He drew back and stood up and, when he showed no signs of returning to his chair, she pushed hers back and stood as well, her dainty, slender frame a striking contrast to his overpowering, in-your-face masculinity.
‘I’ll go and clear my desk.’ She cleared her throat and shot him a glance from under her lashes before edging away towards the door dividing their work spaces.
‘You do that,’ he muttered, flushing and looking away.
He’d wanted to touch...and touching wasn’t allowed. Even he knew that. But, by God, that urge had been suffocating just for a second.
‘And, Matt...’ She waited until he was looking at her. ‘I’ll miss...’ You. I’ll miss you. ‘I’ll miss working here more than I can ever say.’
CHAPTER FOUR
WOULD HE VISIT HER...?
Melbourne beckoned because, as he should have expected, there was no such thing as smooth sailing. At the eleventh hour, one of his little baby start-ups, nurtured tenderly for months, had come down with a potentially life-threatening condition and Matt had to go and pay a visit because no one else would be able to handle the situation.
But would he visit her?
She had been gone for six weeks and he’d kept in touch because, after all, they’d worked together as a team long enough for him to recognise that they had formed a bond, and besides, what if she returned to London? It would be tempting to rehire her because only now that she had disappeared he could see just how invaluable an asset she had been. More so than he could ever have expected. It was as though she had taken up permanent residence in some corner of his mind and had hunkered down to stay. So, hey, he could drop in...
After all, Never Kill Your Options had always been his motto.
She had replied to his emails as politely and remotely as if she had been sitting across from him in his office, fending off those personal questions she had always disliked being asked.
Yes, things were fine. Yes, her father was doing as well as could be expected. No, she had not reconsidered his job offer even though, yes, it would have been convenient as it was a mere half hour away from where she lived. The weather was good. The food was good. The people were friendly. The scenery was pleasing.
It piqued him to think that she hadn’t glanced back to the life she’d left behind and, were it not for his attempts to keep in touch, she would have galloped merrily into the distance in a cloud of dust.
He would look her up. Aside from anything else, it would be interesting to meet her father. Who didn’t enjoy meeting childhood idols?
Just out of curiosity, he’d put a few questions out there, asked around.
He’d been a fan of her father. The guy was well known. Even though he’d binned the touring a while back, people still knew who he was, and Matt had almost struck jackpot on question one.
Scott Dixon, one of the owners of his newly acquired start-up company, had waxed lyrical about Mickey Dunn, who was a familiar name in the music industry. He had recently set up his own small school for underprivileged, talented, budding musicians.
He was reportedly doing his first gig in six years at a hip, cool place in the heart of the city...with his daughter in attendance. As luck would have it, the gig coincided with when Matt would be there, sorting out his eleventh-hour road block. What were the chances?
He’d had a sudden image of Violet behind the scenes, always the carer, making sure her father didn’t go wild. She would be dressed in her formal business attire and would probably be directing traffic with all the roadies and fellow band members. He’d grinned fondly at the thought.
He’d debated whether to warn her of his arrival, and decided that he wouldn’t, because who knew whether work would allow him time out to see her at all? Or even whether he would drop by. It could prove an awkward visit, best avoided. Rosy memories of his efficient secretary with the mystery background might be better left. After all, it wasn’t as though theirs had been a social relationship.
Armed with a shed-load of preconceived notions of what he might find, Matt had not catered for what he would actually be faced with. He’d imagined a queue of polite golden oldies filtering into a venue that, despite what he’d been told, wouldn’t be so much hip and cool as cultured and refined, befitting an ageing rocker who now ran a school for budding musicians.
Except, here he was now, and this wasn’t what he’d expected. Standing at a distance with the balmy night enfolding him, Matt surveyed the throng of people queuing and entering the exclusive venue. There was some rather stunning graffiti on the brick wall of the nightclub and two bouncers at the door, as though at any moment some disreputable troublemaker might attempt to barge the queue without a ticket.
He joined it. He knew from his research it was the second day of a two-day gig and he had only managed to get hold of a ticket by the skin of his teeth. Who knew that there would be so many old rockers lining up for a taste of the past? But then, it seemed that Mickey Dunn was quite the local celebrity.
He would surprise Violet after the concert. He imagined her anxiously sitting backstage, perhaps from a vantage point where she could keep a watchful eye on her father, making sure a bottle of beer wasn’t slipped to him by some well-intentioned groupie.
Matt was the last in. The club was exquisite, lots of exposed brick, long, oversized mirrors and some more graffiti. There were tables on either side of the room, raised on podiums, where dining happened. In the middle, it was standing room only. On the stage was a piano, the usual drums and a couple of guys with beards warming up. Not original band members but, from the tuning going on, Matt could tell that they were going to be pretty good.
His thoughts rambled. He felt invigorated, which surprised him, because until the very last minute he hadn’t been entirely convinced he would pay his ex-secretary a visit. Even more surprisingly, he recalled that weird feeling that had seized him when he’d been about to leave her house, when he’d stared down at her and it had been as though the world had suddenly narrowed right down to just the two of them, and something strong and urgent had been calling out to him to touch her. The urge to cover her mouth with his had been overwhelming.
