Робин Грейди – Unfinished Business: Bought: One Night, One Marriage / Always the Bridesmaid / Confessions of a Millionaire's Mistress (страница 16)
She turned quickly and headed to the door.
He hastened after her. ‘I’ll walk you to your car.’
‘That’s not nec—’
‘Cally.’
She stopped her verbal protest but her body still oozed battle.
With every step towards her car he felt the energy in his body return. Tension rising until he was as pent up as he’d been all week. So much for one night being enough to get rid of it. She pressed the button on her keyring so the car beeped and its lights flashed. It was unlocked, but she’d gone as impenetrable as the Rock of Gibraltar. The need to conquer flared through him.
She reached for the handle, but he reached for her first. His eyes narrowed as he took in her frozen expression. He liked his chocolate warm and melting, not cold and hard.
He sandwiched her between the car and his body. He slid his hand around her neck and worked his fingers into the silky mass that was her hair. It looked so perfect yet felt so soft. He curled strands round his fingers and tugged, so she tilted her head up to his. Then he kissed her.
He kissed her and kissed her. Long and deep, until he felt her arms around him, felt her holding on tight and stroking him, pulling him closer. A final dig of his hips into hers gave him the moan from her that he’d been seeking—total surrender.
With strength he’d never known he had he lifted his hands from her, pressed them onto the car and levered his body off hers. Every cell in his body protested and he clamped down on all his muscles, stopping them from moving the way they so desperately wanted to—back into her. Leaning a millimetre away, he stared moodily into her face. Her lips were red and plump, the shadows under her eyes were pronounced and she wouldn’t look back at him. Hiding away.
OK, so they both needed some time and distance. But this wasn’t over. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t over.
‘See you ‘round.’
As a parting shot it was weak but it was the best he could come up with given his conflicting feelings—let alone those so obviously fighting within her. They’d take a day or so to regroup, reassess and then return to the table. Because this deal most definitely wasn’t done.
Cally drove the long way home. She should probably hate herself. Hadn’t she just done what she’d always vowed she’d never do?
It had been heaven. Pure heaven.
Only now she felt lonelier than ever.
If she closed her eyes she could still feel him—feel the way he liked to twist and tangle his fingers in her hair. She could still taste him. Most definitely still smell him. She couldn’t shake him from her head at all. And she couldn’t help but want more. Lots more.
Cally had a soft heart. She worked hard to keep it protected because soft hearts bruised really easily and she didn’t like how much that could hurt. Her heart was already half in his hands and she knew how strong his hands were. He wouldn’t just bruise her heart, he’d crush it completely. So she had to claim it back and the only way she could do that was to remove herself from temptation.
One of the good things about being wealthy was the fact she had more than one residence. She had the apartment she used mostly when in town and she had the big sprawling manor with too many childhood memories for her to be able to use and which she rented out as much as she could. And she had the bolt-hole on the vineyard deep in the New South Wales wine country from where she could manage her business remotely when she needed country air and escape. Definitely time to take a trip—because when she went back to Sydney she wanted to have forgotten.
She spent a couple of weeks reacquainting herself with the local town and the surrounding countryside. It should have worked a treat in terms of distraction—except that every time she so much as looked at her car, let alone drove in it, she was reminded of him. She’d sell it as soon as she got back to the city.
She attributed the tiredness to lack of sleep. She worked later and later, hoping to exhaust herself to the point where she’d just collapse in bed and sleep dreamlessly. But as soon as her body hit the sheets she was wide awake and wanting to be back in his bed, not her cold, lonely one. When she finally did sleep it was only to dream—fiery dreams starring Blake and nothing but Blake, buck naked.
Memories tormented her day and night. She could still feel his body covering hers, the brush of hair on his thigh against hers, his arms tight around her waist, the fit of their bodies as they snuggled close to sleep after. All she wanted was him inside her, filling her, giving her that release. My God, she’d never realised that sex could be so addictive, so all-consuming.
