‘Something is going to give,’ he said grimly, ‘and I agree that it’s likely to be you.’
‘You need to employ more staff.’
‘I’ll certainly be dealing with that, Miss Ross.’ The purpose behind those words was unmistakable. She had not only crossed the Rubicon, she had committed hara-kiri on every level by not staying in the pigeonhole he’d built for her.
‘Can we go into recess on this?’ She would give him one last chance to be reasonable.
‘Not at the present moment.’
Green eyes sizzled into blue, giving him her message in no uncertain terms. ‘Very well,’ she snapped. ‘Please understand I can no longer handle all you require of me. I cannot meet the standards you demand of me. The overtime is excessive and unrewarding. We have come to the end of the line, you and I. Finis. Full stop. Goodbye.’
He was rising to his feet. ‘Miss Ross!’ he cried out hoarsely, obviously shaken to his bootstraps. Such antics had never been seen in this boardroom before.
‘Stay where you are, Mr Hartley. There’s no need to say or do anything. Business comes first. Remember this morning.’ She hoped he did.
With another toss of her hair she turned to march away from him. There was one last thing she could do. She would do it and end this farce. She took three steps, stopped, then swung back to address the head of the German delegation. Herr Schmidt was a big, burly man with sharp grey eyes. He had a poker face, revealing nothing of his thoughts.
‘There are no design defects in our products, Herr Schmidt. You are wasting our time. Mr Hartley is simply being too polite to tell you that to your face.’
The implication was clear. If he chose not to buy the licence, the loss was his, not theirs. She gave him a full eyeful of scorn, then resumed her march from the room, her hair swinging, her hips swinging, and the deal with the German delegation swinging.
Five pairs of eyes followed her out of the room. No one broke the silence which enveloped them.
Win or lose, Caitlin didn’t care any more. If David didn’t want to play the hand she had dealt him, that was too bad! As best she could, she had made up for her lapse in carrying out his instructions. The dance with the devil was over. She closed the door behind her with finality.
That action did nothing to fill the aching void in her heart. Why do women love so foolishly? she wondered. They hurt only themselves.
Back in her own office, the strong scent of the roses mocked the secret dreams and desires she had so fondly nurtured. The irrational hope she had so blindly fostered in her heart was dead. David Hartley was never going to change. The romance in his soul was encased in concrete surrounded by barbed wire and porcupine quills.
But it was best not to think about him now. She had to act on the decision she had made. No wavering. No waiting. There would be no softening coming from him. If she took nothing else away from her association with David Hartley, she would take her self-esteem and self-respect.
Tears pricked her eyes as she walked around her desk and flopped listlessly into her chair. She had been so happy to receive such lovely gifts. Why couldn’t it have been David asking her to ‘be his Valentine’? She had no idea who else might be declaring his interest in her. She wasn’t interested in anyone else. Someone had wasted an awful lot of money on nothing.
Maybe it was a mistake. Perhaps the Valentine gifts were meant for someone else. A mistake could easily be made because there was no name on the card. She was probably the recipient of mischance and some other woman was missing out on the pleasure meant for her.
With a heavy sigh, Caitlin rolled her chair around to face her computer. She switched it on and brought up the Microsoft Word program. It wouldn’t take long to type up an official letter of resignation to end her employment by David Hartley. She would leave it on his desk and go.
Her mother needed her. Her father had to be found. As far as her family was concerned, this St Valentine’s Day had brought nothing but misery and despair. Caitlin hoped she could do more for her parents than she could do for herself. Her one-sided love-affair was definitely on skid-row, but if her parents’ marriage could be rescued, at least that would be something.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She re-read what she had typed on to the monitor, nodded her satisfaction, then switched on the laser printer and waited for the fateful page to roll out.
She was on her feet, ready to pick up the page and sign her name to it, when she heard her office door open. She glanced around automatically.
Her heart thudded with apprehension when she saw David enter and close the door behind him. She didn’t want another confrontation with him. What was over was over.
‘Caitlin...’
‘You’re supposed to be looking after your guests.’
The printer whirred. She turned back to it. David could say what he liked. She wasn’t going to let it affect her. The page that would put an end to everything between them rolled towards her.
‘We’ve gone into recess for twenty minutes to re-establish contact with reality,’ he stated, conveniently forgetting that he had ruled out a recess when she had suggested it. ‘We’re going to relook at what direction we’re all coming from,’ he went on, his voice coming closer and closer. He paused. ‘Caitlin, you were magnificent!’
An accolade indeed, coming from David, but it came too late. Caitlin steeled her heart against responding to him.
The phone rang.
David automatically picked it up. Slowly and deliberately, Caitlin signed her resignation.
‘It’s for you,’ he said, holding the receiver out to her.
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Emma Darcy
St. Valentine's Day is a special day for lovers all over the world . And this year it has a special significance for Caitlin Ross. This year she is sure that David Hartley will admit she loves her. But Caitlin has forgotten that Valentine's Day casts its own special magic.The surprises she receives, and the shocks that lie in store for David, make this a February the fourteenth they will never, ever forget… !
Burning With Passion
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Scott Brodie, our hero on many occasions.
Our thanks for his diplomacy, tact, understanding and caring
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#uf05b58bf-5745-5292-85c9-21538b34aead)
CHAPTER TWO (#u81e1b200-4f2f-5e1e-8ffc-e4b77e5f703e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u90d2669d-dcfa-58d4-bc9f-0d33615e2db7)
CHAPTER FOUR (#udd5d1633-e6d4-5318-9649-4f159958c736)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
LOVING David Hartley was like dancing with the devil. There was no telling where it would lead to, there was hell to pay for it, yet the temptation to go on with the dance was well nigh irresistible.
For Caitlin Ross, there was little of her life that did not revolve around David Hartley. Yet she was no closer to the quintessential man than she had been four months ago when she had been offered the job as his personal assistant.
Her promotion from personal assistant in the office to personal assistant in the bedroom had been extraordinarily rapid by any standard. Caitlin hadn’t said no to him because he simply hadn’t given her time to say anything. He had taken her over in the same way he did any competitor, company or conglomerate. It was breathtaking stuff.
It was only after they had made love for the first time that the situation became confused. Caitlin had discovered there were two distinctive features to David’s personality. The first was that he never referred to his family or his background; the second was that he had a very strict rule against the fraternisation of management and employees in sexual liaisons. He made no exceptions to this rule, apart from breaking it himself.
Caitlin reasoned that he needed someone attuned to his business life, someone with whom he could talk about the things that were important to him, someone who understood. Caitlin could supply that in a way no other woman could. She was closest to him. She loved being closest to him. But it was nowhere near as close as she wanted to be.
