by Kwan, Coleen
“Anna, this could happen to anyone. It isn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not, but this problem is my responsibility, and this is how I’m going to take care of it.” She tilted her chin at him, challenging him. “So. Are you going to tell Lionel anyway?”
Giles rested hands on hips and huffed out a breath. “Of course not. I’m on your side.”
Again, a wave of gratefulness hit her. She couldn’t understand how much Giles’ support meant to her.
“Thank you. I really appreciate that.” As she breathed out, she felt some of the pressure easing off her. If nothing else, talking about the problem had helped her.
Giles’s lips quirked in a brief smile, but it was enough to send a tremor through her.
“I’m glad you’re finally appreciating me.”
There was no way she could miss the glint in his eyes or the sudden awareness pulsing between them. It had always been there, she acknowledged, that arc of sexual consciousness sparking between her and Giles. She’d managed to ignore it, suppress it, until now.
“You have your uses,” she quickly replied, eager to return to their former footing before he’d followed her into the stationery closet.
His smile widened. “You must be feeling better, since you’re back to putting me down.”
Goodness, if she allowed herself, she could really melt under that mega-watt, roguish grin of his. Get a grip, Reynolds.
She cleared her throat. “We should go back to work.”
“Why, certainly.” He turned with a flourish and opened the door. At least, he tried to, but the door remained shut.
Anna groaned. “I just remembered. The lock needs to be pressed down otherwise the door doesn’t open from the inside. I forgot to do that when I ran in here.” Because she’d been in such a state. “We’re locked in.”
Giles banged on the door, but no one came. The stationery closet was tucked out of the way, and this side of the office was empty.
“No one’s going to hear us unless they’re coming to get stationery,” Anna said as Giles continued to hammer on the door. “Do you have a phone?”
He shook his head. “Left it on my desk. You?”
“Same.” She ran her hands over her face as she let out a deep groan of frustration. “This gets better and better, huh? I have God knows how many of Oscar’s programs to fix up, and I’m stuck in a bloody stationery closet!”
“It could be worse.”
“How?”
“You could be stuck here on your own.”
“If I was here on my own and you were out there, then you would hear me pounding on the door and let me out,” she pointed out.
“True.”
“I don’t suppose you’re the MacGyver type? You know, you could get us out of here by just using a paper clip and hole punch?”
“Sorry, no. I’m not a boy scout. I’m just a nerdy geek.”
Anna couldn’t help snorting. “I hate to tell you this, but nerdy geeks don’t look like you.”
Interest glimmered in his eyes. “They don’t?”
“Nope. You look more like a fashion model for Burberry than a geek.”
That lethal smile flashed at her again. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he murmured in a way that told her he wasn’t disappointed at all.
Warmth rose in her as she realised what she’d said. “You have to excuse me.” She waved a hand, trying to appear offhand. “I’m not myself at the moment.”
Giles leaned back against the door and trailed his gaze over her. “You shouldn’t be yourself more often, then.”
She really had to get a grip on this conversation. “You’re not flirting with me, are you, Giles?”
Folding his arms, he didn’t seem at all ruffled by her directness. “What do you want me to say to that?”
“I want you to say no, of course.”
“Do you?”
That awareness between them flared higher this time, and her heart began to thud loudly. It was no use lying. She couldn’t hide her attraction to him, and Giles knew that, damn him.
Huffing in frustration, she turned sideways, unwilling to have those clever blue eyes trained on her, winkling out her secrets.
“This is a disaster,” she muttered to herself.
“Is it?” He moved closer, and the closet felt way too small and intimate.
She flashed a grimace at him. “I don’t get involved with people at work,” she retorted, desperate to maintain some kind of barrier between them.
“Neither do I,” he replied, “but then, I’ve never been tempted at work. Until now.”
Anna sucked in a breath. Oh boy. So he was tempted. By her. That made her dizzy, but why? She was used to male admiration. It didn’t get her all hot and bothered. But this time was different.
She kept her gaze fixed on the reams of paper on the shelf before her. “You should un-tempt yourself then, because I don’t need to tell you how bad it would be for my career if I...if we...” She shrugged impatiently. “Oh, you know what I mean!”
He didn’t speak for a while, and she felt his heavy gaze resting on her. “At least I know it’s not one-sided.”
She couldn’t resist snickering at that. “So glad your male ego is still intact.”
His smile was wry. “But it has taken a battering. You didn’t like me much.”
“True.” She could be honest with him now. “I still don’t like you much.”
“Because of my Pommie accent? That’s a bit prejudiced, don’t you think? After all, I don’t mark you down because of your mangled Aussie vowels.”
“Mangled?” she spluttered before she cottoned on that he was teasing her. “Okay, I admit I was—am—prejudiced against your whole toffy appearance because it reminded me of my dad.”
“Your father’s English?”
She nodded. “Came out here, married my mum, had two kids with her, then dumped us when I was eight and went back to the Old Dart, never to be heard from again.”
“That’s rough.”
“My mum struggled to raise me and my brother, but my dad never gave us a cent, even though he’d inherited a fortune from his parents.”
“And that’s why you won’t even let me buy you a coffee?”
