A Night of No Return
Sarah Morgan
Money, charm and sensual skills don’t make up for a heart colder than ice… Wild parties, wanton women, relentless work – nothing helps tycoon Lucas Jackson escape his dark and haunting past. Arriving at his rural castle in a snarling snowstorm, he craves only complete isolation… But it seems oblivion can take an unexpected and highly intoxicating form!Personally delivering a vital file left on her boss’s desk, secretary Emma Gray starts seriously to regret her dutiful overtime mission. She never expected that the dark side of the usually controlled Lucas could generate such a primitive, powerful…and entirely inappropriate reaction…‘Sarah Morgan’s books always leave me with a massive smile on my face.’ – Michelle, Author, Northamptonshire
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www.millsandboon.co.uk/ebookxmas (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/ebookxmas)
‘I don’t want help. Not yours. Not anyone’s.’
If nothing else would work, then this would.
Telling himself that he was doing her a favour, Lucas flattened her back against the exposed brick of the wall. Emma’s shallow breathing was the only sound in the room apart from the occasional crackle from the blazing fire.
His body stirred. His response to her was primitive, powerful and entirely inappropriate.
Her eyes were fixed on him, wide and shocked.
And he couldn’t blame her for that. He was shocked too. Shocked by the concentrated rush of raw desire that ripped through him. Shocked by the degree of self-control he had to exert to prevent himself from doing what he was suddenly burning to do.
In a few brief seconds the nature of their relationship had shifted. Here, outside the glass walls of his office, the barrier had been lowered.
Not boss and employee.
Man and woman.
He hadn’t expected that. He certainly didn’t want it. Not tonight and not with this woman.
THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PUBLIC PLAYBOYS
Two notorious billionaires with one unbreakable rule: work hard … and play harder!
Billionaire tycoon Lucas Jackson is no stranger to business deals conducted in the desert — but even in blistering heat his heart remains ice-cold …
Sheikh Malik rules the Kingdom of Zubran, and has never met anyone who didn’t bow to his command. Until now …
Both are infamous worldwide for having the Midas touch in the boardroom … and a decadently sinful touch in the bedroom.
This month read Lucas Jackson’s story in
A NIGHT OF NO RETURN
Next month see Sheikh Malik find a queen for his desert kingdom.
About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author SARAH MORGAN writes lively, sexy stories for both Mills & Boon
Modern
Romance and Medical Romance
.
As a child Sarah dreamed of being a writer, and although she took a few interesting detours on the way she is now living that dream. With her writing career she has successfully combined business with pleasure, and she firmly believes that reading romance is one of the most satisfying and fat-free escapist pleasures available. Her stories are unashamedly optimistic, and she is always pleased when she receives letters from readers saying that her books have helped them through hard times.
RT Book Reviews has described her writing as ‘action-packed and sexy’, and nominated her books for their Reviewers’ Choice Awards and their ‘Top Pick’ slot.
Sarah lives near London with her husband and two children, who innocently provide an endless supply of authentic dialogue. When she isn’t writing or reading Sarah enjoys music, movies, and any activity that takes her outdoors.
Readers can find out more about Sarah and her books from her website: www.sarahmorgan.com. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Recent titles by the same author:
THE FORBIDDEN FERRARA
ONCE A FERRARA WIFE …
DOUKAKIS’S APPRENTICE
THE TWELVE NIGHTS OF CHRISTMAS
Did you know these are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
A Night of
No Return
Sarah Morgan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS the one night of the year he dreaded more than any other.
In the beginning he’d tried everything in a bid to escape it—wild parties, women, work—but he’d discovered that it didn’t matter what he was doing or who he was doing it with, the pain remained the same. He chose to live his life in the present, but the past was part of him and he carried it everywhere. It was a memory that wouldn’t fade. A scar that wouldn’t heal. A pain that went bone-deep. There was no escape, which was why his favoured way of spending this particular night was to find somewhere he could be alone and get very, very drunk.
He’d driven the two hours from his office in London to the property he was restoring in rural Oxfordshire simply for the privilege of being alone. For once his phone was switched off, and it was staying that way.
Snow swirled in a crazy dance in front of the windscreen and visibility was down to almost zero. Huge white drifts were piled high at the side of the road, a trap for the nervous, inexperienced driver.
Lucas Jackson was neither nervous nor inexperienced and his mood was blacker than the weather.
The howl of the wind sounded like a child screaming and he clenched his jaw and tried to blot out the noise.
Never had the first glimpse of stone lions guarding the entrance to his estate been so welcome. Despite the conditions he barely slowed his pace, accelerating along the long drive that wound through acres of parkland towards the main house.
He drove past the lake, now frozen into a skating rink for the ducks, over the bridge that crossed the river and heralded the final approach to Chigworth Castle.
He waited to feel the rush of satisfaction that should have come from owning this, but as always there was nothing. It shouldn’t have surprised him, he’d long since accepted that he wasn’t able to feel in the way that other people did. He’d switched that part of himself off and he hadn’t been able to switch it on again.
What he did experience as he looked at the magnificent building was a detached appreciation for something that satisfied both the mathematician in him and the architect. The dimensions and structure were perfect. A gatehouse presided over the entrance, its carved stonework creating a first impression that was both imposing and aesthetically pleasing. And then there was the castle itself, with its buff stonework and battlements that attracted the interest of historians from around the world. The knowledge that he was preserving history gave him a degree of professional pride, but as for the rest of it—the personal, emotional side—he felt nothing.
Whoever said that revenge was a dish best eaten cold had been wrong.
He’d sampled it and found it tasteless.
And tonight Lucas wasn’t even interested in the historical significance of the house, just its isolation. It was miles from the nearest hint of civilisation and that suited him just fine. The last thing he wanted tonight was human contact.
Lights burned in a few of the upstairs windows and he frowned because he’d specifically instructed the staff to take the night off. He was in no mood for company of any description.
He drove over the bridge that spanned the moat, under the arch that guarded the entrance and skidded the last few metres into the courtyard, his tyres sending snow spinning into the air.
It occurred to him that if he hadn’t left the office when he had, he might not have made it. He had staff capable of clearing the roads in the estate, but the approach to the house consisted of a network of winding country lanes that were a low priority for the authorities responsible for their upkeep. Briefly he thought of Emma, his loyal PA, who had stayed late at the office yet again in order to help him prepare for his coming trip to Zubran, an oil-rich state on the Persian Gulf. It was a good job she lived in London and wouldn’t have far to travel home.
Abandoning the car to the weather, he strode across the snowy carpet and let himself in to the darkness of the entrance hall.
No housekeeper to greet him tonight. No staff. No one. Just him.
‘Surprise!!’ A chorus of voices erupted from around him and lights blazed.
Temporarily blinded, Lucas froze, shock holding him immobile on his own doorstep.
‘Happy birthday to me!’ Tara walked forward, a sway in her hips and a sly smile on her beautiful face as she hooked a finger inside his coat and lifted her scarlet painted mouth to his. ‘I know you promised to give me my present next week, but I can’t wait that long. I want it now.’
Lucas stared down into those famous blue eyes and still felt nothing.
Slowly, deliberately, he detached her hand from the front of his coat. ‘What the hell,’ he asked quietly, ‘are you doing here?’
