Do Not Disturb

Her blood warmed to the scenario. For all his powerful six-three Joe was a quiet guy. He never raised his voice when gutting someone with a few well chosen words, and he seemed capable of walking as silently as a cat when prowling the corridors at work. It wasn’t impossible to imagine he might walk in and catch her unawares.

Almost unconsciously, she changed position to arrange herself more voluptuously, like Goya’s painting of ‘The Naked Maja’, though of course she didn’t take her clothes off. Her little fantastical indulgence was only for a second. She closed her eyes, picturing the scene.

He’d come in, find her here, and be overcome with the old desire. He’d take off his tie and slowly unbutton his shirt.

How well she remembered his beautiful chest and hard, muscled abdomen. Even in his Armani suit it was clear he still looked after his athletic frame. Perhaps he worked out in a gym. There was probably one in this very building.

Although… Shouldn’t they start with a kiss? After so long she wouldn’t enjoy being rushed.

She banished the undressing scene and started afresh. He’d come in and catch her here, and be so overwhelmed by desire he’d swoop onto the bed beside her, take her in his arms and kiss her with deep, romantic passion. Forget that it was a bit like the Sleeping Beauty or Goldilocks, or whoever. Those babes wouldn’t have known how to savour the kiss, anyway, whereas she…

Her lids sprang open. Was that sound from inside the apartment, or something next door? The pipes, perhaps? She strained her ears for seconds, then, hearing only silence, relaxed back into the fantasy.

The kiss. No, it was annoying, but before she could really enjoy kissing him she would need some sort of discussion about what had happened. Why he’d suddenly become so cold and unapproachable at the time she’d most needed him.

Why he’d changed overnight from her tender, teasing lover into that grim, distant stranger. Though, on the other hand, recriminations about the past at that exact point could destroy the magic.

So. First he’d kiss her and caress her, and then he’d say.

An instant later a surprised growl jolted her back to earth and she looked up to meet Joe Sinclair’s stunned, incredulous gaze. He was standing in the doorway in the lean, solid flesh, staring at her as if she were an hallucination.

CHAPTER THREE

TRANSFIXED INTO A SORT of paralysis, he was holding a phone glued to his ear.

Mirandi scrambled off the bed and made a useless attempt to smooth the coverlet.

‘Oh, Joe. I didn’t expect… I was just…’ She noticed the folders on the floor where they’d fallen. She stooped to snatch them up, conscious of the burning tide of sheer mortification rising through her limbs and chest and turning her face red hot.

But she hadn’t lived through the past ten years without acquiring a few life skills. Faced with total humiliation, with her back to the wall, Mirandi Summers could schmoozle her way out of a situation as well as the next woman.

Drawing herself up to her full five-seven, she met Joe Sinclair’s bemused gaze with resolve. ‘I think you should know you have a mouse problem.’

His black brows twitched. A glint lit the deep blue of his irises.

Without taking his gaze off her, he shot a few words down the phone. ‘It’s no one. I’ll talk to you later.’ With a deliberate calm, he snapped the phone shut and slipped it inside the jacket of his sleek suit. It buzzed again, but he cut it off and directed the full force of his stunning gaze at her.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mirandi.’

It had always thrilled her that for a guy of such few words, his voice had a deep, rich, almost musical quality. Eighty per cent cocoa, the rest pure cream. But something in the tone of that little exclamation, something smooth and satisfied, as if he’d always suspected she was dying to crawl back into his bed any way she could, and now he was proven right, roused an indignant spark in her.

Forget that from her current vantage point he was tall, with his big athletic frame easily able to block a doorway. She’d been towered over by him before, perhaps not with him having the power of life and death over her job, so to speak, but the situation had occurred, as her body seemed vibrantly aware.

She eased into her shoes, grateful for the added inches, then thrust the folders into his hands. ‘I was asked to deliver these.’

‘To my bedroom?

‘Of course not, Joe. Absolutely not. I intended to put them on the table in the foyer, but when I opened the door and I saw the mouse… I—must have disturbed it. I didn’t think you’d want to have to deal with that when you got home, so naturally I—took off after it.’ She gave an uncertain laugh he didn’t join in with, then glanced about her and gave her most convincing shudder. ‘It’s in here somewhere.’

