One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  She stood rigid, the green flecks in her hazel eyes sharp like daggers. ‘Does that sound like something the Morgan who’s worked with you for the last eighteen months would do?’

  ‘No…But—’

  ‘You see? I’d had too much to drink. Too much to celebrate. I’m sorry, Maverick, I’ll call a taxi and wait outside.

  ‘I’ll take you ho—’

  ‘Please,’ she said, holding up one hand. ‘We have to work together. I think it’s better for both of us if I just get a taxi and we don’t prolong this, don’t you?’

  A muscle in his cheek twitched, the skin of his face suddenly looking too tight, too severely stretched over the planes and angles of his face. ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I think you’re absolutely right.’

  She wasn’t going to cry. She sat sullenly in the cab all the way home, determined not to give in to tears while the cab driver ignored her need for silence and insisted on delivering a non-stop monologue about the lack of rain, the price of fuel and how to solve the Middle East crisis.

  Thankfully he seemed to be happy with her grunt of assent every now and then, because she didn’t want to think about the weather, the drought or the crisis in the Middle East. Right now she had her own crisis to take care of, given the look of dark thunder Maverick had thrown at her as she’d walked out the door.

  He was angry with her, furious at her for turning him down, for spending a night of pleasure with him and then leaving him cold. But what choice did she have?

  It was better this way, better that he hated her and thought her flaky. He’d leave her alone now after what she’d done—leave Morgan alone come Monday morning! And that was what was important.

  She let herself into her flat, wanting nothing more than a long, hot bath until she had to head to the airport to pick up her sister, when she noticed the flashing light on her answering machine.

  Warily she approached it. Maverick, she guessed, Maverick unable as ever to take no for an answer.

  But still she felt compelled to press the play button. There were two messages, it told her. Message one… She steeled herself for Maverick’s strident tones, had almost allowed herself to relax, when she recognised her sister’s usual greeting—until the next part of her message worked its way into Tegan’s sleep-deprived psyche…

  ‘I hope you’re getting on better with Maverick now because I’m afraid I might be over here a bit longer than anticipated…’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TEGAN reeled as her sister’s words sunk in—a tourist-bus crash…nobody seriously hurt…slight matter of a broken leg…about to be wheeled into surgery…

  Surgery? That no doubt accounted for the brittle quality to her sister’s voice. Morgan sounded like she was still in shock or high on medication or both.

  The second message began. It was from Jake, one of the party she was travelling with. Morgan was out of surgery, he said, and wanted her to know she’d come through with flying colours. But she’d had multiple fractures which had required pinning, and she wouldn’t be travelling for several weeks at least. And Morgan had especially wanted her to know that she was really sorry.

  Tegan collapsed into a chair. Her sister was okay, thank God, but she so wished she’d been home to take the call and talk to Morgan herself before she’d had to go under the anaesthetic. But she hadn’t been home. Instead of being here to take her twin’s call, she’d been out making love all night with her twin’s boss.

  Tegan dropped her head into her hands. Oh hell, what a mess! Morgan wasn’t travelling anywhere for weeks. Which meant Morgan wouldn’t magically be reappearing to take over her job come Monday. What the hell was Tegan supposed to do now—pretend to be Morgan and try to work with Maverick for another how ever many weeks?

  Oh, dear God, no!

  Oh, sure, she’d managed to convince him she was Morgan so far, but she could hardly consider her efforts a victory, more like survival. And so far, apart from a night of memories that would stay with her for ever, she’d escaped from it all with nothing.

  Least of all her self-respect.

  She couldn’t continue with the farce. Her deal with Morgan had been for one week only, and that had been with Maverick half a world away. Already she’d gone above and beyond the call of duty.

  Already the lie was too big, too damaging, the repercussions and consequences growing nastier by the day.

  She had no choice but to come clean. Morgan would probably lose her job because if it, but Maverick was bound to find out the truth sooner or later. Better it came from Tegan now.

  All she had to do was work out a way to tell him.

  He’d spent all weekend stewing. He wasn’t going to call her. There was no point. If she could walk out on him after a night like they’d shared together, then she wasn’t worth the effort. He was over it.

  He looked at his watch and growled. So where was she?

  Then he heard the lift doors ping, and his gut pulled tighter than a drum.

  One infinitely long minute later and she was there, knocking lightly at the open door.

  He barely flicked his eyes in her direction. ‘You’re late.’ She took a step in, and out of the corner of his eye he detected her heels waver shakily on the carpet.

  ‘Maverick, I need to talk to you.’ It gave him a fair chunk of satisfaction that her grip on the earth wasn’t the only thing that was wobbly. He leant back in his chair and put his hands behind his neck. This was going to be good.

  ‘Have a nice weekend with your sister?’

  Her lips compressed into a tight line as she crossed her arms low over her chest. Her whole face seemed pinched, and even her hazel eyes looked clouded. Yet still he couldn’t chase away the vision of her, warm and receptive, and clad in nothing more than a pair of sheer silken stockings to guide him home.

  ‘She didn’t make it. She got held up.’

  He grunted. That was no surprise. It had just been an excuse to get away from him.

