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His long, dark lashes continued to screen his gaze. ‘Not necessarily.’
The casual, dismissive tone grated.
‘Is that the equivalent of telling me not to worry my pretty little head about it?’ Kalera said tartly.
His head tilted and he finally looked directly at her again, his eyebrows rising mockingly.
‘Since you’re not planning to be around for the project’s completion there doesn’t seem much point in involving you, does there?’ he murmured. His smile smouldered provocatively around the edges as he watched her grey eyes grow sullen with chagrin at the undeniable truth of his statement. He thrust the reports at her. ‘Here. File these, will you?’
Her chagrin turned to puzzlement. ‘But you asked me to make you extra hard copies.’
‘So?’ he responded imperiously. ‘Now I want the copies filed.’
Muttering under her breath, she complied, but as she tackled the redundant chore it occurred to her that Duncan had asked for the photocopying to be done just after he had received a brief phone call on his direct internal line, to which he had replied in unrevealing monosyllables.
Had Bryan been the caller? Had Kalera been discreetly got out of the way in anticipation of his visit?
She slammed the filing cabinet shut and leant against it, her throat suddenly tight as she unconsciously twisted the elaborate engagement ring on her finger. She shouldn’t really be surprised if she was being cut out of the information loop, but it was disturbing to realise how much it hurt to be excluded from Duncan’s magic inner circle. Maybe she wasn’t quite as ready for major changes in her life as she had thought?
A hollow opened up in her stomach as the reality of what she was doing fully crashed in on her. She wasn’t simply grafting a new life onto the old one, as most people did when they moved on to a new relationship. With her marriage to Stephen she was completely severing
the links that bound her to the world which she and Harry had inhabited. When she sold the house and moved into Stephen’s home as his wife there would be no going back, no casual friendly contact with her former colleagues and friends; and especially not with Duncan…
A faint flutter of panic beat in her chest and she fought it down. For her own peace of mind she must keep herself firmly focussed on the future. Soon she and Stephen would be building new memories together that would overlie the potent images of the past, muting their power to disturb.
Unfortunately that serene future was still frustratingly far away. As yet she was still stuck in the present, prey to a barrage of conflicting feelings, some of which had no place in the mind of a newly engaged woman.
With relief Kalera found that the last two interviewees of the day were reassuringly competent secretaries who were more interested in working conditions and rates of pay than the masculine charms of their prospective employer. To her annoyance she couldn’t quite banish the echo of Stephen’s silly joke about a mole and was disgusted to find herself thinking that maybe their qualifications were too good. One was a grandmother and the other a soignée woman in her thirties who rather startlingly announced just before the termination of her interview that she was gay—‘because I don’t want it to become an issue later’.
‘I don’t see why it should,’ said Duncan equably. ‘I don’t usually query my employees’ sexual orientation. My only concern would be if it rendered them vulnerable to blackmail but your frankness obviously negates any security risk on that score.’
‘She’s the best so far,’ commented Kalera as the woman left.
‘Why do you say that? Because she’s gay?’
Kalera recoiled under Duncan’s challenging stare. ‘No, of course not! Because of her qualifications—’
‘Which are no better than some of the ones you’ve given a swift thumbs-down to. It seems to me that you’ve suddenly developed an intriguing prejudice against your own sex. Have you noticed that the only candidates you’ve wholeheartedly approved of so far are either male, over fifty, married with children or lesbian?’
‘I—you—’ Kalera floundered for a moment before she rallied. ‘What about the Gatherfield woman?’
‘Ugly as sin and sour as unripe lemons.’ He propped his elbow on the desk and plopped his chin into his hand, a picture of smugness. ‘Face it, Kalera, you don’t want me to have a young and attractive and emotionally unattached woman flitting around as my secretary. And since I have an unblemished record as an employer it can’t be the unsuspecting females you’re protecting…so I guess it must be me…’
‘Nonsense!’ she sputtered, gathering up the interview notes with fumbling fingers, mangling the paper clip as she tried to jam too many sheets into its grip.
‘Is it? You’re sure you’re not letting jealousy get in the way of your professional judgment?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she choked, her outrage undermined by the sneaking fear that there might be some substance in his allegation. She jumped to her feet, anxious to halt the dangerous drift of the conversation. ‘I have no reason to be jealous—’
‘No, you don’t.’ Duncan rose and shadowed her nervous movements on the other side of the desk. ‘No matter how attractive or alluring she is, I’ll never feel about another secretary the way I feel about you…thank God!’
The heartfelt addition made her hand clench involuntarily on the papers in her grasp and the end of the distorted paper clip speared sharply into her thumb, providing a welcome distraction from the threat of his words. ‘Ouch!’
‘What have you done? Let me see.’ Duncan wove himself sinuously around the end of his desk and divested her of the weapon. He tossed the papers back down on his desk and turned her hand over and they both looked down at the bead of blood rapidly forming on the pad of her thumb.
‘Here. Let me.’ Expecting him to offer up his handkerchief to dab at the tiny wound, Kalera was stunned speechless when he lifted her hand and put her entire thumb in his mouth, his tongue swirling over the tip as he suckled strongly. She froze, her thoughts turning to chaos. His cheeks hollowed and as she stared into his deep, dark gaze the hot, wet, rhythmic contractions suddenly became shockingly erotic.
She tugged at her hand and felt his teeth clamp lightly around the base of her thumb, anchoring it in place. His fingers slid to her wrist, picking up her wildly fluctuating pulse as his rasping tongue shafted down the plump column of flesh in his mouth, sucking harder, drawing her more deeply into the sensual intimacy of the moment.
