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‘Close to?’ He considered the words as he rose from his chair, his big masculine body moving with surprisingly lithe grace as he walked over to the window and stood with his back to her, staring out into the dark vista beyond the lighted room.
He said nothing for a moment or two, and then he turned, his eyes hooded and distant as he said, ‘I don’t think I’m capable of being close to anyone, Sephy. I simply don’t know how. The Jesuits used to say, “Give us a child until he is seven and we’ll have him for life”, and I can agree with the philosophy. I lived a solitary existence as a child before I was packed off to boarding school when I was seven years old, like my sister before me, and frankly I wouldn’t be where I am now if that had been different, so perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.’
‘No.’ The word left her lips without her volition, brought up from the very depths of her being. ‘You can’t really believe that,’ she protested painfully. ‘Not deep inside.’
‘Why?’ he asked coolly. ‘Why should that be so difficult to accept? Because it happens to be different to what you believe?’
‘No, no, it’s not that. It’s just…’ Her voice trailed away as she searched for words to make him see. ‘You’re missing out on so much if you don’t ever let yourself fall in love and be loved,’ she said earnestly. And then she stopped, shocked to the core at what she had said. Here she was preaching at Conrad and what had she been doing for the last eight years? she asked herself silently. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
‘Missing out?’ he echoed mockingly, a cutting edge to the sarcasm. ‘Missing out o
n betrayal, heartache, divorce, alimony payments? Because that’s what inevitably happens once this myth called love—which is nothing more than natural animal attraction, incidentally—fades and dies. Or perhaps I’m missing out on staying with someone who drives me mad, and who I, in turn, probably drive mad, for the sake of offspring who eventually will go off and live their own lives and not care a jot about me? Believe me, Sephy, if that’s what I’m missing out on it suits me just fine.’
Sephy did not know how to answer, but she was appalled at the cynicism he had revealed, and Conrad, perhaps sensing this, smiled indulgently as he walked over to her and lifted her shocked, tragic face up to meet his eyes. ‘Such a baby,’ he murmured very softly, and then, as he continued staring into the drowning, liquid gold of her thickly lashed eyes his expression changed.
His head lowered, his probing lips taking her tremulous, soft mouth in a kiss that was meant to be light and teasing but which swiftly turned into something fiery the second their mouths touched, something incredibly sweet and wild.
Dimly Sephy realised she was kissing him back, but, locked in his arms as she was, with the smell and feel of this big harsh magnetic man all about her, all coherent thought seemed to have fled. For another second the kiss deepened, and then Conrad made a low guttural sound of protest, lifting his head and letting go of her as he stepped back a pace.
It was him who had stopped. It was him. That was the one and only thought in her head initially as she faced him, her colour coming and going in a face that was chalk-white.
And then he sighed heavily, his eyes raking her face as he said softly, ‘Don’t look like that, Sephy. In spite of all the signs to the contrary I’m not about to leap on you and ravish you on the carpet, and please believe me when I say I have never taken advantage of my position to act in such a way before.’
He made a movement to put out his hand to her, but when she flinched he withdrew it immediately, his mouth tightening.
Why had he kissed her? She stared at him as she desperately tried to pull herself together. She believed him when he said he didn’t make a habit of seducing his employees. In fact it was a well-known fact that he had never so much as given any of the girls a Christmas kiss, in spite of the way some of the more confident of his female employees had thrown themselves at him.
And then he seemed to answer the question himself, making her even more ashamed and humiliated by her reaction to his lips when he said, ‘You just looked so…lost for a moment. Hell!’ He raked back a lock of black hair from his forehead with an impatient hand. ‘That’s no excuse; I know that.’
‘It…it’s all right.’ She had transferred her gaze to somewhere just over his left shoulder and it helped. He was too dark and dangerous, too attractive, with his shirt half undone and his hair ruffled, for her to be able to speak and look at him at the same time. Lost. He had thought she looked lost. It was the final blow to her fragile self-esteem. He hadn’t been prompted by desire or even the tiniest shot of lust—he had felt sorry for her. And what had she done? Practically eaten him! After all she’d said about rarely dating and so on, he’d think she was sex-starved.
