Bedded By The Boss: The Boss's Demand / Something about the Boss... / Beguiling the Boss

A dark mood had settled over him. He looked straight ahead as he drove, his face stony in profile. She tried to think of something to say, a casual conversational gambit to break the tension thickening the air, but no words seemed appropriate to the strangeness of the situation.

What could she say? Thanks, that was fun! Gosh, the desert’s lovely at night, isn’t it? We’d better get some sleep, we’ve got an early meeting tomorrow!

Gulp.

She froze in her seat as the reality of the situation crept over her like icy fingers.

She’d slept with her boss.

No, not true. She hadn’t slept with him. She’d clawed his back, howled in ecstasy, pushed her hips against his and ridden him, clung to him and moaned his name in the throes of her orgasm.

Oh, dear.

Perhaps if they were now sitting there chatting about what movie they’d go see on Saturday night it would seem, well, not normal, but okay. But the way he gripped the wheel, his jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, lips pressed together, she could see that tonight was not the first night of an ordinary dating relationship.

As if this kind of night ever could be. What man would want a girl who “put out” on the first date? And it wasn’t even a date. He’d offered her dinner and she’d thrown herself at him.

She was no virgin. She’d had a boyfriend in high school and another in college. But she’d never in her life slept with a man she wasn’t “going steady” with. “If you don’t respect yourself…” She could hear her oldest sister Nathalie’s cheerful voice in her ear. The lecture had been given in a playful tone since no one expected Sara to need it anyway.

Then she’d met Elan. He undid her in a way that was truly frightening. That stripped away the thin layer of civility to reveal her primitive core.

Neon lights flickered on the main drag as they drove back into town. Dawn hovered behind the hills and the purple sky threatened to explode into blazing sunlight at any moment.

“Take a left here.”

His big hands slid over the wheel as he turned into her apartment complex.

“Would you like to come up for coffee?” She almost choked on the words but it felt only polite to offer. She would love for him to come up. To talk and break the chill silence that had settled over them like dew on the desert.

“I think we should both get some sleep,” he said softly. He pulled the car to a stop outside the front door. For the first time since they’d climbed into the sedan, he turned to look at her.

The faraway look in his dark eyes touched a raw place in her, summoned her. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to close the distance echoing between them even in the cramped space of the car.

She ached to be held in his arms.

He opened his mouth—to speak, or to kiss her?—but he didn’t move. And then his mouth closed, full lips settling together, as if they’d already said everything there was to say.

She wanted so badly to kiss him goodbye. To press her lips against his skin one last time, to feel the heat of his blood warm her mouth. But the rigid set of his shoulders and the high angle of his chin warned her off. No kisses were offered by either party.

“Good night, Sara.”

“Good night, Elan.” Her voice trembled a little and she thought she saw a flicker of emotion in his eyes. But perhaps it was just a reflection of her own confusion and embarrassment as she fumbled for her briefcase on the floor. She scrambled out of the car, clutching her crumpled clothes around her.

The big sedan didn’t move until she’d gone inside, so she never actually heard him drive away. But she suffered his leaving as a limb being torn from her body. If she’d felt alone before, now she felt desolate, destitute. Like Eve banished from Paradise because she couldn’t keep her hands off the tempting and dangerous fruit within.

Sara operated on automatic pilot as she parked her bicycle and walked into the office building the next morning. She knew Elan wouldn’t be there yet, since she always arrived early enough to change into professional attire and get her desk organized before the day got hectic. He didn’t usually come in until around nine.

As nine o’clock drew closer she found it impossible to concentrate on her work. Her blood thundered audibly in her head, her heart banged against her ribs, and she kept catching herself nervously drumming a pen on her desk.

Oh, God. What would they say to each other? Hi. Good morning. Can I get you anything? Like me, naked on a blanket in the moonlight?

She cringed inwardly. She was preparing a complicated report with multiple columns of figures and the numbers jumped and buzzed before her eyes like performers in a flea circus.