‘Celebrating my birthday.’ Clearly less than delighted with his chilly response, she produced her trademark pout. ‘You refused to come to my party so I decided to bring the party to you. Your housekeeper let us in. Why haven’t you ever invited me here before? I love this place. It’s like a film set.’
Lucas lifted his gaze. He saw now that the grand hall with its magnificent paintings and tapestries had been decorated with streamers and balloons. Gaudily wrapped presents were stacked next to a large iced birthday cake. Open bottles of champagne stood on an antique table, mocking his black mood.
Never in his life had he felt less like celebrating.
His first thought was that he was going to fire his housekeeper, but then he remembered just how persuasive Tara could be when she wanted something. She was a master at manipulating emotions and he knew it frustrated her that she’d never succeeded in manipulating his.
‘Tonight is not a good night for me. I told you that.’ His voice sounded robotic but Tara simply shrugged dismissively.
‘Well, whatever it is that is making you so moody, you need to snap out of it, Lucas. You’ll forget about it once you’ve had a drink. We’ll dance for a bit and then go upstairs and—’
‘Get out.’ His thickened command was greeted with appalled silence. Her friends—people he didn’t know and had no desire to know—murmured their shock.
The only person who seemed unaffected by his response was Tara herself whose ego was the least fragile thing about her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lucas. You don’t mean that. It’s a surprise party.’
But the surprise, apparently, was his. Only Tara could hold a surprise party for her own birthday. ‘Get out and take your friends with you.’
Her eyes hardened. ‘We all came by coach and it isn’t coming back until one o’clock.’
‘When did you last look outside? Nothing is going to be moving on these roads by one o’clock. That coach had better be here in the next ten minutes or you’ll be snowed in. And trust me, you do not want that.’ Perhaps it was his tone, perhaps it was the fact that he looked dangerous—and he knew that he must look dangerous because he felt dangerous—but his words finally sank home.
Tara’s beautiful face, that same face that had graced so many magazine covers, turned scarlet with humiliation and anger. Those cat-like eyes flashed into his, but what she saw there must have scared her because the colour fled from her cheeks and left her flawless skin as pale as the winter snow blanketing the ground outside.
‘Fine.’ Her lips barely moved. ‘We’ll take our party elsewhere and leave you alone with your horrid temper for company. Now I know why your relationships don’t last. Money, brains and skill in bed can’t make up for the fact that you don’t have a heart, Lucas Jackson.’
He could have told her the truth. He could have told her that his heart, once intact and fully functioning, had been damaged beyond repair. He could have told her that the phrase ‘time heals’ was false and that he was living proof that damage could be permanent. He could have described the relief that came from knowing he might never be healed because a heart already damaged could never be damaged again.
There was something beating in his chest, that was true, but it did nothing more than pump blood around his body, enabling him to get out of bed in the morning and go to work every day.
He could have told Tara all of that but she would have gained as little satisfaction in the listening as he would in the telling, so he simply strode past her towards the famous oak staircase that rose majestically from the centre of the hall.
Tonight the proportions and design gave him no satisfaction. The staircase was merely a means to escape from the people who had invaded his sanctuary.
Without waiting for them to leave, he took the stairs two at a time and strode towards his bedroom in the tower that overlooked the moat.
He didn’t care that he’d shocked them.
He didn’t care that he’d ended yet another relationship.
All he cared about was getting through this one night.
He was a cold-hearted, driven workaholic.
Her normal patience nowhere to be found, Emma struggled to keep the car on the road. It was Friday night and she should have been at home relaxing with Jamie. Instead, she was chasing her boss round the English countryside. After the week she’d had it was the last thing she needed. She had a life, for goodness’ sake. Or rather, she would have liked to have a life. Unfortunately for her, she worked for a man for whom the concept of a life outside work didn’t exist.
Lucas Jackson didn’t have any emotional attachments and clearly didn’t think his staff should have them either. He wasn’t interested in her as a person, just in her contribution to his company. And there would have been no point in explaining her feelings because, as far as she could tell, he didn’t have feelings. His life was so far removed from hers that sometimes when she drove into her space in the car park beneath the iconic glass building that housed the world-renowned architectural firm of Jackson and Partners, she felt as if she’d arrived on another planet. Even the building itself was futuristic—a tribute to cutting-edge design and energy efficiency, designed to maximise daylight and natural ventilation, a bold statement that represented the creative vision and genius of just one man. Lucas Jackson.
But creative vision and genius required focus and single-minded determination and that combination together created a driven, difficult human being. More machine than human, she thought moodily as she peered through the thick falling snow in an attempt to not end her days in a ditch.
When she’d started working for him two years previously she hadn’t minded that their conversation was never personal. She didn’t want or expect it when she was at work, so that suited her well. The one thing she would never, ever do was fall in love with her boss. But she’d fallen in love with her job. The work was interesting, stimulating and in every way that mattered Lucas was an excellent employer, despite the fact that his reputation had unnerved her to the point where she almost hadn’t applied for the role. She’d found him to be professional, bright and a generous payer and it excited her to be involved with a company responsible for the design of some of the most famous buildings of recent times. He was undoubtedly a genius. Those were his positive points.
The negatives were that he was focused on work to the exclusion of everything else.
Take this week. Preparations for the official opening of the Zubran Ferrara Resort, an innovative eco hotel nestling on the edge of the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, had driven her workload from crazy to manic. Fuelled by caffeine, she’d stayed until the early hours every night in an attempt to complete essential work. Not once had she complained or commented on the fact that, generally, she expected to be fast asleep by two a.m. and preferably not at her desk.
The one thing that had kept her going had been the thought of Friday. The start of her holiday. Two whole weeks that she took off every year over the festive season. She’d visualised that time in the way a marathon runner might imagine the finish line. It had been the shining light at the end of a tunnel of exhaustion.
And then the snow had started falling. And falling. All week it had been snowing steadily until by Friday London was half empty.
All day Emma had been eyeing the weather out of the window. She’d seen staff from other office buildings leaving early, slithering and sliding their way through the snow to be sure of making it home. As Lucas’s PA she had the authority to extend that privilege to other more junior staff and she had, until the only two people remaining in the building had been herself and her ruthlessly focused boss.
Lucas hadn’t appeared to notice the snowstorm transforming the world into a death zone. When she’d mentioned it, he hadn’t responded. That would have been bad enough and sufficient to have her cursing him for her entire journey home but just as she’d been about to turn out the lights, the last to leave as usual, she’d noticed the file sitting on his desk. It was the file she’d put together for his trip to Zubran and it included papers that needed his signature. A helicopter would be picking him up from his country house. He wouldn’t be coming back to the office.
At first she didn’t believe he could have forgotten it. Lucas never forgot anything. He was the most efficient person she’d ever worked for. And once she’d come to terms with the fact that for some reason his usual efficiency had chosen a frozen Friday night to desert him, she’d faced a dilemma.
She’d tried calling him, hoping to catch him while he was still in London, but his phone continually switched to voicemail, presumably because he was already talking to someone else. Lucas spent his life talking on the phone.
