Australian Boss: Diamond Ring: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring

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He was her boss. She should say goodnight and walk inside…‘Brent, thank you for tonight—’

‘Thank you for attending the Awards ceremony with me.’ He paused. ‘You got more than you bargained for with our exchange of a family night for the Awards night.’

‘My family situation isn’t even worth words in comparison to what happened tonight.’ She shook her head. How could she even think her paltry difficulties with her family mattered now? ‘Brent, I just don’t know how to comfort—’

‘Don’t feel sorry for me.’ Though he interrupted her, he did it gently, wrapping his fingers around hers where she’d been toying with her keys. ‘My past is what it is. I’ve moved on from it.’

‘Maybe, but you went on trying to conceal a part of yourself that you shouldn’t worry about that way.’ She bit her lip. Her breath stuttered in her throat and she whispered, ‘I can’t talk—’

About it any more? Brent certainly didn’t want to.

‘Then we won’t talk.’ He uttered the words with an accepting edge. ‘I’d rather do this, anyway.’ He bent his head to hers.

Touched his lips to hers.

A soft, seeking, giving and taking exchange. Lips to lips. How could it be all of this between them? And yet, somewhere inside herself, Fiona had wanted and needed his kiss and not even known how much she did.

Now she knew.

A taste of delight and sweetness and desire and pleasure. Her fingers wrapped around his forearms, and his hands were about her waist.

It felt good and right to have his mouth over hers, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of her waist. For a few wonderful moments, she lived in the sensations of kissing him.

His mouth caressed hers as though he needed and wanted to kiss her this way. Their gazes were locked, his lashes dusky crescents that fanned against his cheeks as he focused wholly on her. And then those lashes swept down fully and her eyes closed too, and it was all sensation and feeling and the beat of her heart in her breast and the spread of such warmth all through her.

That warmth told its own story. She had invested emotionally in him, at least to a degree, even when she knew that was dangerous. A little hint of panic surfaced as Fiona made this realisation.

And the moment that panic hit, she realised something in Brent had changed as well.

He ended the kiss and dropped his hands away from her. Stepped back, and some kind of regret showed in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. It can’t go anywhere. You and I can never—’

He cut off the rest of the sentence, but he didn’t need to finish it. Fiona could do that herself.

Now that he’d felt the reality, had touched the reality of her generous curves, he did not want her. The house of cards that had been desire and pleasure and closeness and a hope she should never have allowed, crumbled down.

Fiona tipped up her chin and told herself it didn’t matter. It absolutely, fiercely did not matter. ‘Goodnight, Brent.’

‘Goodnight. I’m—’

Sorry.

At least he didn’t say it.

With one last glance from a troubled green gaze, Brent walked away.

Chapter Six

REPEAT after me: I am a professional, I am a professional, I am a professional. I’m focused on my work, my career, my ‘five year plan’ and my goals for success…

Fiona attempted, yet again, for the umpteenth time, to figure out what was wrong with the feature plants in the painting she was working on. If she could feel settled or focused about anything at all, it might help her make a decent assessment of the problem.

And how could she feel settled when all of her was utterly distracted and had been since the night Brent had kissed her and walked away straight afterwards?

‘Stupid thing.’ She grabbed the open container of ochre paint from her work shelf.

Perhaps, if she blended a little white into it, she’d overcome the toning issue she had going on. If indeed the problem actually was a toning issue. The colour wasn’t right. That much she’d known from the start. She just wasn’t certain if that was the entire problem.

‘I shouldn’t call the painting names. I’m the problem, not it.’ She muttered the words, set the container on a small work table and set about mixing the white in.

Overall, this painting was not going well. That much she could say for sure, and that was a problem because the client expected to receive this artwork on Monday.

Brent was in the next room, working on something. Well, she assumed so. He’d had the door pushed across all morning so she couldn’t be certain of anything, really, but she doubted he was having the same difficulties concentrating as she was.

In fact, he seemed just fine ignoring what had happened between them after the Awards night dinner. All of it. The revelation of his autism. The meeting with his father. Their kiss. His regret and rejection after it. Maybe it had been a sympathy kiss—for her sake. She had been very upset on his behalf and he was a kind man.