In far too many ways, David had made himself an island complete and entire in himself. There were gleams of the person he could be, shining through isolated chinks in his armour, but they were few and far between.
Only in bed did his control slip. When they were finished with their lovemaking he donned it again like impenetrable armour. When he left her, it was as though she no longer existed.
Caitlin had watched him do it again this morning. She wanted to fight it but she didn’t know how. It made her feel threatened and defeated. She couldn’t understand why he wanted, desired her so much, and then shut her out of the closeness she was sure he felt with her in the intimacy of making love.
He strode back into her bedroom.
He was freshly showered and shaved and unashamedly naked. She felt her innermost muscles spasm in response simply to seeing him like this. His body was perfectly proportioned and powerful. He was the ultimate male animal in his prime, although no longer primed for the passion he had already spent some twenty minutes ago. Burn-out for him. Caitlin wanted more. Much more than this.
He looked revitalised after his shower. He always did. His straight black hair was combed back, wet and shiny; his olive skin stretched glowingly over high cheekbones, a cleanly cut jawline and strong nose; his dark, cobalt-blue eyes were lit with purpose for the day ahead of him. A man of command, who drove forward unswervingly, touching everyone within his ambit.
Caitlin fiercely wished she could exercise some influence over his thinking. That had not proved possible. Yet.
He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her as he reached for the shirt he had tossed on to her dressing-table stool last night. ‘No coffee?’
Normally it was on the dressing-table, waiting for him, freshly brewed, black with one sugar. He drank it while he dressed. He never stayed to have breakfast with her. As far as Caitlin could discern, he didn’t eat breakfast.
It was six-thirty now. He would be gone by six forty-five. That was the ritual. He never varied it. Caitlin wished he would.
‘I don’t feel like moving,’ she answered his question on the missing coffee. It was the truth. It was also an act of rebellion.
The fractional tightening of David’s lower lip indicated the message had been received and understood. Caitlin wondered if it would induce David to change his schedule. Would it drive him to making some coffee for himself, and for her? It would only delay him five or ten minutes at the most.
She waited expectantly to see his choice.
He continued dressing, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his shirt, doing up the cuff buttons. He made no move towards the kitchen. Caitlin tried to suppress the nervous flutter that descended to the pit of her stomach.
She had done everything in her power to spin out the dance as long as she could. She had been so careful not to make a false step that would contravene his rules, always fulfilling his needs as she saw them, polishing her role as the perfect partner for him, telling herself that holding David Hartley was worth any effort.
The strain was beginning to tell. The piper had to be paid for the effort she had put in, and the list of dues owed was becoming longer and longer.
Caitlin knew she risked losing him if she tried to change their relationship. After four months of going all his way, Caitlin also knew she was losing too much of herself. She could not let things remain as they were between them. Change was inevitable.
David shot her a sharp frown. ‘Are you sick?’ He was trying to find some explanation for her behaviour which fitted into his pattern of thinking.
‘I’ve never felt healthier!’ she answered, forcing him to think again, thoroughly peeved with his rigidly kept schedule.
She stretched languorously, provocatively, wondering if it was possible to tempt him back into bed with her. She watched his response through her thick dark lashes, her green eyes glimmering a sultry invitation. His firmly delineated mouth quirked into a sensual little smile as his gaze flicked over her naked breasts.
It was purely an accident of birth that her ribcage was high enough to give her a tiny waist. It had the effect of making her hips and breasts look more voluptuous than they were. Caitlin knew David found the arrangement fascinating, provocative and exciting.
There was a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. No desire. His hands moved down his shirt, buttoning it at a steady pace. No hesitation. No wavering. No change of mind, or heart, or inclination. He had had his fulfilment for the moment. He had no need for more. She doubted he ever gave consideration to the possibility that some of her needs were different from his.
Caitlin was deeply wounded by his ability to love her and leave her. The urge to jolt him into reappraisal mode was overwhelming. She realigned her body across the bed for full visual impact, levered herself up on one elbow, rummaged the long, layered mane of her tawny hair with her other hand, and eyed him with smouldering challenge.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said quietly but firmly.
David rolled his eyes and threw a beseeching look towards the heavens. As his gaze was interrupted by the ceiling, there was no result to this supplicating action except to pique Caitlin somewhat more than she was already piqued.
He glanced pointedly at his watch and bent to pick up his underpants from the floor. ‘I have a busy schedule to keep, Caitlin. You know that. You entered it in the diary.’
She watched him draw on the black silk briefs. They formed a tantalising pouch for his virility and emphasised the powerful muscularity of his thighs. He looked sexy. He was sexy. But Caitlin wanted more than sexiness from him. She wanted to know how important she was in his life.
‘Please, David...couldn’t you give me today? I’ll make you happy.’
‘I am happy. I’m delirious with happiness. Thank you for already making me so happy.’
To Caitlin’s mind he didn’t look the least bit happy. His words sounded sarcastic. She was quite certain he wasn’t at all happy with the way things were developing between them.
‘I want you to stay with me.’
Caitlin knew she was on very dangerous grounds with that plea. She was also probably wrong to put such a demand on him, but her need was acute. In a desperate attempt to interest him she pulled a long tress of her hair forward to dangle between her breasts, reminding him of the foreplay he enjoyed.
He gave her a sharp, penetrating look. ‘Are you saying I didn’t satisfy you?’
She flushed, unable to deny that he had brought her to a tumultuous climax. He was well aware of it, too. But, in a far more important sense than the purely physical, he didn’t satisfy her. Caitlin wanted—needed—intimate contact with his innermost feelings.
‘I want us to spend more time together,’ she said, willing him to respond with some suggestion that would help make things better for her.
‘We spent the night together,’ he said drily. ‘How many nights do you want?’ He reached for his trousers.
Caitlin fought against a sense of worthlessness and failure. She knew that in David’s mind nights were associated with sex. He wasn’t getting the message at all.
‘I want to talk to you. About something serious.’
‘In another two hours we’ll be in the office together. Isn’t that serious enough?’
‘It’s not the same,’ she retorted, hurt by his lack of understanding, knowing she was losing but too frustrated by his intransigent attitude to back off from the disagreement.
‘You want more?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘I’d very much like, just for once, for our pleasure and togetherness to come before your business.’
The act of rebellion was complete. Words had been spoken which could never be retrieved. The Rubicon was crossed. Caitlin waited to see what stormy waves she had stirred. The cobalt-blue eyes took on a wary, calculating look.
