Australian Boss: Diamond Ring

by Jennie Adams

  Fiona hadn’t noticed. ‘You must have eaten some of it during the night…’

  ‘Yes. I’m a three a.m. grazer, I’m afraid.’ He popped a Tasmanian scallop into his mouth. ‘I get hungry a lot.’

  ‘And eat people’s chocolate stash.’ The teasing words shot from her mouth and she bit her lip. ‘I didn’t mind, and I wouldn’t have even noticed, except you bought some extras for me…’

  His gaze locked on hers. ‘I didn’t realise what I’d done until the pile of empty wrappers impinged enough for me to notice them.’

  ‘You ate them while you explored my graphics program?’ She sipped her wine and wondered if he realised the significance of him discussing the impact of his condition with her this way. ‘I should have walked you through the program when I first started there.’

  ‘I enjoyed looking, anyway.’ Brent did eat a lot of the food, and they talked while they shared the meal. It felt…good, and she relaxed and stopped wondering about what he might be thinking or not thinking, and just let herself enjoy the moment for whatever it was.

  ‘Come and dance.’ He got to his feet, held out his hand for hers and, when she placed her fingers against his, wrapped her up in the strength of long fingers and led her onto the floor.

  Her senses were consumed in that touch, in the way they matched each other in height as they made their way to a space on the floor.

  Brent held her hands and they…danced. And, after a while, he rested both hands on her hips and stood almost still as she swayed in his hold with her hands on shoulders that flexed beneath her touch.

  Fiona closed her eyes and let one hand slide until it rested over his heart. And she gave herself to the music and his heartbeat.

  Only for a moment. That couldn’t hurt…

  CHAPTER TEN

  BRENT’S hands flexed against Fiona’s hips and he watched her dance with her eyes closed and all her enjoyment clear to see on her softened features.

  She was so beautiful, and he…wanted her so much. He battled his way through some physical twitches that built in his body and lodged in his shoulders, and eventually got those under control and was able to enjoy her touch on him, the sight of her.

  Her hair smelled of peaches and fell loose about her cheeks and neck in a glossy curtain. He bent his head just enough to inhale the scent of it and breathe it deep into his lungs. He liked her at the end of the day this way, with her lipstick long gone and a wrinkle or two in her blouse. He liked her dancing for him, and he liked her dancing with him.

  Somewhere along the line, this evening had progressed away from his core plan and he had to admit he was responsible for that.

  He might have stood and casually asked her to dance, but there’d been nothing casual in his need to hold her. He might have wanted to comfort her after her episode with her mother, but he hadn’t said a word about that since they’d come here.

  When Fiona’s hand brushed his thigh as she moved, Brent drew her into the lee of his body. Not touching, not really. Just her hands against his heart and his shoulder, and his hands on her hips and a lot of…closeness.

  But they were touching. He felt every movement she made, every sensual twist and sway through those points where their bodies did connect. Her eyes sparkled as she lifted her gaze to his. The rest of the patrons faded from his notice and his focus homed absolutely on the woman dancing with him.

  ‘I like the way you dance.’ Fiona spoke the words against his ear. Her breasts brushed his chest and Brent drew a breath and his arms somehow got all the way around her and held her close until they were both swaying to the music and he felt…as though he held home in his arms, even though he didn’t know what home was, except for Linc and Alex and survival.

  ‘I like the way you dance better.’ His lips brushed her ear, lingered long enough to explore the feel of the soft, shell shape in a butterfly kiss.

  Such a fine line. So easy to step over it because it felt so right.

  The sigh of her breath brushed his cheek. That whisper was all about her pleasure in his touch, in what they were doing.

  He wondered briefly how long it would be before he lost this calm feeling and had to work to keep his movements controlled again. For now he just…was in this moment with her.

  It seemed right to hold her so their bodies brushed chest to chest and thigh to thigh as they swayed to the music. So he did. He wanted to close his eyes and feel her movements and just absorb them, so he let himself.

  Somewhere between wanting to take her mind off her mother’s hurtful behaviour and now, Brent had dropped his guard, had done it thoroughly, even if as quietly as a whisper.

  The scariest part was that he couldn’t find the concern over that which he should be able to find.

  They danced, and Brent never did dance more than swaying his body while she did most of the work, but, oh, it was the best experience of Fiona’s life. Because he danced with her, with his gaze fixed on her and never looking anywhere else. He danced with all of his focus, just for her.

  It was probably inevitable that he held her closer, that she moved closer. That the songs went from slow to fast and back again without them changing their dancing at all until they were heartbeat to heartbeat with each other and finally, finally he pressed his cheek to her cheek and his hands stroked up her arms and over her shoulders to the dip between her shoulder blades and down to the dip of her waist.

  The hurt of her mother’s actions, of her own failure yet again to get what she needed from her family, receded to the background as Fiona lost herself in Brent’s attention.

  Doubts still hovered. They did. Because Brent’s acceptance of her wasn’t all-seeing, all-knowing and all-encompassing, either. He accepted her artistic side. Understandable, given he shared similar tendencies.

