Max got sedately into his Alfa Romeo Spider. Very calm, in control.
Then he banged his head against the leather-covered steering wheel. Twice. Hard.
All he’d intended to do tonight was drive by and, if he saw Catherine’s light on, drop in and check everything was on track for Sunday, that she didn’t need a ride to the airport.
Okay, that was a lie!
What he’d really wanted was to see if she wore a red peignoir at home—like Jennifer. And she did. If she let her magnificent hair down at home. And she did.
So, with those boxes ticked, what had he done? Crashed down on her like an avalanche of testosterone. As though the hair and red silk were a trigger. Boom!
Okay, that was another lie.
He’d wanted to kiss the breath right out of her for the past two days, when she’d been more starched up and pinned in than ever before—without a peignoir or a loose curl in sight! And she’d tasted so good, felt so lovely, it had taken him too long to notice she wasn’t being transported like he was.
Which had shaken him; he wasn’t used to non-transported women. That had to be the reason he’d started babbling about Alex, Jennifer, vampires. Vampires, for God’s sake! But it hadn’t stopped him wanting to take another bite of the cherry. Hadn’t stopped him calculating how to make it better, hotter, irresistible—so she’d have to respond next time.
All that flirty conversation, hoping to make her laugh the way he knew she always wanted to, sussing out his chances of being given another try. Even going so far as to ask her if she wanted to prove to him she wasn’t a virgin. Groooooooaaaan! He deserved to be lobotomised for that!
And then—the unravelling.
He could still feel that drop in the pit of his stomach when she’d told him what had happened to her. The impotent fury of hearing how her bastard ex-boss had shifted the blame to her. The revulsion of understanding the link between that and Catherine blaming herself for tonight’s kiss. Because of what she was wearing, because she was ‘sashaying’, like some devious femme fatale intent on getting her hooks in him. Her fault—not his, hers.
Way to make him feel like...like his father.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. His father, the infamous Flip Rutherford, played his own blame-game in order to indulge himself with an endless conga line of secretarial sex partners.
‘She had that look in her eye...’ ‘She dressed a certain way...’ ‘She’s got a track record with her bosses...’ ‘Looking like that, of course it was going to happen...’
Pathetic excuses.
Like Max’s own excuse—Passion Flower. Cathy was Jennifer and he was Alex—she must want him like crazy to have written that book, so why not take what was offered?
Except that it hadn’t been offered; he’d just taken.
Max sighed heavily. How had he got to this, anyway? Hunting Catherine North. Agonising over Catherine North! She wasn’t even his type. She wasn’t blonde. She wasn’t tall. She wasn’t beautiful.
At that point in his deliberations Max banged his head on the steering wheel again. Not beautiful? Try telling that to the thing in his pants that kept straining towards her like a divining rod lunging for the mother lode.
Well, it was just going to have to work out how to unstrain itself. Because he would be an absolute monster to touch her again now he knew what had happened to her.
How was he supposed to even interact with her? Carefully, he guessed. Honourably. And he was hardly the careful, honourable type.
He looked in the rearview mirror. ‘You are not going to so much as breathe on Catherine. Got it?’
His face stared back at him, looking mutinous.
God, if his face wouldn’t behave how was he going to control the rest of his body?
One week in Queensland, with the hottest woman on the planet, and he couldn’t touch her. Could a man suffer a stroke from a sustained, unrelieved hard-on? Because that was going to be him!
One serving of misery, coming right up.
‘Misery’: word of the day.
* * *
Catherine was one of the first passengers on board the aircraft on Sunday morning. Spectacles gleaming, nondescript navy skirt creaseless, fully-buttoned white shirt accusingly crisp, grey cardigan forbiddingly neat, work folders on her lap.
A very deliberate look—and stage one of her plan of attack.
She’d figured that appearing completely unfazed by what had happened on Friday night, in her regular uptight persona, would stop Max reaching for the cat o’ nine tails and whipping himself the moment he saw her. She was not going to let gung-ho Max even think about grabbing an instrument of self-torture, because once he did he wouldn’t easily relinquish it.
