no one else, Naomi would take all the help she could not to succumb to Sev’s charms.
Oh, she’d love to sleep with Sev just to have slept with him.
It was the aftermath she did not need.
Or the absolute lack of aftermath on Sev’s part.
Her phone buzzed an alarm and Naomi turned it off and then pulled back the covers and padded out to the kitchen and fixed herself a coffee.
It was a beautiful apartment, with thirteen-foot-high ceilings, mahogany doors and gorgeous fireplaces. Not that she used them. Instead she relied on the regular heating, worried that she’d burn the whole complex down.
Sev had the penthouse suite and he had been right—apart from the occasions when they prearranged to meet in the foyer their paths rarely crossed out of work.
The problem was work and very long days spent together and even longer trips abroad.
Or rather Naomi’s problem was her feelings for him.
She took her drink back to bed and wondered if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life by quitting her job, and then, as if in answer, her phone rang.
It was 6:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, but that meant nothing to Sev.
Naomi was available pretty much 24/7 and there was no space from him. There was little to no time to catch her breath from the roller-coaster ride, no time to slow her racing heart down and regroup.
‘Hi, Sev.’
‘What time is it?’ Sev asked.
Naomi bit back a smart retort—oh, she could have said that she wasn’t his personal talking clock but she conceded that he paid her enough for her to be one, if he so chose. ‘It’s six,’ Naomi said. ‘Six a.m.,’ she added.
Just in case.
‘Okay, can you cancel my morning?’ Sev said. ‘Actually, just cancel the rest of my day. I’ll be back on board tomorrow.’
Oh, no!
Now she understood the odd question about the time. He wasn’t even in the same time zone.
‘Sev, where are you?’
‘On my way back.’
‘But from where? You’re supposed to be meeting Sheikh Allem at eleven and then we’re having dinner tonight with him and his wife. It’s been booked in for ages, it’s taken weeks to arrange.’
‘I know all that.’
‘So you have to be here.’
‘What’s the flying time from Rome to New York?’ Sev asked.
Forget the time zone, Naomi thought. He wasn’t even on the same continent. ‘Just over eight hours,’ Naomi sighed.
‘So you see it’s not possible.’
She could almost envisage him shrugging.
‘Sev,’ Naomi appealed. ‘Allem rang last night to say how much he and his wife are looking forward to this visit. He’s been so patient.’
Sheikh Allem had been. He had asked Sev to come to Dubai to review his hotel’s security system yet Sev had been putting the visit off. Now he had flown with his wife to visit him.
They were friends more than business associates but Sev didn’t need friends—he wanted Allem and his wife to back off.
They refused to get the message.
‘Okay, okay,’ Sev snapped. ‘I’m on my way to the airport. When I get to the plane I’ll ask the pilot to put his foot down or whatever it is they do. Look, I haven’t a hope of getting there before three.’
‘What should I say to him?’
‘That’s what I pay you to sort out,’ Sev said. ‘Just use your charm, Naomi.’
‘It’s all used up.’
‘I have noticed,’ Sev responded. ‘You’ve been very...’
‘Testy?’ Naomi offered.
‘I don’t know what that word means.’
‘Bad-tempered, irritable.’
‘Yes, you have been very testy of late.’
‘Because my boss keeps disappearing on me. Just what exactly are you doing in Rome?’ Hell, she ran his diary, booked his flights, arranged his schedule and, Naomi knew damn well that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
‘You want to know exactly?’ Sev checked.
Naomi closed her eyes. She knew, of course, that it would be about a woman.
And that was why she was being so testy. Naomi, more than anything, loathed confrontation, or rather she could not stand to be the one who brought things to the boil. In fact, she actually wanted Sev to fire her. It would be better than having to resign later today.
‘I mean, why are you in Rome?’ Naomi said. ‘I’m just trying to work out what to tell Sheikh Allem.’
‘Well, I guess it just seemed a good idea at the time.’
‘And I guess that time was Saturday night.’
‘You know me so well. I was at a party and—’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Naomi snapped. ‘I don’t need to know. I’ll come up with something for Allem.’
‘You’re sounding very English,’ Sev said. ‘Work something out. Oh, and can you organise some flowers from me?’
Naomi closed her eyes.
‘If you can send two dozen white roses...’
He really didn’t need to tell her that—it was always the same routine with Sev.
On a Monday Naomi would arrange flowers for whoever he had seen over the weekend. Around Wednesday he might ask her to organise a hotel for the following one.
The next Monday it might be a case of more flowers but generally he’d lost interest by then.
‘What’s her name?’ Naomi asked, as she reached for her pen. ‘And what message do you want?’
‘Actually,’ Sev said, ‘don’t worry about the flowers. Apart from Allem, am I missing out on anything else?’
‘Just a scheduled beginning-of-the-month meeting with me.’ She had been going to tell him then that she was resigning.
Sev was silent.
‘It’s November,’ Naomi said.
‘I
