Snowbound Seduction: A Night of No Return / To Claim His Heir by Christmas / I'll Be Yours for Christmas

Emma’s smile vanished and she felt a sudden rush of panic as reality bloomed.

Oh God, she’d slept with her boss. What had she been thinking?

Sleeping with the boss wasn’t incredible, it was stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She, of all people, knew just how foolish that was. How could she have been so reckless? She was always professional. Always. She was always careful not to step over that line.

Emma shot out of bed on legs that shook and grabbed the clothes she’d left drying in front of the fire. Afraid that he might reappear at any moment she dressed in a flash, a surprising achievement considering that her hands were shaking as much as her legs. Switching on her phone, she saw that it was eight a.m. And she already had five missed calls from Jamie.

Oh God, Jamie.

It was like a thump in her stomach. The warm glow that had surrounded her when she’d woken had vanished and all that was left was cold panic.

What had she done? From the moment she’d put her hand on Lucas’s shoulder, she hadn’t given her life a single thought. It had all been about the moment, not about what would happen afterwards. With a groan of remorse, she sank onto the edge of the bed.

‘This looks like a serious case of morning-after regret to me.’ A dark male drawl came from the doorway and Emma gave a start because she’d been hoping for some time to pull herself together before having to face him and now there was no hope of that.

This was a scenario she’d never had to handle before and she was clueless.

She looked at him and felt her stomach drop. He was insanely attractive. Not just good-looking, but truly gorgeous in a deliciously sexy, bad boy sort of way, with those strands of dark hair flopping over his forehead and his jaw unshaven. Was it wrong to wish he hadn’t decided to leave the bed before she woke? Wrong to wish they’d woken together?

Sex with him had been unforgettable.

And that was the problem.

He was her boss. She had to forget it. She had to ignore that tiny, ridiculous part of her that just wanted to resign on the spot and see if this thing between them could go somewhere. She had to ignore that part of her that wanted to forget the professional so that they could pursue the personal. That would have been crazy and impulsive and she was neither of those things. She had responsibilities. Commitments. She always made sensible decisions and the sensible decision was to lock last night away in her brain and forget it had ever happened. She had to forget everything personal that she knew about him.

The question was—how?

She wondered if he was asking himself the same question but one glance at his face told her that he wasn’t. There was no doubt or uncertainty there. Nothing that suggested that what they’d shared had meant anything to him but a way of getting through a bad time. There was no evidence now of the unspeakable agony she’d witnessed the night before. Whatever dark, savage emotions had gripped him in the bitter cold of the night had been chased away by the morning light. Lucas Jackson was back in control, those secrets buried deep under layers of self-discipline.

She, however, felt emotionally and physically wrecked.

He was already dressed, in black jeans and a black sweater that added emphasis to powerful shoulders. His choice of clothes was casual, and yet there was still an innate sophistication about him, an effortless style that was evident in everything he did.

Through her moment of panic came the memories. Memories of how those shoulders had felt under her fingers, the ripple of male muscle and hard strength. Memories of how it had felt to touch him and be touched. Strange, she thought, how even that unscheduled glimpse of vulnerability hadn’t seemed like weakness. There was nothing weak about this man.

They hadn’t even talked about it, she realised. Not really. All she knew was that he blamed himself for the death of his daughter. Other than that she had no details and, judging from the grim set of his mouth, he had no intention of offering any.

This was the man she knew. The Lucas Jackson she recognised. And of course that made it worse, because this man was her boss.

Which really only left her with one course of action.

Emma stood up slowly, as if by taking her time a miracle might happen and she might somehow know what to say. And he was obviously waiting for her to speak. That intense blue gaze, always more perceptive than most people’s, held hers for longer than was comfortable. And although it seemed shallow to care about such things, she was acutely conscious of how appalling she must look. She had that exhausted, gritty-eyed feeling that followed a night of seriously reduced sleep so she knew she’d be pale. And she knew she’d look rumpled because, although she’d pulled on clothes, she hadn’t had time to do more than smooth her hair and after the way he’d treated it the night before it tumbled in a wild mess over her shoulders.

