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The Argentinian's Demand
CATHY WILLIAMS


THE ARGENTINIAN’S DEMANDWhat the most powerful man in business wants… He gets!When billionaire Leandro Perez’s indispensable assistant Emily Edison resigns, telling him exactly what she thinks of him, he won’t let her off easily.Trapped in paradise at Leandro’s beck and call, Emily’s plan to marry for her family’s security is threatened. And as attraction gives way to an undeniable craving she’ll have to make the ultimate choice – duty… or desire?







Emily stared at Leandro in mute silence. She didn't want him to carry on—she really didn't want to hear what he had to say on a subject she had no desire to talk about—but she felt like a rabbit frozen in the headlights while a car moved inexorably at full speed towards it.

‘Ah, I see you get where I'm coming from.’

He sat up and his hand snaked up to her wrist, tugging her down beside him so that she half fell onto the rug before shuffling into a sitting position whilst glaring impotently at him.

‘The cat is out of the bag, Emily. You're no longer a personal assistant hiding behind a bland exterior with a non-existent private life.’

She was so close to him that he could see the flicker in her eyes…he could almost smell the scent of an awareness she was desperate to conceal.

‘You're engaged to be married to a man for whom you have…feelings of…what, exactly? Certainly not love and—let's be honest here—definitely not physical attraction. And do you know how I've come to that conclusion?’

He ran his thumb along the side of her cheek in a gesture that was shockingly intimate and she pulled away sharply.

‘Point proved. I've come to that conclusion, my dear personal assistant, because you're attracted to me…’


CATHY WILLIAMS is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband, Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!


The Argentinian’s Demand

Cathy Williams










www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Contents

Cover (#u459499cf-b406-5b0d-8ee9-89435e8d1d8d)

Back Cover Text (#u531e1810-fdc2-589d-a753-b8211a7b6ff1)

About the Author (#u8558c0c4-0df2-500f-bf01-46a51e03ec03)

Title Page (#uf2116233-7c4c-5a96-a9ef-71026adbe8cb)

Chapter One (#ua6e7204f-0ec2-5205-b308-55d85b24ce95)

Chapter Two (#u718398ee-3e14-58bf-add0-08d5e4fe36db)

Chapter Three (#u28143701-e19b-56cf-8324-168bbffd9509)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

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)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_74e85c7b-f55a-513b-900c-7f597462cb35)

EMILY EDISON STARED resolutely ahead of her as the elevator purred upwards to the twentieth floor, disgorging employees along the way. It was the morning rush at Piccadilly Circus, in the towering glass building where she worked in the heart of London. She rarely experienced this because she rarely came to work later than eight in the morning, but today...

Slim fingers tightened on the neat leather satchel at her side. Inside the bag her letter of resignation felt like an incendiary device, waiting to explode the minute it was released from its fragile containment. When she tried to imagine how her boss would take this she felt slightly sick.

Leandro Perez was not going to be happy. When she had begun working for him over a year and a half ago he had already been through countless secretaries, the most successful of whom had barely lasted a fortnight. Change, in this instance, was not going to be as good as a rest...

‘They take one look at him,’ his long-suffering and fairly elderly PA had told her, two days after her arrival at the company, ‘and something unfortunate happens to their brains. But you, thank God, seem to be made of sterner stuff. When I told Leandro that I would stay until I found a successful replacement I had no idea I would still be here after six and a half months...’

Emily had taken to the job like a duck to water. Theoretically, at the age of twenty-seven, she was still young enough to be susceptible to having her brains scrambled by a man who could turn heads from several blocks away, but he did nothing for her. His outrageous good-looks left her cold. The deep, rich velvet of his voice with that ever so slight sexy Argentinian accent did not put her off her stride. When he strode round her desk to look over her shoulder at something on her computer her nervous system remained perfectly stable and functioning. She was, as had been predicted by his previous PA, made of far sterner stuff.

But right now, riding the elevator by herself, because the last employee had scuttled through the doors somewhere around floor ten, she felt queasy with nerves even though she asked herself...at the end of the day, what could he do? Throw her through the window? Condemn her to immediate exile somewhere on the other side of the world? Threaten to lock her up and throw away the key?

No. The most he could do would be to get very, very annoyed—and annoyed he most certainly would be...especially considering that only a fortnight ago he had given her a glowing appraisal and a correspondingly glowing pay rise, for which she had been immensely grateful.

She inhaled deeply as the lift doors opened and she emerged onto the opulent directors’ floor of the wildly successful electronics company her boss owned and ran with ruthless efficiency.

It was just one of his wildly successful companies. They ranged from publications to telecommunications and he had recently, for a little light relief, begun a programme of investment into boutique hotels in far-flung places. Such was the vastness of his wealth that he could weather any sluggish profits he made from that venture—although, if the first three hotels were anything to go by, he would yet again discover that he had the Midas touch.

She would miss all this, she thought, looking around at the busy department. Plants and artfully arranged smoked glass partitions maintained a certain amount of privacy for the various secretaries who helped keep the machinery ticking over. Several waved at her.

She would miss the occasional lunch with them in the office canteen. She would miss the stunning surroundings of a building which was a tourist attraction in its own right. She would miss the adrenaline-fuelled pace of her work, its diversity, and all her responsibilities—which had increased a hundredfold since she had started.

And would she miss Leandro?

For a few seconds she paused and frowned towards the thickly carpeted corridor that led to his massive office suite.

Her heart picked up pace. She might not have drooled over him, the way some of the other girls did, but she was not completely immune to his impact. She was in full possession of twenty-twenty vision and she would have had to be blind not to be aware of just how sinfully sexy the man was. The fact that he represented everything she despised didn’t detract from that unassailable truth.

And, yes, she confessed to herself, she would most certainly miss working with him. He was nothing if not a challenging employer—indeed, the most brilliant, energetic, vibrant and demanding man she had ever worked for.

Before she could get carried away on that tangent, she refocused her mind, pursed her lips and smoothed her skirt with shaky hands. As always, she was dressed like the ultimate professional. Charcoal-grey pencil skirt, sheer flesh-coloured tights, black court shoes, a crisp white blouse and the matching charcoal-grey jacket that completed the suit. All this despite the fact that it was June and the weather was heating up with every passing day. Her pale blonde hair was neatly coiled in a bun of sorts, out of harm’s way.

She strode confidently towards Leandro’s office, pausing en route to dump her satchel and her briefcase on her desk, which was in her own private outer office, before knocking on the interconnecting door.

Behind the door, Leandro glanced up from his computer and then pushed himself away from the desk. This was a first. His secretary was late, and he was disconcerted to find that he had wasted far too much time wondering what was keeping her. The fact of the matter was it wasn’t even nine yet. Her working day was not due to begin for...another ten minutes.

‘You’re late,’ was the first thing he said as soon as she had entered his office.

On cue, his midnight-black eyes swept over her, taking in the prim suit, the even primmer blouse, the severely restrained blonde hair. She was as cool as an ice maiden. Very little ruffled her feathers, and when she looked at him she did so without the slightest flicker of interest. There were times, in fact, when he almost suspected that she might not even like him very much—although he invariably put that down to the workings of his imagination.

Women liked him. That, he conceded without a trace of vanity, was a given. He assumed that it was due to a combination of the way he looked and the reserves he had in his bank account. Money and a halfway decent appearance were almost always a guarantee of lively interest from the opposite sex.

‘Technically,’ Emily told him calmly, ‘I’m not even due in for another eight minutes.’

She looked at her boss, seeing him in a different light now that she knew she would soon be on the way out. She would hand him her letter of resignation just before she left for the day, and thus spare herself the full force of his anger.