  She took another shaky step into his office, winding a loose tendril of hair back around her ear, and contemplating the floor as though any moment she wanted it to swallow her up. He couldn’t help but bristle. Was she really so cut up because she’d spent a night in the boss’s bed? From what he remembered, it sure hadn’t seemed that it’d been an episode in endurance for her. Surely there were worse things in the world?

  ‘I almost didn’t come in at all today,’ she started. ‘I was going to call, but I figured you deserved to hear what I have to say face to face.’

  ‘You don’t have an option about whether or not you come in. You have a contract to work here, remember?’

  But she just smiled strangely and shook her head. ‘No. I’m sorry to let you down—to let everyone down. But I just can’t do this any more.’

  He launched himself out of his chair and rounded the desk towards her. ‘What do you mean, “can’t do this any more”? Just because of what happened Friday night? Don’t you think you’re overreacting? “Consenting adults” and all that.’ He spat her own words back at her—words that had been eating into his gut all weekend like an acid burn. She had consented—that was the point—so why had she cut and run?

  She flinched at his words and his tone, jerking her chin up as she swallowed, and her eyes sparked icicles as for once they sought him out as he circled her like a shark.

  ‘It’s not just about what happened Friday.’

  ‘Then what are you afraid of?’ he asked as he rounded her back.

  Her head swivelled around to meet his once more. ‘I’m not afraid!’

  ‘Then why are you running away?’

  ‘You don’t understand—’

  ‘You didn’t enjoy spending the night with me?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘So you did enjoy it.’

  ‘What is this? Did I bruise your ego when I didn’t beg for a repeat performance?’

  His dark eyes turned from rich chocolate to boiling mud pools in a second, and she kicked herself
for letting herself be distracted from her task.

  ‘Maverick…’ she pleaded.

  A phone interrupted them, sharp and insistent. ‘That’ll be Rogerson,’ he said, sweeping up his mobile phone from his desk. ‘I’m expecting this call. We’ll continue this discussion later.’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’

  ‘Later!’

  He turned his back to her, and still she remained where she was, until it was clear that he expected her to fade into the woodwork and take her issues with her. Finally she wheeled around and fumed back to her desk.

  Damn the man! She should have phoned after all. It would have been easier. At least then she wouldn’t have been subjected to that lazy gaze that looked like dark chocolate and felt rapier sharp. And she wouldn’t have been distracted by his threatening proximity.

  Why was she arguing with him about whether or not she’d enjoyed their love making, for heaven’s sake? She was supposed to have been admitting that for the last week she’d been doing this job under false pretences, not goading him with challenges to his virility.

  As soon as he came out she would put him straight. No more distractions. No more beating around the bush. Just the facts.

  She bet her wanting to leave wouldn’t be an issue after that. He’d probably throw her out himself.

  ‘Grab your things,’ Maverick snapped out, taking her by surprise as he suddenly emerged from his office. ‘We’ve got a meeting at Rogerson’s in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Maverick, we haven’t finished—’

  ‘We have now. He’s waiting for us. He’s put his project team together and wants us all to get together.’

  ‘No. Hang on and listen. This is important. Because I’m not—’

  ‘On the team?’ He cut her off. ‘You are now. Rogerson’s insisting he wants you on it, especially after that job you did with the project-development chart. And, given I’ll probably be unavailable on some days, it makes sense you be there. So I’ve agreed.’

  She clawed her hands in frustration. ‘But I haven’t agreed! You haven’t listened to one thing I’ve said today.’

  ‘You’re upset,’ he said. ‘You’ll get over it. Come on.’

  ‘Don’t you dare patronise me.’

  He stopped then and wheeled around in a semicircle. ‘Rogerson’s asked for you to be on the team. You personally. Now if you’ve got a problem with that, if you want to let this project down, maybe you should discuss it with him.’

  ‘My problem isn’t with Phil Rogerson,’ she hissed.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We can discuss any little problems we have later. But, for right now, let’s go.’

  She was trapped. Her head pounding, her heart thumping, she let herself be shepherded back into Maverick’s car, clicking herself into the seat belt on autopilot, while all the time chewing on her bottom lip. The meeting had been a blur. Apart from when Phil Rogerson had insisted she be part of the Royalty Cove team. That part of the meeting had been vividly playing over and over again in her mind’s eye with crystal-clear clarity.

  “I want you on board for the entire project,” he’d told her, his creased face smiling into hers, his work-callused hands surrounding hers. “You’re someone I feel I can trust, and I know you’re going to be a valuable member of the team. I know you won’t let us down.”

  And she’d nodded dumbly, and all the while had felt sick to the stomach, because she wasn’t deserving of anyone’s trust, least of all Phil Rogerson’s. She was a liar, caught in the web of her own deceit, a web that was spreading, wider and stickier by the minute. She was a spider, no more than a dumb spider stuck in its own trap.

  How could she possibly make things better with a simple confession now? She couldn’t. Not without making things a whole lot worse—for everyone.

  What the hell was she going to do?

  ‘You’re very quiet.’

