Beware of the Boss

by Leah Ashton

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘I have no idea what you’re referring to.’

  ‘Don’t play dumb. We both know what I mean.’

  ‘And we’ve both been playing dumb very successfully, I thought,’ she replied. Her attention flipped back to the tablet screen. ‘So—’

  This time Gray stood up, and Lanie went silent as he stepped around to her side of the desk.

  ‘We need to talk about this.’ He followed her lead and met her gaze—as if it really wasn’t all that hard to be having this conversation. And as if his brain wasn’t unhelpfully supplying unlimited memories of exactly how good Lanie had looked with her hair slicked back in the middle of the ocean.

  Ha.

  ‘Look, I’m not going to launch some sexual harassment suit, or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. It was a mutual thing.’

  The idea hadn’t even occurred to him—although of course it should have.

  What was wrong with him?

  ‘No, that’s not it. I just wanted to—’ He searched for the right words. ‘Clear the air.’

  Well, that was lame.

  ‘There’s no need,’ Lanie said. ‘Don’t stress. I haven’t picked out a wedding dress or anything—I know it was a one-off, random thing. Two people travelling together, an exotic location...’ She shrugged. ‘It was a mistake. I get it. I know you’d never be interested in me in that way...blah, blah, blah...and there’s the whole you being my boss issue...’

  Her gaze had shifted now, to a spot just over his shoulder.

  His instinct was to correct her. What did she mean she knew he’d never be interested ‘in her that way’?

  She said it with such certainty—as if she truly believed that he would have kissed any random work colleague he’d been with that night.

  The opposite was true.

  ‘Lanie—’ he began, then made himself stop.

  What was he going to say? That in fact, yes, of course he was interested in her in that way?

  Was he really? She was nothing like the women he usually dated. She didn’t look like them, and she certainly didn’t act like them.

  And besides—what would be the point? He couldn’t afford a distraction right now.

  He remembered how she’d looked in the market, when he’d questioned her about why she was working for him and what she really wanted.

  Her pain and frustration had been crystal-clear—and he hadn’t believed her for a second when she’d spoken of downgrading her dreams. As if she’d accepted that fate.

  She hadn’t. She was still processing the death of her dream.

  She didn’t need a guy like him to come along and hurt her some more.

  So, after far too long, he didn’t say anything at all.

  ‘Good!’ Lanie said, all faux-cheerfully. ‘Glad that’s sorted. Now—can we work out this meeting?’

  * * *

  ‘So!’ Teagan said over the top of her hot chocolate. ‘How was Vietnam?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Lanie said with a smile. ‘Fantastic beaches, and Hoi An town is amazing. I’d love to go back one day.’

  There. Well-rehearsed and executed, Lanie thought.

  A waiter placed an oversized slice of carrot cake between them. They’d met at a café near Teagan’s place in Claremont, just beside one of the area’s trendy shopping districts. Outside, people flowed past in a steady stream, expensive-looking shopping bags swinging from their fingertips.

  ‘And how was your prickly boss? I can’t imagine he’d be much fun to travel with.’

  ‘Actually,’ Lanie said, ‘he wasn’t so bad.’

  That wasn’t quite to script. She’d intended to say he’d been as difficult as usual—and as he had, in fact, provided a few decent grumpy-Gray anecdotes she even had sufficient material to back that up.

  She’d figured it couldn’t hurt—Teagan didn’t know Gray. What harm would it do to perpetuate the idea that he was the boss from hell?

  ‘Really?’ Teagan said, looking disappointed. ‘Damn. I was imagining you wearing one of those pointy hats, cycling around Vietnam searching for the perfect triple shot latte or something else equally unreasonable.’

  ‘That’s very specific,’ Lanie said, and Teagan grinned. ‘But, no. Honestly, he’s not so bad.’

  Teagan’s eyes widened instantly. ‘Pardon me? Is this the same guy?’

  Lanie knew she should stop the conversation, but just couldn’t do it. ‘I don’t know. He was almost nice while we were away. Seemed to want to get to know me better.’

  He’d been more than nice, actually.

  ‘You mean like a real-life normal person?’ Teagan said with a grin. ‘Wow. Amazing.’

  And then the conversation turned to the famous Hoi An tailors, and Gray—at least from Teagan’s point of view—was forgotten.

  Unfortunately for Lanie it wasn’t so easy to move on.

  Part of her—a huge part of her, actually—wanted to blurt it all out. She wanted to walk Teagan through her weekend blow-by-blow, so that together they could analyse what on earth had actually happened.

  It was what she and Teagan normally did. In fact they’d just deconstructed her friend’s latest date.

  It didn’t feel right not to tell her—but she just couldn’t do it. It was hard to tell with Teagan. She’d respond one of two ways: either she’d be really concerned—both about Lanie and Lanie’s job—or she’d go right to the other end of the spectrum and tell her to go for it.

  And, given her conversation with Gray today, neither scenario was relevant.

  It was—as she’d said—sorted. Over. There was nothing to analyse: quite simply it had been a one-off that was never to be repeated.

  A mistake.

  ‘Sienna was in Lipstick magazine this week—did you see?’ Teagan asked.

