The Secretary's Secret

She released her iron grip on her chair. ‘Let me get this right.’ Her hands trembled. Perspiration gathered beneath the col ar of her shirt, beneath the underwire of her bra. ‘You’re saying you wish last night never happened?’ The perfectly monitored air-conditioned air chil ed the skin at her throat, at her nape, of her bare-but-for-nylons legs. She resisted the urge to chafe her arms. ‘That you… regret last night?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

She stared into his face—cold, hard, the face of a stranger—and greyness leached in at the edges of her consciousness, swamping her joy, blanketing her in a thick fog that her mind struggled to think through.

The air conditioning chil ed a layer of ice around her heart, numbed her brain and robbed her eyes and mouth of al natural moisture. She’d never realized before how much she hated air conditioning.

Beyond Alex, through the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window, morning light glinted off the white sails of the Sydney Opera House with an absurd gaiety that was reflected in a thousand different points of light in the water of the harbour.

How had she read this man, this situation, so wrong? She lifted her hands to massage her temples. She wasn’t some doe-eyed schoolgirl easily seduced.

No hot-blooded woman would deny Alex’s al -

male magnetism, and last night she had most definitely been hot-blooded.

But not doe-eyed!

A demon of panic clawed at her throat. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. He couldn’t deny this connection that existed between them.

She dragged her gaze from the sight of the harbour, alive with yachts and ferries, to the man on the other side of the desk. He leaned towards her the other side of the desk. He leaned towards her and she forgot to breathe. What would he do if she leaned across the table too and pressed her lips to his? She’d bet her bottom dol ar it’d drive the deep freeze from his eyes.

He jerked back, folded his arms. His face became even more stony and unreadable. ‘It can never happen again.’ He must’ve registered her shock because he added, ‘Not that I’m denying it was enjoyable, pleasurable.’

His eyes darkened, as if in memory of the amazing things they’d done together last night, and everything inside her clenched.

‘Nevertheless, it cannot happen again.’

‘Why not?’ The question slipped out of her like the air from a slowly deflating party bal oon. She knew it wasn’t what he’d wanted her to say. She hitched up her chin. Why shouldn’t she ask? It wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.

Except a good job.

Wel , okay, it was a great job.

And maybe some pride.

She pushed her shoulders back. Who gave two hoots about pride at a time like this? And good jobs were a dime a dozen to someone with her qualifications. ‘Why not?’ she repeated, louder this time.

‘Because you’re the best damn secretary I’ve ever had!’ He slammed his hand down on the desk, the force half spinning him in his chair. He glared at the wal to her left. ‘And I don’t want to ruin a great working relationship by sleeping with you.’

Why were men so afraid to cal it making love?

She stared at him, wil ing him to meet her eye, silently urging him to unsay his words and to put this right. When he didn’t she said, ‘From memory, there wasn’t much sleeping involved.’

She cleared her throat and leaned towards him.

‘And, for the record, I don’t think it was unfortunate and I certainly don’t regret it.’ So there. Al his square-jawed, broad-shouldered, tight-buttocked masculinity could take that!

One of his superb shoulders shifted, its power barely disguised by the impeccable cut of his suit.

She recal ed the feel of the firm flesh of those shoulders beneath her fingertips, the crisp whorls of hair on his chest, and her mouth went dry. She recal ed the silky hardness of him and her body’s delight at his touch with a clarity that made her insides tremble. She would never forget her soul’s delight at a night of lovemaking that had blown her apart and put her back together again both at the same time.

He pushed out of his chair. ‘It can’t happen again.’

Oh, yes, it could. And so, so easily.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and pinned her to the spot with his dark, frigid eyes. ‘And it won’t happen again, Katherine, because I don’t do long-term, I don’t do marriage and babies, and I certainly don’t do happy families.’

He’d cal ed her Kit last night, not Katherine.

‘And if I continue to sleep with you you’re going to eventual y realize I’m tel ing you the truth and that you can’t change me. Then you’l get hurt and angry, there’l be ugly scenes and recriminations and then you’l up and leave without giving me so much as a week’s notice.’

It took a moment for the actuality of his words to sink in. When they did, her jaw slackened. He had to be joking, right? These couldn’t be his actual thought processes.

His dark hair glinted almost black to the Opera House’s white. She stared at him and her stomach bil