The thought made her cringe because to her it had been anything but that.

But he’d backed away from it, had clearly been put off by it. What other conclusion could she draw?

Fiona gave her paint one last vigorous stir. She would simply have to get on with her work, that was all. Take a leaf from her boss’s book and only focus on the responsibilities they shared here. That was smart anyway. The only sensible thing to do, really, in the face of the fact that Brent didn’t…want her.

So there. That was decided. Fiona snatched up her newly blended paint, briefly admired the glossy consistency of it and swung about to carry it to her easel.

‘I need to go up into the mountains. This project—’

‘I’m going to just focus on work…Oomph.’

As their words crossed each other, Fiona came up against a solid wall of chest. Paint hit that chest in a broad, gooey blob, slopped over her hand and splashed its way down until drips hit the floor.

‘Oh, no.’ The paint container wobbled in her hand. Fiona got it upright, but that was pointless now.

‘I guess I should have knocked first or something.’ Brent spoke in a slightly dazed tone while his fingers rose to his chest.

‘It’s my fault. I should have been looking at what I was doing.’ Fiona’s hand rose, too. She brushed at the dinner-plate sized splodge soaking into his shirt, sticking it to the firm muscles of his chest.

And then she stilled as Brent’s fingers explored the paint, sliding back and forth through it, not to clear it off, but to get the full tactile experience of it.

The sight of that exploration was one of the most beautiful, sensual things Fiona had ever seen. Maybe he caught her staring because his fingers came to a standstill and very green eyes searched her gaze while heat coated his cheekbones.

Embarrassment, but why?

Because that’s his condition speaking.

‘You must think I’m strange—’

‘I’m sorry I stared. It was just that you looked so—’ She couldn’t complete the words. Couldn’t tell him that his expression had made her imagine his hands stroking her skin that way.

‘I…um…I’ve ruined your shirt.’ Her mouth pointed out the ridiculously obvious while the rest of her tried to catch its breath. ‘I was trying to fix a problem with this artwork. The colour change probably wouldn’t have fixed it, anyway. I need to see the particular seed pod that grows on the plants I’ve used in the painting. The trouble is they don’t go to seed pods until they’re quite mature. I won’t find what I need at any young plant nursery.’

Brent’s glance moved to the half finished painting. ‘What you have there looks…okay.’

‘Yes, and that’s the problem. Okay is synonymous with “average”. It isn’t good enough.’ Fiona frowned at the painting. ‘I need the real thing.’

He looked from her to the painting and back again. ‘If you can’t fix this it’s going to drive you crazy, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but how do you—?’

‘Know how that feels?’ He shook his head. ‘Because I’ve just spent all morning working on a project and not getting it where I need to because the one part of it that’s vital to the design I can’t perfect until I study rock formations in the mountains. And, as it happens, the rock formations I have in mind are the only place I know of where you’ll find your plants, complete with seed pods. It’s where I spotted the plants before I incorporated them into that landscape design in the first place. They aren’t normally stocked in nurseries. Linc sourced some young plants for me when I needed them.’

‘If you could get me a look at some…’ Without thinking about it, she took his hand in hers and used the base of his shirt to wipe as much of the paint off his fingers as she could. ‘I hope that shirt didn’t have sentimental value. I’ll replace it, of course.’ Her fingers worked at the buttons on the shirt. She got through three of them before he shackled her wrist.

‘Don’t—’ He broke off. ‘You’ll get it all over yourself.’

‘It’s too late to worry about that.’ It was too late to worry about a few things, Fiona realised, including the impact of revealing his chest to her gaze, even if she could only see a little of it. She dropped her glance so he wouldn’t see the expression in her eyes.

He probably liked petite women with dainty feet who didn’t have issues about plants, with or without seed pods on them…‘You should shower. There’ll be residue soaking through onto your skin. At least it’s not the most expensive brand of paint, but I’m sorry it got wasted.’

‘Don’t worry about that, and don’t worry about the shirt.’ Brent hesitated as he searched her face again. ‘You’ve been putting in long hours, trying to get this painting pulled together. I shouldn’t have asked you to produce something on demand for a project you weren’t in on from its conception. I said I wouldn’t let that happen more than once.’

