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Oh, no, that was right. They were in a lift. Dani tore her gaze away from him. Looked beyond to the lights, to the door. The lift had finally moved again, descended. And now those doors were opening.
‘I—’
He didn’t get a chance to say whatever it was he was going to say. There were people—bankers, a couple of technicians. All chorusing his name.
‘Alex!’
Dani knew when to make the most of an opportunity. Her legs might be short but she could move them quickly. And, breathless though she was, she had a huge hit of adrenalin to see her through. Energy was an inferno inside her roaring for release. Her high heels clipped on the polished floor. As she exited through the big glass door she glanced back. He was still caught talking to the group. Frowning this time, no smile. And he glanced up frequently, tracking her, she knew. Sparkling light tumbled from his eyes towards her. She walked faster. Pulled her mobile from the bag that miraculously was still slung over her shoulder. She’d phone the agency. Find another job. Snogging the boss was so not allowed. But it wasn’t her flouting of that convention that made her move so fast. It was the fear of that bottomless need he’d uncovered. And the truth that she was desperately trying to ignore: it hadn’t been a snog, it had been heaven.
Alex lifted the cup and sipped—yick. He might be sprawled in a big chair in the first-class club but the coffee was still thin, airport dross. He glanced at his laptop on the table beside him. The screen saver had been dancing for a good twenty minutes now—hiding the report he should have finished already. But focus had been impossible when distraction had such curves. He should be working. And if he wasn’t working he should be worrying about Patrick’s bombshell last week and the horrendous ramifications of those test results. He should be dealing with it.
Instead he was indulging in a wicked fantasy and debating how he was going to turn it into reality. There simply had to be more—wrong though it was. But those minutes in the elevator with that petite temp had been magic, and not anywhere near enough. Since when did he start kissing random women in elevators? Especially an employee? Just because she’d been nervous?
Well, it had seemed like a good way of distracting her at the time. And himself. But that irresistible distraction had turned searingly, mind-blowingly incredible—how was he going to ensure he got more?
His mobile chimed. Lorenzo. Alex answered promptly. ‘Hey.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Sydney Airport.’
‘Man, you’re hardly ever home these days.’
Alex sighed. ‘I know. Just waiting for the flight back.’
He’d arranged this business trip after Patrick had called out of the blue. After years of only occasional correspondence, he’d rung to tell him the ‘truth’—thirty years too late. At first Alex hadn’t believed him, had insisted on the tests. It had only taken twenty-four hours. After seeing it in black-and-white he’d had to get away. He could have done the deal with conference calls, but he’d used it to avoid everyone for a few days. But now the job was done and he was aching to get back to Auckland. He had unfinished business to tend to and it wasn’t the paternity nightmare.
‘There’s something you’ve got to see.’
Alex sat up, registering the thread of tension in Lorenzo’s usually dry-humoured tones. Instinctively he pressed the phone closer to his ear to catch the nuances better. ‘What is it?’
‘You need to see it. I’ve sent you the link. You should have it now.’
He reached out and tapped a couple of buttons on the laptop, Lorenzo’s email opened up and he grimaced—a YouTube video. ‘Its not some stupid joke, is it?’
‘I don’t think so.’ For once Lorenzo actually sounded unsure.
‘Not porn?’ He might be the boss, but the ‘inappropriate use of office computers’ clause applied to him too.
‘Uh, well, I don’t think so.’ There was a laugh now. ‘Just watch it, Alex.’
He read the title ‘Get Stuck, Get Snogged—is this the hottest kiss ever?’ and groaned. ‘Lorenzo, it is porn.’
‘Just watch it.’
He clicked on the play button and waited a moment for it to load. Turned the speaker up a touch on his computer and frowned at the poor quality of the picture on screen. It was black-and-white. And then he recognised what that small space was—an elevator. And then someone walked into it. And as if he was were trapped in it again, freefalling, his stomach dropped.
Hell.
That awful music hadn’t been playing. Muzak didn’t play in the lifts at all; no point when they whisked you up and down the many stories so fast—or at least they did if they weren’t faulty and hadn’t stopped between floors.