She could have arranged a courier, but the file contained confidential and sensitive information and she didn’t trust it with anyone but herself. Did that make her obsessive? Possibly. But if it were to be mislaid she would be out of a job and she wasn’t about to take that risk.
Which was why she was now, late on a miserable Friday night when no one else with any sense would be on the roads, heading west out of London towards his rural country house.
Emma squinted through the white haze. She didn’t mind hard work. Her only rule was that she didn’t work at weekends. And for some reason—maybe her references, maybe her calm demeanour, or just the fact that he’d lost six PAs in as many months—Lucas Jackson had accepted that one caveat, although he had once made a caustic comment about her ‘wild social life’.
If he’d taken the trouble to find out about her, he would have known that there wasn’t room for ‘wild’ in her life. He would know that the nearest she’d got to a party was through the pages of the celebrity magazines her sister occasionally bought. He would have known that after working a punishing week at Jackson and Partners her idea of a perfect weekend was just sleeping late and spending time with Jamie. Lucas would have known all that, but he didn’t because he’d never asked.
She glanced briefly at the offending file on the passenger seat next to her, as if by simply glaring at it she might somehow manage to teleport the contents to its owner.
Unfortunately there was no chance of that. Her only choice was to take it to him. Never let it be said that she didn’t do her job properly.
This launch was the most talked about event for a decade and the party itself would be a glittering gathering of everyone important. Emma had felt a wistful pang as she’d liaised with Avery Scott, the dynamic owner of Dance and Dine, the company in charge of organising the launch event. From her conversations with Avery, she knew that the international celebrity guest list would be indulging in vintage champagne in the glamour of a marquee designed as a Bedouin tent. Then they would enjoy a traditional Zubrani banquet under the stars and have the opportunity to explore the specially constructed ‘souk’, tempting the guests with various local delicacies and entertainment. To showcase the best of Zubran as a holiday destination there would be belly dancers, fortune tellers, falconry and the evening would conclude with what promised to be the most spectacular firework display ever witnessed.
This was probably how Cinderella had felt when she’d learned she would not be going to the ball, Emma thought gloomily.
Shivering in the freezing air that her inadequate heater didn’t manage to warm, she sank deeper inside her coat and allowed herself a brief fantasy involving sunshine and palm trees. Just for a moment she felt envious. Right now this minute, the women on the guest list were probably deciding what to wear and packing for a break in the sun where all they were expected to do was look glamorous.
Emma pushed her hair away from her face with her gloved hand. She didn’t need to look in the mirror to know she didn’t look glamorous. She looked wrecked.
Forget celebrity parties. She’d be thrilled just to be able to get to bed before midnight. And if the weather carried on like this, she and Jamie would be spending their precious holiday trapped indoors.
She was struggling to keep the car on the icy road when her phone rang.
She thought it might be Lucas finally returning one of her many frantic messages, but it wasn’t. It was Jamie.
Of course it was Jamie. He’d expected her over an hour ago.
‘Where are you, Emma?’ His concern was audible in his voice and she suddenly felt horribly disloyal for wishing she could have gone to Zubran and partied under the stars.
Not daring to drive and talk with the road conditions so bad, she pulled over, squashing down the guilt. ‘I had to work late. I’m so sorry. I left you a message.’
‘When will you be home?’
‘Soon. I hope.’ She stared doubtfully at the falling snow. ‘But it might take me a while because the roads are terrible. Don’t wait up.’
He didn’t say anything and she knew he was upset with her.
His silence made her guilt worse. While he’d been worrying, she’d been imagining the perfect dress to wear to the party of the decade. ‘We have the whole weekend to be together and next week,’ she reasoned. When there was still no answer, she gave a sigh. ‘Jamie, don’t be upset. I have to work tonight. It’s never happened before. You know I normally keep the weekends free but this is an emergency. Lucas left some really important papers and I have to take them to him.’
It was a difficult conversation and by the time she hung up she was cursing Lucas Jackson with words she never normally allowed herself to use. Why couldn’t he have remembered the stupid file? Or why couldn’t he at least get off the phone and pick up her calls? At least then she could have met him halfway or something.
Knowing that the only thing that was going to make her feel better was getting the job done and going home, she eased the car back onto the road. Her eyes felt gritty and her head throbbed. She couldn’t wait to just crawl into bed and sleep and sleep.
She’d make it up to Jamie. They had two weeks together—the whole of the Christmas holidays. Two whole weeks while her high-flying boss was in Zubran, locked in business meetings with the Sultan and partying the night away under the stars. And she wasn’t jealous. Absolutely not.
Visibility was down to virtually zero. She lost her way twice in the maze of country lanes that all looked the same and defeated her satnav. The only car on the road, she crawled her way along a snowy lane and finally found herself at the entrance to Chigworth Castle.
Two huge stone lions snarled down at her from either side of the open gates and she glared back at them, thinking that the house was about as friendly and welcoming as the man who owned it.
By the time she’d slithered and skidded her way down a drive that seemed as long as the road to London, the throb in her head was worse and she’d convinced herself she’d taken a wrong turn. This couldn’t possibly be right. It was leading nowhere.
Where on earth was the actual house? Did one person really need this much land?
Her headlights picked out a wood and a lake and she drove over a bridge, tyres skidding, turned a corner and saw it. Floodlit with warm beams of light that illuminated honey-coloured stone and tall, beautiful windows, a small castle stood as it had no doubt stood for centuries, surrounded by a moat.
‘Battlements,’ Emma breathed, enchanted. ‘It even has battlements.’
Snow clung to those battlements and smoke twirled from a chimney into the cold air. Lights shone from a tower in one corner of the building and her mouth literally fell open because she’d had no idea that he owned something like this. He was all about modern, cutting-edge design and yet this—this imposing, beautiful building was part of history.
It really was a castle. A small, but perfectly formed castle.
Small? Emma gave a choked laugh. Small was her rented room in one of the less salubrious areas of London. She had a single window that overlooked a train line and was woken every morning at five a.m. by the aeroplanes landing at Heathrow Airport. Idyllic living it was not. This, however, was. So much space, she thought enviously. Acres of gardens, now cloaked in white but easy enough to imagine them in the spring—carpets of bluebells stretching endlessly into the wood where currently there was nothing but layers of soft, unmarked snow.
It was truly beautiful.
For a moment her eyes stung and she wondered how a house could possibly make her want to cry.
It wasn’t that perfect, was it?
For a start it was isolated. Realising just how isolated, Emma gave a shiver as she coaxed her little car forward over the bridge that spanned the moat. She might have been the only person on the planet.
And then through the archway she saw the sleek, familiar lines of Lucas’s car, already almost obscured by the falling snow. So he’d made it, but he still wasn’t answering his phone.
Resolving to buy him a phone that only she used and relieved to still be in one piece, she sat for a moment, waiting for her heart rate to slow down. When she was sufficiently recovered, she reached for the offending file.
Two minutes, Emma promised herself as she switched off the engine and stepped carefully out of the car. This was going to take her two minutes. As soon as she’d handed over the file, she’d get back on the road.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she slipped. Crashing down awkwardly in her attempt to protect the file, she bumped her elbow and her head. For a moment she lay there, winded, and then she rolled onto her knees and struggled back to her feet. Bruised, damp and angry, she picked her way gingerly towards the door, the snow seeping through her shoes.