  Lanie nodded. ‘With that rower in Paris, wasn’t she? She looked really happy.’

  She’d looked beautiful, in fact, with her new boyfriend in posed photographs taken all over the French countryside. Blissfully happy in a vintage convertible. Effortlessly gorgeous on a picnic blanket beside a picture-book lake.

  ‘When does she come home?’

  Lanie did the maths in her head. ‘In a few weeks. She’s meeting Mum in Dubai and they’re flying home together.’

  Teagan pulled a face. ‘So you get them both at once? Lucky you.’

  She had to laugh. ‘It won’t be so bad.’

  ‘Is that what you’re telling yourself?’

  ‘It helps,’ she said, grinning. ‘And I can’t move out, so I don’t exactly have a choice.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Lanie swirled the remnants of her cappuccino in the base of her coffee cup. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m going to go back to uni. Finish that degree.’

  ‘Really?’ Teagan all but clapped her hands with enthusiasm. ‘That’s wonderful!’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I really in that much of a rut?’

  ‘Yes,’ Teagan said seriously, then clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Well, you know what I mean. This current job is okay, but it doesn’t really fit you, you know?’

  ‘But it’s a similar job to yours.’

  Teagan waved her hands dismissively. ‘My temping jobs are about raising cash for my Grand Adventure.’

  Teagan always referenced her planned year-long trip around the world as if it were capitalised.

  ‘They’re just a means to an end.’

  ‘But why can’t I have that?’ Lanie asked. ‘Why does everyone—’ She stopped, correcting herself. Now was not the time to think about Gray again. ‘Why are you so sure I should be doing something else?’

  ‘Because you’re the most driven, most focussed, most determined person I know. Do you think an average person would’
ve kept on swimming, kept on believing, when their baby sister came through and did it all so easily? That takes guts, Lanie.’

  ‘Or stupidity.’

  Teagan glared at her.

  But, honestly, sometimes Lanie did wonder.

  * * *

  The next morning Lanie went for a swim.

  It was still colder than it had been in Vietnam, so she wore her wetsuit. The truly dedicated ocean swimmers simply wore their bathers, but while Lanie admired their dedication she wasn’t about to give it a go.

  Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.

  Just as she had in the South China Sea, she let her mind drift.

  Should she go back to uni? Or continue to work full-time? Maybe even finally make use of the deposit she’d been so carefully accumulating and get her own place?

  Was any of that what she wanted?

  Gray’s question had echoed within her skull all week. ‘What do you want, Lanie?’

  Now she let herself acknowledge her answer to that question: she didn’t know.

  And that was terrifying.

  Today, certainly, she didn’t have an answer. So instead she just did what she knew: she swam.

  Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.

  She lost track of the number of laps she’d done along the beach—she just swam until her shoulders ached and her legs were no longer capable of kicking.

  Knee-deep in the shallows as she headed for the shore, a familiar splash of red came barrelling towards her.

  ‘Luther!’

  The dog leapt about excitedly in the water, running up close to Lanie and then running away back to the shore, as if to show her the way to go.

  Unfortunately it was Gray who stood on the sand and who Luther kept returning to.

  So her original plan to ignore Gray should she see him down here—after all, it wasn’t as if he’d notice her—was not exactly going to work.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, coming to a stop in front of him. She tugged her goggles off over her swim-cap and swung them absently against her wet-suited thigh.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  He was looking straight at her—right into her eyes.

  A part of her—a big part—was horribly aware that she wore no make-up, that she definitely had the imprint of her goggles still encircling her eyes and that no one looked good in a swim-cap. Meanwhile Gray, with his hair ruffled all over the place by a swift breeze, and in running shorts and a T-shirt soaked with sweat, still managed to look gorgeous.

  It was incredibly annoying, and maybe that was the reason for the sharpness in her tone. ‘So you’ve bothered to notice me today?’

  Oh, no.

  It was supposed to be a teasing joke, but it so, so wasn’t. She’d sounded hurt. Upset. Not at all like a woman who’d completely moved on.

  ‘I don’t know how I ever didn’t notice you before,’ he said.

  His words were low and...intimate.

  The way they immediately made her feel—the way they made her body react—didn’t help her mood. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I am a bit of a giant woman, aren’t I? Difficult to miss.’

  She pivoted on her heel, spotting her towel a few metres to the left of Gray.

  ‘That isn’t what I meant at all,’ he said, following her. ‘And you know it.’

  She snatched up her towel and then realised this was generally the point when she’d unzip the top half of her wetsuit. Briefly she considered not doing so—but then, what did she care what Gray thought?

  As casually as she could she unzipped her top, peeling it down to her waist. She’d worn her new violet bikini today, and strongly wished she hadn’t.

  She didn’t bother responding to his last comment. She didn’t fully understand her frustration—in fact she had no idea why she was standing here so wound up with tension.

  Why was she angry at Gray?

  She glanced at Gray, meaning to say something—something about not being at her best this early in the morning, maybe—when the way he was looking at her stole the words from her throat.

