by Anna Cleary
As she took in the immediacy of his dark, lean sexiness her gap year came spinning back and she was that giddy girl again, thrilled and half-terrified to be singled out by the bad boy with the wild reputation. Held breathless once again in his heart-stopping blue gaze, she had to restrain an impulse to touch him.
A thousand impressions assaulted her. He was just as devastating in his city suit as he’d been in denim and leather, though at thirty-five his handsomeness had settled into harsher lines.
Sterner. More defined. Every inch the high-powered executive. She wondered how many people here besides herself knew that underneath his designer and beautifully laundered fine white cotton shirt a heavy-duty tattoo rippled down his arm. Even thinking about those arms could still bring her out in a sweat.
Was it so surprising then that her heart, her flesh, her emotions all surged in joyful remembrance? When she saw him her heart was thundering so loudly she could barely hear herself speak.
‘Joe. Hello.’ Straight up, that husky little catch in her voice. ‘How are you? I—got such a surprise when I found out you were the CEO here.’
His expressive black brows twitched as if he didn’t quite believe her. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘Oh, well, I mean, I knew it was a Joseph Sinclair, but I didn’t know it was m—the Joe Sinclair I once knew.’
His eyes veiled and their last goodbye opened between them like a wound. But he shrugged and gave that faintly mocking smile she knew so well. Used to know.
‘Hard to believe?’
‘Gosh no, of course not. But—with no photo of you on the website, for some reason—I visualised a much older person. You know the type. Bald, plump…’ She made a roundish outline with her hands. ‘Toadish. Cigar in breast pocket.’ She gave a nervous laugh, aware she was talking too much, and her desperate phrases grew jerky. ‘Not the…person I used to know. It was only that I—knew the name it seemed like a—a sign, you know. An omen. Fate, or something.’
Heaven help her, finally she managed to draw breath.
‘Well, that explains it,’ he said smoothly.
She flushed, realising with chagrin how deeply she’d exposed her insecurity. Surely after ten years the past should have lost its sting. But she couldn’t help herself, because all the while things she’d once known so well about him were striking her afresh, sucking her in in the same old way.
He didn’t often make direct eye contact, and just like before she found herself waiting, breathless, for every glance he flashed her from beneath his black brows. And like before, those blue glances had the power to sear through her entrails and leave a powerful impression, like some rare piercing glimpse of a kingfisher’s wing.
He’d pierced her with one of them right then. But it was an ironic glance, one that revealed nothing of the warmth he’d once shown her. Before the break-up, that was. Before she’d wrecked things by offering her eternal love.
‘Would you have started here if you’d known?’ he said.
‘I—of course I would,’ she lied. ‘Why not?’ She’d managed an artificial smile then to conceal her pulse. But though she’d kept her voice steady, she knew her redhead’s skin was betraying her as always, lighting her up like the Macquarie beacon with every minuscule fluctuation in her emotions.
‘Why not indeed?’ There was a faintly sardonic inflection in his tone that recalled the rejection as if it were yesterday.
She retreated from that horror, hurrying into a safer direction. ‘Oh, and, er, do you know how long it will take before my own office is ready? At the interview I had the impression that the position was all ready to go. I appreciate Ryan mentoring me for a few days, of course, but I’m pretty keen to get started on my real work. Forge my own direction, so to speak.’
She gave a small laugh but he didn’t join in. In fact, his brows drew together in disapproval. ‘I think you’ll find that working with Ryan will show you the ropes twice as fast as you could learn them on your own.’
‘Oh, I’m sure. Though I am quite a fast learner.’
His black lashes flickered infinitesimally. ‘I remember.’
A silence fell. Nerve-racking seconds ticked by that grew excruciating.
Why had she said that? She racked her brains for something warm to say that would ease the tension. ‘You know, Joe, I’ve often thought of you—since… Wondered—how you were.’ She smiled, nearly put out her hand to touch him, but, jarred by the flicker in his cool blue gaze, controlled the impulse.
