His Christmas Acquisition (2 page)

Ryan’s eyes narrowed on her flushed face. ‘The reason I asked was because you seemed to derive a certain amount of satisfaction from Leanne and her display of histrionics. In fact, I could swear that I heard you laugh at one point.’

Jamie looked at him. He was once more perched on his desk, his long, jean-clad legs extended and lightly crossed at the ankles. In heels, Leanne would have been at least six foot tall and he had still towered over her.

Jamie felt a quiver of apprehension race down her spine but for once she was sorely tempted to say what was on her mind.

‘I’m sorry. It was an inappropriate reaction.’ Except she could feel a fit of the giggles threatening to overwhelm her again and she had to look down hurriedly at her tightly clasped fingers.

When she next looked up it was to find that he was standing over her and, before she could push back her chair, he was leaning down, his muscular hands on either side of her, his face so close to hers that she could see the wildly extravagant length of his eyelashes and the hint of tawny gold in his dark eyes. He was so close, in fact, that by simply raising her hand a couple of inches she would have been able to stroke the side of his face, touch the faint growth of stubble, feel its spikiness against her fingers.

Assaulted by this sudden wave of crazy speculation, Jamie fought down the sickening twist in her stomach and carried on looking at him squarely in the face although she could feel her heart beating inside her like a jack hammer.

‘What
I’d
like to know,’ he said softly, ‘is what the hell you found so funny. What I’d really like is for you to share the joke with me.’

‘Sometimes I laugh in tense situations. I’m sorry.’

‘Pull the other one, Jamie. You’ve been in tense situations with me before when I’m trying to get a major deal closed. You’ve never burst out laughing.’

‘That’s different.’

‘Explain.’

‘Why? Why does it matter what I think?’

‘Because I like to know a bit of what’s going on in my personal assistant’s head. Call me crazy, but I think it makes the working relationship go a lot smoother.’ In truth, Ryan didn’t think that it would be possible to find anyone with whom he could have worked more comfortably. Jamie seemed to possess an uncanny ability to predict his moves and her calm was a pleasing counterpoint to his volatility.

Before he had hired her, he had suffered three years of terrific-looking fairly incompetent secretaries who had all developed the annoying habit of becoming infatuated with him. His faithful middle-aged secretary who had served him
well for nearly ten years had emigrated to Australia and he had followed her up with a series of ill-suited replacements.

Jamie Powell really worked for him and it had nothing to do with the mechanisms of her mind or what she thought about him. But suddenly the urge to shake her out of her cool detachment was overwhelming. It was as though that shadow of a snicker that had crossed her face earlier on had unleashed a curiosity in him, and it took him by surprise.

He pushed himself away from her and walked across to the low sofa that doubled as a bed for those times when he worked so late that sleeping in his office was the easiest option.

Reluctantly, Jamie swivelled her chair in his direction and wondered how many billionaire bosses would be sprawled indolently on a sofa in their office in a pair of jeans and a faded jumper, hands clasped behind their heads, work put on temporary hold while they asked questions that were really none of their business.

Again that finger of apprehension sent another shiver down her spine. After a succession of unsatisfactory but emotionally important temp jobs, would she have taken this one if she had known the nature of the beast?

‘I’m not paid to have thoughts about your private life,’ she ventured primly in a last-ditch attempt to change the subject.

‘Don’t worry about that. I give you full permission to say what was on your mind.’

Jamie licked her lips nervously. This was the first time he had ever pinned her down like this, the first time he hadn’t backed off when his curiosity had failed to find fertile ground. Now, like a lazy predator, he was watching her, gauging her reaction, forming conclusions.

‘Okay.’ She looked at him evenly. ‘I’m surprised that this is the first time one of your girlfriends has seen fit to storm
into your office and give you a piece of her mind. I thought it was funny, so I laughed. But quietly. And I wouldn’t have laughed if I had left your office when I had wanted to, but you gestured to me to stay put. So I did. So you can’t blame me for reacting.’

Ryan sat up and looked at her intently. ‘See? Now isn’t it liberating to speak your mind?’

