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Far too easily.
So much for her idea of being at loggerheads for her own salvation. Fiona straightened on the stool. ‘Yes. I think we could do it, for the sake of the project and for the company’s overall good. It’s simply a collaboration of minds, after all.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ His nod was pure professionalism. The warmth in his glance was not, but he masked that quickly and she told herself to stop noticing. They sipped their drinks in silence before she spoke again.
‘To answer your question from earlier, I caught a lift here with Stacey but I think she’ll end up at Caleb’s place later.’ The couple had been one of her ‘fix it’ projects and had got back together after not speaking to each other for three months. ‘I’ll head off myself soon. I don’t want a really late night.’
They’d finished their drinks. Somehow they were both on their feet.
‘Thanks again for bringing my keys to me, for taking the time to do that.’
‘Do you need a lift home?’ He asked it in such a level way, yet his gaze was not level. It was thoughtful and cautious, offering and…almost braced for her to say no?
As if Brent MacKay would care whether she rejected or accepted him in anything. He was a self-made, very wealthy, highly eligible and extremely talented man. If anything, he had the whole world at his feet.
Yet that’s not what you see in the backs of his eyes at times when he drops his guard a little. That’s not what you saw in those photos with his brothers.
Well, what Fiona looked for and believed she ‘saw’ in those around her were things she had to guard. Her family’s discomfort with that side of her had proved that. She tried to respond in kind. ‘I left my car at Stacey’s place. I just need to get a taxi that far.’
‘What suburb?’
Fiona told him.
Brent nodded. ‘I’ll drive you.’ Decision made. ‘It’s on the way. It would be silly for you to wait around for a taxi and have the expense of it when there’s no need.’
‘Thank you. I just feel guilty for bringing you out when you must have had far better things to do with your time than chase after a designer who can’t even keep track of her apartment keys.’
‘You’re an artist. It is okay for you to forget things sometimes, you know. Some people would say it was almost obligatory.’ They drew near the tables of her friends and Brent waited while she bade them all a quick goodbye.
Once they were outside he quickly hustled her to his truck and got them on the road. They didn’t speak much at first. In the quiet of the night the truck’s cab felt isolated and enclosed and…intimate.
If only she could be a little less conscious of him, but that didn’t seem to be an option for her at the moment.
As he drove them towards her friend’s home, she turned to him and searched his shadowy face. ‘Were you at work late before you discovered my keys?’
‘Yes. I got…caught up there.’ His slight hesitation seemed to hold perhaps a hint of embarrassment. Or some kind of chagrin?
‘Well, now I’m going to owe you twice as much of an effort when I attend the Awards night with you tomorrow night.’ Fiona gave him directions as they neared Stacey’s home.
He drove the truck into an empty space on the street and killed the engine.
It was a quiet residential street and she’d parked her car underneath a street light.
‘Talk about your work for the company if that chance comes up. That’s all I ask.’ He climbed from the truck, crossed in front and opened her door for her. ‘Let’s see you to your car.’
When they got to her car she had her key ready and she turned to him and thanked him quickly and maybe that would have done it, except her nose bumped the side of his neck as she did that because he moved, and she moved, and she didn’t anticipate his closeness and suddenly all the resistance seemed pointless because all the awareness was there, wasn’t it?
He smelled good. Did she press her nose to his neck for the slightest split second?
Did he tip his head towards hers, encouraging that act?
Two deep breaths, one from him, one from her, and they were apart again, the silence an endless consciousness until his gaze met hers and she saw what had to be rare indecision inside him.
‘I shouldn’t do this. It’s not smart.’ His words were an echo of her thoughts.
And she wanted to know…‘Why do you—’
He shook his head. ‘Maybe it’s those long, tall boots. They’re as good to blame as anything.’ His hand closed around her upper arm. His lashes swept down over glittering green eyes that had gone from indecision to determination in…the blink of green eyes.
And Fiona’s senses stalled and her heart stalled and inside her the war hit a new level of anticipation and concern, of need to engage and need to retreat and she thought, Now. He’s going to kiss me now.
And it was what she’d waited for, hoped for without wanting to admit it to herself. Would it be such a bad thing, even if it might cause complications for them?
But he stood there very still, and his fingers tensed where they held her. And his head twitched once, hard, to the right and the moment was lost.
Brent uttered a harsh, ‘Goodnight,’ and dropped his hand, and left her standing there while he walked away.
Chapter Five
‘IT’S the autism playing out. Having that happen as much as it has lately in front of…other people makes me tense.’ Brent muttered the words to Linc as the two men stepped out of his home the following night and into the communal corridor.
He tugged at the collar of the starched white dress shirt. ‘You know how I feel about being in the public eye with that kind of thing.’