He really was, she thought with a detached eye, a thing of great beauty. Black hair was swept back from a face of chiselled perfection. He had lashes most women would have killed for. And there was a lazy, shrewd, perceptive depth to his dark eyes that could, she knew, be at once disturbing and exciting. There had been instances when she had caught him looking at her with a mixture of mild curiosity and lazy masculine appreciation, and for all her toughened resistance she had been able to see just what it was about him that had women drooling.

He was tall—at least four inches taller than her, and she wasn’t petite at five foot eleven—and even in a suit, it required very little imagination to guess at the muscular physique underneath.

Oh, yes, he had the full package—and it drove women nuts. She knew because she had full access to his private life. She chose gifts for his women—five and counting over the past year and a half. She ordered elaborate bouquets of flowers when, sadly, their time was up and he was ready to move on to a new model. She fielded his women’s calls and, on one memorable occasion, had had to handle a personal appearance at the company.

He invariably dated obviously sexy women. Curvaceous, dark-haired beauties with big breasts and come-hither eyes. The sort of women who always commanded far more male interest than any skinny supermodel ever could.

Involvement in his personal life was not something she was going to miss, and it reminded her of why, despite the stunning good looks, the agile brain, the sharp acumen, and those flashes of wit that could bring a grin to the most poker-faced of spinster aunts, she still didn’t like the man.

Leandro frowned but decided to let it go, even though her cool response had carried just a hint of rebellion behind it.

‘And might I expect this to become a habit?’ he enquired with raised eyebrows. He pushed himself away from his desk and relaxed back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head. ‘If it does, then some advance warning would be appreciated. Although...’ he allowed a few seconds of silence ‘...considering the amount you’re paid, you might find my tolerance of your clock-watching a little limited.’

‘I won’t be clock-watching. I never do. Shall I bring you a refill for your coffee? And if you let me know what you want done about the due diligence on the Reynolds deal I can get started...’

* * *

For the rest of the day, however, Emily did watch the clock—something she never had in the past—and with each passing minute her nerves became a little more stretched.

Was she doing the right thing? It was a big step. Handing in her notice would signal an end to her substantial salary, but what choice did she have?

At a little before five-thirty, with her resignation letter burning a hole in her bag, she debated her options. Of course she had options. Who didn’t? But when you got right down to it all her options aside from the one she was going to take now led to the same dead end.

She cleared her desk with the feeling that she was looking at it for the last time. He would certainly ask her to leave immediately. For starters, she was privy to confidential information. Would she have to sign some sort of disclaimer? It sounded like the sort of thing that might happen in a B-rated movie, but who knew? When it came to business, Leandro was not a man to take any chances.

He glanced up briefly as she entered the office, took in the very obvious fact that she was dressed to go and pointedly looked at his watch.

‘It’s five-twenty-five...’ Emily forestalled any sarcasm ‘...and I’m afraid I have some...stuff to do this evening...’

She normally worked until after six—sometimes far later if there was a lot to get through.

‘I’ve completed all those emails you needed to be sent to the lawyers in Hong Kong and forwarded them to you for checking. You’ll find them in your inbox...’ She hovered, reached into her bag and withdrew her resignation letter. ‘There’s just one more thing...’

Leandro picked up the uneven tenor in her voice and stiffened. He looked at her narrowly and indicated the chair facing his desk. ‘Sit.’

‘I’d rather not. As I said, I’m in a bit of a rush...’

‘What’s going on?’

It was more of a demand than a question. Today was proving to be full of surprises—at least as far as his secretary was concerned. Kicking off with her late arrival at work, she had spent the day in a state of mild distraction, jumping when he happened to come up behind her so that he could review something on her computer, working with the ferocious absorption of someone intent on pretending that there was no one else in the office, and barely able to meet his eye when addressed.

All of those minute changes were so under the radar that he knew they would have passed unnoticed by anyone other than himself, but his antenna was sharp when it came to detecting nuances—especially nuances in a woman with whom he had spent the past eighteen months working in close quarters. She was his secretary, but he had, in actual fact, spent a hell of a lot more time with her than he ever had with any of the women he had taken to his bed.

So...what was going on?

Leandro was intrigued, and what startled him was the acknowledgement that he had actually been intrigued by her for a long time. Intrigued by her aloofness, her detachment, her almost pathological desire for privacy. Intrigued because she was the only woman he had ever met who barely reacted to his presence.

She did her work with the highest level of efficiency, and even when they had worked late on several occasions, and he had ordered in a takeout to keep them going, she had politely refused to be drawn into any form of personal conversation, preferring to keep everything on a professional footing. Chinese food, chopsticks and no downtime. Instead intelligent discussion of whatever deal they had been working on, with her notes spread next to her on the desk.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Emily, that you’ve been acting strangely all day...’

‘Have I? I’ve managed to complete all the tasks you’ve set me.’

She sat, simply because he kept staring at her and remaining on her feet felt oddly uncomfortable. She had planned on handing him her letter of resignation and leaving perhaps before he could even open it. It now looked as though that option would be removed from her.

Now that she was on her way out—now that she knew she would never clap eyes on him again—she was oddly aware of his potent masculinity. It was almost as though she had now given herself permission to look at him—really look at him—without the barrier of her inherent scorn for the type of man he was standing in the way, acting as blinkers.

Something dark and forbidden raced through her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Those dark eyes were so...so brooding...so intense...

She looked down quickly, angry with herself and wondering where that sudden powerful awareness had come from. Surreptitiously she extracted the letter from the satchel and licked her lips.

‘You’re not a performing seal.’ Leandro relaxed back into the leather chair and looked at her. ‘There’s more to your job than simply completing the tasks set. Granted, you’re not the most open book in the world, but something’s definitely off with you today. You’ve been acting like a cat on a hot tin roof and I want to know why. It’s impossible to work if the atmosphere in the office isn’t right.’

He picked up his fountain pen—an expensive present from his mother, who firmly believed that letters were still written and technology and computers were simply a passing phase. He twirled it idly between his fingers and Emily watched, guiltily mesmerised by the movement of his long fingers.

‘Perhaps,’ she said in a stilted voice, ‘this might go some way to explaining my behaviour. Not that I’ve noticed anything amiss. I’ve done my job as efficiently today as I always have done.’

Performing seal? Was that how he saw her? As someone who came in, did what she was expected to do to the very highest standard, but lacked in all personality? Dull? Boring? An automaton? She had kept her distance and had kept her opinions to herself. Since when had that been a crime? Her mouth tightened and she swallowed back an intense temptation to tell him just what she thought of him.

Leandro looked at the white envelope in her hand and then looked at her.

‘And that is...?’

‘Take it. Read it. We can discuss it in the morning.’

She made to rise and was told to sit back down.

‘If a discussion is warranted, then we’ll have the discussion right here and right now.’

He reached for the envelope, slit it open and read the brief letter several times.

Emily schooled her features into a mask of polite detachment, but she had to unclench her hands and her heart was racing—beating so fast that she felt it might burst through her ribcage.

‘What the hell is this?’

He tossed the letter across the desk in her direction and Emily snatched it before it could flutter to the ground. She smoothed it on her lap, staring at the jumble of words. Granted, it was a very brief letter of resignation. It said that she had enjoyed her time working with him but felt that the time had come for her to move in another direction. It could not have been more dry or unemotional.

‘You know what it is. It’s self-explanatory. It’s my letter of resignation.’

‘You’ve had fun and now it’s time to move on...am I reading it correctly?’

‘That’s what it says.’

‘Sorry. Not buying it.’