David never mixed business with pleasure. It was one of his rules. In the office, he was the boss, she was his assistant and amanuensis, and he never did or said anything to lead anyone to suspect they were lovers. That was private. It was personal. It was never to be revealed.
The two separate phases of his existence were divorced from one another. Caitlin couldn’t help thinking the arrangement suited his convenience. She worked his hours. She was free when he was free. But business was business and nothing else was allowed to interfere with running that part of his life as he saw fit. Nothing!
‘It wouldn’t hurt to take one day off and spend it together,’ she pressed.
‘What would it achieve that we haven’t already achieved?’
‘It would be something spontaneous, unplanned.’ She made one last attempt to get through to him. ‘It would make me feel good.’
‘I left my schooldays behind me a long time ago, Caitlin.’
He was downgrading her to ‘petulant schoolgirl’ status.
‘You could cancel your appointments today. I’ll make the excuses for you,’ she pleaded.
‘No.’
‘You could come back to bed and hug and cuddle and kiss me.’
His look of disdain downgraded her from schoolgirl to child.
He tucked in his shirt, zipped up his trousers, then sat on the stool, stony-faced as he began to pull on his socks.
‘Those are yesterday’s socks,’ said Caitlin with an uncharacteristic spurt of bitterness. ‘You’ll have to go home and change.’
‘I know that,’ he replied with some asperity.
She had invited him to leave a fresh set of clothes in her apartment for the times he stayed overnight. It would have saved him the trouble of going home to change. He would not have to rise so early. He could stay and have breakfast with her.
His reply had been succinct and dismissive. He wouldn’t burden her with his dirty laundry.
He didn’t burden her with anything. His only concession to practicality about their relationship was to keep a toothbrush, a shaving kit and a comb in her bathroom. To Caitlin it smacked of a clinical detachment from getting involved in any way except the obvious. She didn’t like it.
It hurt.
It made her feel temporary.
She desperately wanted to feel special to him, more special than any woman he had been with before.
‘Why don’t you ever invite me to your home, David?’ she asked, driven to wring some sign from him that she meant more than a pleasurable convenience and receptacle.
‘It’s easier for you if we stay here. You can do as you please and be answerable to no one,’ he replied, not bothering to look up from tying the laces on his shoes.
Her convenience. That was a nice twist. In effect, she was kept excluded from his home life. Caitlin knew he lived at Lane Cove, not far from his business headquarters at Chatswood. Within the ambit of the northern suburbs of Sydney, it was no further away than her place at Wollstonecraft, but their intimacy was contained to her apartment.
Caitlin was chillingly conscious of how expedient this situation was if David chose to end their affair. No bothersome complications. He could simply walk out and never come back.
Her sense of insecurity with him deepened.
He rose from the stool, fully dressed apart from his tie and suitcoat. They had been discarded in her living-room. He would pick them up on his way out. His gaze skated over the long sprawl of her slender legs, paused at the deep indentation of her waist, skipped to the wild disarray of hair framing her face and shoulders, then fastened directly on her eyes. There was a dark, ruthless glint in his.
‘I hope you find the energy to move yourself in good time to get to the office at nine, Caitlin. I wouldn’t like to think you were taking advantage of your situation.’
It was a warning. Softly spoken, perfectly controlled, no direct threat involved, yet Caitlin’s spine crawled with the sense of having stretched beyond what was acceptable to him. The protective urge to quickly backtrack was shrivelled by a flare of burning resentment.
Did she have no importance in his life apart from being an efficient secretary and a ready source of sexual satisfaction? It was the final insult. She had worked herself to boneless exhaustion for David Hartley.
‘You have the sensitivity of a rhinoceros,’ she muttered darkly, more to herself than to him.
‘I’ll let that remark pass and pretend you never said it,’ he said testily.
‘Big of you,’ she complimented him.
The need to find out what she really meant to him surged through her with passionate intensity. Even if his heart was cold to her, his body wasn’t. She must mean something more than just being a body.
She swung her legs off the bed with a lithe, feline grace that captured his attention. She lifted her arms and flicked back her hair as she stood up and turned to face him, knowing the action tilted the firm fullness of her breasts into greater prominence. Her nipples hardened as the desire to seduce raged with white-hot heat. She rolled her hips, sliding her thighs against each other as she walked towards him, a sensual smile curving her generous mouth.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.
His chest expanded. His shoulders squared with tension. His hands clenched. He was definitely unhappy. He was tempted. His mind warred against the stirring of his desire. He had a schedule to keep. He didn’t allow anything to interfere with that. His face set with resolution but the glitter in his eyes had more to do with lust than determination. His feet stayed rooted to the floor. He didn’t move forward.
‘Is this the last time you want to see me like this?’ Caitlin taunted.
‘No,’ he cried hoarsely.
‘Stay with me. Hold me and cuddle me.’
‘I’ll be damned if I will.’
‘You’ll be damned if you don’t.’
‘I have the overseas delegation today.’
Caitlin knew she was being unreasonable but her need was great. ‘Defer it until tomorrow.’
His mouth thinned in frustration.
Caitlin moved in on him, playing the age-old role of seductive temptress. She had never done anything like this before, had never felt the need to, but the stakes were high.
All was fair in love and war.
Until now, David had always been one step ahead of her, taking the initiative with a boldness that could still leave her breathless. He had the primitive streak of a hunter who didn’t accept being thwarted. If one approach didn’t work, he used another, and another, until he had what he wanted.
Why shouldn’t she be the same? If this was the game he played, she would play it, too.
She slid her fingers out of her hair and dropped her hands on to his shoulders, kneading the tight muscles with varying pressures. ‘You need to relax, David,’ she said in a low throaty purr.
‘I need to go,’ he bit out.
She moved her hands to the back of his neck, caressing the sensitive nape as she lifted simmering green eyes to his. ‘Not before you kiss me.’ She moved up on tiptoe, brushing her breasts against the fine fabric of his shirt.
‘What are you trying to do to me?’
‘Find reassurance.’
His chin unbent enough for her mouth to reach his. She ran the tip of her tongue lightly between his lips as she pressed closer, arching her back, pushing her stomach into provocative union with his.
She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the tingling touch of his tongue as it moved in response to hers. His hands closed possessively over the soft mounds of her buttocks, lifting her higher to meet the burgeoning thrust of desire she had stirred.
She invaded his mouth, sweeping his palate with the feverish purpose of increasing his arousal. She rubbed her stomach and thighs against his in wanton incitement, determined on making him burn for her. There was a fire in her belly that demanded total commitment.