She stabbed the bell with her finger and held it there, taking small comfort from that minor rebellion. There was no answer.
Snow trickled down from her hair to her neck and from there inside her shirt.
Emma shivered and rang the bell again, surprised that someone hadn’t immediately opened the door. She’d assumed the place would be crawling with staff and Lucas was notoriously intolerant of inefficiency of any kind.
Someone, she thought, was going to be in trouble.
Having rung the bell for a third time and still received no response, she tried the door with no expectation that it would open.
When it did, she hesitated on the threshold. Walking into someone else’s home uninvited wasn’t a habit of hers, but she had a file he needed and she wasn’t about to drive it all the way back to the office.
‘Hello?’ Cautiously, she peeped her head in through the door, bracing herself to set off an alarm. But there was no sound and she opened the door further. She saw dark wood panelling, tapestries, huge oil paintings and a sweeping staircase so romantic that it made a girl long for Rhett Butler to stride into the house and sweep her off her feet. When there was still no sign of life, she stepped inside.
‘Hello?’ She closed the door to keep the heat in—how much did it cost to heat somewhere like this?—and then noticed the open champagne bottles, the balloons and the streamers. And a cake. Something about the cake didn’t quite seem right, but she couldn’t work out what it was. Clearly a party was going on somewhere, except there was no sign of any guests, just an overpowering silence that was almost creepy. She half expected someone to jump out from behind the heavy velvet curtains and shout boo!
An uneasy feeling crept down her spine. For goodness’ sake, it was just a house! A big house, admittedly, but there was nothing threatening about a house. And she wasn’t alone. She couldn’t possibly be alone. Lucas had to be here somewhere and a whole load of other people judging from the number of champagne bottles.
Hoping that an enormous guard dog wasn’t about to bound out and close its jaws on a sensitive part of her anatomy, Emma walked over to a large oak door and pushed it open. It was a library, the walls lined with tall bookshelves stacked with books bound in various faded shades of old leather.
‘Lucas?’ She tentatively explored all the obvious rooms on the ground floor and then walked up the staircase. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t search the whole house. Remembering the light she’d seen shining from the tower, she decided to just try there.
Hazarding a guess as to the correct direction, she turned right and walked along a carpeted corridor until she reached a heavy oak door.
She tapped once and opened it. ‘Lucas?’ A spiral staircase rose in front of her and she walked up it and found herself in a large circular room with windows on all sides. Logs blazed in a huge fireplace and out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a huge four-poster bed draped in moss-green velvet, but her attention was on the low leather sofa because there, sprawled with his feet up on the arm and a bottle of champagne in his hand, was her boss.
‘Lucas?’
‘I thought I told you to get out.’ His savage tone made her gasp and she took a step backwards and almost tumbled down the stairs. Not once in the years she’d worked for him had he spoken to her like that.
One glance told her that he was rip-roaring drunk and she so rarely saw him out of control that her initial reaction was one of surprise. The fact that he didn’t make a habit of it did nothing to soothe her bruised feelings.
While her Friday night had been well and truly ruined, he’d been enjoying himself. He’d switched his phone off not because he was busy with an important business call, but because he was busy getting drunk. She’d risked her neck driving around the English countryside in a snowstorm, while all the time Lucas was warm and snug in front of a roaring log fire drinking champagne. Not only that, he had the gall to tell her to get out.
Emma’s temper, usually slow to burn, began to glow hot.
She was about to slap the file down on the table and leave him to his solitary party when she suddenly realised that what he’d actually said wasn’t get out but ‘I thought I told you to get out.’
She frowned.
He certainly hadn’t already told her to get out. Which could only mean that he thought she was someone else.
She remembered the balloons and the streamers. The abandoned champagne bottles. The cake.
‘Lucas!’ She spoke more clearly this time. ‘It’s me. Emma.’
For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her, and then his eyes opened.
Across the shadowy room she saw the lethal glitter that told her everything she needed to know about his mood. She was nowhere near him and yet it was as if he’d reached out and touched her. Her body warmed. She shifted uncomfortably. She’d never seen him like this before. The man she knew was always sleek and groomed. His suits were handmade in Italy, his shirts custom-made. He was a man who expected the best in everything. A sophisticated connoisseur of all things beautiful.
But tonight he looked dangerous in every way. In mood. In looks. His shirt was open at the neck, exposing a cluster of dark hair and a hint of powerful chest. Shadowy stubble darkened his strong jaw and, most disturbingly of all, she had the feeling that he was balancing on the very edge of control.
Sensing it, Emma reacted the way she would have reacted had she suddenly been confronted by a snarling Rottweiler intent on ripping her throat out. She froze and tried to project calm. ‘It’s just me,’ she said soothingly, ‘only you seemed to think I was someone else, so I thought I ought to just clarify that … er … it’s me.’
The silence stretched for such an agonizing length of time that she’d started to think that he wasn’t going to answer when suddenly he stirred.
‘Emma?’ His voice was soft and deadly and did nothing to reassure her.
She discovered that her hands were shaking and that irritated her. This was Lucas, for goodness’ sake. She’d worked with him almost every day for two years. He was tough, but he wasn’t threatening. Not exactly kind, but not cruel either. ‘I’ve been calling you for hours. Why didn’t you pick up the phone?’
‘Who the hell let you in?’
‘No one. I rang the bell and no one answered so I—’ She broke off and he raised an eyebrow.
‘So you thought you’d just walk into my house? Tell me, Little Red Riding Hood, do you make a habit of walking through the forest when the wolf is loose?’ Fierce blue eyes met hers and Emma felt as if she were being suffocated.
She lifted her hand and loosened the scarf around her neck. Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was the look in his eyes, but suddenly her heart was pounding. ‘I rang the bell. You didn’t answer.’
‘But you walked in anyway.’ Those softly spoken words were a million times more disturbing than the hard tone he’d used to order her out.
She tried to rally herself. ‘If you had answered your phone I wouldn’t have had to walk in.’
‘My phone is switched off. And I didn’t answer the door because I wasn’t looking for company.’
Something snapped inside her. ‘You think I drove for over two hours in lethal conditions for the pleasure of your company? After the week we’ve had, when I’ve had your “company” for an average of fifteen hours a day? I don’t think so.’ The injustice of it stoked her temper. ‘I drove here, at much personal inconvenience, I might add, to give you a file. The file that you forgot to pick up. The file you need tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ The way he said it made it sound as if that day were a lifetime away. A point somewhere in the future that might never come.
‘Yes, tomorrow.’ She looked at him in exasperation. Was he really that drunk? ‘Zubran? The launch party? Your papers for the Ferrara meeting? Is any of this ringing any bells with you?’ She’d been clutching the file to her chest like a shield but now she thrust it towards him and then decided that on second thoughts she didn’t want him to move from the sofa, so instead she dropped it on the nearest table. ‘There. My job is done. You can thank me when you’re sober.’
Slowly, he put the champagne down on the floor. ‘You drove out here to give me the file?’
‘Yes, I did.’ And suddenly she felt like a crazy person for doing that. ‘You need it. I didn’t want to trust it to a courier.’
‘You could have given it to Jim.’