Leandro was shocked. He hadn’t seen this coming and he was furious at what he saw as inadequate advance warning. Furthermore, he was the one who generally decided when one of his employees was ready to be shown the door. He had had enough experience of simpering young girls batting their eyelashes and getting into an annoying flap every time he looked at them and asked them to do something simple.

‘If I remember correctly, you had a substantial pay rise recently, which you very happily accepted, and you informed me at the time that you were perfectly satisfied with the working conditions here.’

‘Yes. I...I...hadn’t thought about resigning at that point in time.’

‘And yet less than a month later you have? Did you have a sudden revelation? I’m curious. Or have you been looking for a replacement job all along and just biding your time until the right one came your way?’

The thought of another endless series of airheads was not a pleasant one. Emily Edison had been the perfect secretary. Intelligent, unflappable, always willing to go beyond the call of duty. He was used to her. The thought of getting in to work and not having her there at hand was inconceivable.

Had he taken advantage of her? Of her quiet efficiency? Her willingness always to go the extra mile? He rejected any such notion before it had had time to take root. He paid for her to be willing to go beyond the call of duty. He was pretty sure that she would be hard pressed to find another job as secretary in the heart of London where the pay equalled what she got.

‘Well?’ he prompted. ‘Has someone made you an offer you can’t refuse? Because if that’s the case, consider whatever offer you were tempted by doubled.’

‘You would do that?’

Her mouth fell open. Performing seal she might very well be, but he valued her, and although she knew that through a process of intelligent deduction, it was gratifying to hear it put so starkly into words.

‘We work well together,’ Leandro said bluntly. ‘And I expect that I am sometimes not the easiest man in the world to work for...’

Expecting a standard negative response to that statement, he was disconcerted when it failed to be delivered.

‘Is that it?’ he asked, leaning forward with frowning intensity. ‘Have you got a gripe against me...?’

He couldn’t quite conceal the incredulity in his voice and Emily, for the first time, looked at him with cynical directness. Of course never in a million years would Leandro Perez ever think that any woman wouldn’t be one hundred per cent happy to be in his presence. She might have bucked the trend by not being one in that long line of women who swooned the second those dark, intense eyes settled on them, but even so he would still assume that he had an effect on her because that was just the sort of man he was.

A player. Someone so inherently aware of his massive pulling power that it would be just inconceivable that it might not work on some women.

‘I haven’t got a gripe against you,’ Emily said slowly.

She felt a thrill of recklessness, because right now, at this very moment in time, she was permitted to speak her mind. By tomorrow afternoon she would have cleared her desk and would have disappeared from here for good, with no need for references from him—although she knew instinctively that they would be very good, because he was, for all his faults, scrupulously fair.

Leandro tilted his head to one side and kept his eyes firmly fixed on her face. Her colour was up. Was she blushing? He hadn’t associated her with such a girlish reaction. She was always so self-possessed...and yet...

His dark eyes drifted down to her mouth. She had full, soft lips, and even if they had registered somewhere in his subconscious before now he certainly felt as though he was seeing them for the first time. Perhaps she had shed that ice-cold image, because there were cracks in it now, through which he wanted to pry, find out what lay underneath.

Emily sensed the shift in his attention—from boss trying to uncover the reasons for her sudden unexpected resignation to boss looking at her with masculine interest.

Her skin tingled. She felt as though she was in the grip of an acute attack of pins and needles.

‘No?’ Leandro drawled. ‘Because your expression is telling a different story.’

Emily, so accustomed to being the dutiful impeccable secretary in his presence—the secretary who never allowed her personal feelings to tip over into the work arena—stiffened.

‘If you must know, I’ve never enjoyed having to do your dirty work for you.’

‘Come again?’

She couldn’t quite believe that she had just said what she had. The blood rushed to her head and she knew that she was as red as a beetroot. Gone was the frozen, aloof façade she had kept up for the past year and a half.

She looked at him with defiance and took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Presents for those women you no longer had any use for...goodbye gifts you couldn’t even be bothered to choose...arranging opera tickets and theatre tickets...booking expensive restaurants for women I knew I would be sending those goodbye gifts to in a few weeks’ time... That should never have been part of my secretarial duties...’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’

‘That’s because you’re not accustomed to anyone telling you anything you don’t want to hear.’

Leandro released a long, sharp breath and sat back to look at her. Her face was alive with genuine, sincere emotion. She was leaning forward in the chair, and of their own accord his eyes drifted down to the prissy top.

He wondered what she looked like underneath it—wondered what it would feel like to make love to his icy secretary who was now in the act of revealing the sort of passion that could make any red-blooded man burn. He wondered what that hair would be like let loose. Hell, he didn’t even know how long her hair was! His intense curiosity extinguished any anger he might have felt at what she had just said. At any rate, it was certainly true that he wasn’t accustomed to being criticised.

‘So you didn’t like your involvement in my personal life?’ he murmured.

‘Maybe Marjorie was accustomed to doing stuff like that, but I feel you should have established whether I would mind...’

‘I guess if you felt so strongly about it you should have said something earlier...’

Emily blushed, because he was absolutely right. And why hadn’t she? Because she had needed the money and she had been keen not to put a foot wrong.

‘There’s nothing more annoying than a martyr who puts up with the unacceptable and only says her piece when she’s handed in her resignation...which brings me back to the why...’

‘Well, like I said, I feel it’s time to move on... I realise you will probably want me to leave immediately, so I thought I could just pack my things up and be done in a day...’

‘Leave immediately? What gives you that idea?’

‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked in some consternation. ‘Of course you want me to leave immediately. You don’t see the point of employees hanging around once they’ve handed in their notice. I remember quite clearly you saying that they need to be removed from sensitive information, and also that their demotivation can spread like a virus...’

In actual fact she had only known of a couple of instances of employees handing in their notice. Pregnancy and emigration being the reasons. Mostly people stayed with the company because the pay was second to none—as were the working conditions.

‘Marjorie stayed on for quite a while before she finally left...that seems to fly in the face of your sensitive information theory...’

‘Yes, but...’

She looked at his raised eyebrows, the slight tilt of his head, and for a second she wondered whether he was just toying with her.

‘My responsibilities have been far greater.’ She stumbled over her words as she contemplated the prospect of working out her notice having told him in no uncertain terms what she thought of certain aspects of her job...

‘True,’ Leandro agreed.

He allowed the silence to thicken and deepen. Immediate departure? Why?

‘And you’re telling me this because...?’

‘Why would you want me around if you think I’m an annoying martyr?’

Emily took a different approach, but Leandro Perez was not a man who could be browbeaten, and even as she tried a different ruse she felt the sinking sensation of knowing that her departure would not be going quite according to schedule. She had been short-sighted, had dropped her mask, and now she would be stuck for at least another month with their boss-secretary relationship not on the safe footing on which it had always rested.

‘You have a month’s notice to work out,’ Leandro informed her flatly. ‘You’ve lost your mind if you imagine that you’re going to leave me in the lurch with a string of unsuitable candidates turning my working life upside down.’

And he was honest enough to admit to himself that it rankled...the fact that she had been happy to jump ship without a backward glance when she must have known that he depended on her! What the hell had ever happened to a sense of responsibility?

He offered her an expression of thoughtful contemplation and politely waited for her to try and find a few more pointless excuses.

Emily envisaged one long month of interviewing prospective candidates for a guy who would almost certainly reject all of her choices. She had handed in her notice and he wasn’t going to make life easy for her. And now that she had been foolish enough to actually tell him what she thought about his antics involving the opposite sex...

No, life was not going to be a walk in the park at all over the next four weeks.

‘But of course you do have a point,’ he mused, resuming the light tapping of his fountain pen on his desk. ‘You have assumed far greater responsibilities than Marjorie ever did. She always maintained that she was hanging on to new technology by the skin of her teeth whilst knowing very well that there was no way I would ever get rid of her because of her length of service. She worked for my father in Argentina. Did you know that?’