He’d resisted, but with extreme difficulty.
Touching her, kissing her, thinking about making love to her... That was the stuff of madness, and he’d had the sense to steer clear.
But the power of temptation had left him shaken. Why had that memory leapt out at him from nowhere?
He almost missed what was going on because his thoughts had taken off at such a delightfully taboo tangent.
He almost missed Mickey Dunn coming onto the stage to rapturous applause. And Jesus...
He straightened. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared and his mouth fell open. From the back of the room—and even though at six foot two he towered over most of the audience there, so that his view was uninterrupted—he had to blink to process the sight of his prim and proper secretary dressed like a rocker.
He thought he might actually have made a choking sound under his breath. Surprise didn’t begin to cover his reaction. Gone were the prissy outfits he was accustomed to seeing her in. Not even jeans were in evidence. She was wearing a pair of micro denim shorts, black tights, biker boots and a cropped top, and her shoulder-length hair was braided into two stunted pigtails. She looked incredibly sexy, and he wasn’t the only guy captivated by the image, judging by the wolf whistles that greeted her appearance on stage.
Her father sat on a high stool with his guitar, with two band members in the background. She took up her position at the piano and...magic happened.
The world fell away as he listened to old ballads, the words of which he knew, and cover versions of a handful of well-known numbers. He couldn’t peel his eyes away from Violet, so absorbed in that piano, oblivious to everything around her. They ended on a couple of the band’s best-loved fast numbers, old rock hits that had the crowd ch
anting and singing along. Violet was into it, standing as she hit the notes on the piano, and every so often smiling across at her dad who grinned back at her.
Lots of perspiration, lots of noise, the roar of approval from the crowd, then it was over and the lights were going down, and Matt legged it to where he thought the dressing rooms would be.
If he’d had any doubts in his mind about showing up here on the other side of the world, and making time to seek her out, then those doubts had been erased.
He’d never felt more alive.
He wondered what she would say. His mind was filled with the image of her, so stupendously sexy. Some small voice was telling him that that was something he’d always known, deep down.
She was sexy underneath the prim suits, the glossy bob and the calm, unflappable exterior. Some part of him had always recognised an inherent tug on his senses, although it had only made itself felt when he had looked down at her in her house and his head had begun to swim.
They almost collided.
He was heading at speed through the carpeted corridors at the back of the club and she was bolting in his direction. She screeched to a halt and her eyes widened with a mixture of shock and disbelief.
‘Matt!’
‘Surprise, surprise.’ He shot her a crooked smile. He’d forgotten how weirdly deep and melodic her voice was and how slight she was compared to him. An ache spread through him that silenced him for a few seconds, then normal service resumed.
‘I’ve had to fly over here on business. Damned start-up has run into a few thorny problems. I don’t have to tell you how temperamental three untethered men in a small boat can be when a big liner shows up to bring them to shore. All sorts of sudden doubts. While I was here, thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing.’ He paused. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. He wanted to touch those pigtails, see whether they were real, because it was so out of keeping.
Violet flung herself into his arms.
The move was so unexpected that Matt temporarily froze. Just like that, he was acutely aware of every small curve, the delicacy of her slender body and her small breasts pushing against him. He gingerly put his arms around her in a stilted gesture that was part comforting caress and part bewildered what’s going on here? hug.
Bad move, a little voice was saying at the back of Violet’s head. Very bad move.
She could feel the way he had suddenly turned to wood, and she guessed that he was probably horrified at this crazy display of emotion from his otherwise buttoned-up ex-secretary, but she was just so relieved to see him that she could have burst into tears.
She broke free and began dragging him back to the dressing room.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Matt.’
‘Violet, stop. What’s going on?’
‘It’s Dad.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s collapsed.’
She was half running and at those words he began striding more purposefully towards the rooms at the back of the club. People had gathered outside one of the cubicles and he forged a way through them.
‘Anyone call an ambulance?’ he shouted, looking around and clicking his tongue impatiently because they all looked confused and blank-faced, like a herd of terrified sheep in search of a shepherd.
‘I did,’ a timid voice piped up.
Matt nodded. Mickey had been propped up against a cushion. He was grey, wheezing and perspiring.
In that moment, Matt did what he did best—he took charge, and Violet watched.
She watched with blessed relief as he single-handedly cleared the room, having ascertained that no one with any medical know-how was available. He confiscated several phones from gawpers trying to capture the chaos on camera and, surprisingly, the phones were surrendered without protest. Such was the power of his personality.
She was shaking like a leaf as she knelt next to her father, stroking his hair away from his face. He wore a ponytail. She’d told him often enough that he was way too old for that style, but he’d steadfastly ignored her, and now seeing that ponytail in disarray was somehow heart-rending.
The ambulance arrived with paramedics and everything became a blur of activity.
