‘Yes,’ she replied, though it took all she had in her to find the light, reassuring smile to go with the answer. ‘But I think the champagne is beginning to get to me.’ Another passable smile—a rueful one—and she placed her glass down on the nearest table. ‘Never could take alcohol during daylight. Another sip and I would probably end up snoring for the rest of the day.’
‘You would never snore…’ Very intense, deadly serious—it was almost a relief to look into Ian Gant’s besotted eyes because his boyish attraction to her was so easy to deal with.
‘Tell me about your lovely fiancée,’ she urged, glancing briefly to his left as she did so. ‘The wedding is only a few weeks away, I believe?’
It was enough. He took the hint. The flush of attraction changed to a flush of embarrassment when he recalled the presence of Randall Taylor, his future father-in-law who, hearing weddings mentioned, turned to join in the discussion.
After that she was able to put the stranger out of her mind while she concentrated on the business in hand. Which was, in part, supposed to be an exercise in public relations because Taylor-Gant were threatening to take their business elsewhere if Knight’s did not improve their overall performance.
A grave step—a tough step when you took into consideration that Taylor-Gant had been using Edward’s marketing skills since for ever.
The sudden tap on her shoulder had her turning with a smile at the ready for whomever it was who wanted her attention.
But the smile died the moment she found herself looking down at Howard Fiske. Cold-eyed, mean-mouthed, and with the naturally aggressive manner that seemed to come along with his short, thin stature, he drew her apart from the others with a set of fingers on her arm that dug in just a little too tightly for her liking.
‘Your presence is required,’ he said, flicking his eyes to her cleavage with an insolence that made her grit her teeth. ‘Edward’s office. As of now.’
Edward—the magic word. ‘He’s turned up at last?’ she exclaimed, so relieved she couldn’t contain it. But she had been worrying about him throughout the whole morning when it had become clear that he’d gone missing without telling anyone. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this recently, but this particular day it had been important that he be here to soothe the Taylor-Gant ruffled feathers. But Edward wasn’t thinking too clearly at the moment, due to a struggle he was having with himself. Many struggles, she then extended painfully. To him his whole life was in a mess and he just didn’t know what to do to make it better.
‘Just excuse yourself and go,’ Howard Fiske tersely instructed. And as he removed his fingers from her arm she was almost positive they brushed against the side of her breast quite deliberately.
It made her want to shudder, though she contained the need, having learned very early on in her six-month conflict with Howard Fiske that a response—any kind of response to his blatant touching—was just what gave the nasty man his kicks.
So with a blank face she nodded in silent acquiescence, then turned to make her excuses.
‘That girl is a credit to this company,’ Randall Taylor remarked as he, too, watched the way she took her leave of each person in turn before eventually escaping through the door.
You wouldn’t be saying that if she were bedding your future son-in-law behind your daughter’s back, Howard thought with a smile that hid his real contempt for Edward’s so-called personal assistant as he watched her slip quietly out of the room.
Suddenly he felt almost happy, because he had a very good feeling that Natalia Deyton was about to meet her Waterloo—or Giancarlo Cardinale was not the man he was reputed to be…
Natalia, on the other hand, was too busy worrying about Edward to think about anything else as she took the direct route across the dove-grey carpet covering her own office floor on her way to Edward’s office.
The door was firmly shut, but it didn’t deter her. With only a cursory knock to warn of her arrival, she opened it and sailed right in there with all guns blazing. ‘Edward—you have to know that I am very angry with you,’ she announced. ‘I really can’t believe that you’ve let everyone down like this! Where have you been all morning? What is it you—’
‘It’s not Edward,’ a smooth, deep, totally unfamiliar voice with the merest thread of a foreign accent inserted.
In the process of closing the door behind her, Natalia spun on her slender heels then froze, totally stunned to see the tall dark stranger from the dining room comfortably ensconced in the chair behind Edward’s desk, and looking as if he had every right to be there!
He had even removed the jacket to his dark suit, so the bright white of his shirt stood out against the black leather back of Edward’s chair, adding extra emphasis to the width of his shoulders and the breadth of his chest, which set that same tight, tense breathless feeling that had attacked her earlier stinging through her system.
It was awful—stifling and confusing because she didn’t understand what was happening here! Not the tingling sensation, nor the baffling fact that some total stranger seemed to have taken up residence in Edward’s office. And what was just as bad was the way he was running those eyes over her again as if he had every right to do that also!
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What right have you to be in here?’
He didn’t even bother to answer. Instead he just continued to inspect her from the top of her gleaming head to the tips of her shiny black leather court shoes. It was like being stripped to the bare skin by a pair of black lasers, she likened, automatically stiffening up in outright objection.
‘I asked you a question,’ she snapped out.
‘Actually, you asked two,’ he drawled in a soft, dry, husky tone that had her stomach muscles curling in on themselves in response.
A sensual response, she noted in helpless confusion. What was wrong with her? Who was he, and why was he making her feel like this?
It was deliberate too; she was at least functioning sharply enough to be aware of the hint of calculation behind his lazily seductive regard.
‘I’m going to call Security,’ she announced, turning back to the door again.
‘Three questions, if we include the one you thought you were asking Edward,’ he tagged on very silkily.