‘She didn’t mention it.’

‘She was over there on holiday after university and looking for temporary work so that she could improve her Spanish. She applied for an office job at my father’s company and he liked her. Said she had spirit. He employed her on the spot, and as things turned out she fell in love with a local guy, married him and remained working for my father until eventually she and her husband moved over here years ago so that she could be close to her family.

‘Two of her daughters married English guys and now live here as well. When she moved she came as a package deal to me, but in truth her heart was never in the upward climb. She did a damn good job, but you...’ He relaxed back and folded his hands behind his head. ‘You’re quick...you’re professional...you never need to be told anything twice...’

Emily accepted the flattery with as composed a demeanour as she could muster and reminded herself that it came with the massive downside of being asked to work out her notice. But the pleasure of being complimented so elaborately brought colour to her cheeks.

‘Which is why I can’t afford to lose you immediately, and also why you were rewarded with so much responsibility...so much confidential information on clients... For all I know—’ he sat forward suddenly, taking her by surprise ‘—you could be moving on to one of my competitors... Who knows? You’re a closed book, Emily...’

‘Moving on to one of our competitors...?’

Leandro raised his eyebrows at that unconscious slip of the tongue, but he didn’t relax his posture, and nor did he come even close to cracking a smile.

‘Are you being serious, Leandro?’

Somehow she had managed to avoid using his name for the majority of her time working with him and it felt strange on her tongue. She was catapulted back to that odd sensation she’d had earlier, when she had suddenly and inexplicably become aware of him—aware of his startling sexuality, aware of the dragging power of his personality when work was not the issue at hand.

‘I’m always serious when it comes to work.’ Leandro, still leaning forward with his elbows splayed on the desk, was looking at her very carefully. ‘As you might have gathered by now, I’m not a man who takes chances when it comes to my companies...’

‘I get that—but I would never disclose anything confidential to anyone!’

‘Better safe than sorry, though, wouldn’t you say...?’

Would she even miss him?, he thought, enraged with himself for even thinking it.

‘I’ll get in touch with the agency first thing in the morning.’

Distractedly she thought that a person could get lost in those dark eyes of his, which were resting on her with lazy, brooding speculation, and then she mentally slapped herself on the wrist for letting her imagination get the better of her.

Not only was it foolish but it was entirely inappropriate, given the current circumstances.

‘No need just yet...’

Whoever said that a good head for business precluded a talent for creative thinking?

‘I have a project that’s coming to an end on a small island in the Caribbean. Finishing touches to one of my hotels before the grand opening in six weeks’ time. I need to be there personally to sign off on the details...’

Not strictly true, but it would certainly serve his purpose at this juncture. No way she was going to just up sticks and disappear into the sunset without a backward glance. Furthermore, she intrigued him—and now, with this peculiar letter of resignation, she was intriguing him even more.

‘That’s not a problem. I’m more than capable of covering in your absence, and of course I will communicate daily on email. I can even begin sifting through prospective replacements so when you return you only have to interview the handful I’ve selected...’

‘Not precisely what I had in mind. I do have to keep an eye on you—as you have so aptly brought to my attention... So here are my thoughts: you and I will travel to my hotel and test-drive it, so to speak. Make sure the nuts and bolts are all in place, the paperwork is spotless, the teams are ready for when the place opens... And, of course, out there you will be removed from any temptation to get in touch with anyone who might be interested in buying sensitive information and it will give me time to get my people to firewall anything that could be stolen... What do you think? No, scratch that. Just get your passport, pack a suitcase and book two first class tickets for us to leave first thing in the morning. Much more fun than sifting through potential candidates for a job, wouldn’t you agree?’

Emily blanched. ‘What sort of timescale are we talking about?’ she asked faintly.

There seemed little point in taking issue with his implication that she might be a common thief. His suspicious nature had helped get him where he was today, and it was as ingrained in his personality as an icy wasteland was in hers.

‘Well, you do have to give me a month’s notice... I imagine a fortnight should suffice when it comes to overseeing the final touches of the hotel...’

‘Two weeks?’

‘You sound shocked. I know you have a passport, so where’s the problem?’

‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to do that.’

‘And that would be because...?’

‘Because I have certain commitments.’

‘And would these “commitments” be related to that letter of resignation you produced an hour ago?’

‘Yes.’

Emily drew a deep breath and looked away. She could feel curiosity emanating from him in waves. Leandro Perez had a brilliant and enquiring mind. Was he about to let her go without trying to delve into the precise reasons for her resignation? How naive she had been to imagine that that might have been the case.

‘I’m all ears—because I’m still paying your salary and asking nothing that breaches the bounds of your duty.’

‘I realise that. It’s just that...that...’

‘That what?’

‘I’ll be leaving London. I’m getting married...’


CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ca36019c-a7aa-5f12-9b5d-469a945bca56)

FOR A FEW seconds Leandro wondered whether he had heard correctly. Getting married? It was as ludicrous as if she had suddenly announced that she was resigning so that she could fulfil a lifelong ambition to climb backwards up Mount Everest. No, it was even more ludicrous—because never, not once, not for a passing moment, had she intimated that she had any kind of social life. She might very well have kept her personal life to herself, but there wasn’t a woman on the face of the earth who could resist letting slip something as big as that.

Furthermore, where was the diamond rock she should be wearing on her finger?

‘I’m not buying it,’ he said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me, Emily. I’m not buying it.’

‘How...how dare you?’

A tidal wave of pure red rushed through her head. The cool, aloof persona—the one that was her constant companion—vanished under the force of her anger. Anger that he had the nerve to think she was lying. Anger at the implied insult that she was just so dull, so boring, that it was inconceivable anyone might want to marry her. Anger that he just couldn’t believe she wasn’t one of those simpering girls who would not have been able to resist the compulsion to blab to her boss about a fiancé in the wings.

The sheer arrogance of the man was unbelievable. But why did that come as any great surprise? Hadn’t she witnessed first-hand just how arrogant he was in his dealings with women? Hadn’t she seen for herself how he treated them? Like playthings to be picked up and then dumped the second their novelty value wore off.

Memories of the past and her own experiences of someone with that same lethal power to destroy hurtled towards her like a rocket with deadly cargo, and she deflected its impact with a little less than her usual practised ease.

‘How dare I what?’

‘How dare you presume to know anything about me?’ Emily bristled. ‘Just because I haven’t mentioned my private life, it does not give you the right to assume that nothing goes on in it!’

‘I’m curious as to the whereabouts of this fiancé of yours when we have spent hours working until all hours of the night—which, incidentally, wasn’t that long ago. In fact...if my memory serves me right...three weeks ago we had a run of several Chinese takeout nights when that Dutch deal was on the verge of completion. I can’t imagine any testosterone-fuelled young man wanting his woman cooped up with her boss into the early hours of the morning... Or maybe those late lie-ins I gave you made up for the inconvenience...?’

He appeared to give this some thought and then shook his head slowly, his dark eyes fixed on her face all the time as his curiosity bloomed into a driving, unstoppable need to know more.

‘No...’ he drawled. ‘You’ve never had any problem with unsocial hours. That would have featured on the menu had this fiancé been on the scene. So...how long has it been going on?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ Emily said through stiff lips.

‘I’m making it my business,’ he responded coolly, ‘in light of the fact that it appears to be influencing your ability to do your job.’

‘It’s not influencing anything...’

