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He realised he was staring. He coughed as he pulled his eyes away, lifting his laptop case to the table. ‘Nothing,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘We’ll be boarding soon. We’d better get on with it.’
It was time well spent on the ground and in the air. By the time they’d arrived at Coolangatta Airport they’d thoroughly reviewed their potential client’s specifications and finessed their plan of attack. Damien was feeling more and more confident even though he knew there was still a mountain of work ahead and a myriad of meetings with Palmcorp, their lawyers and financiers. But they could do it. He’d made the right choice in bringing her. They made a good team.
This was Damien at his best. In the large meeting room at Palmcorp’s offices on the Gold Coast, Philly listened to his spiel, watched him charm, tease and manoeuvre the two directors and get them thinking his way. It was like watching a master at work.
No wonder he’d built his business to be the success it was. When he spoke he made you believe, the passion for his work and his products coming to the fore.
He held them in the palm of his hand.
It was a new side to Damien, one she hadn’t witnessed before. Now his obsession with perfection, with driving his staff hard, made some sort of sense. He couldn’t be that passionate about his business if the people who worked for him gave him less than their best.
His strong, deep voice flowed over the assembled group, his expressive hands adding gestures for emphasis where required, addressing them at their level, not preaching, not patronising, but taking every one of them with him. No one stopped him for questions or interrupted the flow. He was in his element. He was supreme.
It was impossible not to be impressed. And it wasn’t just the way he spoke. The way he held himself and the way he looked had as much to do with it. He’d discarded his jacket and the fine white shirt only emphasised his olive skin and dark features.
He looked great in white. Even though his business shirt contrasted in a major way with the Roman armour he’d worn to the ball, both styles suited the man that he was.
She swallowed. He’d looked great in that outfit.
Then again, he’d looked great out of it. The way he’d discarded the armour, then the tunic, pulling it over his head and flinging it on the floor, the way his chest had expanded as her eyes had drunk him in, the way he’d stood next to her, waiting, anticipating…
Oh Lord, was she never going to get those pictures out of her head?
‘Ms Summers?’
She came back to the meeting with a jolt to meet Damien’s quizzical gaze. ‘Is everything all right?’
She looked around in panic but the others all seemed busy helping themselves to the pots of filtered coffee and jugs of orange juice that had suddenly materialised from nowhere.
‘You would like to handle the marketing perspective next up, I take it?’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ she said, her cheeks scorched and with confidence battling for dominance over visions of one gloriously near naked man. ‘I was simply mentally preparing myself for the task. Excuse me, I think I’ll get myself a juice.’
Her presentation sailed along, her earlier embarrassment soon forgotten as she got underway. She used the same basic format that she’d shown Damien at their meeting just a few weeks ago, expanding it to include additional detail for people less familiar with the company and the product. It seemed to go well and afterwards she fielded questions from the group before they all broke for a late lunch.
Damien sidled up alongside her as they were heading for the cars that would take them to the restaurant.
‘Well done,’ he said, bending down to whisper softly into her ear, his hand at her back. ‘Excellent job.’ He moved on, the curl of his breath against her skin rippling through her and tripping her heart-rate.
It took a deep breath to know how to respond as she battled to sort out the emotions vying for supremacy inside her. The employee side of her ego couldn’t help but swell with pride that he considered she’d done her job well and his faith in her had been vindicated.
Yet another side of her that was already battered felt as if he had pressed hard on her most sensitive bruises. If only he had as much faith in her as a woman—if only he hadn’t been so quick to write her off. Maybe there could have been a chance for something more to develop.
But what chance was there of that? They hadn’t even shared a one-night stand. It had been more of a one shot wonder.
But by the time she’d realised that she should just smile and thank him he’d already turned away, thoroughly absorbed in a discussion of the finer points of European motor vehicle engineering.
She sighed. She’d missed her chance. Or she’d read much too much into his comments in the first place. Whatever, she really needed to relax more.
The afternoon didn’t afford that. It was spent in more discussions and a tour of Palmcorp’s offices before meetings with the finance and legal specialists that ran late. Again Damien steered the proceedings with skill and startling business acumen but did it in such a way that she could see the Palmcorp directors actually believing they were driving the process.
Businesswise, it was all proceeding very well. But with their early start it was a full-on day and all Philly wanted to do by the end was to go to her hotel room and enjoy a long hot soak. There was no time for that though, with a business dinner already arranged. At a pinch there’d be just enough time to shower and change.
Her room back at the hotel was spacious and elegant, luxury all the way, decorated in cool pastels with a wall of windows leading to a balcony, showcasing the brilliant blue of the ocean and the white sandy beach that stretched for miles to the north and south. A pity there was no time to enjoy it.
She had half an hour before she was to meet Damien in the lobby but she rang home before anything else. The nurse answered on the second ring, passing the phone over without hesitation. Her mother came on, her voice weak but with a bright note she hadn’t heard for some time.
‘How’s it all going?’ Philly asked her mother.