An animal growl came from his throat. One hand splayed across her lower back, crushing her softness around the rigid bulge in his trousers. His other hand thrust through her hair, gripped the back of her head, holding it still as he forcefully invaded her mouth, plundering its sweetness with a passion as feverish as her own.
A feeling of triumph tingled through Caitlin’s veins. At long last he had forgotten his schedule. ‘Take me,’ she whispered huskily as his chest heaved for breath. ‘Take me, David.’
She dropped a hand to his shirt, her fingers tearing at the buttons. His stomach contracted as he muttered some fierce imprecation. Then suddenly, brutally, his hands were encircling her upper arms, pushing her away from him. It startled her into a cry of protest. Her gaze flew up, wild and accusing and mournful, meeting a blaze of furious blue.
‘You take away a man’s brain and leave him witless.’
‘You want me,’ she cried. As she wanted him.
‘You tempt me beyond endurance.’
‘Isn’t that what men want from the women they never marry!’ she flung back at him.
‘I’ve never referred to or alluded to you in any way to imply that you were my mistress.’
‘You just have,’ she said with infinite regret and a deadness of soul.
‘You goaded me into this, Caitlin,’ he responded. ‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re playing at, but this isn’t the time for it.’
‘When will there be time for it?’ she fired at him, seething with frustration, crushed by his remorselessness.
A shutter came down on the blue blaze. ‘Maybe never.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said heavily. It justified everything she had said and done. Her voice shook with the vehemence of her feeling of rejection. ‘I won’t be here tonight.’
If he had ever liked her he would have known that already. He would have found out. The truth was that he wasn’t interested in what made her tick, what made her the person she was.
His eyes narrowed. He plucked his hands away from her. ‘Neither will I,’ he snapped, not understanding what was happening but not bending a millimetre.
‘Just as you have a life I don’t share, I have a life you don’t share,’ Caitlin threw at him. Her chin tilted defiantly. ‘You can take me now or leave me now. If you leave, I don’t know when I’ll be free again.’
His mouth took on a cynical twist. ‘Barter-time, is it?’
Her eyes flashed contempt. ‘Sorting out priorities.’
That gave him pause for thought. She could almost see his mind clicking over with calculations. ‘We’ll talk about this later,’ he said, and turned to go.
‘Don’t worry about turning on the percolator in the kitchen for me. I’ll do it myself.’
His eyes turned back to her with a dark, turbulent glare. His trousers still bulged. It had to be causing him some physical distress to leave her like this. His head jerked away.
Caitlin didn’t follow him out of the bedroom. She stood precisely where she was until she heard the door to her apartment click shut behind him. He still hadn’t asked her what she was doing tonight, why she wouldn’t be free for him. He didn’t care what she did when she wasn’t with him.
She shivered.
It spurred her to a burst of activity. She grabbed a robe from her cupboard and marched out to the kitchen, wrapping herself tightly in the all-enveloping garment. She filled the coffee-maker and switched it on, feeling furiously justified in not having done it for David this morning. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything from her.
Her eye caught the calendar hanging below the kitchen clock. Today’s date was ringed. It was important. February the fourteenth. St Valentine’s Day. The day her mother and father were married thirty years ago. The day she was given Dobbin as her very own pony. The day for lovers to declare themselves. A day to concentrate on romance. A day which would be as bleak as Hades because she had danced with the devil.
A wave of nausea cramped Caitlin’s stomach and pushed a choking lump into her throat. She tore off the offending page of February and crushed it in her hand. She didn’t need the reminder of her parents’ wedding anniversary any more, and she certainly didn’t need a reminder of what she didn’t have with David Hartley.
She opened the lid of the kitchen tidy and threw the crumpled wad of paper into the bin. She wished she could get rid of her unrequited love for David Hartley just as easily.
She looked up at the clock. She had an hour and forty-two minutes to don her role as his personal assistant and wear the label ‘For Office Use Only’. That was what David was going to get from her from now on until he decided differently about sex, sensuality and sharing.
CHAPTER TWO
CAITLIN stepped off the bus at Chatswood at five minutes to nine. Normally she would take that amount of time to arrive at the Hartley building. Today she was not eager to get to work.
The morning was fine and sparkling. A continuation of last night’s violent thunderstorm with its torrential rain would have been more in keeping with Caitlin’s dark misery. The intense blueness of a cloudless sky appeared to mock the bleak prospect of her future.
She had made the effort to present a meticulous appearance. David paid her a large salary. He expected her to perform well and look stylish and sophisticated.
Pride insisted she give him no grounds for any possible criticism where her job was concerned. It also insisted that she show no sign of the deep distress he had given her. As a result she looked particularly bright and shiny, so much so that she attracted a second look from many other pedestrians as she crossed the road to her place of business.
Her hair was freshly washed and blow-dried into a gleaming cascade of waves. It brought out the gold streaks in the darker tawny mass. It also provided a strikingly sensual frame for what was an essentially feminine face, oval in shape and set on a long Nefertiti neck. Her eyes were large, deeply lidded and emphasised with finely arched brows. Her nose was small and straight, the slight flare of her nostrils balancing a generous mouth.
Caitlin had applied a soft and subtle make-up; only a fine touch of shadow and eyeliner to emphasise the green of her thickly lashed eyes, a barely discernible brush of colour to highlight her cheekbones, and a dusting of very expensive powder to give her skin a smooth lustre. The curves of her mouth were perfectly outlined with a tan lip-pencil and filled in with peach gloss.
She wore an elegant long-sleeved blouse in a soft cream voile with lace inserts running down the bodice. Her long button-through crêpe skirt was of a darker cream, slim-lined and fitted snugly to her small waist. Her stockings were of fine quality, her court shoes taupe suede to match her shoulder-bag.
She looked a picture of style, which was what David Hartley expected of her. As Caitlin walked up the steps to the main entrance of the Hartley building, the showroom manager hurried forward to open the door for her, casting an appreciative eye over her appearance and giving her a welcoming smile. ‘Good morning, Miss Ross,’ he said cheerfully.
She dredged up a smile. ‘Good morning, Mr Jordan.’ He was a slickly handsome man in his early forties, always a bit too effusive for Caitlin’s liking, but that probably went with being a top salesman. David did not employ second-rate staff.
He grinned. ‘May I wish you a very happy St Valentine’s Day. And lots of lovers!’
Caitlin barely stopped herself from wincing. The greeting was undoubtedly meant as today’s variation of ‘Have a nice day.’ Paul Jordan made it sound offensive.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and hurried past him into the foyer.