“Something like that.”
“And you object to the way I dress?”
She hesitated, wondering how honest she should be. “I like the way you dress,” she admitted. “But the hand-tailored suits and the silver cufflinks and everything else...it’s so alien to me. My mum used to buy us second-hand clothes from Vinnies. To this day I can’t splurge on clothes. I once spent six hundred dollars on a handbag. Even though I could easily afford it, I was nauseous all night, and the next morning I returned the damned thing.”
She stopped abruptly. Why was she babbling on like this to Giles?
“It’s true I’ve had a privileged upbringing.” He looked almost apologetic. “When I was growing up, it was all ponies and prep schools and holidays in Antigua. And I suppose the hand-tailored suits and silver cufflinks go with the territory. But they’re just clothes, Anna. Underneath them, I’m as human as you are.”
She swallowed at the thought of Giles without his clothes. The softness of his shirt didn’t disguise the broadness of his chest, the cut of his pants didn’t hide the strength of his legs. In fact, his elegant clothing only emphasised his athletic build, and he knew it too, the devil.
“Only human?” she managed to get out. “And here I was thinking you were some kind of tech guru.”
He closed the gap between them, and she found herself trapped with a shelf digging into her back and Giles’s body tantalisingly close to hers, so close she could smell his subtle, heady cologne.
“I’m very human, Anna.” His husky voice twined around her name, owning it, as he picked up her hand and pressed it against his chest. “Here, see for yourself.”
The heat of his flesh warmed her palm and sent a rush of desire crashing through her defences. His bass heartbeat vibrate
d in her bloodstream, transmitting his excitement. Her skin flushed, and sweat dampened between her breasts as she stood and stared at him, transfixed by his boldness, his nearness, and the sensual sweetness of touching him.
“Giles—” The breathy want in her voice shocked her. She licked her lips, suddenly unsure of herself. Why was this so difficult? Why couldn’t she move or speak?
His other hand reached up, his fingers brushing her cheek. His touch was feather light, and devastating. She wanted his lips on hers. Needed them. Right now. Her hunger must have showed in her face because his expression altered, his eyes suddenly burning with need.
Her fingers curled into his shirt as she pulled him closer. The shelf behind her rattled as his body pressed into hers. The air was humid with their shortened breathing. He lowered his head, his mouth coming towards hers, causing her toes to curl in delicious anticipation—
The door rattled, and someone on the other side swore. With a gasp, Anna thrust Giles away from her as if he were a vampire. The door handle jiggled up and down several more times. Sweating, Anna pounded on the door.
“Hello!” she hollered. “We’re stuck in here. Can anyone help us?”
“Just a minute,” came a muffled voice.
Anna’s legs were shaking. Behind her, she could hear Giles’ uneven breathing. It sounded like he was fighting for control, just like her. She didn’t dare look at him.
The door swung open, and light flooded the closet.
“Hey, how long have you been in here?” Tracey, the summer student, blinked at them in concern. “Are you guys okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks for rescuing us.” Anna stalked out of the stationery closet, still not acknowledging Giles.
She heard him thank Tracey and warn her about the door lock.
Anna ignored her desk and kept on walking towards the exit, intent on reaching the women’s restroom. Her body was damp, her legs were shaking, and her heart was pounding in her chest. What the hell had she just done? She couldn’t trust herself to be alone with Giles, but unfortunately there was going to be a lot of that before the week was done.
Chapter Two
Straining with frustration, Giles watched Anna stalk away from him. Her navy, knee-length skirt and plain blue shirt did little to hide her curvy figure. He’d noticed her from his first day at FrogLeap. Hard not to when she was the only female at managerial level. Even harder when she was a knockout and smart and hardworking and seemed to dislike him on sight. Yes, he could admit that his ego hadn’t enjoyed it when she resisted his charms, charms that worked so easily on other women.
However, it wasn’t wounded pride that made him want to pursue her, but rather the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking how great she was and wanting to change her opinion of her, something that had never happened to him before. Anna Reynolds intrigued and attracted him powerfully, and the fact she’d admitted sharing his feelings left him unusually breathless and excited.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he contemplated how close he’d come to kissing her in the stationery closet before they’d been interrupted. Even now his blood was still stirred by the memory. Anna might dress conservatively, but nothing could disguise her lush lips and full cheeks, or those thick eyelashes fringing intelligent eyes the colour of cognac. There was an exotic ripeness to her that she tended to suppress here in the workplace. But one glimpse of it back in that stationery closet, and he was hooked. He had to taste that wildness again, even though he knew the pitfalls involved.
He walked back to his desk and sat down, waiting for his horniness to subside. It took some time before he could concentrate on his work. Recalling Anna’s predicament, he quickly scanned through Neil’s programs which he’d taken over, looking for any errors. Apart from a couple of minor bugs, he didn’t find anything sinister or systematic. So Neil, whom everyone had castigated for jumping the fence to a rival company, had done a fairly good job. Whereas Oscar, the dopey-looking guy, had apparently hidden a malevolent streak. His indignation on behalf of Anna grew, and when she finally returned, he jumped to his feet.
“Listen,” he began, but before he could continue she held up her hand to silence him.
