didn't need to. I was just doing my job.'
`If you can call your performance last night doing your job…!' Both of them were glad to ease the embarrassment with laughter. `They wrapped it in the shop,' Luke went on as she pulled at the curled ribbon.
`I rather thought they might have done!' It was impossible to imagine Luke's massive hands managing anything as fiddly as this delicate wrapping.
The paper fell away to reveal a small leather jeweller's box. With a startled look at Luke, Kate opened it carefully. An exquisite brooch lay on a bed of silk. It was rather an old-fashioned design, with simple scrolls of gold on either side of a lustrous pearl.
Kate felt tears sting her eyes. `It's beautiful,' she said huskily.
`I thought you might use it to pin the cleavage on that black dress together,' Luke said severely, but he was clearly pleased at her reaction. Seeing Kate's mouth tremble, he added, `You're not going to turn into a watering- pot after all?'
'No.' Kate shook her head so that the shining hair bounced, and sniffed unromantically. Pushing back her chair, she half stood to lean over the table and lay her palm against his face. `Thank you,' she murmured, and kissed his cheek. His skin was tantalisingly rough, with a clean, indefinably male scent.
Luke's hand came up to cover hers, and tightened over it as she pulled away, so that he was still holding it as she sat down, suddenly shy.
`You never wear any jewellery,' he said, turning her hand over and inspecting her fingers. `Why is that?'
`I'm afraid I've got expensive tastes,' Kate said a little unsteadily. She was excruciatingly aware of his warm touch. His fingers were strong and dry, slightly rough against the smoothness of hers. `I'd rather not wear anything until I have something worth wearing-like this brooch.'
`It's a pity. You've got beautiful hands. I noticed them the first time I met you. You never paint your nails, do you? They're just cut short and kept very clean.' He rubbed his thumb over one of her nails experimentally.
Only their fingertips were touching, but Kate could feel desire quivering deep inside her. Her skin tingled and her face grew hot as longing shivered along her veins, clenching her stomach with the steady, insistent tug of physical yearning.
`Perhaps someone will buy you some rings some day,' he went on.
`Perhaps,' she croaked, then cleared her throat hastily.
Luke's eyes were unreadable. `Make sure he doesn't buy you diamonds. Diamonds are too hard for you. You need warmer stones, rubies or emeralds or pearls. Or topaz, to match your eyes.'
With a supreme effort Kate pulled her hand away. `It's not an immediate problem,' she said shortly. He wasn't being fair. Didn't he know how her heart soared just to be near him? Couldn't he see how she burned at his touch?
She was his secretary. She must remember that. Cool. Sensible. Businesslike. Wasn't that how she had decided to be? Wasn't that how she was?
Kate closed the lid of the box and turned it slowly between her hands, her head bent so that all Luke could see was the dark sweep of her lashes against the clear skin.
`No, I suppose not,' he said in a flat voice.
The companionable atmosphere had tensed, and the silence that fell jangled uneasily between them. Kate found that she was holding the box too tightly, and put it down, hiding her hands beneath the table in case Luke should see their shaking.
She stared blindly down at the plastic ashtray advertising Gauloises. Luke's face danced in front of her eyes: firm nose, firm mouth, firm jaw. The line of his cheek, the lines around his eyes. She ached with the need to reach out and touch him.
Suddenly Luke picked up his glass and tossed back the dregs of his wine. `Come on,' he said, putting the glass back down with an abrupt click, `We'd better go if we want to catch that flight.'
It was a silent journey back to London. Luke buried himself in a report, and Kate looked out of the window at the blue lightness above the clouds and reminded herself of all the reason: why she shouldn't love him.
It was pointless. It was stupid. It was a complete waste of her life. He wasn't even very nice. She would do far better to fall in love with someone who would appreciate her, like Xavier. The sensible thing to do would be to convince herself that Paris had gone to her head. She would concentrate on her work and forget that Luke was anything other than her boss.
Well, she would try.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FORTUNATELY for Kate, so much needed to be done to finalise details for the new contract that she had little time to think, and when she was able to go into work with a calm pulse and a heart that did no more than lift very slightly when Luke came into the room she decided that she had simply been over-reacting to the excitement of Paris.
She and Luke had slipped into a routine of sheer hard work, and Kate often had to work late, translating or collating documents when the phones stopped ringing at the end of the day. She didn't mind. The longer she worked, the less time she had to think about whom Luke was taking out to dinner.
He seemed tired and preoccupied much of the time, but it didn't stop his going out every night, either with Helen or a girl called Lynette, who rang persistently, usually when Kate was at her busiest.
She and Luke had found an even balance, Kate decided. Apart from one or two notable occasions, Luke was generally polite and treated her as a valued and efficient employee. Kate told herself she was glad. Once or twice she would look up from her word processor and their eyes would meet for a glancing moment before both looked quickly away.
One day Luke came into the office, to find Kate holding a huge bunch of roses and searching for the card.
`Who's been sending you flowers?' he scowled.
Kate opened the envelope and pulled out the card. `They're from Xavier,' she said slowly, reading the message.
'Xavier! What's he doing, sending you flowers?' Luke snatched the card out of her hand. '`Hoping to see you soon, Xavier,'' he read with disgust. `When's he coming?'
`I've no idea,' said Kate. `I'm surprised he didn't mention it on the phone. I speak to him quite often.'
`I hope you're not using the office phone to organise your love-life,' Luke said ungraciously. `I won't have my staff making personal phone calls all day.'
Kate cast him a look of calm reproof. `You know perfectly well that I have to talk to Xavier about business. He's dealing with most of the detail on the contract. It's one of the reasons you employ me, after all, to talk to him about the arrangements in French.'
`As long as they're the only arrangements you're talking about!' Luke went into his office and shut the door behind him with a bang.
The flowers seemed to put Luke out of temper for the rest of the day. He was in a nit-picking mood and nearly drove Kate up the wall by finding fault with everything she did, and changing his mind about some travel arrangements so often that Kate had difficulty holding on to her temper.
But it was a beautiful February day, and the sky was bright with the promise of spring. Pale winter sunshine poured in through the window and the sweet fragrance of the roses hung in the air. In spite of Luke, Kate found herself humming as she went through some papers on her desk.
`What are you so happy about?' Luke snapped, erupting from his office without warning. He strode over to the filing cabinets and began rummaging around in one of the drawers. `I suppose you're feeling smug because of those roses cluttering up the office?'
'Are you looking for anything in particular?' Kate asked sweetly, ignoring his question.
`I want that file on David Young Associates. Why can't you keep these files in some kind of order?'
'They are in order. You're looking in the wrong drawer.' Kate rose, pushed him firmly out of the way, shut the drawer and pulled out the one beneath it. `The David Young Associates file lives here,' she said, retrieving a thick buff folder. `It's difficult to find, I know, because the label is confusingly marked 'David Young Associates'.'