‘You’ve already informed me that you have a problem accompanying me to the Caribbean to oversee the end of this project. I’d term that as influencing your ability to do your job... Look, Emily...’ He sighed and raked his fingers through his dark hair. ‘We’ve been working together for almost two years. We’ve had an excellent working partnership—aside, of course, from your simmering resentment about the way I conduct my love-life...’

And where, he wondered, had that come from? Poor experiences in the past with some guy who broke her heart?

‘Is it just so damned inconceivable that I might have a passing interest in something as groundbreaking as your engagement? Forget the fact that you’re going to leave me in the lurch...’

‘I have no intention of leaving you in the lurch. I shall make sure I find a suitable replacement.’

He noticed the way she had clumsily tried to evade his question. Fascinating.

‘Leaving that aside for the moment, how long have you been going out with this mystery man? What’s his name, anyway?’

‘Are these questions still in line with the fact that you’re not buying what I’ve told you?’

‘I’m mystified by the lack of an engagement ring on your finger,’ Leandro said mildly. ‘Perhaps you took it off this morning when you were washing the dishes, but I feel certain I would have remembered seeing it before...’

‘I’m not a great believer in engagement rings,’ Emily mumbled uncomfortably.

‘And yet there must be romance and passion there if you don’t feel comfortable travelling with me for a fortnight to wrap this hotel business up...’

He had never seen her like this before. Her hectic colour brought a liveliness to her face that was captivating. She looked like a different woman. Still beautiful, but animated now, no longer with that impassive mask designed to keep the world at arm’s length.

He had never been into blondes, but interest was kicking in. He wondered whether that was because the lines between their professional relationship and the personal were beginning to blur. Hell, what an inappropriate reaction! The woman had just announced that she was about to tie the knot with some guy and here he was, assessing her in ways he had never done before and allowing his imagination to break its leash and take up residence in entirely unacceptable fantasies that involved him getting down and personal with this new, intriguing creature squirming in front of him.

‘His name is Oliver,’ Emily admitted reluctantly, steering the conversation away from all talk about romance and passion.

The mere notion of those foreign emotions was enough to make her lips curl with cynicism. Romance? Passion? Why not throw love into the mix while he was about it?

Leandro detected the shadow that crossed her face, the way her full lips tightened fractionally. He had never really known what was going on in his secretary’s head and he wondered idly whether she knew just how much of a challenging gauntlet she was throwing down in her evasiveness.

For someone like him—someone to whom women had always been prepared to bare their souls, whatever his response, indeed, who would have been prepared to do anything to net his interest—her obvious reluctance to divulge even the most innocuous of facts about her situation was a compelling reason for him to keep pushing.

Thinking about his varied and changeable love-life made him distractedly recall that fleeting, gone-in-a-heartbeat expression that had crossed her face at the mention of romance and...what else was it he had said...? Passion.

Was this mysterious fiancé less an object of passion than a...a last resort guy? Underneath that controlled exterior, was she just plain scared of ending up on the shelf? Or maybe some experience of someone who hurt her had left her wary of romance? Was that it?

The questions raced through his head and he didn’t bother to fight his curiosity in chasing answers.

A fortnight in the Caribbean, aside from allowing him to be personally on hand to make sure the project was launched smoothly, promised to be an interesting experience.

‘Oliver... Oliver what...?’

‘You wouldn’t have heard of him.’

‘The expression pulling teeth springs to mind...’

‘Camp,’ Emily said through gritted teeth. ‘His name is Oliver Camp.’

‘And Oliver Camp would object to your accompanying me on a business trip, would he?’

‘I’ll come.’

Arrangements might have to be put back a few weeks, but in the long run that would make little difference. They were both keen to tie the knot and get the whole thing over and done with, but sometimes Fate threw a spanner in the works, and in this instance the spanner came in the form of a very large, very muscular and hellishly dynamic guy who effectively had her in his pocket.

At any rate, arguing with him would, in the end, be counter-productive. She had never known him to give anything up without a fight—and a winning fight at that.

‘Wonderful news! So glad you’ve come round to the idea...’

He glanced at his watch and stood up, and Emily reluctantly found herself surreptitiously following the economical fluid movement of his long body. She seemed to have stored up remembered images of him, so that she felt almost familiar with the sight of his strong forearms sprinkled with dark hair, the way he unrolled the sleeves of his white shirt, the length of his fingers...

It alarmed her, and she looked away hurriedly and followed suit, standing up as well.

‘I trust you’ll make all the necessary arrangements first thing in the morning?’ He strolled towards the door and slipped on his jacket.

‘Are you leaving work already?’ Emily directed the question to his broad back and he looked at her over his shoulder.

‘So it would appear.’

He never left work before seven. Even when his diary was free of all meetings or conference calls, as she knew it was now.

‘How come?’ she found herself asking, and instantly regretted her impulsive question.

What on earth was wrong with her? Had some crazy recklessness been unleashed inside her? Was it all downhill from here on in? She had another month of his company! Was she going to work that month trying to put a brake on whatever nonsense her mouth decided to come out with? All her reserve seemed to be unravelling.

‘Come again?’ His dark eyes roved over her flushed face and he raised his eyebrows.

‘I apologise. Of course it’s none of my business when you decide to leave the office. I just thought... I wondered... You usually take the opportunity to consolidate stuff after normal working hours when the phones aren’t ringing quite so much...’

Leandro turned fully to face her and leant indolently against the wall. ‘You’re flustered.’

Was that designed to make her feel even more hot and bothered? If so, it worked. She could feel heat tingling in her cheeks. ‘I’m not at all flustered,’ she lied. ‘I’m merely...merely...’

‘Demonstrating a perfectly natural human curiosity as to an alteration in my usual routine?’

‘It’s...’

‘Absolutely none of your business.’ Leandro shrewdly nailed what she had been about to say again—that the time he chose to walk out of his office was not a matter she was entitled to question. ‘However, as you appear to be in such a rush to leave...for whatever “stuff” you claim you have to do...’ He invited a response to this prompt and was unsurprised when none was forthcoming. He shrugged. ‘I thought I’d call it a day. At any rate, there are things I need to do if I’m to be out of the country for a couple of weeks...’

Emily lowered her eyes. He was currently without a woman. She had dispatched the last hapless member of his harem several weeks previously. The poor woman had not had a very long run, although in fairness her brief appearance in his life had certainly been an expensive one, and she had left the better for several expensive items of jewellery and a red moped which she’d claimed matched her preferred choice of nail colour and was essential for getting around London.

So was there another waiting in the wings? She felt the familiar antipathy towards his life choices rise up into her throat like bile. She knew she shouldn’t. People lived their lives the way they chose to live them, and she should be indifferent and non-judgemental, and yet...

Leandro continued to look at her. He felt as though he were seeing her in 3D for the very first time. At least partially in 3D. Certainly he realised that her pose was very familiar to him, although it had always been one to which he had paid next to no attention. Whenever he had casually asked her to buy a parting gift for a woman she had always lowered her eyes in very much the same way as she was doing now. Her mouth would purse and she would comply with whatever he asked without complaint, but, yes...in the light of what she had told him about her views on his love-life...

Disapproval was stamped on her face. It was running through her head that he was leaving early because he had a hot date with a woman. Leandro decided that he would give her all the freedom she wanted to imagine what she clearly considered the worst interpretation.

‘Right. I’ll see you in the morning, Emily. And...’ He paused, just in case she thought that she might disappear without a backward glance and leave him high and dry. ‘Don’t even consider doing a vanishing act, because if you do I’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth and take you to court for breach of contract. I’ve been an exemplary employer and I expect exemplary service in return—even if it’s only for the duration of a month. Understood?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of vanishing.’ But there would be some loose ends to tie up before she went away with him.