She only hoped he hadn’t been self-flagellating all of yesterday! Because if she had to trade brilliant, brusque, politically incorrect, challenging Max for hair-shirt-wearing Max, walking on eggshells around poor sexually harassed Catherine, she might just kill him.
She hated being poor, sexually harassed Catherine! She was so over poor, sexually harassed Catherine. She would not be poor, sexually harassed Catherine for one more second.
Which brought her to stage two of her plan: she was going to seduce her boss.
First—because she wanted to.
Second—to prove she was not a block of wood.
And third—because it would mark her liberation from RJ Harrow.
She was turning the tables, breaking out of gaol. She was going to be the one stalking and pouncing and getting her rocks off. And they’d see what Max thought of poor little, harassed Catherine who couldn’t kiss back after she’d banged his chivalrous brains right out of his head!
But, given Max’s Sir Galahad complex, she figured she was going to have to seduce by stealth—so he wouldn’t know what had hit him until it was too late for him to shore up his defences. It would have to be done piece by infinitesimal piece, one hairpin at a time.
And she had a suitcase full of ammunition for the battle.
After Saaaandra’s clothes had been collected on Saturday morning Catherine had determinedly searched through her own clothes—her old clothes, her beautiful clothes. She’d gone for just over the edge of modest. Except for the shimmering red evening gown, which was waaaaay over the edge of modest and heading towards dangerous. Because that was for the cocktail party—the night she was going to get Max Rutherford into bed.
She took a deep breath at that point, because her insides were out of control and she needed to be cool, calm and collected for her first interaction with Max.
She suspected he’d be the last passenger on board—partly because that was typical Max, and partly to spare her his company for as long as he could.
Living up to her expectations, Max hurricaned onto the aircraft just before the doors closed, striding to his seat as though it were everyone’s duty to wait for him. He was wearing a lightweight chocolate-brown suit and a shirt in palest lemon—no tie. His hair was its usual bed-head style. It was such a good look she committed it to memory for Alex Taylor.
‘Good morning,’ Max said, with a smile that managed to be both friendly and a little remote.
But Catherine didn’t miss the tiny flicker of relief that crossed his face as he noted her attire. Ha! He’d better not get too used to that!
Catherine smiled back, nice and uptight, to lull him further into a false sense of security. ‘Good morning,’ she said, and then paused, just for a nanosecond, before adding, ‘Max.’
His eyes widened, and with a slight air of desperation he plucked the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket in front of him and started riffling through the pages.
Catherine concentrated on breathing in the smell of him, drinking in the sight of his long, strong fingers flipping the pages. Was the air between them vibrating or was
that just her imagination? Well, regardless, Jennifer Andrews was going to join the mile-high club. And perhaps, on the way back to Sydney, so was Catherine North.
Max turned towards her to point out an article on the Daintree Rainforest, and Catherine—heart-rate trembling—instinctively grabbed for the top button of her shirt.
‘Don’t worry, it’s done up—you’re safe,’ Max assured her, and then immediately found something on the other side of the aircraft he just had to look at.
Damn—she had to stop grabbing for that button! Well, she would fix that.
‘Actually,’ she said blithely, ‘I was going to unbutton it.’
Max’s head snapped back fast enough to give her whiplash.
She undid the button, all innocence. ‘It’s a little...hot...in here, don’t you think?’
Max said nothing.
So she popped a second button. Saw his tiny swallow.
And then he said, ‘Safety demonstration,’ and turned to watch the flight attendant, apparently completely absorbed.
But Catherine wasn’t giving up. She waited for the safety demonstration to conclude, then said calmly, ‘I need saving, actually.’
Another whiplash turn. ‘Huh?’
She handed over a folder.
Max opened it, and she heard his breath being sucked in. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Don’t you know what that is? Friday night, remember?’