There was a definite warning in that glinting glance. Don’t go there, it read, as stern and uncompromising as if it had been emblazoned in official lettering.
What a fool she was. Of course he didn’t want to be reminded of his past, not here in this austere place surrounded by his employees. Realising she’d opened herself up to another rejection, she flushed outright then and her speech died, hanging her out to dry at the critical moment.
He stood frowning while her discomfort mounted, then he said, ‘Look, Mirandi. You’re here on probation, same as any new employee. I hope you understand that any personal history between us is of no relevance. All that matters here is how well you perform your job.’
Her insides jolted as if she’d stumbled blindly into a rock face. In a wave of mortification it occurred to her he might think she had hopes of him again. That she might have taken the job with a view to reviving their old connection.
Perhaps he read her embarrassment, for his tone softened a little. ‘To be brutally honest, I’m surprised to see you here. Investment banking is a tough world to survive in. I’m not sure this work will suit someone of your temperament.’
‘My—temperament?’ came from her dry throat.
‘Well…’ He hesitated, then scratching his ear, said, ‘I think you’ll find that in finance an excess of emotion and, er, sensibility are luxuries we can’t afford.’
She bristled all over. Sensibility indeed. Did he think she was still that gormless idiot who’d broken her heart over him a thousand years ago?
Lucky she was of a proud disposition and could think on her feet while being eviscerated.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘please don’t worry about me, Joe. I’ve toughened up. Every night I sleep on a bed of nails.’ She spread her arms. ‘Go on. Dish it out. I can take it.’
A muscle twitched in his gorgeous jaw, then he said drily, ‘Very dramatic. I suggest you pour all that passion into your work.’ There was slight inflection in the way he said the word that reminded her he was no stranger to its various applications.
For a minute or perhaps an hour or two his blue gaze seemed to burn through her face, then he snapped out of it and looked at his watch. Brisk, unemotional Joe Sinclair, CEO.
‘Right. Ryan Patterson will be reporting on how you perform, so since we keep strict hours here you’d better drink your coffee. Oh, and, er…good luck.’
With a curt gesture he walked away.
So brusque. So—unwelcoming.
Indignation threatened to overcome her. So she had an emotional side. She was human, wasn’t she? He hadn’t seemed to object to her passionate nature ten years ago. She stared after him, striding through the department like an autocrat. She could hardly recognise the guy. If he hadn’t still been oozing hotness she’d have wondered if she’d been talking to his twin. Anyone would think he’d been born with a briefcase in his hand.
She smarted for minutes over the implication that she was too soft for the business world. Too weak. On what had he based that assessment?
Her credentials were all there in her CV. Her years in the bank, the promotions she’d earned. Just as soon as her office was ready and she could start her own work, she’d show him how efficient she could be.
She could have done with a few private moments to give her galloping pulse time to settle, but she noticed Patterson’s curious gaze follow Joe then shift to her, and she knew she had to glide on like a goddess and act as though nothing had happened.
Standing here now in his
apartment, searching for some lingering essence of the lazy, laughing, teasing Joe she used to know, she wondered how she could still be so affected by him. Time should have done its work by now. She was a mature woman, hardly that green girl who’d worshipped him and been his adoring slave.
She supposed running into him again had dragged it all up again in her mind. The truth was, she’d never experienced anything like the intensity of the passion she’d had for him. Although at the time, during all the months of grieving, Auntie Mim had made the observation that Joe wouldn’t have given her up so abruptly if it hadn’t been purely about the sex.
Mim had been right about some of it. There was no denying she’d been followed by a string of wild little hussies, as Mim had termed Joe’s other girlfriends. Hot chicks. Even so, she could never regret her wild time with him. Joining the chicks. How could she, when it had been the most exciting time of her life? The time she’d felt most alive.
Perhaps that was why gazing into his bedroom now exerted a violent fascination, though her conscience was telling her loud and clear that a man’s bedroom—especially a boss’s—an ex-lover’s—was his fortress. Or should be.
