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That the boyfriend had failed to live up to expectation, that events in her life had taken a fairly disastrous turn, did not change the basic fact that she had strung him along.
But he couldn’t recapture the simple black-and-white equation that had originally propelled him. He wondered, in passing, whether he should just have stuck to his quid pro quo solution: ‘you give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want’.
But no.
He wanted so much more and he could feel it running hot through his veins as she continued to stare at him, unable to break eye contact.
Subtly, the atmosphere shifted. He sensed the change in her breathing, saw the way her pupils dilated, the way her lips parted as if she might be on the brink of saying something.
He cupped her face with his hand and felt rather than heard the long sigh that made her shudder.
Sophie’s eyelids felt heavy. She wanted to close her eyes because if she closed her eyes she would be able to breathe him in more deeply, and she wanted to do that, wanted to breathe him in, wanted to touch him and scratch the itch that had been bothering her ever since he had been catapulted back into her life.
She wanted to kiss him and taste his mouth.
She only realised that she was reaching up to him when she felt the hardness of muscled chest under the palms of her flattened hands.
She heard a whimper of sheer longing which seemed to come from her and then she was kissing him...tongues entwining...exploring...easing some of the aching pain of her body...
She inched closer, pressed herself against him and wanted to rub against his length, wanted to feel his nakedness against hers.
She couldn’t get enough of him.
It was as if no time had gone by between them, as if they were back where they had been, a time when he had been able to set fire to her body with the merest of touches. Nothing had changed and everything had changed.
‘No!’ She came to her senses with horrified, jerky panic. ‘This is... I am not that girl I once was. I... No!’
She’d flung herself at him! She’d practically assaulted the man like a sex-starved woman desperate to be touched! He didn’t even care about her! She’d opened up and on the back of that had leapt on him and had managed to surface only after damage had been done!
Humiliation tore through her. She went beetroot-red and stumbled backwards.
‘I apologise for that.’ She immediately went on the attack. ‘It should never have happened and I don’t know what came over me!’ She ran her fingers through her hair and tried to remain calm but she was shaking like a leaf. ‘This isn’t what we’re about! Not at all.’
Javier raised his eyebrows and her colour deepened.
‘There’s only business between us,’ she insisted through clenched teeth. ‘I must have had... I don’t normally drink...’
‘Now, isn’t that the lamest excuse in the world?’ Javier murmured. ‘Let’s blame it on the wine...’
‘I don’t care what you think!’ How could he be so cool and composed when she was all over the place? Except, of course, she knew how. Because she was just so much more affected by him than he was by her and she could see all her pride and self-respect disappearing down the plug hole if she didn’t get a grip on the situation right now.
She cleared her throat and stared, at him and through him. ‘I... We have to work alongside one another for a while and...this was just an unfortunate blip. I would appreciate it if you never mention it again. We can both pretend that it never happened, because it will never happen again.’
Javier lowered his eyes and tilted his head to one side as if seriously considering what she had just said.
So many challenges in that single sentence. Did she really and truly believe that she could close the book now that page one had been turned?
He’d tasted her and one small taste wasn’t going to do. Not for him and not for her. Whatever her backstory, they both needed to sate themselves with one another and that was what they would do before that place was inevitably reached where walking away was an option.
‘If that’s how you want to play it.’ He shrugged and looked at her. ‘And from Monday,’ he said with lazy assurance, ‘bank on me being around most of the time. We both want the same thing, don’t we...?’
‘What?’ Confused, the only thought that came to her was each other—that, at any rate, was the thing that she wanted, and she could smell that it was what he wanted as well.
‘For us to sort out the problems in this company as quickly as possible,’ he said in a voice implying surprise that she hadn’t spotted the right answer immediately. ‘Of course...’
CHAPTER SIX (#ue0f63552-a459-5336-b914-208c50f2e4bb)
‘NO.’
‘Give me three good reasons and maybe I’ll let you get away with that response.’
Sophie stared at Javier, body language saying it all as she supported herself on her desk, palms flattened on the highly polished surface, torso tilted towards him in angry refusal.
True to his word, he had more or less taken up residence in the premises in Notting Hill.
He wasn’t there all the time. That would actually have been far easier for her to deal with. No, he breezed in and out. Sometimes she would arrive at eight-thirty to find him installed at the desk which he had claimed as his own, hard at it, there since the break of dawn and with a list of demands that had her on her feet running at full tilt for the remainder of the day.
