‘NO.’
‘Give me three good reasons and maybe I’ll let you get away with that response.’
Sophie stared at Javier, body language saying it all as she supported herself on her desk, palms flattened on the highly polished surface, torso tilted towards him in angry refusal.
True to his word, he had more or less taken up residence in the premises in Notting Hill.
He wasn’t there all the time. That would actually have been far easier for her to deal with. No, he breezed in and out. Sometimes she would arrive at eight-thirty to find him installed at the desk which he had claimed as his own, hard at it, there since the break of dawn and with a list of demands that had her on her feet running at full tilt for the remainder of the day.
Other times he might show up mid-afternoon and content himself with checking a couple of things with members of staff before vanishing, barely giving her a second glance.
And there had been days when he hadn’t shown up at all and there had been no communication from him.
After six weeks, Sophie felt as though she had been tossed in a tumble dryer with the speed turned to high. She had been miserable, uncertain and fearful when she had had to deal with the horrendous financial mess into which she had been plunged. After her marriage, that had just felt like a continuation of a state of mind that had become more or less natural to her.
Now, though...
She was none of those things. She was a high-wire walker, with excitement and trepidation fighting for dominance. She leapt out of bed every morning with a treacherous sense of anticipation. Her pulses raced every time she took a deep breath and entered the office. Her blood pressure soared when she glanced to the door and saw him stride in. Her heart sang when she saw him stationed at his desk first thing, with his cup of already tepid black coffee on the desk in front of him.
Life was suddenly in technicolor and it scared the living daylights out of her. It had become obvious that she’d never got him out of her system and she seemed to have no immunity against the staggering force of his impact on all her senses. Her heart might be locked away behind walls of ice but her body clearly wasn’t.
‘I don’t have to give you any reasons, Javier.’ She was the last man standing and had been about to leave the office at a little after six when Javier had swanned in and stopped her in the act of putting on her jacket.
‘Quick word,’ he had said, in that way he had of presuming that there would be no argument. He’d then proceeded to lounge back in his chair, gesturing for her to drop what she was doing and take the seat facing him across his desk.
That had been half an hour ago.
‘You do, really.’ He looked at her lazily. Despite the fact that the largely young staff all dressed informally, Sophie had stuck it out with her prissy work outfits, which ranged from drab grey skirts and neat white blouses to drab black skirts and neat white blouses, all worn with the same flat black pumps. The ravishing hair which he had glimpsed on the one occasion when he had surprised her weeks ago at the apartment had gone back into hiding. Woe betide she actually released it from captivity between the hours of eight-thirty and five-thirty!
‘Why?’
‘Because I think it would work.’
‘And of course, because you think it would work, means I have to agree and go along with it!’
‘How many of the programmes that I’ve set in motion over the past couple of months have failed?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Any? No. Is the company seeing the start of a turnaround? Yes. Have the sales team been reporting gains? Yes.’ He folded his hands behind his head and looked at her evenly. ‘Ergo, this idea makes sense and will generate valuable sales.’
‘But I’m not a model, Javier!’
‘That’s the point, Sophie. You’re the face of your company. Putting your image on billboards and in advertising campaigns will personalise the company—half the battle in wooing potential customers is making them feel as though they’re relating to something more than just a name and a brand.’
She stared at him mutinously and he gazed calmly back at her.
The waiting game was taking longer than he had anticipated and he was finding that he was in no rush to speed things up. He was enjoying her. He was enjoying the way she made him feel and it wasn’t just the reaction of his body to her. No, he realised that the years of having whatever he wanted and whoever he chose had jaded him. This blast from the past was...rejuvenating. And who didn’t like a spot of rejuvenation in their lives? Of course, he would have to hurry things along eventually, because bed was the conclusion to the exercise before normal service was resumed and he returned to the life from which he had been taking a little holiday.
But for the moment...
He really liked the way she blushed. He could almost forget that she was the scheming young girl who had played him for an idiot.
‘So we just need to talk about the details. And stop glaring. I thought all women liked to show off their bodies.’
Sophie glared. ‘Really, Javier? You really think that?’
‘Who wouldn’t like to be asked to model?’
‘Is that the message you’ve got from...from the women you’ve been out with?’
Javier looked at her narrowly because this was the first time she had ventured near the question of his love life. ‘Most of the women I’ve been out with,’ he murmured, ‘were already catwalk models, accustomed to dealing with the full glare of the public spotlight.’
She’d wondered. Of course she had. Now she knew. Models. Naturally. He certainly wouldn’t have dated normal, average women holding down normal, average jobs. He was the man who could have it all and men who could have it all always, but always, seemed to want to have models glued to their arm. It was just so...predictable.
‘You’ve stopped glaring,’ Javier said. ‘Which is a good thing. But now there’s disapproval stamped all over your face. What are you disapproving of? My choice of woman?’
‘I don’t care what your choice of girlfriends has been!’
‘Don’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Because you look a little agitated. What’s wrong with models? Some of them can be relatively clever, as it happens.’
‘Relatively clever...’ Sophie snorted. Her colour was high and the look in his sinfully dark eyes was doing weird things to her, making her feel jumpy and thrillingly excited.
Making her nipples tighten...stoking a dampness between her thighs that had nothing to do with her scorn for his choice of dates, whoever those nameless dates had been.
Instant recall of that kiss they had shared made her breath hitch temporarily in her throat.
Just
