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‘That “poor woman” is one of the country’s leading aerobics competitors. She pays me to make sure she doesn’t slack off!’
He looked around the gym. ‘You work a full day and then come and do this? And sometimes work in the mornings as well…also at a very physical job? No wonder you nearly fall asleep over dinner some nights.’
He was checking up on her? ‘Well, you can’t say I’m not fit enough to handle it,’ she said, not knowing whether to be flattered or insulted. She flipped the towel over her shoulder, hoping he hadn’t noticed her nipples beginning to show through her exercise bra and damp T-shirt. ‘Excuse me, I’m going to have a shower.’ She made the mistake of looking over her shoulder as she left, and found his eyes fixed on the rolling flex of her bottom in the thin Lycra shorts
Later, as she devoured a chocolate mousse to replace some of the calories she had worked off, he returned to the topic. ‘Tell me, Rachel, when do you get any spare time for yourself? I notice Frank Weston doesn’t have to moonlight to make ends meet. You shouldn’t have to hold down more than one job to survive.’
‘And I wouldn’t have to if you gave Westons the KR contract,’ she said facetiously. She noticed he had no problem appropriating her precious spare time! ‘How about it?’
‘Only if you agree to sleep with me first,’ he responded with equal sarcasm.
He was so confident that she was joking! On the one hand it was infuriating; on the other it indicated a complete faith in her integrity.
‘Fine! Let’s do it!’
She had the pleasure of seeing him winded. ‘Fine? What do you mean—fine?’
‘I accept your offer. It’s a deal!’
He recovered quickly. ‘You know damned well I don’t have the power to do any such deal,’ he growled. ‘Nor do I want it. Neville’s back, thank God—it’s his decision. I want nothing to do with it.’
She looked at him through her lashes. ‘What if I agree to sleep with you anyway?’
H
e stilled, staring across the table. ‘Do you mean that?’
She hesitated, and nodded.
He let out a rough sigh of pent-up frustration. ‘Hold that thought! You do choose your moments, lioness…I’m flying to Sydney on the red-eye tomorrow morning.’
Rachel’s reckless heart felt as if it had been plunged into ice.
‘Only for a few days,’ he added swiftly, and her heart shuddered back into life. ‘I’ve already postponed this meeting twice over the last couple of weeks, and now that Dad is out of the woods I can’t put it off any longer. But I’ll be back for your birthday.’ He leaned forward, placing his hand over hers on the table and gripping it hard. ‘I look forward to resuming this discussion when I get back…’
Discussion? What was there left to talk about? A panicked sense of urgency made Rachel wish that he would simply whisk her straight back to his bedroom for a quick consummation, but the knowledge that he would be walking out of the door before dawn put the brakes on her impatient desire. No more than he did she want this first time to be a snatched interlude that would set the scene for future brief encounters. When she made love to him she wanted to do so at leisure, with no distractions, anxieties or interruptions…
The next three days were merely a confirmation of what she had already suspected. They were flat and colourless and she missed Matt more than she would have believed possible. She tried to fill some of the emptiness by putting in overtime at Westons, checking up on Neville, who proved disappointingly clean, and digging into some of the back files that yielded some unexpected and unsettling results.
Matt rang each night for long, lazy chats, but the conversations were inherently unsatisfying as Rachel struggled not to blurt out her newly discovered feelings. It was too late to worry about being hurt, but she wanted to see him, touch him, look into his eyes before she surrendered her wary heart completely into his keeping.
Typically there was only a briefly inscribed card from her parents on her birthday, but there were e-mails, cards and a gorgeous Thai-silk suit from Robyn and Bethany, and at the office she was given a cake and a group-signed card ribbing her about wrinkles.
Having no appointments at the gym, she’d expected the evening to lag as she waited for Matt’s flight to get in, secretly hurt by the fact that he had refused her offer to greet his plane. But as she was preparing to leave work Lannie came dashing breathlessly into her office to tell her that a limo driver was asking for her.
Thinking it was one of their security chauffeurs, Rachel was disarmed when she was handed an armful of red roses and a sealed note in memorable green ink.
Go with Kale. He knows what to do. Happy Birthday.
Kevin Riordan’s chauffeur professed ignorance as he led her out to the car and placed a glass of champagne in her hand for the mystery ride, but Rachel soon discovered to her amusement and delight that their destination was Auckland’s most exclusive beauty clinic. There she was treated to a sinfully sybaritic experience—bathed in mud, wrapped in towels, soaked in a spa, plucked, waxed, massaged in oils, given a facial, a hairdo, a manicure, a pedicure—and generally wallowed in the sensuous luxury of top-to-toe pampering. Like a harem girl being prepared for her master, she thought with a giggle.
She emerged tingling with vitality and filled with a glorious sense of physical well-being that increased when Kale informed her that his instructions were to take her home to change and then on to Matt’s country house for dinner.
Matt’s face, as he opened the door and saw her standing there in her new peacock-blue silk suit, her glowing cheeks flushed with excitement and her hazel eyes alight with warm pleasure, reassured her that she was making the right decision. This man was not one she wanted to let get away!
‘Happy Birthday. You look even more gorgeous than I remember,’ were his first words, his glittering gaze taking in the short, narrow skirt and fitting, short-sleeved jacket with its stand-up collar and an array of tiny silk toggles marching down her front.
‘Thanks to Robyn—she sent me this,’ husked Rachel, fiddling nervously with a toggle under his wildly flattering gaze. In blue-black trousers and shirt, his hair still damp from a shower, he made her knees weak. ‘And thanks to you. It was a wonderful present. I’ve never been to a beauty spa before; it was a totally new experience…’
