‘Try to remember that I’m your boss, Taylor.’ James spat the words at her knees.
‘Try to remember that I can sue you for manhandling me and for sexual harassment and for emotional distress...’
Riley squirmed and James tightened his arms across the back of her thighs and pinned her in place. What was happening here? Who was this person? James Moreau, usually cool and very controlled, must be losing his marbles because carting her around like this was very un-James-like behaviour.
Riley, realising that she had as much chance of surviving a nuclear explosion as she had of fighting James, stopped struggling and sighed when office doors opened and heads popped out to see who was screaming like a banshee. She guessed James had an expression like thunder because those faces disappeared as quickly as they had appeared and the office employees in the passage scuttled to get out of his way. Oh, yeah, this was going to spread through the building like wildfire.
James walked into his own office and kicked the door shut with his foot before dumping her onto the leather couch in the corner. Riley instantly sprang to her feet and launched herself at him, drilling her finger into his chest. ‘I don’t care who you think you are but you can’t just issue orders and then, when I don’t comply, toss me over your shoulder!’
God, she was still fighting him, James thought as he easily captured her wrists in one hand, twisted her around so that her back was to his front—and Mr Happy in his pants immediately sprang up in excited anticipation. And so it should, since this was the closest he had come to any action in far too many months and no, going solo didn’t count.
He really didn’t want to think about why the thought of bedding someone else left a sour taste in his mouth...every single time.
Riley stood immobile in his arms and, as he slid his other hand over her stomach and spread his fingers so that the tips rested just above her mound, a fine tremor skittered through her body. She went utterly still and under his fingers he could feel the rapid pulse in her wrists, could hear her uneven breathing.
She was so turned on.... Let’s see how much, he thought.
James pushed his hand under her shirt and he groaned when it encountered that silky skin of her flat stomach. He couldn’t help moving his hand further upwards so that he covered her breast and instantly her nipple bloomed into his palm. She was so responsive, her passion—and temper—was quick to flare. James, thinking that it was safe to release her hands, pulled her hair back and kissed that sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met. He felt her shudder and she sighed when her small hands moved back to grip his thighs.
‘Don’t, James,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’
He nuzzled his face into her hair. ‘I can’t help it.’
He strained to hear her words and, when he did, they felt like bullets to his soul. ‘Why do I only feel like this with you, the man who can’t give me anything more than explosive sex? A night here and there. It’s not fair...’
Unfortunately, she was right...
James felt the familiar shudder pound through his body and he stepped away, turning to his desk and wishing that it wasn’t too early for a belt of that bottle of twelve-year-old whisky in the cabinet next to the door. Riley, and his craving for her, could literally drive him to drink. He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked out of the window, ignoring the magnificent view of Manhattan, the icy drizzle outside echoing the temperature in his soul.
The only time it felt warmer was when he was talking to, holding, arguing with Riley. He’d missed her so damn much these past months. Missed her wide smile, her smart mouth, her pint-size body vibrating with energy. They’d never been friends, precisely—there was too much lust and passion buzzing around them for that—but he used to see a lot of her. At his parents’ house, at functions, most often at Morgan’s flat.
But not at all for far too long.
And he desperately wanted to make love to her again; his mouth went dry every time he remembered what they’d done to and with each other. It was ironic that the best sex he’d ever had was with a woman he’d known all his life.
Who would have imagined that?
Getting back to the problem at hand, Moreau. Oh, yeah...
James scrubbed his hands over his face and turned back to Riley, who was still standing where he’d left her, grey eyes enormous in her cute face. His mind finally left the bedroom and he remembered why he was so angry with her. ‘You just walk into my office, drop that bombshell on my head and leave without a friggin’ explanation? What the hell, Riley? You’re not going anywhere!’
Riley immediately pulled on her imaginary boxing gloves, lifting that stubborn chin as if offering him a chance to pop her on it. Why did he find her fighting spirit so attractive and why did she only ever fight with him? As far as he knew, she was perfectly pleasant to everyone else. Unless it was about her work, then she’d take on Genghis Khan and all his warriors to get her own way. And win. No one, including him, messed with her designs.
‘What did you say?’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ James stated, his voice now calm but his eyes hot.
He was fairly certain that the red in her hair intensified with temper. ‘How dare you, you simple-minded sack of Siberian snot? I’m a contracted employee and I am exercising my right not to renew that contract!’
James blinked at her creative insult. He’d heard a few from her over the past twenty years but that was a new one. And, he had to admit, a good one. ‘You’re exercising your right to be an irrational, crazy hothead!’ he retaliated. ‘Why do you want to leave, anyway? You love fiddling with the windows—’ He knew that that comment would inflame her even more but what the hell? In for a penny and all that.
‘Fiddling? That’s what you think I do?’ Oh, man, was that hurt he heard under the layer of vinegar? James gave himself a mental punch to the head. Why did he always say the wrong thing to her? He was generally quite together with women, except this one. With this one, he never knew what he was doing.
