Harlequin KISS November 2014 Box Set: Behind Closed Doors...Fired by Her FlingWho's Calling the Shots?Nine Month Countdown

by Anne Oliver

She barely broke a grin back.

  Hmm, perhaps it was inappropriate to keep making those kind of jokes. His heart sank in his chest. He’d been enjoying clowning around with her this evening and elated by how close they were to stepping over the line she’d drawn, but clearly it was time to get serious now.

  He walked over to her sofa and sat on the arm. ‘Look, I need to be honest with you, Lula. The station needs more sponsorship if it’s going to survive. Jez has pretty much bled the reserves dry and it’s going to take a serious injection of cash to keep it viable.’ The look of shock on her face made his stomach turn over. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you like this, I never thought it would take this long to find someone to take over the managerial position. I was expecting they’d be the one to tackle the problem of the financial shortfall.’

  Her face had taken on a ghostly white pallor. ‘I had no idea things were so bad.’

  He held up a placating hand. ‘It’s salvageable. But we need to put on a confident outward appearance or the sponsors will start getting worried that they’re backing a dead duck.’

  Lula drew her shoulders back and her chin up. ‘I’d be happy to go with you and represent Flash. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the station running,’ she said, her voice now dynamic and businesslike. ‘I love that place. It’s got the potential to grow into something amazing. I couldn’t bear to see it die a death.’

  The panic in her eyes propelled him forwards off the arm and onto the cushion next to her and he put a reassuring hand on her arm.

  She glanced down at where his fingers pressed against her soft skin, then back into his face, her eyes wide and dazed.

  They stared at each other, their bodies closer than they’d been since that fateful night. His blood raged through his veins and he became acutely aware of how hard he was, how easy it would be to push her down onto the sofa and kiss her, how much he wanted to be inside her.

  ‘I’d better get going and leave you to the rest of your evening,’ she murmured, the breathiness of her voice doing crazy things to him.

  Before he could respond, she stood up and spun on her heels, walking quickly away from him towards the door. Pulling it open, she stepped out into the hallway. She paused and turned back, fixing him with a tight smile. ‘Thanks for letting me see your place, it’s amazing.’

  He had a sudden wild urge to ask her to stay, to try to reassure her that everything would be okay if she did, but before the words would come out of his mouth she’d turned and walked away.

  SEVEN

  ‘Good grief, Lula, you look awful. Please tell me it’s down to a wild night with a hawt man.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Lula gave Emily a pained smile as she dropped into the hard wooden café seat opposite her.

  They were having their customary Saturday brunch in a little place in Crouch End they’d frequented since meeting at UCL, whilst doing a Media Studies degree together.

  Emily took a bite of the cinnamon swirl the waitress had just placed in front of her and raised a questioning eyebrow, waiting for Lula to spill the beans.

  ‘Hold up, let me order some carbs and caffeine first,’ Lula said, giving the waitress a grateful smile as she waited patiently for her to choose what she wanted. ‘I barely slept last night and my brain isn’t functioning yet.’ She placed an order for a bran muffin and a large Americano and slumped back in her chair, only to find her friend glaring at her, impatient for gossip.

  Lula sighed. There was no way she was going to get away with keeping Tristan’s continued existence in her life from Emily. Her friend had a way of sniffing out trouble and strife. ‘It’s a long story, Em.’

  ‘I have all the time in the world right now,’ Em said, taking a sip of her café latte and gesturing for Lula to continue.

  So she started at the point where Emily had left her with Tristan in the pub and filled in the blanks up till the present, her heart racing and her whole body so tightly wound she thought she might break into a million pieces if anyone so much as touched her.

  ‘Whoa,’ Emily said as Lula ended her monologue by describing the unnervingly intense dream she’d had in the early hours about walking around Tristan’s flat naked while he looked down on her from the mezzanine.

  ‘No wonder you look so frazzled. That’s some serious sexual frustration you’re dealing with,’ Emily said, flipping her a grin.

  Lula put her head in her hands. ‘I’m an idiot, pure and simple. What the hell was I thinking, agreeing to go back to his flat? I’ve just made everything so much worse.’

  ‘Maybe, subconsciously, you were hoping something would happen?’ Emily said, making it clear in her tone that was exactly what she believed.

  Lula nodded into her hands. ‘I told myself at the time that I wanted to see this amazing place he was staying in—and I did—but that wasn’t really it.’

  ‘Clearly.’

  Lula raised her head and gave her friend a sorrowful grimace. ‘I wish I didn’t know all those personal details about him—especially about his evil ex-girlfriend leaving him for his lazy brother. It makes it so much harder to be indifferent when he makes me care about him like that.’

  ‘Understandable.’

  ‘I came so close to leaning forwards and kissing him, Em. When he touched my arm it felt like my whole body exploded into this big fiery ball of need. It took everything I had to stand up and walk out of there.’

  ‘Why did you walk? I wouldn’t have done. I’d have got my rocks off and left a satisfied woman.’

  Lula snorted. That was just like her friend. ‘I don’t have the ability to keep things unemotional like you.’

