Praise for Anna Cleary

‘At the Boss’s Beck and Call is simply outstanding! Liberally spiced with wonderful characterisation, wicked repartee, spicy love scenes, brilliant dialogue and a believable conflict.’ —www.cataromance.com

‘Ms Cleary has created characters

who give tons of emotion and a story as mysterious

and compelling as watching a romantic movie.

Thoroughly enjoyable and highly entertaining.’

—www.cataromance.com on

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

Also by Anna Cleary

Wedding Night with a Stranger

At the Boss’s Beck and Call

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

Taken by the Maverick Millionaire

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

About Anna Cleary

As a child, ANNA CLEARY loved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.

In real life she became a schoolteacher, where her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.

A little while ago, she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, four-legged people, trees, movies and restaurants.

Do Not Disturb

Anna Cleary

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my lovely niece, Linda.

CHAPTER ONE

THE tall, dark-haired guy in the suit strode into the meeting room of Martin Place Investments, and the hum of conversation faded into silence.

Mirandi Summers sat straight in her chair, her pulse-rate a little elevated. Everyone else was in black or shades of grey. She hoped her violet dress wasn’t too pretty for the office.

‘Morning,’ Joe Sinclair said without bothering to glance at his assembled market analysts, too concerned with checking the hardware for his presentation.

‘Morning, Joe.’ The responses came from around the room, some bright and eager to please, others more subdued.

This morning Joe looked authoritative and slightly on edge, something in his manner creating more than the usual tension. How he’d changed in ten years. Hard to imagine him burning up the bitumen on his bike now.

‘Ah, here we go.’ The boyish grin that had the temps drooling made a brief appearance on his lean, tanned face, then vanished.

A brilliant, multi-coloured graph illuminated the screen. On it a number of spiky criss-crossing lines curved upwards, shooting towards infinity.

‘There now. Look at that.’ Joe’s cool blue eyes grew sharp and focused, a line creasing the space between his brows. ‘You see before you the future. Looks good, doesn’t it?’ He sent a commanding glance around at his employees and Mirandi joined the chorus of assent. ‘And it will be good, people, I think I can promise you that. It will, but only if we are willing to learn from the mistakes of the past.’

He frowned and pulled a face. ‘Tomorrow, as you know, I’ll be flying off to this conference in Europe. Before I leave I want to know everyone has a clear view of the factors influencing MPI’s current direction.’

He touched the button again and another graph lit the screen, this one’s projections not quite so sunny. He swept the faces of listeners. ‘I’m keen to hear your ideas. Can anyone suggest—’

Suddenly he stopped in mid-sentence. His frown deepening, he swung around until his acute blue glance lighted on Mirandi at the end of the row.

‘Oh—er…Miss Summers. You’re here. Are you—intending to stay?’

Mirandi felt something grab in her insides. Under the weight of her red hair her nape grew uncomfortably warm. ‘Well, yes. Of course.’ She glanced about her. All the other market analysts were assembled, their laptops at the ready. ‘This is the future projections meeting, isn’t it?’

Joe Sinclair gave his ear a meditative rub. ‘Yes, it is. Just that I was under the impression—Ryan had mentioned something he wanted you to do this morning. Didn’t I hear you say that, Ryan?’

Beside Mirandi Ryan Patterson stirred himself to attention. ‘Oh, did I? Yeah. Yeah, that’s right, Joe. Sorry, Mirandi. I forgot to mention the Trevor file.’

Mirandi gave a small, gurgling laugh. ‘Oh, the Trevor file. Now that’s a mistake from the past if ever there was one.’ Everyone joined in her light-hearted laugh, including Ryan Patterson. Everyone except Joe Sinclair, that was. His black lashes were lowered, as it it pained him to look at her.

Smarting, Mirandi changed position slightly and crossed her legs. ‘As it happens, Joe, I’ve reconciled the Trevor file. It’s all finished and accounted for.’

There was a moment of stunned silence, then the other analysts burst into a round of surprised applause and congratulations. Mirandi couldn’t help but feel gratified. The Trevor file was notorious and had been around for a long time. Perfect material for a new MA to cut her teeth on. Especially if the boss needed something to keep her occupied whilst keeping her at a distance.

Joe smiled too, though Mirandi felt his quick smouldering glance leave a trail of sparks down her legs. ‘Have you, now? Slick work. But have you written the letters to old Trevor and his sons to let them know the outcome?’

Mirandi’s flush climbed higher, but she said in dulcet tones, ‘Well, as you know, Joe, Ryan’s assistant will be back next week and I suspect she’d like to have that pleasure.’

Beneath his lashes, Joe’s half-lidded glance lasered Mirandi from across the room, though he said with silky gentleness, ‘I don’t think you understand quite how we operate here, Miss Summers. Until those letters are in the mail the file is incomplete. I’m sure you don’t want to leave unfinished business for others to deal with.’

Mirandi felt a savage jump in her blood pressure, though she controlled it, surrendering to the command and rising from her chair with cool grace. ‘Unfinished business?’ She threw him a mocking smile. ‘Heaven forbid. What would you know about that, Joe?’

She made a point of giving Ryan and the others a cheeky grin and a wave, then swept from the room, feeling a visceral flash from Joe’s eyes sear through the fabric of her dress.

As she strode back to her desk along the corridor his voice drifted after her. ‘Are you free to give us your attention now, Ryan?’

It took her a couple of hours to get over the latest clash, but she cooled down in time. She was determined not to go home with tears in her eyes this night. In fact, she might have managed to forget all about it by the end of the day if Ryan Patterson hadn’t found something else for her to do. Might.

But he had, and ironically here she was, in the middle of the afternoon, approaching no-woman’s land. Joseph Sinclair’s private residence.

Twenty-second floor. Apartment four.

Leave the folders on the table in the foyer where Joe can easily find them, and hotfoot it straight back to work in time for the three o’clock credit review, were Ryan’s spoken instructions. Unspoken, but lurking under the surface like crocodiles, was his more crucial advice. Don’t linger there hoping for a chance to flirt, sweetheart. Forget leaving any traces of yourself behind to intrigue him. No strands of your flaming red hair or whiffs of your perfume, strategically squirted here and there. He’s no good for the likes of you. He’d use you up without a second thought and break you in the process.

As if Mirandi didn’t know that already. She had personal experience. If eyes were the windows to the soul, the colour of Joe Sinclair’s was a liar. That heavenly blue had already lured her in once only to leave her floundering, and she wasn’t a kid of eighteen any more, naive and willing to be enchanted by a charming young rebel with nothing to lose and everything to prove.

She couldn’t have been persuaded to set foot in Joe’s posh apartment building if her entire floor hadn’t been overstretched with preparations for his big junket to France, and no one else available.

2204. Mirandi paused before the imposing door. Funny how even with a legitimate card key in her hand she felt that prickle of intruder’s guilt. Noiselessly, the lock flashed green, she walked in and…

Whoosh.

Oh, wow. The light. The space. And through those double doors into the spacious sitting room—the views.

So this was who he was now. Of course, if an outlaw’s natural brilliance had skyrocketed him up the corporate ladder to the highest echelon in an investment firm, why wouldn’t he live in a palace at eye level with the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Hypnotised by the grandeur, she stepped through the double doors, still clutching the folders, and tiptoed the couple of miles across Joe Sinclair’s satin hardwood floor to gaze out through the glass. Sydney looked like the postcards from this height, all blue sea, sparkling rooftops and scrapers under a bright azure sky.

She turned and cast an awed eye over the joint, inhaling deeply to soak in the atmosphere. It smelled rich. The furnishings were spare, but tasteful. Mahogany and leather, a richly-hued oriental rug, a couple of paintings…

This glossy apartment was a million miles from that two-roomed flat, their favourite trysting place all those long ago summer afternoons where Joe had initiated her into the delights of passion.

