Far From Perfect (9 page)

She felt a disorientating flush of heat. But not from the lie. Every part of her felt as if it was effervescing—especially those areas that still bore the echo of Nick’s touch like a living brand. Even her earlobes were hot. She didn’t dare look in the mirror for fear of seeing them actually pulsating.

Her aunt cocked her head on one side, then said, with the delicate sense of tact, “Okay, I can see that whatever it is, you don’t want to talk about it just yet.”

Anna sighed inwardly, knowing it was only a temporary reprieve.

“But you look exhausted, love,” Lydia continued, “Why don’t you take a break for a while and I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee?”

Oh, bliss. A renewed caffeine hit. Anna smiled gratefully. Lydia was an inveterate gossip and prone to fabricating two and two into seventeen—but she had the most kind and caring heart when it counted.

“That would be divine.” Anna slipped into her office chair. “But I’d better crack on with these—” she indicated the CVs, “—so we’re ready for the interviews later.”

Lydia shrugged and smiled, but left the room, heading for the kitchen. They had an office assistant and a typist who would have gladly made coffee, but Lydia was almost as particular as Nick when it came to its preparation and always insisted on making it herself.

With her aunt busy, Anna sneaked her powder compact out of her bag, and took a peek at the disaster area otherwise known as her face. Even whilst showering, dressing and throwing on a scrap of makeup this morning, she hadn’t really been able to look at herself in the eye.

What a monster. She looked ill. Not even a day of facials could have improved matters, so she might as well stick with the light slick of lip-gloss, one coat of mascara, and a little mushroom-colored eye crayon. Her skin was so pallid and washed out that blusher would have made her look like a clown. Beneath her haunted eyes there were delicate lavender shadows.

This is what you do to me.

Accusing the absent Nick, she snapped shut her compact and sighed. Scarcely twelve hours had passed since Nick had stepped over the threshold at Deverill Square, and she was already a physical and emotional wreck. How on earth was she going to manage when the real game began?

Mercifully, the morning was busy. Anna interviewed several new prospective temps and was able to sign up two women who fitted the TT profile exactly. The others obviously hadn’t read the promotional material at all. Bottom skimming skirts, flimsy tops and heaven forbid, chewing gum, were just not what the agency was looking for.

Lunchtime loomed as Anna exited the small office they used for interviews and found Lydia embroiled in an intense-sounding telephone conversation. One that she terminated abruptly, with the words, “Right, I’ll make the arrangements,” on catching sight of Anna.

“What’s all that about?”

The hairs on the back of Anna’s neck popped to attention. There was a shifty look on Lydia’s face, and she was fidgeting with her Mont Blanc.

“Good news.” The answer was too speedy, and the older woman prodded compulsively at her collapsing chignon. “A mid-sized manufacturing company called Deighton Industries has just been taken over, and their London operation is undergoing a shake-up. They’re looking for lots of clerical staff on short-term contracts, especially PAs for some of their execs. That was their new…um…Human Resources guy on the phone. He’d like to meet one of us straight away to set something up.”

“Right now?” Anna was used to high-powered business executives wanting premium staff at a click of their well-manicured fingers, but straight away was shorter notice than was usual.

“Yes. Over a working lunch, at their offices in Maybury Street. It’s not far away. If you get a taxi you can be there in a few minutes.”

“Me? But you’re the one he’s spoken to. Won’t he be expecting you?” Anna narrowed her eyes. Lydia was looking more and more uneasy by the minute.

“I said it would be you. I…I’m not feeling too hot, Anna. Last night’s champagne, you know.” Lydia gave her an almost pleading look, rubbing her ample middle for effect.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

Anna felt a strange fluttering sensation in her own stomach all of a sudden. Not from champagne—she’d barely drunk any—but from lack of sleep, appalling emotional tension and an uneasy gut feeling of disquiet.

“Attagirl, Anna. It’s a huge opportunity for us. It could lead to long-term contracts too. Really set us up.”

Yes, we do need this
, thought Anna,
and as many other deals like it as we can get. If we’re to justify me refusing a funding offer from Nick we’ve got to snatch every opportunity that comes our way.