On her way back to the tiny bedsit she rented in South London, she contemplated those loose ends and was frustrated to discover that her mind wasn’t completely on the task at hand.

In fact her wayward thoughts insisted on disappearing around corners, streaking off down blind alleys and generally refusing to be tied down. After that conversation with Leandro, which was not one she had predicted, she found that she couldn’t quite get the man out of her head.

She unlocked her front door and realised that she didn’t quite know where the commute had gone, because she had been so busy playing over that encounter in her head.

Now, looking around her ridiculously small bedsit, she grounded her thoughts by reminding herself that once this matter had been sorted, once this marriage was out of the way, she would no longer have to live in a place that was, frankly, a dump. The paint on the walls was peeling, there were signs of rising damp, and the heating system was so rudimentary that it was preferable to leave it off in winter and just make do with portable heaters.

She wondered what Leandro would think if he were ever to stray accidentally into this part of the world and into her cramped living quarters.

He would be horrified. On the salary she was paid she should have been able to afford somewhere more than halfway decent in a good part of London. But after her money was spent there was precious little left for life’s small indulgences, such as passably comfortable living quarters...

She got on the phone to Oliver before she could begin to wind down, and he picked up on the second ring.

There would be a slight delay in their plans, she told him, and sighed wearily. She perched on the chair in the hall. It was so uncomfortable that she felt her landlord must have redirected it to the house when it had been on its way to the skip to be disposed of, because that was all it was good for.

In her head, she pictured Oliver. The same height as her, fair hair, blue eyes—hardly changed at all from the boy of fifteen she had once dated for the laughably short period of three months, before exam fever had consumed her and before he and his family had sold their mansion and disappeared off to America. They had kept in touch sporadically, but even that had faded after his parents had died in an accident ten years previously.

‘What sort of delay?’

She explained. Two weeks away, and then she would be back and they could progress. She knew that it was a delay barely worth writing home about, but she was desperate to get this whole thing wrapped up—although she made sure to keep that desperation out of her voice.

She spent the rest of the evening in a state of mild panic. Two weeks abroad with Leandro. Two weeks in the sun. Sunshine was synonymous with holidays, with relaxing, and yet she would be on tenterhooks the whole time, guarding herself against...

Against what...?

As she continued to tie up her loose ends—loose ends that needed to be securely tied up before she left—her mind continued to play with that suddenly persistent question.

Guarding against what...?

Unbidden, thoughts of Leandro floated past her walls of resistance, lodged themselves in her head. Thoughts of how he looked, the way he had stared at her with those dark, semi-slumbrous eyes, the soft, silky angle of his questions, the way their conversation had dipped into murky uncharted territory...

There had been no mention of what sort of clothes she should take. She vaguely knew the layout of the resort—knew that it comprised individual cabanas on the beach: sweet little one and two-bedroom huts that looked as though they had been there for time immemorial but which in fact were equipped to the highest possible standard and had only been standing for six months tops.

They formed a charming cluster in front of the main hotel, which itself was small and likewise very organically designed. There was a pool which mimicked a waterfall, plunging into a quirkily laid out lake, but each of the cabanas came with its own plunge pool anyway.

It was the height of luxury and, like it or not, she was not going to be able to pull off her usual uniform of starchy suits and sensible court shoes.

Swimsuits, shorts, sundresses. The sort of clothes she didn’t possess. And she had neither the time nor the inclination to go out on a shopping spree.

* * *

The prospect of facing him the following morning was not a pleasant one, and she made sure to arrive, yet again, shortly before nine. If he interpreted that as some sort of restrained rebellion then so be it.

In fact she arrived to find a message on her desk telling her that he would be out for the day. Judging from the list of instructions for her, it seemed that he had hit the office even earlier than he normally did.

And the number one instruction was for her to sort out flights to the island. As if she were in any danger of forgetting it!

By five Emily was drained, and she was getting ready to leave when the phone rang and she was accosted by the dark timbre of his disembodied voice down the line.

How had she spent so long never being affected by that? How was it that his voice had never made her toes curl the way it was doing now?

In the act of putting on her jacket, she literally had to sit down and control her breathing as he demanded a debrief on the various things he had asked her to do. Had she sent those emails to the Hong Kong subsidiary of the electronics plant he was taking over...? Had she seen the response from the Briggs lawyers...? The Glasgow arm of his telecommunications outfit needed confirmation of price bands for new contracts and—could she make sure to hard copy all the relevant data by the morning...? And, last but not least, had she booked their flights.

* * *

Leandro relaxed back in his chauffeur-driven car. He had spent the day in a buoyant mood. He had one more company under his belt after some hard bargaining, and the following day...

Underneath his annoyance and frank bewilderment at Emily’s decision to resign, his shock at the reason she had given and the uncomfortable sense of betrayal at her short notice and lack of forewarning, there was a tug of intense satisfaction at the prospect of them travelling to the Caribbean.

He had spent a lot of the day thinking of her. He had played over in his mind the conversation they had had, the changing expressions on her face. She had been...shifty. She had answered his questions when pushed, but he had been left with the feeling that her answers only skimmed the surface.

The fact that satisfying his curiosity would ultimately have no bearing on her departure was an irrelevance as far as Leandro was concerned. He got a kick just thinking about travelling down an unpredictable path for once when it came to the opposite sex.

Was he becoming jaded? It was a question he had never asked himself. He was thirty-two years old, in his prime, and he enjoyed a wide-ranging and satisfying love-life. Or so he had always imagined. Now he wondered whether it was quite as satisfying as he’d thought if he could find himself so taken over by the pleasurable novelty of discovering this untapped side of his secretary.

The last woman he had dated had faded from the scene three weeks previously and here he was, becoming fixated by this new vision of Emily Edison—an Emily Edison who was suddenly so much more than the sum total of her parts.

Hell, he had been fantasising about her! Wasn’t that a little bizarre?

Had he reached a stage where novelty was so compelling? He had nothing against marriage, per se. He assumed he would marry eventually. Someone suitable. Someone from an equally wealthy background. He had had a narrow and salutary escape years ago, from a woman who had played the hard to get game to perfection. She had teased him for just the right length of time, convinced him of her shyness and her indifference to his money... Her real agenda had been uncovered only because he had happened to overhear a conversation she’d had on the phone to her mother...

So, sure, he would marry in due course—someone he knew was not after his money. His sisters were all married, after all, and his parents had had a long and satisfying marriage. He could enjoy the freedom of a bachelor life for as long as he wanted. But how satisfying, exactly, had that been of late?

He frowned and thought of the women who had cluttered his life over the years. Beautiful, sexy, compliant, always willing to fall in with whatever he wanted. On paper, it sounded good enough, but the reality of it was slightly different. His boredom threshold was narrowing with each passing relationship. The thrill of the chase had vanished a long time ago.

* * *

‘The earliest flight I could get was for the day after tomorrow,’ Emily said now with staccato crispness.

She wondered where he was now. Back at his apartment? In a restaurant waiting for some hot date? She didn’t want to waste time taking any mental detours in search of such details.

‘Time?’

She told him. Just vocalising the details of their flights brought home to her the reality of the trip.

‘Take tomorrow off,’ he said wryly. ‘I expect you’ll have all sorts of...things to do before we go...’

‘That’s fine.’ Emily adopted her best businesslike voice. ‘I’m sure there will be things that need completing on the work front before—’

‘Emily,’ he interrupted decisively, ‘I’ll be in before seven tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure whatever needs doing gets done.’

‘But won’t you want me to take care of the work transfer? Get Ruth on board to field the correspondence...?’

‘We’re not travelling to the outer ends of the Amazonian rainforest,’ he informed her. ‘There will be an internet connection. The bulk of the correspondence will be dealt with by us. You can see it as work as usual bar a change of scenery.’

