He rose from behind the desk and began walking around towards where she was standing near the sofa. It crossed her mind that he had no right to look so disgustingly attractive when he was such a mess.
‘You know what, Sam?’ he said as he drew near. ‘I don’t think you’ll go through with it in the end. I don’t think you’ll be able to actually leave when it comes to the crunch.’
‘Really?’ She folded her arms in a defensive gesture. ‘And what makes you think that?’ For all her outward composure, inside she felt rattled. There was still a small part of her that agreed with him.
‘Because, my dear Sam...’ he stopped barely an arm’s length from her, giving her the full blast of his most confident face ‘...I saw the way you looked when we were going through the files yesterday, and later, when we were discussing plans for that tour. This job is the staff of your life. It’s your bread and butter. Your soul. Now don’t deny it. You’ve been with me since shortly after the start. You’re as much an integral part of Haywood Promotions as I am. We’re a team, you and I. An inseparable team!’
Those beautiful blue eyes bored into hers and she wanted to run as fast as she could, away from his intuition, away from his knowledge, away from him!
‘What would you say,’ he asked in his most persuasive voice, ‘if I offered you something very different from being just my secretary?’
Her heart jumped into her throat and stopped there. Good God! Surely he couldn’t possibly mean what she hoped he meant?
‘Such as what?’ she managed to get out.
‘Such as a minor partnership, a share in the company.’
Samantha’s heart dropped back into place. Oh, what an idiot she was to even dream for a minute that he could mean anything else. Where were her brains?
I’ll tell you where, a cruel voice lambasted. In your stupid damned female hormones, that’s where! Once this man gets within three feet of you, off goes your head and on goes a pumpkin!
‘I...’ She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I’d still have to say no.’
‘Have to?’ he repeated, taken aback. He stared at her for several seconds, but she volunteered no further information. Finally he shook his head in exasperation. ‘Something’s going on here that I don’t quite understand.’
Making a disgruntled sound, he turned away and stripped off his crumpled jacket, throwing it over the back of a chair. The tie followed. In seconds the buttons were released on his cuffs and he was starting to flip open the ones on his shirt front.
Samantha was glued to the spot, her heartbeat taking up the tango as more and more bare male chest was revealed. First there was just a V of tanned flesh, but then there was a sprinkling of dark curly hair and the light and shade of various muscles, honed to perfection by the many hours he spent in the gym. As the last button gave way she forced herself to turn and walk towards the door.
‘But never you fear,’ he called after her. ‘I’ll work it out. In the end I’ll know just why you’re leaving me. And it’s got nothing to do with needing a break or... Good God!’
She spun round at his shocked tone, only to find herself staring not at his startled expression, but at his completely naked torso. Desperately she lifted her eyes up to his, but the damage had been done, and her peripheral vision was still taking in far too much taut male flesh.
She was panic-stricken at the directions her mind kept taking. Surely her thoughts and feelings must be showing in her face, her eyes?
‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ he accused.
She was wildly tempted to laugh in his face. Instead she put her energies into trying to get a hold of her thoughts. The exercise was not entirely successful.
‘No, Guy,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m not pregnant.’
He looked relieved, then annoyed with himself. ‘No. Stupid of me. You wouldn’t be. Not you. Sorry.’ He yawned, spreading out the blanket with a flick of his wrists. ‘I guess I’m not thinking straight this morning. I’ll talk to you about it again tomorrow, make you see reason.’
‘Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ she pointed out curtly.
‘Oh...so it is.’ He crawled in under the blanket and laid down his head with a sigh. ‘Monday, then. Wake me around two, will you, Sam, like a good girl?’
She woke him at one because a call had come through from the hospital that his father’s tests had shown massive blockages of the arteries. The doctor needed immediate permission for a triple bypass. Without it, the chance of a second fatal attack was inevitable and imminent.
Samantha offered to accompany Guy to the hospital but he insisted she stay and hold the fort at the office. In truth, she was glad about this decision, for it gave her the opportunity to regather her defences where he was concerned.
Truly, she was getting worse! Never before had her love for him deteriorated into being so openly lustful. Of course, she had fantasised making love to him, but in the privacy of her night-time dreams, not here in the office. Neither had her fantasies been so blatantly sexual before. They’d always been loving and romantic, sweet and tender.
There’d been nothing sweet and tender in what she had wanted this morning on sighting Guy’s bare chest. Her desires had been very basic, to say the least. And they hadn’t completely receded either. The encounter had left her feeling physically restless, definitely agitated, decidedly angry.
She had been up and down ever since Guy had left the office, walking around, making coffee, staring out of windows, watching the rain.
This was sexual arousal such as she had never felt before, she admitted in the end. The sort of sexual arousal one read about but never envisaged feeling oneself. Intense...compelling...oddly without conscience.
It kept urging her not to run away from her job and her feelings, not to take any notice of things like pride and self-respect. You want this man, a wicked little voice whispered in her ear. If you can’t win his love then settle for his lovemaking. And you haven’t got a hope in Hades of getting even that if you leave. He’ll forget you as quickly as he forgot Debra. If you want something in this world, girl, you have to go after it!
For a few seconds she felt high on a surge of positive thinking, but she was quickly dumped down, swamped by reality, rather than daydreams. How could she successfully seduce a man who had never shown any signs of being sexually attracted to her? It seemed an impossible problem.
She sat back down at her desk and thought and thought.
So what if he’s never thought of you in that way before? she finally resolved. You’re a reasonably attractive woman, aren’t you? He’s a highly sexed man, with needs that aren’t being met at this moment. You could meet them, couldn’t you? All you have to do is convince him how convenient it would be for you to be his mistress. Good heavens, men are doing it all the time, sleeping with their secretaries. And love rarely comes into it on their side. It was mostly nothing more than a sexual convenience, from what she had seen and heard.
The word ‘convenience’ stuck out like a sore thumb in Samantha’s mind. That was the hook which would appeal
