Do Not Disturb

Mirandi Summers, his one-time squeeze. His first instinct was to give her the thumbs down. Last thing he ever wanted was to revisit that final scene where betrayal hung acrid in the air like smoke after a massacre. So why hadn’t he blocked her application?

It wasn’t guilt, exactly. He’d done the right thing in the end, hadn’t he? The only thing. He could hardly believe he was still wasting his time even thinking about it.

All right, so these days she wasn’t quite the shy, sweet little honey who’d tied his guts in knots. She’d grown up. Her green eyes had acquired the glitter of experience. Where once they’d reflected every passing emotion with honest fervour, these days they were guarded. Wary. But in the competitive jungle of office politics—a girl like her…

The bad taste this morning’s meeting had left returned to him with full force. Why the hell was she so keen to swim with the sharks? If only she knew it, he was trying his best to protect her. Given half a chance some of those others would cut her to shreds.

He ran a finger round the inside of his collar. How could he ever be expected to concentrate with her in the room like a woman-sized pack of dynamite?

It had been the same since the day she started. That first morning when he’d strolled down to the coffee room and she’d wafted into view his lungs had gone into cardiac arrest.

Old memories, old guilts had rushed to the surface, and for a guy as fit as himself his blood pressure had made a surprising leap. He’d had to close his eyes a second to reorient himself.

She still radiated the same animal vigour that had sucked him in and driven him wild in his twenties, but now her leggy, coltish beauty had matured into sensuous, smooth-flowing curves and long, silken limbs that had rocked through him like a warm, sultry samba. Limbs he’d once enjoyed to the utmost draped around his neck.

Her bright hair showed none of its old tendency to curl. Now it hung smooth and silky down her back. But surely that purple dress she’d worn today was a little snug? He could see what other guys would make of her. Hot.

He was seized with a maniacal desire to rush across the room and drag some covering around her.

As usual, just thinking of the womanly handful she’d become lit a dangerous simmer in his blood. Clearly, hiring her had been a mistake. He’d arranged for her to be tucked under Ryan Patterson’s wing for a few weeks while Patterson’s EA was on leave, just so she could at least find her feet before she was thrown in with the pack, but it didn’t help Joe Sinclair’s problem one bit. She was a burr in his imagination. In the end, unless he could work her out of his system, nothing else for it, he’d have to sack her.

Not that he gave a damn about her now, one way or the other. Although, all right, he had taken the time to check out her personnel file just for interest’s sake.

She still lived in Lavender Bay not far from the old neighbourhood, and still not married, apparently. Surprising really, considering the course her old man had mapped out for her.

His mouth tightened in a grimace, though the insult had long since ceased to sting. Hell, if he’d been her father he’d probably have done the same thing. She’d been so soft, so tender and giving. Malleable. Too malleable to be at the mercy of a villain like himself. He should probably thank the old guy. It was probably the insulting lack of faith in all things Sinclair that had spurred him on to show the captain and the rest of Lavender Bay that he could rise to any height he set his mind on.

But as for Mirandi in this world.he still couldn’t get over it. Did she have any idea of some of the cutthroat decisions she’d have to make? Perfectly good, useful projects she’d have to reject in favour of other, more lucrative investments? The hearts she’d have to break? She was as suitable for the job as a baby. Hell, with her upbringing, if she had any idea of what the board was contemplating at this very minute her tender conscience would send her running in the other direction.

Once or twice he’d been unable to resist an impulse to stroll by Patterson’s office. Just to check she was settling in. He’d caught a few glimpses of her, once frowning in concentration at her desk, another time chatting on the phone. To a client, he hoped. She looked perfectly relaxed and confident, though sometimes people had no idea they were struggling and in need of help.

The last time he’d given into that impulse he’d caught her laughing at something Ryan Patterson said, and she’d glanced around and spotted him strolling by. Instantly her laugh had died and her face had assumed that cool, mysterious façade that could drive a man crazy.

He was used to his employees behaving with caution when he was around, it came with the territory, but sometimes he couldn’t help wishing he’d gone easier with her on her first day.