She didn’t so much as glance at the vast showroom that took up most of the ground floor. It was packed with state-of-the-art office furniture, all designed to accord with David Hartley’s specialised standards. These were directly related to his study of the engineering aspects of the relationship between workers and their environment. When it came to ergonomics, no one knew more about it, or had cornered the market more effectively.
Caitlin headed straight for the elevator that would take her to the administrative offices on the first floor. Jenny Ashton, the telephonist and receptionist, looked up from her desk. She was two years younger than Caitlin, a pretty blonde with an infectious smile. The smile broadened to full beam as though she was bursting with good news.
‘Hi, Jenny!’ Caitlin greeted her briefly and quickened her step. She didn’t have the time or the inclination for chat this morning.
‘Great day!’ Jenny returned, her brown eyes sparkling.
‘Sure,’ Caitlin agreed. She forced another smile. ‘Did your boyfriend give you something special?’ she asked in passing, trying to look pleased for her.
Jenny rolled her eyes expressively. ‘I’d certainly call it special.’
‘Good for you!’ Caitlin called back to her as she pressed the elevator button.
The door opened immediately. It was a relief to relax her facial muscles as she stepped into the compartment. Common sense argued that she should break with David right now. He was never going to give her what she wanted. To stay on as his assistant could only be a torment to her. She told herself he had dazzled her into a love-affair. Her eyes were now well and truly open, and she knew where it was all leading to. Nowhere!
The problem was, she was addicted to him. The thought of never again experiencing the wild passion they shared together sent a wave of empty desolation through her body. Nor were there jobs of this quality lurking around every corner. Would she ever get another that would match this one?
David emitted a charge of electricity that made even the most mundane work appear exciting and fulfilling. She felt his intensity and responded to it. Would she ever meet another man to match him?
Was she prepared to end the addiction...cold turkey?
The thought was depressing.
Feeling emotionally torn by the prospect, Caitlin stepped out of the elevator and walked to her office on automatic pilot. She checked her watch as she opened the door. It was precisely nine o’clock.
Her timing was perfect, not a minute early, not a minute late.
She sniffed in puzzlement. A sweet, rich scent seemed to permeate the room. She looked up, then stared in astonishment at the magnificent arrangement of red roses sitting on her desk. There had to be dozens of dark velvety buds beginning to unfurl into full bloom. Incredibly beautiful, marvellous, heart-kicking extravagance!
Warmth flooded through her veins. Red roses were for love. Red roses were for eternity.
David must have relented. He had seen the errors of his ways. He didn’t want to lose her. Maybe he did love her.
Or perhaps he had ordered the roses yesterday. Which was why he wouldn’t consider any change in his schedule today. He knew what was to be delivered this morning. He wanted her to be surprised by his gift of love.
Caitlin moved forward like a sleepwalker. Her mind was abuzz with exciting possibilities. Attached to the decorative basket from which the roses sprayed in luxurious splendour was a large and fabulously elaborate St Valentine’s Day card.
A red satin heart was outlined in lace and seed pearls. The card itself had a mother-of-pearl sheen and above the heart was a fat little cupid set in gold, shooting an arrow at a heart. Her heart!
Caitlin’s fingers trembled as she opened it. Her pulse raced with the hope that David had written something personal and meaningful, something that might indicate his real commitment to her.
The hope was somewhat deflated. Within a wreath of roses was printed ‘Be My Valentine’. No address to her. No signature. Only the single message of the card.
But that was something. It was an advance on what had gone before. A lilt of happiness dispelled the disappointment. It was certainly more than she had ever expected from David. He was not given to sentimentality. He did not celebrate anniversaries.
She grinned as the realisation struck her that Jenny and Mr Jordan had both seen the roses arrive. Jenny had probably shown the delivery person to her office. Did they realise that David would not put his name on the card? Did they even suspect what was going on between them?
He certainly wouldn’t hand-write anything on such a public gift. Other employees would see he was flagrantly breaking his own rules. That would not be good for morale. But she knew, and she was the only one who was meant to know. Their love-affair was a private thing. She would make certain it was kept that way.
Caitlin breathed in the wonderfully intoxicating scent, then with a happy sigh set about preparing for work. She hung her shoulder-bag on the coat-stand, grabbed her shorthand pad and pen from the top desk drawer, and headed for the door that led into David’s office.
It was amazing. Five minutes ago she would have approached this door with every muscle in her body twanging and twitching with tension. Now she was eager to face David again, delighted he had unbent so far for her sake. He understood. He had given her a pleasure that he wouldn’t care about for himself. It was a turning point, a concession, a gesture that proved he cared about her feelings.
She opened the door and breezed in, bubbling with new confidence. David’s eyes snapped up from the papers on his desk. There was a fractional tightening of his jaw. He had the gritty look of a man who had been placed in the front line of battle, determined not to be seen shirking his duty, but hating the position of vulnerability. His eyes bored into Caitlin; angry, distrustful, broodingly belligerent.
‘You’re late,’ he accused bitingly.
Caitlin barely repressed what was almost an irrepressible smile. Then it burst on to her lips like irradiating sunshine. ‘I was thinking of you.’
David looked taken aback by her response. He was uncertain of her. That was the problem. He didn’t like being uncertain of her, but he was. She had acted in an unpredictable manner this morning. He wasn’t sure which way she would jump now. His applecart had been upset, his sense of purpose and direction severely changed.
To Caitlin this was proof enough that she was important to him. She did have some influence over his thinking. This was not the time, however, to break any more of his rules. She was not supposed to be a recipient of roses from him, so it would be unwise to thank him openly for them until they were out of the office and away from work. Nevertheless, she could let him know her feelings without being direct.
‘I didn’t mean to hold you up, David,’ she said in quick apology, ‘but you’re full of surprises today.’ She looked at him meaningfully.
‘So, too, are you,’ came the somewhat uncertain reply.
She gave him another brilliant smile as she walked briskly forward and sat in the chair she used for taking dictation. Even looking as stern as he did, David was devastatingly handsome. He was wearing a navy-blue suit. It was the fashionable colour in the corporate world. It looked superb on David. A silk tie diagonally striped in red and navy and silvery grey was perfectly aligned on his white shirt. Very impressive. As he always was with business.
‘Ready when you are,’ she prompted.
He stared at her for ever so long, as though weighing her present mood against the crackling hostility that had burst upon him earlier. He did not relax and smile, but his expression softened.
‘The German delegation will be here in less than an hour,’ he stated, perhaps as a reminder of how unreasonable she had been in asking him to take the day off.
‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ she said, letting him know she was in a far more reasonable frame of mind now.
