I’ll give it a try anyway.’
‘I may be drunk,’ Lucas drawled, ‘but I’m not so drunk that I can’t recognise a truly bad idea when I see it. Call me selfish, but I don’t want to spend the rest of tonight trying to locate your frozen corpse. Nor do I want to find myself recruiting a new PA. I can’t stand the interview process.’
Her lips twitched as she tried to hold back a smile. ‘It’s all about you, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely. I’m the most selfish bastard you’ll ever meet, you know that.’ So don’t look at me with those soft brown eyes. Don’t show me that you care.
But she’d already done that, hadn’t she? The moment she’d discovered that he hadn’t wanted a party, she’d set about quietly removing the evidence.
Hands clasped in front of her, she stared at the floor. ‘I was stupid, wasn’t I, coming here in the first place.’
‘Not stupid, no.’ Because he could barely keep his hands off her, Lucas strolled over to the fire and kept his back to her. ‘You were dedicated. Professional. Which is no more than I would have expected from you. It’s just unfortunate that you chose tonight.’ He didn’t state the obvious. That if it hadn’t been for what this night did to his mind, he wouldn’t have forgotten the damn file in the first place.
‘Lucas—’
‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Taking control, he turned, interrupting her before she could ask the question he knew she was going to ask. The question about why exactly this night was so painful for him. ‘You are wet, cold and, presumably, very tired. I’m going down to the kitchen to make us some soup and while I do that you are going to have a hot bath or shower—whichever—and then help yourself to whatever clothes take your fancy from my dressing room. Nothing will fit, but you’re a practical enough person to improvise, I’m sure. We’ll hang yours up and they’ll be dry in the morning.’
‘Lucas, I can’t—’
‘I’m going to light a fire in one of the other bedrooms, then it will be warm once you’re ready to sleep.’ Without looking at her, he strode towards the staircase, keeping his hands to himself. ‘There are plenty of warm towels in the bathroom. Help yourself.’
* * *
She should have argued, but one glance through the pretty arched window convinced her that he was right. In the half hour she’d spent clearing up downstairs, killing time until she could check on him again, it seemed as if half a ton of fresh snow had fallen. It glistened in the moonlight, a sparkly, silvery deathtrap. The decision whether or not to stay was out of her hands. She wasn’t going to be going home any time soon. She was stuck here with a man who clearly didn’t want her around when all she wanted was to be home with Jamie.
What she should have done was leave when it had been possible to do so, instead of putting him in a position where he had no choice but to offer her accommodation. And if there were other feelings sloshing around inside her, then she chose to ignore them, just as she was trying to ignore the recurring images of that one dangerous glimpse of him naked.
It was a shame he wasn’t flabby, she thought gloomily. A seriously out of shape boss would have been so much easier to forget than a boss with rock-hard abs and—
Emma squeezed her eyes shut and reminded herself that a luscious body didn’t maketh a man.
And there was no point in going back over what she could have done or should have done because she was stuck here now so she just had to make it work.
Resigned to the inevitable, she started by calling Jamie to tell him she wouldn’t be home. It was a call she dreaded making and she breathed a sigh of relief when the phone went to voicemail.After she’d left a brief message explaining the facts and promising to call the next morning once she’d had a chance to check the weather and road conditions, she eased off her soaking-wet shoes and put them close to the fire to dry off.
Shivering now, she realised just how wet she was. Shrugging off her coat, she draped it over the back of the chair, checking it was far enough away from the fire to be safe from sparks. Then she walked towards the bathroom.
She was far too cold to argue with his suggestion that she have a hot bath. She needed to warm up and change into dry clothes.
Despite the age of the castle, the bathroom was the last word in luxury and Emma gave a moan of pleasure as she slid her freezing cold limbs into the warm, scented water. She never did this. She usually took a shower because it was faster. Everything in her life was dictated by speed and efficiency. Her life was such a crazy whirl that it was all about racing on to the next thing on her list, never about just enjoying a moment of self-indulgence. But she enjoyed it now, so tired after her week at work that she didn’t dare allow herself to lie back and close her eyes for long in case she slept.
She could have stayed there for ever, but in the end stayed just long enough to thaw her frozen limbs. Then she let her hair down and lathered it clean, feeling the hot water stinging her scalp as she rinsed away the evidence of her fall in the snow.
It felt blissful to be clean and warm. Only the knowledge that if she didn’t reappear he’d come looking for her was enough to eject her from the water. Grabbing two towels, Emma dried herself with one and then wrapped the other around her head. Then she popped her head round the door. Relieved that there was still no sign of him, she walked into his dressing room wondering what on earth she was likely to find to wear. A sweater would be fine, she thought. Or a shirt of some sort to sleep in. Anything, really, as long as it was decent.
Ignoring the rows of suits, she instead selected a white shirt. It would be much too big for her but she could just roll up the arms. Now all she needed was to find something to wear on her bottom half so that she didn’t freeze to death or expose herself. Didn’t the man own sweatpants or something? Pyjamas?
Deciding that everything on the rails was too formal, she instead focused on the drawers. Opening the top one, she found socks. Deciding that socks might be useful, she pulled out a pair and then opened the next drawer.
But Lucas Jackson didn’t appear to own either pyjamas or anything suitably casual and she was just about to give up on the final drawer when her fingers brushed against something hard. Shifting aside the neatly folded T-shirt, she saw a photograph in an antique silver frame.
Wondering why a photograph would be buried in the bottom of a drawer, she picked it up. As she stared at the faces in the picture, she held her breath.
This photograph hadn’t been buried by accident, she thought numbly. It hadn’t tumbled there or been stowed away in a moment of de-cluttering. It had been hidden there intentionally by someone who couldn’t bear to look at it, but equally couldn’t bear to part with it. For some reason she didn’t yet understand, that image represented pain.
‘Emma?’ Lucas’s voice came from outside the bedroom and she jumped guiltily. Whether or not she would have replaced the photograph she didn’t have a chance to find out because one minute she was alone with his secrets and the next he was standing in the doorway, witnessing her trespass into a private part of his life that he’d clearly labelled ‘no admittance’.
His eyes flickered to the frame in her hands and the change in him was instantaneous. The colour literally drained from his face, the sudden pallor emphasising the dark shadows that lurked in his eyes. And she knew immediately that what she held in her hands held the clue to the source of those shadows. Across that