‘I know you think it’s funny to confuse me.’

‘Am I confusing you?’

Jamie went bright red and tightened her lips. ‘You don’t seem to have any morals or ethics at all when it comes to women!’ she snapped. ‘I’ve worked with you for well over a year and you must have had a dozen women in that time. More! You play with people’s feelings and it doesn’t seem to bother you at all!’

‘So there’s a lurking tiger behind that placid face of yours,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You asked me for my opinion, that’s all.’

‘You think I use women? Treat them badly?’

‘I …’ She opened her mouth to tell him that she had never thought anything whatsoever about the way he treated women, not until this very moment, but she would have been lying. She realised with some dismay that she had done plenty of thinking about Ryan Sheppard and his out-of-hours relationships. ‘I’m sure you treat them really well, but most women want more than just expensive gifts and fun and frolics for a few weeks.’

‘What makes you say that? Have you been chatting to any of my girlfriends? Or is that what
you
would want?’

‘I haven’t been chatting to your girlfriends, and we’re not talking about me,’ Jamie told him sharply.

Her colour was up and for the first time he noticed the sultry depths of her eyes and the fullness of her mouth. She
was either blissfully unaware of her looks or else had made a concerted effort to sublimate them, at least during working hours. Then he wondered how he had never really
noticed
these little details about her before. It occurred to him that they had rarely, if ever, had the sort of lengthy conversation that required eye-to-eye contact. She had managed to avoid the very thing every single woman he met sought to instigate.

‘I treat the women I date incredibly well and, more importantly, I never give them any illusions about their place in my life. They know from the start that I’m not into building a relationship or working towards a “happy family” scenario.’

‘Why?’

‘Come again?’

‘Why,’ Jamie repeated in a giddy rush, ‘are you not into building relationships or doing the happy-family thing?’

Ryan looked at her incredulously. Yes, he always encouraged an outspoken approach, both within the working environment and outside it. He prided himself on always being able to take what was said to him. He might choose to totally ignore it, of course, and did a great majority of the time, but never let it be said that he wasn’t open to alternative opinions.

Except who had ever asked him such an outlandishly personal question before?

‘Not everyone is.’ But he was keen to bring the conversation to an end now. ‘And, now that the cabaret show’s over, I think it’s time we get back to work.’

Jamie gave a little shrug and instantly resumed her professionalism. ‘Okay. I didn’t manage to find the time to look at those reports about the software company you’re thinking of investing in. Shall I go and do that now? I can have everything ready for you by this afternoon.’

So, to Ryan’s vague dissatisfaction, the day kicked off the way it always did: with Jamie working wonders with her time, sitting outside his office in her own private cubicle, where she did what she was highly paid to do with such staggering efficiency that he wondered how he had ever managed without her around.

His phone rang constantly; she fielded calls. The creative bods who worked on some of the games software three floors down burst into his office with some new idea or other, became over-exuberant; she ushered them out like a head teacher whose job it was to keep order in the classroom. When he made the comparison, his keen eyes noted the way she blushed and smiled, and then he grinned when she told him that she wouldn’t have to play head teacher if he was a bit better at playing it himself.

At three, he grabbed his coat; he was running late for a meeting with three investment bankers. She told him at the very least to take off the rugby shirt and handed him something a little more presentable from the concealed, fully stocked wardrobe in the suite opposite his office. Everything was back to normal and it was beginning to grate on him.

At five-thirty, he got back to his office after a successful meeting to find her gathering her things together and slipping on her coat. About to switch off her computer, Jamie felt her heart flutter uncomfortably. She hadn’t been expecting him to be back before she left.

‘You’re leaving?’ Ryan tossed his coat over his desk and began pulling off the unutterably dull grey woollen jumper which he had obligingly worn for the benefit of the bankers.

Underneath, the white tee-shirt barely concealed the hard muscularity of his body. Jamie averted her eyes, mentally slapping herself because she should be used to all this by now and she wasn’t sure why she was suddenly reacting to him like a complete idiot. Maybe it had something to do
with her sister being back on the scene. There would be a psychological connection there somewhere if she could be bothered to work it out.