‘So am I,’ he murmured reasonably, and immediately came back to business. ‘The delegation desperately want the licence to manufacture, but they’ll try to work the price down by finding faults in our design.’
‘I know this deal is important to you,’ Caitlin added, reassuring him of her complete co-operation. It made her happy to think he was genuinely sorry for their earlier contretemps.
His brows lowered. His eyes sharply probed hers. ‘Are you concentrating on what I’m saying?’
‘Every word. All the unsaid ones, too.’ She smiled again to show there were absolutely no hard feelings left on her side.
His face took on a wary expression. He rapped out his instructions as though testing her shorthand speed. ‘Arrange for Paul Jordan to come in and announce that we have the Sutherland contract. That’s to be half an hour after we start. Make sure his timing is perfect. When I want you to come and sit in on the meeting and take notes, I’ll buzz you on the phone.’
‘Fine,’ she said, her pen flashing over her notepad.
He seemed bemused momentarily. ‘Is the boardroom fully prepared?’
‘I haven’t checked it yet. I’ll do that immediately.’
Caitlin rose to her feet with crisp efficiency. She was in such buoyant spirits that her walk to the door was unconsciously jaunty.
‘Wait!’
She swung around, her eyes brightly expectant. Anything David asked her to do she would carry out to the very best of her ability. She would most certainly be an assistant he would be proud to present in front of the German del-egation.
He appeared to be wrestling with some private dilemma. She could feel tension flowing from him, swirling around her. His penetrating blue eyes were intensely concentrated on hers, as though trying to read her mind.
‘I want to say...’ He paused, cleared his throat. ‘How much I appreciate...’ Again he stopped, seeming lost for words.
‘Understood,’ Caitlin responded, realising he was trying to bridge the awkward gap left by their previous parting. ‘I do, too.’
‘What?’
‘Appreciate the...uh...what you’re trying to say.’
He weighed that for a moment, then looked relieved. ‘Well, as long as everything’s working out all right...’
‘Yes. I hope it is.’ A new dance was definitely in progress, although where it would lead was by no means settled yet.
‘Good!’ He nodded his approval. The apples were back on his cart.
Caitlin had a moment’s disquiet. She recollected his cynical taunt, ‘Barter-time, is it?’ Were the roses simply a timely gift to keep her sweet? Caitlin didn’t like the thought at all. She brushed it aside, not wanting to spoil her pleasure in the gift. Besides, David had returned his attention to the papers on his desk and it behoved her to get about her busi-ness immediately.
CHAPTER THREE
CAITLIN set out everything that might be required on the boardroom table, then zipped back to her office to put in a call to Paul Jordan before heading to the kitchen to load up a traymobile with the usual refreshments.
The call to Jordan was deferred by the arrival of a delivery boy with another gift basket for her.
Caitlin was stunned by the contents. Nestled in a froth of red ribbons were a heart-shaped box of hand-made Swiss chocolates, and an enormously expensive set of Beautiful toiletries by Estee Lauder. These included perfume, skin lotion, bath oil and talcum powder. Most amazingly and endearingly of all, there was also a soft toy puppy.
Of all the soft toy animals David might have chosen, that was the second-best. The perfect choice for her would have been a pony, but Caitlin couldn’t remember having ever talked about Dobbin to him. Therefore he wouldn’t, couldn’t, know any better.
Surprises were certainly coming thick and fast this morning! Caitlin’s head was spinning with them. It was the way David did things, turning situations around so quickly. He was leaving her breathless and utterly enthralled by what he could do when he set his mind to it.
She suddenly realised time was slipping by. She postponed the call to Paul Jordan and raced to the office kitchen. Coffee, tea, milk, cream, plain and fancy biscuits and mixed sandwiches from catering were mandatory. By five minutes to ten it was all in the boardroom, ready for her to serve when needed. She had barely returned to her office when Jenny called to announce the arrival of the German delegation. Caitlin buzzed David, then went to meet the visitors at reception and escort them to the boardroom.
She carried out her duties with the charm David expected of her. Once everyone was settled around the table, she was free to prime Paul Jordan with what was expected of him. She would drag the Sutherland contract out of the filing system. Paul might as well take that with him.
David smiled at her as she left the boardroom. She hugged the smile to her heart, drifting back to her office on a cloud of happiness.
She couldn’t resist dabbing some Beautiful on. It was wonderful perfume, well named. She hadn’t been in the mood to bother with perfume this morning. She was now. She hoped David would recognise and appreciate the scent when she sat near him to take notes of the meeting. This was turning out to be a lovely morning, a really beautiful morning.
The phone rang just as she reached for it. Caitlin lifted the receiver, intending to take a very quick message so she could call Paul Jordan straight afterwards.
‘Caitlin?’ Her mother’s voice.
‘Hi, Mum! Happy wedding anniversary! How’s everything going for the party? Anything you need?’
The sound of sobbing. ‘Mum, what’s wrong?’
More sobbing. ‘Mum, please, please, please tell me what’s happened.’
‘There isn’t going to be a party.’
Caitlin was staggered. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. ‘Why?’ she asked, then collected her wits sufficiently to enquire, ‘Why not?’
‘Your father...’ Her mother’s voice quavered. She burst into more tears.
Caitlin’s worst fears were aroused. Her father had a history of heart disease. ‘Tell me the worst,’ she said bravely.
‘He...he...he...’
‘Yes, yes, yes?’ Caitlin prompted.
‘He walked out on me!’
Caitlin’s head spun. This wasn’t making sense at all. ‘What do you mean—he walked out on you?’
‘I mean what I said!’ her mother replied, a touch of asperity in her voice. She didn’t like to be contradicted or have her communications misunderstood.
Caitlin used her most sympathetic voice. ‘He couldn’t do that to you.’
‘Thirty years of looking after him hand and foot,’ her mother wailed. ‘I’m disgusted at what he’s done. I’ll never forgive him. Never! Even if he is your father.’
‘There must be a reason,’ Caitlin soothed gently. ‘Perhaps if I talk to him.’
‘You can’t do that,’ her mother snapped peremptorily.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know where he’s gone to.’
‘He can’t go too far without money,’ Caitlin suggested.
‘Oh, he’s got money. Too much of it, if you ask me. He’s been secretly hoarding everything I gave him without telling me what he was doing.’
‘Mum, there has to be a way.’
‘Oh, there’s a way,’ her mother said grimly between sniffles. ‘He’s done this as a symbol. When I catch up with him, I’ll give him a symbol. I’ll kill him!’
