Honeymoon with the Boss

It was all very well to talk about being normal, but normal would have been to be lying in this bed together, holding each other, touching each other.

Making love.

But they had decided to be friends instead. Friends was much better than being normal.

Wasn’t it?

Of course it was.

In the kitchen, there was an awkward pause. ‘Want some coffee?’ said Tom after a moment.

‘Thanks.’

Fastening her sarong more firmly around her, Imogen perched on a stool at the breakfast bar. ‘How long have you been up?’

‘A couple of hours. I slept late this morning. I’m usually awake about five.’

‘That’ll be why you’re always at the office before me,’ said Imogen, who was a night owl and had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of sleep by a piercing alarm every morning in order to get to work on time.

But as soon as the words were out, she wished that she hadn’t mentioned the office. It was too bizarre to be sitting here in her sarong, watching Tom make coffee, and remembering that he was her boss and she was just his PA.

Then again, perhaps she should remember that more often. Last night, it had been all too easy to forget.

‘You’ve been working,’ she said, nodding at the laptop in the other room.

‘I thought I might as well see what was going on.’ There was a faintly defensive edge to Tom’s voice. ‘The world hasn’t stopped just because we’re here. There are still things to do, and I’ve got to-’

He stopped. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Are you asking me as a PA or as a friend?’

‘As a friend,’ said Tom after a moment’s hesitation.

‘OK, then I think you’re mad,’ she said bluntly. ‘You need a break, Tom. If I were you, I’d take that laptop to the end of the jetty and toss it into the lagoon.’

‘What?’ He looked absolutely horrified at the thought.

‘This is supposed to be a holiday. You shouldn’t even be thinking about work. Why don’t you just relax?’

‘And do what exactly?’

‘You said you would teach me how to snorkel,’ she reminded him.

‘Hmm.’ He had said that, Tom remembered, but he wasn’t buying the idea of relaxing for three weeks. Who did she think he was? ‘What would you have said if I’d asked you as my PA?’

‘Certainly, Mr Maddison, what would you like me to do first?’

His mouth twitched. ‘I don’t remember you ever being that demure in real life!’

‘Of course I was,’ said Imogen, pretending to bridle. ‘I’m the perfect PA.’

‘You think so?’

‘I’m reliable, aren’t I? And discreet. So discreet, in fact, that you hardly knew I was there half the time. What more do you want from a PA?’

‘I knew you were there all right,’ Tom said. ‘You were always talking to someone.’

But he knew what Imogen meant. He hadn’t really been aware of her. It was hard to believe now that he had worked with her for six months and never realised that her eyes were that blue, or her skin that soft. How could he not have noticed her body before? He must have been blind.

All that time Imogen had been there, and he hadn’t given her more than a passing thought. The office was never going to be the same again, Tom realised with a sinking heart. Now that he had noticed her, he wasn’t going to be able to stop. He wouldn’t be able to walk past her desk without knowing how soft and generously curved she was beneath whatever prim PA outfit she might be wearing.

Without remembering how dishevelled she looked when she had just got out of bed, with her hair all mussed. Without thinking about the way those dark blue eyes danced when she was teasing him, about the feel of her and the scent of her when she hugged him.

Tom rolled a shoulder uneasily. The office had always been the place he felt most comfortable, but it looked as if that was all going to change. Perhaps it was just as well that Imogen would be leaving soon.

‘Is there a problem?’ Imogen had been watching his face more closely than he realised.

‘Problem? No!’ he said quickly.

‘So are you going to listen to me as a friend or as a secretary?’

‘Both,’ said Tom, taking a firm grip of himself. ‘I’ll teach you how to snorkel and we’ll go out to the reef, but it’ll be very hot by the time we get there so we won’t be able to spend too long. When we get back, I want to do some work and I don’t want to hear anything about switching off or relaxing or any of that stuff. Deal?’

‘Deal!’ Imogen jumped off her stool and grinned at him. ‘I’ll go and get ready.’ Her eyes were bright and blue, and she looked so pretty and so vivid that Tom felt his throat close.

He actually had to clear it before he could speak. ‘Have you got anything like an old T-shirt with you?’ he asked her, forcing his mind back to practicalities. ‘You should wear something over your bikini to stop your shoulders getting burnt.’

‘Old T-shirts are about all I have got,’ said Imogen cheerfully. ‘I’d have had much more of a problem if you’d asked me to wear something smart.’

It didn’t take long to put on a bikini and a T-shirt and she was back a few minutes later, eager to get going.

Tom had been checking the snorkelling equipment and mentally lashing himself. Somehow things had got off track in the last twenty-four hours. He’d come to Coconut Island to save face, to get away from the pitying looks that were bound to follow him once it became known that Julia had jilted him practically at the altar, and to do some work. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

He just hadn’t counted on Imogen being quite so…distracting. It was time to take control, Tom decided. Yes, she was more attractive than he had realised, and yes, the friends thing made sense while they were here but, when it came down to it, she was still his PA. If he wanted to get any work done here, and once they got home, he had better start remembering that. He needed to get things back onto the friendly but impersonal footing he had originally intended.

So it should have helped that Imogen turned up in a baggy old T-shirt unlike anything Julia would ever have worn. He had always been drawn to women who were well-groomed and dressed with style, so the faded T-shirt ought to have been enough on its own to remind him of all the reasons he shouldn’t, couldn’t, didn’t find his PA remotely attractive.

Only it didn’t work like that. All the T-shirt did was draw his attention to the swell of her breasts, to the curve of her hips and her bare legs. He watched Imogen slathering them with sun cream and found his mouth drying.

Friendly and impersonal? Yeah, right.

Tom forced his eyes back to the flippers he had been sorting through when Imogen had appeared. No staring, no imagining how it would feel to run his hands up and down those legs. No fantasising about peeling that T-shirt off her…

He could do it, Tom told himself sternly. All it took was a little self-control, and control was what he did best.

‘Let’s go,’ he said gruffly as he handed Imogen a snorkel and mask. ‘We’ll let you practice in the lagoon first, and then we’ll go out to the reef.’

He showed her how to put her face in the water and breathe through the snorkel, and when he was satisfied that she had the hang of it, he tossed the flippers and masks into the little dinghy and started the outboard motor.

The morning air sparkled as they puttered out towards reef. From the boat, the house was quickly swallowed by the foliage until the island seemed no more than a low smudge of dark green between the vast blue arch of the sky and the pale jade of the lagoon. Behind them, the engine spluttered water that glinted like diamonds in the sunlight and left a quiet, rippling wake.

Facing him on the hard seat, Imogen’s T-shirt was wet from her lesson and it clung in a most distracting way. Tom had been able to ignore it when he was explaining how to breathe through the snorkel, but now it was an