straightening his tie. “There, now no one will ever know but us.”
“But they may well wonder,” Anna said dubiously. “I always swore I’d never …”
“Never what?”
“Never leave myself open to gossip.”
He frowned. “What makes you think anyone will gossip about us?”
Was she worried about it getting back to Charles? So let it, if that was the case. He’d even go so far as to start the rumor himself if it meant he had her wholeheartedly.
“Just the nature of people. It was tough at first, starting here while Mum was still alive. Everyone knew she’d worked for Charles before she left to get married and everyone had something to say about us living with him after my dad died.”
“How did that come about, exactly?” Judd asked, hitching one hip against the desk they’d just made love upon. God, even the briefest memory of what they’d just done and it was enough to put his blood on a slow burn again.
“A whole string of things, really. Poor financial decisions on my parents’ part, a bit of bad luck, as well. Dad was killed on the job. He was driving to a sales call when a tanker blew a tire and hit a bridge abutment. Dad couldn’t stop in time and hit the wreckage. They said he died instantly. It was all so sudden. Mum went from being a happy, stay-at-home wife and mother to a single parent with no income, a stack of funeral bills and no prospects of the life-insurance payout until all the paperwork surrounding the accident was taken care of. Charles approached Mum to offer help and when he realized what a terrible position we were left in, he offered her work and a home for both of us. I was only five, and too young, and too sheltered, to remember most of it. All I knew was that I got to live in a big house and that I had a built-in playmate.”
Judd began to put two and two together. “So you grew up with Nicole?”
“Pretty much like sisters, really. Charles even sent me to the same school as her. He did far more for my mother and me than was due. I owe him a lot.”
“So, he and your mother. Were they … close?”
“Were they lovers do you mean?” she asked bluntly. “Only very occasionally, from what I understand. Once, after a particularly nasty bout of bullying at school, I confronted Mum about their relationship. She tried her hardest to be honest with me and said that theirs was more a relationship based on companionship. Perhaps she was a bit too honest, but she wanted me to understand. Apparently, one of the long-term side effects of Charles’s diabetes was a constant struggle with impotence. It had affected him for years, probably since before you and your mother went to Australia. But you know, even despite their closeness, Mum was always still very much an employee. When I was younger I used to hate that she allowed herself to be taken advantage of that way—now I see it was a choice she made to keep us both secure.”
“So you and he—”
“Charles and I what?”
“Were never lovers?”
A look of horror passed across Anna’s face. “No! Never. How could you even think that? He’s always been a father figure to me, nothing more, nothing less.”
“So that night I saw you coming from his rooms, half undressed—”
“I’d been waiting to talk to him about Nicole. I fell asleep—on his sofa, in his sitting room. And then when I woke up and realized how late it was, I was in a hurry to get back to my room and hop in the shower so I could get ready for dinner. I can’t believe you’d have thought that of me.” She crossed her way to the office door and pointedly unlocked it. “I’m going to the ladies’ room to get rid of this, and then for the rest of the afternoon I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
Judd felt momentarily giddy from the swell of relief that coursed through him. She wasn’t Charles’s lover. Her devotion to the old man was merely like that of a daughter. Hard on the heels of that thought, he realized just how much he’d hurt her with his assumption, and discovered that he was genuinely sorry to have upset her so deeply. He needed to make amends.
“Anna?”
She hesitated. “Yes?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I jumped to the wrong conclusions. Let me make it up to you. Stay with me tonight and I’ll show you just how much.”
She shook her head emphatically. “No, whatever you might think of me, I won’t disrespect Charles that way.”
Without saying another word she swung open the door and stalked off. Judd watched her until she was out of his line of sight before crossing around to the other side of his desk and realigning his paperwork. She hadn’t exactly embraced his apology, but at least she hadn’t closed the door on them both completely, either. It was time to rethink his strategies with respect to his father and to Anna. One thing he remained certain of—he wanted Anna Garrick for himself—no matter the consequences.
Anna spent the rest of the day at work in a state of total turmoil. Was she destined to be her mother’s daughter after all? Was this what it had been like for Donna with Charles? That all he had to do, when he wanted to, was beckon his finger and Donna had been his for the taking, just as Anna just had been with Judd? She’d told herself that their interludes during their trip had been a fluke, that once they got back to Auckland, it would be back to business as usual, but when he’d touched her in the office, she hadn’t been able to resist.
Her body still thrummed with the aftereffects of her orgasm, making it difficult to concentrate. That, along with the disbelief and shock that she’d allowed herself to be coerced into making love with Judd in his office, and on his desk no less. She’d have a few bruises tomorrow, no doubt. Her own participation in the event had hardly been that of a submissive.
She’d never been incapable of refusing a man before. She’d been selective with her sexual partners—civilized. This thing with Judd was most definitely not civilized. It was earthy sensuality at its most basic level and it had been, oh, so very good. Even now she wanted him again—but at least this time rationality prevailed. Saying no to him had been driven by her respect for Charles. She smiled at herself. Ironic, it was her respect for the very man who’d made her lose a measure of respect for her mother that now governed her choices and decisions. A psychologist could no doubt have a field day with that.
But there it was. It was how she felt. Charles hadn’t had to be a mentor for her in her youth, nor had he been obliged to continue to provide a home for her after Donna had died. Yet he’d been a rock for her. Now she owed it to him to be that rock for him, which—for her, at least—meant not sleeping with his son under his own roof.
It stung that Judd could have thought that she and Charles were having an affair. She shuddered. Nothing could have been further from her mind, or Charles’s, she had no doubt. But what would have made him think that?
What, or who?
A niggle of doubt emerged from the back of her mind. Something just wasn’t right and she couldn’t figure out what or why. But there were so many other things on her mind just now that it was easy to dismiss it.
The next few days kept her very busy in the office. Following up with the wineries they’d visited and processing exclusivity contracts with them, making sure every i was dotted and every t crossed, was the kind of work she welcomed. Right up until four out
