not ten minutes ago, who was now standing ramrod-straight in my father’s sitting room, with a large glass of ten-year-old Scotch clutched in his large hand.
It struck me with force once again what an attractive man he was, with a square-jawed, dark-eyed handsomeness that was impossible to tear my gaze away from.
There was no grey in his thick jet-black hair, which he wore swept away from his angular, high-cheekboned face, so I guessed he was pretty young to be company director. I put him in his early thirties. He was big too. The guy must have been at least six foot four, and with a broad-shouldered, long limbed body that made me want to climb up it and rub myself against him, just to experience his visceral power up close and personal.
‘You’ll be there to help out with whatever he needs,’ my father continued, clearly oblivious of what had gone on right under his nose upstairs—thank God. It would be such a shame to ruin the sexily enigmatic Mr Chivers at this point.
‘Taking notes, organising his schedule—that sort of thing—while his executive assistant is recovering from an operation. He’ll have other PAs looking after him too, so they’ll be able to help you if you have any questions.’
I turned back from staring intently at Benedict Chivers—who, I was irked to note, was looking back at me as if he’d never laid eyes on me before in his life—and offered my father a demure smile.
‘It’ll be good for you to see how another company runs its day-to-day business,’ he said, ignoring what must have seemed like abnormally respectable behaviour coming from me. ‘Especially if you really are determined to establish your own enterprise.’
He said ‘enterprise’ as if I was planning on setting up a seedy brothel or a gun-running cartel.
Irritation clawed up my spine.
In actual fact, my plan is to grow a custom-made jewellery business—an idea I’ve toyed with for ages. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not exactly been focussed before this point in my life, and have perhaps spent a bit too much time partying, but I had an epiphany after my twenty-third birthday, when I realised my friends were all moving on with their lives and I wasn’t, and I’ve worked hard to refocus my goals since then.
Trouble is, a start-up jewellery business is going to need a hell of a lot of capital to get it off the ground and a lot of commercial savvy to run it profitably—the latter of which I’ve been working on, with the help of a night school class for the past year. My tutor thinks I’ll do well, but I know my business skills are still somewhat lacking.
My father has finally agreed to give me control of my trust fund if I can prove I can be business-minded, so I can invest that money in getting my venture off the ground—precious stones and metals don’t come cheap, after all. Despite the fact he’s a billionaire, he’s always been incredibly tight with the allowance he gives me and my two sisters, wanting us to ‘learn the real value of money’.
He’s particularly hard on me about it after the designer knickers debacle. But that’s another story.
So, in exchange for this benevolence, I’ve promised him six months of my life learning the ropes from the bottom up at the family business. Not that he’s entrusted me with anything important so far. All I’ve done is fetch endless cups of coffee and scan, then shred, about a million old files full of papers from ten years ago which have been languishing in some dusty basement. I’m pretty sure it’s not actually a necessary job and he’s only invented it to try and kill my spirit.
And now it seemed he wanted this guy to babysit me while he was off in the States—as if he didn’t trust me to keep my promise to work hard and curb my partying when he’s not around.
I decided I’d be happy for Benedict Chivers to boss me around, though. In fact, I could imagine rather enjoying it. But I wasn’t going to just take it lying down—unless he suggested the sort of lying down I’d be happy to partake in, of course. It had definitely seemed as if he’d be into that when he was standing there, watching me pleasure myself in the bathroom. Even if he was pretending it hadn’t happened now.
I decided, on balance, that it might actually prove to be quite entertaining to have a bit of fun with this guy, so I forced my face into a bland, respectful expression and turned to face my new boss—who knew what I looked like when I orgasmed.
‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mr Chivers. I’m looking forward to coming for you.’ I shook my head and wrinkled my nose, pretending I’d misspoken by accident. ‘Coming to work for you.’
I flashed him my most innocent smile, popping my dimple, but I could tell from the way his scowl deepened and an expression of wry acuity ghosted across his face that he knew exactly what I was doing. I got the feeling he’d make me pay for it later. At least I hoped he would.
‘Good to meet you too, Maya. I look forward to having you on board,’ he said smoothly.
Even though he was careful to keep any hint of innuendo out of his voice, the sound of his deep, husky voice saying those words sent a delicious shiver across my skin, and I swear I nearly came again on the spot.
Maintaining my cool in front of this guy was clearly going to be a challenge.
‘I hope you’ll find your time at Ergo-i rewarding. We run a tight ship, but from what your father’s told me you’ll be able to handle it once you’ve been shown the ropes,’ he said, the expression in his eyes as hard as the hundred-and-fifty-million-year-old fossil on my father’s mantelpiece.
A shiver of frustration ran through me. Was that really how they both saw me? As someone who needed instructions on how to make hot drinks and shuffle paper around?
‘Okay...well, if that’s all you need from me, there’s a glass of wine with my name on it waiting for me in the kitchen,’ I said coolly, feeling a sudden urge to get out of there. Being around this guy was seriously disturbing my equilibrium.
I gave them both a nod, then quickly scarpered out of the room, rushing down the hallway towards the safety of the kitchen.
Before I could reach my safe haven I heard heavy footsteps behind me and felt my father’s vice-like fingers wrap around my arm, bringing me to an abrupt halt. Reluctantly, I turned back to face him, wondering what further humiliation I was to be subjected to this evening.
‘I expect to hear from Benedict that you’re displaying exemplary behaviour while you’re working for him,’ he murmured in that icy-cold tone he uses when he wants people to pay attention to what he’s saying.
Not that anyone would ever dare do otherwise.
‘I’d like to hope that he and April will hit it off once she gets back from China. He’s a very smart and ambitious man and his company is going places. Amalgamating the two families would be very good for business. So please, for the love of God, don’t do anything to put our family’s reputation in jeopardy while you’re working there.’
The herd of elephants that is always in the room whenever my father and I are together stamped their feet.
I hate the way he always talks to me like I’m fourteen, instead of twenty-four. Mind you, it’s a miracle he talks to me at all, after the way the fourteen-year-old me behaved... Behaviour that changed all our lives irrevocably. Particularly my mother’s.
I pushed away the sting of guilt-threaded grief that’s plagued me ever since that
