closed her eyes against the memories, against the anguish that remembering caused—the longing, the loneliness, the confusion.
‘I can’t do that.’ Involuntarily, the words spilled from her lips; to deflect the meaning he might put on them, she quickly tagged on, ‘Contrary to what you might think, I don’t go in for casual relationships.’
His lips were but a hair’s breadth from hers, so close that even the denial of their consummate touch was a turn on. She brought her eyelids down so that he wouldn’t recognise the hunger in her eyes.
‘Oh, I think you can.’
Her lashes fluttered apart. His face appeared out of focus, a dark, inscrutable image, mouth hard yet oddly vulnerable, cheeks taut, black lashes drawn down against the wells of his eyes.
He was so incredible. So uncompromisingly handsome. And yet so vengeful.
‘Seth, please…’ It was uttered from the depths of her longing for the warm and tender lover he had been all those years ago. A tenderness that had been destroyed by the way both she and her family had treated him. ‘Don’t do this.’
He moved back a little so that he could see her more clearly. ‘Begging, Grace?’
That cruel curve to his mouth showed her, with deepening despair, that there was going to be no reprieve for her.
‘No, just trying to appeal to your better nature, but that’s obviously a waste of time!’
‘Obviously.’ He smiled, an action still devoid of any warmth. ‘How can you expect restraint from someone who’s…what was it you called me?…basic? Now, let me see: what does that mean? Rough? Primitive? Lacking in social graces? Well, don’t worry. I’m sure I can knock all your ex-public-school lovers into a cocked hat! When I make love to you there’s going to be none of the haste or urgency that we were driven by the first time. You’re going to have all the benefit of my cultivated experience in a long slow night of love play befitting a woman of your…sophistication. And you’re not going to get out of that bed until you’re so drunk on sex with me you’ll be unable to stand. Is that clear?’
The hot retort that sprang to Grace’s lips was stalled by a sudden knock on the door.
Pulling out of his orbit, she was still tugging her blouse straight when Simone came in carrying some files.
‘You wanted these, Mr Mason.’
Distractedly, Grace noticed her PA’s eyes dart from her to Seth and then back to her again; she noticed, too, the crisp white handkerchief stained with her lipstick that Seth was pocketing as he turned round, calmly, coolly, as though the air wasn’t charged with a sexual tension so thick that it left Grace trembling, and which she knew the other woman must surely be able to feel.
‘Yes, thanks, Simone. Did you bring your note pad as well?’
He had known her PA was coming up here, Grace thought, aghast, as the other woman laughed a little nervously at something else he said before sitting down. Yet he had still tried to seduce her again in spite of that? What had been his intention? she wondered, fuming—to hope that Simone was the type of tactless employee who thrived on office scandal and would let everyone in the office know that they were having an affair?
His upward glance at Grace from where he was sitting now was almost one of surprise to still see her there.
‘Thank you, Grace, he said, his tone crisp, cold, formal. ‘That will be all.’
He had the audacity to dismiss her, like she was some temp he could call up or dismiss whenever the fancy took him! Or, worse, some fawning little sex-slave at his beck and call.
Well, if he wanted office gossip, she decided, grabbing the letter off the top of the cabinet she realised he’d taken from her, then she’d let him have it.
‘Don’t keep him too long,’ she uttered, bending, piqued, towards Simone. ‘He’s got a heavy appointment coming up this afternoon. Nasty maintenance case.’ Voice lowered, she wrinkled her nose in a knowing little gesture. ‘Best keep it under your hat.’
From Simone’s obvious discomfort, the woman was clearly unsure whether Grace was joking or not. Although Grace knew that her PA would keep any personal information about her employers to herself, Seth didn’t know that.
She didn’t even bother looking at him again before sweeping out of the office, a tight little set to her mouth, her head held high.
The next couple of weeks passed in a hectic blur of board meetings, legal work and negotiations, then Seth was away for a few days, engaged in aspects of his diverse business-interests elsewhere.
There had been too much to do in the office for other, more personal distractions, and when Seth was called away unexpectedly to sort out yet another problem in his business empire that couldn’t be delegated, Grace couldn’t have been more relieved.
Just like everyone else, she had worked hard over that initial period to get the transition of management running smoothly, staying late at the office, sometimes going without meals—something she had often done in the past, much to her grandfather’s disapproval. But Seth was a phenomenon with reserves of energy that outstripped hers and even the most dynamic of the other executives and she was determined, if she could, to try to keep up with him. How he managed to control his business interests, keeping them all running efficiently even from a span of hundreds of miles, was beyond Grace—although it did give credit to his judgement in engaging only the best staff needed to run each and every enterprise he presided over.
Which made his decision to have her working closely with him something she might have taken a pride in, if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that he harboured a bitter desire to make her pay for her actions in the past—and in the most basic way possible. So whenever he was around, his presence alone seemed to shatter her equilibrium, stretching her nerves as taut as guitar strings, so that she began losing sleep as well.
‘You look ghastly,’ he remarked when he returned briefly late one afternoon on a flying visit to the office. ‘Simone tells me you’ve been working all hours and neglecting to look after yourself—like missing lunch on more occasions than is healthy—and we can’t have that, can we? I don’t want a weak, undernourished lover in my bed.’
‘Then you’ll just have to find yourself one with more generous proportions, won’t you?’ Grace threw back, refraining from telling him that she’d had a recent stomach upset, which was probably why she looked so pale. She was unwilling to acknowledge how fit, strong and how terrifyingly attractive he looked in comparison, with the brilliant white collar of his shirt emphasising his olive skin and his black, untameable hair and that fine-tailored dark suit he was wearing accentuating the lean, hard lines of his body. ‘I’m sure you’ll find plenty at Weight Watchers!’
He laughed, as he always did when she tried to fend off his determined remarks about making her his mistress.
‘You’ll eat,’ he ordered, catching her hand. ‘Starting now.’ A glance at the clock on the wall showed that it was already four-thirty.
‘Not with you.’ She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened in response.
‘With me. And on my expense account. This is a business dinner, and one I expect you to honour.’
He meant it;
