Best of Bosses 2008: In Bed With Her Italian Boss\Taken by Her Greek Boss\Blind Date With the Boss (22 page)

‘And you've always been…what?' Hand it to her, he thought, she wasn't going to let herself be daunted by him, even though her mounting colour signalled her discomfort. Nor was she flattered by his interest. In fact, he would have been hard-pressed to think of any woman less flattered by his undivided attention. That in itself was an interesting concept.

‘I talk when I go out with my friends,' Rose said quietly.
‘And I don't need to drink to excess or have loud music blaring in the background to feel as though I'm having a good time.'

Nick could hear the implicit sarcasm in her voice and was amused by it.

‘Sounds like fun.'

‘Yes. Yes, it is.'

‘And what do you do afterwards?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘When you've had fun setting the world to rights?'

‘I don't set the world to rights.' Rose gritted her teeth together and reminded herself that he was just goading her and that the last thing she should do was play into his hands by reacting. ‘And even if we did sit around setting the world to rights, it would still be a heck of a lot more fun than slowly getting drunk and bitching about everyone and everything.'

‘Referring to anyone in particular?'

‘Several in general,' she said waspishly, ‘and they're all out there. I believe they're called your friends.'

If she had hoped to insult him, then she had been mistaken, because instead of being suitably offended he just burst out laughing.

When he laughed, really laughed…

Rose's skin prickled and she felt jumpy and weak at the same time, as if her bones were turning into hot liquid, no longer able to support her body.

‘I'm glad you find that funny,' she said, and wondered if he, too, could detect the high-pitched panic in her voice. She wasn't quite sure why, but she badly needed to leave the room.

‘Oh, I do…but you still haven't answered my question.'

‘I didn't realise you'd asked one.' She gave a deep, exaggerated sigh, which she hoped would convey to him just how fed up she was with their conversation.

‘About what you do after you finish discussing deep and meaningful things with your friends. In quiet rooms. Over some invigorating glasses of mineral water.' Nick grinned. In actual fact, he had headed to the office to have a break from the noise of the party, which was an event he had arranged solely for Lily's benefit. What an altruist he was turning out to be.

Work was always an absorbing diversion, but right now he couldn't care less about work because he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was also more curious than ever to find out just a little bit more about the woman in front of him who was, right at this moment, barely managing to restrain herself from hitting him as hard as she could. He imagined that she could probably throw a pretty good punch. None of the usual female face-slapping before bursting into tears. More a sock to the jaw and then, when he was rubbing his face, another for good measure.

‘I don't know what you're going on about and I think you should head back before they send out a search party.'

‘Hardly likely considering most of them are far too inebriated to have even missed me, and what I'm going on about is whether, when your crazy late nights are over, you head back to your place for wild sex…do you?'

‘I told you—that's none of your business.' Now she really needed to get out because something was happening and, while she didn't quite know what, she did know that it was…dangerous for her. And thankfully he stepped aside. He even opened the door for her, but before she could make a break to the safety of the crowded club he was leaning down to her; she could feel the warmth of his breath against her ear and it made her shiver.

‘I take it that means
no
?'

She wanted to run but she didn't. She walked away, head held high, without bothering to dignify his smirking remark with an answer.

W
HEN
Rose looked at the screen of her computer terminal she had the strangest sensation. Instead of seeing her programme run, she saw a face.
His
face. It was infuriating. Not only had the man got under her skin at the party nearly a week ago, but he was continuing to get under her skin when she should be concentrating on her work. She couldn't figure it out because she had pointedly avoided mentioning him to Lily and out of sight should have meant out of mind.

Just as well her office wasn't the sort of cosy little place where people might notice that she had been staring at the same code for the past fifteen minutes. In fact, the big pull about Fedco, when she had joined it five years previously, had been its size. Squatting like a giant patriarch on a retail site just outside London, it had been easily accessible by car, thereby enabling Rose to avoid the vagaries of the London transport system, and, once inside, she had been able to lose herself in the enormity of the building. Her friends all joked about leaving it behind, moving on to somewhere small, chic, designer and innovative where they could really exploit their talents, but in truth the thought of being at the cutting edge of technology in some small, upwardly mobile company terrified her. Small and cutting edge,
in her head, spelt insecurity, whereas Fedco was as secure as they came, never mind that you were more a number than a face.

And where else could she sit scowling without someone telling her to get on with her work?

In between her scowls, she kept a sharp eye on the clock. She had never been one to clock-watch but she couldn't wait to leave the building and get back home, where she could put her feet up and drag her thoughts away from her sister's high-handed, arrogant boyfriend by watching a couple of hours of mindless television.