Other times he might show up mid-afternoon and content himself with checking a couple of things with members of staff before vanishing, barely giving her a second glance.
And there had been days when he hadn’t shown up at all and there had been no communication from him.
After six weeks, Sophie felt as though she had been tossed in a tumble dryer with the speed turned to high. She had been miserable, uncertain and fearful when she had had to deal with the horrendous financial mess into which she had been plunged. After her marriage, that had just felt like a continuation of a state of mind that had become more or less natural to her.
Now, though...
She was none of those things. She was a high-wire walker, with excitement and trepidation fighting for dominance. She leapt out of bed every morning with a treacherous sense of anticipation. Her pulses raced every time she took a deep breath and entered the office. Her blood pressure soared when she glanced to the door and saw him stride in. Her heart sang when she saw him stationed at his desk first thing, with his cup of already tepid black coffee on the desk in front of him.
Life was suddenly in technicolor and it scared the living daylights out of her. It had become obvious that she’d never got him out of her system and she seemed to have no immunity against the staggering force of his impact on all her senses. Her heart might be locked away behind walls of ice but her body clearly wasn’t.
‘I don’t have to give you any reasons, Javier.’ She was the last man standing and had been about to leave the office at a little after six when Javier had swanned in and stopped her in the act of putting on her jacket.
‘Quick word,’ he had said, in that way he had of presuming that there would be no argument. He’d then proceeded to lounge back in his chair, gesturing for her to drop what she was doing and take the seat facing him across his desk.
That had been half an hour ago.
‘You do, really.’ He looked at her lazily. Despite the fact that the largely young staff all dressed informally, Sophie had stuck it out with her prissy work outfits, which ranged from drab grey skirts and neat white blouses to drab black skirts and neat white blouses, all worn with the same flat black pumps. The ravishing hair which he had glimpsed on the one occasion when he had surprised her weeks ago at the apartment had gone back into hiding. Woe betide she actually released it from captivity between the hours of eight-thirty and five-thirty!
‘Why?’
‘Because I think it would work.’
‘And of course, because you think it would work, means I have to agree and go along with it!’
‘How many of the programmes that I’ve set in motion over the past couple of months have failed?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Any? No. Is the company seeing the start of a turnaround? Yes. Have the sales team been reporting gains? Yes.’ He folded his hands behind his head and looked at her evenly. ‘Ergo, this idea makes sense and will generate valuable sales.’
‘But I’m not a model, Javier!’
‘That’s the point, Sophie. You’re the face of your company. Putting your image on billboards and in advertising campaigns will personalise the company—half the battle in wooing potential customers is making them feel as though they’re relating to something more than just a name and a brand.’
She stared at him mutinously and he gazed calmly back at her.
The waiting game was taking longer than he had anticipated and he was finding that he was in no rush to speed things up. He was enjoying her. He was enjoying the way she made him feel and it wasn’t just the reaction of his body to her. No, he realised that the years of having whatever he wanted and whoever he chose had jaded him. This blast from the past was...rejuvenating. And who didn’t like a spot of rejuvenation in their lives? Of course, he would have to hurry things along eventually, because bed was the conclusion to the exercise before normal service was resumed and he returned to the life from which he had been taking a little holiday.
But for the moment...
He really liked the way she blushed. He could almost forget that she was the scheming young girl who had played him for an idiot.
‘So we just need to talk about the details. And stop glaring. I thought all women liked to show off their bodies.’
Sophie glared. ‘Really, Javier? You really think that?’
‘Who wouldn’t like to be asked to model?’
‘Is that the message you’ve got from...from the women you’ve been out with?’
Javier looked at her narrowly because this was the first time she had ventured near the question of his love life. ‘Most of the women I’ve been out with,’ he murmured, ‘were already catwalk models, accustomed to dealing with the full glare of the public spotlight.’
She’d wondered. Of course she had. Now she knew. Models. Naturally. He certainly wouldn’t have dated normal, average women holding down normal, average jobs. He was the man who could have it all and men who could have it all always, but always, seemed to want to have models glued to their arm. It was just so...predictable.
‘You’ve stopped glaring,’ Javier said. ‘Which is a good thing. But now there’s disapproval stamped all over your face. What are you disapproving of? My choice of woman?’
