to the inferno of their kiss. He had deepened it, and as though she was outside of her body she heard herself moan.
Her hands slid through his hair and she loved the feel of it through her fingers. Before she knew it he’d pressed her against the bookcase, so that her body was aligned with his. She shuddered at the feel of him against her, and moaned again when he trailed kisses down her neck. She pulled at his shirt and then, with frustration, when she couldn’t find his skin fumbled with his buttons. Just as she’d thought, muscles rippled across his chest when the shirt was finally opened and she greedily took them in.
And then froze when his hand slid up her thigh and settled at the base of her underwear.
‘Blake...’ she rasped, her breath still caught by their passion, ‘Blake, we can’t.’
His lips stilled at her collarbone, and she could hear that he was just as affected by what was happening between them. He lifted his head and looked at her, and something on her face had him nodding and moving back. She stayed where she was, afraid that her legs wouldn’t work if she tried to move.
In the shadowed light from the window he looked amazing, his shirt undone and his abs ripped, just as she’d felt them a few moments before. She wished she could do this, she thought as she took him in. She wished that she hadn’t stopped and that they could let their desires control them. But that would only get her more of the hurt she already felt when she was with him.
‘I forgive you. For this,’ she said breathlessly. ‘But I can’t do this with you.’
She straightened her dress, picked up the handbag and jacket that she had thrown across the room in her haste to get to her brother. And then she took the minute she needed to organise her thoughts.
‘You may have convinced yourself that taking me out on your father’s boat was an employee benefit for a job well done, but you can’t claim that this—’ she gestured between them ‘—is how employees and their employers behave with one another.’
‘You’re right, it isn’t.’
She hadn’t noticed that he’d fastened his buttons again. A faint wave a disappointment threaded through her.
‘Callie, I meant it when I said I was sorry about earlier.’ He braced himself against Connor’s desk. ‘You didn’t deserve that.’
‘No, I did,’ she said, and ignored the surprise on his face. ‘I deserved it for believing that letting someone in would do me any good.’
He looked up at her, and something had him moving towards her.
‘No—stop.’ She held up a hand. ‘We’ve already let this go too far.’ She sighed, wishing she could pull her hair out. Anything that would make her feel better about what she was going to say. ‘Blake, your ex-wife clearly hurt you. And you’ll never really let me in because of that. So, for both of our sakes, I think we should just pretend this never happened.’
‘The kiss?’ he asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
‘Everything. Every single thing that’s happened between us that shouldn’t have happened between a boss and an employee.’
He didn’t say anything, and she took that as agreement.
But as she left the office her heart ached at the thought of forgetting what they’d shared.
‘I THINK WE should just pretend this never happened.’
Blake welcomed the cold water on his heated and fatigued body. He knew that at some point hot water would be needed to soothe his screaming muscles, but for now the cold took away the pain his two-hour gym session had yielded.
‘I think we should just pretend this never happened.’
What it failed to do was wash away the memories of the previous evening. The memories of him acting completely out of character.
Completely out of control.
He’d tossed and turned the entire night, so despite the incredibly long day he’d had, and despite how tired he’d been, he hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep. Which was why he had instead, at four in the morning, made use of his home gym.
He adjusted the water when he felt the cold down to his bones, and closed his eyes as heat pounded against his body. He had probably pushed himself too far, he thought. And he knew he would pay for it the entire day. Hell, probably for the entire week. But it had kept his thoughts off the mess he had made. For a few hours, at least, he thought, when his mind yet again looped back to the single thing he couldn’t stop thinking about.
‘I think we should just pretend this never happened.’
He wished he could. He wished he could pretend he hadn’t spent the day watching her work. He wished he hadn’t noticed how well she had done—how she had taken an unimaginable scenario and turned it into what he was almost certain would be a victory for Elegance. More than anything, he wished he hadn’t given in to the impulse of taking her onto his boat.
Yet that wasn’t the reason why her words had haunted him from the moment she’d said them. Because, as much as he wished he could pretend everything that had happened between them hadn’t happened, he couldn’t—for one simple reason:
He didn’t want to.
He turned the water off and towelled himself dry. He knew the moment Callie had started asking him about his mother that her line of questioning wouldn’t be easy for him. He didn’t talk about his mother to anyone—he hadn’t even mentioned her to Julia—and yet he’d told Callie about her the day they’d had supper after their tour. When he had barely known her.
He had convinced himself that it had just been to comfort Callie, after he’d figured out that her parents had died—especially since she hadn’t offered the information freely. But it hadn’t taken him long to realise that it had also been because he’d felt comfortable with her. And, if he was honest with himself, that was part of the reason he had insisted on maintaining a professional relationship with her.
If he was comfortable enough to share his most hidden memory with her, it wouldn’t take long before she lodged herself in his heart. And then she would be able to hurt him. And if his instincts weren’t wrong—as they’d been before—and she’d fallen for him, he’d be able to hurt her, too.
As he began dressing for work he thought about his mother for the first time in years. She had disappointed him.
He had watched her pack her bags into the car, and then she’d knelt in front of him and said, ‘I’m sorry, Blake. I hope one day you can understand that I couldn’t do this. This life was never for me.’
She’d kissed him on the forehead and driven away, and he had watched the car fade into the distance.
He couldn’t remember feeling more helpless—or more heartbroken—than at that moment when he was eleven and his mother had left. He didn’t know if it mattered to him now that it had been the last time he had seen her or the last time he had known some semblance of a normal family life. But what he did know was that he had vowed