  She liked to think he liked her as a person, overall. But he also held back from her. And seemed uncertain of whether he wanted to accept the attraction he felt towards her or not.

  For now he was accepting it, and she was letting herself hope probably more than she should that he would continue to accept it. But she hoped anyway.

  Fiona wound her arms more tightly around his neck. They didn’t talk. They didn’t say anything at all. Eventually their gazes simply locked and their dancing stilled and he clasped her hand in his and led her off the dance floor while her heart started a slow, deep rhythm in her chest and she couldn’t catch her breath any more and could only walk with him into the night, to his truck, and get in.

  He reached for her hand once they were on the road. Tucked it against his thigh and held it there.

  ‘I set out to talk to you about your family—’

  ‘Won’t you talk to me about Charles—?’

  He turned the truck into her apartment complex’s car park and they both fell silent. The need to talk warred with other more instinctive needs. Fiona didn’t know where to go with either instinct so she fell back on good manners.

  ‘Thank you…thank you for a lovely evening.’ Her fingers fumbled as she opened the truck door and climbed out.

  Brent had taken advantage of an empty space towards the end of the courtyard parking. It was silent, shadowed, isolated.

  He came to her side of the truck, pushed her passenger door closed behind her after she alighted.

  ‘What are we doing, Fiona?’ Did he open his arms?

  Or did she step into them of her own accord? Did it even matter? Either way, it was inevitable really that she would melt into him.

  ‘I don’t know what we’re doing.’ She looked into his eyes as she said it. ‘You hold back because Charles rejected you. You give him power over you through that. It’s not only about your autism. That side of you—it’s just part of you. It’s…a beautiful part of you.’ Everything she wanted from him came out in those words—things she knew within herself and things she only knew instinctively.

  Brent shook his head. ‘The beauty is within you, within your generosity and your capacity to see the best in people.’ Maybe
Brent didn’t want to talk about the rest. Maybe he reacted purely on an instinctive level to what she said to him.

  Because his arms locked around her and his lips parted on a breath of desire and then there was no space between them, only his mouth on hers, taking and giving, offering and accepting as they both yielded.

  Fiona acknowledged her need and held on. Arms around his neck. Body pressed close. Lips soft beneath his, absorbing and responding as his hands traced up and down her back, over the curve of her lower spine, and lower still. It was a kiss of tenderness and pleasure and sweetness, and she took it down into herself and held it there.

  It changed so gradually. She was deep into that change before she even realised. Gentle kisses had become demanding, a play of tongues and desire that still somehow managed to coil around her emotions.

  The strength of his body against her softness played through her senses and her heart whispered to be careful. Be so very careful because her soul could enter into this and what would she do if that happened?

  ‘I want you closer. Closer.’ Brent whispered the words and covered her mouth again, and his arms closed tight and strong about her and she felt safe with him. Safe and hungry and scared and desperate all at once.

  She needed to be even closer, not only physically but to all that was within him. That truth was confirmed in each shaken breath she took. She’d sought such closeness from the start as she’d searched for his emotions in his work. Maybe even then something inside her had known she would come to care for him this way.

  It was rumoured he was eccentric. Instead, he was brilliant, talented, unique, charming and intense and sweet and strong.

  ‘Fiona. If I keep going with this I won’t be able…I can’t…I don’t know…’ He buried his face in her hair and his breath heaved in and out and his shoulders locked as he fought himself, fought what he wanted from her and maybe fought other reactions and responses in his physical make-up as well. ‘I told myself this was safe. We’re in a car park, for God’s sake.’

  It impinged on her slowly that they were. Right out here in the car park, which, while admittedly quiet right now, couldn’t be guaranteed to stay that way.

  And she had forgotten that, had lost all sense of time and place. Had immersed herself so fully in the moment and in his arms that she hadn’t given a thought to their surroundings.

  She should step away from him. Any moment now she would gather the strength to do that. Because…

  Because they needed to talk. Didn’t they?

  Brent stroked his hands up the length of her spine and his fingers found their way into her hair and whatever reasons there might have been disappeared on the whisper of her breath.

  Her mouth softened and her hands bracketed his face and if he had indicated in any way that she wasn’t welcome…

  A sound rose in the back of Brent’s throat as his mouth covered Fiona’s once again. She gave herself to the kiss in the same way she did everything—with generosity and openness. When he dipped his tongue into the cavern of her mouth, hers followed him home again, stroked, tangled.

  He crushed her close and loved the way her body fitted his so perfectly. He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind of her legs wrapped around him.

  How they ended up outside her apartment he couldn’t have said, but she had her bag in her hand and he vaguely remembered that ending up on the bonnet of his truck when he’d first taken her mouth out there.

  Now she fumbled in the bag for her key while they snatched kisses, and a moment later they were inside her home.

  A lamp burned on a corner table in the living room. That circle of muted light was the only thing that even half registered as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers.

  Slow down. You have to slow this down.

  But it was a train on a downward slope. Gaining pace and out of control.