Each time the doors to the elevator opened she fought an urge to dive beneath her desk like a creature startled to its burrow. Just the mail clerk. The assistant from finance with some new figures. Each arrival sent her into a frenzy of panic.

When a messenger arrived with a small box wrapped in gold paper, Sara’s eyes widened. Had Elan sent her something? She leaped out of her chair to receive it, a smile rising to her lips.

“Thanks!”

She ripped open the card with trembling fingers.

“Mr. Al Mansur, thanks for all you’ve done for us in Alberta. In eager anticipation of another banner year, yours, Tony Leon, Acme Drilling Co.”

It wasn’t for her. It was for Elan. A corporate gift. Probably another set of gold-plated golf tees.

Sara sagged with misery. How pathetic that she’d so quickly assumed Elan had made a romantic gesture.

Wishful thinking.

She put the box in his office and returned to her chair to resume her anxious vigil.

But he didn’t come in.

By noon she was confused and upset. He’d missed an important meeting with a supplier, yet had not asked her to take his place in it. Apparently he’d phoned his regrets to the other attendees.

“When is he coming?” asked first one caller, then another and another.

“I’m not exactly certain,” gradually became a mumbled, “I don’t know,” as Sara’s professional demeanor slipped a little further with each admission. She maintained his schedule, made all his appointments and usually knew his movements better than he did.

She was tempted to call his home to see if he was okay. But he’d excused himself from the meeting so he was obviously alive. He’d simply chosen not to come into the office today.

Had chosen not to see her.

“When’s Mr. Al Mansur coming back from Turkey?”

“What?” Sara glanced up from her work, anxiety spiking in her gut.

The Assistant VP for Production stood in front of her desk, a pen pressed to her carefully made-up lips. “It’s just that I really need him to sign these documents. I had no idea he was leaving for Turkey today.”

“Me neither.” Despair descended in a heavy fog. He’d left the country without telling her?

“Are you okay?” The other woman’s concern wrinkled her smooth brow as she hugged her thick folder of documents to her chest.

“Sure.” The word emerged excessively loud as she tried to exude self-confidence she didn’t feel. “I’m not sure when he’ll be back,” she said more quietly. She didn’t even know which airline he’d taken. He must have bought his own ticket.

“Is he there to look over the El Barak field? The one where the wells needed deepening?”

“I expect so.” She struggled to sound as normal as possible. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him.”

“You don’t look well. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Just a slight headache, I’ll take an aspirin for it.”

She rested her head on her desk as the door closed behind her coworker. A woman ten years older than herself and in a position of considerable authority. She was everything Sara hoped to be herself: respected, liked and admired for her quick thinking and effective teamwork.

That could have been her in a few years. If I hadn’t slept with my boss.

If only she could take an aspirin for heartache.

Elan was gone for four days. She spoke to him twice on the phone and their conversations were entirely professional. He wanted some documents e-mailed to him. He advised her of his return flight. She reported the minutes of a meeting he’d missed.

There was no mention, or even suggestion, of what had happened between them.

Sara was sure she would be terminated as soon as he returned. After all, she’d promised that if she didn’t perform as agreed—including keeping her eyes and hands off the boss—he could fire her outright. With that promise she’d slammed the door on any sexual harassment lawsuit.

She attempted to polish her résumé, but realized she couldn’t even include this job on it if she’d been here only one month. It would be obvious she’d been fired.

She wondered if she could beg him to keep her on for a few more months, just until she could find something else. She wondered if she could brazenly insist on holding her job, as she’d done on the first day.

It takes two to tango.

Even if she’d been warned from the outset that tangoing with the boss was strictly not on the agenda at Al Mansur Associates.

“Good afternoon, Sara.” Elan swept past her like a gust of wind, blowing through the doors from the elevator and into his office. His door slammed behind him before her brain fully registered his presence.