  She blinked and looked around as Maverick’s words floated down through the leaden weight of her thoughts, surprised to find they’d come to a halt in a parking bay fringed with Norfolk Island pines adjacent to the beach. She hadn’t even registered that he’d left the highway, let alone parked the car.

  ‘Why are we here?’

  He wasn’t really sure. Except it had something to do with not wanting to return to the battle ground of the office just yet. He was in no hurry to resume where they’d left off this morning.

  And, damn it, being with her again just one short morning had been enough to tell him he wasn’t finished with her yet. There was no way he wanted to do battle with her, unless it involved tearing off her clothes and getting horizontal.

  Which, come to think of it, was one of the best ideas he’d had all morning…

  ‘I thought we could do with some fresh air,’ he told her. ‘Care for a walk along the beach?’

  She looked at him like he was mad. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Come on,’ he urged, slinging his jacket in the back seat and rolling up his sleeves. ‘It will do us both good.’

  Ten minutes later she had sand between her stockinged toes and salt spray in her hair. It was utter madness, strolling along the beach dressed for the office, but today she didn’t care. The sun was shining; the breeze carried with it the clean, fresh tang of the ocean and the rhythm of the waves swooshing up the beach was like a balm to her soul.

  She stole a glance at the man walking alongside her. Like her, he held his shoes in one hand, the legs of his trousers rolled up and his naked feet leaving impressions on the sand. My God, she thought, even his feet were sexy.

  But then it wasn’t anything that she hadn’t learned on Friday night, just one of a whole host of discoveries she’d made that evening: what his skin felt like and where, the difference between rough and smooth, of satiny skin dusted with springy hair, of what he liked her to do to him and what he was so good and so generous at giving.

  Heat welled up inside her at the memories, deliciously different from the sun’s warming rays from the outside; this was a compelling heat that set her flesh alive with the echoes of how he’d made her feel that night.

  He looked across at her, and their eyes snagged and locked, his meeting her turmoil-filled gaze with a deeply contemplative one, before she stopped and broke contact, afraid of revealing too much. She turned her eyes out to sea, gulping in air like someone who’d been under one too many times.

  Which is exactly how she felt. She was drowning in the complexities of a lie she could see no way out of. And meanwhile she was drowning in physical sensations she had no right to experience.

  Life couldn’t get any crazier.

  He came to a halt alongside her as she watched the waves come in. She was fascinated by the smooth slide of water over sand, wishing her own life could move so seemingly effortlessly.

  ‘You agreed to join Rogerson’s dream team today.’

  At last, she thought, at last we get to the point of this expedition.

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘In which case you’ve obviously abandoned the idea of leaving.’

  Her shoes jostled nervously together against her hip. It was nothing she didn’t know already, but hearing him say the words made it infinitely more real. How could she leave now? It was no longer just her sister who had expectations of her. It wasn’t only Maverick. The net was now cast wider. Phil Rogerson had tied her to the project for the duration.

  She gritted her teeth together as seagulls circled and cawed overhead, and the endless waves rolled in and slipped back out. This was no longer just a case of coming clean and cutting her losses and worrying about whether Morgan had a job to come back to. There would be serious fallout now. There would be consequences.

  And maybe all she could do was try to minimise them. Which meant she had to keep up the pretence, to hold on to this job until Morgan returned. And to try to hold on to her sanity in the process.

  She sighed. ‘It looks like it.’

  He said nothing for a while, and she thought she’d made
a mistake, that there had never been a point to his questions and that he’d just been making conversation to cover the yawning vacuum between them.

  Until he stepped between her, and the view and her vision was filled by a man whose dark looks were so heavy with savage intent that one look put her brain on high alert and left her senses smouldering. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I have a proposition for you.’

  She looked up at him, already drowning in his eyes, already feeling the pull of his body on hers, already anticipating the slide of skin against skin—while her brain screamed warnings, warnings that made a whole lot of sense right now.

  She shook her head, and made a move to step out of range of his intense eyes and back along the beach. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’

  He grabbed her wrist, and she jerked with the shock, spilling her shoes to the sand.

  ‘You haven’t even heard what it is yet.’

  She looked up at him, and at all that his tortured features proclaimed. She didn’t need to hear it. She could read it in his anguished expression. ‘I won’t sleep with you.’

  He drew himself up, his eyes narrowing, and she knew she’d guessed right. But still he didn’t let go of her wrist. Instead he tugged her ever so gently towards him. ‘But you already have.’

  ‘It was a mistake. It should never have happened.’

  ‘I wish all my mistakes were so satisfying. And you were satisfying—in every way.’

  She wrenched her eyes away, turning them up to the sky, a silent entreaty. Oh God, no, don’t tell me that. ‘Look, Maverick, I just think we should forget about it.’

  ‘That’s my problem,’ he argued, letting his shoes drop to the sand and sliding his hand down her elbow to capture her free hand in his. ‘I can’t forget about it. I can’t forget how you felt next to me, how good you tasted in my mouth and how good it felt to bury myself deep inside you.’

  His words, erotically charged, shockingly intimate, brought the memories of that night bubbling up in both her mind and her body in a heated rush, rendering her speechless as muscle after hidden muscle relived the feel of accepting him.