Her eye fell on a photo, frozen in time inside a glass prism. It showed a decrepit motorbike leaning against a wall. It was Joe’s old motorbike, before he’d rescued it from rust and made it shine. His pride and joy.

Regret for that long ago summer welled up in her, and, like the sentimental fool she was, even while she smiled in remembrance tears misted her eyes. For a minute she was back in the magic time, the summer she turned eighteen.

It had been late spring, for the jacarandas were in flower, purple carpets underfoot all over Lavender Bay. As sweet and glowing in her mind as if it had been yesterday she was there, standing under the spreading boughs of the Jacaranda in the churchyard after morning service, fresh out of school and in love after one brief, world-shaking encounter. There she was, dreamily listening to Auntie Mim chat with friends while her father, who was Captain of the Lavender Bay chapter of the Christian Army, was still engaged in farewelling his flock at the church door.

She could still see her old love-struck self. Nodding, smiling, pretending to listen, holding her secret clutched to her heart until her romantic radar, newly alert, pricked up its ears at the approach of a motorcycle.

A wild hope bloomed inside her, and she swung around just as the big bike roared into the paved entrance and skidded to a halt, its racket idling down to a low, predatory growl.

Astride the mean machine was Jake Sinclair’s wayward son, Joe, looking long, lean and darkly satanic as his cool blue gaze combed the little clusters of friends and families in their Sunday uniforms and pastels. Black jeans outlined his powerful thighs, while a black leather vest left his bronzed, sinewy arms bare and highlighted the glossy raven black of his hair and two-day beard.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Auntie Mim frowned. ‘What could he be wanting?’

Though Mirandi had often noticed him about—who among the females of Lavender Bay hadn’t?—she’d only spoken to him for the first time the day before when he’d helped her retrieve her books from a puddle outside the library.

After years of steeping herself in romantic sagas and grand passions played out on the Yorkshire moors, Mirandi knew instinctively what he wanted. Who. And to her intense and terrified joy, his bold blue gaze lit on her with an electric summons that sizzled across the paved churchyard and straight to her ovaries.

She was gripped with the purest excitement she’d ever experienced. For a second she vacillated. On the one hand there were her friends, her father, Auntie Mim, the entire church gathering, and on the other the bad boy on the big bike.

Then Joe Sinclair cocked his handsome head at her and grinned. A primitive urge as deep and irresistible as a cosmic force blazed to life inside her. She took a step in his direction, faltered, took another step, then, thrusting her hymnal into Auntie Mim’s grasp, so as not to worry the innocent woman, breathed, ‘Auntie, I think I can guess. He’s in search of salvation.’

Then she walked across the yard.

‘Well, hello, Joe,’ she said, every inch the pastor’s gracious daughter, though her excited pulse was effervescing through her veins like raspberry fizz. ‘Why don’t you come in and join us?’

Joe Sinclair flicked a glance across the goggling congregation, then his black lashes made a sleepy descent over his smiling gaze. ‘Or you could come for a ride.’

This was only the second time she’d had a chance to dwell on his face up close for any length of time, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He had a strong straight nose, sexy, chiselled mouth and jaw and gorgeous cheekbones. He was all lean, hard and angular, except for his black lashes. They were amazingly long and luxuriant, but in a masculine way that caught at her lungs and melted her very bone marrow.

‘Oh…’ she faltered, plunged into a dilemma ‘…I don’t think… Well, my friends are all… And there’s—there’s my auntie…’

He broke into a grin then that illuminated his lean face and made him so handsome her insides curled over. ‘I haven’t come for your auntie.’

She didn’t hesitate very much longer. With a hasty, placatory wave at Mim, she climbed onto the passenger seat, tucked her skirt primly around her knees, let her fingers sink into his lean ribs and was swept away on the most exhilarating ride of her life.

Oh, it had been thrilling. Clinging to Joe on the bike was the closest intimate contact she’d ever had with a raw, vibrant man.

And, unbelievably for a lanky girl with red hair and no boyfriend experience—hardly even a first kiss to boast of, unless she counted Stewart Beale and a clumsy pash at the school dance—he’d taken her back to his flat and kissed her until her insides melted like dark chocolate and her brain turned to mush.

Then he’d gently but firmly unbuttoned her modest little blouse with his beautiful lean hands and stroked her breasts until she trembled with a delicious fever. And then he’d unzipped her Sunday skirt, and with artful, virile skill had demonstrated things to her about riding she’d only ever read about in trashy magazines.

Oh, it had been a golden time. Joe was cynical and mocking about serious things like church, but tender and affectionate with her. He didn’t mock her when she tootled her recorder on Saturday mornings in the mall with the church band, though she felt so self-conscious she frowned the whole time so as not to be tempted to laugh.

Every day with him was an adventure. He made her listen to songs, really listen, and in between his university studies and part-time work introduced her to writers and ideas she’d never before encountered.

He was passionate about music, rock especially, and animals, and could be so enchanted by the beauty of a wren or a honey-eater he would make her stand still for minutes so as not to scare it.

She could still hear his voice, urging her to take her time. ‘Look,’ he’d say. ‘Look properly.’ Joe’s mother was a painter, he’d once told her, and had taught him how to really look at birds and natural things from when he was a tiny little boy. And he was an artist himself of a sort. Once in the flat she stumbled on some poems he’d composed. Vivid little pictures painted in just a few bright words.

She was supposed to be enrolling in uni, but how could she concentrate on such mundane stuff as her future when she was intoxicated with love? So she deferred her enrolment, and told Auntie Mim and her father she needed a gap year to experience life.

Mim was unimpressed. ‘He’ll never amount to anything. He’s nothing but trouble, that lad. Why can’t you find some nice, steady boy from the church?’ She’d have been surprised to learn he could find beauty in simple things. That often when Mirandi was in danger of pushing the limits of recklessness too far, it was Joe’s steadying hand that restrained her.

When he wasn’t fixing up motors he took Mirandi fishing in his father’s old dinghy in the little estuary at the head of the bay. How she remembered those lazy afternoons, drifting in the boat, dreaming about the future. Joe in his ancient blue tee shirt that reeked faintly of machine oil no matter how often it was washed.

And she’d loved him. Oh, how she’d loved him.

Shame it had all had to end so miserably. But she’d learned from it. As the song said, life was a bittersweet symphony. And after she’d lost him, once she was over the heartbreak, she’d come to the realisation her happiness depended on herself and not another person. Every woman was a goddess in her own right and was honour bound to walk like one.

She cast a wry glance around at the glossy apartment. Did that mocking, irreverent, irreligious Joe Sinclair still exist somewhere, deep down under the layers of his Italian suits and the corporate skin he now inhabited? Or was this new sophisticated Joe the animal he’d truly been all along?

She paused at an antique sideboard, where a crystal decanter stood among a selection of lethal-looking bottles. A few familiar labels. Whisky, gin, and there was the vodka, her old favourite and first acquaintance with the evil stuff. She could have laughed to think of herself then. How easily she’d succumbed in the name of sophistication. Anything to impress her lover, who’d been so worldly-wise in her naive eyes. Older by a whole six years, though way older in the hard lessons of grief and loss.

She could imagine what her father would think of it all. After a lifetime of caring for the homeless and manning the city soup kitchens, he wouldn’t be any more impressed than he’d been ten years ago when he’d scraped Joe’s father off the pavement and driven him home because he’d gambled his last dollar and couldn’t afford the bus.

It popped into her head that if Joe knew she was here now, invading his private domain, he’d have every right to be furious.

She was conscious then of a vague sensation she hadn’t experienced since a time in her childhood when her father had inadvertently left her alone in the house while he rushed to tend some distressed person. A reckless, almost irresistible desire to make the most of her freedom and do something wicked, like raid the freezer for ice cream.