She hadn’t even managed a polite greeting.

Her pulse pounded in her temple as she dragged herself to her feet. She picked up a big stack of papers and a long series of messages she’d collected. There was nothing for it but to go in. Might as well get it over with.

She hesitated, held up her trembling fist for a moment before rapping on the door. Should she say anything about what had happened? Attempt a preemptive apology? She’d have to play it by ear. Ears almost deafened by the blood thundering in her head.

She knocked.

“Come in.”

The door swung open to reveal Elan seated in his leather throne. He looked up as if startled, though he must have known it would be her. He sprang to his feet and ran a broad hand through his hair.

“Sara.”

She gulped. “Yes.”

He looked right at her and she froze, turned to stone. His eyes were narrowed in a penetrating gaze, black and shadowed, his face taut, jaw clenched.

“I feel I must offer my most humble apologies for the events of last week.”

Her gut seized and she held her breath.

“You are a valued employee here. I think it’s best if we do not mention those events again.”

Thoughts rushed her brain and swept around in minicyclones—he isn’t firing me.

He wanted to forget their night together.

The rush of relief at getting to keep her job was undercut by a harsh stab of humiliating disappointment. Had she really expected to continue some kind of intimate relationship with Elan? Even after he disappeared for days, fled to the other side of the world to avoid her?

The ache in her heart told her she had.

“Yes,” she whispered. Her voice emerged as a hiss of steam released from an overheated radiator, but she was relieved she could find it at all. “Thank you.”

She could almost swear she saw him flinch as she said “thank you.” Was he disgusted that she didn’t resign on principle? Someone wealthy like him probably couldn’t understand how you could need a job more than your pride.

He nodded curtly. She cleared her throat and attempted to give him his messages in as normal a voice as possible.

He listened politely and responded appropriately, but as she talked she could see him looking almost anywhere but at her. A muscle worked in his jaw and his shoulders were rigid with tension. His discomfort in her presence was obvious.

And he had good reason to be uncomfortable. Because even as she spoke, her mind wandered. Wondered. Remembered the feel of his hands on her. Remembered the scent of him as she buried her face in his neck. Remembered the sweet, soothing warmth of being held tightly in his arms.

He studied a document, following the lines with his finger. The finger that had traced a line from her chin, to her belly button, to her agonizingly aroused… She blinked and swallowed hard, trying to shove down the disturbing sensations creeping through her body.

What was it about this man that made her professional demeanor fly out the window? That unhinged her almost to the point of madness?

She tore her eyes from him and tried to focus on the papers on his desk, on the spectacular expanse of clear sky visible through the window, on the spotless gray carpet. But each time her attention drifted back, in imperceptible degrees, to the man who consumed it.

To the way his hair was starting to touch his collar slightly in the back, in need of a cut. To the powerful tanned wrists revealed by the turned-back cuffs of his white shirt. To the way his tie was loosened slightly, accommodating one opened button at the neck of his shirt. Elan always looked a little too confined in clothes, as if he’d like to peel them off and get comfortable.

Or was it just her that wanted to peel them off? The thought made her anything but comfortable. She closed her eyes, attempting to block the sight of him from her vision. To block the image of him from her mind. But his midnight gaze was burned into her retinas.

“Are you…all right?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice rather too high-pitched. He might well ask. He’d caught her standing in his office with her eyes closed. Was she all right? Most definitely not. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be all right again. “Will that be all?” She managed to plaster on a thin veneer of professionalism, even as she started automatically backing toward the doorway.

“Yes, thank you.” Elan had turned away from her and bent over his desk, opening a drawer. She could see his biceps flexed tightly under the cotton of his shirt, his fists almost clenched. The tension in the air was suffocating, a cloying atmosphere of regret and recrimination that tormented them both.

What on earth had she been thinking when she touched Elan, when she kissed him, when she…

She turned on her heel and flew out the door. She accidentally slammed it in her haste to escape. Outside, she gasped a deep gulp of air and bent double as blood rushed to her head.