As awkward moments went, this one reigned supreme.

‘Hi. Good morning—’ Oh God, this was awful. She cleared her throat, thinking that it was impossible to sound businesslike when faced with a man who had intimate knowledge of every part of your body. ‘I just need to make a quick phone call and then I’ll be out of your way.’

The last thing she wanted was to talk about what had happened, so she was relieved when he said nothing. Instead, he continued to study her as if he were seeking an answer to something. And Emma soon discovered that his scrutiny was every bit as uncomfortable as any conversation would have been. The way he was looking at her unsettled her so badly that in the end she turned away and rescued her shoes from their place in front of the fire. The snow had made a mess of them, but at least they were dry and putting them on gave her something to do and made her feel more dressed, somehow.

Wanting to escape as fast as possible, knowing that she was already going to be in trouble, she dug her hand in her bag and pulled out her phone. ‘I need to call Jamie,’ she muttered, ‘and tell him I’ll be back later. He’ll be worried that I didn’t make it home last night. He’s already called this morning but my phone was off.’

‘Are you sure he’ll be worried? You’re that close, are you?’ His hard tone held a hint of scepticism and she looked up, shocked and confused by the question.

Was this just about the fact he was annoyed with her for staying when he’d wanted to be alone? Was he cross that he’d woken to find that someone was the wrong side of his castle moat?

‘Of course. I did tell him I’d be late but he wasn’t expecting me to not make it home at all.’

Those blue eyes didn’t shift from her face. ‘And how is he going to feel when he finds out you had sex with me?’ His blunt question was so unexpected she gave a soft gasp.

‘Well, obviously I won’t be mentioning that part.’

One dark eyebrow lifted and the faintest of smiles touched his hard mouth. That same mouth that had kissed her to oblivion the night before. The same mouth that had caressed its way down her shivering, compliant body. ‘If that’s your plan then you’d better learn not to blush or he’ll see right through you.’

Suddenly she was angry with him. And yes, with herself. It was embarrassingly unsophisticated to have a morning-after encounter with a face the shade of a tomato, especially when he seemed to be treating the whole episode with something that came close to indifference. No romantic words then, she thought numbly. No soft smiles or gentle touches to smooth the transition from passionate to professional. And maybe she should be grateful for that, Emma thought, as she strived to match his detached approach. She would have liked to look calm and businesslike and sail out of his life with her dignity intact but she knew there was very little chance of that. ‘Jamie doesn’t think the way you do.’

‘No?’ His expression revealed nothing of his thoughts. ‘What if you’re wrong? What if he guesses?’

‘Why would he guess? It’s not exactly the sort of thing we talk about.’

‘And yet you claim to be close?’

‘We’re close but I’m hardly going to tell him I slept with you, am I?’

‘I’m no expert on relationships, but I can imagine that would make things pretty awkward.’ His tone was scrupulously polite, as if they were in the office discussing a project. ‘And if that’s the way you want to play it, that’s fine with me. But I do have one question before we turn to more practical matters.’

Practical matters? ‘What question?’

There was silence, and that silence stretched from seconds to a full minute. A full minute that she counted out with each beat of her heart. And not once in that time did he stop looking at her. Not once did his gaze flicker from hers.

When he finally broke that silence, his voice was soft. ‘If your relationship with Jamie is “close”,’ he drawled, ‘why did you have sex with me?’

CHAPTER FIVE

HE WATCHED as the colour deepened in her cheeks. On one level she fascinated him because everything about her was fresh and unexpected. Or perhaps it was just that he was jaded and cynical. Too jaded and cynical for someone like her. If circumstances had been different then perhaps, just perhaps, the conversation they were about to have would also have been different. But he couldn’t change the way he felt. Or rather, the way he didn’t feel.

If he hadn’t already regretted the madness that had driven him to take what she’d offered in the dark of the night then he regretted it now because it was all too easy to guess how she was feeling. It was written all over her face.