Not, of course, that she’d do anything like that now.

However, with Joe ensconced in meetings with the board for the rest of the afternoon, along with Stella, his EA, surely there was time for a little tour of appreciation?

CHAPTER TWO

JOE SINCLAIR directed his long stride back towards his chief executive office, then on an impulse made a left swerve and took the lift down, loosening his tie. Would the day never end?

Something was wrong with him.

If it wasn’t weird enough to have been tossing and turning in his sleep these past weeks like a criminal with a conscience, now he had developed the disease most fatal to bankers.

Astonishing this could happen to him, a guy with a gift for finance, but in the last couple of months—ever since the casino development had been floated, in fact—board meetings had become excruciating. When had the musical chink of money flowing into the coffers of Martin Place Investment started to fall so flat?

He nearly had to pinch himself. Wasn’t he the guy who’d pursued his career with such single-minded zeal his colleagues called him the Money Machine? Nothing ever interfered with his core business. No distraction, no interest, no woman. All of his passions lived in their separate compartments and life was a velvet ride. No collisions, no dramas.

Down in the street, he breathed the open air and lifted his face to the afternoon sun. His first time AWOL in years, he considered how best to make the most of his stolen afternoon. In the absence of a helicopter to lift him out of the business world and drop him somewhere clean and pure, like Antarctica—or what remained of it—he tossed up between a gym and a bar, and the bar won.

Not for the alcohol, per se, so much as the possibility of finding some luscious lovely decorating the venue with a view to entertainment.

One who didn’t want to buy him. He tried not to think of Kirsty, his sometime lover. Way back then those first few weeks had been amusing, but now.

Now, a familiar feeling of ennui lurked around the edges of her carefully groomed image. He could tell, the signs had been there for weeks, an unpleasant crunch was looming. Her father’s offer of the house in Vaucluse and an honorary directorship had been the clincher. Every one of his instincts was shouting at him to run like hell before the prison gates clanged shut.

Ironic, wasn’t it, that these days society guys wanted to buy him for their daughters? Him. Jake Sinclair’s son. One-time rebel and seducer of innocent virgins. Did he really come across now as the sort of guy who would trade his soul for connections?

Between them they’d tried every trick in the book. Kirsty had even attempted to make him jealous, flaunting some silver-tailed Romeo in front of his eyes to make him care. What she didn’t know—what each of his women had to learn—was that Joe Sinclair didn’t have a jealous bone in his body.

He paused at the entrance to the Bamboo Bar, then strolled into its dim, cool refuge and ordered a Scotch. The lunch crowd had diminished. A couple of leggy women perched on barstools glanced his way, but instead of welcoming the signals he was swept with a wave of weariness.

Suddenly it all seemed so predictable, the conquest dance. He’d advance, they’d retreat. He’d advance a little further, they’d take a flirty step in his direction. He’d play it cool, they’d come on strong. It was all too easy.

But, God, he loved meeting women. What was wrong with him? He must be sick.

He should be feeling upbeat. Here he was at the top of his game, the world his own personal pomegranate. Tomorrow he’d be flying to the south of France. A change of scene, the possibility of picking up some new contacts, useful information from some of the masters of the game before he decided whether or not the firm should risk its shirt on the Darling Point casino project.

So why should his heart sink at the prospect? Good old reliable Stella would be along to smooth the way and attend to all the little details of his comfort. Well, most of them. And Stella was—well, she was risk free.

Unlike some.

An apparition reared in his mind, one that burned in his thoughts a time too often, in fact, for a highly disciplined CEO with responsibilities.

Was it a whole five weeks since HR had floated her name before him as the potential candidate for the new Market Analyst position the firm was creating? His first reaction had been incredulity. A more unlikely MA he couldn’t imagine. Why had she applied? Was she hoping to glean some advantage from their past acquaintance? Had she forgotten how things had played out?

Mirandi Summers, his one-time squeeze. His first instinct was to give her the thumbs down. Last thing he ever wanted was to revisit that final scene where betrayal hung acrid in the air like smoke after a massacre. So why hadn’t he blocked her application?

It wasn’t guilt, exactly. He’d done the right thing in the end, hadn’t he? The only thing. He could hardly believe he was still wasting his time even thinking about it.

All right, so these days she wasn’t quite the shy, sweet little honey who’d tied his guts in knots. She’d grown up. Her green eyes had acquired the glitter of experience. Where once they’d reflected every passing emotion with honest fervour, these days they were guarded. Wary. But in the competitive jungle of office politics—a girl like her…

The bad taste this morning’s meeting had left returned to him with full force. Why the hell was she so keen to swim with the sharks? If only she knew it, he was trying his best to protect her. Given half a chance some of those others would cut her to shreds.

He ran a finger round the inside of his collar. How could he ever be expected to concentrate with her in the room like a woman-sized pack of dynamite?

It had been the same since the day she started. That first morning when he’d strolled down to the coffee room and she’d wafted into view his lungs had gone into cardiac arrest.

Old memories, old guilts had rushed to the surface, and for a guy as fit as himself his blood pressure had made a surprising leap. He’d had to close his eyes a second to reorient himself.

She still radiated the same animal vigour that had sucked him in and driven him wild in his twenties, but now her leggy, coltish beauty had matured into sensuous, smooth-flowing curves and long, silken limbs that had rocked through him like a warm, sultry samba. Limbs he’d once enjoyed to the utmost draped around his neck.

Her bright hair showed none of its old tendency to curl. Now it hung smooth and silky down her back. But surely that purple dress she’d worn today was a little snug? He could see what other guys would make of her. Hot.

He was seized with a maniacal desire to rush across the room and drag some covering around her.

As usual, just thinking of the womanly handful she’d become lit a dangerous simmer in his blood. Clearly, hiring her had been a mistake. He’d arranged for her to be tucked under Ryan Patterson’s wing for a few weeks while Patterson’s EA was on leave, just so she could at least find her feet before she was thrown in with the pack, but it didn’t help Joe Sinclair’s problem one bit. She was a burr in his imagination. In the end, unless he could work her out of his system, nothing else for it, he’d have to sack her.

Not that he gave a damn about her now, one way or the other. Although, all right, he had taken the time to check out her personnel file just for interest’s sake.

She still lived in Lavender Bay not far from the old neighbourhood, and still not married, apparently. Surprising really, considering the course her old man had mapped out for her.

His mouth tightened in a grimace, though the insult had long since ceased to sting. Hell, if he’d been her father he’d probably have done the same thing. She’d been so soft, so tender and giving. Malleable. Too malleable to be at the mercy of a villain like himself. He should probably thank the old guy. It was probably the insulting lack of faith in all things Sinclair that had spurred him on to show the captain and the rest of Lavender Bay that he could rise to any height he set his mind on.

But as for Mirandi in this world.he still couldn’t get over it. Did she have any idea of some of the cutthroat decisions she’d have to make? Perfectly good, useful projects she’d have to reject in favour of other, more lucrative investments? The hearts she’d have to break? She was as suitable for the job as a baby. Hell, with her upbringing, if she had any idea of what the board was contemplating at this very minute her tender conscience would send her running in the other direction.

Once or twice he’d been unable to resist an impulse to stroll by Patterson’s office. Just to check she was settling in. He’d caught a few glimpses of her, once frowning in concentration at her desk, another time chatting on the phone. To a client, he hoped. She looked perfectly relaxed and confident, though sometimes people had no idea they were struggling and in need of help.

The last time he’d given into that impulse he’d caught her laughing at something Ryan Patterson said, and she’d glanced around and spotted him strolling by. Instantly her laugh had died and her face had assumed that cool, mysterious façade that could drive a man crazy.

He was used to his employees behaving with caution when he was around, it came with the territory, but sometimes he couldn’t help wishing he’d gone easier with her on her first day.