‘In my bed, presumably.’

She felt her flush deepen, especially when she noticed him make a familiar, scorching inventory of her curves. Some things never changed.

His mouth had always been so stirringly expressive. As though sculpted by some sure celestial force, his lips were firm and masculine, the upper one narrow, the lower one fuller, the whole stern ensemble promising the ultimate in sensual pleasure. And delivering, as her body now yearningly recalled.

‘Well, it ran—in here, yes. I lost sight of it and… Well, I got scared it might run at me. So I’m afraid I—had to jump up on the, er.’ A hollow in the pillows was glaringly the size and shape of her head. ‘It may not still be in here right now, of course.’ She tried for her most earnest expression. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to think out a strategy.’

‘You seem to be doing quite well now, though.’

She evaded his sceptical glance, her face afire just when she needed it to be cool. All right, so her story was thin and he didn’t believe a word. He didn’t look half as furious as he should be. Warning bells were clanging in her head. It was a situational rerun. Joe, Mirandi, bed.

Fantasy may be one thing, reality was definitely another.

‘Anyway,’ she said, marshalling some faux briskness, ‘I have to get back to work.’ She made a move to walk past him, nerve-rackingly conscious this was a sackable offence and she’d handed him a platinum-plated advantage in the male/female adversarial stakes.

At the last possible instant he stood aside to allow her through, to her intense relief, though at the moment of passing closest by him the intense masculinity radiating from him singed the skin cells on that side of her body to the third degree.

As she escaped into the hallway and made for the sitting room other phones started ringing, though the sound was cut off almost at once.

‘I can’t talk now, Kirsty,’ she heard him say, the merest hint of irritation in his voice. He raised it a little. ‘Hold it there, Mirandi. Just a minute.’

He caught up with her just as she was scurrying across an enormous Persian rug towards the front door, faster even than the mouse. If there had truly been a mouse, that was.

‘Don’t go. Stay a minute. I want to—talk to you.’

He didn’t touch her, but it was as if an invisible arm had reached out and grabbed her by the scruff. There was no resisting. She turned to face him, eye to eye, and since he was the one asking her embarrassment over being caught subsided a little. She gave a stiff nod.

‘Sit down.’ He indicated a handsome chesterfield with deep cushions. His black lashes flickered. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘No, thanks.’ She allowed herself the glimmer of a smile. ‘I’m working, aren’t I?’

He smiled, raising his eyebrows, and she had a sudden vivid flashback to her vodka afternoon. The first time she’d succumbed and broken her pledge. After that, her solemn childhood promises had fallen thick and fast. Enslaved by her sexual sorcerer, she’d have drunk hemlock if she’d thought it would make her his equal in sophistication.

To her relief he didn’t allude to her youthful indiscretions. He strolled over to his drinks sideboard. ‘Do you mind…?’

She shook her head, gestured for him to go right ahead. She was the last person to dictate to others after her spectacular fall from grace.

He poured himself a whisky. ’Sit, sit.’ He waved his hand in an autocratic gesture, directing her towards the sofa, and she made the wary concession of perching on the edge.

He dropped into a chair across from her, leaning forward a little, his long, lean fingers wrapped idly around his glass. Fingers that had once been familiar with every curve and hollow of her body.

She faced him, her old partner in crime. In passion.

‘So…do you feel—settled into the firm?’ His glance sank deep, and she could feel the old pull. That magnetic attraction that sparked up her blood and made her heart quicken with excitement. So dangerous, so addictive.

She felt his gaze drift over her, flick to her legs, and her sexual triggers responded with shameless willingness. Even after everything, something inside her switched on to preen and revel in his appreciation.

She shrugged. ‘I’m settling in. Everything seems to be going well enough, I suppose, though to be honest I wish I could spend more time on my own work.’ She glanced at him from under her lashes. ‘I’m really looking forward to my own office.’

‘Ah, yes.’ His eyes veiled. ‘How’s it going with Patterson? Helping you find your feet?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ She nodded, smiling to herself as she thought of Ryan’s wry words of advice on everything a girl needed to know on how to survive at Martin Place Investments. ‘Ryan’s been fantastic. Nothing’s too much trouble for him.’

Beneath his black lashes his eyes glinted. ‘Fantastic. Tell me about you. How’s life?’

