Believe me when I say I don’t blame you for a single thing.’
‘That’s because you’re not in my body.’
Olivia decided to leave that one well and truly alone. ‘What’s done is done,’ she said wearily. ‘I think we’re both being far too hard on ourselves.’
The corner of Lewis’s mouth lifted in a wry expression. ‘Naturally. We’re human beings. But perhaps you’re right. Enough is enough. I’d better take you home now. You still look a little green around the gills.’
Olivia didn’t doubt it. She felt dreadful. Alcohol poisoning, probably. Either that or some of the seafood she’d devoured with gay abandon on her champagne high might have harboured some gut-raising bacteria.
‘I’ll bring the car round to the side door,’ Lewis offered, ‘and meet you there in... say... five minutes?’
Olivia was grateful for the opportunity to retrieve her underwear in private, although the action of gulling them on sent her back to that unbelievable moment when she’d taken them off. Had that really been her, that incredibly bold and sexy woman who’d held Lewis in thrall? He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, hadn’t been able to stop himself from wanting her.
Olivia shuddered violently. She still could not believe what she’d done. Looking back, it was as if it had been some other person saying and doing those things.
Shaking her head, she leant against the desk while she angled her feet back into her shoes then stuffed the ends of her blouse back into her skirt. When she walked out to her own office the first thing she saw was the black bow she’d so recklessly pulled out of her hair all those hours earlier. Groaning, she shoved the painful reminder into her handbag, swept up her jacket from the back of her chair and hurried out of the room.
Lewis was waiting for her by the side door, sitting behind the wheel of his sleek navy Fairlane Ghia. Spotting her, he was out of the car in a flash.
‘I was keeping the air-conditioning running,’ he said as he steered her gently over to the passenger door. ‘You might have to give me directions. I know you live in Gladesville somewhere, but I’m not sure of the address.’
‘Just head down Victoria Road,’ she said wretchedly while he settled her in the passenger seat and buckled the seat belt for her. When his arm twice brushed across her still aching breasts she flinched, then froze. ‘I...I’ll tell you where to turn,’ she said stiffly.
Thank God it was only about a fifteen-minute drive at this time of day. The thought of going anywhere in a car with her dangerously rolling stomach was horrendous, the thought of having to bear much more of Lewis’s solicitous attentions even worse.
The urge to scream at him was intense. Yet why should she want to do that? It was Nicholas she should be screaming at. He was the bastard, not her boss.
Somehow she got through the next quarter of an hour, but when the Fairlane slid quietly into the kerb outside her block of flats she exhaled deeply, which brought a sharp sideways glance from Lewis.
‘I’m coming up with you,’ he announced baldly.
Her head whipped round, her expression pained. ‘Oh, no, Lewis, please don’t. I...I just want to be alone.’
‘I don’t want any arguments, Olivia.’
Groaning, she closed her eyes. Olivia knew her boss could be stubborn. And quite forceful at times. She could admire such qualities at work, but not here, and not now.
Time for a little forcefulness of her own.
Steeling her still queasy stomach, she faced him with an equally stubborn expression. ‘I’m sorry, Lewis, but we’re not at work now, and you’ll just have to take no for an answer. If you’re worried I might do something silly, then don’t I’m made of tougher stuff than that.’
‘We all have moments of weakness, Olivia,’ he said quietly, and she wondered if he was talking about what had happened earlier, or how he had felt when his wife left him. ‘It’s not good to be alone,’ he added tellingly, ‘when you’re this unhappy.’
‘I won’t be alone,’ she told him. ‘At least...not for long. I’m going home tomorrow for the entire Christmas break.’
‘Where’s home?’ he asked, then shook his head in exasperation. ‘God, I don’t even know that, do I? I don’t know much about you at all. You’ve been my private and personal secretary for eighteen months and I know no more about you than I would a temp. Why is that, Olivia? Is that your fault, or mine?’
She shrugged. ‘If you recall, when you hired me I was warned not to dress too flashily and not to be too familiar in my manner towards you. Your wife didn’t care for your last secretary’s forwardness, remember?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ he said ruefully.
‘That’s the only reason I told you about my relationship with Nicholas—because I thought it might put Dinah’s mind at rest about any possible intentions she might think I secretly harboured towards you.’
‘And why you never do yourself up much for work, perhaps?’
‘In a way.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It actually suits me to dress the way I do,’ she told him with a tight, dry little smile. ‘It’s cheap.’
Lewis frowned. ‘Cheap?’
Olivia almost laughed. ‘That’s something you should have worked out about me, Lewis. I’m cheap. Oh, not in the way I was cheap today, though God knows that was cheap to end all cheaps. But cheap meaning money. In other words, I’m tight-fisted. Stingy. Penny-pinching. I have a penchant for budgets, you see. And savings. And lists. Oh, yes, I’m a great list-maker.
‘But my worst sin of all,’ she swept on, ‘is that I’m boring. According to my recently defunct fiancé, I don’t have a spontaneous, impulsive bone in my body. That’s why he left me in favour of a fantastic, funloving free spirit named Yvette who does all sorts of exciting things to him, things boring old Olivia would never do in a million years!
‘But he was wrong, wasn’t he?’ She flashed Lewis a sickly smile, near hysteria hiding behind its savage sweetness. ‘I can do those things. And in an office, no less. Nicholas would have been surprised, don’t you think?’
‘I think you should forget about Nicholas,’ Lewis advised.
‘Oh, I will. In time. I’m going in now, Lewis. Alone. Sorry I didn’t get you anything for Christmas. I meant to buy something today, but today didn’t turn out quite like I’d planned. Nothing lately is turning out quite like I planned. Do have a happy Christmas and a well deserved break. Not that you will. I know you’ll spend the next five weeks in your laboratory, inventing more marvellous new products for your All Woman line. But that’s not work to you, is it? That’s your pleasure. I’m rattling on, aren’t I? Sorry. I’m fine. Truly. This time tomorrow I’ll be on the train home. Funnily enough, I’m almost looking forward to it. Didn’t think I ever would. Christmas at home is always a madhouse. Maybe this year I’ll fit right in.
‘See you in five weeks, boss,’ she added as she scrambled
