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‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘I’m not being ridiculous. I studied body language when I did a sales and marketing course recently, and she fancies you, mate. I guarantee it. But I guess if you’re not interested, then you’re not interested. Poor girl. I guess she’ll just have to go find herself some other tall, dark, handsome jerk to give her a bit. Pity I don’t fit the bill. I’d give her one, I can tell you. OK, OK, you don’t have to say it. Get lost. And I won’t forget the coffee on my way out.’
He didn’t. Unfortunately. Soon, Rachel was undulating towards his desk with the coffee and Justin found himself mentally stripping her again. Oh, God. This was how it all began back there in that bar, with him watching her walk in front of him and imagining her without any clothes on. The trouble was, this time he knew what she looked like without any clothes on. And the reality far surpassed the fantasy his imagination had conjured up. She was all woman. And she could be all his, according to Guy.
Was he right? Did she really fancy him, not as some rebound substitute for Eric the Mongrel, but as a man in his own right? Was she secretly hoping he’d keep their affair going?
The thought both excited and worried him. He didn’t love her. He’d never love her. He wasn’t capable of that kind of love any more. He wasn’t capable of any relationship of any depth. All he would want—or need—from any woman for a long time was what she’d given him the other night. Sex without strings.
He watched her put the coffee down then glance up at him, her face expectant. ‘Is that all for now?’
Was it? What would she do, he wondered, if he told her to go close the door, then lock it?
A shudder of self-loathing—or was it arousal?—ricocheted through him. He could not do it. Would not.
‘Rachel…’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing,’ he bit out. ‘That’s all. You can get back to your work. Oh, and you can take the whole afternoon off for your shopping, if you like.’
‘The whole afternoon?’ she echoed in surprise.
‘Yes, why not? You deserve it after the weekend.’
He’d meant she deserved some time off because, technically, she’d been working overtime. But when her face darkened he immediately saw how his words could be interpreted.
‘You mean in exchange for services rendered?’ she threw at him.
‘No, of course not. Look, if you’re going to bring that up all the time, I’m not sure we can go on working together.’
Justin didn’t need to have studied body language to gauge her reaction to that charming little announcement. Her whole body stiffened, and her eyes…her eyes stabbed him right in the heart.
‘I see,’ she said frostily. ‘It’s nice to know where things stand. You’ll have my resignation on your desk before I leave at lunch time. And yes, I will have the whole afternoon off, thank you very much.’ Spinning on her heels, she stalked from the room, banging the door behind her.
Justin slumped back into his chair with a groan. He’d done it now. And he’d never felt lower in all his life. He dropped his head into his hands and called himself every name under the sun.
Rachel could not sit down at her desk and go calmly back to work. She paced the outer office for a couple of angry minutes, then marched into the tea room and poured herself a fresh coffee, more for something to do than because she wanted it. In fact, the steaming mug remained untouched on the counter whilst she just stood there, tapping her foot and trying to gather herself.
Isabel had been so right about office affairs. Not that she needed her best friend to tell her that. Hadn’t it always been the case in the workplace? The male boss got away with sleeping around and the female employee got the push.
She had an urge to go back in there and give Justin a piece of her mind. But pride wouldn’t let her. Pride and common sense. Given her lack of recent work experience, she needed a reference. Not that Justin would dare not give her a reference. She could make real trouble for him over this, if she had a mind to.
But Rachel had no stomach for such an action. No, she would simply resign and to hell with Justin McCarthy. In fact, to hell with him for the rest of the day. She was going to write out her resignation right now and leave. And then she was going to go out and spend every cent in her savings account on a brand-new wardrobe!
Leaving her coffee still untouched, Rachel stormed back to her desk and set to work on her resignation letter.
Justin was in front of one of his many computer screens, pretending to work, when his office door was flung open and Rachel marched in with flushed cheeks and her head held high.
‘There’s my resignation,’ she announced, and slapped a typed page down in front of him. ‘I’ll work out my notice and I’ll expect a glowing reference, though lord knows how I’m going to explain leaving my present position after so short a time. But I guess that’s my problem. Oh, and I’m taking the rest of the day off, starting right now!’
‘Rachel, don’t…’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t resign,’ he said wearily.
‘Too late,’ she snapped, and Justin winced. ‘And please don’t pretend this isn’t what you want. You’ve been working towards this moment ever since you woke up yesterday morning and found me in your bed.’
Justin could not deny it.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if the same thing happened with your previous girl. Or do you only screw the plain ones?’
‘Rachel, I didn’t mean t—’
‘Yes, you did,’ she broke in savagely. ‘You screwed me good and proper. But I’ll survive. I’m a survivor, Justin McCarthy. Watch me.’