He’d resisted checking on her after that, but knowing she was there, her honeyed temptation fragrancing the air along there—the same air breathed by Patterson—flavoured every minute of his every day. In fact, he wondered now if it had been such a good idea awarding Patterson the pleasure of easing her in.

He’d chosen the guy because Patterson was mild and well liked, but the choice might have backfired.

If only the bloke would stop raving about her abilities as if she were his own personal discovery. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of probability he was in lust with her, if a pale, blond milksop of a guy could conjure up enough red blood cells to experience anything so turbulent.

Joe was no stranger to turbulence. Even during his recent bout of disturbed nights, those times when he was torn from his sleep in a cold sweat, as if in search of further punishment his mind had immediately turned to her. How she looked, her expression on her first day in the job when he’d been forced to show her her place.

There’d been something in her face. Ridiculously, it brought back to him with violent force the stricken look he’d seen in her eyes that last time she’d come to his flat. How vulnerable she’d been back then. He’d seen something like that look again this morning.

He tried to suppress a familiar twinge in his guts. It wasn’t guilt, exactly, it was just.

He must be sick.

His phone buzzed, and he saw it was Stella. He considered letting it ring through to the recorded message, then his conscience got the better of him.

‘Stella?’ As crisp as ever. Mrs Efficiency would never guess he was standing in a bar room, Scotch in hand, contemplating bolting to the ends of the earth.

Unusually for her she sounded agitated. ‘Oh, Joe, I’m on my way to the hospital. It’s Mike, my youngest. He’s been in a bike accident and they’ve put him in intensive care. I’m sorry, but I have to be there.’

Bloody hell. All he needed. But he said, ‘Of course, Stella. Take all the time you need.’

‘They’re talking about operating. I’m afraid I won’t be able to accompany you to Monaco, after all. I’m so sorry.’

‘Forget about it,’ he said, wincing. ‘It can’t be helped. Stay with your son. That’s where you’re needed most.’

‘Oh, thank you, Joe. Thanks for being so understanding. And don’t worry about your airport transfers. Those have all been taken care of. When you land in Zurich all you have to do is…’ Instructions, instructions, instructions. ‘And I’ve left the hotel confirmation on your desk. Don’t forget to…’ More instructions, more tedious details. It was a wonder she didn’t offer to pack for him. A further round of abject apologies and medical details, then the anxious mother disconnected.

Despite his annoyance he felt a surge of approval towards his executive assistant. She’d been touchingly excited about the trip, in her restrained way. A woman prepared to make such a sacrifice for the sake of a son old enough to fend for himself was admirable. Rare, in his experience.

His mood darkened. As if it weren’t already a bore, now it would be ten times worse. The long flight by himself, airport queues. Delays. Fights over taxis. Crowded beaches. French food, French people. Days of being locked inside conference rooms with hundreds of eager delegates from around the globe all blathering on about the fabulous weather. As if there weren’t enough weather right here in Sydney.

He’d have to dredge up his rusty French. Why the hell couldn’t they have held the thing somewhere cold, like Switzerland or Helsinki? Investment bankers could discuss the casino industry quite as well in those places as on the Côte d’Azur.

The very thought of the place sent a wave of distaste through him. He gave himself a mental shake. This was so unlike Joe Sinclair, mover and shaker in high finance, he had to wonder if he was coming down with flu.

Sighing, he flicked open his phone and dialled the office number. No use fighting it. He was a prisoner of his own success and there was no escape.

‘Get me Tonia in HR.’ He waited. ‘Ah, Tonia—Joe. Look, Tonia, take a look through the lists and see if you can find someone who can be spared to fill in for Stella on the trip, will you?’ She chatted for a moment, then he slid the phone into his jacket pocket.

Someone pleasant, he should have added. Someone interesting who could keep his mind off the dark places. With a fatalistic shrug he tossed off his Scotch and set down his glass, then, ignoring the lovelies at the bar, walked out into the street.

He reminded himself he was a lucky guy. Someone would turn up.

Mirandi began to relax a little on her prowl around Joe Sinclair’s apartment, though she restricted herself to merely glancing into most of the rooms for fear of shedding DNA.

Curiously, there were no other photos. Not a sign of attachment to a single living soul, though she knew he’d never keep any pictures of his family. Joe had always been tight-lipped about them, but Auntie Mim knew the story. His mother had walked out when Joe was a boy of nine or ten, and his father, who’d been a talented architect, had spiralled into an addiction and gambled away all his assets, including the house, over his son’s head. The very home he’d designed and built with his own hands.

Joe had never liked being reminded of those times even when she knew him, so what had she expected to see here in his new life? That late-afternoon shot of him and her at the beach, grinning into the camera as though their hearts beat as one? Or any one of that string of girls she’d seen clinging to the back of the old Ducati?

Afterwards. When he was grinding her into the dust with his indifference. Lucky the violence of her youthful passions had been burned out of her.

Through a partly open doorway she glimpsed what must be a bedroom, and hesitated. She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. Though maybe it would help her develop some deeper understanding of how her old love was travelling now.

Her old love. Listen to herself. The truth about that had come out, plain for all to see, so why waste her time peering down that shady lane? She doubted she’d have taken this job at all if she’d realised at the interview that the Joseph Sinclair, CEO of Martin Place Investments, was in fact her old boyfriend, Joe. That final parting had been—so cruel.

Still, she had to be fair and remind herself Joe never knew what it was she’d come to tell him that day. Remembering the moment no longer had the power to make her flinch with anguish, but it was burned into her bone marrow.

His blue eyes, bright with that strangely fierce intensity. ‘It’s over,’ he’d said, his voice hoarse. ‘We’re over.’ And when in her total shock and devastation she’d whimpered a question, his savage, ‘Go home, little girl. Run back to your daddy.’

As break-ups went, it had topped the memorable list and left track marks on her soul. And while time might have cauterised the wound, running into him her first morning in the coffee room had done more than just shake her up. At first glimpse of him, even after ten years the things he’d said had come hissing back and aroused echoes of the old emotions.

The instant she’d caught sight of him a violent upheaval had rearranged her insides, though he hadn’t seemed similarly affected. His long, lithe stride had checked for less than a heartbeat, and he’d strolled across to her with all the cool, confident composure of the boss man.

She had to remind herself she was no one special. Just someone he’d met along the way. A chick from the past.

His blue gaze flicked over her, veiled, appraising. ‘Well, well. Mirandi. Hi.’

So cool. While she was all at sea. His eyes, his deep voice, and her lungs paralysed. No oxygen, no floor under her feet. And straight away, the scent of him. Some woodsy cologne evoking cleanliness and masculinity in the old familiar rush.

As she took in the immediacy of his dark, lean sexiness her gap year came spinning back and she was that giddy girl again, thrilled and half-terrified to be singled out by the bad boy with the wild reputation. Held breathless once again in his heart-stopping blue gaze, she had to restrain an impulse to touch him.

A thousand impressions assaulted her. He was just as devastating in his city suit as he’d been in denim and leather, though at thirty-five his handsomeness had settled into harsher lines.

Sterner. More defined. Every inch the high-powered executive. She wondered how many people here besides herself knew that underneath his designer and beautifully laundered fine white cotton shirt a heavy-duty tattoo rippled down his arm. Even thinking about those arms could still bring her out in a sweat.

Was it so surprising then that her heart, her flesh, her emotions all surged in joyful remembrance? When she saw him her heart was thundering so loudly she could barely hear herself speak.

‘Joe. Hello.’ Straight up, that husky little catch in her voice. ‘How are you? I—got such a surprise when I found out you were the CEO here.’

His expressive black brows twitched as if he didn’t quite believe her. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘Oh, well, I mean, I knew it was a Joseph Sinclair, but I didn’t know it was m—the Joe Sinclair I once knew.’