He’d resisted checking on her after that, but knowing she was there, her honeyed temptation fragrancing the air along there—the same air breathed by Patterson—flavoured every minute of his every day. In fact, he wondered now if it had been such a good idea awarding Patterson the pleasure of easing her in.

He’d chosen the guy because Patterson was mild and well liked, but the choice might have backfired.

If only the bloke would stop raving about her abilities as if she were his own personal discovery. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of probability he was in lust with her, if a pale, blond milksop of a guy could conjure up enough red blood cells to experience anything so turbulent.

Joe was no stranger to turbulence. Even during his recent bout of disturbed nights, those times when he was torn from his sleep in a cold sweat, as if in search of further punishment his mind had immediately turned to her. How she looked, her expression on her first day in the job when he’d been forced to show her her place.

There’d been something in her face. Ridiculously, it brought back to him with violent force the stricken look he’d seen in her eyes that last time she’d come to his flat. How vulnerable she’d been back then. He’d seen something like that look again this morning.

He tried to suppress a familiar twinge in his guts. It wasn’t guilt, exactly, it was just.

He must be sick.

His phone buzzed, and he saw it was Stella. He considered letting it ring through to the recorded message, then his conscience got the better of him.

‘Stella?’ As crisp as ever. Mrs Efficiency would never guess he was standing in a bar room, Scotch in hand, contemplating bolting to the ends of the earth.

Unusually for her she sounded agitated. ‘Oh, Joe, I’m on my way to the hospital. It’s Mike, my youngest. He’s been in a bike accident and they’ve put him in intensive care. I’m sorry, but I have to be there.’

Bloody hell. All he needed. But he said, ‘Of course, Stella. Take all the time you need.’

‘They’re talking about operating. I’m afraid I won’t be able to accompany you to Monaco, after all. I’m so sorry.’

‘Forget about it,’ he said, wincing. ‘It can’t be helped. Stay with your son. That’s where you’re needed most.’

‘Oh, thank you, Joe. Thanks for being so understanding. And don’t worry about your airport transfers. Those have all been taken care of. When you land in Zurich all you have to do is…’ Instructions, instructions, instructions. ‘And I’ve left the hotel confirmation on your desk. Don’t forget to…’ More instructions, more tedious details. It was a wonder she didn’t offer to pack for him. A further round of abject apologies and medical details, then the anxious mother disconnected.

Despite his annoyance he felt a surge of approval towards his executive assistant. She’d been touchingly excited about the trip, in her restrained way. A woman prepared to make such a sacrifice for the sake of a son old enough to fend for himself was admirable. Rare, in his experience.

His mood darkened. As if it weren’t already a bore, now it would be ten times worse. The long flight by himself, airport queues. Delays. Fights over taxis. Crowded beaches. French food, French people. Days of being locked inside conference rooms with hundreds of eager delegates from around the globe all blathering on about the fabulous weather. As if there weren’t enough weather right here in Sydney.

He’d have to dredge up his rusty French. Why the hell couldn’t they have held the thing somewhere cold, like Switzerland or Helsinki? Investment bankers could discuss the casino industry quite as well in those places as on the Côte d’Azur.

The very thought of the place sent a wave of distaste through him. He gave himself a mental shake. This was so unlike Joe Sinclair, mover and shaker in high finance, he had to wonder if he was coming down with flu.

Sighing, he flicked open his phone and dialled the office number. No use fighting it. He was a prisoner of his own success and there was no escape.

‘Get me Tonia in HR.’ He waited. ‘Ah, Tonia—Joe. Look, Tonia, take a look through the lists and see if you can find someone who can be spared to fill in for Stella on the trip, will you?’ She chatted for a moment, then he slid the phone into his jacket pocket.

Someone pleasant, he should have added. Someone interesting who could keep his mind off the dark places. With a fatalistic shrug he tossed off his Scotch and set down his glass, then, ignoring the lovelies at the bar, walked out into the street.

He reminded himself he was a lucky guy. Someone would turn up.

Mirandi began to relax a little on her prowl around Joe Sinclair’s apartment, though she restricted herself to merely glancing into most of the rooms for fear of shedding DNA.

