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She could imagine Lucas, dark and dangerous, sprawled in a chair while he told her about his day.
‘Do you like it? My kitchen?’ His tone was rough and she glanced up at him, shaken by her own thoughts.
‘Just planning what I’ll do when I move in.’ Walking back to the table, she shifted the conversation away from the dangerous topic of family and onto something lighter. ‘Add a few feminine touches here and there—flowers, china covered in pink hearts. And of course I’ll tell you I love you every other minute until you get used to it.’ The coffee was delicious. And strong. As she sat down, she felt the caffeine kick her brain into gear. ‘So do you always look like you’re about to have root canal work when someone says “I love you”?’
‘I’ve no idea. No one has said it to me before.’
‘What, never?’ Genuinely shocked, Emma thumped her coffee down on the table. ‘All the women you’ve been out with and not one of them has ever said it? Why?’
‘Because I would have dumped them instantly. I don’t pick the “I love you” type.’
So what about his daughter? Had she not come from love? The questions rolled around in her head but she stayed silent and sipped her coffee, grateful for the warmth and the fact that sliding her hands around the mug gave her something to do apart from try desperately hard not to look at him. She wasn’t used to having indecent thoughts about her boss.
Emma lowered the mug slowly, knowing that she wasn’t being entirely honest with herself.
Was she really going to pretend that she hadn’t always found him attractive? Because that wouldn’t be true, would it? Right from the beginning she’d found him scarily attractive, but the fact that she worked for him had put him off-limits. That and the fact that not once in the two years she’d worked for him had he given the slightest hint that the attraction might be mutual.
But that had all changed, hadn’t it? And it was the shift to the personal that made it so awkward to be around him. Maybe it would have been different had there been other people here, but alone it felt—intimate. And yet they were still strangers. Intimate strangers.
She couldn’t undo what had been done. She knew things now that she hadn’t known before and there was no way of unknowing them. She knew he’d had a daughter and that he’d loved her. She knew he blamed himself. She knew he was hurting.
He said that he didn’t have a heart but she knew that wasn’t true. He had a heart, but that heart had been badly damaged. He was obviously suffering deeply but even without hearing the details, she was sure that he was wrong in his belief that he was somehow responsible for his daughter’s death. That couldn’t be the case.
‘Emma?’
She gave a start. ‘Sorry?’
‘I asked if you were hungry.’ Apparently suffering none of her emotional agonies, he pulled open the door of a large modern fridge and she found herself staring at his shoulders, watching the flex of male muscle under the black sweater. His body was strong and athletic and she felt the heat spread through her body, the flare of attraction so fierce that she almost caught her breath.
‘Hungry would be an understatement,’ she murmured. ‘I’m starving. Right now I could eat ten camels. Which I suppose I might have to if you insist on making me go with you to Zubran.’
‘I was thinking of omelette.’ He turned his head and their eyes met. Tension throbbed between them, a living breathing force, and she stood up on legs that shook and threatened to let her down.
‘I love omelette. Where will I find a bowl?’
‘You think I need your help to cook a few eggs?’
‘Sorry. Instinct.’ She sat down again, relieved to take the weight off legs that seemed to have forgotten their purpose. ‘I usually do the cooking when I’m home. I’m teaching Jamie to cook—it’s one of the things we do together. Every Saturday we make pancakes for breakfast, it gives us time to talk. And then we pick a different dish. Last week we did pizza. Today we were going to make Christmas cake—’ She knew she was talking too much but she couldn’t help it. She talked to fill the silence because otherwise she found it too disturbing. ‘Of course, because of you, we won’t be making Christmas cake but you don’t need to feel guilty about that.’
‘I won’t.’ He pulled a box of eggs out of the fridge while she watched.
He’d showered but he hadn’t shaved and his jaw was darkened by stubble that made him look more bandit than businessman. She remembered the roughness of it against her skin, the heat of his mouth, the touch of his fingers—