His eyes veiled and their last goodbye opened between them like a wound. But he shrugged and gave that faintly mocking smile she knew so well. Used to know.

‘Hard to believe?’

‘Gosh no, of course not. But—with no photo of you on the website, for some reason—I visualised a much older person. You know the type. Bald, plump…’ She made a roundish outline with her hands. ‘Toadish. Cigar in breast pocket.’ She gave a nervous laugh, aware she was talking too much, and her desperate phrases grew jerky. ‘Not the…person I used to know. It was only that I—knew the name it seemed like a—a sign, you know. An omen. Fate, or something.’

Heaven help her, finally she managed to draw breath.

‘Well, that explains it,’ he said smoothly.

She flushed, realising with chagrin how deeply she’d exposed her insecurity. Surely after ten years the past should have lost its sting. But she couldn’t help herself, because all the while things she’d once known so well about him were striking her afresh, sucking her in in the same old way.

He didn’t often make direct eye contact, and just like before she found herself waiting, breathless, for every glance he flashed her from beneath his black brows. And like before, those blue glances had the power to sear through her entrails and leave a powerful impression, like some rare piercing glimpse of a kingfisher’s wing.

He’d pierced her with one of them right then. But it was an ironic glance, one that revealed nothing of the warmth he’d once shown her. Before the break-up, that was. Before she’d wrecked things by offering her eternal love.

‘Would you have started here if you’d known?’ he said.

‘I—of course I would,’ she lied. ‘Why not?’ She’d managed an artificial smile then to conceal her pulse. But though she’d kept her voice steady, she knew her redhead’s skin was betraying her as always, lighting her up like the Macquarie beacon with every minuscule fluctuation in her emotions.

‘Why not indeed?’ There was a faintly sardonic inflection in his tone that recalled the rejection as if it were yesterday.

She retreated from that horror, hurrying into a safer direction. ‘Oh, and, er, do you know how long it will take before my own office is ready? At the interview I had the impression that the position was all ready to go. I appreciate Ryan mentoring me for a few days, of course, but I’m pretty keen to get started on my real work. Forge my own direction, so to speak.’

She gave a small laugh but he didn’t join in. In fact, his brows drew together in disapproval. ‘I think you’ll find that working with Ryan will show you the ropes twice as fast as you could learn them on your own.’

‘Oh, I’m sure. Though I am quite a fast learner.’

His black lashes flickered infinitesimally. ‘I remember.’

A silence fell. Nerve-racking seconds ticked by that grew excruciating.

Why had she said that? She racked her brains for something warm to say that would ease the tension. ‘You know, Joe, I’ve often thought of you—since… Wondered—how you were.’ She smiled, nearly put out her hand to touch him, but, jarred by the flicker in his cool blue gaze, controlled the impulse.

There was a definite warning in that glinting glance. Don’t go there, it read, as stern and uncompromising as if it had been emblazoned in official lettering.

What a fool she was. Of course he didn’t want to be reminded of his past, not here in this austere place surrounded by his employees. Realising she’d opened herself up to another rejection, she flushed outright then and her speech died, hanging her out to dry at the critical moment.

He stood frowning while her discomfort mounted, then he said, ‘Look, Mirandi. You’re here on probation, same as any new employee. I hope you understand that any personal history between us is of no relevance. All that matters here is how well you perform your job.’

Her insides jolted as if she’d stumbled blindly into a rock face. In a wave of mortification it occurred to her he might think she had hopes of him again. That she might have taken the job with a view to reviving their old connection.

Perhaps he read her embarrassment, for his tone softened a little. ‘To be brutally honest, I’m surprised to see you here. Investment banking is a tough world to survive in. I’m not sure this work will suit someone of your temperament.’

‘My—temperament?’ came from her dry throat.

‘Well…’ He hesitated, then scratching his ear, said, ‘I think you’ll find that in finance an excess of emotion and, er, sensibility are luxuries we can’t afford.’

She bristled all over. Sensibility indeed. Did he think she was still that gormless idiot who’d broken her heart over him a thousand years ago?

Lucky she was of a proud disposition and could think on her feet while being eviscerated.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘please don’t worry about me, Joe. I’ve toughened up. Every night I sleep on a bed of nails.’ She spread her arms. ‘Go on. Dish it out. I can take it.’

A muscle twitched in his gorgeous jaw, then he said drily, ‘Very dramatic. I suggest you pour all that passion into your work.’ There was slight inflection in the way he said the word that reminded her he was no stranger to its various applications.

For a minute or perhaps an hour or two his blue gaze seemed to burn through her face, then he snapped out of it and looked at his watch. Brisk, unemotional Joe Sinclair, CEO.

‘Right. Ryan Patterson will be reporting on how you perform, so since we keep strict hours here you’d better drink your coffee. Oh, and, er…good luck.’

With a curt gesture he walked away.

So brusque. So—unwelcoming.

Indignation threatened to overcome her. So she had an emotional side. She was human, wasn’t she? He hadn’t seemed to object to her passionate nature ten years ago. She stared after him, striding through the department like an autocrat. She could hardly recognise the guy. If he hadn’t still been oozing hotness she’d have wondered if she’d been talking to his twin. Anyone would think he’d been born with a briefcase in his hand.

She smarted for minutes over the implication that she was too soft for the business world. Too weak. On what had he based that assessment?

Her credentials were all there in her CV. Her years in the bank, the promotions she’d earned. Just as soon as her office was ready and she could start her own work, she’d show him how efficient she could be.

She could have done with a few private moments to give her galloping pulse time to settle, but she noticed Patterson’s curious gaze follow Joe then shift to her, and she knew she had to glide on like a goddess and act as though nothing had happened.

Standing here now in his apartment, searching for some lingering essence of the lazy, laughing, teasing Joe she used to know, she wondered how she could still be so affected by him. Time should have done its work by now. She was a mature woman, hardly that green girl who’d worshipped him and been his adoring slave.

She supposed running into him again had dragged it all up again in her mind. The truth was, she’d never experienced anything like the intensity of the passion she’d had for him. Although at the time, during all the months of grieving, Auntie Mim had made the observation that Joe wouldn’t have given her up so abruptly if it hadn’t been purely about the sex.

Mim had been right about some of it. There was no denying she’d been followed by a string of wild little hussies, as Mim had termed Joe’s other girlfriends. Hot chicks. Even so, she could never regret her wild time with him. Joining the chicks. How could she, when it had been the most exciting time of her life? The time she’d felt most alive.

Perhaps that was why gazing into his bedroom now exerted a violent fascination, though her conscience was telling her loud and clear that a man’s bedroom—especially a boss’s—an ex-lover’s—was his fortress. Or should be.

Sadly, while her scruples tried to assert themselves, her feet in their four inch heels were itching to push that door wide and cross the forbidden threshold, and before she was half aware of it she was in, staring at a rather severe four-poster heaped with pillows and richly draped in luxurious brocaded fabrics.

Oh, yes. The master suite.

Somehow Joe’s bed made her awash with sensations, not all of them positive. Its decadent appeal was amplified by its reflections in several long mirrors.

How would it feel to lie in there at night with him? Her pulse quickened as she imagined his handsome dark head on those champagne satin pillows. They looked soft enough, but looks could be so deceiving where pillows were concerned. For herself, she preferred hers very soft, though as she recalled the younger Joe had never worried about anything so domestic.

A simple mattress on the floor, those green patterned sheets—that had been their passion bed, the candle shedding its glow into the small hours on their entwined bodies Joe’s concession to romance.

She stared at the four-poster, then, on an impulse, sat on the edge and slipped off her shoes. She dragged a pillow into position, then gingerly lay her head on it. After a moment she lifted her feet onto the bed, then stretched out and, involuntarily relaxing, released a long and languorous sigh.