Did he mean at work, or personally? She doubted he’d be interested in her father’s health situation. Her social life, perhaps? Ah, no. She got it now. None of the above. Long after their year of living dangerously, he wanted to know if she had a partner. A lover.

‘Things are fine with me,’ she said. ’Splendid.’

‘Splendid? ‘ He lifted his brows.

‘Absolutely.’ Well, she was hardly likely to tell him she hadn’t been very successful in that regard. That she’d noticed in herself a regrettable tendency not to be able to hold onto a boyfriend. Possibly because she found it quite hard to open up. Her legendary passion must have been letting her down. Curiously, for one of her renowned temperament, they found her too—self-contained. Inhibited, one had complained.

‘Anyway, I finished my degree and—’

His eyes glinted. ‘Yeah, I’m sure I read that. Well done.’

She flicked him a narrow glance. Was he mocking her? At the time she’d known him he was juggling several part time jobs so he could pursue his ambitions, while she deferred her own education, reluctant to tear herself away from him, greatly to her family’s concern.

How they’d stressed over it. The nagging she’d endured.

‘Where did you say you studied?’

‘Brisbane.’

He lifted his shoulders in sardonic amusement. ‘As far away as possible from Joe Sinclair.’

‘No, not at all,’ she said, flushing, though of course it was true. ‘That was the best course of its kind available at the time. Anyway, it was after the…after we—broke up.’ She mumbled the last few words.

‘Not long after, though,’ he dropped in, searching her face.

‘No.’ A nerve jumped deep in her visceral region. He was sailing close to home. Someone should warn him to take care. There were things he wouldn’t want to know.

There was a jagged pause, then she said, ‘Well, anyway, I decided science as a lead-in to medicine wasn’t for me after all and found the job in the bank. It was only ever meant to be temporary, but to my surprise I found I had quite an aptitude for it.’

His brows edged together. ‘For finance?’

She nodded, wishing he didn’t have to look so dubious.

‘What’s your plan?’ he said. ‘Your ultimate goal?’

‘Careerwise?’

‘Of course. What else?’

She gave him a wry look. What else indeed?

‘Oh, well,’ she said glibly, as if she weren’t a twenty-eight-year-old woman with twenty-eight-year-old eggs in her ovaries. ‘I’m aiming for the stars. Managing Director of a firm like this one would seem like a good jumping-off point.’

His sexy mouth twitched and she realised with some irritation he felt amused by her grand, audacious vision. Possibly his masculine ego felt challenged.

‘Anyway, as I said,’ she finished, ‘I’m doing fine, or I will be once I can flex my muscles. What about you, Joe? I can see you’ve arrived.’ She swept an admiring glance around her. ‘This is quite—breathtaking. Not bad for a boy who was expelled from two high schools.’

He sipped his Scotch. ‘Not quite what your family would have expected, I dare say.’

She put on her bland, non-committal face. Mim certainly hadn’t expected him to do well. A solid pillar of the church, she’d made her feelings crystal clear on the subject of that wild heathen Joe Sinclair at every opportunity. Her father hadn’t had so much to say, possibly because he was in the dark about her mad love affair, dreamily going about the business of caring for people, never knowing his beloved daughter had plunged in to navigate the treacherous reefs of passion without a compass.

Aware of having pushed her close to a raw edge, Joe lowered his lashes, careful not to glance too long at her breasts, though it was a wrench. His eyes drifted to her mouth. Was she wearing lipstick? Her lips had always been naturally rosy, plump and ripe as cherries, and sweet. Sweet and fresh, like none he’d tasted since.

His mouth watered with a sudden yearning and he realised he was being ridiculous. Of course she’d tasted sweet. She’d been young, as the captain was so quick to point out, as he, Joe, had been himself. It was highly unlikely she’d still have that effect on him. Though it would be interesting to find out.

‘You look very well,’ he said, smiling, his pulse quickening with the stir in his blood. ’Still live with your old man?’

Mirandi felt his glance sear her. ‘Not for a long time.’ Their eyes clashed, then disconnected as if some electrical collision had thrown out sparks.

‘Ah,’ he said. The chiselled lines of his mouth compressed. He gazed consideringly into his drink, his black lashes screening his eyes, then he said, ‘Was it hard to make that break?’

