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He lifted her hand, dropped the boxes on her palm. ‘They’ll notice if you don’t wear an engagement ring.’
‘Can’t I simply be your girlfriend?’
‘Fiancée sounds much better. All that added commitment.’ He winked as he shrugged into his jacket. ‘Besides, I’ve already told them. Go on, try them on.’
Reluctantly she opened the first. Brilliant light erupted from the stone, a huge square-cut diamond set in a sculpted white-gold band, inlaid with tiny pink diamonds. She couldn’t imagine anything more stunning.
Until she opened the second and imagination took a back seat to reality. It was magnificent, a Ceylon sapphire set with diamonds either side. She had never seen anything so beautiful. Certainly had never imagined wearing anything as beautiful. She put down the box with the white-gold ring, tugged the other ring free and slipped it on her finger, hoping—secretly praying—that it would fit, irrationally delighted when it skimmed over her knuckle and nestled perfectly at the base of her finger.
She looked down at her hand, turning it this way and that, watching the blue lights dance in the stone. ‘They must be worth a fortune.’
He shrugged, as if it was no matter, using the mirror to deftly negotiate the two ends of his tie into a neat knot. ‘A small one, perhaps. It’s not like I’m actually buying them.’
‘No. Of course not.’ He was merely borrowing them for a night to help convince people he was getting married. Just like he was borrowing her.
But even his ruthless designs couldn’t stop her wondering what it must be like to be given such a ring, such an object of incredible beauty, by the man you loved? To have him slide that ring on your finger to the sound of a heartfelt ‘I love you. Marry me,’ instead of, ‘Go on, try them on’.
The sapphire caught the light, its polished facets throwing a dozen different shades of blue, the diamonds sparkling, and she felt her resistance wavering.
With or without the ring, she was already pretending to be something she was not. Could she really make the lie worse than it already was?
‘Very nice,’ he said, lifting her fingers. ‘Have you tried the other one?’
She looked down at the open box, and the pale beauty that resided there. ‘No real need,’ she said, trying to sound like she didn’t care as well as make out that she wasn’t bothered by his proximity, even though her fingers tingled and her body buzzed with his closeness. ‘This one fits perfectly.’
‘And it matches your eyes.’
She looked up to see him studying her face. ‘You know you have the most amazing eyes, every shade of the sea and more.’
‘Th-thank you.’
He lifted a hand to her face and swiped the pad of his thumb at the corner of her mouth. ‘And you have a little smudge of lipstick right here.’ He smiled a knowing smile. ‘How did that happen, I wonder?’
Instinctively she put a hand over her mouth, backing away. ‘I better repair my make-up,’ she said, sweeping up her evening purse from the coffee table and making for the powder room. How had that happened indeed. She really didn’t need to be reminded of that kiss and how she’d practically given him a green light to do whatever he wanted with her. It was amazing it was only her lipstick that had slipped. Well, there would be no more smudged lipstick if she had any say in it. None at all.
He watched her go, his eyes missing nothing of her ramrod-straight spine or the forced stiffness that hampered her movements. She hadn’t been stiff or hampered a few moments ago, when she’d all but rested her cheek against his hand. She hadn’t been stiff or hampered when he’d held her in his arms and kissed her senseless.
‘Evelyn,’ he called behind her, and she stopped and turned, gripping her purse tightly in front of her chest. ‘Something that might make you feel more relaxed in my company…’
‘Yes?’ She sounded sceptical.
‘As much as I enjoyed that kiss, I have a rule about not mixing business with pleasure.’
She blinked those big blue eyes up at him and he could tell she didn’t get it. ‘I don’t sleep with my PA. Whatever I do tonight, a touch, a caress, a kiss, it’s all just part of an act. You’re perfectly safe with me. All right?’
And something—he’d expected relief, but it wasn’t quite that—flashed across her eyes and was gone. ‘Of course,’ she said, and fled into to powder room.
There. He’d said it. He blew out a breath as he picked up the leftover ring from the coffee table, snapped the box shut and returned it to the safe. Maybe it was, as he had said, to put her at her ease, but there’d also been a measure of wanting to remind himself of his golden rule. Because it had been hard enough to remember which way was up, let alone anything else in the midst of that kiss.
He hadn’t intended it to go so far. He’d meant to tease her into submission, give her just a little taste for more, so she’d be more malleable and receptive to his touch, but she’d sighed into his mouth and turned molten and turned him incendiary with it.
And if he hadn’t frightened her away by the strength of his reaction, he’d damned near frightened himself. He’d had to leave the room before she could see how affected he was, and before he looked into her ocean-deep eyes and decided to finish what he’d started.
He ached to finish what he’d started.
