‘You did ask me what I thought.’ She inwardly winced at the defensive note in her voice. How had this conversation become so derailed? The devil works on idle hands, she thought. For once his hands had been idle, and in she’d walked, perfectly placed for him to have a little Machiavellian fun at her expense.
He perched on the solid, wooden square table in front of her and leant forward, his forearms on his thighs, his fingers loosely linked.
‘And I’m very glad that I did,’ he murmured soothingly. ‘How else would I have known just how much resentment you were stockpiling for me?’
‘I haven’t been stockpiling resentment, James!’ she cried, dismayed. Her cheeks were hectic with colour and she was leaning towards him, every nerve and pulse in her stretched taut with tension.
‘She got the wrong idea.’
‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’ Pinned to the spot by incisive blue eyes, Ellie couldn’t move a muscle. Her jaw ached from the effort of swallowing and her breathing was shallow and uneven.
Her thoughts were all over the place, because the conversation felt intimate. The gap between them had been breached and she didn’t like it.
‘Naomi wasn’t chucked out of my office. I’m not quite the monster you seem to think I am.’
‘I don’t think anything of the sort!’
‘Sure, she surprised me by coming here and, sure, I don’t encourage women to pay impromptu visits to my office. This is where I work. That said, she showed up, and I was perfectly happy to make her a cup of coffee, take time out for fifteen minutes and then escort her out but...’ He shrugged. ‘The conversation didn’t go as expected. It seems that Naomi equated an invite to Max’s wedding with a declaration of intent from me. She showed me pictures of the dress she wanted to wear to the wedding and then she hinted one too many times that she wanted more than fun...that she thought it might be time for me to meet the parents. I thought she was kidding and, when I told her that I thought she understood the score, she went ballistic. Women may not be robots, Ellie, but they should be astute enough to know where I stand on the subject of longevity when I’ve been upfront with them from the start.’
‘Poor Naomi...’ Ellie could think of nothing worse than actually falling for someone like James Stowe.
‘PoorNaomi?’
‘Her hopes were raised and you dashed them, and I don’t suppose you were all that tactful with it.’
He burst out laughing and she threw him a shadow of a smile.
‘And just for your information, James, I’m not at all resentful. I love my job. It’s challenging and absorbing and, if I don’t happen to agree with how you approach relationships, then that’s just a personal thing and I don’t want you thinking... I wouldn’t want that to somehow...’
‘It won’t.’ He waved down her stumbling apology. He looked at her curiously, head tilted to one side. ‘Wouldyouhave thrown a hissy fit if the guy you were dating told you he wasn’t into love and marriage?’
‘I wouldn’t be dating any guy who wasn’t prepared to be serious,’ Ellis said bluntly. Once again, she was swamped by a feeling of inappropriate intimacy, although she knew that that was on her part. As far as James was concerned, for once they would simply be conversing as two people instead of as boss and employee. He was casual with all his staff and he encouraged them to talk to him about anything and everything. It was all part of his immense charm.
Six months ago, he had spent an hour holed up with her friend Trish, providing her with a shoulder to cry on because she’d broken up with her boyfriend and was finding it hard to concentrate. He had listened, handed out tissues and then offered her one of his houses abroad for a week’s vacation with a friend, all paid for by him.
‘That’s a tall order for a guy.’
‘It’s a tall order foryou.’ She flushed and then stood up, smoothing down her skirt.
When their eyes met, she could tell that he was amused and sure enough, his eyebrows raised, barely stifling a grin, he said, ‘I see the work hat is back on.’
‘There’s a lot to get through today.’
‘I think we’ve got through quite a bit already,’ James mused softly. ‘More than could be expected.’
Ellie flinched. He had managed to slide his foot through the door. Not by much, but enough, and she quailed at the prospect of him thinking that a foot through the door somehow gave him permission to introduce a new level to their well-oiled working relationship.
Ellie knew that she was overreacting. When you worked closely with someone, when you were with them day after day, hour upon hour, it was impossiblenotto let them into your life. The fact that she had held him at bay for so long was the very reason for his curiosity about her.
She wished, somewhere deep inside her, that she could be different...that she could be more open. But she’d always been quiet, and that reserved nature had become something more after her dad had died.
Being responsible for her mother had made her independent. She had had no one to help deal with the loss of the person she loved. Her parents had both been only children and, as she was an only child, there had just been her. Her friends had had their own teenage lives to lead. At first they had been sympathetic, but bit by bit the whole business oflivinghad grabbed their attention and, one by one, they had faded away, occasionally glancing back to see how she was doing.
She had coped on her own and she had learned to deal with the problems life threw at her without recourse to anyone and without asking anyone’s help. She had learned to be contained to the point where sharing herself felt like a mountain that was too steep to climb.
Certainly, sharing anything about her private life with her boss, herthoughts and feelings, had never, ever been an option. Now, it felt as though something had shifted underneath her feet, and she would have to claw back lost ground—get them both back to where they had been.
‘Shall I cancel the flights and bookings for Naomi?’ Her fingers itched for the safety of her tablet which she had been ordered to abandon. ‘Will you still be going to Barbados as planned or would you like me to rearrange that trip and reschedule it for later in the month, when you return from Hawaii?’
