As the violent pleasure washed over her, she clung to Quinn as if her life depended on it. But the firmer her grasp the more illusive her hold on him became. Their reality was fading, Magenta realised in despair, and there was no way to call it back. The moment she had dreaded was here—was now. She was leaving Quinn, floating away from him, floating out of his reach…
‘Quinn, save me!’
But even as she cried his name she knew he couldn’t hear her.
She made one last desperate attempt to reach him, but the more she strained to stay where she was the more the yawning chasm between them grew. The last thing she saw was Quinn stretching out his hands as if he had the power to defeat time, space and dimension and could snatch her back again. But it was too late. She was already being sucked into the void from where there was no return, and as she tumbled helplessly from one world to the next she was dimly aware of Quinn calling out to her. But then even his voice lost its power to hold her and she slipped away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘DAMN the woman!’ Gray Quinn’s face was thunderous as he hammered on Magenta’s office door with his fist. ‘Magenta! Answer me! Magenta, are you in there? Are you all right?’
The silence was deafening. Straightening up, he braced his shoulder.
Within micro-seconds of him preparing to take action, the door opened and a wan face peered out.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he said, pushing past her. ‘Have you been here all night?’ He heard the door close behind him and wheeled around. ‘You look awful. We’ve all been worried to death about you—me in particular.’
‘Why you in particular?’
Her voice was like a feeble reed, which only added to his suspicions. ‘We had a meeting at nine o’ clock sharp. Remember that?’
Raking her hair, she looked at him in bemusement. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said as reality dawned.
‘You don’t show for the meeting,’ he rapped out. ‘And then I hear you’re locked in here.’
‘But Tess keeps a spare key.’
‘Tess had a dental appointment this morning. So why the locked door, Magenta?’
‘I felt safer.’
‘Safer?’
She didn’t answer. Rather than acting like the sharp executive, with the smart line in repartee to match the sassy copy she wrote for her ad campaigns, Magenta was staring at him as if he was an apparition—as if she didn’t know what day it was. Even odder to him was her bemused acceptance—he’d expected the woman he’d met and flirted with yesterday to be furious to learn the biker she’d dismissed, and possibly even flirted back with the day before, and her new boss had turned out to be one and the same. He gave the office a thorough scan. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘I have not!’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘I’ve been working.’
‘Commendable.’ There were no bottles, but he saw the work laid out on the desk. She had been working and now she looked ready to pass out. ‘Lucky for you I have the bike here.’
‘The bike…’
Her eyes slowly cleared, but she was still looking at him as if she didn’t know what century it was, let alone what day. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he explained in clear terms. ‘You can shower, eat, dress and get back here with your brain in gear. Okay with you?’
‘Do I have an option?’ Colour was coming back into her cheeks.
‘No. Just grab your coat.’
‘I can’t ride a bike dressed like this.’ She stared down at her crumpled dress.
‘Are your workout clothes still in the gym?’
‘In the basement? Yes.’
‘Then change into gym clothes. I’ll wait.’
She started to say something, but he was already out of the door. Magenta might be a first-class creative, but if she proved to be unreliable there was no place for her in his organisation. There was just something nagging at the back of his mind that said he shouldn’t let her go yet.
And if he did, Quinn reflected dryly, it would be the first time he had fired someone for working too hard.
He liked the feeling of Magenta clinging on tight with her head pressed hard against his back, but as they rode through London he could sense her tension. He was in a hurry to see her restored to her fighting best; he had no intention of buying a company and losing its chief asset in the same day, he told himself firmly as he took a short cut through the market district. It wasn’t usual for him to take quite such a personal interest in his staff, but Magenta had touched something inside him. The fact that she had worked until she’d quite literally dropped played on his mind. Seeing one of the all-night open-air booths was still serving, he stopped the bike. ‘Hot dog—ketchup, mustard?’