Jim was his driver. ‘Jim has flown to Dublin for a long weekend.’ Why hadn’t he remembered that? What was the matter with him?
‘So you chose to bring it in person.’ His eyes glinted in the firelight and his gaze slowly travelled from her head to her toes as if he was seeing her properly for the first time.
‘Yes, I brought it to you in person,’ she snapped, hating herself for caring that she wasn’t looking her best. It wasn’t that she had any expectations of coming close to meeting his standards of visual perfection, but it would have boosted her confidence and made her feel businesslike. As it was, it was hard to feel businesslike with mud and snow streaked down her coat. ‘Frankly I’m starting to wish I hadn’t bothered, since the gesture clearly isn’t appreciated.’
‘Your head is bleeding. And your hair is wet. What happened to you?’
There was blood? Emma touched her head with her fingers and felt the bruise. Oh God, there was blood. How embarrassing. She rummaged in her bag for a tissue and pressed it against her head. ‘I slipped walking from the car. It’s fine.’ Suddenly she was horribly aware that it was just the two of them in this enormous house. It didn’t matter that she was often alone with him in the office. This felt different. ‘I’m going now and I’ll leave you to your party.’ She thought again about the balloons and the cake and wondered where everyone else was. In a different part of the house?
‘Ah yes, my party.’ He gave a humourless laugh and his head dropped back against the sofa. ‘Go, Emma. Someone like you shouldn’t be here.’
She’d been about to retreat but his words stopped her. Offended, she tapped her foot on the floor. ‘By “someone like me” I assume you mean someone who doesn’t move in your lofty social circle.’
‘I didn’t mean that, but it doesn’t matter.’
Stung, she stood still for a moment. ‘Actually it does matter. I’ve just risked my neck and upset someone I love to bring you a file you don’t even remember needing. A “thank you” would be nice. Manners are a good thing to have.’
‘But I’m not nice. And I’m certainly not good.’ His bitter tone shocked her. Her anger fizzled out.
‘Lucas—’
‘Get out, Emma.’ This time he used her name so that there could be no mistake about whom he was addressing. ‘Get out and close the damn door behind you.’
CHAPTER TWO
OF ALL the ungrateful, rude, pig-headed … Emma stomped down the stairs, along the landing and down the main staircase, swept forward by rolling waves of righteous anger.
Get out, Emma.
Get out, Emma.
Those words rang in her ears and she set her teeth and walked faster.
Well, she was getting out. She couldn’t get out fast enough.
She consoled herself that at least her conscience was clear. She’d done her job. She’d given him the file. No one could accuse her of behaving unprofessionally. Now she could relax and enjoy the holidays with Jamie without suffering a nagging worry that she should have done more. Lucas had made it clear that his personal life was his own business and that was just fine with her.
Her footsteps echoed in the magnificent hallway as she stormed towards the door. There was still no sign of anyone else and she wondered why a party would have finished so early.
I told you to get out!
His words played over and over again in her head. Who had he told to get out?
Telling herself that his manners were none of her business, she pulled open the door. The cold slammed into her and she gasped and huddled into her damp coat. Even in the comparatively short time she’d been inside, the weather had turned seriously ugly. The snow was falling twice as heavily. Already her footprints were covered and her car was an amorphous white blob.
Her head still aching from her last unscheduled contact with the ground, Emma picked her way gingerly to her car and knocked the worst of the snow off the windscreen with her glove. If that much snow had fallen since she’d been in the house then the bridge she’d crossed to get here would pretty soon be impassable. Her little car wouldn’t be able to cope with the combination of the snow and the gradient.
With that thought in her head, she was about to slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine when something about the smooth, untouched mound of snow on the roof made her think of the cake. And thinking of the cake made her realise what it was that had been bothering her. The cake was untouched. Whole. It hadn’t been cut. Not a single slice had been taken from it.
Emma stood for a moment, one leg in the car, the other on the snowy ground, wondering about that. The celebration, whatever it was, had obviously stopped before they’d reached the part with the cake.
I told you to get out.
She tightened her lips and slid into the car. It wasn’t any of her business. Wrapping her freezing fingers around the key, she started the engine. Maybe he didn’t like cake. Maybe he didn’t have a sweet tooth. Maybe—
‘Drat and bother.’ Switching off the engine, she thumped her head back against the seat. He’d told her to get out. If she had any sense she’d do just that.
Slowly she turned her head and looked back at the house.
He’d said he wanted to be alone so that was exactly what she should do. Leave him alone.
She tightened her hands on the wheel.
Whatever was wrong with Lucas Jackson wasn’t any of her business.
Lucas stared blindly into the dying flames of the fire. He was drunk, but nowhere near as drunk as he wanted to be. The pain was as acute as ever. It was like lying down on the business end of a saw, feeling the teeth digging into every single part of him. Nothing he did could ease it.
Standing up, he walked to the basket of logs by the fire and pulled one out.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that. You’ll burn the whole place down if you’re not careful.’ A female voice came from the doorway and he turned, wondering if he were hallucinating.
Emma stood there. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, snowflakes sparkled and clung to her dark hair and her eyes were frosty. He wasn’t sure if he was seeing anger or defiance but he knew he was looking at trouble and he straightened slowly.
‘I thought I told you—’
‘—to get out. Yes, you did, which was very rude of you actually.’ Her tone was brisk. ‘For future reference, you deserve to be left on your own if that is the way you speak to people.’ She lifted her hand and unwound her scarf from around her neck, sending snow fluttering onto the thick rug that covered the floor of the turret bedroom.
‘That’s what I want,’ Lucas said slowly. ‘I want to be left on my own.’ He enunciated every syllable, aware that his emotions were dangerously close to the surface. ‘I thought I’d made that clear.’
‘You did.’
‘So what are you doing here?’
‘Sticking my nose into your business.’ She tugged off a soaking-wet glove. ‘For selfish reasons. I’m about to go on holiday. I don’t want to spend that time worrying that you’ve fallen into the fire in a drunken stupor.’
‘Why would that bother you?’
‘If something happens to you I’d have to look for a new job and it’s rubbish out there right now.’
‘You don’t have to worry.’ Lucas tightened his hand on the log and felt the rough bark cut into his palm. ‘I’m not that drunk, although I’m working on it.’
‘Which is why I can’t leave. When you stop “working on it” I’ll be able to go.’ The other glove went the same way as the first, the soaked fabric clinging to her skin. ‘In the meantime, I don’t want your death on my conscience.’
‘I am not about to die.’ He heard the anger in his voice and wondered why she couldn’t hear it too. ‘You can leave with a clear conscience. If you have any sense you’ll do it. Right now.’
‘I’m not leaving until you’ve told me why there seems to have been a party downstairs but you’re on your own in the house.’
‘Despite all my best attempts, I am not alone. You’re here. And frankly I don’t understand why. I’ve been rude to you. If you have any self-respect you should probably punch me and resign on the spot.’
‘That only happens in the movies. In real life no one can afford to resign on the spot and only someone with your wealth would even suggest such a rash course of action.’ Shivering, she unbuttoned her soaking coat and stepped closer to the fire. ‘And self-respect means different things to different people. Dramatic overreaction isn’t really my style, but if I walked away from someone in trouble then I’d lose all self-respect.’