‘Want me in the ambulance with you?’ Matt asked, cupping the nape of her neck and looking at her, and she nodded mutely. ‘Good. But first...’ He removed his jacket, laid it over her shoulders and shot her a crooked smile. ‘Your outfit is great on stage, but you might be a bit self-conscious wearing it in a hospital setting.’
It was a gesture so touching that she couldn’t speak for a few seconds, then off they hurried, out to the waiting ambulance that wailed its way towards the hospital.
‘I feel so helpless,’ she whispered once her father had been whisked away and they were left standing in a room on their own like a couple of spare parts deprived of purpose.
She clutched at the jacket and dabbed her eyes with her knuckles. She hadn’t even asked what he was doing here! He’d appeared as if by magic, and it just felt right that he was standing here now in all his magnificence, a rock in a sudden storm.
He was dressed as he always was, in dark jeans, a dark long-sleeved tee shirt and loafers. Casual and effortlessly elegant.
God, how had she managed to forget just how stupendously good-looking he was? How tall? How achingly sexy? She’d replied to his emails as briefly and as politely as she could, firmly believing that the faster she broke off contact with him, the faster her head would stop filling up with images that made her think she was losing her mind with missing him.
He was staring at her with concern and she chewed on her lip.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Matt urged.
‘I wish I knew. He looked a bit peaky this morning, and I told him that if he didn’t feel right we should call the gig off, but he insisted, and when my dad gets something in his mind he’s an unstoppable force. But I knew he wasn’t feeling well. I could tell every time he looked at me that he wasn’t right.’ Her eyes welled up. ‘I know my dad so well. We should have called it quits long before the end. I should have insisted. Now... What if he dies?’
‘He won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I have a hotline to the big guy up there.’ He smiled and Violet reluctantly smiled back and began to relax a little.
It was amazing just how calm his presence made her feel.
‘I’m being feeble,’ she ventured shakily. ‘What a coincidence that you’re here. I hope the stuff with the start-up gets sorted.’
‘Forget that. Let’s focus on what matters. Your father. You go and sit down over there and I’ll get you a cup of coffee, even though a good shot of whisky would probably be more helpful. And then I’ll hunt down a doctor or a nurse or a consultant and find out what’s going on.’
He was guiding her gently towards one of the chairs lined up against the wall like soldiers in formation. She obediently sat down. This, she knew, was a side to her he would never have seen. The side that wasn’t efficient, professional or calm under stress. The side that was currently wearing next to nothing under the jacket that thankfully he had given her.
She was vulnerable and tearful. She just wanted to lean on him and let him take over because she felt scared and fragile.
He appeared with a coffee, and then disappeared almost as quickly, and when he next returned he knelt in front of her and tilted her chin so that their eyes met. Deep blue tangled with sherry brown.
‘First of all, he’s going to be fine.’
Violet closed her eyes briefly to control the emotion that single sentence had evoked. ‘Did...did the doctor say that?’
Matt smiled. ‘One doctor, a consultant and the chart which I insisted on inspecting. He’s got, of all things, pneumonia. They’re going to have to keep him in for at least a week and monitor all his vitals, but th
e general consensus is that he’s going to be fine.’
‘Stress.’ The words were wrenched out of her. ‘It’s all been building up. I should have paid more attention, but my dad has always been good at hiding what he doesn’t want anyone to see. He’s been busy with a music school he started and then all the underlying worries about his health. He looked a bit peaky, and I know he seemed to be resting quite a bit, but...’
‘No point in looking back over what you could or couldn’t have done. Bottom line is that there’s nothing you can do here right now. He’s sedated at the moment. I’m going to take you back to your house.’
‘No, it’s not necessary. I’m perfectly capable of—’
‘You’re not and I am returning you safe and in one piece back to your house. You can don the secretarial hat another time. Right now, I’m in charge.’
Those words were like manna from heaven. She allowed herself to be gently led out of the hospital, as gently as if she were the patient and not her father. She was allowed to look in on him, make sure that he was okay, but that was about it, even though she would have set up camp next to his bed if she could.
She and Matt had arrived in an ambulance and now they headed back to her father’s house in a taxi. The house sat on a magnificent plot of well-manicured lawn, a two-storeyed concrete-and-glass building with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a dedicated recording studio where her father spent a great deal of his time tinkering on his guitar, composing.
‘Nice,’ was the only comment Matt made. The drive had been silent but the silence had been companionable and now, as the taxi swerved into the drive and pulled up in front of the house, Violet suddenly felt a swell of panic.
‘Don’t worry,’ Matt murmured, pushing open the car door but turning to look at her gravely for a few seconds. ‘I’m not going to leave you until I know that you’re all right—and don’t tell me that you’re all right. You’re not.’
They entered a house that was a tasteful palette of creams and greys, interspersed with abstract art on the walls and colourful silk rugs on the marble floor. She could feel his presence alongside her and, whilst she didn’t want him to go, not really, neither did she want him to stay.
His Secretary's Nine-Month Notice (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 6
