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Had he ever noticed the colour of her eyes before tonight? He must have, surely. The negative response, as he dredged his memory, reminded him of his position, and hers. Of course he hadn’t paid attention to her features. Then why, he wondered, did he want more detail tonight?
A perverse, devilish urge made him shift closer to her as the revellers swirled about them, and he placed his free hand against her exposed lower back. Under his fingers her spine straightened, ramrod stiff, as he stroked lightly across skin that felt astonishingly heated. The contrast between his cool fingers and her intense warmth reminded him yet again of their differences, their positions, urging him to desist while sensation burned an enticing brand across his fingertips. He sensed, rather than heard, Holly’s breath catch in her throat. This was getting out of control. He was getting out of control, and way overstepping the mark.
Reluctantly he withdrew his hand. Just in time it seemed, as Janet came over, gushing with pride. “You don’t need to worry, Holly, I have it all under control. I think Mr. Knight’s idea to let you enjoy yourself tonight was great, don’t you? For once you can be one of the guests and really have a good time.”
Holly’s lips peeled back from her teeth in what approximated a smile but inside she was on the verge of shattering.
“Thank you, Janet. I…I appreciate you stepping into the breach like that. But don’t hesitate to—”
“You’re doing a marvellous job, Janet. Thank you.” Connor’s fingers stroked another delicious line across the small of her back, sending a cascade of goose bumps rippling beneath the seam of her gown and shocking the words she was about to utter into silence.
She couldn’t stand it anymore. She stepped forward and turned so he could no longer reach her bare skin. “Mr. Knight—”
“Connor. And let it go for one night, okay. Orders from the boss.” He stared down the final protest that hovered on her lips, a taunting slant to his smile. “Speaking of the boss, let’s work our way over and see mine.” He nodded to where his father, Tony Knight, the founder and president of Knight Enterprises stood, like the patriarch he was, his erect posture exuding strength and pride as he gazed about the room.
The steady gentle pressure of Connor’s hand returned against the base of her spine, a pressure that sent wild spirals of warmth unfurling through her body. She barely acknowledged the greetings and festive wishes from the staff as they cut a swathe through the crowd, the minglers parting like the Red Sea as they moved across the room.
As they neared the gathering of senior executives, she struggled to regain her composure, to ignore the imprint of Connor’s proprietary hand against the small of her back and to settle the butterflies that fluttered every time she had to deal with the senior Mr. Knight. She worked with men of his position and power on a regular basis, but there was something about Antony Knight that commanded respect. A respect that, for Holly, bordered on something closer to awe. She certainly didn’t want to dissolve like an idiot at his feet because his youngest son was sending her senses into meltdown.
A first generation Kiwi, born to Italian immigrant parents who’d anglicised their name to better fit into their adopted country, Tony Knight had built Knight Enterprises from the ground up. Holly had no doubt he could still swing a hammer with the best of them, but that wasn’t what made her admire him the most.
No, she acknowledged as she fought to bank the fire burning in her veins, it was his unstinting devotion to his family. His abiding love for his long-dead wife. He’d raised three sons while building an empire, and yet, even though she had no doubt that the past had been rocky, he’d maintained that solid thread of familial connection between them. Despite his setbacks he hadn’t given them up to strangers to raise, like her mother had when she’d discarded Holly, as if she’d been unwanted baggage.
Holly would give just about anything to be a part of a background like that. A background she could call her own. The sobering thought did its work with chilling accuracy and she stepped clear of Connor’s reach to greet his father.
Her face ached with the effort of keeping a smile pasted on.
Connor had stayed close to her all evening, shepherding her as she mingled and chatted sociably with their colleagues, ensuring she constantly had a glass of champagne in her fingers and that she stayed well clear of administrative responsibilities for the evening. For once she knew what it felt like to be the one being looked after—the sensation was totally foreign to her and strangely unsettling at the same time.
She lifted her drink to her lips and took a tiny sip of the wine. Darn, warm again. She’d barely drunk a full glass all evening. Mind you, that was probably a good thing. Her stomach had been so knotted with tension she hadn’t eaten, either. While the food on the buffet and circulating on trays looked wonderful, and as usual she’d ensured there was plenty of it, she simply couldn’t bring herself to take a bite.
She flicked a glance to the wall clock by the door, and her shoulders sagged gently in relief. Things would draw to a close soon. Mr. Knight, Sr. would make his usual end-of-year speech, thanking the skeleton crew who would keep the business ticking over in its usual efficient fashion during the three weeks while most staff took their holiday break, and wishing everyone a happy Christmas.