With fifteen minutes to go and just as she was finally beginning to get into her stride, an excited Maggie flew to her desk and announced,
sotto voce
, that there was a man waiting in Reception for her.

‘What man?' Rose asked suspiciously, using the interruption as an excuse to switch off her computer and begin gathering her belongings.

‘A dishy one.'

‘I don't know any dish…Hang on, what exactly does he look like?' She could feel the colour crawling into her face.

‘Oh, you know, tall and dark and drop dead gorgeous.'

‘What the heck is
he
doing here?'

‘
He
who?' Maggie looked as if swooning would become a real possibility within the next few minutes.

‘
He
my sister's boyfriend.' Rose slammed some files into her briefcase and banged it shut. ‘
He
the most arrogant man on the face of the earth…
he
the person with the manners of a wild boar…
that he
…'

‘Oh. Trust Lily to snap up another good one.' Maggie visibly wilted. ‘Must be tough having a sister it's impossible to compete with…not that I meant…not that I mean…'

‘I know what you meant, Mags, and you're right—on the looks front she's a hard act to follow…and she's nice with it…' Rose stood up, stuck on her coat and felt her stomach clench at the prospect of seeing Nick. ‘Although I've got to say that this is the sort of man that no woman in her right mind would dream of competing for. One of those “love 'em and leave 'em” types of guys who see women as notches on their bedpost, the more the merrier.' The office was beginning to thin out as everybody began the exodus, off to enjoy the beginning of their weekend. ‘I mean—' she leaned towards Maggie who gave a little yelp and stepped back ‘—the man is everything a woman should steer clear of—'

‘Thanks for the endorsement.'

Nick's voice was so close to her that for a few seconds Rose didn't believe that she had actually heard him. He was standing right behind them. She turned around slowly and hoped that she was more composed than she felt. At any rate more composed than Maggie, who had launched into an awkward introduction followed by some stuttering apologies about having to dash, simultaneously backing away from Nick's unsmiling figure. Rose longed to do the same.

‘What do you think you're doing here?' Attack, she decided, was the best form of defence. ‘Is Lily with you?'

‘No. Should she be?'

‘Why are you here? Sneaking around?' He had obviously come straight from work and he looked amazing, unfairly sexy considering he had probably spent his day at a desk somewhere. Wherever it was that very rich people spent their days. At the end of a tiring working day, she always seemed to look like something the cat dragged in. Rumpled hair that had spent the day progressively rebelling against clips and elastic bands, lip gloss that had disappeared some time
between her morning snack and lunch-time baguette, face that was shiny under the fluorescent lighting.

‘We need to…have a chat about your sister…'

‘Why?' Panic slammed into her. From experience, whenever someone had said to her that they needed to have a little chat, the little chat had never heralded good news. When she was growing up, Tony and Flora had always preceded their next, big, new adventure with a little chat. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Shall we take this conversation somewhere else?' He would return to those insults of hers later. For the moment, he would see to it that they leave the bustling confines of her office. He didn't have to glance around to know that he was attracting some very curious stares and, while this didn't bother him in the slightest, he suspected it would give her ample ammunition to attack him for disrupting her life.

He wondered what he was doing here. In fact, he wondered how his highly ordered existence had become so embroiled, in such a short space of time, with two sisters whom he had not known from Adam a month ago. The one, yes, he could understand. Lily was beautiful, sweet-natured and helping her had been a balm for him after the annoyance of his last relationship.

But her sister?

‘No. I don't want to go with you anywhere. Whatever you have to say can be said right here.' Drugs? Debt? Pregnancy? Lord, what if Lily was pregnant with his child and too embarrassed to break the news herself? Rose tried to remember just how long Nick had been on the scene.

‘Come on.'

‘I'm not going anywhere with you.'

‘Right. In that case, I'll just stroll out and leave you to stew
in your own stubborn stupidity, shall I? You would rather make a point than listen to anything I have to say.'

‘That's not true. It's just that I…can't leave yet. I still have heaps of work to do.'

‘Wearing your coat? With your computer switched off?'

Rose flushed and looked away. The more she argued with the man, the more she sensed a lively interest from the dwindling number of her colleagues still around. ‘Why didn't Lily come herself? Is she in trouble?'

‘She…just seemed reluctant to tell you…this herself so I volunteered to do it on her behalf…Now, let's get out of here.'

It only took them five minutes to make it out of the building, but it could have been five hours. Why would Lily be reluctant to talk to her? They had always talked about everything. At least until this man had come along.

She shot him a look of pure resentment.

