that, but then I guess he’s got what it takes to run a company like his.’ He had made that sound like a distasteful threat but she had been too exhausted by then to pay a great deal of attention to what he was saying.
Martin had a managerial job in a computer company, and he was quite happy with that. His ambitions did not soar to dizzy heights and he was fond of telling her that his parents were perfectly content with their lives, and they never had a great deal of money to throw around. His father was a retired schoolteacher and his mother helped out on a part-time basis at a local flower shop.
‘There’s more to life than money,’ she heard herself say stoutly. ‘Anyway——’ she glanced away from that hard-boned, intimidating face ‘—Martin’s not usually so…so…’ She searched around for the right phrase and finally said, ‘Outspoken. He’s a warm, generous person.’ Her voice had risen slightly and the sudden lift of Ross’s dark brows made her glare at him with irritation.
‘I’m sure he is,’ he replied as though her warm outburst had surprised him. ‘After all, you’re marrying the man.’
‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’ She stood up, flustered, not giving him time to respond. ‘I really think we ought to be getting back to the office,’ she said.
‘And since when do the secretaries dictate the orders?’ Ross enquired, with an edge of flint in his voice.
‘I apologise,’ she said calmly, breathing deeply to clear her head and restore her balance, ‘but I refuse to be subjected further to this dissection of my private life.’
He looked as though he was about to debate that point, but in the end he shrugged his broad shoulders and stood up, reaching out to hand her her notepad.
‘You’ll be needing this,’ he murmured with amusement, and their eyes met. To hide behind again, he might just as well have said, and she took it without rising to the bait.
Why did he have this effect on her? she wondered desperately. Why did he have this tight, strangling effect on her? Martin never did. They spent their time chatting, going for walks, and she never felt as if the world was closing in on her.
She put it down to dislike, and yet there were times when they worked so well together that she felt almost a mental bond with him. It was aggravating. Of course, she should never have accepted this job in the first place. She should have gone to work for some safe, fatherly figure with a receding hairline and a comfortable paunch. Someone whose presence didn’t threaten her. She would have too, if the job description and the pay package hadn’t been so irresistible.
They walked back to the office in silence. She could feel his presence alongside her, dark, oppressive, alarming.
‘Rebecca was quite taken with that boss of yours,’ Martin had said the night before. ‘Began giggling and batting her eyelashes the minute he came through that door with that I’m-better-than-everyone-else air about him.’ His voice had been laden with derision. ‘Still, he’s the sort of chap women fancy, I suppose. Bit too aggressive by half for you, though, I should think,’ he had added, looking at her for confirmation, and she had agreed fervently, although her wayward mind had conjured up an image of Ross naked, in bed, his muscled body relaxed, his mouth curved into that cynical, charming smile, and she had forced the image away with angry recoil.
Now that wayward mind of hers was threatening to invade her calm again, and she resolutely thrust it back.
Ross went straight through to his office, expecting her to follow, which she did, breathing a sigh of relief as he returned his attention to work.
He ploughed through documents on his desk, leaning forward to explain to her what he wanted done, listing meetings that he wanted set up within the next fortnight. She kept her head bent, taking notes, nodding, watching the strong forearms, the dark hair curling over the gold metal band of his watch with stubborn fascination.
‘These columns need updating,’ he told her, his eyes flicking over the paper. ‘The correct figures are attached at the back. You’ll have to go through them and replace whatever needs replacing.’
She craned forward to see what he was talking about and he said impatiently, ‘Come around the desk. You’ll twist your neck in that position.’
‘Yes, of course, Mr Anderson,’ she said neutrally, moving around to stand behind him.
He had rolled the sleeves of his shirt to the elbows and she stole a surreptitious glance at his powerful forearms. She wished that she hadn’t because immediately a disjointed thought rushed into her head: what had he and Fiona done last night? She imagined him caressing the tall, elegant blonde with those strong hands, and crossly shoved the unpleasant image to the back of her mind.
‘Look,’ he said, jabbing his finger at a row of black figures, ‘here. These are last month’s sales figures, which need replacing, but I want you to keep these graphs handy.’ He sifted through to the graphs and she leant forward slightly to follow what he was saying, frowning and trying to puzzle out how she could update sixteen pages of information without having to redo the whole thing from top to bottom.
She peered forward, her eyes intent, and the silky cowlnecked shirt gaped to expose a tantalising glimpse of pale breasts restrained by the small cups of her lacy bra. She didn’t notice. Her mind was busy trying to work out the complexities of the job in front of her. It was only when she glanced away from the report that her eyes fell on what Ross had already observed, judging from the expression on his face.
He had turned the swivel chair so that he was directly facing her and there was a lazy grin on his lips. She straightened quickly and looked at him, forcing herself to meet his gleaming dark eyes.
He clasped his fingers together, challenging her to say something, which she didn’t. His eyes drifted from hers and did a leisurely sweep of her body, resting briefly on her breasts, which hung heavy and aching under the stare. Her nipples pressed against the lacy material and she had to force herself not to surrender to the terrible, crazy thought of what it would feel like to have Ross touch them, with more than just his eyes.
What the hell was happening to her? Not even Ellis had ever awakened this depth of arousal in her. True, her body had willingly responded to his when he had made that first pass in the semi-darkness of his office, and true, over the ensuing weeks she had enjoyed their stolen caresses, the husky timbre of his voice as he had explored her body with his hands, sometimes at the most inappropriate moments, but what she felt now was so intense that she almost caught her breath.
She had thought that her fling with Ellis had been an aberration, a temporary insanity. Certainly one of the nice things about Martin was that he hadn’t pushed her into sex. They were both content to kiss, but he had not frantically tried to get her into bed, and that had been a relief. Desire was no basis for a long-term relationship. She had found that out the hard way.
‘I think I’ve got that,’ she said coolly, moving back around to her chair and not looking at him.
He was still smiling in a way that made her want to hit him, and eventually she said crisply, ‘And by the way, I still have that Haynes report to do. I had to phone around several people to get the information you wanted and some of them weren’t in when I called. I should have it ready and on your desk by this afternoon.’
‘Very enterprising,’ he said silkily. ‘What would I do without you?’
‘Find someone else, I expect,’ Abigail returned neutrally.