For her, it hadn’t been about living in the moment. It had been significant. And if there was one thing he didn’t look for in a relationship, it was significance. He was quite possibly the worst man she could have found herself trapped with in a snowstorm. And perhaps she knew that because right now she wasn’t looking at him. All he could see was her profile. The curve of her cheeks, slightly pinker than usual, the swoop of those dark eyelashes as she focused her gaze on the snowy landscape that isolated them as effectively as any moat.

It was up to him to unravel the mess.

‘Emma?’ He kept his voice neutral, knowing that the way he played the next few minutes was crucial. He didn’t want her to misinterpret what had happened between them. He didn’t want her yearning for something that wasn’t going to happen. Most of all he didn’t want her ending her relationship over it, even if that relationship seemed pathetically lacking to him. ‘Emma?’ He repeated her name more firmly and this time she turned, her expression confused.

‘I don’t really understand your question.’

Which left him with no choice but to take over both sides of the conversation. ‘Jamie. You’ve been with him for two years so it must be serious.’

She was eyeing him as if he were an alien. ‘I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding,’ she said slowly and Lucas frowned because he knew there was no ‘misunderstanding’.

He was plain-speaking to the point of blunt and he saw no reason to modify that trait now. Determined to extract the truth, he took her face in his hands, feeling the soft skin of her cheeks against his rough palms, noticing for the first time the flecks of green in her brown eyes.

‘He’s obviously someone who means a lot to you if you’ve been together for two years.’ He heard the cynicism in his own voice and thought bitterly that he had to stop judging other people’s relationships. What did he know about sustaining a long-term partnership? About as much as he knew about love. Which was precious little. His hands dropped to his sides.

Someone like him shouldn’t be touching her. He shouldn’t have touched her the night before and he shouldn’t be touching her now.

It was wrong on every level.

She was looking at him steadily. ‘I’ve been with him longer than two years. Jamie and I have been together for nine years. Which is basically the whole time he’s been alive. Jamie is my little brother. His current obsession is Star Wars Lego.’

It took a moment for those words to sink in.

Brother? Brother?

‘Lucas?’ She was still watching him. Carefully, as if his every reaction was a mystery to her. ‘I don’t know where you got the idea Jamie was my—I don’t know—significant other. You were the one who mentioned him earlier, so I assumed you knew who he was. It didn’t occur to me that I needed to explain.’

‘I heard you on the phone to him and—’ Lucas breathed deeply and dragged his hand over the back of his neck as he confronted the depth of his error. ‘Your brother?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can you have a brother who is nine years old?’

There was a hint of humour in her eyes. ‘I think you can probably work that out for yourself.’

‘But you’re—’

‘Twenty-four. And he’s a lot younger than me. Welcome to the world of complicated families.’ She shrugged. ‘Jamie lives with my sister and me. Or rather, he lives with my sister and I join them at weekends and holidays.’

‘But you live in London.’

‘During the week. On Friday nights I drive to them and take over so that Angie—that’s my sister—can have some time to herself. We’re sort of sharing the parenting. I suppose you could say I’m the main breadwinner.’

And with that simple statement it all fell into place.

Suddenly he understood her rule that she wouldn’t work on a Friday and never at a weekend. He realised how much he’d assumed and just how wrong he’d been. ‘I thought you kept your weekends free because you were having a wild social life.’

‘You must be confusing me with Tara,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m a normal person, with a normal person’s life. A life that I happen to like very much. But I confess it isn’t full of parties. It’s a pretty routine existence.’

Lucas was stunned. ‘Caring for your little brother isn’t exactly a routine existence. It’s an enormous sacrifice on your part.’

Her gaze cooled. ‘It’s not a sacrifice at all. I consider myself very lucky to have such a lovely family. I just wish we could live in the same place all the time. It’s pretty lonely for me during the week stuck in London by myself.’

‘I’ve offended you and I apologise; it’s just that I thought—’ He broke off, reminding himself that his own thoughts were irrelevant. His life experience was irrelevant too. He came from a background where family ties were seen as something to be cut with a sharp blade. ‘Never mind what I thought. So if you’re lonely, why can’t you live in the same place as them? Why London? Enlighten me.’