The loss of control of his condition in Fiona’s company—he’d known it was happening from when he’d first met her. Because of that fact alone, he could forget any chance of being intimate with her. Not that he would have tried to pursue that. She worked for him, for starters, and she deserved better than he could give her.
Why was he thinking this way at all, anyway? He didn’t want to examine his motives.
‘Your autism is barely noticeable. Even when it does “play out”, most people wouldn’t figure out the source.’ Linc drew a breath and his gaze searched Brent’s. ‘Are you sure that’s what this is about?’
‘What else would it be?’ Brent spoke quickly, a little too loudly.
A murmur of voices sounded in the foyer below. Voices Brent recognised. His brother Alex.
And Fiona. Alex must have met her on the way in, before she had a chance to hit the buzzer.
He told himself he wasn’t relieved to end the discussion with Linc.
‘Good luck tonight, anyway.’
‘Thanks.’ Brent bade Linc a quiet goodbye and headed down the staircase.
When Alex spotted him, Brent’s youngest brother excused himself from his guest, shared a brief word on the staircase with Brent and disappeared.
That left Brent and the woman at the foot of the stairs.
She was stunning. Utterly and completely stunning. The dress was creams and pinks and greys with a fitted top that left her arms bare and nipped in at her waist, then flared over shapely hips and thighs and fell to her calves in a soft swirl of fabric. It dipped into a discreet V front and back, caressing the curves of full breasts to perfection and revealing a lovely hint of the dip between her shoulder blades.
The dress showcased her beauty, but her beauty itself was what stopped his heart for a moment before a deep, warm feeling washed through him.
He couldn’t explain it. Only that Fiona was soft and curvy everywhere. He wanted to immerse himself in that softness, body, mind and…something even deeper that he didn’t fully understand that had something to do with all the softness there hadn’t been in his lifetime.
Okay. So that was fine. Any man would want that softness anyway. It didn’t need to mean anything particularly deep. Brent’s body tightened.
‘Good evening. You look wonderful.’ Husky words, his gaze locked probably too intimately and directly on hers as he battled to pull his thoughts and reactions into place.
‘Good…good evening, Brent. And thank you. I thought about not wearing heels but you won’t mind if I’m eye to eye with you?’ She stepped forward on the killer high heels in question.
Her hair was piled onto her head and pinned back with some kind of butterfly clip. Wisps kissed her nape, and she looked tentative and a little uncertain of herself, and the way she walked in those heels…
Why would she see herself as anything other than stunning? Brent’s gaze rose slowly to her face and locked there. ‘I won’t mind.’ He might go mad from the results of all that not minding, but no. He wouldn’t mind.
Some of the tension seemed to leave her and her gaze shifted to encompass all of him in a swift examination.
Brent had just started to relax himself when she did that, and the blue of her eyes deepened. Her smile wobbled and she hesitated there in his foyer while a delicate flush rose in her cheeks. Desire flared, a small flame burning brighter, back and forth between them.
‘You look wonderful, Brent.’ Her quiet words held conviction, and unease, and a wary consciousness. ‘I hope I’m not too early. Alex let me in. I’ve kept the taxi waiting, as you suggested.’
‘The timing is perfect.’ Everything about her right now was perfect and, because that was so, it seemed a good idea to get out of here and get his focus onto the business of the evening. ‘I’m sure tonight will be a good PR exercise.’
‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Fiona chatted on about it as they made their way outside, almost as though she too felt the need to distract herself. ‘The guest list should provide some opportunities to mingle both with industry professionals and also members of the public who appreciate what we do.’
‘Those contacts will make the night worth it,’ Brent agreed.
Worth stepping outside his usual guardedness, worth letting people see past his privacy and defences to a little of the man beneath.
Brent guided Fiona to the outer door with a hand on her elbow. She trembled beneath his touch, just slightly, just enough to make it impossible to think of anything but touching her.
When they climbed into the back of the taxi, closed themselves into the confines of that rear seat that somehow seemed so isolated despite the driver right in front of them, Brent noticed that intimacy again.
It was there in the knowledge of his body close to hers, their thighs touching where his legs sprawled and hers were folded neatly in front of her.
‘I’m excited to have the chance to attend the Awards ceremony with you.’ Fiona smiled as she turned her head to search his gaze. Smiled with an edge of awareness that he should have wished wasn’t there.
Instead, a part of him that just didn’t want to obey him revelled in her reaction, even as he thought of all the things he wouldn’t like about the evening. ‘I don’t exactly adore public events, but this one is important for my work.’
‘I could take them or leave them most of the time myself,’ Fiona admitted, ‘but I’m excited about tonight. I want your nominated design to win. I’ve studied all the candidate works and yours is by far the best.’