Why did he have that rule about not sleeping with his PAs? What had he been thinking? Surely this was a matter that should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
And then he remembered Inge of the ice-cool demeanour and red hot bedroom athletics and how she’d so neatly tried to demand a chunk of ice for her finger by nailing him with her alleged pregnancy.
There was good reason for his self-imposed rule, he reluctantly acknowledged. Damn good reason. If only he could make himself believe it.
She didn’t recognise herself in the powder-room mirror. Even after repairing her make-up and smoothing the stray wisps of her hair back into its sleek coil, she still looked like a stranger. No amount of lipstick could disguise the flush to her swollen lips. And while the ring on her finger sparkled under the light, it was no match for the lights in her eyes.
Not when all she could do was remember that kiss, and how he had damn near wrenched out her mind if not her soul with it.
It was wrong to feel excited, even though its impact had so closely mirrored that of the first. But he’d simply been making a point. He’d been acting. He’d said as much himself. It had meant nothing. Or else why could he so easily have turned and walked away?
Yet still she trembled at the memory of his lips on hers. Still she trembled when she thought of how he’d felt, pressing hard and insistent against her belly, stirring secret places until they blossomed and ached with want.
Want that would go unsatisfied. Cheated again. Just an act. ‘I don’t sleep with my PA.’
And part of her had longed to laugh and tell him that he’d had his chance, years ago, and blown it then. Another part had wanted to slump with relief. While the greater part of her had wanted to protest at the unfairness of it all.
Damn. She’d known this would be difficult. She’d known that seeing him again would rekindle all those feelings she had been unable to bury, unable to dim, even with the passage of time.
She dragged air into her lungs, breathed out slowly and resolutely angled her chin higher as she made one final check on her appearance. For surely the worst was over. And at least she knew where she stood. She may as well try to enjoy the rare evening out.
How hard could it be?
‘Remember,’ Leo said, as they made their way to the presidential suite, ‘keep it light and friendly and whatever you do, avoid any talk of family.’
Suits me, she thought, knowing Leo would be less than impressed if she started telling everyone about Sam. ‘What is it exactly that their sons are supposed to have done?’
‘You didn’t see the articles?’
She shook her head. ‘Clearly I don’t read the right kind of magazine.’
‘Or visit the right websites. Someone got a video of them at a party and posted it on the web.’
‘And they were doing something embarrassing?’
‘You could say that. It was a wife-swapping party.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh, indeed. Half the board were implicated and Culshaw couldn’t stand seeing what he’d worked for all his life being dragged through the mud.’ He stopped outside the suite. ‘Are you ready?’
As ready as I’ll ever be. ‘Yes.’
He slipped her hand into his, surprising her but not so much this time because it was unexpected but because it felt so comfortable to have his large hand wrapped around hers. Amazing, given the circumstances, that it felt so right. ‘You look beautiful,’ he whispered, so close to her ear that she could feel his warm breath kiss her skin, setting light to her senses and setting flame licking at her core.
It’s make-believe, she warned herself as he tilted her chin and she once more gave herself up to his kiss, this time a kiss so tender and sweet that the very air seemed to shimmer and spin like gold around her. She drew herself back, trying to find logic in a sea of sensation and air that didn’t come charged with the spice of him.
It meant nothing, a warning echoed as he pressed the buzzer. It was all just part of the act. She could not afford to start thinking it felt right. She could not afford to think it was real.
She had just one short evening of pretending this man loved her and she loved him, and then the make-believe ended and she could go home to her falling-down house and her baby son. Alone. That was reality. That was her life.
She should be grateful it was so easy to pretend…
A butler opened the door, showing them into an impressive mirror-lined entry that opened into the massive presidential suite, Eve’s heels clicked on the high gloss parquet floor. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors either side reflected their images back at them, and Eve was struck when she realised that the woman in that glamorous couple, her hand in Leo’s and her eyes still sparkling, was her. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so nervous. Maybe they could pull this off. It had seemed such a crazy idea, and questions remained in her mind as to the ethics of the plan, but maybe they could convince his business colleagues they were a couple. Certainly she had twenty thousand good reasons to try.
‘Welcome, welcome!’ An older man came to meet them and Eve recognised him from the newspapers. Eric Culshaw had aged, though, she noticed, his silvering hair white at the temples, his shoulders a little stooped as if he’d held the weight of the world on them. Given the nature of the scandal that had rocked his world, maybe that was how he felt. He pumped Leo’s hand. ‘Welcome to you both,’ he said, smiling broadly.
‘Eric,’ Leo said, ‘allow me to introduce my fiancée, Evelyn Carmichael.’
And Eric’s smile widened as he took her hand. ‘It is indeed a pleasure, Evelyn. Come over and meet everyone.’
