sidelines making suggestions while you make all the decisions, sorry, but I’m not interested.’
‘This is going to be a working relationship, Lou,’ he said, holding onto his own temper by the skin of his teeth, ‘where we discuss things, then we decide what to do, then we take action.’
‘If I’d waited for you to order supper, we’d have starved,’ she said, already beyond reason, but then her reaction to criticism had always been to overreact. The simplest thing had sent her overboard. A suggestion that her skirt was too short. A reprimand for flirting with the customers…
She was incapable of backing down, admitting a mistake.
‘Dammit, Louise,’ he said, ‘you haven’t changed one bit-’
‘Dammit, Max, neither have you!’ She was on her feet, in his face. ‘You’re still the same arrogant, overbearing, despotic, pigheaded idiot you always were!’
CHAPTER FIVE
LOUISE was outraged. He’d said this was what he’d wanted her for, but when she used her initiative, got on with the job, he couldn’t handle it.
‘Forget it, Max,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘This is never-’
‘Don’t!’ He grabbed her by the shoulders before she could pick it up, spinning her around to face him. ‘Don’t say another word!’
‘Never,’ she repeated, blazing her defiance at him. ‘Going-’
‘Lou!’ he warned.
‘To-’
His mouth descended on hers with the impact of fire on ice, stopping her words, stopping her breath, stopping her heart.
For an instant the world was an explosion of hissing, sizzling reaction on the surface while inside she remained frozen with shock. Then his arms were around her, pulling her close and she was clinging to him as her lips, her bones, her brain were overwhelmed by the heat and began, very slowly, to melt.
This was it.
This was the moment she’d yearned for, struggled against all her adult life. To know this, feel this.
To taste Max on her lips, feel the silk of his tongue stopping her angry words, showing her that she wasn’t alone. That he was suffering too…
Her arms wound themselves around his neck, her fingers made free with hair that she’d longed to touch, knowing in some dark corner of her mind that she’d wantonly engineered this, forced this moment.
She’d wanted this ever since that moment at the Valentine’s Day party when, sixteen years old and full of herself, she’d grabbed his hand, insisting on teaching him the steps of the newest dance. And then, as the music had changed to something slower, she’d seen something shift in the way he was looking at her, seen his eyes darken and felt something new, something dangerous stir, respond, deep inside her, wanting a lot more.
She’d known, as he pulled away, that everything had changed between them. That a touch was no longer innocent. That even to look was an invitation that damned them both.
Young, angry, stupid, she’d pushed him and pushed him to take what she could see he wanted, what she wanted, even while she’d known it was forbidden, could never happen, until that final eruption when he’d sacked her, humiliated her, driven her so far away that there had been no way back.
She understood now that he’d been protecting himself, protecting both of them, in the only way he knew how.
But the day her father had told her she was adopted, all that had changed.
We don’t have a problem…
He’d said it, but even then he’d held back, as if unable to overcome years of keeping the dark, unspoken need under tight control. Now, though, with his body hard against hers there could be no more pretence, no ignoring the truth between them. That she felt alive, wicked but alive as she never had before; knew that this was what she wanted, this was the token she’d demanded in return for coming back. Not just a kiss but his total surrender so that she could finally be free of the crippling desire for Max Valentine that had ruined every relationship she’d ever had.
Even as she clung to him he pulled back a little to look at her, his eyes dark, intense, yet giving nothing away, the habit of concealment too strong…
‘You were saying?’ he murmured, cool, self-possessed.
‘I was?’ Her body might be in flames, but she would match his cool…‘I don’t recall,’ she said, reclaiming her arms, understanding that, for now at least, the kiss was over.
Her composure would follow in its own good time.
His response was a slow, wide, seductive smile. ‘Then I believe, we have a contract, Louise,’ he said.
‘You think?’ she asked as he stepped back, picked up the glasses he’d brought with him. ‘I don’t believe I mentioned where exactly I wanted it. The kiss.’
She took the glass he was offering her before he actually spilled the contents, then continued, quite casually, ‘You do know you’re taking quite a risk giving me this? Track record would suggest that I’m as likely to toss it over you as drink it.’
‘Maybe if I told you that it’s Krug?’ he offered.
‘You think that would stop me?’
He managed a wry smile. ‘On the contrary. I imagine it would add to your pleasure.’
Pleasure? There was no pleasure in it. In the past, when she’d thrown things, all she’d wanted was for him to stop saying things that made her angry, stop him criticising her, making her hate him.
‘On the other hand, you do tend to respond in the heat of the moment. If you were going to throw it, you’d have done it already instead of talking about it.’
‘True.’ And besides, his way of putting a stop to a fight was so much more…interesting. ‘If I’ve leapt in with both feet, Max, I’m sorry. I’m used to working on my own, not having to answer to anyone except the client.’
‘I am the client.’
‘So you are. My mistake.’ She looked up, met his gaze directly then, with the smallest of shrugs, ‘I may have got a little carried away in my excitement.’ And he could take that any way he liked. ‘Tomorrow I’ll print out a note to stick on my computer-” TALK TO MAX”.’
‘Whilst I treasure the rarity of an apology from you, I suspect I’m the one who should be grovelling. This is what Jack wanted you on board for. Your quickness. Your vision. You weren’t stepping on my toes, Louise. On the contrary, you were giving me a lift.’ Then, ‘Not that I’m trying to dissuade you from talking to me.’
Anything but, Max thought.
He’d kissed her because it had seemed the only way to stop her saying words that would have ended everything, to exert the control that was slipping away from him. He’d lost that the moment she’d begun to kiss him back. He was still numb with the shock of it; the only thing on his mind her scent, faint, seductive, making him want to pull her back into his arms, bury his face in her skin…
He was walking and talking as if nothing had happened, but inside he was in turmoil, only able to think of kissing her again, this time not for himself but for her.
Kissing her throat, her breasts, every inch of her until she was whimpering with pleasure, with need, so that they could finish what he’d started. Begin anew…
But he could never do that again. Next time it really would have to be her call, and she’d made it clear enough that she would call, that they had unfinished business. He could only hope that she wouldn’t wait too long.
Even while he was sending urgent signals to his feet to step back, put a safe distance between them, she flipped her hair behind her ear out of the way in a give-away gesture that suddenly seemed as familiar to him as drawing breath.
She’d always done that, he realised, even when she was a little kid. When she was unsure of herself, out of her depth. Then, when she’d done it, she’d always looked at him for reassurance. Now she looked away.
‘It might be a good idea to schedule a regular daily meeting,’ she said, ‘just to keep one another in the picture about what we’re doing?’