Her faith in him made him smile. ‘I appreciate your confidence in me, though there are several other very talented contenders.’
They discussed the other works and their designers for the rest of the journey. Brent talked, but he never lost his awareness of her. She smelled of soft woman’s skin, of subtle perfume that made him think of a tropical stretch of beach at midnight at the height of summer.
As they arrived at the converted mansion that would house the Awards ceremony, Fiona vehemently assured him there was no chance anyone else would be the winner tonight.
Brent wanted so very badly to lean forward and kiss the passionate declaration right off her lips. He allowed himself one brief touch of her forearm with his fingertips instead and they climbed from the taxi and made their way past several function rooms to the largest one, reserved for the ceremony. He had to do better than this and yet, with each passing moment, his determination to keep at arm’s length from her became more and more difficult to follow.
The venue was busy, with multiple functions taking place in a variety of rooms. Brent turned his attention away from all of that and focused on the woman at his side. On their joint interest in the night’s events, he meant!
‘Oh, why can’t he stop droning on and hurry up and just announce it?’ Fiona couldn’t hold the words back any longer. She whispered them against Brent’s ear where they sat at the table with a number of other guests.
Yes, she shouldn’t have leaned in so close and let her lips touch him that way, and no, she simply couldn’t care about that fact right now.
They’d done all the right things all night, had mixed and mingled and every other thing they had to do. And all the while, through everything, the awareness of each other had simmered. Something had changed. Maybe it was Brent, maybe it was Fiona herself. Or perhaps it was both of them, striking sparks off each other in this different setting.
If he truly was attracted to her, if he was the exception rather than the rule…
A short bark of stifled laughter came from her employer’s lips. He turned to smile at her, turned his head quickly enough that her lips brushed fully across his ear before she pulled back.
His smile turned to sensual consciousness between one breath and the next.
Fiona’s senses fluttered as their gazes caught and held. A moment later she sat straight in her seat again and Brent sat straight in his and the keynote speaker continued his spiel about the history of the award. There’d been no break in proceedings, but her heart was pounding. That expression in Brent’s eyes…
‘The award.’ She murmured the words beneath her breath. That was what was important right now. She shouldn’t have said anything about the keynote speaker going on too much. She should have waited patiently and then she wouldn’t have ended up with her mouth pressed to Brent’s ear.
Well, right now patience wasn’t her strong suit. Her senses were all out of whack because of what had just happened. And she wanted that award for her boss!
Are you sure you don’t just simply want your boss?
Tonight, in formal suit, white shirt and bow tie, he looked better than James Bond. She could attribute his impact on her to the flattering clothing and the tie that exactly matched the colour of her eyes.
Her eyes. As though he’d chosen to wear it to complement her, not himself.
That’s rather whimsical, don’t you think, Fiona?
And attributing his appeal to any of those surface things simply wouldn’t be honest, and she knew it.
Brent bent his head to hers and whispered, without getting too close to the shell of her ear, ‘Whether I win the award doesn’t matter one way or the other, you know.’
To a degree he was right. He would still be the highly successful landscape designer he was. But she wanted the industry recognition for him, believed he’d earned it, and wanted his peers and the various connections here tonight to see him win.
Fiona was about to explain those things when he reached out to cover her hand where it rested on the snowy linen of the tablecloth.
His deep voice whispered into her ear again. ‘Don’t stress, okay? We’re fine here and look on the bright side. Whatever the outcome, we got a nice meal out of it.’
‘We did, didn’t we?’ She laughed, as he had no doubt expected she would. And her hand turned. Her fingers curled around his and held on.
‘For luck,’ she murmured, and knew it was far more than that.
Brent made no attempt to break away from their joined touch. Instead, his fingers repeatedly stroked over hers as the speaker finally announced the third place, and a runner up, and finally, after a pause in which the whole room seemed to wait breathlessly…
‘And the winner of this year’s Deltran Landscaping Award is…Brent MacKay of Brent MacKay Landscaping Designs, for his design of Tarroway Gardens!’
‘Oh, I knew they’d give it to you. I’m so proud, Brent. Congratulations!’ Somehow Fiona ended up with her arms around Brent’s shoulders.
By itself that would have been okay, but his arms closed around her in return and she felt the touch of his fingers against the flesh between her shoulders, the press of strong forearms covered in suit cloth against her upper arms.
The scent of his aftershave and his skin filled her senses and his mouth pressed against her hair. The moment of congratulation and excitement became something more, became a promise of what she had wanted all through this public night.
But people clapped, and the room and their surroundings came back. Brent got to his feet and gripped her hand and used that grip to tow her onto the podium with him. He introduced her and her role in the company, said a little about his work as he held their tucked hands at his side.