Eve needed the few short seconds to get over the scale of the suite. She’d arranged the bookings for all the rooms, similar corner spa suites for Leo and the Alvarezes, and the presidential suite for the Culshaws, but she’d had no idea just how grand they were. Leo’s suite had seemed enormous, with the separate living area, but this suite was more like an entire home. A dining room occupied the right third of the room, a study opposite the entry, and to the left a generous sitting area, filled with plump sofas and welcoming armchairs. Doors hinted at still more rooms, no doubt lavish bedrooms and bathrooms and a kitchen for the dining room, and all along one side was a wall of windows to take in the view of the Melbourne city skyline. The others were sipping champagne in the living room, admiring the view, when they joined them.
Eric made the introductions. Maureen Culshaw was a slim sixty-something with a pinched face, like someone had pricked her bubble when she wasn’t looking. Clearly the scandal had hurt both the Culshaws deeply. But her grey eyes were warm and genuine, and Eve took to her immediately, the older woman wrapping her hands in her own. ‘I’m so pleased you could come, Evelyn. Now, there’s a name you don’t hear terribly often these days, although I’ve met a few Eves in my time.’
‘It was my grandmother’s name,’ she said, giving the other woman’s hands a return squeeze, ‘and a bit of a mouthful, I know. Either is perfectly fine.’
Maureen said something in return, but it was the movement in Eve’s peripheral vision that caught her attention, and she glanced up in time to see something skate across Leo’s eyes, a frown tugging at his brow, and for a moment she wondered what that was about, before Eric started introducing the Alvarezes, snagging her attention.
Richard Alvarez looked tan and fit, maybe fifteen years younger than Eric, with sandy hair and piercing blue eyes. His wife, Felicity, could have been a film star and was probably another ten years younger than he, dark where he was fair, exotic and vibrant, like a tropical flower in her gown of fuchsia silk atop strappy jewel-encrusted sandals.
Waiters unobtrusively brought platters of canapés and more glasses of champagne, topping up the others, and they settled into the lounge area, Leo somehow managing to steer them both onto the long sofa where he sat alongside her, clearly part of the act to show how close they were.
Extremely close apparently.
For he stretched back and looped an arm around her shoulders, totally at ease as he bounced the conversation between Eric and Richard, though Eve recognised it for the calculated move it was. Yet still that insider knowledge didn’t stop her catching her breath when his fingers lazily traced a trail down her shoulder and up again, a slow trail that had her senses humming and her nipples on high alert and a curling ribbon of desire twisting and unfurling inside her. A red ribbon. Velvet. Like the sound of Leo’s voice…
‘Evelyn?’
She blinked, realising she’d been asked a question that had completely failed to register through the fog of Leo’s sensual onslaught. She captured his wandering fingers in hers, ostensibly a display of affection but very definitely a self-defence mechanism if she was going to be able to carry on any kind of conversation. ‘Sorry, Maureen, you were asking about how we met?’ She turned to Leo and smiled, giving his fingers a squeeze so he might get the message she could do without the manhandling. ‘It’s not exactly romantic. I’m actually his PA. I was handling all his paperwork and arrangements and suddenly one day it kind of happened.’
‘That’s right,’ Leo added with his own smile, fighting her self-defence measures by putting a proprietorial hand on her leg, smoothing down the silk of her gown towards her knee, bringing his hand back to her thigh, giving her a squeeze, setting up a sizzling, burning need. It was all Eve could do to keep smiling. She put her glass down and curled her fingers around the offending hand, squeezing her nails just a tiny bit too hard into his palm, just a tiny warning.
But he only looked at her and smiled some more. ‘And this was after I’d sworn I’d never get involved in an office romance.’
Maureen clapped her hands together, totally oblivious of Eve’s ongoing battle. ‘Did you hear that, Eric? An office romance. Just like us!’
Eric beamed and raised his glass. ‘Maureen was the best little secretary I ever had. Could type a hundred and twenty words a minute, answer the phone and take shorthand all at the same time. I could hardly let her go, could I?’
‘Eric! You told me you fell in love with me at first sight.’
‘It’s true,’ he said, with a rueful nod. ‘Her first day in the job and the moment I walked in and saw the sexy minx sitting on her little swivel chair, I was toast. I just can’t have that story getting around business circles, you understand.’
The men agreed unreservedly as Maureen blushed, her eyes a little glassy as she reached across and gave Eric’s hand a squeeze. ‘You’re an old softie from way back, Eric Culshaw, and you know it.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, and Eve, thinking she must look like she was shackled to Leo, shifted away, brushing his hand from her leg as she reached for her champagne. He must have got the message, because he didn’t press the issue, simply reached for his own drink, and part of her wondered whether he thought he’d done enough.
Part of her hoped he did.
The other part already missed his touch.
