Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (59 page)

The car drew to a halt and it homed in upon her that they had arrived in the driveway of the Lady Musgrave, without her having given any directions. She saw Tom examining the house. Despite her personal Summerfield brand of chutzpah,
embarrassment crept into her cheeks. She toyed with the idea of pretending it wasn’t a boarding house, just a rather faded mansion she happened to rent, then dismissed it. Even he might know the difference.

Why did those second floor balconies have to sag? Snatches of the bright, careless chat she’d heard at the memorial lunch echoed in her mind. Everyone in Sydney knew that in Tom Russell’s circle property was everything. She angled her face away from him, reluctant to see contempt in his eyes.

But he was craning his neck for a better look. ‘Aren’t they lovely, these old places? Look at the detail on those gables. Aren’t you lucky to have found it?’

She was gobsmacked. Totally rocked off her foundations. She stared at him, then wonderingly up at the house, looking through the peeling white paintwork for the first time at the house’s gracious lines. It
was
beautiful. How could she not have noticed? It was a work of art.

She felt such a passionate rush of warmth for Tom Russell, she had to hold herself still a second or two before she could speak steadily enough not to give herself away. ‘How—how did you know where I lived?’

‘My security people looked you up yesterday. I drove by here last night, thinking I might save you a trip on the ferry.’

‘Did
you? What time was that?’

‘Just after eight.’

She wrinkled her brow. ‘I’d have been here then.’

‘You were. You were talking to someone. I didn’t stop because you seemed so—involved.’

Steve.
Her eyebrows flew up. ‘Oh.’

His acute gaze raked her face. She knew how it could have looked and was annoyed to feel herself flush. ‘That was nothing. Just a stupid misunderstanding.’

He was silent, his silence having a sharp listening edge that made her feel forced to explain further.

‘Look, covering the memorial was a big deal for me. Steve
used it as a pretext to come over last night to talk.’ She rolled her eyes, conscious of Tom’s cool, steady scrutiny.

‘To talk about—what?’ he said casually. ‘Resuming your engagement?’

‘Not exactly. Just—just …’ She shrugged. ‘Well, all right. Something like that.’

‘And do you want to?’

‘Oh, please.’ Beneath his black lashes his grey gaze was unreadable. She searched his lean, stern face, the faint crease between his brows. How could he ask such a question? After last night, how could he even
think
—?

He said mildly, ‘If the engagement is over, why can’t he get over it and move on? What does he hope to get from you, visiting you at home?’

She stared at him in surprise. ‘What do you mean—
if the
engagement’s over? Steve just feels guilty about something that happened, that’s all. That’s what he can’t get over.’

‘Ah. The mistake he made.’

She held down her irritation with a calming breath and said lightly, ‘What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? I hope you aren’t imagining I might still be seeing him.’

He stared out at the street for a second, then brought his grave gaze back to hers. ‘After last night, how could I think that?’

He leaned over and brushed her lips with his, the light touch of his fingers on her jaw sending shivers of yearning through her willing flesh.

Her heart surged with pleasure to know that last night meant so much to him. It was close to an acknowledgement that something real was happening between them.

But she had to admit to a slight feeling of shock. What had he suspected—that she was capable of carrying on with Steve and him at the same time? It showed a lack of confidence in her. And if she
had been
cheating … A chill touched her spine like the first breath of winter. There’d been uncompromising steel in that uncomfortable little grilling.

His arms slid around her and the kiss turned deep and sexual. When at last he let her go, she felt breathless, her breasts warm and aroused. Stirred into wanting him again, she was reluctant to tear herself away, and had to force herself to open her door.

‘Anyway,’ she said, her low, firm tone for herself as much as for him, ‘I don’t want you to wait now. After I collect my things I want to visit my grandmother. I’ll be back in time for the concert, I promise. Honestly.’

He leaned towards her. ‘But—’

‘No, no, I’m serious.’ She got out before he could argue, then walked around to his side. She bent to his open window and swiftly kissed his lips, slipping her tongue through to his, and breathing, ‘Can’t wait for tonight, lover.’

Stirred by that last brief, delicious tangle of tongues, Tom watched her run up the drive and disappear into the house. But as he drove back across the bridge, a thought struck him. Hadn’t she just visited her grandmother?