  How could he need this so much? Brent sought the answer in the warm recesses of her mouth, in the press of her lips against his, in the touch of her fingers where they stroked his arms, his chest.

  His tie drifted from her fingers onto the edge of the sofa and slipped to the floor. Then they were on that sofa, arms around each other, mouths melding together.

  He cupped her breasts through the cloth of her blouse, absorbed the softness and the shape of her…

  Brent caught one glimpse of warm welcome in her eyes and wondered what she saw in him, and then he couldn’t think any more, only experience and feel and need, with his senses and with pieces of himself that he’d worked so hard to protect from the world for so long.

  Pieces that had taken the pain of Charles’s rejection and buried it so deep that even Brent himself hadn’t realised where he’d gone with all of that.

  That one thought pushed through until it hit the surface of his mind and the warnings he’d tried to give himself earlier finally took hold. Brent’s shoulders tightened as he faced just how much he was letting her in right now—he could not do that.

  So totally couldn’t do that. Tension criss-crossed his chest and rippled through his muscles and settled in his neck. Tension that he couldn’t control. He broke away from her and his head twitched before he got to his feet in a movement that felt uncoordinated, uneven and aching.

  He’d wanted to make love to her. It would have ended in that. The truth was in what they’d done, in the blur of blue eyes softened and confused and struggling to comprehend the loss of his touch as she, too, slowly rose from the sofa.

  Everything in him ached to take her back, to hold her against his heart because there was a tension and lost feeling there that only doing that would ease, but Fiona couldn’t be his saviour. He had to be that for himself, survive by himself, protect himself the way he always had done. Protect that part of him that Charles MacKay had done his best to crush so many years ago.

  Brent had to do all that. Didn’t he?

  ‘I’m sorry, Fiona.’ God. His voice was raw gravel. ‘This…got out of control. I told you I wouldn’t go here again. I meant that. For your sake—’

  ‘Yes. You told me. Foolishly, I thought—’ She broke off. Drew a breath. ‘I should have learned the first time.’ She took his tie from the floor, folded it, handed it to him and made her way to the door with steps that weren’t as smooth or coordinated for her as they usually were.

  She opened that door. Waited with her teeth over her lower lip and all sorts of defences wrapped around her, even as her arms wrapped around her waist.

  ‘I don’t know…’ What she meant by her words. Why her dismissal of him felt like a dismissal of herself.

  In this moment Brent knew nothing—how did he deal with that?

  He hesitated and faced her. ‘Fiona—’

  ‘It’s all right. You need to go. We both need for you to do that. This…’ She hesitated. ‘You thought you wanted me, but the reality…And I…It would be too much. I’m not ready.’

  To deal with all of him? If not with the signs of his autism, with the emotional limits he carried that went far deeper than dealing with them?

  How could he expect her to be ready to deal with such obstacles when he didn’t know how to deal with them himself?

  Brent crushed the tie in his hand and let his tension focus on crushing the fabric over and over.

  And he searched her eyes one last time before he walked away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THEY worked. Interacted for the good of the company. Made progress on one project after another. Melded their ideas and their strengths and all they had to bring, combined, to the table.

  Winter weather closed in. Chill winds and grey skies and morning rain. Fiona dressed warmly and worked as the consummate professional and told herself she wasn’t unhappy, didn’t feel unfulfilled, didn’t need anything from Brent beyond their relationship as employer and employee.

  And she decided she simply was best off just being ‘everybody’s friend’, sticking to her known ground and not stepping beyond it where she couldn’t
feel safe.

  She was good at being a friend. She did great pet minding and pot plant watering and advice to the lovelorn.

  At that last thought, Fiona’s mouth pulled tight. Some advisor. She certainly couldn’t sort out her own issues. They were all still shuffling around in her head over and over.

  As for her relationship with her family, she’d made her decisions about that. It would always hurt that they didn’t accept her and love her for herself, but she could learn to be a step back from that hurt. She could protect herself.

  If she needed to do that, how could she expect Brent to do anything other than protect himself in his life as much as he felt was necessary?

  She rapped on the door of Brent’s home inside the warehouse and forced herself to draw some deep even breaths as she waited for him to answer.

  He wasn’t expecting her but she couldn’t do anything about that. The manila folder clenched in the fist of her left hand was proof of that. He’d left it in her car when they’d used it yesterday to attend an initial client discussion on site.

  The file the client had given them held photos that covered the history of the area and its landscaping back over a hundred years, and Brent had told her he planned to work on that project, from home, all day today.

  So…he needed the file.

  And she was fine about delivering it.

  Hand it over. Wish him a good day. Leave.

  It wasn’t her fault he hadn’t answered his phone. At least she’d managed to slip in as Alex was going out. As though in response to her first thought, Fiona’s phone beeped out a message and she drew it out of the bag slung over her shoulder.

  Brent might not have been at home, of course, but he’d said he would be and maybe he had his mobile turned off and had let the home phone battery go flat. His receptionist was always at him to hang his cordless phone at work back on its cradle, not leave it lying on his desk.