‘Felicity, how about you?’ she said, trying to forget about that other wayward part of her. ‘How did you and Richard meet?’
‘Well…’ The woman smiled and popped her glass on the table, slipping her hand into her husband’s. ‘This might sound familiar, but I’d been out with a friend, watching the sailing on Sydney Harbour. It had been a long day, so we stopped off to have a drink in a little pub on the way home, and the next thing I know, this nice fellow came up and asked if he could buy us both a drink.’ She turned to him and smiled and he leaned over and kissed her delicately on the tip of her nose. ‘And the rest, as they say, is history.’
‘That’s just like Princess Mary and Prince Frederik of Denmark,’ said Maureen. ‘Don’t you remember, everyone?’ Eve did, but she never had a chance to say anything because Leo chose that precise moment to run his finger along the back of her neck, a feather-light touch that came with depth charges that detonated deep down inside her as his fingertips drew tiny circles on her back.
‘It wasn’t the same hotel, was it?’ Maureen continued.
‘No. But it’s just as special to us. We go every year on the anniversary of that first meeting.’
‘How special,’ said Maureen. ‘Oh, I do love Sydney and the harbour. I have to say, the warmer weather suits me better than Melbourne’s, too.’
And Eve, lulled by the gentle touch of a master’s hand, and thinking of her never-ending quest to get the washing dried and not looking forward to cold showers and boiling kettles so Sam could have a warm bath, couldn’t help but agree. ‘Sydney’s wonderful. I used to work there. I spent so many weekends at the beach.’
The fingers at her neck stilled, a memory flickering like the frames of an old black and white movie in the recesses of his mind. Something about Sydney and a woman he’d met years ago so briefly—too briefly—a woman called Eve.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_9194e733-b4a5-5b62-bd3a-621ce02876db)
WHAT was it Maureen had said? ‘Most people would shorten it to Eve.’ And she’d said something like, ‘Either is fine.’ The exchange had niggled at some part of him when he’d heard it, although he hadn’t fully understood why at the time, but then the mention of Sydney had provided the missing link, and suddenly he’d realised that there could be no coincidence—that bit had provided the missing piece and the jigsaw had fitted together.
He thought back to a day that seemed so long ago, of flying into Sydney in the early morning, recalling memories of a whirlwind visit to rescue a deal threatening to go pear-shaped, and of a glass-walled office that had looked over Sydney Harbour and boasted plum views of both the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. But the view had faded to insignificance when his eyes had happened upon the woman sitting in the opposite corner of the room. Her hair had been streaked with blonde and her skin had had a golden tan, like both had been kissed by the sun, and her amazing eyes had looked deeper and more inviting than any famous harbour.
And endless meetings and time differences and jetlag had all combined to press upon him one undeniable certainty.
He’d wanted her.
‘Eve,’ she’d told him when he’d cornered her during a break and asked her name. Breathless Eve with the lush mouth and amazing eyes and a body made for sin, a body all too willing to sin, as he’d discovered in that storeroom.
And he’d cursed when he’d had to leave all too suddenly for Santiago, cursed that he’d missed out on peeling her clothes from her luscious body, piece by piece. He’d had half a mind to return to Sydney after his business in Chile concluded, but by then something else had come up. And then there’d been more business in other countries, and other women, and she’d slipped from his radar, to be loosely filed under the-ones-that-got-away.
It wasn’t a big file and as it happened she hadn’t got away after all. She’d been right there under his nose, answering his emails, handling his paperwork, organising meetings, and she’d never once let on. Never once mentioned the fact they’d already met.
What was that about?
His hand drifted back to his pretend fiancée’s back, letting the conversation wash over him—something about an island the Culshaws owned in the Whitsundays—his fingertips busy tracing patterns on her satiny-soft skin as he studied her profile, the line of her jaw, the eyes he’d noticed and should have recognised. She was slightly changed, the colour of her hair more caramel now than the sun-streaked blonde it had been back then, and maybe she wasn’t quite so reed thin. Slight changes, no more than that, and they looked good on her. But no wonder he’d thought she’d looked familiar.
She glanced briefly at him then, as the party rose and headed for the dining area, a slight frown marring an otherwise perfect brow, as if she was wondering why he’d been so quiet. He smiled, knowing that the waiting time to meeting her again had passed; knowing that her time had come.
Knowing that for him the long wait would soon be over. She’d been like quicksilver in his arms that day, so potent and powerful that he hadn’t been able to wait the few hours before closing the deal to sample her.
There was no doubt in his mind that the long wait was going to be worth it.
So what, then, that he had a rule about not sleeping with his PA? Rules were made to be broken after all, some more than others. He smiled at her, taking her arm, already anticipating the evening ahead. A long evening filled with many delights, if he had anything to do with it. Which of course, he thought with a smile, he did.