G
RAN WAS
as thrilled by Cate’s front pager as she was herself. While they marvelled over it, Cate couldn’t stop beaming and breaking off to hug her and thank her for all the times she’d encouraged her to stay strong when journalism had seemed too hard. She wished she could tell her about Tom. There was so much about him she knew her grandmother would like. But the risk was too great. How would Gran take it, that she’d fallen in love with Tom Russell?

The visit must have been a bit too exciting, because although Gran joked about her frailty, there was a bluish tinge around her mouth and she had to take a few puffs of her oxygen. And after they’d said goodbye, before Cate left she glanced back into the ward and saw with a fearful pang that her grandmother looked dreadfully tired and pale. The heart-stopping thought struck her that Gran was sinking.

She could die before her operation.

She managed to make it back to Tom’s in time for the concert. She sat beside him in the fifth row of the Recital Hall in Angel Place, thrilling to the music and the gorgeous man, enjoying the occasional brush of his sleeve on her arm. Afterwards he took her to a small Italian restaurant in Paddington, but they didn’t linger long. They wolfed their food and drove home, replete with their fill of music and drunk on the desire flowing between them. And, as though possessed
with an insatiable hunger, Tom made passionate love to her until their lips were bruised and their bodies aching for sleep.

They didn’t go to the farm on Sunday. There wasn’t time. And she didn’t go back to her place. She stayed and made love with Tom. And when Monday rolled around, she walked down to the Quay and caught the bus to work, just as if she weren’t living with a billionaire.

Every day after that became a mad tightrope act between work, Gran and rushing home to Tom, sometimes twice in the day. Tom would call her at work, or wherever Harry had sent her, to meet him for a stolen, frantic hour of passion and she was always so excited, so energised by her romantic double life, she couldn’t resist.

‘I’m downstairs,’ he’d murmur from the car, ‘Quick. I want to touch you.’

She knew she was risking discovery by her colleagues, but the risk made the pleasure all the more exhilarating. She’d slip from her building and run to the nearby sidestreet where he waited, double-parked, to speed her back to the hotel for love.

And it was love, on her side. Once she’d half acknowledged it to herself she’d plunged deeply into that thrilling, treacherous sea. On Tom’s side she couldn’t be sure. She had a dim understanding that his passion for her was bound up with the extraordinary circumstances of that first night. A small, fearful part of her suspected it could evaporate as suddenly as it had appeared. Her heart was suspended in a joyous, tingling trance, and she had a battle to keep her battered old hopes and dreams locked in their cave.

‘Maybe we should stretch out the time between bouts,’ she said one lunch hour, lying naked in his powerful arms in the dreamy haze of afterglow. ‘Maybe we’ll burn ourselves out.’

‘I’ll never stop burning for you,’ he said instantly, his voice thick and fierce. ‘I’ll never have enough of you.’

Was that a promise? She wished she dared to ask. At work, she couldn’t wait for the evenings. She’d catch the train, fulfil
her commitment to Gran, and rush back to Tom’s before he arrived home. The giddy days flew by so fast, her secret was so fantastic, she was afraid to stop and question where it was heading. His passion for her was real. Let that be enough.

When Tom was away from her, he felt as though his all-consuming desire had somehow liberated something in his brain. He found himself questioning just how much of his empire he really wanted to keep. Some of his father’s holdings he’d never personally liked, and he made some ruthless judgements about unloading them. He negotiated discreet sales of the yacht, several overseas properties and embarked on a deal to release the hotel chain. At the same time he put everything in train for the merger needed to grease the wheels of his media company. But always at the edge of his mind was the knowledge that Cate Summerfield was at home, her lusciousness his for the taking, waiting for him to bury himself in her silken warmth.

Well, usually she was.

Sometimes on week-nights she was delayed. She made no explanation, and it wasn’t his right to question her, but he wondered.

Late one Saturday afternoon he arrived back from some negotiations to find her on her way out.

‘Gran,’ she explained after a small hesitation.

‘I’ll drive you. Isn’t it time I meet the family?’ He was only half serious, but though she made a laughing refusal he thought he glimpsed in her eyes a fleeting alarm. He supposed she
was
visiting her grandmother. Where else would she be going?