Curiously, there were no other photos. Not a sign of attachment to a single living soul, though she knew he’d never keep any pictures of his family. Joe had always been tight-lipped about them, but Auntie Mim knew the story. His mother had walked out when Joe was a boy of nine or ten, and his father, who’d been a talented architect, had spiralled into an addiction and gambled away all his assets, including the house, over his son’s head. The very home he’d designed and built with his own hands.

Joe had never liked being reminded of those times even when she knew him, so what had she expected to see here in his new life? That late-afternoon shot of him and her at the beach, grinning into the camera as though their hearts beat as one? Or any one of that string of girls she’d seen clinging to the back of the old Ducati?

Afterwards. When he was grinding her into the dust with his indifference. Lucky the violence of her youthful passions had been burned out of her.

Through a partly open doorway she glimpsed what must be a bedroom, and hesitated. She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. Though maybe it would help her develop some deeper understanding of how her old love was travelling now.

Her old love. Listen to herself. The truth about that had come out, plain for all to see, so why waste her time peering down that shady lane? She doubted she’d have taken this job at all if she’d realised at the interview that the Joseph Sinclair, CEO of Martin Place Investments, was in fact her old boyfriend, Joe. That final parting had been—so cruel.

Still, she had to be fair and remind herself Joe never knew what it was she’d come to tell him that day. Remembering the moment no longer had the power to make her flinch with anguish, but it was burned into her bone marrow.

His blue eyes, bright with that strangely fierce intensity. ‘It’s over,’ he’d said, his voice hoarse. ‘We’re over.’ And when in her total shock and devastation she’d whimpered a question, his savage, ‘Go home, little girl. Run back to your daddy.’

As break-ups went, it had topped the memorable list and left track marks on her soul. And while time might have cauterised the wound, running into him her first morning in the coffee room had done more than just shake her up. At first glimpse of him, even after ten years the things he’d said had come hissing back and aroused echoes of the old emotions.

The instant she’d caught sight of him a violent upheaval had rearranged her insides, though he hadn’t seemed similarly affected. His long, lithe stride had checked for less than a heartbeat, and he’d strolled across to her with all the cool, confident composure of the boss man.

She had to remind herself she was no one special. Just someone he’d met along the way. A chick from the past.

His blue gaze flicked over her, veiled, appraising. ‘Well, well. Mirandi. Hi.’

So cool. While she was all at sea. His eyes, his deep voice, and her lungs paralysed. No oxygen, no floor under her feet. And straight away, the scent of him. Some woodsy cologne evoking cleanliness and masculinity in the old familiar rush.

As she took in the immediacy of his dark, lean sexiness her gap year came spinning back and she was that giddy girl again, thrilled and half-terrified to be singled out by the bad boy with the wild reputation. Held breathless once again in his heart-stopping blue gaze, she had to restrain an impulse to touch him.

A thousand impressions assaulted her. He was just as devastating in his city suit as he’d been in denim and leather, though at thirty-five his handsomeness had settled into harsher lines.

Sterner. More defined. Every inch the high-powered executive. She wondered how many people here besides herself knew that underneath his designer and beautifully laundered fine white cotton shirt a heavy-duty tattoo rippled down his arm. Even thinking about those arms could still bring her out in a sweat.

Was it so surprising then that her heart, her flesh, her emotions all surged in joyful remembrance? When she saw him her heart was thundering so loudly she could barely hear herself speak.

‘Joe. Hello.’ Straight up, that husky little catch in her voice. ‘How are you? I—got such a surprise when I found out you were the CEO here.’

His expressive black brows twitched as if he didn’t quite believe her. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘Oh, well, I mean, I knew it was a Joseph Sinclair, but I didn’t know it was m—the Joe Sinclair I once knew.’

His eyes veiled and their last goodbye opened between them like a wound. But he shrugged and gave that faintly mocking smile she knew so well. Used to know.

‘Hard to believe?’