‘I’ve been playing mah-jongg with Marjorie,’ she said, ‘and what’s more I’ve been winning, so don’t you worry about a thing. We’re having a lovely time.’
She said goodbye and hung up on a smile, satisfied that she could at least relax on the domestic front. Tomorrow she’d be home and then, with any luck, she’d be able to relax on the Damien front too.
She’d done it again. Just like when she’d turned up in the airport lounge that morning, her appearance knocked him for a six. The dress she wore looked more like a coffee-coloured sheath, so hugging in the bodice that the tiny diamanté shoestring straps must be there purely for adornment, the floaty skirt constructed in separate panels wafting around her legs as she walked so that with every step the panels shifted slightly, revealing an ever changing and tantalising glimpse of flesh.
She’d put up her hair in a clasp but he could see the odd tendril floating free, bouncing as she moved towards him, and she’d done something with her face. Make-up? Whatever it was, her eyes looked bigger, her smile looked wider and her lips…
Red and lush, her lips looked like an invitation.
He swallowed. What had happened to his little brown mouse? Not that he didn’t approve—she’d obviously made the most of the allowance he’d supplied for just that purpose—it was just that he hadn’t been expecting such an amazing transformation.
Such an alluring transformation.
Dinner was fun. Stuart and Shayne Murchison, the directors of Palmcorp, were a dynamic pair in their late twenties, as attractive as they were successful. Both shared the same tanned good looks, with blue eyes and hair bleached by too much sun and surf from the regular iron-man competitions they took part in, competing as much against each other as the clock.
They were also very good hosts, treating their guests to a fabulous seafood dinner on a restaurant terrace overlooking the beach, entertaining them with anecdotes from their long history of competitions and all the while arguing incessantly as to who was the fastest swimmer or could catch the best waves.
‘So why aren’t either of you married?’ she asked, partly for fun, partly curious that neither of the men had been snapped up.
‘Ah, that’s easy,’ said Stuart.
‘No one’s ever been able to swim fast enough to catch us,’ finished Shayne, and the brothers laughed as if it was an all too well practised line.
‘But,’ Stuart offered, his eyes glinting wickedly at Philly’s, ‘that doesn’t mean we’re not still looking.’
As she laughed her way with them Philly felt the tension of the last few days slipping away. She hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for ages. Knowing her mother was being well taken care of, and in her new clothes under the sails of a sunny terrace just a stone’s throw from the sparkling blue ocean, she felt a new woman. Certainly to be the only woman at a table of such good-looking men was a novelty. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea coming on this trip after all.
All three men turned heads in the restaurant, making her the object of envy from the waitresses and plenty of the guests besides, but even though all were good-looking there was no argument in Philly’s mind as to just which man dominated the proceedings. The brothers were ultrafit and no weaklings, yet Damien, all dark brooding looks and latent power inherent in his every move, dwarfed them with his sheer presence.
Her eyes settled on him now as he quietly allowed the brothers full rein at being hosts. Only the scowl between his dark brows betrayed him. No doubt he’d be thinking about the meetings to come, wheels spinning as he developed plans and devised tactics to close the deal.
He turned suddenly and snagged her eyes with a look that sparked and flared and she jerked her head away sharply, feeling caught out, not understanding the sudden aggression in his eyes and trying to focus back on the conversation with a face that bore the heat from his gaze.
‘Tell me about your name.’ Stuart Murchison leaned closer, clearly oblivious to her discomfiture, one arm at the back of her chair, his body turned to hers, his other hand swirling what was left of his glass of premium Hunter Valley shiraz. ‘Philly. That’s so unusual. There must be a story behind it.’
Damien bristled as he glared at Stuart’s back. Okay, so the dinner had gone well, the whole day had gone well, and with a pinch of luck tomorrow Palmcorp would sign on the dotted line, but that didn’t mean his assistant was up for grabs. She wasn’t part of the deal. Sure, he’d wanted her to look presentable, had even supplied her with the funds to do so. But did she have to have done it quite so successfully?
He stirred his coffee longer than was absolutely necessary and discarded his spoon with a solid clink. The sooner this night ended the better.
Alongside him, Philly smiled in response to Stuart’s question and took a sip of her mineral water.
‘This is probably going to sound really silly…’
‘Of course it won’t,’ said Stuart, stroking her shoulder, ‘you can tell us.’
Damien resisted the urge to growl, instead focusing on Philly’s response.
She cradled the glass between her two hands on the table and smiled. ‘Okay then. My parents wanted to give their children names that were a bit different. They decided on the names of cities that they liked the sound of.’ She looked from the face of one brother to the other. ‘Oh, gosh, that does sound weird, doesn’t it, especially seeing no one but my mother calls me Philadelphia anyway. It always gets shortened to Philly.’
‘Not at all,’ Shayne said, shaking his head. Stuart put down his glass. ‘So they named you Philadelphia?’ He nodded. ‘Yeah, I like it. So what did your folks call the other kids—Melbourne—Paris—Constantinople?’