‘I don’t care what your choice of girlfriends has been!’
‘Don’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Because you look a little agitated. What’s wrong with models? Some of them can be relatively clever, as it happens.’
‘Relatively clever...’ Sophie snorted. Her colour was high and the look in his sinfully dark eyes was doing weird things to her, making her feel jumpy and thrillingly excited.
Making her nipples tighten...stoking a dampness between her thighs that had nothing to do with her scorn for his choice of dates, whoever those nameless dates had been.
Instant recall of that kiss they had shared made her breath hitch temporarily in her throat.
Just as she had stridently demanded, no mention had been made of it again. It was as though it had never happened. Yes, that was exactly what she had wanted, but it hadn’t stopped her constantly harking back to it in her head, reliving the moment and burning up just at the thought of it. How could a bruised and battered heart take second billing to a body that seemed to do whatever it felt like doing?
‘You used to tell me that you liked the fact that I had opinions!’
‘Many models have opinions—admittedly not of the intellectual variety. They have very strong opinions on, oh, shoes...bags...other models...’
Sophie felt her mouth twitch. She’d missed his sense of humour. In fact, thinking about it, he’d been the benchmark against which Roger had never stood a chance. Not that he had ever been in the running...
In fact, thinking about it, wasn’t he the benchmark against which every other man had always been set and always would be? When would that end? How could she resign herself to a half-life because she was still wrapped up in the man in front of her? Because that intense physical reaction just hadn’t died and could still make itself felt through all the layers of sadness and despair that had shaped the woman she was now.
She hadn’t looked twice at any guy since she’d been on her own. Hadn’t even been tempted!
Yet here she was, not only wanting to look but wanting to touch...
Why kid herself? Telling herself to pretend that that kiss had never happened didn’t actually mean that it had disappeared from her head.
And telling herself that she should feel nothing for a guy who belonged to her past, a guy who wasn’t even interested in her, didn’t actually mean that she felt nothing for him.
Lust—that was what it was—and the harder she tried to deny its existence, the more powerful a grip it seemed to have over her.
And part of the reason was because...he wasn’t indifferent, was he?
Heart racing, she looked down and gave proper house room in her head to all those barely discernible signals she had felt emanating from him over the past few weeks.
For starters, there had been that kiss.
She’d felt the way his mouth had explored hers, hungry and greedy and wanting more.
And then, working in the same space, she’d lodged somewhere in the back of her head those accidental brushes when he had leant over her, caging her in in front of her computer so that he could explain some detail on the screen.
She’d committed to memory the way she had occasionally surprised his lazy dark eyes resting on her just a fraction longer than necessary.
And sometimes...didn’t he stand just a little too close? Close enough for her to feel the heat from his body? To smell his clean, masculine scent?
Didn’t all of that add up to something?
She didn’t know whether he was even aware of the dangerous current running between them just beneath the surface. If he was, then it was obvious that he had no intention of doing anything about it.
And then, one day, he would no longer be around.
Right now, he was making sure that his investment paid off. He had sunk money into a bailout, and he wasn’t going to see that money flushed down the drain, so he was taking an active part in progressing the company.
But soon enough the company would be on firmer ground and he would be able to retreat and hand over the running of it to other people, herself included.
He would resume his hectic life running his own empire.
And she, likewise, would return to Yorkshire to take up full-time residence in the family home, which she would be able to renovate at least enough to make it a viable selling proposition.
They would part company.
And she would be left with this strange, empty feeling for the rest of her life.
She felt guilty enough about the way they had broken up. On top of that, he would remain the benchmark against which no other man would ever stand a chance of competing for ever.
She should have slept with him.
She knew that now. She should have slept with him instead of holding on to all those girlish fantasies about saving herself for when that time came and she knew that they would be a permanent item, for when she was convinced that their relationship was made to stand the test of time.
If she’d slept with him, he would never have achieved the impossible status of being the only guy capable of turning her on. If she’d slept with him, she might not feel so guilty about the way everything had crashed and burned.
Was it selfish now to think that, if she righted that oversight, she might be free to get on with her life? Things were being sorted financially but what was the good of that if, emotionally, she remained in some kind of dreadful, self-inflicted limbo?
She wasn’t the selfish sort. She had never thought of herself as the kind of pushy, independent type who took what she wanted from a man to satisfy her own needs.