Sadly, while her scruples tried to assert themselves, her feet in their four inch heels were itching to push that door wide and cross the forbidden threshold, and before she was half aware of it she was in, staring at a rather severe four-poster heaped with pillows and richly draped in luxurious brocaded fabrics.
Oh, yes. The master suite.
Somehow Joe’s bed made her awash with sensations, not all of them positive. Its decadent appeal was amplified by its reflections in several long mirrors.
How would it feel to lie in there at night with him? Her pulse quickened as she imagined his handsome dark head on those champagne satin pillows. They looked soft enough, but looks could be so deceiving where pillows were concerned. For herself, she preferred hers very soft, though as she recalled the younger Joe had never worried about anything so domestic.
A simple mattress on the floor, those green patterned sheets—that had been their passion bed, the candle shedding its glow into the small hours on their entwined bodies Joe’s concession to romance.
She stared at the four-poster, then, on an impulse, sat on the edge and slipped off her shoes. She dragged a pillow into position, then gingerly lay her head on it. After a moment she lifted her feet onto the bed, then stretched out and, involuntarily relaxing, released a long and languorous sigh.
Ah-h-h. She let herself sink into the bed’s soft, sensuous and at the same time buoyant embrace, her head cradled by one of the softest, most delicious pillows she’d ever experienced.
Oh, the comfort. Fearful at first of letting herself go, she lay still a moment, imagining herself floating on a cloud. Perhaps it was inevitable, given her experiences with Joe Sinclair, but her thoughts started to drift down a certain illicit alleyway. One she’d fought and struggled to avoid ever since the coffee-room encounter.
Imagine, for example, it was midnight. Suppose Joe arrived home unexpectedly and found her here?
Her blood warmed to the scenario. For all his powerful six-three Joe was a quiet guy. He never raised his voice when gutting someone with a few well chosen words, and he seemed capable of walking as silently as a cat when prowling the corridors at work. It wasn’t impossible to imagine he might walk in and catch her unawares.
Almost unconsciously, she changed position to arrange herself more voluptuously, like Goya’s painting of ‘The Naked Maja’, though of course she didn’t take her clothes off. Her little fantastical indulgence was only for a second. She closed her eyes, picturing the scene.
He’d come in, find her here, and be overcome with the old desire. He’d take off his tie and slowly unbutton his shirt…
How well she remembered his beautiful chest and hard, muscled abdomen. Even in his Armani suit it was clear he still looked after his athletic frame. Perhaps he worked out in a gym. There was probably one in this very building.
Although… Shouldn’t they start with a kiss? After so long she wouldn’t enjoy being rushed.
She banished the undressing scene and started afresh. He’d come in and catch her here, and be so overwhelmed by desire he’d swoop onto the bed beside her, take her in his arms and kiss her with deep, romantic passion. Forget that it was a bit like the Sleeping Beauty or Goldilocks, or whoever. Those babes wouldn’t have known how to savour the kiss, anyway, whereas she…
Her lids sprang open. Was that sound from inside the apartment, or something next door? The pipes, perhaps? She strained her ears for seconds, then, hearing only silence, relaxed back into the fantasy.
The kiss. No, it was annoying, but before she could really enjoy kissing him she would need some sort of discussion about what had happened. Why he’d suddenly become so cold and unapproachable at the time she’d most needed him.
Why he’d changed overnight from her tender, teasing lover into that grim, distant stranger. Though, on the other hand, recriminations about the past at that exact point could destroy the magic.
So. First he’d kiss her and caress her, and then he’d say…
An instant later a surprised growl jolted her back to earth and she looked up to meet Joe Sinclair’s stunned, incredulous gaze. He was standing in the doorway in the lean, solid flesh, staring at her as if she were an hallucination.
CHAPTER THREE
TRANSFIXED INTO A SORT of paralysis, he was holding a phone glued to his ear.