‘Emma—’
‘And although it’s true that you do lack empathy and certain human characteristics like a conscience, you are actually a reasonable person to work for most of the time so resigning would be a pretty stupid thing to do. Truth is, I love my job. And as for punching you—I’ve never punched anyone or anything in my life, although I did come close in the supermarket last week but that’s another story. And anyway, my hands are so cold from scraping snow from the car I don’t think I can even form a fist.’ She flexed her fingers experimentally while Lucas watched with mounting exasperation.
Apparently wealth and success couldn’t buy a man time alone when he wanted it.
‘You love your job? In that case I am giving you a direct order,’ he said in a thickened tone. ‘Leave now or I will fire you.’
‘You can’t fire me. Not only would that be unfair dismissal but, technically, I’m now on my own time. Weekend time. How I spend it is my decision and no one else’s.’
‘Weekend time that previously you’ve always refused to work. Why pick this particular moment to break your unbreakable rule?’ Anger exploded. ‘Surely there is somewhere you need to be? What about this exciting life you live at weekends?’ He remembered the one occasion, right at the beginning of her employment when she’d taken a personal call within his hearing. ‘Why aren’t you rushing home to Jamie?’
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘You know about Jamie?’
‘Nothing to do with empathy or conscience.’ Lucas was quick to dispel that possible thought before it even formed. ‘I just have a good memory.’
‘I didn’t realise you knew about Jamie. And I will be going home, once I’ve assured myself you’re OK.’
‘I’m OK. You can see I’m OK.’
‘There’s no need to speak through your teeth and actually I don’t see someone who is OK. I see a man who is drunk. On his own. A man who doesn’t usually drink. Something seriously weird is going on.’ She tapped her foot on the floor, a thoughtful look on her face. ‘Why didn’t anyone cut the cake?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The party downstairs. No one had bothered to cut the cake. And you only left the office just before me, so you didn’t even have time for a party—’ She stared at him as she worked it out. ‘It was a surprise party, wasn’t it? And you told them to get out.’
‘Not all surprises are good ones. And now I’d like you to get out too.’ His acid tone had no effect. She was like a barnacle, he thought, refusing to be chipped from the rock.
‘I assume it was Tara and her hangers-on?’ Her expression told him everything he needed to know about her opinion of the egocentric model. ‘She should not have left you like this.’
‘I ordered her to leave.’
‘Then she shouldn’t have listened. What was the occasion?’
‘Her birthday.’ He watched as her lips parted in astonishment. Soft lips, he noticed. Unpainted. She was wearing the same plain grey skirt she’d worn to work that day with a white shirt and a maroon sweater under her extremely damp coat. She looked sober and sensible. But then Emma always dressed soberly. Her hair was always smooth and neat, secured away from her face with a large clip that never failed her. She was the consummate professional in every way.
‘She threw a surprise party for her own birthday?’
‘I’d already told her this wasn’t a good night for me. Tara isn’t good at hearing no.’
‘Why?’
Lucas gave a sardonic smile. ‘Because she’s a woman?’
‘No—’ her frown was impatient ‘—I mean, why isn’t this a good night for you? I want to know why you’re insistent on being on your own and why you’re drinking your way through the entire contents of your cellar. Is it work? Has something gone wrong with the Zubran contract that I don’t know about?’
‘Why would you think it has anything to do with work?’
‘Because work is the only thing that matters to you.’
Lucas stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned and threw the log he was holding onto the fire. The flames licked at it greedily, consuming it and delivering a sudden flare of heat.
He couldn’t blame her for thinking that, could he?
She had no idea.
And that was a good thing. The last thing he was looking for was sympathy or understanding.
‘You shouldn’t be here, Emma.’
‘But I am here. And I might be able to help.’ She stood, straight and tall. Honest. Straightforward. A woman with a heart, innocent of how dark the world could be.
He made a point of avoiding women like her. Innocence had no place in his life. He was not a good guardian of innocence. Even thinking about it made his palms begin to sweat. ‘You can’t help.’ Their relationship had always been strictly professional. For Lucas, business and pleasure didn’t mix. He’d thought she felt the same way.
‘Are you upset about Tara? Is that what’s wrong? This isn’t like you. In all the time I’ve worked for you I’ve never seen you remotely emotional about a woman. I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re no more than an accessory to you. A bit like your cufflinks. You wear different ones, depending on the occasion.’
It was such a perceptive comment that had he not been struggling with his black mood, he might have laughed. He certainly would have been impressed. As it was, he just wanted her gone and if she was going to ignore his request for her to leave then it was time to employ other methods.
‘Maybe it is like me. Maybe you don’t know what I’m like. Maybe you don’t know me at all.’ Lucas prowled over to her, watching as she registered the threat in his tone. And because he was watching, because he was experienced, he sensed she was struggling not to step back.
‘Don’t intimidate me. I’m trying to help, Lucas.’
‘And I don’t want help. Not yours. Not anyone’s.’ If nothing else would work, then this would. Telling himself that he was doing her a favour, he flattened her back against the exposed brick of the wall. Her shallow breathing was the only sound in the room apart from the occasional crackle from the blazing fire. Next to them a window looked down at moonlit snow but his attention was on the soft curve of her mouth. Her hair smelled of flowers and wood smoke.
His body stirred, his response to her primitive, powerful and entirely inappropriate.
Her eyes were fixed on him, wide and shocked.
And he couldn’t blame her for that. He was shocked too. Shocked by the concentrated rush of raw desire that ripped through him, shocked by the degree of control he had to exert over himself to prevent himself from doing what he was suddenly burning to do.
In a few brief seconds the nature of their relationship had shifted. Here, outside the glass walls of his office, the barrier had lowered.
Not boss and employee.
Man and woman.
He hadn’t expected that. He certainly didn’t want it. Not tonight and not with this woman.
It was the drink, he thought. Damn the drink, because he didn’t want that barrier lowered. Not just because that was a line he never crossed with someone who worked for him, but because he knew that what he had to give wasn’t what she would want.
Not trusting himself to be this close to her, he was about to step back when she pushed at his chest and escaped from his grasp. ‘I’ll leave you to sober up.’
She seemed as brisk and efficient as ever, but Lucas knew that she wasn’t. He heard the shake in her voice and saw the way her hands clutched at her wet coat as if she were trying to hold herself together.
He’d unsettled her.
Maybe he’d even scared her a little.
And that had been his intention, hadn’t it? He’d wanted her to walk away.
So why, in those few tense seconds as she stalked towards the door, did he find himself noticing things he hadn’t noticed before? Like the fact that her hair was the same rich glossy brown as the wood panelling in the tower bedroom and that she was one of the only women he knew who was still capable of blushing.
He found himself wondering about Jamie, the man she was rushing home to.
All he knew about the guy was that she’d been with him for the whole time she’d worked for him. Two years. And that confirmed everything he already knew about her.
Emma believed in love.
And with that thought he reached for another bottle of champagne.
For the second time that evening, Emma stomped down the stairs into the main hallway. The only difference was that this time she was shaking. Her knees shook, her fingers shook. Even her stomach shook.
