Avril Tremayne – Turning the Good Girl Bad (страница 6)

But it had moved past that, to another novelty: being seriously attracted to someone who looked as if she’d faint if she heard the word ‘sex’.

Even without today’s hair and top and toenails—even when she was buttoned to the hilt in ill-fitting shirts covered with drab cardigans in shades of porridge and grey and dinge-green—he’d started feeling a little tortured—but in a weirdly good way—being near her.

That lemony fresh perfume she wore combined with her natural scent beneath it—lovely. The way her luminous hazel eyes shone behind her lenses when she was arguing her case—adorable. The habit she had of touching the button at her collar as though reassuring herself it was done up—intriguing. And when her fingers sneaked up to her perfectly shaped ear to touch the discreet gold hoop—demure...and yet somehow not demure.

He cursed under his breath, reached for the report again and saw another tiny bead of blood from the paper cut. He grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and blotted it. Frowned at his hand as he remembered the look on Catherine’s face. There had been something at the bottom of the report Catherine hadn’t wanted him to see.

Max thought back again to his arrival that morning. He’d been so shocked at how she looked he’d been blinded to anything else at first. But if he dug past that there had been...dismay. No, more than dismay. She hadn’t wanted him anywhere near her. Because of...

The printing!

She’d been on edge because—and the truth was slapping him in the face now—he’d disturbed her printing something she shouldn’t have been printing. She hadn’t wanted to tell him what the document was—not that he’d really cared; he’d only asked because she’d looked so guilty. He’d wanted to goad her a little, get one of those mind-your-own-business glares out of her that just cracked him up. But now...?

What would a personal assistant be printing that her boss shouldn’t see? What would have her running in and snatching it out of his hands? Hmm...

Oh. Oh! Well, of course. A job application!

But she’d been printing reams. Too long for a letter and CV.

So not just one job. More than one. Which meant she wasn’t attracted to a special job she’d just happened upon but wanting to leave this job and going all-out scattergun to do it. God knew how many emails she’d sent to complement so many snail-mail CVs.

It was like an arrow between the eyes, and for a full minute he couldn’t think straight.

And then he could think. But his poor benumbed brain seemed willing to accommodate only one thought: Catherine wasn’t allowed to leave.

He forced himself to put that ironclad fact to one side. Because if his bogged brain didn’t start working how was he going to figure out a way to make her stay?

Just ask her to!

Okay, that seemed logical—although how he could do it out of the blue, when she hadn’t actually indicated she was unhappy with her job, was not immediately obvious.

Except... Damn. She’d said today she couldn’t afford to go to Kurrangii. Had to be a message in that. He wasn’t paying her enough.

Well, he could give her a pay rise. It was his company—he could pay her whatever he wanted. Whatever she wanted!

Good. Perfect solution.

Without further ado he was out of his chair and heading for the door. ‘Catherine!’ he bellowed, before he reached it.

Silence.

He bolted through the doorway, searching.

Empty.

Max leaned against the doorjamb, running both hands into his hair. Why hadn’t he asked her where she was going for lunch? Hello? Earth to Max? Irrelevant! As if he could invade her date to offer her a pay rise! He’d look completely deranged.

Dammit. He was going to have to wait until she got back. He hated waiting.

He checked his watch. Forty minutes.

Feeling he should be doing something, he circled her desk. Looking at its almost stately tidiness made him smile. It was strangely comforting to see the evidence of her fastidious little habits.

His brain went stubborn on him for the second time: Catherine wasn’t allowed to leave.

Of course if he had a copy of what she’d been printing he’d be in a better position to know what he was up against. What counter-offer would work.

But there was no paper on the desk. No paper anywhere. Reflexively, his gaze moved to the printer. Clean. Silent. Turned off. The computer, too. Strange.

He sat in her chair. Looked at the computer screen. Turned on the computer and signed in to the system.

A sudden mental picture of how he looked—at Catherine’s desk, in her chair, hunched in front of her computer—made him roll his eyes. Thank God their suite of offices was completely private, so nobody would wander past and see him in this shameful Machiavellian guise. But, even so, this was crazy! What had he come to? He should just wait for her to come back and ask her what was going on! The way a sane person would.

He reached to flick the computer off.

And saw it.

A document. Recovered—the way it happened when you turned off the computer suddenly. Just there on the screen, without him searching or opening anything. A document called... What the hell...?

‘Passion Flower’.

Passion Flower?

Max looked around, feeling a tad uncomfortable now the moment of truth had arrived and it turned out not to be a job application—because nobody called a job application Passion Flower.

Could he really do this?

It took him perhaps two seconds to decide that, yes, he could. He had a right to read any document he wanted—this was his business, these were his premises, it was his equipment. Really, he was honour-bound to look.

Three seconds after that he started reading. But he wasn’t prepared for the reality.

Underneath the title Passion Flower was a line in smaller type. It read: A novel of love, lust and loneliness.

And Max’s jaw dropped.

Jennifer Andrews had been dreaming of her boss for months. Wild, erotic dreams.

Definitely not a job application, Max thought, shell-shocked. No way was he going to stop, though.

He read, scrolled, read, scrolled.

He’d figured out the truth as soon as he’d clapped eyes on that strapline, but somehow it wasn’t until he arrived at page three that the knowledge crystallised into recognisable syllables.

Cathy was writing a novel.

A romance novel.

A sexy romance novel.

He scrolled again, avidly searching, the sentences and phrases beckoning to him like a siren’s call, wrapping around his senses.

She knew Alex would be back soon, but Jennifer was too impatient to sit calmly in the navy leather chair she always occupied.

Navy leather chair! Like the chairs in his office, where Cathy sat.

She was drawn to Alex’s office window. Ten floors down, Jennifer could see the Botanic Gardens. It felt like a scene trapped in time...the immaculate green of the trees...Sydney Harbour shining in the distance, a diamond-sprinkled sheet of blue silk...the sun radiating a heady, hazy aphrodisiac...

Tenth floor. Office window overlooking the Botanic Gardens. Sydney Harbour. Check, check, check.

Alex walked into the office, brown briefcase in hand, and fixed her with his blue-eyed stare.

‘Notepad, Jenny,’ he barked at her.

Max was incapable of stopping his fingers from hitting the down arrow as his eyes stayed glued to the monitor to see what would happen next.

Alex towered over her, six feet two inches from the top of his tousled black hair to his Italian leather shoes. She clutched the red silk of her peignoir against her chest...

Max’s finger kept punching the down arrow, almost obsessively.

A red silk peignoir...

What would Cathy look like in that?

Max breathed out and sat back in Catherine’s chair to recover the breath that had somehow become linked to an almost savage tightening in his groin.

He checked his watch, assessing how much time he had. A twinge of conscience hit him. He should not be reading this. He should stop. This was bad.

But he returned his finger, now a little shaky, to the keyboard.