‘Yes.’ Very dry. ‘I do remember Friday night, as it happens.’
‘It’s the scene from Passion Flower. The one you said wasn’t working. I rewrote it. I think it’s greatly improved, but I need your input. Your being six feet two and all. You know the scene? When Alex takes Jennifer in his arms...what goes where...how they feel...the way he—?’
‘So one moment I’m not allowed to see the book and the next I am?’
‘So one moment you’re dying to see the book and the next you won’t look at it?’
She saw the struggle on his face. And then—very suddenly—he retrieved his briefcase from beneath the seat in front of him and shoved the folder inside.
‘If this is some kind of test it’s not necessary, Cathy.’ He looked at her then. ‘I’m not going to read it and then ravish you. You’re safe with me.’
Safe. Just when she wanted to be in danger.
Safe.
Catherine reached for the in-flight magazine, blinking furiously, wondering why she was so close to tears now when she hadn’t cried—not once—during the whole RJ debacle.
Six nights, she chanted to herself, staring blindly at a photo of a beach. In six nights she would be fluttering like a butterfly, no matter how hard Max fought to keep her protected in the chrysalis she’d so stupidly made for herself.
It was past time to say goodbye to Miss Lemon and welcome back to Catherine-the-Great.
* * *
Catherine had gnashed her teeth hard enough to wear off the enamel by the time the flight landed in Cairns.
She’d undone a third shirt button: no response. Refastened all three: no response. Pretended to be thrown by a sudden aircraft movement so her arm ended up in Max’s space—not that a grey-wool-clad arm was particularly seductive, but you had to use what you had available. No response.
She’d been racking her brain for a few other experimental moves suitable for implementation in an aircraft cabin when Max had resolutely donned his headphones and turned on his in-seat entertainment system—and she’d had to admit defeat.
At the baggage carousel, Catherine thought of and discarded a dozen conversational gambits—but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d hit on the most brilliant topic of discussion ever. Because Max didn’t give her an opening. He was ignoring her without actually ignoring her. Quite a skill! He chatted about the weather, what they’d see on the drive, how long it would take—blah-blah, boring blah—until their driver located them, their baggage was bundled onto a trolley and they were heading towards the exit.
He was going to be a tough nut to crack.
And then, as they stepped out of the airport and into the almost suffocating moist heat of Cairns, two things happened one after the other: a tall, gorgeous, leggy blonde, wearing an exquisite lilac mini, bowled up and kissed Max on the cheek and Catherine’s glasses fogged over.
‘Darcy, glad you could make it to the airport,’ Max said, with the merest flicker of an eyelid towards Catherine, who was willing her glasses to acclimatise quickly to the humidity so she could properly gauge the competition. ‘We can talk contracts on the drive. Let me introduce you to my assistant, Catherine North. Catherine, this is Darcy Appleby, the lead solicitor on the Kurrangii project.’
‘Oh, Catherine, your glasses!’ Darcy exclaimed.
The annoying, tinkling, laugh that accompanied that made Catherine want to slap her.
‘Max, you’ll have to give her some of your shaving cream. Rubbing them with that should stop the fogging.’
Catherine chose not to answer. Because into her head had popped an image of Max shaving while a naked Darcy hovered behind him. Then, through the open bathroom door, a crazed killer materialised, wielding a meat cleaver...
‘And I hope you brought some cooler clothes,’ Darcy said, interrupting her own imminent demise, ‘because this climate is merciless.’
Catherine looked down at herself, even though she knew very well that she was not wearing a lilac mini and gorgeous caramel high-heeled sandals, but a too-hot navy wool skirt, low-heeled black pumps, a boring white shirt and that goddamned cardigan.
‘I have it all under control,’ she said. And replaced the meat cleaver in her mind with a nice big axe.
Yep, Queensland had got off to a fabulous start.
SEVEN
The drive took a little over an hour, and it was murder—which was obviously the word of the day.
