thing was for sure: he was going to be in control.
‘Blake?’ He heard his PA’s soft voice and when he looked at her he realised it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get his attention.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ She looked worried.
‘No.’ He summoned a slight grin. ‘Thanks. Head home and rest up. I’ll handle things here.’
‘It’s a few hours off home time, but I’ll leave you in peace and find something to do.’ She gave him a look but said nothing further, reminding him why he’d given her that rise. Then she stood and made for the door.
‘Judith?’ She turned to look at him. ‘I don’t need to remind you about discretion, do I?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
CALLY slothed on the sofa in her favourite raggedy robe and kept pressing the button on the remote. Finally she stopped on a cooking channel, only to press it again when she saw they were doing awful things with offal. She was in such a state of shock she couldn’t focus on her computer, or a book, she’d be best off with a lame comedy, complete with cues telling her when to laugh. Ten minutes later she couldn’t have told anyone a thing about the show screening. She was kidding herself she was calming down when inside her head there were at least five hamsters competing on treadmills with bells and whistles attached.
The hammering on the door startled her. She heaved herself up, head spinning, made her way to the door and peeked through the peephole.
Damn.
‘Open up. I know you’re in there, Cally.’
Hell, her insides were going mush-tastic. Her silly heart let out a squeal. Her lower belly began to soften like liquid honey. But her head hit the panic button. She’d fob him off for now. Deal with him when she was on better form. She pasted a smile on and opened the door. ‘Blake, what a surprise.’
He too wore a smile but its edges were sharper than a porcupine spike. ‘You didn’t get my message?’
‘What message was that?’
He held up a couple of grocery bags. ‘That I’d be doing dinner tonight.’
‘Umm …’ Stunned, she tried to think. Message? What message? When message? How message? He was here to do dinner? Half thrilled, half terrified, totally hungry and utterly too late, she went to decline, polite platitudes finally finding their way to her brain.
He’d already pushed past and was disappearing down the hall. She had nothing else to do but shut the door and follow him. He’d gone straight to her kitchen and was unpacking the contents of the bags onto the island bench. Unsure of what to say she looked at the label on the bottle of wine, brows lifting when she saw the vintage. She glanced up and found him studying her sardonically.
‘Why so surprised? I’m not cheap, Calypso, as well you know.’
Her ears pricked. ‘Since when do you call me Calypso? How do you know my name is Calypso?’
He took the bottle and lazily started uncorking it. ‘Shall we let it breathe a while?’
She said nothing, just kept her stare up, eyebrows still sky high.
The cork came out with a small, satisfying pop. ‘I had you investigated.’
‘You what?’
‘Not by a private eye. I wanted to find out more about you. So I got my PA to dig round.’
‘Around what—me or my business?’
‘Your company initially, but, as you are your company, a bit came up about you too—nothing terribly exciting save the odd rumour. And as you haven’t been around to ask I got her to—’ He broke off. ‘Where’ve you been these last few weeks, Cally? Not at work?’
‘I haven’t been well.’
‘Oh?’ He skimmed over her robe. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
She ignored the obvious question. ‘What rumour? About the company? Food isn’t your business. Money is.’
‘Your food makes money. You’ve got a solid performer there.’
‘Don’t try to flatter me. What’s your interest?’
He turned his attention to the bag again, lifted out various-sized containers.
‘Calypso.’ He mused. ‘Calypso—the concealer. Did you know your name meant that? Got anything you’re concealing, Cally?’
‘It’s the name my airhead mother gave me because she wanted something different. I think I’m lucky really. It could have been a lot worse.’
‘Hmm. Seems appropriate to me.’
What did he mean by that? She didn’t get the chance to ask because he was talking again and she was so surprised to see him all she could do was stare.
‘So, have a glass of wine with me. I’ve got some other delicacies.’
She watched with horror as he poured two glasses full of the deep red wine and then pulled the lid off a tub of marinated mussels. Shellfish. She shouldn’t have shellfish. Then he lifted out a creamy camembert so ripe the smell had her gagging.
Quickly she went to the sink and ran a glass of water. Knowing she had to take small sips. Just small or she’d lose it all.
He’d fallen silent, not drinking, not laying out the nibbles, not eating, just watching her with intense focus.
‘I’m not really feeling like wine tonight,’ she started babbling. ‘Not that hungry, actually. Would you mind if we postponed this? I’m afraid I didn’t get your message.’
‘I thought it would be a nice surprise.’ He placed the glasses across from each other on the centre island. ‘Don’t you like surprises?’ He ripped the lid off another container. ‘I don’t much like them either. And I don’t want to postpone this. In fact …’ he stopped moving altogether and simply stared at her—hard ‘… I think we need to have that chat we didn’t have a few weeks ago.’
She just needed to keep breathing, she thought desperately as she heard the steel behind his words. Whatever it was he wanted to talk about, he wasn’t going away. Defensive, guilty, she tried to rouse anger that he’d had someone pry into her life. ‘I can’t believe you had me investigated.’
His body tensed. ‘Nothing that isn’t readily available. Company records, newspaper articles, financial accounts. You come from interesting stock, Cally. It wasn’t hard to find out about you. But, honestly, it wasn’t that helpful. I already know things about you that not many others could possibly know. I don’t need an investigator to know you intimately.’ His voice lowered and his eyes were like lasers. ‘I already know how you want it, what you like me to do, how you sound when I do it.’
The reaction in her body was immediate and she ran her fingers across her forehead, obscuring her face so he wouldn’t see it. The heat fevered her mind and the temptation to slip