‘You'll have to put up with my driving, I'm afraid.'

‘My driver's waiting. We'll use him. I can deliver you back to your car later.'

Rose opened her mouth to protest and realised that he was waiting for the predictable objection.

‘Okay.'

‘
Okay?
Does that mean that you're not going to launch into a feminist rant about being able to drive yourself?'

‘I never launch into feminist rants,' Rose said hotly. ‘I just stand up for the things I believe in.'

‘You shoot your mouth off.'

‘I do not shoot my mouth off and I resent being told that I do.'

‘And I don't much like the fact that you're gossiping about me behind my back. I'm obviously on your mind if you feel so strongly about me.'

‘You are
not
on my mind!' They had reached his car, how she had no idea because she had been so wrapped up in defending herself.

Nick pulled open the passenger door for her and she slid primly inside, making sure, he noted, to wrap her coat very tightly around her, as if depending on it for protection.

It was out of keeping for him to ever leave work at the ridiculous hour of four forty-five, but he wasn't regretting his decision. Apart from the fact that he was doing Lily a favour, he was also enjoying himself with her sister. His palate, after years of getting precisely what and whom he wanted, was jaded. Rose, with her bristling, yapping aggression, was a novelty and who was he to resist the allure of the new?

He had also been curious to see the people she worked with, not that that had been possible given the size of the place.

‘Where can we go?'

‘At five-thirty?'

‘Maybe we should just head back to your house. It's close enough.'

‘No!' Overreacting again. And also forgetting about the little chat because she had been so wrapped up bickering. All fodder for his oversized ego. ‘There's a brasserie about half an hour away. Joe's Brasserie. On Fields Road. I guess there's as good a place as any.' She turned away and stared out of the window, acutely conscious of his muscular thigh way too close to hers for comfort. Just being alone with the man in this confined space made her feel guilty. He belonged to Lily and to Lily's world. She shouldn't even recognise his physical attributes, although she gratefully accepted that she was human, after all, and, anyway, she disliked him intensely so what did it matter?

‘You're tense. Why? Does it make you nervous sitting in this car with me?'

‘Why should it?' Rose turned to look at him and blinked away the disconcerting impact his shadowed, angled face had on her. ‘I'm tense because I don't know what you're going to tell me but I have a feeling that I won't like it.'

‘In that case, take your mind off the possibilities and tell me about your job. I didn't expect you to work for such a large organisation.'

Rose shrugged. She didn't want to talk about herself or her job, but she couldn't see a way around it. ‘I like it there. The size doesn't bother me. Anyway, don't tell me that your offices are sweet and small and cosy.'

Nick laughed under his breath. ‘Better designed.'

‘How?' Rose asked grudgingly, interested to find out how a big clump of concrete and glass could be designed into something less soulless than Fedco.

‘Clever use of partitions and copious amounts of plants.'

‘Right. And you did that yourself?'

‘I approved it at every stage, yes. Does that jar with your picture of me striding through offices, whipping the employees and making sure that they're chained to their desks until I tell them that it's time to leave?'

‘Yes, as a matter of fact it does.'

Nick laughed louder and gave her a brief, appreciative glance. When he sifted through his extensive repertoire of women, he couldn't think of a single one who had ever made him laugh.

‘In that case, accept my apologies. Is this the place you were talking about?'

Rose nodded, pleased to see that it was already beginning to get busy. Brasseries in London never seemed to be quiet, and that suited her because she didn't want that weird, discomforting feeling she got when she was alone with him.
And that laugh had done something in her, made her feel oddly hot and uncomfortable.

‘So,' she said without preamble as soon as they were seated at the circular chrome table and a waitress had taken their order. Orange juice for her and a lager for him. ‘What is it that you wanted to tell me about Lily?'

‘You're very good at cutting to the chase,' Nick commented drily. ‘How much has she told you about…our relationship?'

‘We don't discuss you.'

‘Strange, considering you seem to discuss me freely with everyone else.'

Rose went pink but held his gaze. ‘I don't think she would appreciate some of the things I might have to say and I can't put her in a position where she feels that she's having to take sides.'

‘How big-minded of you.' Did the woman have no social graces? he wondered.

‘I know you've been meeting up,' Rose ploughed on, ‘but I don't know how serious it is. Are you telling me that it's…serious?'

‘Oh, very serious indeed.' Nick sat back and took one long sip of lager, enjoying its coldness. ‘I think it's now your cue to warn me off because I'm such a big, bad wolf.'

‘Lily could have told me this herself.'

‘Maybe she's scared of making a stand for herself because you've never allowed her to.'