‘Everyone has to do it sooner or later. Grow up.’

A silence fell. The air in the room tautened while the wounds between them flared into life.

His eyes scanned her face. ‘And have you? Grown up?’

She shrugged. She’d learned enough about love and its consequences. ‘What’s there to say? I’m older now. I know better. How about you?’

‘Older.’

His mouth edged up at the corners in that sexy way he had and she felt herself slide further towards some cliff’s edge. How could someone so bad for her still be so appealing?

He pierced her with one of those glances. ‘Do you have someone in your life?’

His tone was casual, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. But there was a stillness in him, as if all at once the world turned on her reply.

She relaxed back in the sofa and crossed her legs. ‘Is this something bosses need to know about their employees, Joe?’

He smiled at the small challenge. ‘Bosses are only human. Isn’t it natural to be curious about old lovers?’

She felt an internal flinch at the word, but he’d used it deliberately. Lovers. Surely they were people who loved you and wanted to keep you? Especially when you were scared to death?

He continued to taunt her with silken ruthlessness. ‘I’d have thought you’d be married by now to some solid citizen in the suburbs. Some pious, clean-living guy who plays the church organ. Mows the grass on Sunday. Takes the kids to the park.’

She felt a sudden upsurge of anger, but controlled it. ‘Is that where you’re headed, Joe?’

‘Me? You’ve got to be kidding. You know me better than that.’

‘Yes,’ she said shortly. ‘I remember well.’ She conquered the emotions unfurling in her chest. After all, it had been ten years. ‘Anyway, would that life be so wrong?’

His eyes were mocking, sensual. ‘It might be. For you.’

‘Oh.’ She expelled an exasperated breath, but no doubt his assumption was her own fault. It had been her fatal mistake. She’d worked so hard to convince him she was super-cool and fearless and ready to fly, when all along she’d been this weak, clinging little girl who’d slipped on the most elementary of rules for conducting an affair with a bad boy. Not any more, though. ‘What makes you an authority on what’s right for me, Joe?’

He said, deliberately tweaking her tender spots, ‘Knowing you in your formative years. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your walk on the wild side.’

If only she could. A complex mixture of emotions rose in her, regret and anger uppermost, but she crushed them down and gave a careless shrug, though it pained her to dismiss the enchanted time and its bitter aftermath.

He smiled his devil’s smile. ‘Remember the time you borrowed your old man’s car? How many girls can claim they swam naked at Coogee at midnight, then drove home in their dad’s car?’ He added softly, ’Still naked?’ He broke into a laugh. ‘That was some ride. If Captain Summers could have seen his little girl that night.’ His voice softened. ‘You were—ablaze.’

Straight away her mind flew to the inevitable postscript to that wild, exhilarating ride. His flat. His hard, bronzed beauty in the flickering candlelight, in startling contrast to her own pale nudity. The excitement of being held in those muscled arms. Her passion for him, the intense heat of their coupling.

She met his eyes and knew he was remembering it too. Despite herself she felt the stirrings of desire, tightening the air between them, the sudden sweet possibility of sex. What could be more likely, with the two of them in this otherwise empty apartment? Her breasts swelled with heat and suddenly she was awash with the old bittersweet sensations. The yearning, the helplessness.

How easy it was for a man. No consequences, no griefs to bury.

But she’d already made those mistakes. She said steadily, ‘Look, much as I’d love to stay and reminisce, I have to go. I have a job, remember? ’ She made a move to get up but he put out one lean hand.

‘No, don’t go. Please. Patterson won’t be worried. You can tell him I waylaid you for my own wicked purposes.’ He smiled, a sexy smile that crept into her and coiled itself cosily around her insides, as if he shared some secret with her. Some private, intimate secret.

The trouble was, he did.

She examined her fingernails. Oh, heavens. Here she went, sliding down the serpent again in the old snake-and-ladders game of life. Was she imagining it, or was the mood seductive? Who else had ever been able to look at her with quite that degree of sexy assurance, as if they knew it was only a matter of time before she fell into his hands like a ripe plum?

She supposed her small test of his pillow had fuelled the flames. Why on earth had she succumbed to such an idiotic impulse? Whatever he was about to suggest, dinner and conversation or an afternoon of dalliance, a glimpse back at all the old pain and humiliation was enough to resolve her.