‘We can’t afford a big enough place in London, and I can’t afford to work out of London because the pay isn’t good enough, so this is our compromise.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Angie is a teaching assistant, which means she can be there for after-school care and holidays when I’m not around. It works well. Or at least, it did.’

‘You mean until you got snowed in because your selfish boss kept you late at the office.’

‘That wasn’t really what I meant, no. Lately it’s been—’ She broke off and smiled. ‘Never mind. None of that is relevant.’

Lucas cursed softly and paced back to the fireplace. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I had no idea you had responsibility for your brother. I’m not such a monster that I would have kept you that late in the office every night if you’d explained.’

‘There was nothing to explain. You pay me to do a job, and you pay me well. You have a right to expect the job done well. And I don’t need to leave early during the week. I rent a room in an area of south London that couldn’t exactly be described as a hub of activity. There’s not a lot to go back to and anyway, I love my job.’

He dimly remembered her saying that to him the night before. ‘Where exactly do you live?’

When she told him, Lucas didn’t even bother trying to hide how appalled he was. ‘If I’d known that I never would have let you work until two in the morning.’

‘You always arranged for me to have a lift home so it was never a problem.’

‘You still had to walk from the car to your house.’ And the thought of her doing that horrified him. She could have been mugged. Or worse.

‘You’re overreacting. More often than not the driver would wait until I put my key in the door, but honestly, Lucas, I was fine.’

He looked at her cheeks, pale as chalk, and knew she wasn’t fine now.

And not because of some random mugger who had attacked her in the street, but because of him. And he was about to make it a thousand times worse. He wasn’t about to offer up soft words and promises of happy ever afters. He wasn’t about to give her anything except a major dollop of pain.

What they’d shared was the sexual equivalent of a hit-and-run.

‘We have to talk about last night.’ His voice was rougher than he intended and she looked as uncomfortable as if he’d just suggested she strip naked and pose for him.

And she’d already done that.

He had a vivid image of her body, creamy skin warmed by the firelight, her curves both a sensual invitation and a balm to a man seeking oblivion.

He no longer had to wonder what she looked like under her ultra conservative clothing. He knew. And he had to wipe it from his mind.

‘Honestly, I’d rather not.’ Her hands were clasped in front of her, her knuckles white. ‘Just tell me whether you want me to hand write the letter now or type it up and email it to you.’

Lucas dragged his mind away from thoughts that could only be described as shocking. ‘What letter?’

‘My letter of resignation. Or I suppose you could lend me a computer and I can just type it here if you like.’

‘Resignation?’ It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. ‘What are you talking about? Why would you resign?’

‘Er...because that’s the only option?’

‘Well, it’s not an option that works for me,’ Lucas thundered, the sudden rush of anger surprising him almost as much as her unexpected proposal. His emotions were all over the place and that shocked him too because he wasn’t used to having to struggle for control. Usually it wasn’t concealing emotion that was his problem, it was expressing it. ‘I don’t know why you would even suggest it when you’ve just spent five minutes telling me how much you love your job and how much you need the money. You’re not resigning and that’s final.’

Her eyes widened. ‘That’s my decision.’

‘Well, you’re making the decision for the wrong reasons so I’m not accepting it.’

‘You honestly think we can still work together after last night?’

‘Yes. Because last night was a one-off and is never going to happen again.’ He knew from experience that it was better to spell it out but if he’d expected her to wilt then again she surprised him.

‘I know that. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to work together. It would be horribly, hideously awkward. It’s already horribly, hideously awkward and since you obviously prefer to be blunt about the whole thing, I’ll be blunt too. I cannot believe I had sex with my boss. I cannot believe I was so unprofessional.’ She fiddled with the edge of her sweater and then turned away from him but Lucas wasn’t having that.

‘Why are you blaming yourself?’ He closed his hands around her shoulders and spun her round to face him, forcing her to look at him. ‘What happened last night was my responsibility, not yours.’