‘Mum, let me think about this.’ Caitlin had the feeling that time was passing very rapidly. She still had to get in touch with Paul Jordan. ‘Can I get back to you?’
‘There’s no need, Caitlin. I’m on my own. After thirty years of suffering through your father’s moods, this is all the thanks I get. There isn’t going to be a wedding anniversary party tonight. There’s nothing for you to do. There’s nothing anyone can do.’
Caitlin had had no idea that her parents’ marriage had been cracking up. On her recent visits home, her father had occasionally been somewhat withdrawn about her mother’s current projects and plans, but there had been no indication of a serious falling out. After all the years they had spent together, surely there was some meeting ground left?
‘Mum...Mum...’ Caitlin tried to catch her mother’s attention.
‘Everything’s ruined. It’ll be the talk of the town!’ her mother cried.
And that, Caitlin thought, was probably the crux of the matter. Her mother had always worried too much about what others thought. ‘I’ll do my best to patch things up,’ Caitlin said on a rueful sigh.
‘My life is in tatters, Caitlin. Totally and irretrievably ruined.’
Caitlin tried to give a glow of hope. ‘Somehow it will turn out right.’
‘No, it won’t.’ Her mother gave another wail of absolute distress and despair, and hung up.
Caitlin ran through a mental list of places where her father might have stormed off to. Before she recollected the important business tactic she had to set in motion, the door to her office opened and in strode David Hartley, emitting enough sparks to start a conflagration.
Caitlin’s mind exploded in horror. Time had passed too quickly. It was now too late to call Paul Jordan!
David came to an abrupt halt. He glared at the splendid arrangement of red roses. He glared at the beribboned basket containing the puppy and the chocolates and the luxurious toiletries. His glare swung back to the roses, fastening even more fiercely on the elaborate Valentine Card. Finally, he fired bolts of blue fire straight at Caitlin.
‘What the hell is going on out here?’
Caitlin started guiltily from her chair. ‘Nothing.’
‘Well, something has been going on in there.’ David pointed to the boardroom. ‘The delegation is not only muttering about alleged design flaws, they’ve been talking to Crawley.’
Michael Crawley was David’s main rival. The mere mention of his name was enough to set David aflame. There was litigation pending between the two companies over patent infringements.
‘I’m sorry...’
‘I’ve been trying to contact you for the last twenty minutes,’ he grated. ‘Your line has been tied up. You’ve made me look like a first-class idiot.’
She flushed. ‘My mother called.’
He looked at her incredulously. ‘Where’s Jordan?’
Caitlin tried to think of an appropriate reply.
His gaze flashed savagely to the roses, then back to her fiery cheeks. ‘Did your mother send the roses?’
‘No. You did,’ she reminded him.
He looked at her as though she had gone stark raving mad. ‘I did no such thing. What do you mean...I gave them to you?’
A great bottomless pit formed in Caitlin’s stomach. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. She fought down the feeling of emotional panic. ‘If you didn’t send them, who did?’
‘Ask your mother.’ His voice dripped acid. His eyes raked hers with scathing disbelief at her dereliction of duty. ‘In the meantime, can we get back to running this business?’
Her chin came up in fighting mode. Everything had to be done to the beat of his drum. He didn’t listen to her. He didn’t understand that she had problems as well as he. He didn’t give her roses or consideration or caring. She had duped herself into thinking David had relented in his tyrannical attitude towards her. He had not bent one iota.
‘David, I think we’re finished,’ she said tightly.
‘Damned right!’ he agreed. ‘Get Jordan up here. He might do the job required of him.’
A stinging rebuff.
She watched him as though from a far distance as he swung on his heel and headed back to the boardroom.
Cold, hard and ruthless. As his competitors saw him. As Michael Crawley must see him. As the German delegation must see him. As Caitlin now saw him.
With a heavy hand, she lifted up the phone. There was no answer from Jordan’s office. She rang Jenny.
‘Where’s Paul Jordan?’ she asked bleakly.
‘He stepped out for half an hour. Call that the rest of the morning. He thinks he’s got a potential deal with the Kirrawee Business College.’
Caitlin’s hand was even heavier as she replaced the phone. She had done a thoroughly comprehensive job in stuffing up both her personal life and professional life.
She couldn’t rescue the former. That required the impossible to happen. As for the latter, there was only one thing left to do. She went to the filing cabinet and dragged out the Sutherland contract.
She would give the presentation herself.
Not Jordan’s way.
Not David’s way.
Her way.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAVID, of course, sat at the head of the table in the boardroom. The four men from Germany were spread on either side of him, two on his right, two on his left. Herr Schmidt, the leader of the delegation, was pointing out something in the documents in front of him when Caitlin entered. The attention of the five men swung to her.
David glowered at her. Herr Schmidt frowned at the interruption. The expressions on the other men’s faces ranged from interested spectator to a deadpan weighing of what her unheralded appearance meant. They all looked tough, experienced, executive businessmen. None had the magnetic charisma that David could exude so effortlessly.
To Caitlin he dominated the room, just as he had dominated her life for the last four months. The thought spurred her to renewed determination.
No more domination.
This was her swan-song. She would use David’s tactics and give them her own twist. She might not be special to him, but he wouldn’t forget her in a hurry. Not for what she was about to do. She hoped it would make him burn. In the right places.
She walked briskly to the end of the table, facing David down the length of it. ‘Mr Hartley, we have chaos in the office,’ she announced, showing no perturbation at all at dropping bombshells in the boardroom.
‘I know that.’ His voice had the low rumble of an incipient earthquake.
‘You’ll be pleased to hear that the Sutherland contract has arrived. All signed, sealed and delivered,’ she stated wearily, as though it was one more chore to deal with on top of everything else.
‘Good.’ He gave her a frozen smile.
‘How we’re going to get that amount of product out on to the market in time, I do not know.’
‘Miss Ross...’ he looked sharply at the German delegation ‘...please take control of yourself.’
‘Fifteen hundred units,’ she burbled on. He knew as well as she knew how grossly exaggerated that figure was. The German delegation did not.
‘Miss Ross,’ he said sharply, ‘this is confidential information. Please be careful what you say. Where’s Jordan?’
She aimed a sigh of exasperation at him. ‘Mr Jordan left to clinch a huge deal with a string of business colleges,’ she went on, treating his warning about confidentiality as totally irrelevant in the circumstances. ‘Sell, sell, sell. That’s all he can do. The man is like a robot.’
‘I didn’t know he’d gone.’ David looked vexed. ‘He’s supposed to be here.’