‘Oh, good,’ Emily breathed.

Instantly Leandro had to fight down a spurt of annoyance.

‘Which doesn’t mean,’ he added, ‘that I’m expecting you to pack your starchy suits and high-heeled shoes...’

‘I do realise that that wouldn’t be appropriate,’ Emily snapped.

‘The swimming pool will be up and functioning...’

Emily pretended not to hear that. ‘Will you want me to meet you at the airport?’

‘I’ll send my driver for you. Or I can swing by your place and get you en route...’

‘That won’t be necessary!’

She shuddered at the thought of Leandro Perez seeing where she lived. If he were curious about her now, then he would certainly be collapsing under the weight of questions should he ever step foot in her house and see her sparse, substandard surroundings.

‘And it won’t be necessary for you to send your driver for me, Leandro. If you don’t trust the public transport system, then I’m happy to get a taxi and charge it to the company.’

‘Fine.’ He banked down his irritation.

A fortnight in the Caribbean... Sure, there would be work to be done, but still...sun, sea and sand.

A driver to fetch her and her enthusiasm was nil. But then...

His mind swung back to the mystery fiancé about whom he knew nothing.

‘So, what did...I forget his name...have to say about your trip abroad with the boss?’ Leandro asked, smoothly diverting the conversation to a destination which spiked his curiosity. ‘All hunky-dory with the time you’re going to be spending with me?’

‘Why shouldn’t he be?’

Emily tried and failed to imagine the situation Leandro was hinting at...a jealous lover laying down ground rules, maybe phoning every hour on the hour just to make sure that nothing untoward was going on... And then she went hot at realising where her mind was heading.

She could virtually hear the sound of him shrugging nonchalantly down the end of the line.

How had they managed to travel to this place where their conversations led away from work onto treacherous quicksand? Where her grip was so uncertain? Even removed from his presence, in the sanctuary of her own office, she could feel herself burning as her blood thickened and her mouth dried up.

Her breasts felt suddenly heavy, her nipples tingly and sensitive, and a rush of pure shame flooded her. Whatever this door was that had opened up a crack between them, she was determined to shove herself against it as hard as she could until it was closed again.

‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure that you won’t need me at work tomorrow...’

Leandro gritted his teeth as she once again skirted around the conversation he found he was keen to have. The eager, obliging and annoyingly forthcoming women he was used to had faded completely in their attractiveness. He marvelled that he had not become irritated with them before. Compared to Emily’s sparing, guarded, tightly controlled boundaries, they now seemed utterly lacking in any sense of challenge.

And a good challenge had always been something he enjoyed getting his teeth into.

‘Absolutely... Go out and have some retail therapy...’

‘I don’t do retail therapy,’ Emily responded automatically.

‘All women do retail therapy.’

‘All the women you know do retail therapy. At any rate, I shall take the time to pack and...and...’

‘And...?’

‘There are a couple of things that I shall need to do before I leave... It’s a long time to be out of the country...’

‘A fortnight?’

Emily sighed. Leandro Perez was persistent. If he wanted to acquire something he acquired it—whatever obstacles got thrown in his way. It was just the way he was built. He had once told her in passing, over a meal delivered to his office courtesy of one of the top restaurants in London because they had needed food after twelve hours of solid work on a thorny deal, that persistence was a gene he had inherited from his father.

‘He taught me,’ Leandro had said drily, ‘that if you want something you have to go for it, and that the things you most want seldom drop into your lap like ripe fruit falling from a tree...’

Emily had inwardly sniggered. That being the case, he had clearly never really wanted any of the women he had dated, because one of the most stunningly predictable traits they had in common was their ability to fall like ripe fruit from a tree straight into his lap.

She had said with her customary politeness that sometimes you just had to give up on certain things because that was the wiser option, and had then immediately clammed up when he had tried to draw her into an explanation of what she had meant.

‘Yes. A fortnight.’

‘You took two weeks off last year in a stretch...’ he reminded her.

‘But I didn’t leave the country.’

He had assumed she had. Of course when he had shown interest she had shrugged her shoulders and thrown him a something and nothing reply.

‘Where did you go?’ he asked curiously. ‘I recall you took a fortnight off in October...not a brilliant time of year to relax in this country—not if you’re looking for anything other than wall-to-wall rain and wind...’

‘Last October the weather was beautiful.’

She tensed as he unwittingly came close to a subject she definitely had no intention of talking about. He might have dragged Oliver’s name out of her, but that had been unavoidable. She should have had the foresight to know that her resignation would prompt his curiosity. Beyond that, however... No, there were no more roads she would be lured down.

‘Was it?’

‘Yes, it was. You must be keen to get off the phone, Leandro. Are you at home?’

‘Not currently.’

Emily wondered where he was and assumed the obvious. Her voice was correspondingly cool when she said, after a brief hesitation, ‘I’ll make sure not to disturb you for the remainder of the evening, even if I need to ask you anything.’

‘And why would that be?’

‘I’m assuming that you’re on one of your dates.’

She could have kicked herself. Yet again her tongue had run away from her and she needed to rescue this unruly twist in the conversation—one that had been prompted by her!

She wondered if the stress of everything happening in her life at the moment had weakened her defences. Whether, combined with that, the sudden, unexpected shift in her normal working relations with Leandro had further thrown her off course.

Kicking herself every time she slipped up wasn’t going to help matters.

‘In which case,’ she added briskly, ‘I wouldn’t dream of interrupting.’ She emitted a forced chuckle at this point, if only to demonstrate to him how fatuous she actually found their conversation. ‘I do know that you don’t like to be disturbed when you’re with one of your...your...’

‘My...? Don’t forget you’ve made yourself crystal-clear on what you think of my...my... Now, how would you describe them...?’

‘I never said anything about the sort of women you go out with,’ Emily muttered. ‘I only told you that I don’t like running errands involving them on your behalf. I’ve only met a couple of them and they both seemed very...very...nice...’

‘Damned with faint praise.’

‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ Emily burst out angrily. ‘I don’t want to be having this conversation with you. If you’re out with someone then I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. If you need to get in touch with me tomorrow for some reason then you have my mobile number. I shall make sure I check it at regular intervals just in case.’

Leandro, who had no time for any show of histrionics in women, relaxed and half closed his eyes. This was the most rattled he had ever heard her. In fact over the past twenty-four hours she had blossomed into a real three-dimensional person, and he was enjoying the conversation—passing histrionics and all.

‘And you’ll be in London should I need to call on you to come in for some reason? Highly unlikely but, as you pointed out, a fortnight with both of us out of the office is unheard of...’

‘No,’ Emily said shortly. ‘I probably won’t be in London if I have a day off. Would you like me to come in to work after all?’

‘No...’

Leandro found his mind wandering off course as his imagination, previously rusty, kicked into gear. A day off having mind-blowing sex with the mystery fiancé?

‘I think I’ll cope. You go off and do...whatever it is you have planned. Excluding, of course, that terminally boring retail therapy which you’re not into. I’ll see you at the airport. Bring your computer, Emily. And don’t forget...pack for the weather...’


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ba7792c2-b4de-5174-9126-9bd1f491d159)

EMILY ARRIVED AT the airport with time to kill. She had had a sleepless night. Various random scenarios of what lay ahead of her for the next two weeks had ensured a disturbed sleep and now, with the bustle of people around her pulling cases, peering around for check-in desks, browsing in the shops and buying stacks of magazines and confectionery, she anxiously glanced around for Leandro.

He had instructed her on where to meet him. Whilst every other check-in desk was fronted by long queues, the first-class check-in for their flight was calm and empty. She could see people glancing at her with envy and kept her eyes firmly pinned in front of her.