Happy Christmas indeed, for those who had family and friends to share it with. Holly felt a tiny frown pull at her forehead, and the beginnings of a headache prodded behind her eyes.
Would Andrea even be aware it was Christmas Day tomorrow? The staff at the nursing home had recommended that Holly not come in, and that her foster sister wouldn’t worry if for once she spent a holiday with her other friends. Except Holly had no one else she wanted to spend the day with. Andrea was all she had—her one positive link to her past.
Maybe she’d call into the home, anyway, and take Andrea the filmy new nightgown she’d bought her—a soft mossy green, to match her eyes.
“Hey, smile. It’s Christmas, remember? No need to look so sad.” Connor’s warm breath caressed the side of her neck, his voice lowered to a sensuous hum that stroked along her nerve endings like fingertips over plush velvet. A rush of awareness prickled all the way up into her scalp.
“Was I?” She turned to face him. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” she responded in her usual brisk tone.
“Good to see you’re feeling better.” Connor grinned back at her. “You’ve got your ‘office voice’ back again. Come on, let your hair down. Enjoy yourself.”
“I am.” Oh, Lord, she sounded so darn prim and defensive. To offset the prudishly proper tone of her voice she lifted her wine again to take another sip, but was halted when a warm hand grasped her wrist. A shock of electricity raced up to her hand, causing a wild tremble as Connor took the glass from her suddenly nerveless fingers.
“Here, I’ll get you another. That one must be warm by now. You are supposed to drink it, you know.”
She shook her head slightly, but he ignored her and signalled to a passing waiter for a fresh glass. She grasped the slender stem, sloshing a bit of the wine over the edge.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Holly?” Connor stepped closer, his arm slipping supportively behind her back. “You still look a bit shaky, there.”
“I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all. If you don’t mind, perhaps I could slip away early.”
“Great idea.” Connor scanned the room. “I think we’ve done our dash tonight. Let’s go.”
Together?
“No, truly,” she protested, “you stay. I’m sure your father—”
“Will excuse me this time. He owes me for that Santa episode. He knows how I feel about kids.” Even though he was smiling, there was a hard glitter in his eyes. The urbane mask he’d worn all evening slipped, and bleakness hardened his face to marble.
“You don’t like children?” Holly couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. He’d been so natural with the little ones, so patient.
“On the contrary.” His voice was clipped. “He knows exactly how much children mean to me. Let’s make our goodbyes.” He slipped her hand in the crook of his arm, and they moved to where his father was holding court with a bunch of his cronies. She felt every eye in the room surreptitiously staring at them as they cut through the crowd.
What on earth was he talking about? If he liked children, why the big deal about being Santa? Unless, a thought occurred to her with sharpening clarity, it had served as a painful reminder of what he didn’t have. That might explain his reluctance earlier tonight, not to mention his irritation with his dad.
Another gulf of difference between them. He wanted kids; she didn’t. So don’t go getting any ideas about his behaviour tonight, she warned herself firmly.
“I see the two of you are off, then.” Tony Knight sent a sharp look at Connor, which Holly read quite clearly as admonishment. She watched the silent interplay between father and son, neither backing down, yet an undercurrent so strong flowing between them no one would dare get caught in their crossfire. Holly knew Tony Knight frowned on relationships between staff, and for the life of her she couldn’t understand why Connor was giving his father the impression they were leaving together.
“Yes, Papa. We are.”
Connor’s subtle emphasis on the word we made the older man’s lips thin somewhat in response, and his eyes flicked assessingly between her and his youngest son. A frisson of disquiet trickled down Holly’s spine. He thought they were a couple? She had to dissuade him from that idea straight away.
Before she could interject, he bent down and bussed Holly’s cheeks in his extravagant Italian fashion. Her shock at his action burst through her cool reserve, painting a warm stain of colour on her face. For all that his family had done their best to adopt the “Kiwi way”, he was, and would always remain, Italian to the soles of his handmade shoes.
“You did a marvellous job again tonight, Holly.” He smiled, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. They remained sharply tuned to her face—watching as intently as a hawk, and making her feel about as vulnerable as a field mouse exposed on an overgrazed paddock.
“It’s my pleasure, sir,” she eventually managed, her own smile frozen on her face.