“No, you need to listen,” she said, her face set, her voice firm. “You need to forget everything that happened in that closet.”
“Everything?” He could understand why she might be regretting almost being caught in the middle of a kiss, but the rest? “You don’t mean Oscar—”
“Yes, that’s precisely what I mean. I will take care of it. You just focus on what I assigned to you.” She moved with purpose to her desk and sat, her back ramrod straight. She had tidied up her thick, brown hair into a knotted updo, and her taut body exuded a decided ‘don’t mess with me’ attitude.
Giles wasn’t about to let that put him off. He walked up and stood over her, aware that her face was in line with his crotch, but determined not to let that affect him.
“Anna, stop treating me like a mere programmer,” he said. “FrogLeap hired me as a consultant, and I’m here to give you the best of my experience and advice.”
“No.” She stood up to face him. “You were assigned to me because I needed a programmer, and that’s what I want you to do now. Code some programs. I don’t need your consulting advice.”
He clenched a fist, unexpectedly furious at her pigheadedness. “You’re angry with me because you almost let me kiss you.”
Her eyes widened before they darted around for possible eavesdroppers. Then they glared at him. “I’m angry with you because you don’t respect my authority,” she hissed at him.
He blinked. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s my fault, of course. I shouldn’t have touched you.” She pressed her lips together. “I had a moment of weakness. But no more.” She aimed a gimlet stare at him.
Remorse twisted in Giles’ gut. He was just as responsible as she for what had happened in the stationery closet, but she was heaping all the blame on herself. And now, when he wanted to help her, she couldn’t accept because she believed it would weaken her position even further.
He held up his hands, palms facing her, in a gesture of surrender. “Look, I’m not interested in undermining your authority. I just want to help you fix Oscar’s mistakes. If we both work on his programs, we’ll finish it in half the time.”
But Anna stubbornly shook her head. “I’ll take care of Oscar’s work,” she insisted. “I’ll just have to work overtime.”
“You mean more than we are already? Last week we were working back until seven or eight every night. You can’t do more than that.”
Her chin jutted up. “I’ll do what’s necessary.”
He wanted to grasp her obstinate chin and press his mouth against hers. Would she still be unyielding then, or would she slowly melt into him? His body ached to find out, but his head restrained the urge.
“I can stay back tonight too,” he said. If he was here, at least she would have company and someone to bounce ideas off.
“Oh? I thought you had a date tonight with whatserface? Persephone?”
The cogs in his brain slowly turned over. He remembered that Persephone had called him earlier this morning, and they’d arranged to meet at six, but how did Anna know that?
“Yes, I do.” He lifted his eyebrows at Anna. “Been monitoring my calls?”
She turned pink with embarrassment. It was the first time he’d ever seen Anna blush, and he found it a huge turn on.
She hugged her arms, lifting her shoulders defensively. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, the way you were cooing at her. Is she your girlfriend, then?”
The question made him frown. Did Anna think he was the type of man who would try to kiss another woman when he had a girlfriend?
“No,” he replied shortly. “We knew each other back in university.”
They’d slept together a few times, but it had never been serious for either of them. Later, Persephone had started dating a lawyer, but she’d re
cently broken up with him, and she was here in Sydney on holiday.
“I don’t want you to miss out on catching up with old friends,” Anna said. “I’ll be fine.”
She turned away from him and resumed her seat, as if the subject was closed. Giles wanted to object, but he sensed that in her present mood she wasn’t exactly amenable. Better to wait until she’d cooled down. Better for him, too, to cool down. Having come so close to kissing her and realising one of his fantasies about Anna, his senses were trigger happy around her, and he didn’t completely trust himself not to do something stupid like grab her and kiss her right here in the office.
No, he needed time to get himself in order. But that wasn’t easy when he was in such close proximity to Anna. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to work back late with her, if he couldn’t control his appetites.
***
She shouldn’t have let slip that she’d overheard his phone conversation. That had been a mistake. Now he would think she was hung up on him when she wasn’t. Giles could see this Persephone girl anytime he wanted. Persephone...what a perfect name for an upperclass English girl. The kind of girl Giles was used to. She was willing to bet that Persephone was stunning and sophisticated because only the best would do for Giles St Clair.
Anna huffed irritably. She wasn’t doing a very good job of focusing on her work load. But first she had to cancel her dinner date with her two best friends. She texted them a brief message and returned to the program she was debugging, only to be interrupted a few minutes later by a phone call.
“Working late again?” Stephanie lamented as soon as she answered. “Anna, that’s too bad.”
“I’ll survive.” It was typical of Stephanie to call and worry over her. Stephanie was the mother hen of their group, the carer and nurturer, the designated driver.
“But you worked late all last week too. And besides, I wanted to hear all the gossip about you and Megan from New Year’s Eve.”
Last Friday, Anna and Megan had spent New Year’s Eve together, with Megan, recovering from a bad breakup, determined to kiss a new man before midnight struck. Anna had tried to help her friend by introducing her to a nice guy, and things had looked promising until Megan had suddenly dropped everything and raced across the city to be with a stranger she’d just met, something the cautious Megan would never have done before.