  ‘It’s not about being unemotional,’ Emily said tartly, ‘It’s about putting yourself first for once.’

  ‘And look what happened when I tried that before. I’ve been pretending to be someone I’m not the whole time I’ve been around him. I think he believes I’m actually like Louise. If he found out I’m not really like that he’d lose interest pretty damn quickly.’

  Emily twisted her mouth into a grim smile. ‘Don’t be daft, Lu.’

  ‘It always seems to happen though, Em. As soon as I relax and start being myself they lose interest in me.’

  ‘That’s because you’re picking the wrong men and expecting too much of them. You’ve got this crazy idea that there’s some perfect individual out there, but there isn’t, Lu. Everyone’s messed up in their own sweet way. To be blunt, you’re living in a dream world if you think you’re going to find someone who you can absolutely guarantee will never leave you. Most of the men I’ve met are only out for themselves.’

  ‘Tristan isn’t like that.’ Her tone came out snappier than she intended and Emily gave her a knowing smile.

  ‘Then maybe it’s worth giving it a go with him?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think he’d respond too well to me telling him I’ve been pretending to be this confident, outgoing woman the whole time. Look how quickly he shut me down when he thought I’d been using him to keep my job.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I guess being dumped for his brother has to have had an impact on his self-confidence. It’s not surprising he’s so paranoid. Not that it sounds like he exactly fought you off that night. The dawg.’ Emily wiggled her eyebrows and gave one of her show-stopping smiles.

  Lula couldn’t rustle up a return smile this time. ‘He did seem to be genuinely into me. At least I thought so at the time.’

  ‘And he’s definitely not interested in a relationship now?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope. He’s made it pretty clear he’s heading back up to Scotland as soon as he’s found a new Station Manager.’

  ‘And your reasoning for not having a hot fling in the meantime is...?’

  ‘If anyone at the station found out I was sleeping with him my credibility would be less
than zero. It was awful when everyone found out about Jez.’

  ‘That’s because Jez was awful.’

  Lula gave her friend a pained look and took a sip of her drink.

  ‘He was a smarmy little twonk, Lu.’

  She nearly snorted coffee out of her nose. ‘Nice insult.’

  Emily frowned. ‘Lula, the only person who thinks you don’t deserve to be happy is you. Your bloody parents have a lot to answer for,’ she said, swiping some crumbs from her muffin off the table, her expression unusually serious. It wasn’t like Emily to get heavy with the semantics and it brought Lula up short. Tears pressed at the back of her eyes and she took another long sip of coffee to cover her loss of cool.

  Another horrible thought struck her. ‘He’s probably still in love with his ex-girlfriend anyway. He told me he’d thought she was the perfect woman for him. There’s no way I want to get caught up in a rebound thing and then left behind when he’s had enough.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Emily said, polishing off her coffee and motioning for the waitress to bring her another one.

  ‘The last thing I need is to fall for my boss right now,’ Lula continued, warming to her theme now. ‘I should be putting all my energy into making a success of my Breakfast Show, not mooning around after someone who doesn’t give a fig about me.’

  Emily was looking at her with a baffled expression. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do,’ Lula said resolutely, picking up her muffin and taking a large bite.

  She was putting Tristan out of her mind once and for all. From now on her energy was going into working and friends only; everything else would have to take a back seat.

  * * *

  After spending Saturday morning in a state of restless sexual frustration, Tristan called up a couple of old Uni friends and arranged to meet up with them over the weekend. He needed a distraction from the slow, sinking feeling that he’d made a total balls-up of his last interaction with Lula.

  She seemed to be able to wreck his hard-worked-for control with just the glimmer of a smile and it made him jumpy.

  ‘You okay, Tristan? Something on your mind?’ his friend Alex asked as they stared out across the spectacular view of the city from the top of the London Eye.

  ‘Just work stuff,’ Tristan replied, unwilling to get into the whole mess with Lula. He couldn’t even get how he felt about her straight in his own head, let alone explain it to someone else.

  ‘Business okay in Scotland?’

  He nodded at his friend. ‘Fine. Same as usual, but it’s good to have a break from it, to be honest.’

  ‘Was it right after Uni when you took over there?’

  ‘Yeah. Ten years ago now.’

  He was actually shocked to realise it had been that long. No wonder he was feeling jaded about going back to it. Being at the radio station had made such a refreshing change.

  ‘Didn’t you used to have some great schemes and plans for setting up something by yourself? I thought the idea was only to learn the ropes at the family business, then move on.’

  Tristan sighed. ‘It was, but I got stuck there. My dad totally lost interest in it and my brother doesn’t give a toss about it either, so I stayed. It’s been good though. It’s a profitable business.’

  ‘But dull as hell?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s not the most scintillating industry to be in, but it pays well.’

  ‘Fair dos,’ Alex said, before he was distracted by his two-year-old daughter and dragged away to look at a view from the other side of the pod.

  Tristan watched him interacting with his kid and felt a strange sense of longing that he’d not experienced before. Lula’s face flashed into his mind, but he boxed it, knowing it was ridiculous to read more into his connection with her than was actually there. He was just tired and out of his comfort zone and it was making him feel sentimental.