He listened sometimes for news of that guy. She spoke of her other colleagues after her day’s work, but never mentioned him. He wondered why that was, because he knew she saw the guy. He’d seen them coming out of her building together one lunch time when he’d driven around there with the intention of snatching a stolen hour with her. They’d strolled along talking for a few minutes, then the guy had walked off in another direction.

Cate was thrilled when Tom casually suggested a trip up to his farm. She’d sensed how close the farm was to his heart. Surely it must mean something, that he was prepared to share this part of his life with her. They left very early on a Sunday morning, driving north along the Pacific Highway, then west to wend their way through the farms and vineyards of the Hunter Valley. Eventually Tom turned the car into a long avenue of tall poplars. Behind miles of wooden fencing, Cate saw horses grazing the green pastures.

Tom’s farm was no small holding. It was an extensive horse stud, nestled in a lush valley between the Hunter River and the foothills of the purple mountains.

Pancakes and coffee awaited them on the veranda of the rambling homestead, then Tom drove her all over in a big SUV, and showed her the thoroughbred mares waiting for their mates to be flown in from around the world. Wherever they stopped the Jeep, horses trotted over to the fence, jostling to push their noses in through her open window for a pat, their dark liquid eyes warm and inquisitive. In the home paddock newborn foals tottered after their mothers on spindly legs. Cate was enchanted.

She could see how Tom kept his lean, bronzed fitness. He looked at home there. In his jeans and tee-shirt, discussing farm business with his manager, or sitting easily astride his own big stallion on a ride to visit the head vet, while Cate clung nervously to the sweet-natured mare provided for her, it was clear he was in frequent residence at the farm.

Lunch was a picnic with Tom’s manager and his wife and children on the bank of a pebbly creek. Tom sent all the kids scouting for twigs and branches while he built a small campfire, and to Cate’s awestruck amazement he boiled the billy for tea. There were sandwiches packed by the cook, fruit cake and sweet juicy mandarins, washed down with the strong black bushman’s brew.

It was a pleasant, good-humoured event. After they’d eaten,
conversing drowsily in the early afternoon heat, the last curls of blue smoke drifting around them, Tom leaned back against a log and pulled Cate against him. She could have stayed there for ever beside the creek, listening to the stories about Tom’s boyhood experiences at the farm, enjoying the lazy laughter, Tom’s jaw grazing her forehead, her hand relaxed on his muscular thigh. She imagined with pleasant torment how it might have been if they’d been alone there in the shade. Would his hand have strayed beneath the waistband of her jeans? Would they have made love on the leaf-strewn grass?

He murmured to her, his voice husky, and she knew he was thinking the same thing. ‘Did you know your hair smells of mandarin?’

When the shadows started to lengthen, they all strolled back to the house, Tom holding her hand. After the others had gone, he put his arms around her. ‘What a torture that was. They’re such great people, but all I ever want is to have you to myself.’

Her heart thrilled to the words. ‘Ditto.’

She’d never felt more at one with him. This was love. Surely it was love.

She pressed herself against him, her arms tight around him. ‘Oh, it’s been such a gorgeous day. I never want it to end. But it has to, I’m afraid.’ Her regret welled up in her voice. ‘What a shame we have to go home.’

He relaxed his hold and smiled down at her. ‘We don’t have to yet. Wouldn’t you like to stay tonight? It’s always so pleasant here. And it’s still chilly enough for a fire in the evenings.’ He drew her close and murmured in her ear, his deep voice velvet and seductive. ‘I haven’t seen you by firelight yet. We’ll have some dinner, tell each other the stories of our lives—if we have
time,
of course—keep each other warm in that big old four-poster, and get up with the birds to drive back early in the morning. You haven’t experienced this place unless you’ve seen it at birdsong.’

Pressed into his hard body, imprisoned by his long muscled limbs, his masculine scent arousing her senses with its faint infusion of woodsmoke, she was sorely tempted. Imagining the night in his arms in that heavenly-looking bed made her veins flow with yearning. ‘I’d love to, honestly. But I can’t. I have to … there’s something I’ve promised to do.’