The Thorn in His Side (10 page)

A second chance!

Or was it?

‘An internship.’

Libby digested this information and resisted the strong temptation to scream
yes, please
before he changed his mind. There was such a thing as being too eager and, even more importantly, there was such a thing as walking into danger with your eyes closed.

This man, she mused, had danger written all over him. ‘You expect me to work for you for free?’

Rafael gave a smile. Her voice gave away none of her feelings, but her white knuckles did, at least to someone as adept at reading body language as he was.

‘Free?’ He directed a quizzical look at her composed
face. ‘Delaying the closure is not worth anything to you?’ He shook his head and evinced amazement. ‘I have to tell you,
querida,
that internships with me are highly sought after.’ The high-flying graduates who often arrived with a high opinion of themselves had any illusions they had landed a cushy number knocked out of them quickly, and those that didn’t … well, there were always far more eager applicants than there were places.

Rafael firmly believed that everyone should have equal opportunities for advancement in the workplace.

‘I’m sure they are,’ she admitted, losing her cool and flushing with embarrassment. ‘It’s just—’

‘You have no ambition, no—’ his heavy-lidded eyes slid to her lips ‘—hunger …’

‘I have hunger!’ she protested fiercely.

‘I am pleased to hear it.’ And he could not wait to feel it, feel her eager hands on his body and her starving lips on his skin.

He gave an exaggerated shrug and walked with fluid grace across the room towards the window to hide the blatant evidence of his arousal.

A distracted expression slid across Libby’s face as she watched the light catch his hair, burnishing it to a blue-black sheen. Did it feel as silky as it looked?

‘You want to do it?’

Want? She wanted to run in the opposite direction. ‘When you say internship …? You mean?’

‘I mean internship, a learning process, initially shadowing—’

A mental image of following him around all day flashed into Libby’s head. ‘You?’ she interrupted, thinking a few minutes in his company and she was a basket case, twenty-four seven didn’t bear thinking about.

‘You know what they say, keep your friends close.’ A slow predatory smile spread across his lean face, and his eyes remained brooding as his voice dropped to a throaty purr as he added, ‘And your enemies closer,
querida,’
reminding Libby of a large sleek cat tormenting a mouse.

She struggled to shake the feeling she was being manipulated. You’re in control, Libby, this is your call—you’re in control.

She believed it right up to the point where she looked at his mouth.

Her stomach muscles gave a traitorous quiver—just how close was he talking about? Was this talk of internships some euphemism?

‘How close?’ she asked bluntly.

‘Close?’

Libby scowled at this blatantly bogus show of bewilderment. ‘Are you expecting me to sleep with you to get my dad a second chance?’

‘Some people might consider the question crude, but I find your directness most attractive. However, when discussing sex I find it is always polite to wait until you’re asked,
querida.’
His smile deepened as he watched the hot mortified colour rush to her already pink cheeks.

‘I just … I thought—’

Taking pity on her discomfiture, he cut across her mortified mumble. ‘As we are being frank, in answer to your question, yes, I do
expect
you to sleep with me. You look shocked.’

Libby stared. ‘How do you expect me to look? Do I look to you like someone who would trade sexual favours to get what I want? There’s a name for people who do that.’

A flicker of impatience crossed his lean features.
‘Do not be dramatic—there is no question of trading anything. It has been obvious from the first moment we met that we would end up in bed.’ There was nothing in his manner to suggest he had said anything out of the ordinary as his bold stare settled on Libby’s face.

For a moment the sheer, unadulterated arrogance of the man struck her dumb. When her voice did return it had developed a husky, breathless quality that made her frown.

‘You need therapy!’

No, he needed sex. Three months was too long to go without for a man with a healthy libido, and pressure of work was not a valid excuse. A man did not stop taking in calories because he was busy, not even if the food on offer had a boring sameness.

His sex life had become if not boring certainly unsurprising; he knew that Libby Marchant was not going to bore him. She was not the only one who needed some challenge in her life.