Days passed and sleepless nights dragged and she started to feel like a walking wreck. The country escape had failed for the first time and she headed back to town and to work. Only once there the tiredness left her prone to illness.
‘Cally, are you OK?’ Mel called through the bathroom door.
‘Tummy bug.’
‘You shouldn’t be here. You can’t go poisoning all the customers—Health and Safety will shut us down and I’ll lose my job.’
‘What would it matter?’ Right now Cally felt so dreadful she couldn’t care less. ‘Your fiancé is loaded.’
‘It’s important to my sense of security to be financially independent. As your employee I’m ordering you to go home.’
Cally half staggered out the bathroom door and leaned on her table.
Mel looked cheeky and concerned at the same time. ‘See you.’
‘Tomorrow.’
For over a fortnight Blake tried to forget her. And failed. Finally, halfway into the third week, with his body screaming its tension to him, he accepted the fact that he was going to chase and chase hard. There’d been no contact between them since she’d left in such a hurry that Sunday morning. Regrets perhaps? He couldn’t see how anyone could regret sex that good. The only thing to regret was that they hadn’t had more.
She intrigued him—hadn’t been anything like he’d imagined she would. After the auction he’d anticipated some hardened, spoilt society heiress who’d never done a day’s real work in her life, a brat playing at being a businesswoman. But, boy, he’d been wrong. She had a brain, talent, ambition. She was able to admit to her weaknesses, able to laugh. Easy to talk to. Easy to tease.
And when he’d touched her? When she’d touched him?
Her generosity, her genuine response had floored him, fired him—no way was he not having that again.
Only this time he wanted to be better prepared and to have a plan for the future. When considering any kind of business transaction Blake was meticulous about due diligence—he’d get his info together beforehand and work out his acquisition or merger strategy from there. Cally Sinclair was no different from any other company target, she was just a personal target; that was all.
She’d declared her intention not to have a family, a fact which still, irrationally, angered him. This anger was especially stupid considering he had no intention of having a family himself. But anger aside it meant, on the face of it, they’d be a good match for a very adult arrangement—one of mutual pleasure and minimal risk. Now he just had to put the package together in such a way that she’d be unable to resist buying in. And to do that, he needed more knowledge.
He buzzed Judith into his office. She ambled in. Hell, could her belly get any bigger?
‘Sit.’ He pointed to the chair irritably. ‘How much longer are you here?’
‘Just over a month.’
He frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you be decorating the nursery or something?’
‘Or something,’ she agreed affably. ‘What can I do for you?’
Blake gave up. ‘I want to know everything about Cally’s Cuisine.’
‘The soup company?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Cally Sinclair runs it, doesn’t she?’ Her brain was quick as lightning. ‘Didn’t she buy you at the auction?’ She didn’t even try to hide her obscene level of interest.
‘Yeah.’ He watched Judith’s cunning look grow. He sighed. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking. But he needed to know more about Cally. And if anyone could find out the gossip about someone, Judith could.
‘When you say you want to know everything …?’
‘I mean,
Judith’s smile was wicked now. She rose. ‘Your wish …’
He grunted and told her to shut the door behind her. Then called through the wood. ‘As fast as possible.’
Cally leaned against the refrigerator and sighed. This tiredness was not going away, nor was the sickness. The vomiting had ceased but she still felt queasy. Mel looked at her again and Cally tried to mask the feeling she knew was all over her face.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough to be in here?’
‘I’m sure. You go get your things. I’ll be fine.’
The lunch rush was over—that time from eleven to two when Mel was run off her feet serving customers fresh, hot soup. The quiet spell came between two and three—and then picked up again as people slipped in to get a container to take home for dinner. So this was when Mel took her break and Cally took to the shop floor—if she hadn’t already. She could have one of the kitchen staff do it, but she liked keeping an eye on the customers. Seeing firsthand which soups were most popular. Talking to the customers about what they liked, what they didn’t.