‘It’s all right—’

‘No, it isn’t, but we’ll make it right.’ He wiped his hand on his shirt again. ‘I came in to tell you I’m going into the mountains to study rock formations. Maybe you should come with me, see these seed pods, take photos, draw them, whatever you need.’

‘A day trip.’ A day to spend time with him. No. It wasn’t about that. It was for work, had to be for that reason only. And Fiona had to look at it from that perspective. ‘I’m a professional. I have to be able to produce the goods on demand, without special trips or anything else.’

‘No. You don’t have to be able to do that. I’d never expect that of myself and I don’t expect it of you.’ Brent’s gaze became very focused as he said this. ‘Finish up here in the office while I take my shower. When I’m done, we’re going to swing by your place and my place for clothes and then we’ll go. Bring the work boots you wore on site. They’ll do for the trail I want to take you on.’

‘O-okay.’ What else could she do but agree? And be grateful, Fiona added silently as she glanced once again at her stalled painting.

‘Good.’ Brent gave a nod and turned away to head for the shower. ‘Oh, and we’ll be gone overnight.’

He walked off before she could even collect her thoughts.

An overnight stay in the mountains with her boss…

‘And that’s a square-tailed kite. See it?’ Brent pointed into the branches of a tree to the left on the trail in front of them.

They’d been flora and fauna spotting for the past hour, indulging in guesswork when they didn’t know what they were seeing, though in Brent’s case he recognised most things, right down to a gold and white daisy Fiona hadn’t seen in exactly its type anywhere before.

Fiona had photographed and sketched her seed pods. More importantly, she’d spent time simply studying them. Examining them from every angle, exploring the texture with her fingertips, feeling their weight and the roughness of their shells.

Brent’s response to bush walking like this was very tactile, too. He would stroke his fingers over the spiky leaves on a bush, or stop to carefully examine a bottlebrush or some other native flower. That attention to detail carried through into his work as much as Fiona needed to carry it to her work. Fiona didn’t doubt it was part of the reason his designs were so successful. She shouldn’t wonder if that tactility would carry through into other more personal parts of his life, because those thoughts were adding to her consciousness of him.

His autism made him unique and special, and yet he seemed determined to dislike it and hide its existence from the world if he could.

And Fiona needed to hide the existence of how attracted to him she was. She truly should have turned down the offer of joining him on this trip but, once decided, Brent had been set on the idea, convinced it would be good for both of them. And so far it had been. They were…enjoying themselves. It just worried her how much she struggled to do that without letting her emotions and feelings for him carry her in directions she shouldn’t go.

‘Is it really a square-tailed kite or are you making that up?’ She was proud of the slight teasing tone she produced, the relaxed humour as she went on. ‘I think I’ve heard of those, but I’m a city girl…’

‘It really is one.’ Brent’s mouth quirked up at one corner, as though he understood that edge of humour and enjoyed it.

But their gazes caught in that moment and she lost herself in moss-green irises and in an instant the relaxed state of their interaction changed.

Part of her welcomed that, was fiercely glad that he hadn’t managed to completely lose his awareness of her, after all.

The other part warned her not to think like that. She would only open herself to hurt from him all over again, though she knew he hadn’t set out to hurt her.

Brent’s head twitched to the side. It was only a little twitch in the scheme of things, but his gaze searched hers after it happened and suddenly every feeling she’d had the night they’d run into his father rushed to the surface to join with the rest of her confusion and interest in him that she needed to stifle, yet couldn’t seem to.

‘Families should love each other unconditionally.’ The words burst out of her. ‘There shouldn’t be any question about it. That should simply happen as a matter of course. Your father was very wrong to reject you the way he did. He should have seen that you were unique and special, not less in any way.’

‘Not less, perhaps, but I am different.’ A lookout appeared on the trail to their left. He led the way down to it over steps hewn from dirt and rock and leaned his arms against the chest-high railing to look out over the gorge spread before them. ‘I made a family for myself with Linc and Alex and I’m happy in that.’