Catherine sat in the front with the driver, Darcy in the back seat with Max, indulging in a long discussion with him that finished with, ‘Everything will be ironed out by Friday, Maxie-T!’ accompanied by that annoying laugh.
Maxie-T? Catherine couldn’t stop her eyes rolling. And, really, she didn’t try. Maxie-T? Seriously?
‘Excellent,’ said Max, not telling Darcy to can the idiotic nickname the way any sane man would.
‘Do you want me to act as hostess for the cocktail party like last time?’ Darcy asked.
Last time? Catherine’s teeth were clenched so tightly the hinges of her jaw throbbed.
‘No need,’ Max said. ‘Catherine’s got that under control.’
‘Catherine?’ said Darcy, aghast. ‘Oh, you mean, she’s organised a professional event hostess?’
She? Oooooohhhhhh... ‘She’ was sitting with a perfectly working brain and tongue in the front seat, able to think and speak for herself!
Catherine’s nostrils flared so dramatically it was a wonder her septum didn’t snap under the pressure.
‘Who’s she hired?’ Darcy asked Max, just as Catherine pictured the bathroom killer wielding the meat cleaver in one hand and the axe in the other. Yep—two-handed. It worked for her. Maybe an ice pick between the teeth, too...
‘No, I mean Catherine’s the hostess,’ Max said, answering for her.
Helloooooooo? Not invisible. Sitting in the same car. Functioning brain and voice-box. With serial killer wielding multiple instruments of death in head.
There was a moment of stunned silence from the back seat, then Darcy moved on to another subject.
For the sake of her mental health Catherine tried to tune out their conversation and concentrate on the view through the windshield—mountains on one side, coast almost close enough to touch on the other.
Failed spectacularly.
At one point Max leaned forward to tell Catherine they were
approaching Port Douglas and a rush of liquid heat hit her square between her legs. She had to clamp her thighs together. He said something about the Great Barrier Reef, and Catherine—an uncomfortable mix of aroused and livid—worked on ignoring him. She even managed a huffy toss of her head. Which didn’t really signal the dismissive irritation of having her solitude interrupted the way she’d hoped because her hair was in such a tight bun.
Not that Max noticed it, anyway. When she failed to reply in actual words he simply returned his attention to the bimbo. Okay, she wasn’t a bimbo—but still!
By the time the car turned off for Moss Falls Retreat, Catherine’s bloodbath psycho-killer scene was playing on a continuous loop in her head.
They pulled up at the resort and there was flurry of activity as staff came out to take bags and proffer keys. Then the flurry died down and Max turned to Catherine, smiling in that newly remote way she hated!
‘Take the rest of the day, Cathy—it’s Sunday, after all. Look around, relax, have a swim or a spa treatment. But if you get bored—’ he handed her a folder ‘—here’s the full spec on the cocktail party. Everything else you have. Call me if you need anything. Otherwise I’ll see you in the morning.’
A moment later Catherine was in a buggy, being driven along a narrow path to her cabin, hearing Darcy call out to Max that she’d be at his cabin to discuss various contracts once he’d settled in.
Meat cleaver, axe, ice pick. And a chainsaw!
Clearly Catherine herself was de trop. Not needed for the contracts discussion. Not really needed for the cocktail function—but she could check the file if she got bored, not because it was her job or anything! Not needed as a dinner companion...
Max had kissed her as if he’d suck the tastebuds right out of her less than forty-eight hours earlier—but now she got a metaphorical pat on the head, as if she was the neighbour’s pet dog, while he holed up with a lilac-wearing blonde? If Max wasn’t careful he’d be joining Darcy on the bathroom floor in her head, chainsawed in half.
The buggy came to an abrupt stop in what appeared to be a small clearing in the middle of the rainforest, jolting Catherine out of her murderous thoughts. She was disorientated for a moment, but then she saw the wooden stilts amongst the foliage and looked up. A tree-house? Her cabin was a tree-house!
Turning the Good Girl Bad Page 9
