Private Player

I smiled at the wall behind him as if I were afraid of being turned to stone if I looked him in the eye.

“Let’s get down to it,” he said as I took a seat opposite his desk. Nathan seemed a little different to the man I’d met on Saturday. Perhaps this was just him at work—a little harried—but something told me the cool, confident, slightly arrogant man I’d met on Saturday was the real him. This guy in front of me, with his oh-so-neat hair sticking up as if his hands had been resting in it, and his tie a little wonky, somehow didn’t fit.

He looked at me and blew out a breath. “So, this is a coincidence.” He paused as if he were waiting for me to say something. “Or maybe it isn’t?” he said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

What did that mean? “Nathan, we don’t know each other well, but from what little experience I have, you’re pretty direct.” Maybe he was only so forthright with women he was trying to sleep with. “What is it you’re trying to say?”

“I’m doing a very bad job of asking you whether you knew you were going to interview me when we met at the wedding.”

He thought that I was sleeping with him to get a story? My insides shriveled at the idea. I was ambitious and desperate to prove myself, but there was a line. “No,” I said. “That’s not who I am.”

He exhaled and closed his eyes in a long blink, as if he were relieved. “I’m sorry I asked. I’ve gotten more suspicious of people recently, and it just seemed a huge coincidence.”

“I thought so too until I saw Gretel’s email to my boss. It was time stamped after we sat down for the wedding breakfast.”

A grin twitched at the corners of his mouth just as I flushed at the memory of exposing my knickers to someone who was then, a perfect stranger.

“It’s just one of those weird things that happens, like when you’re thinking about a person and then they call,” I said, trying to stop him thinking about whatever it was he was thinking about. Because if he started thinking about Saturday night, I’d start thinking about Saturday night. About his eyelashes. His hands. His . . . expert tongue.

“I believe you,” he replied. “But it does make this profile a little . . . challenging.”

“Are you saying you want me to pass on the assignment?” I asked. If I couldn’t deliver this for Bernie, I’d probably get the sack—not good for a burgeoning career, even if the position was only temporary to begin with. If I confessed to knowing Nathan, Bernie would ask me why I hadn’t mentioned it at the time. Even if I kept my job, I wouldn’t get another opportunity like this for a long time. Maybe ever. I didn’t want to pass on this profile. And I didn’t want Nathan to ask for someone else.

I wanted to do my job.

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh.

“I’m good at my job,” I said. But I couldn’t write the profile if Nathan was uncooperative. I needed him to trust me.

“That’s not the issue,” Nathan responded. “The fact is that if you write a profile that paints me as an unfocused womanizer and then people find out about our personal relationship, my career is likely to come to an abrupt halt.”

“Mine too,” I said. I might not be the youngest CEO in history, but I’d worked hard to get where I was and I didn’t want some one-night stand undoing all my effort.

“Right.” He nodded. “But if you write a profile on me that says that I’m great at my job et cetera, et cetera, and then our . . . dalliance is exposed—”

“Dalliance?” I asked, amused at his charming euphemism. “Did we step back in time to nineteen fifty-three?”

He looked me dead in the eye. “If people find out we fucked on Saturday.” He raised his eyebrows. “Better?”

My cheeks flushed, heat pouring off me like he’d lit me on fire. I preferred the word dalliance.

“Whatever you write, people will think it’s improper if anyone was to find out, and I can’t be associated with anything unethical,” he continued. “The board are looking for a reason to fire me. Our previous association would be the smoking gun. I’ll lose control of this company. It would finish me, professionally.”

“Same,” was all I managed to squeak out. The way he was talking, it sounded like he definitely wanted me to pass on the project. But I needed this. I glanced away, suddenly aware of how very naked I’d seen the man sitting in front of me. How much that man had been able to make me feel.

So. Much.

Working together wasn’t the best idea. How would I ever concentrate? But I’d have to find a way. I wasn’t about to lose my dream job because I was mooning after a man.