He watched her walk with great dignity out of his office, and he’d never admired her more. But he didn’t call her back, because she was right. He had screwed her good and proper. And he wanted to do it some more.
Best she leave before he really hurt her.
Best he crawl back into his celibate cave, and best he go back to work!
Rachel felt tears begin to well up in the lift ride down to the lobby. Her anger was swiftly abating and in its place lay a misery far greater than she had anticipated. At the heart of her dismay lay the fact she’d really liked Justin. And she’d really liked working for him.
And you really liked having sex with him, came another quieter but more honest voice. That’s why you’re feeling so wretched. All your silly female attempts to look attractive for him this morning were a big waste of time. You vowed you’d never get that horrible sewing machine out again and what did you do last night? Hauled the damned thing out of the bottom of the wardrobe and worked till midnight practically remaking this wretched suit.
And what did he do? Hardly looked at it, or at you. He doesn’t want you any more. He never really did. How could you possibly have started imagining he might? You were just there, when he needed sex. He said as much yesterday. And now you’re a nasty reminder of behaviour he’d rather forget.
Rachel’s eyes were swimming by the time the lift doors opened, so she fled to the ladies’ room in the lobby and didn’t come out till she was dry-eyed and back in control.
But she no longer felt like shopping for clothes. What did it matter what she wore around Justin?
Hooking her black carry-all over her shoulder, she headed for the exit. Straight home, she decided.
‘Rachel!’ a male voice shouted, and her heart jumped. ‘Wait.’
Her heart began to race as she turned.
But it wasn’t Justin hurrying towards her across the lobby.
It was Eric.
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_9b8b02e9-abfb-5e4e-84cc-2b9cd0cba2db)
‘ERIC!’ Rachel exclaimed, startled. ‘What…what are you doing here?’ Possibly a silly question when he’d always worked in the Central Business District in Sydney. It was inevitable that one day, now she was working in the city, she might run into him.
But to run into him only three days after running into him on the Gold Coast seemed to be stretching coincidence too far.
‘I was looking for you,’ he explained. ‘I asked around about your boss and found out he worked in this building.’
‘How enterprising of you,’ she said coolly.
‘I am, if nothing else, enterprising,’ he returned, and smiled what she’d once thought of as such a charming smile.
She no longer thought anything about Eric was charming.
She no longer thought he was all that gorgeous, either, despite his grooming still being second to none. His sleek black business suit would have cost a fortune. And he would have spent half an hour blow-drying his hair to perfection this morning. It must be killing him, she thought a bit spitefully, to find that it was receding at a rapid rate.
‘Why were you looking for me?’ she asked in a less than enthusiastic tone.
‘I was worried about you.’
She could not have been more surprised if he’d proposed marriage.
‘Good lord, why?’
‘Can we go somewhere and talk in private? There’s a coffee shop just off the foyer facing the street. How about in there?’
She shrugged with seeming indifference. ‘If you insist.’
He didn’t enlighten her till the coffee arrived, and she refused to press, despite being curious. The days when she’d hung on Eric’s every word had long gone.
‘You didn’t come to the dinner on Saturday night,’ he began, throwing her slightly. What to say to that? Rachel cast her mind back to the night in question and decided to go with the fiction Justin had created.
‘We had no need after my boss met with his client.’
‘Mr Wong decided against Sunshine Gardens?’
Rachel maintained her cool. ‘You don’t honestly expect me to discuss my boss’s business with you, do you? If that’s why you’ve come, to pump me for inside information for your girlfriend, then you’ve wasted your time. And the price of this coffee.’
‘That’s not the reason,’ Eric said hastily when Rachel made to rise. ‘I came to warn you. About your boss.’
Rachel sat back down, blinking. ‘Warn me. About Justin?’
‘Look, I know I hurt you, Rachel. I’m not a fool. The way you look at me now…you probably hate my guts and I can understand that. But I don’t hate you. In fact, I think I made a big mistake breaking up with you. You are one special lady and you deserve better in life than getting tangled up with the likes of Justin McCarthy.’
Rachel opened her mouth to deny any involvement with Justin, but after their performance on Saturday night it would be difficult to claim they weren’t lovers. Not that it was any of Eric’s business who she slept with.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said stiffly. ‘Justin is a wonderful boss, and wonderful in every other way. What could you possibly be warning me about where he’s concerned?’
Eric laughed. ‘I have to give him credit. He puts on a good act. But he’s not in love with you, Rachel. He’s just using you.’
‘How kind of you to tell me that,’ she said, struggling now to control her temper. ‘Might I ask what right you have to say that, what evidence? Or is it just that when you look at me you see a pathetic, foolish woman that no man could really love?’