‘Gosh no, of course not. But—with no photo of you on the website, for some reason—I visualised a much older person. You know the type. Bald, plump…’ She made a roundish outline with her hands. ‘Toadish. Cigar in breast pocket.’ She gave a nervous laugh, aware she was talking too much, and her desperate phrases grew jerky. ‘Not the…person I used to know. It was only that I—knew the name it seemed like a—a sign, you know. An omen. Fate, or something.’

Heaven help her, finally she managed to draw breath.

‘Well, that explains it,’ he said smoothly.

She flushed, realising with chagrin how deeply she’d exposed her insecurity. Surely after ten years the past should have lost its sting. But she couldn’t help herself, because all the while things she’d once known so well about him were striking her afresh, sucking her in in the same old way.

He didn’t often make direct eye contact, and just like before she found herself waiting, breathless, for every glance he flashed her from beneath his black brows. And like before, those blue glances had the power to sear through her entrails and leave a powerful impression, like some rare piercing glimpse of a kingfisher’s wing.

He’d pierced her with one of them right then. But it was an ironic glance, one that revealed nothing of the warmth he’d once shown her. Before the break-up, that was. Before she’d wrecked things by offering her eternal love.

‘Would you have started here if you’d known?’ he said.

‘I—of course I would,’ she lied. ‘Why not?’ She’d managed an artificial smile then to conceal her pulse. But though she’d kept her voice steady, she knew her redhead’s skin was betraying her as always, lighting her up like the Macquarie beacon with every minuscule fluctuation in her emotions.

‘Why not indeed?’ There was a faintly sardonic inflection in his tone that recalled the rejection as if it were yesterday.

She retreated from that horror, hurrying into a safer direction. ‘Oh, and, er, do you know how long it will take before my own office is ready? At the interview I had the impression that the position was all ready to go. I appreciate Ryan mentoring me for a few days, of course, but I’m pretty keen to get started on my real work. Forge my own direction, so to speak.’

She gave a small laugh but he didn’t join in. In fact, his brows drew together in disapproval. ‘I think you’ll find that working with Ryan will show you the ropes twice as fast as you could learn them on your own.’

‘Oh, I’m sure. Though I am quite a fast learner.’

His black lashes flickered infinitesimally. ‘I remember.’

A silence fell. Nerve-racking seconds ticked by that grew excruciating.

Why had she said that? She racked her brains for something warm to say that would ease the tension. ‘You know, Joe, I’ve often thought of you—since… Wondered—how you were.’ She smiled, nearly put out her hand to touch him, but, jarred by the flicker in his cool blue gaze, controlled the impulse.

There was a definite warning in that glinting glance. Don’t go there, it read, as stern and uncompromising as if it had been emblazoned in official lettering.

What a fool she was. Of course he didn’t want to be reminded of his past, not here in this austere place surrounded by his employees. Realising she’d opened herself up to another rejection, she flushed outright then and her speech died, hanging her out to dry at the critical moment.

He stood frowning while her discomfort mounted, then he said, ‘Look, Mirandi. You’re here on probation, same as any new employee. I hope you understand that any personal history between us is of no relevance. All that matters here is how well you perform your job.’

Her insides jolted as if she’d stumbled blindly into a rock face. In a wave of mortification it occurred to her he might think she had hopes of him again. That she might have taken the job with a view to reviving their old connection.

Perhaps he read her embarrassment, for his tone softened a little. ‘To be brutally honest, I’m surprised to see you here. Investment banking is a tough world to survive in. I’m not sure this work will suit someone of your temperament.’

‘My—temperament?’ came from her dry throat.

‘Well…’ He hesitated, then scratching his ear, said, ‘I think you’ll find that in finance an excess of emotion and, er, sensibility are luxuries we can’t afford.’

She bristled all over. Sensibility indeed. Did he think she was still that gormless idiot who’d broken her heart over him a thousand years ago?

Lucky she was of a proud disposition and could think on her feet while being eviscerated.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘please don’t worry about me, Joe. I’ve toughened up. Every night I sleep on a bed of nails.’ She spread her arms. ‘Go on. Dish it out. I can take it.’