‘And maybe that’s another reason I should go. You don’t respect me or the work I do...you just give me grief about it,’ Riley yelled, her eyes now the colour of thunderclouds. Behind the pride he could see the pain, and frustration, in the depths of her soul and his anger receded. It killed him that he’d hurt her. No one should ever be allowed to hurt her, including him.
Time to rein this in, to haul back. The conversation was out of control, like so many other things between them. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Tell me why you are leaving.’
‘No.’ And there was her stubbornness. She could give lessons to a mule.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it won’t change anything.’
‘Tell me why or I’m going to do everything I can to make this as difficult for you as possible,’ James warned.
Riley’s nose lifted high enough to give her altitude sickness. ‘I’m not even going to dignify that stupid threat with a response but I will say that my Christmas windows will be installed next week, they’ll run through to the first week of January. The display for January is ready to be installed as soon as they come down—it’s simple and classic and my staff can put it up without my help. I intend to leave as soon as the Christmas windows are up. So, basically, at the end of next week.’
‘I do believe your contract runs to December thirty-first, Ms Taylor.’ Not that he had any intention of letting her leave—she was the most talented window designer in New York; he’d be a fool to let her go. Yeah, keep telling yourself that’s why you want her to stay; maybe you’ll begin to believe it...in a hundred years or so.
‘You’d keep me here, twiddling my thumbs for a whole month?’ Riley looked horrified. James smiled smugly; he knew that asking Riley to sit still and do nothing was torture. He didn’t mind a little torture when she was daring to leave him. Leave the job...t
he job. Not him. Get it straight, moron.
‘I’ll do whatever I damn well have to. Tell me why.’
Riley stalked up to him, stood on tiptoe and put her face as close to his as she could get it. James looked at her mouth and wished that she was about to kiss him but he knew her too well to assume that.
‘I am leaving. Deal with it.’
‘Over my dead body!’ James shouted as she headed out of his office.
At the door Riley stopped and sent him a cold, sharp smile. ‘That can be arranged...’
* * *
STORMING BACK TOWARDS the lift, Riley punched buttons on her mobile and slapped it to her ear. Ignoring the curious looks of her colleagues, she silently urged Morgan to answer her call.
It didn’t matter that Morgan was James’s sister; she could speak to her about anything, including what an utter ass her brother could be. As she and Morgan had been friends since their childhood, they’d had a lot of conversations about his ass-like qualities.
Morgan’s mobile went to voicemail and Riley left a message. ‘Answer your phone, dammit! Your brother is the biggest jerk this side of the Atlantic. You will not believe what he’s just said to me—’
Beeeeeeeeeepppppppp.
Riley cursed and pushed redial. She’d been eight when she’d first met him; as he was five years older than her she’d had a lifetime of watching women fall at his feet. He’d play with them, get bored and then move on. Pretty girls, smart girls, outgoing girls—he never stuck to any of them. Okay, in fairness, he’d kept Liz around for a while, and no one knew why they’d broken up, but afterwards James had just thrown himself back into his ‘bag ’em, tag ’em and toss ’em’ routine.
‘As I was saying, James drives me freakin’ insane. Do you know that he called my art “fiddling”? Fiddling, Morgs? I nearly ripped his head off that strong, muscly neck...’
Beeeeeeeep.
Riley considered throwing her mobile against the wall; instead, she stepped into a blessedly empty lift and pushed the green phone icon again and waited as it dialled. James’s lack of commitment had always made her wary of him, scared of allowing herself to fall all the way in love with him.
‘This is Morgan. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’
It took Riley a moment to realise why the lift wasn’t going up and she furiously jabbed a finger on the button for the top floor. ‘He has no respect for what I do, my work or my art,’ she continued into the phone. ‘And I hate the fact that I just see him and I want to get him naked.... I’m sorry, I know you don’t think your brother is sexy, but he is. Gorgeous but such a jerk!’
In hindsight, that had been the main reason why she’d walked away at nineteen. There were other reasons but mainly she’d been terrified to become too involved with him—to run the risk of him becoming bored with her. She’d always known that loving and losing James would be the emotional equivalent of being disembowelled with a butter knife and she doubted she would ever recover. Anyway, that was beside the point, seeing that he no longer had any interest in a relationship with her.
He had once and she’d let him slip away. Right man, but too young and too dumb to realise that you didn’t get second chances.
Message finally received, Universe.
‘This is Morgan. Please leave a message...’
Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
‘I am on my way up to see you and you’d better be there! I’m having a meltdown here!’
Riley rested her head against the cool metal of the lift panel and stared at her feet. It would be okay, she told herself. She had years of savings behind her and those dollars allowed her the freedom of options. When she returned to Cape Town she would go back to designing windows, do some graphic design, teach art and pottery, maybe run something similar to the inner city art programme she’d been helping with recently as a way to fill up her time.
She’d do something different to feel a little less lost, not so alone.
When she stepped out of the lift at the top floor, Morgan stood there waiting for her, a cup of coffee and a chocolate bar in her hand.