‘There’s nothing pathetic or foolish about you, Rachel, and you know it. You’re still as beautiful and bright as you always were. But you do have one fatal female flaw. You fall in love with bastards.’
‘I am not in love with my boss,’ she denied heatedly.
But when Eric’s eyes searched hers she felt her face flame.
‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘Because he’s one bitter and twisted guy. Not that he doesn’t have a right to be. I’d be bitter and twisted if my wife did to me what his wife did to him.’
Rachel’s mouth went dry. ‘What…what did his wife do?’
‘I thought you wouldn’t know about that. It’s not the sort of thing a man would spread around. Charlotte didn’t put two and two together on Saturday night when you first introduced him. After all, his is not such an unusual name. But she got to thinking about it last night and made some discreet enquiries, and bingo, he was the one all right.’
‘Eric, would you kindly just say what it is you’ve come to say?’
‘Your boss’s ex-wife has been Carl Toombs’ personal assistant for a couple of years now. And I mean very personal. He pays for her apartment and she travels everywhere with him. Their relationship is a well-kept secret but that’s the reason she left her husband, to shack up more often with her high-profile boss. You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ Rachel snapped. ‘I might have been out of the workforce for a few years, but I wasn’t dead. I don’t know of anyone in Australia who wouldn’t know who Carl Toombs is.’
‘OK, OK, don’t get your dander up. Anyway, Toombs is Charlotte’s client, the one who wants to buy Sunshine Gardens. Because of their business association, Charlotte’s had quite a bit to do with his beautiful blonde PA over the past few weeks, and you know girls. They like to chat. Anyway, the ex-Mrs McCarthy confided in Charlotte over lunch and a few Chardonnays the other day. Apparently, darling Mandy is still suffering great gobs of guilt over her ex-hubby. She told Charlotte how cut up he was when she left him. She confessed she said some pretty dreadful things so that he would hate her and forget her, but that she’d never forget the look on his face when she told him she’d been having sex with Toombs for some time. She said she did love her husband and he was mad about her, but she simply couldn’t resist Carl’s advances. She said Carl wanted her and nothing was going to stop him having her. She said she thinks she broke her husband’s heart.’
Rachel didn’t say a word. She was too busy absorbing the full ramifications of Eric’s news.
‘From what I gather he’s one very bitter man,’ Eric went on. ‘Knowing you, Rachel, you probably think he’s in love with you. You’re not the type of girl to jump into bed idly. But it’s not love driving your boss these days. More like revenge.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Eric. For one thing, I’m not in love with Justin. And I don’t imagine for one moment that he’s in love with me.’
Eric frowned. ‘Then…what is it between you two?’
‘That’s my business, don’t you think?’
‘You are sleeping with him, though.’
‘That’s my business, too.’
‘Look, I’ve only got your best interests at heart, Rachel. I care about you.’
She laughed. ‘Since when, Eric? Are you sure you didn’t seek me out today to tell me this because you’re getting bored with Charlotte and think you might have a bit more of what you once used to take for granted?’
‘I never took you for granted, Rachel. I loved you in my own way. I just couldn’t see our marriage working with you becoming a full-time home carer. I’m a selfish man, I admit. I wanted more of your time than that. I need a wife whose first priority is me.’
‘Then you chose a strange partner in Charlotte. Her first priority is her career. And her second priority is herself.’
‘I always knew that. Why do you think I didn’t marry her? It was you I wanted for my wife, Rachel. I still do…’
‘Oh, please. Spare me. Thank you for the coffee,’ she said, rising without touching a drop. ‘And thank you for your very interesting news. You might not know this but you did me a huge favour in telling me about Justin’s ex. It’s made everything much clearer.’ Which it had. She might not know the full details of Justin’s thoughts and feelings. But it wasn’t revenge driving him. Revenge would have acted very differently at the weekend, and today. Revenge would have used her.
Rachel walked away from Eric without a backward glance, her mind wholly and solely on Justin. Alice hadn’t exaggerated. Her son’s wife certainly was a cold-blooded bitch. Either that, or terribly materialistic and disgustingly weak.
He was better off without someone like her in his life. The trouble was…did he realise that yet?
Maybe. Maybe not. Clearly, he’d been deeply in love with this Mandy. Possibly, he still was. It was hard to say.
Still, time did heal all wounds. Just look at herself. She’d once thought the sun shone out of Eric. She’d been devastated by his dumping her. Today, she hadn’t turned a hair at his declaring he still wanted her as his wife. The man meant nothing to her any more, and being free of him felt marvellous.