From the first day she’d taken the job, she’d tried not to think of Lucas Jackson as a man. He was her boss. Her employer. Someone who paid her salary. Of course she couldn’t help but be aware of his appeal to women because she fielded his calls—and she fielded a lot—but somehow she’d managed to view his sex appeal in a detached way, a bit like admiring a valuable painting in a gallery that you knew you’d never be able to hang on your own wall.
And then suddenly, out of nowhere, had come this rush of sexual awareness that she absolutely didn’t want to feel. She was happy with her life. Happy doing her job and going home to Jamie. She didn’t want to jeopardize any of that. She couldn’t afford to jeopardize any of that. Especially not for a rude, totally selfish human being like Lucas Jackson.
Sexy eyes, a great body and a brilliant mind didn’t make up for serious deficiencies in his personality. He didn’t care about anyone. And that, she told herself firmly, was not an attractive trait.
And she was well aware that the incident back in the cosy turret bedroom had been about control, not chemistry.
He’d been trying to unsettle her. Trying to get her to back off. Well, that was fine. She’d backed off, hadn’t she?
But she wasn’t leaving. There was no way she could leave another human being in that state.
Trying to forget the way he’d looked at her as he’d pinned her to the wall, Emma reached the bottom of the stairs and stared at the decorations, so tacky and out of place in the elegant hallway. Something about the surprise party had upset him. Or maybe he’d been upset before he’d arrived home. Whichever, it was the first time she’d ever seen him drunk.
Deciding that the decorations were presumably as unwelcome as the party, she set about removing them. As she liberated a streamer that had been twisted around the ornate frame of a painting, a memory came at her from nowhere.
It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him drunk, was it? It was the second time. And the first time would have been—when? Trying to remember, she twisted the streamer between her fingers. There had been snow on the ground then too. It would have been around the same time of year as this.
Last year.
She’d worked late and assumed she was on her own in the building apart from Security, but when she’d walked into his office Lucas had been there, sprawled on the sofa with an empty bottle of whisky next to him.
He’d been asleep and she hadn’t woken him.
Instead, she’d covered him with a blanket and checked on him a few times while she quietly got on with her work.
He probably didn’t even know who had put the blanket there. Either way, neither of them had ever referred to it.
Reaching up, she removed the rest of the streamers and the balloons.
It had been exactly this week. It might even have been the same date. She remembered because it was the same time that she took her holiday every year.
She stood, holding a bouquet of unwanted festivity as she thought it through.
Was it a coincidence that he was drunk again? Yes, probably. It was a busy time and everyone was entitled to let their hair down from time to time. Even the ruthlessly focused Lucas.
Emma clenched her jaw and stabbed the balloons with her car keys until they popped. It was none of her business.
But what if it wasn’t coincidence that he’d chosen to drink alone on the same night last year? What if it wasn’t coincidence that a man who forgot nothing chose this night to forget important documents?
She gathered up the last of the streamers until the only remaining evidence of the unwanted party was the uncut cake and the empty glasses.
With a murmur of frustration, she glanced over her shoulder towards the stairs.
This was one of those situations where she couldn’t win. If she left she’d worry and if she stayed she ran the risk of being shouted at again. Or worse.
Her cheeks heated. What if he thought she’d stayed for a different reason? She wasn’t stupid enough to think he hadn’t noticed the way she’d reacted to him earlier. Lucas Jackson had far too much experience with women not to have noticed. Her only hope was that he was too drunk to remember. That, by morning, the single breathless moment when she’d forgotten to think of him as her boss would have been drowned out by other more important memories. And if he did happen to remember it, with luck he’d dismiss it as a figment of his imagination. A memory spun by alcohol, not reality. Her own behaviour would support that belief because at work she was always careful never, ever to stray into the realms of personal.
Looking out of the window, she saw that the snow was still falling.
She’d stay another half an hour, she decided. She’d check on him one more time, hopefully without him even noticing her, just as she’d done the last time. And then she’d leave him to his snowy solitude.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCAS stood under the shower while needles of icy water stung his skin. He was undoubtedly drunk but, instead of being numbed, his senses appeared heightened. He was having thoughts he absolutely should not be having and he blamed that on the champagne. Thank goodness Emma had walked out when she had, otherwise he might have been tempted to seek an entirely different form of oblivion.
He gave a growl of self-disgust.
Since when had he imagined his PA naked? Never. Not once. But suddenly he found himself tormented by thoughts of dark, shiny hair. He’d wanted to yank out that damn clip and let it tumble free. He’d wanted to sink his hands into it and drown in the softness. He’d wanted to twist it around his fingers and hold her captive while he drank from that soft, innocent mouth to see if she were the cure he’d been looking for.
And he shouldn’t want any of those things.
Cursing softly, he leaned his shoulders against the cool tiles, closed his eyes and let the water slide over his head.
He shouldn’t want to touch her hair and he definitely shouldn’t be thinking about kissing that mouth. Emma worked for him and he wanted her to continue to work for him. And there was no cure for what he was feeling.
It had been a rocky road finding someone suitable to fill the role of his personal assistant—a role that required a multitude of skills. Before Emma he’d had a series of giggling girls for whom work was nothing more than a way to fund their social life. He’d had girls who were overawed by him, girls whose only reason for working late was the wistful hope that their relationship with him might turn into something more intimate. He’d had a male PA who had sadly struggled with the sheer volume of simultaneous projects he’d been expected to handle and an older woman who was a grandmother four times over, but she hadn’t had the stamina to handle the heavy workload and had resigned after a month.
And then he’d discovered Emma. Emma, with her serious brown eyes and her astonishing ability to juggle any number of projects at the same time without complaint. Emma, who never worked with one eye on the clock and had an admirable way of soothing the most frayed of tempers. She was the ultimate professional and it was that dedication to her job, her understanding of the importance of attention to detail, that had brought her out here tonight.
She was a gem.
And he’d shouted at her. And worse, he’d scared her.
His head spinning, Lucas swore under his breath and wondered if he’d remember to send her flowers when he was sober. The irony was, he never sent a woman flowers. Emma did it for him. But he’d have to do something because the last thing he wanted was for her to resign.
Hopefully they would both be able to ignore that single moment when their view of each other had changed and re-establish the normal parameters of their relationship.
Switching off the shower, he grabbed a towel.
He dried himself briefly and then tried to tie the towel around his waist but his fingers were clumsy and uncoordinated so in the end he gave up and dropped the towel on the floor with a frustrated laugh directed towards himself. Too drunk to secure a towel, apparently, but not drunk enough to forget.
Never drunk enough to forget.
The pain was lodged under his ribs like shrapnel that couldn’t be removed. Nothing eased the ache.
Surprised that he could still walk in a straight line, he returned to the bedroom and stopped dead because Emma was standing there.
For a moment he assumed that she was nothing more than a vivid image conjured by an intoxicating mixture of champagne, wishful thinking and inappropriate thoughts.
And then he heard a soft sound escape from her throat.
Her shocked eyes slid down his naked body and widened.
‘Oh my God—’ With a gurgle of horror she slapped her hand over her eyes and turned her head away. ‘Sorry! I’m so sorry. I … What are you doing walking around naked? I can’t believe you just … and I …’ She broke off, hideously embarrassed, and it was that embarrassment that penetrated his fuzzy brain.
