‘And Mummy is right,’ Lucas said silkily. ‘But now I’ve said I want you to call me Lucas it’s polite to do that, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Melody wriggled happily, clearly captivated, and Kim silently ground her teeth in impotent rage. Who did he think he was, muscling in here, talking his way into a meal and then countermanding her instructions to her daughter? And then she remembered the reason for his call and the rage subsided as quickly as it had flared into life.
She had committed an unforgivable mistake and he would have had every right to storm in here tonight crying for blood. Instead he had been amazingly calm and reasonable. She didn’t know what he was going to say to her once they were alone, but she couldn’t fault his attitude in front of Melody. So…she owed him a little latitude.
She kept repeating that to herself when he stood to his feet in the next instant and wrapped Melody in his overcoat before the three of them paid brief homage to Mr Snow, Melody’s stringy arms tight round Lucas’s broad neck, but she drew the line at Melody’s request that Lucas read her a bedtime story.
‘No story tonight, sweetheart.’ She took Melody from Lucas at the bottom of the stairs once they were inside the cottage again, handing him his coat with a tight smile. ‘Mr Kane and I have some important work things to discuss, so you’ve got to promise Mummy you’ll be a good girl and go straight to sleep tonight.’
‘Aw…’ Melody pouted, peering at Kim from under her eyelashes, but when she saw her mother’s face was adamant she gave in with her usual good humour and Kim was downstairs again within two or three minutes.
She paused at the sitting room door before opening it, her stomach turning over, and then smoothed down her sweatshirt and wiped suddenly clammy hands on her jeans. If he was going to shout and scream he would have done so immediately, wouldn’t he? But it wasn’t just that possibility that was churning her insides and she knew it.
‘You have a charming daughter.’ Lucas was standing at the window as she entered the room and Kim’s heart took a mighty jump as he turned to face her. ‘She’s a credit to you.’
‘Thank you.’ Kim stood just inside the door, uncertain of whether to sit or continue standing. This was her home, her little castle, but she felt as though she were the guest, she told herself crossly. How did he make her feel like that?
‘Can she remember her father at all?’
It wasn’t what she had expected him to say and he read the knowledge in the darkening of her velvet brown eyes. Perhaps he shouldn’t bring the subject of her husband up again, Lucas acknowledged silently, but he needed to know much more about this reserved, honey-skinned, golden-haired woman and he had a distinct advantage tonight while she was feeling bad about the report. He felt no remorse in thinking this way; in the early days of his joining the family firm his father had taught him always to look for the weak spot in one’s opponent and capitalise on it, and he’d found he had a natural aptitude for such ruthlessness.
And Kim was an opponent. He didn’t know quite how it had happened but he knew instinctively it was the case. For some reason she saw him as the enemy and it was grating more and more with every day that passed.
‘Her father?’ Kim thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans, her face tense. ‘No, she can’t remember Graham.’
‘Come and sit down, Kim.’ Lucas indicated the sofa as he walked over to the chair he had vacated earlier, and again it was as if he were the host and she the guest.
She sat down on the very edge of the cushions but as he drew his chair at an angle to the sofa it brought him much too close and so she shifted back in the seat, moving slightly away as she did so. ‘I’m very sorry about the report, Lucas.’ Her voice was tight and formal. ‘If it’s in the wrong envelope I know what damage it might do, so the offer stands about my resignation.’
He stared at her for a moment, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, although he was careful not to touch her. The warm fragrance of her nearness invaded his air space and his senses were registering how much younger she looked with her hair loose about her shoulders, uninhibited even. But looks were deceptive. He could feel the tension in her like a live thing, keeping him at bay.
‘I joined Kane Electrical straight from university and I was as green as they come,’ Lucas said quietly, his deep, slightly husky voice with its trace of an accent causing her nerve endings to quiver. ‘But I was keen.’
He smiled at her, the silver-grey eyes wrinkling at the edges, and Kim forced herself to smile back although it was just a movement of her mouth. He had rolled up his sleeves while she had been out of the room and his muscled forearms were covered in a liberal dusting of black silky hair, and in the position in which he was sitting—with his dark head close to hers and the tanned jawline dark with a day’s growth of stubble—it was impossible to ignore his flagrant masculinity.
‘My father is a cautious Englishman and my mother a fiery and impetuous Colombian, so I’ve had to learn to temper my mother’s explosive genes and perhaps take more risks on the paternal side. It works…mostly.’
Kim nodded. So that was where the echo of an accent came from. His mother.
‘However…’ Lucas paused, aware he had her interest. ‘In my first year of working for my father, my mother’s genes were rampant. I prefer that as an excuse than the foolishness of crass youth. I took a risk, a big risk, off my own back. There was no real need for it, I guess, but perhaps I felt the need to prove myself. I don’t know. Anyway, it was a mistake, a huge one; it nearly broke us. It makes your slip-up very meagre in comparison. I never made that mistake again.’
He was looking at her very closely, his eyes intently searching her wide-eyed face. ‘You will never make the same mistake again, Kim,’ he said very softly, and somehow she got the impression he was talking about more than her blunder with the report.
Kim drew in a deep breath, fighting the sudden and unwelcome tears that were pricking at the back of her eyes. ‘It’s…it’s very good of you to look at it like that,’ she managed faintly, keeping strictly to the matter of the day and refusing to acknowledge any hidden connotations in what he was saying. ‘But I’m awa
re it could be very embarrassing for you.’
‘I’m not easily embarrassed.’ He smiled, an unconsciously sexy quirk to his hard firm mouth, and the breath caught in her throat.
The flickering glow from the fire, the strength and warmth and irresistible drawing power of his dark magnetism were too seductive, too dangerous, and Kim surprised them both when she leapt to her feet, her voice high as she said, ‘Coffee. I’ll fetch some coffee.’
‘Great.’ His voice was casual and relaxed as he too stood to his feet, and as he reached out and took her hand his face didn’t reveal the anger he felt as she stiffened against his touch. ‘Just put it down to experience, Kim,’ he said softly. ‘Learn from it, take the positive and leave the negative on the side of the plate and don’t let it cripple you.’
He was talking about more than work.
She hesitated and then raised her head to meet his eyes, her gaze wary. ‘That’s easier said than done.’
‘Possibly.’ He could feel her trembling slightly and it checked the crazy impulse he had to pull her into him and devour her mouth; the strength of his desire shocked him. He had never had any trouble in keeping work and play separate, in fact he would go so far as to say he had felt contempt in the past for any business associates who had been foolish enough to mix the two, but this was different. But perhaps that was what they all thought.