Like the members of staff, he had no time for the formality of suits, but he had a series of meetings later, and for once was dressed the part. His shirt was crisp and white, although casually rolled to the elbows, and his tailored trousers were charcoal-grey and matched the linen jacket which had been chucked on the walnut unit standing against the brick wall.
He looked incredibly sophisticated, incrediblyexpensiveand breathtakingly sexy, but for once her heart didn’t skip a beat.
‘Guess who I bumped into outside?’
‘Ah. So we’re going to be going down theguessing gameroute... How many guesses am I allowed?’
‘Naomi.’
He lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second and stilled. ‘Ah... And I’m taking it...’ he murmured, reaching for the envelope and twirling it absently between his fingers, ‘That this is a missive from her?’
‘She said she’d been waiting in the coffee shop opposite to catch me because she didn’t want to hand-deliver it to you herself. Look, I come here to work. I don’t come here to get involved in any tiffs you have with your girlfriends.’
‘Sit down.’
Ellie hesitated. She had more to say on the subject, but he was still her boss, and how much could she complain before he began drawing lines? He was notoriously liberal and open-minded with the people who worked with him. He preferred to get results through nurture rather than wielding a whip. A happy employee, he had told her once, was a productive employee, so he made sure his employees were happy.
But she had seen him with difficult clients and wayward suppliers. She had seen the cold face of a guy who sat at the top of the pile. There was very much a steel hand within the velvet glove, and there was no way she intended to antagonise him by giving him an earful about what she thought of being dragged into his private dramas.
If he didn’t want dramatics, she could have told him, then he should try and have a straightforward love life. She clamped down hard on the thoughts running wild in her head and did as told.
‘I apologise.’ He looked at her and for once that easy, watchful charm was missing. ‘You’re right. You come here to work and everything else is irrelevant. You don’t have to tell me that, Ellie. I’ve had three years to get the message loud and clear. Yesterday, you found yourself forced to share some of your opinions with me, and I expect you’re desperate to get the balance back to normal. Am I right?’
Ellie blushed and tore her eyes away from his remarkable face. ‘I don’t want to be a go-between between you and your girlfriend,’ she prevaricated.
‘Ex-girlfriend. Even if she doesn’t want to believe that at the moment, and even though I’m being bombarded with text messages begging for a second chance. You don’t need to know any of this because you’re absolutely right—being a go-between definitely isn’t part of your job description. Believe it or not, the last thing I want is for you or anyone else to get accidentally involved in my private life.’
The blue eyes resting on her were thoughtful and serious. ‘The world sees beautiful women on my arm...’ He shrugged and smiled wryly. ‘The world doesn’t get to see what happens between those beautiful women and me. Which is why Naomi’s behaviour here yesterday left a sour taste in my mouth. Which is why I am below zero interested to read whatever is in that envelope.’
Ellie hesitated, lured in by the pensive seriousness in his voice, and the feeling that something was beingsharedbetween them. Which, of course, was an illusion and yet... What he had just said so perfectly dovetailed with what she thought, that she wanted him to expand on it.
‘If you don’t read it and respond,’ she ventured, ‘then you might find that she keeps trying to get in touch until you do.’
‘And naturally you don’t want to be accosted for a second time by a persistent ex.’
‘It’s not about that. It’s just that...problems don’t go away because you want them to.’ She flushed. ‘At least, that’s what I think.’ If only they did. If only the problems with her mother had conveniently vanished when she’d been a teenager, leaving her to enjoy her youth without the complications of dealing with situations for which she had been ill-equipped. She felt a shocking urge to cry, and blinked rapidly and with some embarrassment, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her crazy reaction.
‘Perhaps,’ she picked up crisply, ‘You’d like me to return when you’ve dealt with...whatever you need to deal with in reply to...er...whatever is in that envelope?’
‘Stay where you are. There’s something I need to discuss with you.’ He slit open the envelope, scanned the contents and then stuck it to one side. ‘I can deal with this later. Now. Tell me what your plans are for the next week or so...’
‘My plans?’ Ellie looked at him, bewildered.
‘I was due to head to Barbados to initiate talks with that start-up company in the expectation of closing the deal a bit further down the line, post a certain wedding ceremony in Hawaii...’
‘Yes.’ Ellie had no idea where this was leading but she would find out in due course. At least they were no longer skating on the thin ice of personal conversation, although she was still toying with what the contents of that envelope might be.
She had seen the other woman’s face, had seen the stark desperation there. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever had prompted her outburst of the day before had now given way to horror that she might have blown her relationship with London’s most eligible bachelor. That said, bombardment by text message was definitely not the way to go to get a point across. Not to someone like James Stowe.
Poor Naomi. Did she think that James Stowe was the kind of guy to do U-turns? Ellie could have warned her not to hold out hopes for any such thing, butof courseshe would never have done that, because none of this was her business.
Cool reason and the sheer habit of keeping herself to herself fought in vain against stupidly inappropriate curiosity. Was there any side to him that was vulnerable? Could any woman get behind that easy charm to find someone deeper?
She tilted her head to one side and did her best to look engaged with what he was saying, but questions were running around in her head, as though released from a Pandora’s box. He was saying something about the start-up company in Barbados and she wondered whether she should be flicking open her tablet at this point to take notes.
‘Sorry,’ she finally interrupted him. ‘Could you please repeat what you just said?’
‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying, Ellie? Or did you temporarily lose touch with Ground Control?’