‘I … I
would
have stayed on, Ryan, but something’s come up, so I have to dash.’

‘Something’s
come up
? What?’ He headed straight to where she was still dithering in front of her computer terminal and lounged against the door frame.

‘Nothing,’ Jamie muttered.

‘Nothing? Something? Which is it, Jamie?’

‘Oh, just leave me alone!’ she blurted out, and to her horror she could feel her eyes welling up at the sudden intrusion of stress that had presented itself in her previously uncomplicated life. She looked away abruptly and began fiddling with the paperwork on her desk, before turning all her attention to her computer in the desperate hope that the man still leaning against the door frame would take the hint and disappear. He didn’t. Worse, he walked slowly towards her and she felt his finger on her chin, tilting her face up to his.

‘What the hell is going on here?’

‘Nothing’s going on. I’m just … just a bit tired, that’s all. Maybe I’m … coming down with something.’ She shrugged his hand off but she could still feel it burning her skin as she quickly stuck on her thick black coat and braced herself for the biting cold outside.

‘Is it to do with work?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Has something happened here at work that you’re not telling me about? Some of the guys can be a bit rowdy. Has someone said something to you? Made some kind of inappropriate remark?’ He suddenly blanched at the possibility that one of them might have seriously overstepped the mark and done something a little more physical when it came to being inappropriate.

Jamie looked at him blankly and shook her head. ‘Of course not. No, work’s fine. You’ll be relieved to hear that.’

‘Some guy giving you grief?’ He tried to sound sympathetic but his imagination had broken its leash and was filling his head with all sorts of images that were definitely in the ‘inappropriate’ category.

‘What kind of grief?’

‘Has someone made an unwanted pass at you?’ Ryan said bluntly. ‘You can tell me and I’ll make damn sure that it never happens again.’

‘Why do you think that I would need help in sorting out something like that?’ she asked coolly. ‘Do you think that I’m such a fool that I wouldn’t know how to take care of myself if some guy decided to make a pass at me?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘You implied it.’

‘Other women,’ Ryan said, his big body tensing, ‘are probably just a bit more experienced when it comes to men. You … I may be mistaken, but you strike me as an innocent.’

Jamie stared at him. She distantly wondered how they had reached this point in the conversation. How many wrong turnings did it take to get from discussing a software report to her sex life—or lack of it?

‘I think it’s time I head home now. I’ll make sure that I’m in on time tomorrow.’ She began moving towards the door. She was only aware of him shifting his stance when she felt the hot weight of his fingers curled around her wrist.

‘You were upset. Can you blame me for wanting to know why?’ He gave a little jerk and pulled her towards him.

‘Yes, I can!’ Her mouth was dry and she knew that she was flushed. In truth, she felt as though her body was on fire.

‘I’m your boss. You work for me, and as such you’re my responsibility.’ His eyes drifted down to her full mouth and
then lower, to the starched white shirt, the neat, tailored jacket. He was aware of her breasts heaving.

‘I am my own responsibility,’ Jamie said through tight lips. ‘I’m sorry I brought my stress to work. It won’t happen again and, for your information, it has nothing to do with anything or anyone in this office. No one’s been saying anything to me and no one’s made a pass at me. I haven’t had to defend myself but I’m just going to say this for the record—if someone
had
done something that I found offensive, then I would be more than capable of looking out for myself. I don’t need you to step in and defend me.’

‘Most women appreciate a man jumping to their defence,’ Ryan murmured and just like that the atmosphere changed between them. He slackened his grip on her wrist but, instead of pulling away her hand, Jamie found herself staring up at him, losing herself in the depths of his eyes, mesmerised. She blinked and thankfully was brought back down to planet Earth.

‘I am
not
most women,’ she breathed. ‘And I’d really appreciate it if you could let me go.’

He did, stepping aside, watching as she stuck on her coat and wrapped the black scarf around her neck.