  He was most definitely checking her out. And she was almost one hundred percent certain that he liked what he saw. The intensity of his attention—of his appreciation—was like a physical touch against her skin, warm and tingling. It skimmed across her from her hips, where the wetsuit hung low, to the indent of her waist and upwards, over the smallish curves of her breasts.

  And finally to her face.

  His gaze locked with hers, and she saw that he knew that she knew what he’d been doing.

  He shrugged without even the hint of an apology. ‘I have no idea how I ever didn’t notice you, Lanie Smith.’

  Then he turned and with Luther trotting obediently beside him walked away.

  ‘See you at work,’ he called out, and the words were whipped away by the breeze.

  ELEVEN

  The next morning, when Gray ran with Luther along North Cottesloe beach, Lanie was there again.

  As he ran he’d occasionally search for her in the water—looking for the rhythmic splash of her kicks and the elegant way her arms sliced through the water.

  When she emerged from the ocean Luther spotted her immediately and sprinted across the sand and through the water to get to her as quickly as possible. Gray couldn’t have stopped him, anyway—but he didn’t even try. Instead he followed in Luther’s footsteps, meeting Lanie just as she stepped across the line where the sand switched abruptly from soaked and grey to almost blindingly pristine dry and white.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  Gray wasn’t sure what to expect. Yesterday at work she’d done her ultra-professional thing and it had been as if they were seeing each other for the first time that day.

  Definitely not as if he’d all but imprinted the image of Lanie in that amazing bikini onto his brain.

  ‘Hi,’ Lanie said eventually—quite softly, as if she wasn’t really sure talking to him was that good an idea.

  He knew how she felt.

  ‘I received an e-mail late last night from Raquel,’ he said. ‘She wants one of the three-bedroom villas.’

  He’d planned to tell her at work, not here, but the words had burst out.

  Lanie’s face broke into a wide, genuine smile. ‘That’s fantastic!’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said as they walked to her towel. ‘A big relief, too.’

  He hadn’t understood how much until right this moment. And Lanie got that too. She knew how important this deal was to him, and pleasure in his success was reflected in her expression.

  After Lanie had stripped out of her wetsuit—she wore her one-piece bathers today, Gray noted with some disappointment—she towelled off and pulled on a tracksuit. Together they walked up the beach to the street. Gray had Luther sit while he reattached his lead to the dog’s collar and he saw Lanie wave to someone. He followed her gaze to the tired-looking beach café—empty this early in the morning—and the man with the shock of white hair who was waving back to Lanie as he wiped down a table.

  ‘Bob’s my biggest fan,’ Lanie said, then grinned. ‘Quite possibly my only fan, actually.’

  And then, together, they walked up the road, talking about the new deal—until Lanie turned up her street and Gray and Luther kept on walking along the parade.

  ‘See you at work,’ Lanie said.

  But at work the beach was never mentioned.

  * * *

  ‘My dad’s new wife dropped by last night,’ Gray said as they walked along the beach the next day.

  Lanie hadn’t been surprised to see Gray waiting for her on the shore when she’d emerged from the ocean. She didn’t understand why he was, but she did know seeing him watching her walk through the waves made her smile. A
nd for now that would have to do, because she’d discovered that thinking about Gray—about any of this—was far too confusing. She didn’t understand it, and certainly didn’t understand Gray.

  Today their conversation had been about not much—a bit about work, but mostly nothing too important or serious—and they’d both gradually relaxed. But Gray’s tone had shifted at the mention of his father.

  ‘New wife?’

  Gray nodded. ‘Number seven.’

  ‘Seven! Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’m the only one—the result of marriage number two. It was the longest my father remained married—almost three years, actually.’

  ‘Are you close to your mum?’ Lanie asked.

  ‘We’re in touch occasionally, but we’re not close. My dad was really my primary carer as I grew up. He was great—very hands-on—and he’d often drag me with him to work rather than hiring a nanny or sending me to childcare. Mum went back to Sydney, where she’s from, after they split, although I saw her on school holidays.’

  ‘When you were—what? Three?’ Lanie asked, incredulous.

  ‘Two,’ Gray confirmed. ‘As I said, we’re not close.’

  Lanie nodded, but was unable to imagine a mother walking away from a child that young. For all her own mother’s flaws, Lanie knew her mum loved her.

  But then she guessed her father had done exactly the same thing just a few years later.

  ‘My dad worked away,’ Lanie said. ‘And then left for good when I was eleven. He didn’t even bother to stay in touch.’

  Gray slowed down his pace just a little as he turned to her. ‘So you don’t see him at all?’

  ‘Not once since he left.’

  The words were matter-of-fact, but it irritated Lanie that she still felt a faint kick in the guts as she spoke. Her dad wasn’t worth worrying about, and certainly not worthy of any remnants of hurt and regret.

  ‘That sucks.’

  Lanie shrugged. ‘Hey, at least he gave me these shoulders,’ she said, with a grin that she only had to force a little. ‘So, the new wife came over...?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Gray rubbed his forehead. ‘I don’t get it. It happens every time. These women inexplicably feel the need to connect with me. To know me. When I know it’s a total waste of time. This one will be gone in a year—guaranteed.’