He gave a sharp nod in acknowledgement, then fired his gaze back at Connor. “I’ll still be seeing you tomorrow morning, then? Remember my cousin Isabella and her daughter will also be attending.”
“Of course.” She felt Connor’s arm tighten beneath the fine cloth of his suit as if he was holding himself in check.
“Good.” His father turned slightly, dismissing them both.
“I thought I’d invite Holly to join us. You don’t mind, do you?” Connor’s challenge hung in the air, and he faced down the shocked expression on his father’s face. He turned to Holly. “You don’t have any plans for the morning do you?”
“But I—” she began to protest.
“I’m sure Holly—” Tony Knight spoke simultaneously.
Connor raised an eyebrow at Holly. “Well?”
“I can’t intrude.”
“So you have no plans, then, for tomorrow?”
“No.” Her response was barely a breath on the air. She hated having to admit it. Hated it, and the unwanted sympathy it always engendered, with a vengeance.
“Fine. We’ll be there at ten-thirty, Papa.”
Holly felt as though she’d been hijacked. At what point had Connor decided to use her in some game he was playing against his father? And why? The older man’s eyes were spitting chips of ice although he reined in his anger well. If she hadn’t already been so finely attuned to the atmosphere between the two men, she might not even have noticed.
“Don’t be late.” Tony Knight bit off the command, acceding he’d been outmanoeuvred.
“We won’t be.”
Before she could further analyse their veiled animosity, Connor was guiding her towards the door.
In the elevator Connor released a deep sigh and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes briefly. He was sick of playing his father’s games. Tony Knight had tried to control each of his three boys at some time or another. Connor had always counted his blessings that he’d been last in the queue. But tonight, especially tonight, he’d resolved not to play his father’s game any longer. There was no way he’d be put on parade for yet another matchmaking attempt with yet another distant cousin. The pressure his old man had been exerting, initially subtle and then later not so, for Connor to get over Carla and find a new woman to make a home—a family—with, had been the last straw. Especially today.
He shouldn’t have used Holly like that, though. It was shameful. He’d seen the questions flinging around in his father’s mind as if they were graffiti, starkly spray painted on the boardroom wall. What was he, Connor, thinking? Christmas had always traditionally been for family. Only family. The last woman he’d brought had been Carla, as his wife. He knew he’d be in for a grilling tomorrow. What the hell? It’d be worth it. Maybe he’d even get around to telling his father about the grandchild he’d never get to know or love.
He glanced at Holly. The slender line of her throat arched slightly as she held her head tilted, staring at the numbers as they lit consecutively on the overhead console. A man could dream about making love to a neck like that. Feathering gentle kisses along the pale-blue pulse that beat beneath her ear. Stroking his tongue down the feminine cord of her neck, lower and lower until he bit softly at the curve of her shoulder.
Heat flooded his groin, driving his body to full, pulsing life. What the hell was he thinking? Holly wasn’t some potential conquest to reignite the flame of hunger his wife had annihilated with her deceptions. Yet, for some reason he couldn’t tear his eyes from her throat, and his mouth dried as he imagined living out the fantasy of the image playing in his mind.
At their floor, the doors slid smoothly open and she stepped out ahead of him, affording him a delectable view of her smooth straight back. Her skin glowed with a hint of colour that made him wonder if she’d be that colour all over.
A jolt of need struck him, deep and hard. Suddenly, Lord help him, it was crucial to find out.
Three
“It always feels weird being here when everyone’s gone home.” Holly retrieved her suit carrier and handbag from the cupboard in her office.
“Yeah,” Connor agreed from where he leaned against the wall, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.
Holly turned, startled by the odd note to his voice. He watched her, his dark black-brown eyes unblinking. The burning heat in them made her stomach lurch with a nervous flip-flop.
She needed to get this business about Christmas Day sorted now. “About tomorrow—”
“I’ll pick you up in the morning. I’ll need your address.”
He pushed off the wall and came to stand closer. The fresh citrus scent of his cologne together with the underlying spice of pure male filled her nostrils. They flared involuntarily, as if trying to inhale his scent deeper. Instantaneously she shut down the urge to breathe in deep, switching instead to short, shallow intakes through her mouth. It was one thing to believe yourself in love with your boss but quite another to believe he was interested in return. Somehow he must have unconsciously picked up the message that she was attracted to him, more than attracted if her wildly chaotic hormones were anything to go by. He was strong, he was male, no doubt he was reacting instinctively to whatever signals she’d been sending. The signals had to stop here and now.