Not an image, he thought. An image wouldn’t turn scarlet and have her hands over her eyes.
And he didn’t trust himself to move because suddenly all he wanted to do was give in to that most primitive part of himself, throw her down on the bed and explore a different way of getting through this one night. He wanted her to be the heat that melted the chill inside him. He wanted her warmth and all that was real about her. Instead of being surrounded by ghosts, he wanted human contact. Flesh and blood. Emma.
Hands clenched by his sides, he channelled all his power and strength into standing still. ‘I thought you’d left.’
‘No! I just went downstairs to tidy up and give you some space and—’ Her hand still over her eyes, she snatched in a breath. ‘Are you decent yet?’
‘For God’s sake, Emma, stop overreacting.’ Tension made his voice rougher than he intended. ‘You must have seen a naked man before.’ Jamie, he thought bitterly. She’d seen Jamie.
‘You’re my boss—’ her voice was muffled ‘—I don’t think of you as a man. Or at least I didn’t until … Please can you just get dressed or something? This is not good.’
In other circumstances he might have smiled at her confusion, but a smile was nowhere near his grasp. Instead he walked into the small anteroom he used as a dressing room and grabbed a robe. Any benefit derived from the cold shower had been instantly wiped out by the sight of her. Raw lust mixed uncomfortably with the knowledge that this was one woman he couldn’t have.
He needed to switch it off. He had to switch it off.
However much he’d drunk, this was not going to happen. She was the last woman in the world he wanted to see as—well, as a woman.
Dragging his hand through his wet hair, he prowled back into the room. ‘I presume you came back to tell me you’re snowed in?’
‘I have no idea if I’m snowed in. I haven’t tried to leave.’ Her hand was still over her eyes and Lucas sighed and knotted the cord around his robe firmly. Then he closed his hands over her wrists and tugged firmly at her hands. She kept her eyes screwed tightly shut. ‘Really, I don’t want to—’
‘I’m decent.’ At least on the outside. His thoughts were far from decent but as long as she couldn’t read minds, everything would be fine. Trying to ignore the warmth and softness of her skin against his palms, he let go of her wrists and stepped back for no other reason than the fact he knew he wasn’t sober enough to make good decisions. Distance, he thought. All he had to do was keep his distance. ‘If you’re not snowed in, why are you still here? You left half an hour ago.’
‘I told you, I was clearing up all those balloons and things. I assumed you didn’t want them. And I was worried about you.’ Cautiously, she half opened her eyes and when she saw the robe she relaxed and opened them properly. ‘I was worried that you’d carry on drinking your way through all that champagne, fall face down in the fire and die a hideous death.’
‘Worrying about your job again?’
‘Of course.’ Avoiding his gaze, she pushed strands of damp hair away from her face. ‘And possibly my conscience. I want to be able to sleep at night.’
Distracted by all that lush, dark hair, Lucas found it hard to keep his mind focused. ‘Maybe I’m more drunk than I think I am, but why would that be on your conscience?’
‘Because I would have been the last person to see you alive.’ Wrapping her arms around herself, she gave a little shrug and backed towards the staircase. ‘But if you’re sober enough to take a shower without drowning, I expect you’re safe to be left so … I’ll just go.’
He was used to her being brisk and confident in all things. He’d never seen her like this. ‘Why aren’t you looking at me?’
‘Because I still haven’t recovered from the shock of the last time I looked at you. Seeing your boss naked isn’t something that happens every day of the week.’ She was stammering and flustered. ‘I may need therapy. And this time I really am going.’ She felt for the handrail at the top of the spiral staircase, her gaze everywhere except on him even though his robe was firmly secured around his waist.
Her unsophisticated response simply fuelled his libido and he felt a rush of frustration because what he had to do was in direct conflict with what he wanted to do. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Emma.’ He watched as her pale throat moved as she swallowed hard.
‘Yes, I am. You’re obviously fine to be left so—’
‘When did you last look outside?’
The tension in the air built around them. It didn’t help that the turret bedroom was designed for seduction with its huge four-poster bed, flickering fire and windows that gave a perfect view of the estate. The snow reflected the moon and sent a ghostly silver light over the wood and the lake, producing a view that was both ethereal and romantic.
The irony was that he never had seduced a woman here. With the exception of Tara’s impromptu, unwanted visit earlier, no woman had ever visited him at Chigworth.
But Emma was here now, and she was clearly regretting her earlier decision to stay around.
‘It will be fine,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m good in the snow. If I drive carefully I’ll be able to get to the end of the road. The gritting lorries were already working on the motorway so I shouldn’t have any trouble getting home once I get to the main roads.’
‘And do you know how far it is to the main roads from here? Even if you make it out of the estate, which I doubt that you would, you have five miles of country roads that are always low on the priority list for whoever decides which part of our little island is gritted in bad weather.’
‘Well, I’ll give it a try anyway.’
‘I may be drunk,’ Lucas drawled, ‘but I’m not so drunk that I can’t recognise a truly bad idea when I see it. Call me selfish, but I don’t want to spend the rest of tonight trying to locate your frozen corpse. Nor do I want to find myself recruiting a new PA. I can’t stand the interview process.’
Her lips twitched as she tried to hold back a smile. ‘It’s all about you, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely. I’m the most selfish bastard you’ll ever meet, you know that.’ So don’t look at me with those soft brown eyes. Don’t show me that you care.
But she’d already done that, hadn’t she? The moment she’d discovered that he hadn’t wanted a party, she’d set about quietly removing the evidence.
Hands clasped in front of her, she stared at the floor. ‘I was stupid, wasn’t I, coming here in the first place.’
‘Not stupid, no.’ Because he could barely keep his hands off her, Lucas strolled over to the fire and kept his back to her. ‘You were dedicated. Professional. Which is no more than I would have expected from you. It’s just unfortunate that you chose tonight.’ He didn’t state the obvious. That if it hadn’t been for what this night did to his mind, he wouldn’t have forgotten the damn file in the first place.
‘Lucas—’
‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Taking control, he turned, interrupting her before she could ask the question he knew she was going to ask. The question about why exactly this night was so painful for him. ‘You are wet, cold and, presumably, very tired. I’m going down to the kitchen to make us some soup and while I do that you are going to have a hot bath or shower—whichever—and then help yourself to whatever clothes take your fancy from my dressing room. Nothing will fit, but you’re a practical enough person to improvise, I’m sure. We’ll hang yours up and they’ll be dry in the morning.’
‘Lucas, I can’t—’
‘I’m going to light a fire in one of the other bedrooms, then it will be warm once you’re ready to sleep.’ Without looking at her, he strode towards the staircase, keeping his hands to himself. ‘There are plenty of warm towels in the bathroom. Help yourself.’
She should have argued, but one glance through the pretty arched window convinced her that he was right. In the half hour she’d spent clearing up downstairs, killing time until she could check on him again, it seemed as if half a ton of fresh snow had fallen. It glistened in the moonlight, a sparkly, silvery deathtrap. The decision whether or not to stay was out of her hands. She wasn’t going to be going home any time soon. She was stuck here with a man who clearly didn’t want her around when all she wanted was to be home with Jamie.
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