‘I get that you’re the sort of man who feels obliged to prove he’s a man by hitting on anything in a skirt and hate to spoil your little fantasy—’ she began in an icy tone of withering contempt.

A contemplative smile tugged the corners of his sensually sculpted lips upwards. ‘No, not little,’ he protested. ‘It has actually become quite detailed.’

Refusing to acknowledge his throaty interruption, she clenched her teeth and continued to deliver her scornful analysis of his character.

‘But the only thing that is
obvious
to me is that you think a hell of a lot of yourself.’

Probably with some justification!

Shamed by the liquid rush of excitement low in her belly, Libby took a quivering breath and drew herself to
her full height, wishing as she did so that she had more than an adequate but not impressive five five to face up to his towering six feet five of virile Latin machismo.

‘I do not indulge in casual sex.’

‘Me neither,
querida.
I am
always
serious about sex.’ His eyes drifted to her mouth and the mockery faded from them. ‘But I see from your expression that you mean you do not indulge in shallow emotionless sex—let me guess. You only sleep with men who you feel respect for.’

The boredom in his drawl brought a sting of angry colour to her cheeks.

‘I will be frank. I
only
indulge in emotionless sex.’

‘What am I meant to do—applaud?’

He grinned at her interruption. ‘I feel confident we will find some middle ground.’

‘Because you’re so good at compromises. Look, spare me the details of your love life,’ she begged, angling a look of loathing at his lean face, adding, ‘And I use the word loosely.’ Ignoring Rafael’s laugh, she added, ‘Because I have a very strong gag reflex!’

This time his throaty laughter was impossible to ignore, in part due to the fact it made her stomach muscles quiver.

‘You laugh, but the fact is I’m not going to sleep with you. I have never
not
been going to do anything more!’

His shoulders lifted in a fluid shrug. ‘We will see, but relax, the offer is not conditional on that. Call me old-fashioned—I prefer in general not to mix business with pleasure and, no matter how good you are in bed, it will not make me not finance a recovery if you do not make the grade. And just for the record you will know when I’m asking.’

Libby’s hands clenched at her sides. ‘I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on the planet!’ she blurted in a driven voice.

‘Such vehemence!’ he admired. ‘But who are you trying to convince? Is it possible that your reluctance stems from a fear you will not be able to resist me?’

Libby sucked in a furious breath and stuck out her chin. Aware even as she announced firmly, ‘I’ll take the job,’ that she had been shamelessly manipulated. ‘When do I start?’

‘Monday morning, nine a.m. sharp.’

L
IBBY
hung the boxed pleat skirt she had not previously worn because her mum, when asked for her opinion, had called it ‘middle-aged’—she was right—on the hanger and placed it next to the boxy Chanel-style jacket with big silver buttons she had finally teamed it with.

The outfit was not horrendous, it just had a sexy quotient of minus ten—the result was exactly what Libby had been aiming for.

These clothes were not the sort of items someone who intended to sleep with their boss wore, especially when the boss in question looked like Rafael Alejandro, a man who had gorgeous women in short skirts waiting for him to click his fingers before jumping to the desired height, or into his bed.

He could have any woman he wanted—she recalled the raw hunger in his eyes—
and he wants me.

Every time the thought popped into her head—too often—Libby experienced a shameful spill of liquid heat low in her stomach. The jumbled mixture of confusing emotions that came with this shameful heat deepened her growing sense of dread.

Or was that excitement?

Working on the principle that actions, or in this case clothes, spoke louder than words, Libby was hoping
that her selection of outfit would save her the trouble of delivering the speech she had been practicing—the one that included a section on the law that was there to specifically protect employees from the lecherous attentions of the men who employed them.

Having a positive plan in place made her feel more secure until the voice in her head made another unwelcome contribution.

And what’s going to protect you from your own hormones, Libby?

And then the whole cycle of panic and doubt with a mingling of guilt began again.