“Look, it won’t be necessary. I’ll call your father in the morning and make my apologies. You don’t need me gate crashing your family’s special day.”
“Nonsense. You’re coming.” Connor strolled towards his office, loosening his tie before discarding it on the couch against the wall. “And speaking of special days, how come you never told me it was your birthday?”
He knew? “It’s not important,” Holly responded sharply.
“All birthdays are important. Besides, I got you something. Come in here for a minute.”
Holly’s heart hammered in her chest like a woodpecker at a tree trunk. He’d bought her a gift?
She placed her things carefully on her desk and stepped into his office. The door swung silently to a close behind her as he turned from his desk, a large cellophane-and-tissue-wrapped parcel in his hands.
“I noticed today how much you seem to like these things, but I wanted to get you something a bit different. Here, happy birthday.”
Connor stepped forward and placed the white poinsettia in her hands. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry until weary emotion got the better of her and sudden tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked, hard, and kept her head tilted down, not trusting herself to speak. She would not break down in front of him.
“It’s beautiful, Mr. Knight. Thank you.”
“Hey, I thought we’d agreed you’d call me Connor.” He lifted a long finger and tipped up her chin so she couldn’t avoid drowning in the concern reflected on his face.
Her breath hitched, and she blinked again. Except this time she couldn’t stem the acidic burn of moisture in her eyes.
“Tears, Holly?” His eyes narrowed as one fat tear hovered for a brief second then spilled off her lower lashes and tracked its inexorable path down her cheek to the corner of her lips. She turned her face, pulling away from the tenderness of his fingers, the pity in his gaze.
She’d had a lifetime of pity and she couldn’t bear to look up and see more from him. Not now. Not ever. She swallowed against the lump in her throat, instinctively reaching for the anger she knew she needed to shore herself up and carry through with the rest of this farce.
“It’s nothing. Just a headache, that’s all.” She held the gift with numb fingers, the crunch of the cellophane rippling in the air over her laboured breathing.
Connor stepped forward and removed the plant from her hands. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
He put the plant back on his desk, then turned and caught her hands in his, drawing her closer until her breasts brushed against the fine-textured cloth of his suit. Beneath the fabric of her gown her nipples tingled and tightened almost painfully.
Her reaction to his nearness, to him, didn’t go unnoticed. His eyes gleamed like black fire, his pupils dilating, almost consuming the rich dark brown of his irises.
For an infinitesimal moment Holly allowed herself to dream, to believe he might want her. To believe he might return her love. In that moment, she was certain, her heart laid itself bare to his scrutiny, her own eyes the shimmering window to her feelings.
But then the smouldering anger flamed back into life. Love, ha! He didn’t love her. He pitied her. Otherwise why would she be here, pressed up against the hard wall of his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing as it matched her own. She couldn’t allow herself to be so vulnerable. Vulnerability was an indulgence she simply couldn’t afford. She pulled free of his hold, her body mourning the loss of his heat even as she did so.
“I must go. Thank you for the plant.” She wrenched the poinsettia back off his desk and swivelled on her heels to leave, silently castigating herself for a being a fool to want more than she had a right to.
Three weeks away from work, away from Connor Knight, would be a godsend right now. She wanted distance and she wanted it now. Yet a tiny chink in her rapidly assumed armour whispered, Liar. You want him.
“Holly—?” He caught her by her elbow and swung her around to face him.
Refusing to make eye contact, she stared blindly past his shoulder at the sparkling vista of the Auckland city lights, dazzling like a pirate’s treasure against the skyline and inky black harbour beyond. He could keep his wretched pity and he could keep his blasted plant along with it.
He brushed another errant tear from her cheek with the back of his hand, his touch igniting the banked embers of desire she was working so hard to contain.
Contain it be damned.
She’d probably regret this in the morning. Heck, probably, nothing. Regrets were for the weak. If life had taught her anything it was how to be strong. To grab what you wanted and hold on tight. And right now, more than anything, she wanted Connor Knight.
The poinsettia dropped, unheeded, to the soft carpeted floor. The crinkle of cellophane as it rolled to one side, spilling a little dark soil on the pristine grey wool surface, barely registering against the roaring sound in her ears.
Holly reached up and laced her fingers at the back of Connor’s neck and drew his head down to hers. She parted her lips, drawing in the taste of him before she pressed her mouth to his.