Riley reached for both with vigour. ‘Did you listen to my messages?’
Morgan shook her head. ‘Four calls in two minutes signalled a crisis; I knew you were on your way up.’ She gestured to her studio. ‘Come in and tell me what my idiot brother has done now.’
CHAPTER TWO
SHE’D DONE IT...
Riley watched her guests step into the lift of her apartment building and smiled in relief at Hannah and Jedd’s loving faces. Morgan winked at her as she dropped her head onto Noah’s broad shoulder and she blew her a kiss just before the lift doors closed.
With Morgan’s encouragement, she’d had the Moreaus over for dinner in her loft apartment, had served them calamari risotto and explained that she was in a rut, that she needed to leave Moreau’s and explore her options.
As if she were their child, and she was in so many ways, they’d prodded and poked, interrogated her motivations, discussed her reasoning and then given her their blessing. As Morgan had predicted, they just wanted her to be happy. If leaving meant her being happy then they could live with losing their window designer.
Riley turned to walk down the landing back to her apartment. She was almost at her door when she heard footsteps on the flight of stairs just around the corner from her front door. She peeked around the corner to see James jogging up the stairs—he rarely used a lift—and instantly clocked his furious face, his tense shoulders and the muscle ticking in his jaw.
Riley winced as she noticed his flashing green eyes. He stopped at the top of the stairs and slapped his hand on his hips, lifting his head at her open front door. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Nope, you’re not bringing all that angry energy into my home. We’ll stay outside,’ she ordered. Not that she really believed in all that stuff, but if he came across her doorway she knew that she would strip him naked and do him on her couch, her yellow wingback chair, on her wooden floor...
She was nuts. Horny and nuts. A dangerous combination.
‘Inside, Riley.’
‘Not going to happen.’ Riley shook her head a couple of times and folded her arms.
James hauled in a breath, looked at the ceiling and sighed. ‘Okay, let’s do it the hard way then.’
Using his superior strength against her, he looped an arm around her waist and picked her up and walked her into the apartment as easily as if he were carrying a sack of potatoes. Dammit! He was seriously starting to annoy her with this carrying her around kick he was on.
‘Stop lugging me around!’
‘Stop being a brat.’ James dumped Riley on her purple-and-white-checked couch and loomed over her, his hands back on his hips. ‘Why did you tell my family that you were resigning when we hadn’t finished discussing it?’
Discussing it? Really? That was stretching the truth...
Riley blew her fringe out of her eyes and silently cursed James’s mum. Just after she’d told the Moreaus and Noah that she was leaving, Hannah had excused herself to go to the bathroom, AKA rat on Riley. She loved her second mum but right now she could strangle her.
‘I don’t need to discuss it; you’re the one who is harping on about it!’ Riley retorted, scuttling past him to head for her kitchen. ‘I’m going to make coffee; do you want one?’
‘I’ll have some of that whisky you keep on hand for Noah,’ James replied, following her across the room. Leaning a shoulder into the wall, he took the glass of whisky Riley handed him. She could feel his eyes on her back while she fiddled with the coffee machine.
‘What did you tell my parents, Riley?’
‘That I needed a change, to do something different.’
‘Is that the truth?’
‘It’s as good as any,’ Riley retorted.
She hadn’t told them that she missed Morgan’s companionship now that she was engaged and in love. That without her, and without having any contact with him, her life was duller, lonelier, that she felt distant and separated from this family who she no longer felt a part of.
That she felt compelled to move the heck on.
‘So, not the full truth. Riley, we’ve always been honest with each other; you’re the one person in my life who has always been unflinchingly truthful.’
‘Stop badgering me, James. I’m just trying to...redesign my life.’
‘What are you talking about? You don’t need a new life!’
Did he actually hear the words that came out of his mouth? Riley wondered. And how dare he say that when all he could give her was a one-night stand three times?
‘I won’t understand if you don’t explain your crazy impulse to me!’ James snapped and she heard the frustration in his voice. Riley opened her mouth to speak and abruptly closed it again. What could she say to him? Would he even understand any of what she wanted to say?
Will you listen, James—really listen? If I say that I have always adored you but I can’t be in the same city as you and not talk to you? That I am so damn scared I’ll fall in love with you, even though I know that a part of me loves you anyway? That walking away from this half-life is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life? That I am terrified to go but even more scared to stay?
Riley sighed, pushed the coffee cup away and took the easy option, swallowing the words she’d been thinking. ‘Just let me go, James.’
James shook his stubborn head. ‘No. You’re staying until the end of the year and I’d keep you longer but you’ll probably have me arrested on kidnapping charges.’
‘Damn right I will.’
James ignored her. ‘I expect you to be at work every day until then.’
‘What am I going to do?’ Riley wailed. ‘My staff are all on holiday and it’s a deadly quiet time—’
Christmas With a Billionaire: Billionaire Under the MistletoeSnowed in With Her BossA Diamond for Christmas Page 18