The entire weekend had in fact been a total nightmare! Her mum was struggling to put a brave face on things but even a brave smile and make-up could not hide tear stains.

Her dad had spent most of the time locked in his study. He hadn’t washed or dressed and when he did emerge from behind the locked door he hardly said a word.

Ed might have been able to get through to him, if he’d been there Libby might have been tempted to offload her own problems on her level-headed brother, but Ed had spent most of the weekend at the hospital so she had been left to work things out for herself.

Some people reached for a bottle when they had a problem; Libby headed for the kitchen. She found being elbow deep in flour and the smell of baking therapeutic and soothing, but not this time. She had produced enough cookies and brownies to feed an army and still felt no more certain about what she was doing.

Was the offer genuine …?

Did she want it to be?

Could she do it, bearing in mind that she would have
to see the man, be polite to him, pretend that he hadn’t propositioned her in the most brazen way imaginable?

Pretend that she hadn’t considered it, not in a serious way, but
wondered
—she was only human—what would it be like to be touched by a man like that …?

Not that she had any intention of finding out, no—if this offer turned out to be legitimate she was going to make her position clear from the outset; if he laid a finger on her she would sue the pants off him!

An unfortunate analogy considering her tendency to mentally undress him.

She made her plans all the time conscious that her precautions might be unnecessary, that there was a very real possibility that she might turn up and find nobody at the Alejandro building knew who she was, but while there was even the slightest possibility she could save the family from financial ruin she had no choice but to at least find out, even at the risk of a moment or two of toe-curling embarrassment.

Unwilling to raise her family’s hopes until things were clearer, she had told them the paper was sending her to cover a trade conference in the City.

For someone who wanted to write fiction, she realised that her powers of invention needed a bit of work, though her brother and parents had too much on their minds to question someone who normally covered fêtes and supermarket openings being asked to report on a conference or, for that matter, a local paper wanting to devote space between the wedding announcements and details of farmers’ markets to international trade.

When she had arrived at the Alejandro building that morning Libby’s hands had been shaking with a combination of trepidation and excitement.

Now as she smoothed down the pencil skirt she had changed into they were shaking with anger.

She glanced in the full-length mirror and checked the pins that held her hair at her nape in a simple chignon. The voltage of her upbeat smile dimmed as she allowed the façade to slip and gave a snort of self-disgust. Why had she thought for even one minute that his offer was on the level?

‘I can do this,’ she growled between clenched teeth. ‘And it could have been worse,’ she reminded herself, mentally replacing the dark tailored trousers, matching waistcoat and plain white silk shirt she
was now wearing with a saucy maid’s apron and short skirt.

The image pulled the corners of her mouth upwards as she vented a laugh that just stayed the safe side of hysteria as she struggled to see the funny side of the situation. A sense of humour, she reflected grimly, might be the only thing that was going to get her through today with her sanity intact.

A sense of humour was something that Melanie, from Human Resources, had
not
displayed when Libby had exclaimed,
‘You’ve got to be joking!’

Clearly a literally minded woman, she had looked mildly exasperated and consulted her clipboard before returning her frowning attention back to Libby. ‘I understood this was your size.’

Libby glanced at the label sewn into the shirt, then at the trousers. She was a size ten top and size eight bottom; so was the uniform she was holding.

‘It is my size. The size isn’t the problem.’ The problem was the thought of a pair of amber eyes sizing up her vital statistics so accurately.

In response to the older woman’s questioning look—at this stage she had still hoped that this was some mild
screw-up—and not wanting to get anyone in trouble, she had explained, ‘I’m not actually part of a catering team. This is my first day as an intern …’

The woman had directed a puzzled look at Libby.
‘And …?’

Then it had dawned on Libby. ‘You expect me to serve drinks?’

‘Oh, nothing alcoholic,’ Melanie from HR had replied as though the
type
of beverage were Libby’s problem. ‘This is a working brunch and very informal, just a thank you from Mr Alejandro to the team that have been working out the details for the first Alejandro trade summit.’