The thought caused her face to become brilliant, but it put steel in her backbone and enabled her to draw herself up straight and say, with a composure that was born purely of fierce pride, ‘It really is all right. Let’s forget it, shall we? It’s late and it’s been an exhausting day. Please, you go and do whatever you need to do to get ready to leave for the airport. I’ll wait for Enrico here.’
As though on cue, Daniella tapped on the dining room door in the next instant, this time entering with a small, plump, slightly balding man who was the very antithesis of the stunningly beautiful Italian woman, but whose smile was sweet and manner gentle as he introduced himself.
Sephy was aware she was working on automatic as she smiled and conversed with Conrad and the others in the minute or so before she left the room, but then, thankfully, she was outside in the cool mellow air.
Once ensconced in the car, she raised a brief hand of farewell to Conrad and Daniella, who were standing in the lighted doorway, and then sank back limply against the seat once the powerful car had nosed its way out of the drive. She listened to Enrico enthusing about England, his work, and how grateful he and Daniella had been when Conrad had offered them a home once they had decided to come to England. By the time they reached Islington her nerves were stretched to breaking point.
The night was throbbing with the sounds of Maisie’s party, but she managed to reach the flat and fall into the hall without anyone seeing her. She leant against the front door for some long minutes, her eyes tightly shut and her face beginning to burn again as she let herself relive those few moments in Conrad’s arms, and then she walked through to the bathroom and ran herself a steaming hot bath.
She lay in the bubbly scented water until it was cool and she cried on and off the whole time, but when, eventually, she padded through to the bedroom to dry her hair she felt better for the release of emotion. It was a kiss, that was all it had been, and nothing to get upset about, she reassured herself for the umpteenth time. In this day and age a kiss meant absolutely nothing! He wasn’t remotely attracted to her and that was fine—a hundred per cent fine; she couldn’t have remained working for him if he was. Not someone like Conrad Quentin.
His image on the screen of her mind brought her heart thumping and her stomach churning again, and she shook herself irritably, angry at her reaction. Okay, so he was an attractive and charismatic kind of guy, with the added bonus of power and wealth and goodness knows what; it wasn’t at all surprising she’d been knocked off guard tonight, she concluded firmly. That was how she had to look at this.
She reiterated the thought over and over again, and then walked through to the small fitted kitchen where she made herself a strong cup of black coffee.
Conrad Quentin had every aphrodisiac in the book going for him, and she was only human; in fact she should perhaps consider it a blessing that she could feel the way she had when he kissed her after all the years of fancying no one. She’d thought more than once that David had made her frigid, and if nothing else that theory had been well and truly smashed!
He had made it abundantly plain he had no intention of repeating the exercise—she didn’t like the little twinge her heart gave at this point and hastily went on—and so she could work the few weeks before Madge returned secure in the knowledge that it couldn’t do her career any harm at all. There was no problem, there really wasn’t, and she mustn’t create one.
And the way he had been before dinner? a little voice in her head questioned. He had held her then, and said her hair was like spun silk and her eyes liquid gold…
Enough. It was harsh and final. He hadn’t meant anything by it—his reaction to her when she had kissed him back had proved that—and she had been gauche and naive to panic and want to scuttle back to the safety of Mr Harper and Customer Services like a frightened rabbit.
Thank goodness she hadn’t said anything during the meal about returning to her old job. She breathed in the rich fragrance of coffee beans as her eyes narrowed. He would have thought she was mad! She couldn’t have given any logical reason for such a decision. No, she could do this. She could work for Conrad Quentin until Madge was better; she owed herself this chance to prove she was up there with the best of them.
She nodded at the thought, picked up the coffee mug and went to bed.