She had packed economically and sparingly and kept her wardrobe as neutral as possible for a fortnight in the sun. Nothing flowery or girlish. Nothing to suggest that she was there for any other reason aside from business. Her single one-piece swimsuit was black. She had no intention of frolicking in a pool in a bikini. Or even stepping foot in one if she could help it.

Leandro’s dark, deep voice behind her made her jump; she swung round to find him far too close to her for her liking, and automatically took a step back.

‘I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.’ His voice was amused as he gave her the once-over.

Her fair hair was neatly in place, pulled back from her face and twisted into her style of choice, which was a bun designed to demonstrate that its wearer was anything but frivolous. She had traded in the more severe grey suit in favour of something a little less formal but still, in the end, a suit. Cream jacket with sleeves to the elbow, navy blue tee shirt underneath, cream skirt and a pair of flat shoes. Her entire outfit shrieked business, and if he hadn’t had a tantalising glimpse behind the stern façade, he could have been forgiven for thinking that the woman looking up at him was completely devoid of personality.

But, oh, she wasn’t. Never had been. Even though she had tried her hardest to camouflage that fact. And now...

‘Can’t stand airport waiting...’

He held out his hand for her passport and Emily stood back while he handled the check-in. Did he notice how the young girl behind the desk had gone bright red and was stumbling over her little speech about the first-class lounge and where they could find it? Or, as a practised charmer who worked his way through glamorous women the way a gourmand worked his way through a Michelin-starred meal, was he casually immune to the attention he commanded from the opposite sex?

Her lips thinned and she turned away.

‘Which is why,’ he continued, striding off as she fell in step with him, ‘I tend to get to airports as late as possible. Tell me how your day was yesterday? What did you do?’

‘I...I...had a few things to put into place...’

Leandro looked down at her. In flats she reached slightly above his shoulder and it made a change from the women he dated, who were all much shorter than he was.

‘You’ve brought your computer, I take it?’

Emily exhaled a sigh of relief that he wasn’t going to pin her down into trying to avoid yet another inroad into her private life. ‘Of course I did.’ She launched into a discussion on some of the deals he was currently working on and ignored his patent lack of animated response. ‘Did anything urgent crop up yesterday?’ she asked, if only to ensure their conversation remained on neutral ground.

He turned to look at her.

‘Are you really interested?’

They had both stopped and the crowds parted around them. For a second her breath caught painfully in her throat and, having made a concerted effort not to look at him—really look at him—she now discovered that she couldn’t peel her eyes away.

Next to him, she knew she looked stiff, awkwardly dressed in her lightweight suit which was hardly suitable for long-haul travel but which felt so much safer than a pair of comfortable trousers and a casual tee shirt. He looked cool, sophisticated, expensive. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a polo shirt with a discreet logo on the front. No jacket. Loafers. His pull-along case was a small black leather affair, with no glaringly obvious outward evidence of having cost a lot, but it was easy to tell at a glance that it did.

Her mouth went dry as he continued to stare at her with those dark, dark eyes which had never before seemed to impact on her senses the way they were doing now.

‘Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been working on some of those...um...deals for weeks...months...’

Leandro broke the connection and began walking again towards Immigration, where they were waved through, and directly to the first-class lounge, where once again they were treated to the very highest levels of respect and fawning.

She would have said that money talked, but she knew that he would have commanded the same attention if he had been broke. There was just something about the man that seemed to make people automatically obey.

‘And yet you won’t be seeing the conclusion of most of them. So why bother to feign interest?’

‘Just because I’ll be...leaving...it doesn’t mean that I’m not one hundred per cent committed to doing my utmost to...to...make sure the work gets done on them.’ She found herself sitting on a plush sofa and a waiter appeared from thin air to take orders for drinks or food—presumably whatever they wanted.

Leandro shrugged. ‘In that case why don’t you call up the Edinburgh file on your computer and we can go through it.’

He gave her the most polite of looks and Emily struggled to manufacture a smile in return.

He was bored. He obviously thought that mentally she had already defected, and he could barely summon up an interest in discussing work with her. It made sense. The only reason she was tagging along on this jaunt was because he wanted to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t get up to Heaven knew what. Treason? The illegal sale of company secrets to ‘the other side’? Didn’t he know her at all after nearly two years of working with her?

No. He didn’t. He didn’t know a thing about her. And, if she could spring an engagement on him, a fiancé lurking in the wings, then he must wonder what other surprises she might have in store?

With less than her usual aplomb she dutifully brought up the file and was keenly aware of him shifting his big body towards her so that they could browse through the information together.

She went through all the motions. After a lifetime of holding her emotions in check there was no tremor to her voice, nothing at all to betray her crazy jumpiness. She could feel his eyes moving from the screen to her profile and wanted to scream at him at least to do her the favour of fully concentrating—because if he didn’t then her nerves would fray just a little more at the edges.

‘Have you any idea how hot it will be when we land at the airport?’ he asked, when she had finished a long-winded spiel on the various obstacles that had been put in the way of the deal completion, and Emily grimaced.

‘I didn’t think we were discussing the weather,’ she said, which teetered precariously on the edge of being lippy—not that it mattered, considering she was practically no longer his employee and in no need of a reference.

‘Is the rest of your wardrobe along the lines of what you’re wearing now?’

Emily edged away from him and snapped shut her computer, turning to return it neatly to the smart case she had brought with her.

Why did she feel like a fool?

For no reason she was suddenly overwhelmed by an image of herself as a woman in her twenties, buttoned up and careful, always on her guard. She could barely remember a time when she hadn’t been that way. The last boyfriend she had had—a brief six-month fling four years previously—had been an unmitigated disaster. Her inexperience had been agonising and her inherently suspicious nature had gradually seeped into the relationship, suffocating it, until they’d parted company amidst a welter of embarrassing platitudes about keeping in touch and remaining friends. They never had.

Then she thought of the women Leandro dated: sexy, full-on women, who weren’t cocooned in a veritable fortress of self-protective defence mechanisms that would have rivalled any Victorian maiden’s chastity belt.

What must he think of her?

She told herself that it hardly mattered, and yet her tight mouth, silenced on everything that was in the slightest bit personal, now seemed ludicrous and childish.

Emily drove aside that disturbing vision of herself and cleared her throat.

‘I...I naturally want to dress in a suitably...er...’

‘Restrained manner for an eight-hour flight to the Caribbean?’

‘I wouldn’t have felt comfortable in jeans and a tee shirt,’ she said flatly.

A tide of colour washed up her face and she had to bite back the nervous temptation to jump into a qualifying speech when he remained looking at her in silence.

‘And you feel comfortable in a starchy linen suit?’

‘It’s practical.’

‘If you say so.’

He pulled out his top-of-the-range sleek tablet and flicked it on.

Emily interpreted that as a signal that their conversation was over. She had brought her book with her, a lightweight crime thriller, but would he launch into a sarcastic aside about her choice of reading matter if she fished it out of her handbag? So instead she extracted some material she had printed off the last day she had been at work—background reading on the holiday compound to which they were headed—and buried herself in it.

Leandro, working his way through a series of emails from his family to which he owed replies, glanced across to where her lowered head and stiff body language were visible signs of her armour.

What was it about this woman? And why was he suddenly so obsessed with finding out what made her tick? He wasn’t taking her to the Caribbean to remove her from possible secret-sharing with competitors. She would never do any such thing and he knew that. No. He was taking her with him because...he wanted time with her. Time in which he could indulge his sudden curiosity. Or maybe it irked him that she could just walk out on him when he needed her? Since when did women walk out on him? Even though it might be on a professional basis...




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