Ah-h-h. She let herself sink into the bed’s soft, sensuous and at the same time buoyant embrace, her head cradled by one of the softest, most delicious pillows she’d ever experienced.

Oh, the comfort. Fearful at first of letting herself go, she lay still a moment, imagining herself floating on a cloud. Perhaps it was inevitable, given her experiences with Joe Sinclair, but her thoughts started to drift down a certain illicit alleyway. One she’d fought and struggled to avoid ever since the coffee-room encounter.

Imagine, for example, it was midnight. Suppose Joe arrived home unexpectedly and found her here?

Her blood warmed to the scenario. For all his powerful six-three Joe was a quiet guy. He never raised his voice when gutting someone with a few well chosen words, and he seemed capable of walking as silently as a cat when prowling the corridors at work. It wasn’t impossible to imagine he might walk in and catch her unawares.

Almost unconsciously, she changed position to arrange herself more voluptuously, like Goya’s painting of ‘The Naked Maja’, though of course she didn’t take her clothes off. Her little fantastical indulgence was only for a second. She closed her eyes, picturing the scene.

He’d come in, find her here, and be overcome with the old desire. He’d take off his tie and slowly unbutton his shirt.

How well she remembered his beautiful chest and hard, muscled abdomen. Even in his Armani suit it was clear he still looked after his athletic frame. Perhaps he worked out in a gym. There was probably one in this very building.

Although… Shouldn’t they start with a kiss? After so long she wouldn’t enjoy being rushed.

She banished the undressing scene and started afresh. He’d come in and catch her here, and be so overwhelmed by desire he’d swoop onto the bed beside her, take her in his arms and kiss her with deep, romantic passion. Forget that it was a bit like the Sleeping Beauty or Goldilocks, or whoever. Those babes wouldn’t have known how to savour the kiss, anyway, whereas she…

Her lids sprang open. Was that sound from inside the apartment, or something next door? The pipes, perhaps? She strained her ears for seconds, then, hearing only silence, relaxed back into the fantasy.

The kiss. No, it was annoying, but before she could really enjoy kissing him she would need some sort of discussion about what had happened. Why he’d suddenly become so cold and unapproachable at the time she’d most needed him.

Why he’d changed overnight from her tender, teasing lover into that grim, distant stranger. Though, on the other hand, recriminations about the past at that exact point could destroy the magic.

So. First he’d kiss her and caress her, and then he’d say.

An instant later a surprised growl jolted her back to earth and she looked up to meet Joe Sinclair’s stunned, incredulous gaze. He was standing in the doorway in the lean, solid flesh, staring at her as if she were an hallucination.

CHAPTER THREE

TRANSFIXED INTO A SORT of paralysis, he was holding a phone glued to his ear.

Mirandi scrambled off the bed and made a useless attempt to smooth the coverlet.

‘Oh, Joe. I didn’t expect… I was just…’ She noticed the folders on the floor where they’d fallen. She stooped to snatch them up, conscious of the burning tide of sheer mortification rising through her limbs and chest and turning her face red hot.

But she hadn’t lived through the past ten years without acquiring a few life skills. Faced with total humiliation, with her back to the wall, Mirandi Summers could schmoozle her way out of a situation as well as the next woman.

Drawing herself up to her full five-seven, she met Joe Sinclair’s bemused gaze with resolve. ‘I think you should know you have a mouse problem.’

His black brows twitched. A glint lit the deep blue of his irises.

Without taking his gaze off her, he shot a few words down the phone. ‘It’s no one. I’ll talk to you later.’ With a deliberate calm, he snapped the phone shut and slipped it inside the jacket of his sleek suit. It buzzed again, but he cut it off and directed the full force of his stunning gaze at her.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mirandi.’

It had always thrilled her that for a guy of such few words, his voice had a deep, rich, almost musical quality. Eighty per cent cocoa, the rest pure cream. But something in the tone of that little exclamation, something smooth and satisfied, as if he’d always suspected she was dying to crawl back into his bed any way she could, and now he was proven right, roused an indignant spark in her.

Forget that from her current vantage point he was tall, with his big athletic frame easily able to block a doorway. She’d been towered over by him before, perhaps not with him having the power of life and death over her job, so to speak, but the situation had occurred, as her body seemed vibrantly aware.

She eased into her shoes, grateful for the added inches, then thrust the folders into his hands. ‘I was asked to deliver these.’

‘To my bedroom?

‘Of course not, Joe. Absolutely not. I intended to put them on the table in the foyer, but when I opened the door and I saw the mouse… I—must have disturbed it. I didn’t think you’d want to have to deal with that when you got home, so naturally I—took off after it.’ She gave an uncertain laugh he didn’t join in with, then glanced about her and gave her most convincing shudder. ‘It’s in here somewhere.’

‘In my bed, presumably.’

She felt her flush deepen, especially when she noticed him make a familiar, scorching inventory of her curves. Some things never changed.

His mouth had always been so stirringly expressive. As though sculpted by some sure celestial force, his lips were firm and masculine, the upper one narrow, the lower one fuller, the whole stern ensemble promising the ultimate in sensual pleasure. And delivering, as her body now yearningly recalled.

‘Well, it ran—in here, yes. I lost sight of it and… Well, I got scared it might run at me. So I’m afraid I—had to jump up on the, er.’ A hollow in the pillows was glaringly the size and shape of her head. ‘It may not still be in here right now, of course.’ She tried for her most earnest expression. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to think out a strategy.’

‘You seem to be doing quite well now, though.’

She evaded his sceptical glance, her face afire just when she needed it to be cool. All right, so her story was thin and he didn’t believe a word. He didn’t look half as furious as he should be. Warning bells were clanging in her head. It was a situational rerun. Joe, Mirandi, bed.

Fantasy may be one thing, reality was definitely another.

‘Anyway,’ she said, marshalling some faux briskness, ‘I have to get back to work.’ She made a move to walk past him, nerve-rackingly conscious this was a sackable offence and she’d handed him a platinum-plated advantage in the male/female adversarial stakes.

At the last possible instant he stood aside to allow her through, to her intense relief, though at the moment of passing closest by him the intense masculinity radiating from him singed the skin cells on that side of her body to the third degree.

As she escaped into the hallway and made for the sitting room other phones started ringing, though the sound was cut off almost at once.

‘I can’t talk now, Kirsty,’ she heard him say, the merest hint of irritation in his voice. He raised it a little. ‘Hold it there, Mirandi. Just a minute.’

He caught up with her just as she was scurrying across an enormous Persian rug towards the front door, faster even than the mouse. If there had truly been a mouse, that was.

‘Don’t go. Stay a minute. I want to—talk to you.’

He didn’t touch her, but it was as if an invisible arm had reached out and grabbed her by the scruff. There was no resisting. She turned to face him, eye to eye, and since he was the one asking her embarrassment over being caught subsided a little. She gave a stiff nod.

‘Sit down.’ He indicated a handsome chesterfield with deep cushions. His black lashes flickered. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘No, thanks.’ She allowed herself the glimmer of a smile. ‘I’m working, aren’t I?’

He smiled, raising his eyebrows, and she had a sudden vivid flashback to her vodka afternoon. The first time she’d succumbed and broken her pledge. After that, her solemn childhood promises had fallen thick and fast. Enslaved by her sexual sorcerer, she’d have drunk hemlock if she’d thought it would make her his equal in sophistication.

To her relief he didn’t allude to her youthful indiscretions. He strolled over to his drinks sideboard. ‘Do you mind…?’

She shook her head, gestured for him to go right ahead. She was the last person to dictate to others after her spectacular fall from grace.

He poured himself a whisky. ’Sit, sit.’ He waved his hand in an autocratic gesture, directing her towards the sofa, and she made the wary concession of perching on the edge.

