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‘And I’ve been patient,’ he continued with silky quietness. More patient than she’d ever know.
‘But…’
“Yes?’
‘I work for you.’
Lucas ignored every principle he’d ever worked by and said calmly, ‘So? You’re unattached and so am I. That’s the only important thing, surely?’
Was he stark staring mad? Kim had spent five months fighting off the most devastating feeling of sexual attraction, which had frightened her far more than it thrilled her—at least, the potential power it gave to Lucas frightened her—and the only reason she was still working for Lucas Kane was because she had convinced herself the attraction was all on her side. To get involved, to have a relationship with a man like him, was too alarming, too utterly insane and impossible even to consider.
She stared at him, the breadth of his shoulders under the white silk shirt he was wearing suddenly oppressive, and wetted her dry lips. His eyes followed her tongue unblinkingly, his firm, cynical mouth slightly pursed, and her traitorous libido wanted to explode. It was further confirmation that an affair with Lucas was unthinkable. If he would affect her so badly without even touching her…
‘It’s out of the question, Lucas.’
‘I don’t accept that,’ he said immediately in answer to her trembling voice. ‘I’m not asking you to leap into bed with me—’ Liar! his conscience screamed silently ‘—just for us to get to know each other without the pressure of a work environment.’
‘I…I can’t do that. There’s Melody—’
‘Melody isn’t a problem.’
‘It isn’t just that.’ She took a deep breath, her mind suddenly clear. ‘I don’t want to get involved with anyone, a man, ever again,’ she stated firmly. ‘I’ve been through all that and it didn’t work.’
‘With your husband, you mean?’ he asked softly. And at her nod he shook his own head, his voice low and husky as he said, ‘Don’t let him spoil the rest of your life, Kim.’
‘I’m not, but it is my life now and that’s what I like.’ Her dark-brown eyes held Lucas’s gaze with an earnestness that was almost childlike. ‘I…I don’t think I’m the sort of person who should ever be with someone else, not really.’ Graham had flung that at her once in a drunken rage but the barb had held and dug itself deep into her mind.
‘What rubbish.’ Kim lifted her chin in unconscious defiance and he added, ‘Who told you that? Slimeball?’
‘Slime… Oh, Graham?’
He could tell by the flush that rose in her cheeks he was on the right tack and anger thickened his voice as he said, ‘Don’t judge the whole male race by the lowest specimen, Kim, and sure as hell don’t take on board anything he said. The guy was crazy not to appreciate what he had.’
‘You don’t know how it was,’ she said defensively. ‘It wasn’t just Graham, it was… Oh, you don’t know.’
Lucas expelled a silent breath. This was the first time she had talked to him, really talked to him, and he didn’t want her to close up again. ‘No, I don’t know how it was,’ he agreed quietly, ‘so why don’t you tell me?’
‘I can’t.’ The colour had drained from her face, leaving it chalk-white. How could she make someone like Lucas understand what it had been like all those years in the children’s home? Wanting, aching to belong to a family, to have people she could call her own? And then, as she had gone into her teens and realised it wasn’t going to happen, she had purposely grown a protective shell, telling herself she didn’t care, that she would make it on her own and blow the rest of the world.
And then Graham had happened in her first year at university. Handsome, charming Graham, sweeping her off her feet with all his attention. She had thought he loved her, believed everything he’d said, and it hadn’t been until after they had been married that she had come to realise—through something he had yelled at her in one of their rows—that the main reason he had been interested in her was because several of his friends had wanted her. Graham always had to be the one who was admired and envied.
But Graham had given her Melody. By accident, admittedly, but Melody was worth a hundred times the heartache Graham had put her through. And now she had her family and she didn’t need anyone else. She wouldn’t let herself need anyone else. Needing Graham had made her vulnerable and exposed and
weak and she would never give that power to a man again.
Lucas had watched the changing emotions wash over her white, fragile face and he knew she wasn’t about to say any more—not here and now, anyway. She didn’t trust him, he wasn’t even sure if she liked him very much, but she couldn’t deny the physical attraction between them. His bruised ego seized on the thought but it was scant comfort.
No woman had ever treated him as Kim had done. He had thought, at first, that the air of cool restraint would mellow as she settled into the job, but it had got stronger, if anything. That night at her home he had felt as though he was treading on eggshells, damn it, and all the ground he thought he’d gained over the last weeks now seemed to exist only in his imagination. She might look fragile and breakable but she was as hard as iron underneath.
So why didn’t he cut his losses and congratulate himself on having an efficient and beautiful secretary who was clearly interested in her career and nothing else, and leave it at that? He had any number of women he could call who had made it clear in the past that they were available. Successful, confident, attractive career women. Women with no hang-ups, no inhibitions.
A loud knock at Kim’s outer door, followed by the big, rotund figure of John Powell, Lucas’s general manager, effectively finished the conversation. It brought Lucas to his feet; the other man was waving a file at his managing director as he said, ‘Those subcontractors you wanted the low-down on? You were right, Lucas. We shouldn’t touch them with a barge-pole.’
Perfect timing as always, John. Lucas kept his thoughts to himself, but his voice was curt when he said, ‘Come into my office, John, and tell me what you’ve got.’ He didn’t alter the tone as he added, ‘Coffee when you’re ready, Mrs Allen.’
Coffee when you’re ready, Mrs Allen.
Kim sat for some moments without moving after the door to Lucas’s office had closed and she was alone.