  They wanted very different things and it would be crazy to believe otherwise.

  * * *

  After a few more days of keeping her head down and disappearing whenever Tristan walked into the room, Lula was ready to face the Radio Industry networking event with her calm restored.

  Sort of.

  Her nerves weren’t just about having to maintain a state of emotional distance from Tristan all night, though, the thought of performing as her DJ persona face to face with all those people made her feel positively queasy.

  She’d never been good at socialising in large parties. The mere thought of having to make small talk with total strangers without the anonymity of her microphone and a closed studio made her jittery, but she knew she had to suck it up and put on a good show if they were going to persuade more companies to invest in the station.

  The success of Flash had to be her main priority here.

  Tristan finally caught up with her after her show, the day of the networking event.

  ‘Are you still on for tonight?’ he said, blocking her way out of the studio so she was forced to stop and talk to him.

  It was the first time she’d been this close to him since the night in his apartment and her body trembled with tension as she attempted to stay cool and collected in the face of his intense charisma.

  ‘Yes, I’m all keyed up and ready to go.’ She gave him the most assertive smile she could manage.

  The sexual hunger in his returning grin made heat rush straight between her thighs.

  His reaction only reinforced her assertion that it was fabricated ‘self-assured Lula’ that he was attracted to though.

  ‘Great. Well, the thing starts at eight, so I’ll pick you up in a cab at seven-thirty,’ he said moving closer.

  She put up a hand, her heart thumping hard. ‘No, that’s okay. I’ll just meet you there.’

  His brow creased in confusion. ‘It’s no trouble, Lula.’

  ‘I know, but I’d rather make my own way there, thanks.’ She’d stood firm, knowing if she had to spend any time with him in the close confines of a car she was bound to start the evening a flustered mess. There’d be plenty of time for her to degenerate into a tangle of nerves once they were there.

  After scanning her face, he finally nodded. ‘Okay, if that’s what you’d prefer.’

  ‘I would prefer that, yes.’

  She almost bit the words back as she registered his offended expression, but before she could open her mouth to try and explain, he’d turned around and strode away.

  * * *

  As promised, Tristan waited for Lula outside the revolving doors to the imposing Mandarin Oriental hotel in Knightsbridge.

  All the breath left his lungs as he watched her walk up the steps to where he stood. She looked utterly beautiful in a figure-hugging, sleeveless gold dress that clung to her amazing curves and stopped just above her knees displaying a pair of gold six-inch-heel shoes. She could have been the goddess of opulence with her long hair piled loosely on top of her head and her bright eyes sparkling with metallic-coloured make-up.

  No one was going to treat her as if she was invisible tonight.

  His gut twisted as he remembered how cold she’d been towards him earlier that afternoon, no, strike that, since she’d walked out of his apartment the previous Friday night.

  She’d very obviously been avoiding him since then and he didn’t like it one bit. This need to push and push for a reaction had become something of an obsession for him and the constant knock-backs were beginning to get to him.

  He really respected her assertiveness though. She was the bravest, most electrifying woman he’d ever met and he wanted her. More than he’d wanted anyone or anything in his life before. But most of all, he wanted her to admit she wanted him back.

  ‘Hey,’ he said as she reached the top of the steps. ‘You look beautiful.’

  Her gaze didn’t quite meet his and he
wondered whether she considered beautiful to be an inappropriate word to use. Admittedly, it wasn’t usually utilised in the boss/employee vocabulary but it fitted the context perfectly.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured in that sexually evocative voice of hers and he wondered how he was going to get through the evening when all he wanted to do was drag her off to bed and do wicked things to her.

  They walked through the glossy marble lobby to the cocktail bar, which was already thronging with people. It was an impressive place. The right hand wall was made up of glass cabinets displaying a dazzling array of cocktail glasses and an impressive range of wine bottles. The rest of the place was done out in brown leather, glass and chrome with a long catwalk-shaped bar in the centre of the room.

  When he glanced at her, Tristan was surprised to see Lula hanging back with a fixed smile on her face.

  Okay, time for a drink.

  After grabbing two glasses of red wine from a passing waiter he handed one to Lula. ‘Shall we mingle?’ he said.

  She nodded, then held up one finger and took a long sip of her wine, before flashing him a steady smile. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Resisting the urge to put a guiding hand at the base of her back, he walked around the room with her, dropping in and out of conversations, which Lula let him lead, adding in her own words of wisdom as necessary.

  He could tell people were impressed with her and he felt a surge of pride to be there in her company. Quite a few mentioned they’d heard her show recently and complimented her on it. She accepted the praise with a gratified smile, but Tristan was concerned by how subdued she seemed otherwise.

  Surely she couldn’t be that uncomfortable in his company?

  She nipped out a couple of times for a bathroom break and he found each time that he felt hollow without her there by his side and relieved when she returned to stand with him again.

  As they were chatting with a small group of people that worked at one of the other independent stations in the region they were approached by a guy wearing a loud shirt and a big smile. He zeroed in on Lula and began talking to her about how his company was looking to run some ads on one of the younger, more cutting-edge radio stations.