The only way she could survive this was to pretend it had never happened. To avoid thinking about it. It. The elusive it that sprang only too readily to the forefront of her consciousness. A night against which all other nights would inevitably be measured for the rest of her life.

Six

“We’d be delighted to do business with you. Thank you so much for coming.” Sara shook the last cool hand of the venture capitalist team from New York. She ushered them out of the conference room, professional smile fixed in place.

As the tall mahogany door closed behind them she collapsed into a chair, shaking.

A six-hour meeting. With the CEO, CFO, new business strategist and two administrative staff.

By herself.

“I’m sure you can handle the details,” Elan had said, when he announced he had other plans that morning.

Anderson Capital, which planned to invest in small “wildcat” oil-drilling firms and employ El Mansur Associates’ technology and expertise to make them more profitable, had the potential to bring millions of dollars of annual revenue to the company. And Elan had handed her the account, to win or lose, all on her own.

He wanted her to fail.

He wanted her to admit defeat. Quit. Leave.

And he wanted that so badly that he didn’t mind risking an important account to do it.

She’d already failed once. She’d betrayed his trust, broken her promise that she would not overstep the bounds of her job. This time she was determined not to fail.

Every day her mountain of responsibilities increased. The challenges Elan tossed in her direction grew more complex and demanding. She hadn’t slept more than three hours a night lately as she needed every single minute to prepare for the onslaught of meetings, reports and presentations that were now her responsibility in addition to her administrative duties.

Her cell phone vibrated—again—and she thought of the work that must be piling up on her desk right this minute.

She took a deep breath. “Hello.”

“Please come to my office.” Elan.

A flash of anger warred with the heat his deep voice conjured as it curled into her ear. “I’ll be right there.” How could he push her this hard?

She hung up the phone, gathered her papers, and shoved out into the hallway.

This is what she wanted, right? A challenging, highly paid position in the exact field of her expertise. Of course she’d never dreamed she’d be performing duties more suited to a senior vice president than to an executive assistant and project manager. She had Elan to thank for that, though thanks was really the last thing on her mind right now.

She stormed out of the elevator on her floor, dropped the sheaf of papers on her desk—which now looked as overloaded and messy as Elan’s—and rapped on the door to his office.

“Come in.”

She steeled herself against the sight of him.

“How was the meeting?” He lounged back in his chair. His black gaze threatened to steal the breath from her lungs as she groped for a response.

“I believe it went well,” she said stiffly. “They were concerned specifically about our ability to scale production quickly in the event a large new field was discovered, and I assured them that would not be a problem.”

“Good. I’d like you to prepare a proposal that covers any issues raised during the meeting and provides them with a detailed summary of the services we can offer…”

She nodded, watching his mouth as he rumbled about the chain of production and pipeline capacity.

Was this the same man who had held her that night in the desert?

She’d looked into his eyes and felt a connection deeper than she could have ever imagined. He’d held her so tenderly, so passionately, she was sure she’d found…her soul mate.

She’d been wrong.

She swallowed hard. “I’ll have it on your desk first thing tomorrow.”

He regarded her steadily for a moment, dark gaze drifting over her face. Could he see she was exhausted? Barely able to function?

Did that give him satisfaction?

She could read nothing in his stern features.

As his fingers wrapped around his gold fountain pen, she couldn’t help but remember the way they’d circled her waist, his hands so broad and strong he could lift her as if she weighed no more than a grain of sand.

“Thank you,” he said. Her dismissal. He turned back to the report he was reading.

She stood her ground. You won’t break me.

She stared at him for a moment, daring him to look back up at her. Did she imagine it, or did his fingers tighten around the pen? He paused in his reading, tugged at his collar, then glanced at her.

Their eyes met. “Will that be all?”

Sir.

She wanted him to know she saw the game he was playing.