When that had happened, five days ago, it had been silent, save her breathing, which—despite her efforts to control it—had spiked. So whoever had lifted this footage had added a cheesy soundtrack—rich, melted chocolate, ‘in the mood’ kind of music. It didn’t fit.
He leant closer to the screen as she waited in the lift. Her face was clear in the frame, and now so was his as he stood side on, until he turned and faced her. She didn’t look nervous in this, but up close she’d been shaking like a leaf. Their mouths were moving, but the security camera recorded images, not sound. Even so, he knew exactly what was being said. He’d replayed that too-brief exchange a million times every sleepless night since.
And he knew her face too well. He’d been prowling the floor more than usual just to get a glimpse after spotting her in the open-plan office on Monday. Her glossy black bob with the too-long fringe had caught his eye, and then her oh-so-professional man-style shirts hinted at the most luscious curves.The last thing he should be doing was chasing skirt—walking through the office a zillion times a day on the lamest of excuses. But while waiting on those blood results he’d been only too happy to be distracted. For five minutes he hadn’t wanted to think at all. So he hadn’t. And the moment he’d touched her, all remaining rational thought had fled. Her shape was more wicked than he’d suspected—slim, soft, devastatingly curvaceous. It hadn’t taken much effort at all to lift her against the back wall of the elevator, raising her high enough so her eyes were almost level with his. Beautiful big brown eyes burnished with a caramel gold—and filled with a challenge he’d been utterly unable to resist. He’d been thinking about what she’d feel like in his arms—dreaming of her curves spilling into his hands. Damn it, he was still dreaming of that.
Alex blinked, came out of the haze and watched, seeing now what he’d felt so gloriously at the time. His back was to the camera but you could see her face as he kissed her lips, her jaw, her neck. Her eyes were closed, her hands caressed his shoulders, his hair. Passionate. Beautiful. And then came the moment, her legs parted, wrapped around his waist and his body reacted now as it had then. Instantly hardening, instantly burning, insisting on getting closer.
And then the bloody lift moved. It had been over far too quickly.
‘You’re watching it again, aren’t you?’
Alex flinched. Hell, he’d forgotten Lorenzo was still on the phone. He’d forgotten he was sitting in an airport lounge. Fortunately it was a midweek red-eye flight and the other patrons were too busy slurping the rotten coffee to pay any attention to him.
‘It looks pretty good,’ Lorenzo added blandly. ‘You’re getting some star ratings.’
Alex scrolled down, read the first few comments and felt his face fire up like some mortified teen caught making out with his first girlfriend—by his grandma.
‘Who is she?’ Lorenzo might sound indifferent, but Alex knew his friend was as agog as he got.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘She’s a temp. Started last week. I don’t know her name.’
Lorenzo’s chuckle didn’t help. ‘Well, you better find out—this thing is doing the rounds of every inbox in the office.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Wish I was, but I’ve been sent it t
hree times already this morning—and once from a colleague in Hong Kong.’
Anger surged into Alex’s veins. He didn’t need this and she didn’t deserve it. It had been a whim—a crazy, lusty whim and one right on the edge of his code. Alex Carlisle never seduced temps or coworkers—too messy. Especially given he was the boss. But the irresistible force of her had felled him. And was still affecting him—wasn’t that why he was sitting here now doing nothing? Despite having been up for hours he hadn’t achieved a thing because he was too busy plotting how he could get close to her again as soon as he got back to Auckland. How did he do it without breaking his own rules?
‘What would your old man say?’ Lorenzo laughed again. ‘Screwing around in the office, Alex, bad you.’
Alex iced over and pressed pause on the playback. He hadn’t told Lorenzo what he’d found out. It was proved—the chance of the DNA results being wrong were so tiny no lawyer in the land would dare argue it. Samuel Carlisle wasn’t Alex’s father. Instead it was his best friend who’d supplied the necessary chromosomes. The friend who’d been on the periphery of Alex’s childhood—the honorary uncle, the godfather figure—hell, he’d even been the one to offer advice when Alex had doubted whether he’d wanted to go into the family business.
‘You’re a Carlisle—it’s in your blood.’
