In Bed With the Boss

‘Because people bother you. Do you have family?’

‘I don’t give interviews, Grace. Not to colleagues, journalists—or lovers.’ He lingered over the word as if testing the sound of it and her heart gave a little jump.

‘But you can’t live your whole life having nothing to do with people.’

‘I have plenty to do with people,’ his eyes lifted to hers, ‘if they happen to interest me.’

Which basically meant anyone who made him money or warmed his bed.

That was what he was saying, wasn’t it? Was he trying to shock her? Or was he making a proposition?

The heat pulsed through her and a dull ache spread across her pelvis. ‘It must be nice to be able to escape. But you don’t stop working, even here away from the city, bright lights and offices.’

The smooth lift of his eyebrows drew attention to the fact that she’d just revealed that she’d been watching him work.

‘I couldn’t sleep that well last night,’ she confessed hastily, ‘and I was looking out of my window. I saw you. Working on the computer. Talking on the phone.’ Sleepless. Driven. What were you thinking of down there in the dark with only a flickering screen for company? What demons robbed you of sleep?

‘I had work to do.’ But the cold brevity of his statement didn’t convince her and she sensed his withdrawal. Not physically. Physically he hadn’t moved. But emotionally, something had shifted. The simmering connection between them was damped down by something cold and remote and she knew for sure that he lived with darkness. Something dark and painful that haunted him and she knew that his wakeful night had nothing to do with work and everything to do with his own personal demons.

Who had twisted his view of life?

Was it his wife or was it more?

She felt a flash of sympathy that she could neither prevent nor understand and it didn’t make sense because if there was ever a man less demanding of sympathy then it was this one. But the desire to help in some way, to soothe and heal, was almost overwhelming.

She put her hands in her lap to prevent herself from touching him. ‘Night-time is always the worse time,’ she murmured. ‘If there’s a problem then it’s magnified. There’s no distraction.’

‘Are you offering to provide me with distraction?’ The demons were gone and now there was only the devil lurking in his eyes. A dangerous, wicked devil that danced and seduced and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

‘I don’t know you.’ She was telling herself as much as him and he watched her, as if reading her thoughts.

‘You know all you need to know.’

And what he meant by that, of course, was that she knew everything he wanted her to know.

And she realised that, for her, it wasn’t nearly enough. She wanted more. She wanted to know more, everything there was to know.

How had that happened in just two short days?

How had she come to care for this man? Because she did.

Oh, yes, she did. ‘You’re a difficult man to understand, Rafael.’ Difficult. Dangerous. Deadly?

‘I don’t need you to understand me, Grace.’ He smiled at her and there was something about that smile that robbed her of her ability to think clearly. It wasn’t the smile of acquaintances or even friends. It was the smile of a lover. Intimate. Secretive. A smile that said ‘I know what you’re thinking'.

And she truly hoped that he didn’t because her thoughts were shocking.

She was stripping him naked again, as she had the day before, only this time the fantasy was fuelled by reality. This time she had some knowledge. She’d felt those skilled, purposeful hands on her flesh. She’d felt his hard mouth demanding submission. And she’d stroked her hands over the hard, honed flesh and muscle, now concealed by his shirt.

She shifted in her seat and the faint narrowing of his eyes told her that he’d observed the movement. And understood it.

He leaned forward and took her hand in his, his fingers toying with hers. ‘It’s almost painful, isn’t it, this thing between us?’

She inhaled deeply and gave up on the food. There was too much fluttering in her stomach to even contemplate eating. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘No?’ He turned her hand, stroking her palm with his thumb, and the gentle, insistent pressure simply increased the tension inside her.

She had to look at him and immediately regretted the indulgence because once her gaze locked with his there was no looking away. His eyes demanded that she give up all her secrets and she obviously did because he gave a slow smile of satisfaction that was entirely masculine.