He dropped into a chair across from her, leaning forward a little, his long, lean fingers wrapped idly around his glass. Fingers that had once been familiar with every curve and hollow of her body.

She faced him, her old partner in crime. In passion.

‘So…do you feel—settled into the firm?’ His glance sank deep, and she could feel the old pull. That magnetic attraction that sparked up her blood and made her heart quicken with excitement. So dangerous, so addictive.

She felt his gaze drift over her, flick to her legs, and her sexual triggers responded with shameless willingness. Even after everything, something inside her switched on to preen and revel in his appreciation.

She shrugged. ‘I’m settling in. Everything seems to be going well enough, I suppose, though to be honest I wish I could spend more time on my own work.’ She glanced at him from under her lashes. ‘I’m really looking forward to my own office.’

‘Ah, yes.’ His eyes veiled. ‘How’s it going with Patterson? Helping you find your feet?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ She nodded, smiling to herself as she thought of Ryan’s wry words of advice on everything a girl needed to know on how to survive at Martin Place Investments. ‘Ryan’s been fantastic. Nothing’s too much trouble for him.’

Beneath his black lashes his eyes glinted. ‘Fantastic. Tell me about you. How’s life?’

Did he mean at work, or personally? She doubted he’d be interested in her father’s health situation. Her social life, perhaps? Ah, no. She got it now. None of the above. Long after their year of living dangerously, he wanted to know if she had a partner. A lover.

‘Things are fine with me,’ she said. ’Splendid.’

‘Splendid? ‘ He lifted his brows.

‘Absolutely.’ Well, she was hardly likely to tell him she hadn’t been very successful in that regard. That she’d noticed in herself a regrettable tendency not to be able to hold onto a boyfriend. Possibly because she found it quite hard to open up. Her legendary passion must have been letting her down. Curiously, for one of her renowned temperament, they found her too—self-contained. Inhibited, one had complained.

‘Anyway, I finished my degree and—’

His eyes glinted. ‘Yeah, I’m sure I read that. Well done.’

She flicked him a narrow glance. Was he mocking her? At the time she’d known him he was juggling several part time jobs so he could pursue his ambitions, while she deferred her own education, reluctant to tear herself away from him, greatly to her family’s concern.

How they’d stressed over it. The nagging she’d endured.

‘Where did you say you studied?’

‘Brisbane.’

He lifted his shoulders in sardonic amusement. ‘As far away as possible from Joe Sinclair.’

‘No, not at all,’ she said, flushing, though of course it was true. ‘That was the best course of its kind available at the time. Anyway, it was after the…after we—broke up.’ She mumbled the last few words.

‘Not long after, though,’ he dropped in, searching her face.

‘No.’ A nerve jumped deep in her visceral region. He was sailing close to home. Someone should warn him to take care. There were things he wouldn’t want to know.

There was a jagged pause, then she said, ‘Well, anyway, I decided science as a lead-in to medicine wasn’t for me after all and found the job in the bank. It was only ever meant to be temporary, but to my surprise I found I had quite an aptitude for it.’

His brows edged together. ‘For finance?’

She nodded, wishing he didn’t have to look so dubious.

‘What’s your plan?’ he said. ‘Your ultimate goal?’

‘Careerwise?’

‘Of course. What else?’

She gave him a wry look. What else indeed?

‘Oh, well,’ she said glibly, as if she weren’t a twenty-eight-year-old woman with twenty-eight-year-old eggs in her ovaries. ‘I’m aiming for the stars. Managing Director of a firm like this one would seem like a good jumping-off point.’

His sexy mouth twitched and she realised with some irritation he felt amused by her grand, audacious vision. Possibly his masculine ego felt challenged.

‘Anyway, as I said,’ she finished, ‘I’m doing fine, or I will be once I can flex my muscles. What about you, Joe? I can see you’ve arrived.’ She swept an admiring glance around her. ‘This is quite—breathtaking. Not bad for a boy who was expelled from two high schools.’

He sipped his Scotch. ‘Not quite what your family would have expected, I dare say.’

She put on her bland, non-committal face. Mim certainly hadn’t expected him to do well. A solid pillar of the church, she’d made her feelings crystal clear on the subject of that wild heathen Joe Sinclair at every opportunity. Her father hadn’t had so much to say, possibly because he was in the dark about her mad love affair, dreamily going about the business of caring for people, never knowing his beloved daughter had plunged in to navigate the treacherous reefs of passion without a compass.

Aware of having pushed her close to a raw edge, Joe lowered his lashes, careful not to glance too long at her breasts, though it was a wrench. His eyes drifted to her mouth. Was she wearing lipstick? Her lips had always been naturally rosy, plump and ripe as cherries, and sweet. Sweet and fresh, like none he’d tasted since.

His mouth watered with a sudden yearning and he realised he was being ridiculous. Of course she’d tasted sweet. She’d been young, as the captain was so quick to point out, as he, Joe, had been himself. It was highly unlikely she’d still have that effect on him. Though it would be interesting to find out.

‘You look very well,’ he said, smiling, his pulse quickening with the stir in his blood. ’Still live with your old man?’

Mirandi felt his glance sear her. ‘Not for a long time.’ Their eyes clashed, then disconnected as if some electrical collision had thrown out sparks.

‘Ah,’ he said. The chiselled lines of his mouth compressed. He gazed consideringly into his drink, his black lashes screening his eyes, then he said, ‘Was it hard to make that break?’

‘Everyone has to do it sooner or later. Grow up.’

A silence fell. The air in the room tautened while the wounds between them flared into life.

His eyes scanned her face. ‘And have you? Grown up?’

She shrugged. She’d learned enough about love and its consequences. ‘What’s there to say? I’m older now. I know better. How about you?’

‘Older.’

His mouth edged up at the corners in that sexy way he had and she felt herself slide further towards some cliff’s edge. How could someone so bad for her still be so appealing?

He pierced her with one of those glances. ‘Do you have someone in your life?’

His tone was casual, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. But there was a stillness in him, as if all at once the world turned on her reply.

She relaxed back in the sofa and crossed her legs. ‘Is this something bosses need to know about their employees, Joe?’

He smiled at the small challenge. ‘Bosses are only human. Isn’t it natural to be curious about old lovers?’

She felt an internal flinch at the word, but he’d used it deliberately. Lovers. Surely they were people who loved you and wanted to keep you? Especially when you were scared to death?

He continued to taunt her with silken ruthlessness. ‘I’d have thought you’d be married by now to some solid citizen in the suburbs. Some pious, clean-living guy who plays the church organ. Mows the grass on Sunday. Takes the kids to the park.’

She felt a sudden upsurge of anger, but controlled it. ‘Is that where you’re headed, Joe?’

‘Me? You’ve got to be kidding. You know me better than that.’

‘Yes,’ she said shortly. ‘I remember well.’ She conquered the emotions unfurling in her chest. After all, it had been ten years. ‘Anyway, would that life be so wrong?’

His eyes were mocking, sensual. ‘It might be. For you.’

‘Oh.’ She expelled an exasperated breath, but no doubt his assumption was her own fault. It had been her fatal mistake. She’d worked so hard to convince him she was super-cool and fearless and ready to fly, when all along she’d been this weak, clinging little girl who’d slipped on the most elementary of rules for conducting an affair with a bad boy. Not any more, though. ‘What makes you an authority on what’s right for me, Joe?’

He said, deliberately tweaking her tender spots, ‘Knowing you in your formative years. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your walk on the wild side.’

If only she could. A complex mixture of emotions rose in her, regret and anger uppermost, but she crushed them down and gave a careless shrug, though it pained her to dismiss the enchanted time and its bitter aftermath.

