An outing, just the two of them alone. On an impossibly perfect day. With a man whose smile made her hanker after things she couldn’t let herself want. He was her boss. She’d be mad to agree.
The knock to the head must have messed with her sense of self-preservation because she heard herself say, ‘Thanks, Conall. I’d love to.’
Chapter Three
THE YACHT MOVED GENTLY, just enough to remind him they were on the water. That was enough to lift his spirits.
The realisation of how extraordinarily good it felt, being out here, only proved what he already knew. Things had been tough lately.
His gaze settled on Greer, half asleep with her wide-brimmed hat low over her face. She’d been full of questions about the vessel and sailing. She’d even offered to help, with an enthusiasm that made up for her inexperience.
He felt a smile hover at the corners of his mouth.
After they’d anchored, she’d shared the picnic lunch as if ravenous. When she ate in the office, she’d often peck at food, getting distracted by work. It seemed to him that since her release from hospital, she was too fragile. The line of her jaw seemed sharper and a slight hollow in her cheeks made him wonder if she were taking care of herself.
Imagine how she’d react if she knew you were trying to feed her up.
The smile became a wry twist of the lips. Which solidified as she sighed and turned in her seat, confirming his suspicion she was dozing.
Her movement drew attention to the rounded thrust of her breasts against that fitted T-shirt.
He knew Greer well enough to realise she hadn’t deliberately dressed to provoke him with that sexy dark bra clearly visible beneath the white cotton.
He swallowed. Of course she hadn’t.
That didn’t stop his thoughts veering in the direction he’d vowed to avoid. He dragged his gaze from her full breasts only to trace instead the line of her body to that slim waist, then the flare of her hips.
His fingers curled into his palms and his pulse thudded too hard as want rose in him.
He jerked his head around to look out across the water. But instead of seeing the glint of sunlight on the rippling surface, his mind’s eye pictured narrow, sandalled feet and long legs. She wore a colour he knew from an ex-girlfriend was called French blue. His ex had liked it because it suited her blond hair.
It suited Greer better.
Greer was brunette. Her long, straight brown hair was as dark as mink.
Conall knew that because when he was five, just after his mother died and he’d gone to live with the father he’d never met, he’d discovered a huge walk-in wardrobe, bigger than his old living room. He’d accidentally knocked a jacket off its hanger. It had been so rich and soft it had made him yearn suddenly for his mother and those wonderful soft hugs she used to give him.
When the housekeeper found him he was standing on a chair, tears streaming down his face as he struggled to lift the heavy fur onto its hanger. She quickly tidied up and swept him down into the kitchen before his father could see him crying. His father, a daunting, distant man, didn’t like emotion. She’d explained the fur was mink and he must never touch it again. It had belonged to Mrs Abercrombie, his father’s wife who’d died. Conall’s mother had died too. She hadn’t been married to his father or lived in a big house and he’d wondered if that was why she hadn’t had anything so soft as a fur coat.
Conall pushed aside the ancient memory. Why he’d thought of that after all these years, he couldn’t fathom.
But he could. That had been his first, shocking experience of loss. Events here in Sydney had dragged it to the surface.
They’d hammered home to him how precarious life was.
He remembered the taut, unhappy line of Greer’s mouth weeks ago. The bleakness in her blind stare, as if the world didn’t make sense anymore. He remembered standing beside her, startlingly bereft in the face of her pain. He’d never felt so desperate to make things better for anyone.
It had been humbling and made him look long and hard at his priorities. What he’d seen hadn’t been pretty. What was the point of living for work when life was so fragile? For years he’d forgotten that.
He was thankful she was safe and healing. He couldn’t imagine losing Greer.
Conall turned to find stunning, ink-blue eyes staring at him with an expression he couldn’t decipher.
‘You’re awake,’ he blurted.
‘Was I snoring? It must be the sunshine. One minute we were talking and the next…’ She shook her head.
‘You only napped for a few minutes. Definitely not long enough to snore.’