Even from where he was sitting Damien sensed the change in her as she ignored the light-hearted banter, her eyes focusing on the glass between her hands. ‘There was only one other. My kid brother. They named him Montreal.’
‘Montreal. That’s unusual,’ said Stuart.
‘I know.’ She smiled softly, letting her head fall to one side. ‘He hated it so we call him—’ She hesitated, suddenly biting down on her bottom lip. ‘We used to call him Monty instead.’
There was a quiet resonance in her words that went way beyond what was spoken.
‘What happened to him?’ Damien asked softly, before he’d realised he’d even put voice to his question.
Her eyes were fixed on the glass, her thumbs stroking away the condensation forming and reforming on the outside.
‘He was a pilot, flying home for the weekend with Annelise, his wife, to show off their new baby son. They’d named him after our father—he died ten years ago and mum was so proud that they’d named the baby after him. She couldn’t wait to meet her first grandchild.’ She took a breath, as if unwilling to give voice to what came next for fear it would be true.
‘There was a storm en route and something went wrong; they think a lightning strike took out the electrical system.’ She shrugged. ‘Whatever. The plane crashed and they all…every one of them. They all died.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Thomas was just ten days old.’
Forces shifted inside him as the silence that followed blanketed the table. The quiet emotion of her words betrayed a feeling he recognised, a feeling buried deep inside.
But it was a feeling he didn’t want to be reminded of. He didn’t want to pull it out and examine what it meant. It was better off left exactly where it was.
Philly looked up at the faces around the table. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t want to hear all that. Please forgive me.’
Stuart was the first to react. His arm shifted from the chair back to around her shoulders and he gave her a squeeze, putting his wineglass down so he could cover her hands in his. ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said softly. ‘There’s absolutely no need.’
She smiled up at him, her lashes moist, eyes glistening. ‘Thank you, Stuart.’
‘Call me Stu,’ he said, his voice low and sympathetic. ‘All my friends do.’
Her smile widened. ‘Thank you, Stu.’
Damien pushed himself out of his chair. ‘Time to call it a night. Thank you, gentlemen. We’ll see ourselves back to the hotel.’
Philly looked up, surprised by his sudden action. ‘Oh, right. Okay.’
She made a move to stand but Stuart placed an ironman fist over her arm, pinning her to the chair. ‘It’s still early,’ he said, his eyes fixed on Philly but the tone of his words aimed directly at Damien. ‘Maybe Philly would like to see a little more of the Gold Coast entertainment.’
His eyes softened. ‘Would you like that, Philly? Do you like to dance?’
‘Um, yes, actually,’ she said, her voice wavering. ‘I do.’
He turned to Damien triumphantly. ‘So that’s settled, then. Sorry you don’t feel up to joining us, Damien, but we’ll see you tomorrow morning at the office. And don’t worry, we’ll look after Philly for you.’
Damien battled with the urge to rearrange one smug face, but he wasn’t about to undo all the goodwill they’d built up today. Then again, he wasn’t about to be out-manoeuvred either.
He dredged up a laugh, as if he was enjoying the banter, and schooled his voice to sound civilised while inside him his heartbeat pounded like jungle drums. ‘Another time, perhaps. Sorry to disappoint you, but Ms Summers and I have some important details to go over tonight. I’m sure you understand.’
With that he placed a firm hand under her elbow and levered her from her chair. Stuart was left with no choice but to remove his hand from her arm though he made no pretence that he was happy about it.
‘Good night, gentlemen. I look forward to furthering our discussions in the morning.’
He steered Philly out of the restaurant and into a waiting taxi without saying another word.
‘What was that all about?’
She was sick of the silent treatment, sick of the brooding male who had sprawled over the taxi seat like a despot, arrogant limbs taking up space as if he owned it, sick of the way he’d frog-marched her to her door like a prisoner to be locked in for the night.
As his silence continued her anger grew and grew, simmering away, fuelled by the heat he was giving off with his black mood.
‘What was what all about?’
‘Don’t give me that,’ she said as she inserted her card key into the reader. ‘You acted like some caveman back there at the restaurant.’
Down the corridor the lift doors binged open, spilling a load of camera-wielding tourists into the hallway.
The lock clicked open. Damien grabbed the handle and turned. ‘Inside,’ he said, half shoving her across the threshold, closing the door behind them.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, wheeling around to face him, hands on hips. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing now?’
‘Keeping our private business just that. Private. There’s no need to share it with a busload of tourists.’
‘Well, don’t make yourself comfortable then because what I have to say to you will only take a moment. You had no right to come on like that back there.’
‘I’m your boss. I had every right.’
‘Is that so? Then where’s this important work we need to go over then? You never said anything about it before. You made that up.’
‘We have important meetings tomorrow and you know it.’
‘Yes, with people you did your best to completely alienate tonight. What on earth were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking I brought you up here to work with me, not to flirt with the customers.’
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. ‘I wasn’t flirting!’
‘Come on. You had Stu-baby draped all over you like a gorilla.’
‘He was being sympathetic, that’s all.’