A muscle twitched in his gorgeous jaw, then he said drily, ‘Very dramatic. I suggest you pour all that passion into your work.’ There was slight inflection in the way he said the word that reminded her he was no stranger to its various applications.

For a minute or perhaps an hour or two his blue gaze seemed to burn through her face, then he snapped out of it and looked at his watch. Brisk, unemotional Joe Sinclair, CEO.

‘Right. Ryan Patterson will be reporting on how you perform, so since we keep strict hours here you’d better drink your coffee. Oh, and, er…good luck.’

With a curt gesture he walked away.

So brusque. So—unwelcoming.

Indignation threatened to overcome her. So she had an emotional side. She was human, wasn’t she? He hadn’t seemed to object to her passionate nature ten years ago. She stared after him, striding through the department like an autocrat. She could hardly recognise the guy. If he hadn’t still been oozing hotness she’d have wondered if she’d been talking to his twin. Anyone would think he’d been born with a briefcase in his hand.

She smarted for minutes over the implication that she was too soft for the business world. Too weak. On what had he based that assessment?

Her credentials were all there in her CV. Her years in the bank, the promotions she’d earned. Just as soon as her office was ready and she could start her own work, she’d show him how efficient she could be.

She could have done with a few private moments to give her galloping pulse time to settle, but she noticed Patterson’s curious gaze follow Joe then shift to her, and she knew she had to glide on like a goddess and act as though nothing had happened.

Standing here now in his apartment, searching for some lingering essence of the lazy, laughing, teasing Joe she used to know, she wondered how she could still be so affected by him. Time should have done its work by now. She was a mature woman, hardly that green girl who’d worshipped him and been his adoring slave.

She supposed running into him again had dragged it all up again in her mind. The truth was, she’d never experienced anything like the intensity of the passion she’d had for him. Although at the time, during all the months of grieving, Auntie Mim had made the observation that Joe wouldn’t have given her up so abruptly if it hadn’t been purely about the sex.

Mim had been right about some of it. There was no denying she’d been followed by a string of wild little hussies, as Mim had termed Joe’s other girlfriends. Hot chicks. Even so, she could never regret her wild time with him. Joining the chicks. How could she, when it had been the most exciting time of her life? The time she’d felt most alive.

Perhaps that was why gazing into his bedroom now exerted a violent fascination, though her conscience was telling her loud and clear that a man’s bedroom—especially a boss’s—an ex-lover’s—was his fortress. Or should be.

Sadly, while her scruples tried to assert themselves, her feet in their four inch heels were itching to push that door wide and cross the forbidden threshold, and before she was half aware of it she was in, staring at a rather severe four-poster heaped with pillows and richly draped in luxurious brocaded fabrics.

Oh, yes. The master suite.

Somehow Joe’s bed made her awash with sensations, not all of them positive. Its decadent appeal was amplified by its reflections in several long mirrors.

How would it feel to lie in there at night with him? Her pulse quickened as she imagined his handsome dark head on those champagne satin pillows. They looked soft enough, but looks could be so deceiving where pillows were concerned. For herself, she preferred hers very soft, though as she recalled the younger Joe had never worried about anything so domestic.

A simple mattress on the floor, those green patterned sheets—that had been their passion bed, the candle shedding its glow into the small hours on their entwined bodies Joe’s concession to romance.

She stared at the four-poster, then, on an impulse, sat on the edge and slipped off her shoes. She dragged a pillow into position, then gingerly lay her head on it. After a moment she lifted her feet onto the bed, then stretched out and, involuntarily relaxing, released a long and languorous sigh.

Ah-h-h. She let herself sink into the bed’s soft, sensuous and at the same time buoyant embrace, her head cradled by one of the softest, most delicious pillows she’d ever experienced.

Oh, the comfort. Fearful at first of letting herself go, she lay still a moment, imagining herself floating on a cloud. Perhaps it was inevitable, given her experiences with Joe Sinclair, but her thoughts started to drift down a certain illicit alleyway. One she’d fought and struggled to avoid ever since the coffee-room encounter.

Imagine, for example, it was midnight. Suppose Joe arrived home unexpectedly and found her here?