“Yes, Sara.” He said her name slowly, emphatically, his dark eyes unblinking. Her stomach flipped and she held herself steady.

His full lips straightened into a hard line.

Lips that had kissed her with force and tenderness she could never have imagined. Lips that had teased and tempted her into a frenzy of passion.

Lips that held the power to fire her, as she’d invited him to do on her first day.

Yes, she’d failed once, and she wanted him to know it would never happen again.

Elan leaned back in his chair and let out a long, hard breath as the door closed behind her. The woman was stubborn as a camel and twice as tough. Any normal person would have thrown in the towel, but Sara?

Nooo.

He couldn’t help the smile that sneaked over his lips. This small woman had the courage of ten men. Unfortunately, she had the intelligence and aptitude of ten men, too, so no matter how much work he threw at her, somehow she managed to get it done. He was beginning to wonder if a little man called Rumplestiltskin visited her apartment in the evenings.

No. There was no time for any man in her evenings. He’d seen to that.

He wiped the smile of satisfaction from his face. Her evenings were no concern of his.

He’d made an error of judgment—once.

She’d touched something inside him he’d thought buried and forgotten. Reopened old wounds he was sure had scarred over. She’d seen past the strength, past the power, past the money—to the man within.

He’d felt, that night, that he needed her.

He rose from his chair, anger flaring in his chest.

He needed no one, and he would never let that happen again.

Seven

Bent over the sink in the office bathroom, Sara suffered another sudden surge of nausea. She was exhausted, drained, run-down.

And more than three months pregnant.

Until her visit to the doctor that afternoon, the possibility of a pregnancy had never crossed her mind. She’d bled after all, just not as much as usual, and the bleeding never really seemed to go away. She’d felt ill from time to time, but she’d put it down to stress and lack of sleep. After what seemed like a few weeks of intermittent on-and-off period she went to her gynecologist.

Diagnosis: Pregnancy.

The bleeding was abnormal and her doctor’s concern showed in her face. Sara had no idea what showed on her own face: astonishment, disbelief, possibly horror.

She was bustled into an ultrasound room and unceremoniously stripped and smeared with gel so the bizarre events taking place inside her could be examined in scientific detail.

All disbelief vanished when she saw it on the ultrasound monitor. My baby. Its little heart pumping visibly, its tiny limbs already distinguishable, curved under its big head.

Her panicked gasping had frightened the ultrasound technician.

“Don’t worry, dear,” the nurse said softly. She was soft all over, from her gloved hands to her fluffy blond hair. “The uterine environment looks quite normal. Some people do continue spotting for some weeks with no known cause. There’s no apparent danger to your pregnancy.”

Her reassuring words penetrated Sara’s consciousness, but they only made tears rise in her throat. A turmoil of unfamiliar emotions racked her body. Guilt that she hadn’t spared a thought for the “uterine environment.” A fearful recoil at the alien life secreted in her belly for so long without her knowledge. And—even more alarming—a fierce tug of intense affection for the tiny person growing inside her.

She stumbled back to the office to prepare a report for a meeting the following morning. It hadn’t occurred to her to do otherwise. That was before the reality of the situation sank in. Before she found herself sitting at her desk, unable to focus her eyes, confused thoughts crowding her brain and terror twisting her gut. Before she sprinted into the bathroom, overwhelmed by nausea and the horrifying reality that everything in her life was about to change.

Had already changed.

She couldn’t keep working this hard. She was endangering not only her health, but that of her baby. The report for tomorrow’s meeting would have to wait. She’d apologize, say she was ill. But she’d sneak out and call in her regrets from home because she just couldn’t face Elan right now.

She wasn’t sure if she could ever face him again.

All his cruel assumptions about her on her first day had proven horrifyingly accurate. She had lusted after him and seduced him. She’d risked the career opportunity of a lifetime for a few hours of pleasure.

Gambled with her life for one night in his arms.

And I am carrying Elan’s baby.