Around twenty minutes later, Anna was staring at a depressingly bland print hanging in the foyer at Deighton Industries. The overly made-up receptionist had gestured to a long sofa against the wall, explaining that someone would be down to meet her in a moment, but Anna felt too edgy to relax. This was an important meeting, but it was more than that. Her over-taxed ESP was pinging with warning messages.

At the sound of lift doors opening, it was an effort to turn around. And when she did, why was it not the slightest surprise to see who was walking towards her?

“Welcome to Deighton Industries, Miss Felgate,” said Nick, an impossibly smug expression on his golden face as he extended his hand for an innocuous businessman’s greeting. “I’m so glad you could spare me some time. Won’t you come this way?” A heartbeat later he was beside her, long, determined fingers planted squarely in the small of her back to guide her towards the claustrophobic cage of the lift compartment.

“Thank you,
Signor
Lisitano, I can manage,” she shot back, darting ahead to escape the incendiary pressure of his fingertips. Clean through her clothes, they felt like firecrackers against her skin. Heat migrated through her body with a terrifying speed and settled in all the zones that were still reacting to the night before.

As the lift doors enclosed them, she turned on him.

“If you’d wanted to speak to me, Nick, you could just have called. I’m sure Lydia’s given you my number.” She faced him boldly, because it was no good cowering and hiding. She couldn’t undo what was done—she just had to live with it.

“And would you have answered?”

His illuminated sapphire eyes steady and challenging, Nick leant back against the lift compartment’s wall and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. He was wearing another superb suit today, a dark business three piece with a dazzling white shirt that turned his Mediterranean tan molten. In contrast to the tousled curliness of last night, his amazing hair was faultlessly groomed, every gleaming strand combed back neatly from his smooth, broad brow line.

He was a corporate god, charming, urbane, immaculate—and totally unstoppable.

“Anna?” he prompted, and to her horror, Anna realized she’d just been standing there ogling him. Drinking him in like a draught of crystal water in a desert.

“No…probably not. I…I needed a bit of breathing space from you.”

And she needed it now. More than ever. The lift compartment was minute and the scent of Nick’s cologne and the lingering imprint of his fingertips on her back were doing abominable things to her composure.

“Just as I thought,” he remarked as the lift shuddered to halt and mercifully the doors slid open, “So I was obliged to take measures.” He made a swift gesture, clearly with the intention of settling his guiding hand on her back once more, but Anna shot ahead like a rabbit from a trap, cursing at herself.

When would she ever learn it was fatal to let Nick know he was getting to her?

“So as usual you use sneaky tricks to get what you want,” she snipped back, stomping into the middle of the office he’d directed her towards. It was a pleasant enough room, but as characterless as the foyer. Nothing like the standard of luxury Nick was accustomed to.

“Because you drive me to them.”

His voice pointed, Nick came around to face her and they stood like a pair of pugilists about to knock seven bells out of each other.

Suppressing all reaction, Anna opened her mouth, but he forestalled her, a smile of total, glorious confidence on his face. Oh, why oh why was he so unfeasibly good looking?

“But your presence here is legitimate,
cara mia
.” Cocking his shining head on one side, he looked her up and down with the unique combination of insolence and raw sexual admiration of which only a testosterone-drenched Italian male was capable. “The takeover here has created an increased workload. More bodies are needed and Traditional Temps is the ideal choice to supply some of the key personnel.”

Anna pursed her lips. He was one of the world’s most consummate dissemblers, yet he could be telling the truth, at least partially. “Well, I’m delighted you’re considering us, but don’t you have people of your own to do your hiring? I mean, it isn’t usually the CEO of a company who sees to the setting on of a few extra secretaries, is it?”

The slow, assessing smile widened. “Well, you know me, Anna. I’ve always been a hands-on kind of guy.” Impossibly thick lashes swept down for just a second, and then his blue gaze swept down her body and lingered around hip level with burning emphasis.