‘That isn’t true. You didn’t know what you were doing.’ She looked pale and tired and suddenly he remembered the nightmare drive she’d had to reach him the night before. That alone must have been exhausting. And then there had been everything that had happened afterwards.

He gave a humourless laugh. ‘Emma, I knew exactly what I was doing.’ Escaping. Taking ruthless advantage of a decent young woman who ordinarily wouldn’t have found herself anywhere near a man as damaged as him.

‘It was my fault. You were out of your mind with grief,’ she said softly. ‘I handled it badly.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘You told me to go away. Over and over again you told me to go. And did I listen? No, of course not.’ Her tone was loaded with self-recrimination. ‘It was so arrogant of me to think I could help. Stupid. There was nothing that could have helped, I see that now.’

‘You did help.’ And that had come as a surprise. For those moments in front of the flickering fire, the pain had eased. But at what cost? Guilt gnawed at him. ‘I owe you an apology.’

‘For what?’

‘I used you.’ His brutal honesty made her flinch.

‘That isn’t the way I see it.’

‘Well, it’s the way it was.’ He refused to gild the truth and when she tried to pull away he tightened his grip, refusing to let her duck the subject. With that in mind he asked the question that had been playing on his mind since waking. ‘I was rough. Did I hurt you?’

‘No! You were amazing. The whole thing was incredible. To be wanted like that and—oh God, I can’t believe I just said that—’ She covered her face with her hands, her moan muffled. ‘Please, just shoot me right now. Shoot me and end this. This has to be the single most embarrassing moment of my life. Please—if you’re a nice man you’ll accept my resignation and then I’ll never have to face you again.’

There was something so hopelessly endearing about her that had the situation not been so serious, he would have smiled. ‘I’m not a nice man and you’ll be facing me on a daily basis, so you might as well get used to it.’ He tugged her hands away from her face. ‘And because I’m not a nice man I’m going to embarrass you even more by asking when you last had sex with someone.’

‘That is such a personal question—’ And then she caught the ironic lift of his eyebrow and turned vivid scarlet. ‘You’re thinking that we’ve already made this personal—’

‘Just a little.’ He made a concerted effort to delete thoughts of the way her lithe, naked body had felt under his. ‘So when?’

‘I don’t know. It’s been a while.’

Which confirmed all his worst fears. ‘Why?’

‘Meeting people isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. During the week I only meet people at work and I don’t want to have a relationship with someone I work with—’ she caught his eye and turned fiery red ‘—and before I took the job with you...well, there was someone actually,’ she admitted reluctantly, ‘but it didn’t work out and that’s probably a good thing because although I thought I was in love with him, it turned out I wasn’t.’

Love.

Hearing the word was enough to make him release her but she looked so miserable that he felt the need to lighten the atmosphere. ‘So let me guess—you met this loser at school and when he fumbled under your skirt you hit him with your pencil case and after that he could never father children.’ He was rewarded by a gurgle of laughter.

‘Close.’

‘It was a school bag and not a pencil case?’ Tara would have been bitching about how tired she was, he thought. He would have been treated to sulks and moods, not a sweet smile. And never in a million years would Tara have let him see her without make-up.

‘It was a little more mundane than that. And it wasn’t at school. I didn’t have time for boys when I was at school.’ Avoiding his gaze, she turned back to the window, staring down at the acres of parkland and woodland that wrapped itself around the castle. ‘I was fourteen when Mum got pregnant. When other girls were discovering make-up and dating, I was helping with a baby.’

‘Why? Where was your mother?’

‘She died.’ Slowly, she turned her head, her eyes uncertain as she looked at him. ‘This is way too much information. Do you honestly want to hear it?’

‘Yes.’ Lucas surprised himself by saying that. ‘All of it.’

She gestured awkwardly. ‘It’s just that we don’t normally do the whole personal conversation thing—’

‘Well, we’re doing it now. I think we’ve already overstepped what might be considered personal boundaries and we’ve definitely passed the point of worrying about what we normally do,’ he said dryly, ‘so just talk. I want to know what happened.’