Mirandi scrambled off the bed and made a useless attempt to smooth the coverlet.
‘Oh, Joe. I didn’t expect… I was just…’ She noticed the folders on the floor where they’d fallen. She stooped to snatch them up, conscious of the burning tide of sheer mortification rising through her limbs and chest and turning her face red hot.
But she hadn’t lived through the past ten years without acquiring a few life skills. Faced with total humiliation, with her back to the wall, Mirandi Summers could schmoozle her way out of a situation as well as the next woman.
Drawing herself up to her full five-seven, she met Joe Sinclair’s bemused gaze with resolve. ‘I think you should know you have a mouse problem.’
His black brows twitched. A glint lit the deep blue of his irises.
Without taking his gaze off her, he shot a few words down the phone. ‘It’s no one. I’ll talk to you later.’ With a deliberate calm, he snapped the phone shut and slipped it inside the jacket of his sleek suit. It buzzed again, but he cut it off and directed the full force of his stunning gaze at her.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mirandi.’
It had always thrilled her that for a guy of such few words, his voice had a deep, rich, almost musical quality. Eighty per cent cocoa, the rest pure cream. But something in the tone of that little exclamation, something smooth and satisfied, as if he’d always suspected she was dying to crawl back into his bed any way she could, and now he was proven right, roused an indignant spark in her.
Forget that from her current vantage point he was tall, with his big athletic frame easily able to block a doorway. She’d been towered over by him before, perhaps not with him having the power of life and death over her job, so to speak, but the situation had occurred, as her body seemed vibrantly aware.
She eased into her shoes, grateful for the added inches, then thrust the folders into his hands. ‘I was asked to deliver these.’
‘To my bedroom?
‘Of course not, Joe. Absolutely not. I intended to put them on the table in the foyer, but when I opened the door and I saw the mouse… I—must have disturbed it. I didn’t think you’d want to have to deal with that when you got home, so naturally I—took off after it.’ She gave an uncertain laugh he didn’t join in with, then glanced about her and gave her most convincing shudder. ‘It’s in here somewhere.’
‘In my bed, presumably.’
She felt her flush deepen, especially when she noticed him make a familiar, scorching inventory of her curves. Some things never c
hanged.
His mouth had always been so stirringly expressive. As though sculpted by some sure celestial force, his lips were firm and masculine, the upper one narrow, the lower one fuller, the whole stern ensemble promising the ultimate in sensual pleasure. And delivering, as her body now yearningly recalled.
‘Well, it ran—in here, yes. I lost sight of it and… Well, I got scared it might run at me. So I’m afraid I—had to jump up on the, er…’ A hollow in the pillows was glaringly the size and shape of her head. ‘It may not still be in here right now, of course.’ She tried for her most earnest expression. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to think out a strategy.’
‘You seem to be doing quite well now, though.’
She evaded his sceptical glance, her face afire just when she needed it to be cool. All right, so her story was thin and he didn’t believe a word. He didn’t look half as furious as he should be. Warning bells were clanging in her head. It was a situational rerun. Joe, Mirandi, bed.
Fantasy may be one thing, reality was definitely another.
‘Anyway,’ she said, marshalling some faux briskness, ‘I have to get back to work.’ She made a move to walk past him, nerve-rackingly conscious this was a sackable offence and she’d handed him a platinum-plated advantage in the male/female adversarial stakes.
At the last possible instant he stood aside to allow her through, to her intense relief, though at the moment of passing closest by him the intense masculinity radiating from him singed the skin cells on that side of her body to the third degree.
As she escaped into the hallway and made for the sitting room other phones started ringing, though the sound was cut off almost at once.
‘I can’t talk now, Kirsty,’ she heard him say, the merest hint of irritation in his voice. He raised it a little. ‘Hold it there, Mirandi. Just a minute.’
He caught up with her just as she was scurrying across an enormous Persian rug towards the front door, faster even than the mouse. If there had truly been a mouse, that was.