Anna stifled a gasp as if she’d taken a blow to the solar plexus. Confused emotions tumbled through her like an avalanche. Burning embarrassment. Consuming anger. A heavy, shaming twist of stark, unadulterated desire. She began to blush again and her knees felt as if they were about to liquefy. In an instinctive gesture of protection, she swung her laptop case around in front of her body.

“What’s that?” Nick enquired, tracking the action, “A makeshift chastity belt?” He was still smiling, still devastating her. “I’m hardly likely to attempt to touch you right here in this office, am I? Someone will be here any moment with our lunch.”

Anna let the case slip to her side, and straightened her spine. No! He was not going to get the better of her this time, either verbally or otherwise.

“Can we please discuss your staffing situation then? I’m sure a busy man like you has only a limited amount of time to spare, and for my part, the sooner we’ve covered the ground and I can go the better.” She met his blue gaze unflinchingly and assumed a neutral smile, “I do have a number of other clients to see this afternoon.”

“And you’ll be able to deal with them much more efficiently with lunch inside you. Come and sit.” One long, narrow-fingered hand gestured to an informal seating area at the far end of the room, where two mud-colored, but reasonably comfortable looking sofas were set right angles to each other around a low, square coffee table. “Lydia tells me you were in the office at the crack of dawn this morning, which I suspect means you didn’t eat a proper breakfast.”

There was no way she was going to tell him he was right on the money.

“Thank you for your concern, Nick, but it’s unnecessary,” she countered, attempting to project serenity and an air of being completely unruffled by his underhand tactics. “But I had a perfectly good breakfast, so don’t worry.”

“But early one,” he pointed out, and when it looked as if he was going to take her by the arm and drag her to the seating area by main force, Anna walked smoothly across the room under her own steam. Nick followed her and—an outrageous chauvinist with perfect manners—he remained standing until she took her seat.

With exaggerated care, Anna placed her shoulder bag and her laptop case alongside her, attempting to fill the entire sofa, but with a quirk of his eyebrow, Nick picked up both bags again and set them aside. In a smooth, fluid, totally relaxed movement, he settled himself beside her, long legs crossed, his thigh inches from hers.

So it’s like this, is it?
Anna sighed inwardly, attempting to neutralize responses that were firing helplessly in his proximity. Her body was at Condition Red, inner klaxons screaming. “May I have my case back, please,” she said, feigning a quiet, businesslike demeanor. “I need it for my presentation.”

“There’s no need for a presentation.”

Nick leant back against the upholstery, one arm draping casually along the sofa back behind her. “I made all the arrangements with Lydia on the phone. It’s a done deal.”

This time Anna did sigh. She couldn’t help herself. There was no way to win with this man. He always got his own way, and he seemed to have fewer scruples about it now than he’d ever had.

Smoothing her hands down the slim, dark grey skirt of her suit, she prepared to rise. “Well, I’ll be on my way then. Enjoy your sandwiches, Nick.”

A perfectly calibrated grip fastened around her wrist and strong yet gentle, he kept her in her seat.

“We need to talk, Anna. We need to have the conversation we should have had last night, before…well…before things got out of hand.” His blue eyes flashed, darkening suddenly, and Anna found herself trembling, her mind and heart and body transported back to the kitchen, back to the wall, and back to the consciousness-warping sensations of Nick’s assured, exploring touch. She looked away, filled with embarrassment, wanting to be both a million miles away from him and yet there again, writhing as his fingers worked their magic.

What was to become of her? How could she ever go through with this scheme of Nick’s when she went up in flames every time he touched her? Why couldn’t she detach herself and act like a mature, pragmatic grown-up instead of the infatuated, lust-crazed little tart she’d been four years ago when she’d been so desperate to lose her virginity to him.

But she knew the reason, and as she forced herself to look into Nick’s burning eyes again, her heart turned over at the enormity of the revelation.

Yes, she’d been sexually inexperienced four years ago, but she hadn’t been infatuated or lust-crazed. She’d simply been in love with him.

As she still was.

Nick watched a tapestry of emotions weave itself across the smooth porcelain contours of Anna’s face. She looked as if she’d just been felled by a terrible shock and had the bottom of her world kicked out from under her. He longed to hold her close and rock and comfort her in his arms.