He smiled his devil’s smile. ‘Remember the time you borrowed your old man’s car? How many girls can claim they swam naked at Coogee at midnight, then drove home in their dad’s car?’ He added softly, ’Still naked?’ He broke into a laugh. ‘That was some ride. If Captain Summers could have seen his little girl that night.’ His voice softened. ‘You were—ablaze.’

Straight away her mind flew to the inevitable postscript to that wild, exhilarating ride. His flat. His hard, bronzed beauty in the flickering candlelight, in startling contrast to her own pale nudity. The excitement of being held in those muscled arms. Her passion for him, the intense heat of their coupling.

She met his eyes and knew he was remembering it too. Despite herself she felt the stirrings of desire, tightening the air between them, the sudden sweet possibility of sex. What could be more likely, with the two of them in this otherwise empty apartment? Her breasts swelled with heat and suddenly she was awash with the old bittersweet sensations. The yearning, the helplessness.

How easy it was for a man. No consequences, no griefs to bury.

But she’d already made those mistakes. She said steadily, ‘Look, much as I’d love to stay and reminisce, I have to go. I have a job, remember? ’ She made a move to get up but he put out one lean hand.

‘No, don’t go. Please. Patterson won’t be worried. You can tell him I waylaid you for my own wicked purposes.’ He smiled, a sexy smile that crept into her and coiled itself cosily around her insides, as if he shared some secret with her. Some private, intimate secret.

The trouble was, he did.

She examined her fingernails. Oh, heavens. Here she went, sliding down the serpent again in the old snake-and-ladders game of life. Was she imagining it, or was the mood seductive? Who else had ever been able to look at her with quite that degree of sexy assurance, as if they knew it was only a matter of time before she fell into his hands like a ripe plum?

She supposed her small test of his pillow had fuelled the flames. Why on earth had she succumbed to such an idiotic impulse? Whatever he was about to suggest, dinner and conversation or an afternoon of dalliance, a glimpse back at all the old pain and humiliation was enough to resolve her.

With a big firm no crystallising on her tongue, she looked up again and shouldn’t have. He was examining her, one corner of his mouth edged up in a half smile, his stunning eyes gleaming with an amused comprehension that rushed through her like a fizzy drink, stirring her to her entrails.

Was this the time to lose her nerve and turn respectable? No other man had ever been able to look at her like that, as if he knew all the secrets of her sinful heart. Heaven forgive her, but just this once, whatever decadent scenario he suggested, shouldn’t she at least listen?

But he surprised her. ‘To be honest, I’m glad we have this chance to talk. I guess there are things we both need to acknowledge before we can move on.’

She moistened her lips. Was this how he operated now? He bamboozled women into his bed? ‘Move on? Move on where? I’m not sure I follow…’

His brows edged together. ‘Well…’ He shook his head, then started again. ‘We’ve come up against each other again, and.’ He gestured with his hands. ‘It’s an opportunity to set the record straight. I know I for one can look back at that time on things I’m not comfortable with. Wouldn’t you prefer to operate from a basis of truth?’

If she hadn’t been seated she’d have been rocked off her stilettos. What was he doing? Inviting her to be honest? Demanding that all pretences be dropped?

What planet was he on?

The phone rang again. Joe made no move to answer it, instead continuing to search her face with his compelling gaze. He started to speak again, earnestly, sincerely. ‘Meeting you again has made me…reevaluate. Some of the things that were said back then… The way things happened, have had a—an afterlife.’

He met her eyes with such honesty she felt a deep surge of response. Her heart quickened, suddenly brimming with long-buried emotions. Hope, tenderness, the faint stirring of that all too weakening love. Despite all her protective barriers every cell of her being started urging her to listen to what he was saying.

Maybe there truly was a time when lovers could speak to each other without artifice. Open their hearts. Maybe she should have told him the simple truth that last time they met. Given him his chance to be a hero. Maybe if he understood what had driven her to lower her guard, humiliate herself like that, beg…

The phone clicked to answering machine and an urgent female voice flooded the room. ‘Joe, I know you’re there. Don’t hang up, please.’ Despite an attempt at lightness the voice croaked slightly on the don’t. ‘We really need to talk.’

He sprang up and grabbed the phone.

‘Sorry, Kirsty,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’m occupied right now. I’ll call you back.’ He was about to hang up but something his caller said arrested him and he listened. Even from where she was sitting, Mirandi could hear the agitated female voice, beseeching.

If only the woman had been able to see him she wouldn’t have persisted. He was frowning, shaking his head, every line of his body from his chiselled, sensuous mouth to his long, lean limbs set in a steely, definite no.

‘No. I didn’t promise that,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ve never said anything like that.’

Mirandi’s heart started to thump out an unpleasant drum roll. Wasn’t this the old familiar scene? How well she knew the female part, having played it herself. The more emotional and extravagant the distressed woman, the cooler, more controlled and inaccessible the man. All that female emotion. So inconvenient.

That impulsive moment when she’d actually flirted with the possibility of opening up her heart to Joe Sinclair died. Thank heavens she hadn’t. Embarrassed about intruding any further into his private life, she stood up and started to edge towards the door. But catching sight of her, he held up his hand.

‘No, stay there.’ His gaze locked with hers and he said quietly, ‘Please.’ Then he walked away into another room to deal with his call.

She stood there on tenterhooks. Should she stay, or should she go and end this intriguing and unlikely conversation, in which it sounded as if Joe was actually prepared to open up and give his take on their past relationship? Though she could see how risky it would be, with the potential emotional fallout. Still, the temptation to stay and hear what he had to say was tantalising, to say the least.

She truly wasn’t straining her ears, but every so often she couldn’t help overhearing snatches of his conversation from the study.

‘I’m not… why I have to explain…’ His voice had taken on an ominous crispness. ‘Business, pure and… As it happens my assistant isn’t—Oh? Why’s that?’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Certainly I do… Well, I wouldn’t expect her to sleep on the street.’ After an extended silence, she heard his voice again. ‘That’s not how I want to play it, Kirsty.’ Another silence, then, ‘Well, if that’s… I think you’re probably right. Yep. Yeah.for the best.’

There was something very final in those last few phrases. Mirandi might be an absolute fool at understanding men, but she could tell when one was cutting a woman loose. And she could remember how it felt.

Looked as if poor Kirsty had crossed the line, just as she had ten years ago. Was Kirsty in the same situation? Begging him to know how he felt. If he felt.

She felt a wave of disillusionment. For a minute there he’d almost had her convinced. The more things changed.

Inside his study Joe dropped the phone with an angry grimace. The sheer enormity of the woman, attempting to dictate terms to him now about the trip. He wondered, not for the first time, if her father had put her up to it. The fact that the old man had a seat on the MPI board… Could the old manipulator have enlisted his daughter as a means of keeping a check on Joe’s meetings in Monaco?

Fuming, he was about to call the devious old devil when the phone rang again. He snatched it up, ready to deliver a few sharp words, but this time it wasn’t Kirsty.

‘Oh, Joe.’ Tonia’s voice purred down the phone, and he relaxed and allowed the anger to drain out of him. ‘About Stella’s replacement—what about that new girl, Mirandi? Her office still hasn’t been decided and Ryan’s EA comes back next week, anyway.’

‘No, no, Tonia. Not possible.’ Hell, that would open a can of worms.

Although. Would it necessarily?

‘Ah-h-h… Leave it with me,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll think about it and get back to you.’

He replaced the phone very gently in its cradle. No, no, no. He couldn’t do it. Out of the question. Though…well, certainly it would provide a neat system solution. He could see the appeal from Tonia’s point of view. Business in the office would tick over as usual without anyone being disturbed.

But it was far too dangerous. Fraught with risk. Dynamite in what it could unleash. Possibilities flashed through his mind, some of them quite scintillating, but he thrust those away. No rational man would ever open that door again.

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