‘I haven’t had a moment to tell you.’ Caitlin put some vexation into her voice. ‘As you’re aware, the phone-lines have been engaged all morning. All the other salesmen are out, too. Every blasted one of them. We can’t cover the volume of work that’s pouring in. For one thing, we need more phone-lines...’
David passed a weary hand over his face. ‘What point are you coming to, Miss Ross?’
‘There’s an overload of work. I’m needed elsewhere. The matter is urgent,’ she stated emphatically. ‘I require permission to leave the office. It’s mandatory. I need to take the afternoon off to attend to what has to be done.’
Danger signals glimmered in his eyes. ‘I have guests here from a foreign country who have to be attended to and looked after with the proper courtesy and respect, Miss Ross. Permission refused!’
Caitlin set her mouth into a long-suffering line. She threw a glance at the heavens as though praying for patience. She had seen him do the same action this morning, so had no trouble in duplicating it. It didn’t work any better for her than it did for him.
Patience was not bestowed on her.
She dropped her gaze to David and gave him a long, glittering glare. Then she tossed her hair in defiance, flounced around the table to where he sat, and slapped the Sutherland file down in front of him.
‘Sir!’ She took a deep breath. Her breasts lifted, drawing every eye on either side of the table to the lace inserts of her blouse. Her hands planted themselves on her hips. ‘Something has to give,’ she declared with passionate conviction. ‘It’s prob-ably me!’
Everyone was quite fascinated by now. She had their full attention. Including David’s. Especially David’s. She hoped he was getting the underlying personal message loud and clear. She was not going to go his way any more.
‘Something is going to give,’ he said grimly, ‘and I agree that it’s likely to be you.’
‘You need to employ more staff.’
‘I’ll certainly be dealing with that, Miss Ross.’ The purpose behind those words was unmistakable. She had not only crossed the Rubicon, she had committed hara-kiri on every level by not staying in the pigeonhole he’d built for her.
‘Can we go into recess on this?’ She would give him one last chance to be reasonable.
‘Not at the present moment.’
Green eyes sizzled into blue, giving him her message in no uncertain terms. ‘Very well,’ she snapped. ‘Please understand I can no longer handle all you require of me. I cannot meet the standards you demand of me. The overtime is excessive and unrewarding. We have come to the end of the line, you and I. Finis. Full stop. Goodbye.’
He was rising to his feet. ‘Miss Ross!’ he cried out hoarsely, obviously shaken to his bootstraps. Such antics had never been seen in this boardroom before.
‘Stay where you are, Mr Hartley. There’s no need to say or do anything. Business comes first. Remember this morning.’ She hoped he did.
With another toss of her hair she turned to march away from him. There was one last thing she could do. She would do it and end this farce. She took three steps, stopped, then swung back to address the head of the German delegation. Herr Schmidt was a big, burly man with sharp grey eyes. He had a poker face, revealing nothing of his thoughts.
‘There are no design defects in our products, Herr Schmidt. You are wasting our time. Mr Hartley is simply being too polite to tell you that to your face.’
The implication was clear. If he chose not to buy the licence, the loss was his, not theirs. She gave him a full eyeful of scorn, then resumed her march from the room, her hair swinging, her hips swinging, and the deal with the German delegation swinging.
Five pairs of eyes followed her out of the room. No one broke the silence which enveloped them.
Win or lose, Caitlin didn’t care any more. If David didn’t want to play the hand she had dealt him, that was too bad! As best she could, she had made up for her lapse in carrying out his instructions. The dance with the devil was over. She closed the door behind her with finality.
That action did nothing to fill the aching void in her heart. Why do women love so foolishly? she wondered. They hurt only themselves.
Back in her own office, the strong scent of the roses mocked the secret dreams and desires she had so fondly nurtured. The irrational hope she had so blindly fostered in her heart was dead. David Hartley was never going to change. The romance in his soul was encased in concrete surrounded by barbed wire and porcupine quills.
But it was best not to think about him now. She had to act on the decision she had made. No wavering. No waiting. There would be no softening coming from him. If she took nothing else away from her association with David Hartley, she would take her self-esteem and self-respect.
Tears pricked her eyes as she walked around her desk and flopped listlessly into her chair. She had been so happy to receive such lovely gifts. Why couldn’t it have been David asking her to ‘be his Valentine’? She had no idea who else might be declaring his interest in her. She wasn’t interested in anyone else. Someone had wasted an awful lot of money on nothing.
Maybe it was a mistake. Perhaps the Valentine gifts were meant for someone else. A mistake could easily be made because there was no name on the card. She was probably the recipient of mischance and some other woman was missing out on the pleasure meant for her.
With a heavy sigh, Caitlin rolled her chair around to face her computer. She switched it on and brought up the Microsoft Word program. It wouldn’t take long to type up an official letter of resignation to end her employment by David Hartley. She would leave it on his desk and go.
Her mother needed her. Her father had to be found. As far as her family was concerned, this St Valentine’s Day had brought nothing but misery and despair. Caitlin hoped she could do more for her parents than she could do for herself. Her one-sided love-affair was definitely on skid-row, but if her parents’ marriage could be rescued, at least that would be something.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She re-read what she had typed on to the monitor, nodded her satisfaction, then switched on the laser printer and waited for the fateful page to roll out.
She was on her feet, ready to pick up the page and sign her name to it, when she heard her office door open. She glanced around automatically.
Her heart thudded with apprehension when she saw David enter and close the door behind him. She didn’t want another confrontation with him. What was over was over.
‘Caitlin...’
‘You’re supposed to be looking after your guests.’
The printer whirred. She turned back to it. David could say what he liked. She wasn’t going to let it affect her. The page that would put an end to everything between them rolled towards her.
‘We’ve gone into recess for twenty minutes to re-establish contact with reality,’ he stated, conveniently forgetting that he had ruled out a recess when she had suggested it. ‘We’re going to relook at what direction we’re all coming from,’ he went on, his voice coming closer and closer. He paused. ‘Caitlin, you were magnificent!’
An accolade indeed, coming from David, but it came too late. Caitlin steeled her heart against responding to him.
The phone rang.
David automatically picked it up. Slowly and deliberately, Caitlin signed her resignation.
‘It’s for you,’ he said, holding the receiver out to her.
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Emma Darcy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: St. Valentine′s Day is a special day for lovers all over the world . And this year it has a special significance for Caitlin Ross. This year she is sure that David Hartley will admit she loves her. But Caitlin has forgotten that Valentine′s Day casts its own special magic.The surprises she receives, and the shocks that lie in store for David, make this a February the fourteenth they will never, ever forget… !