With a big firm no crystallising on her tongue, she looked up again and shouldn’t have. He was examining her, one corner of his mouth edged up in a half smile, his stunning eyes gleaming with an amused comprehension that rushed through her like a fizzy drink, stirring her to her entrails.

Was this the time to lose her nerve and turn respectable? No other man had ever been able to look at her like that, as if he knew all the secrets of her sinful heart. Heaven forgive her, but just this once, whatever decadent scenario he suggested, shouldn’t she at least listen?

But he surprised her. ‘To be honest, I’m glad we have this chance to talk. I guess there are things we both need to acknowledge before we can move on.’

She moistened her lips. Was this how he operated now? He bamboozled women into his bed? ‘Move on? Move on where? I’m not sure I follow…’

His brows edged together. ‘Well…’ He shook his head, then started again. ‘We’ve come up against each other again, and.’ He gestured with his hands. ‘It’s an opportunity to set the record straight. I know I for one can look back at that time on things I’m not comfortable with. Wouldn’t you prefer to operate from a basis of truth?’

If she hadn’t been seated she’d have been rocked off her stilettos. What was he doing? Inviting her to be honest? Demanding that all pretences be dropped?

What planet was he on?

The phone rang again. Joe made no move to answer it, instead continuing to search her face with his compelling gaze. He started to speak again, earnestly, sincerely. ‘Meeting you again has made me…reevaluate. Some of the things that were said back then… The way things happened, have had a—an afterlife.’

He met her eyes with such honesty she felt a deep surge of response. Her heart quickened, suddenly brimming with long-buried emotions. Hope, tenderness, the faint stirring of that all too weakening love. Despite all her protective barriers every cell of her being started urging her to listen to what he was saying.

Maybe there truly was a time when lovers could speak to each other without artifice. Open their hearts. Maybe she should have told him the simple truth that last time they met. Given him his chance to be a hero. Maybe if he understood what had driven her to lower her guard, humiliate herself like that, beg…

The phone clicked to answering machine and an urgent female voice flooded the room. ‘Joe, I know you’re there. Don’t hang up, please.’ Despite an attempt at lightness the voice croaked slightly on the don’t. ‘We really need to talk.’

He sprang up and grabbed the phone.

‘Sorry, Kirsty,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’m occupied right now. I’ll call you back.’ He was about to hang up but something his caller said arrested him and he listened. Even from where she was sitting, Mirandi could hear the agitated female voice, beseeching.

If only the woman had been able to see him she wouldn’t have persisted. He was frowning, shaking his head, every line of his body from his chiselled, sensuous mouth to his long, lean limbs set in a steely, definite no.

‘No. I didn’t promise that,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ve never said anything like that.’

Mirandi’s heart started to thump out an unpleasant drum roll. Wasn’t this the old familiar scene? How well she knew the female part, having played it herself. The more emotional and extravagant the distressed woman, the cooler, more controlled and inaccessible the man. All that female emotion. So inconvenient.

That impulsive moment when she’d actually flirted with the possibility of opening up her heart to Joe Sinclair died. Thank heavens she hadn’t. Embarrassed about intruding any further into his private life, she stood up and started to edge towards the door. But catching sight of her, he held up his hand.

‘No, stay there.’ His gaze locked with hers and he said quietly, ‘Please.’ Then he walked away into another room to deal with his call.

She stood there on tenterhooks. Should she stay, or should she go and end this intriguing and unlikely conversation, in which it sounded as if Joe was actually prepared to open up and give his take on their past relationship? Though she could see how risky it would be, with the potential emotional fallout. Still, the temptation to stay and hear what he had to say was tantalising, to say the least.

She truly wasn’t straining her ears, but every so often she couldn’t help overhearing snatches of his conversation from the study.

‘I’m not… why I have to explain…’ His voice had taken on an ominous crispness. ‘Business, pure and… As it happens my assistant isn’t—Oh? Why’s that?’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Certainly I do… Well, I wouldn’t expect her to sleep on the street.’ After an extended silence, she heard his voice again. ‘That’s not how I want to play it, Kirsty.’ Another silence, then, ‘Well, if that’s… I think you’re probably right. Yep. Yeah.for the best.’