The Secretary's Scandalous Secret (10 page)

As she might have expected, he had taken a pragmatic view of what had happened. Whilst she had spent the weekend unable to function, he had worked out how to make sure she was dispatched in a way that would protect his privacy and preserve his conscience.

Helen’s office was private and luxurious, glass and chrome, with an adjoining door to Luc’s bigger, even more luxurious office. In between being shown the systems, she played with the thought that maybe seeing Luc on a daily basis would go somewhere to getting him out of her system. Didn’t familiarity breed contempt? There was never a person who longed for that as much as she did.

For the next week and a half, it really seemed to be working—in a manner of speaking. Because Luc, in full throttle, had to be seen to be believed. However early she made it to the office, he was always there before her. She brought him in a cup of coffee, and then life immediately went into the fast lane.

Even with his feet up on his desk, his tie askew, his mind was still working at such a rapid speed that she was barely
able to take time out to breathe, never mind pander to the temptation to sit back and just look at him.

‘Got that?’

With an efficiency Agatha would never have believed possible after the computer course she just scraped through months ago, she nodded and stood up, smoothing down her skirt in the process. When her eyes flicked to him, it was to find him staring at her with that speculative intensity that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Over the past week and a half, he had treated her with the scrupulous detachment of the boss towards his secretary. Now, as the clock ticked towards lunch time, he was finally looking at her, and all the nervousness that had been resting happily on the back burner bubbled up to the surface with ferocious speed.

‘You’ve certainly been hiding your light under a bushel,’ he drawled, pushing back his chair and then folding his hands behind his head. ‘For someone in love with the outdoor life, who hated anything to do with the office, you seem to be keeping up.’

Agatha could feel his cool, inscrutable eyes resting on her, and her heart did that hammering thing that always seemed to turn her brain to mush. Had she really kidded herself that she was somehow over him because she had been able to handle working alongside him without falling apart from nerves?

The prospect of being back at square one hit her like a punch in the stomach. Despite all her good intentions, she had done nothing to move on with her love life. She could see the possibility of becoming ensconced in this new, temporary position, which was doing nothing to promote the contempt she had been waiting for—the opposite, in fact—and then feeling the separation when she finally did leave even more than she would have bargained for.

The small shoots of a plan began to form in her head and she glumly gave it room while the man who still spiked her dreams continued to look at her with that mild, dispassionate interest.

‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ She held his stare and tried not to fiddle with her fingers. ‘Anyway, I am kind of enjoying the work,’ she admitted truthfully. ‘It’s much more interesting than the stuff I was doing downstairs.’

‘Not my fault. You came to me without much going for you by way of experience in even the most lowly of office skills, and you never showed any interest in furthering your knowledge. How was I to know that you were such a quick study?’

Agatha flushed with pleasure at the compliment.

‘I’ve had a number of temps over the years,’ Luc said, musing. ‘And none of them have matched you for efficiency. In fact, a number of them fell to pieces the minute the going got a little tough.’

Agatha had no trouble believing that. She, at least, had known the nature of the beast and had adapted accordingly. Luc was brilliant, relentless, impatient with mistakes and never expected to explain anything more than once. Glimpses of his character over the years had stood her in good stead.

‘Poor things,’ she said sympathetically, visualising a procession of weeping, broken young girls.

‘Poor things?’ Luc laughed, folded his hands behind his head. ‘I am the most considerate employer anyone could wish for.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. You seem to have managed perfectly.’ He paused significantly. ‘Do you think that might have something to do with our special relationship?’ He trained his sharp, green eyes on her, enjoying the sight: pink cheeks,
that full mouth and curly blond hair half-escaping the loose bun at the nape of her neck. Working with her was a constant challenge to suppress his rampant libido. Moreover, and to his surprise, he had quickly discovered that he had acquired a top-rate worker who was much brighter and cleverer than she gave herself credit for. He considered her wasted talking to plants in some tin-pot garden centre, but he would approach his offer to keep her on in a brand-new position later.

For the moment, he was frustrated by cravings over which he seemed to have little control. Even when he was safely out of her radius and in meetings, he had still found his concentration lapsing.

Playing the waiting game was not in his nature and he knew, more positively with each passing hour, that he needed to get a conclusion going.

‘We don’t have a special relationship,’ Agatha said crisply.

‘We had sex. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. Some might say that qualifies us as having a special relationship.’ He sat forward, resting both elbows on his highly polished desk and afforded her a penitent look. ‘My apologies. Talking about sex in a working environment is inappropriate. What
is
appropriate,’ he continued, ‘Is I take you out to lunch. You deserve it; point taken that I may not always be the easiest person to work with.’

‘That’s very nice, thank you, but I’ve got some stuff I need to do at lunch time.’

Luc frowned. ‘What sort of stuff? I’m the boss. I’m giving you full permission to ignore work for an hour and a half.’

‘Actually, I wasn’t going to work.’

‘What exactly are you planning on doing? You have to eat.’

‘I’ve brought some sandwiches in. I…I have some things
to do on the computer. Emails to write, if that’s okay. Keeping in touch! I told mum that I would probably be handing in my notice and she’s worried.’

‘Right. Maybe another day.’

‘Maybe…’ Agatha looked away. ‘So…is that all?’

Luc had never felt so instantly dispatched. For someone who gave the impression of being a pushover, she was as tough as nails, he thought with ill humour. What email could be so pressing that she would give up lunch with him?

‘I won’t be here this afternoon.’ Frustration ratcheted through him as he walked over to the cupboard in which his jacket was hanging. ‘Wall-to-wall meetings until six. I’ll expect that due-diligence report to be completed by the time I return to the office. If it’s not, you’ll have to work overtime. The lawyers need it first thing in the morning.’

‘Of course.’ She sprang to her feet. ‘Anything else?’

‘That’s a rather open-ended question. What did you have in mind?’ He enjoyed the way she went bright red at that. His sharp eyes took in the way she stuck her hands behind her back, as though scared that they might somehow betray her, the way her pupils dilated and the way her breathing quickened. Under the polished veneer, she was still as much a prisoner to that one explosive night as he was.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he drawled, leaving her with a backward wave of his hand.

Agatha breathed a sigh of heartfelt relief as the door closed behind him. What had he been playing at with those references to sex? Had he found it entertaining to confuse her?

With a burst of sudden determination, and a few surreptitious glances around her just in case the walls really did have eyes, she spent the next fifteen minutes surfing the Internet in search of online dating sites. It was not something she enjoyed doing but this, apparently, was the way things got
done if you didn’t have the sort of extensive social life that promoted lots of face-to-face meetings with exciting, eligible guys. And what harm could there be in it? She didn’t really hold out much hope for finding the man of her dreams, but she might meet some interesting people. Having come to the decision that she would not return to rural Yorkshire, but instead stay where she was and try her best to hunt down another job, a few new faces might be just the thing.

She would not become her own worst enemy by allowing the debacle with Stewart to push her into self-defensive, wary reclusivity from which she would have all the time in the world to devote her thoughts to her one-night stand with Luc. She positively needed the distraction of another guy.

She registered at the biggest site. Then, in an upbeat mood, she went to the company restaurant for lunch, ignoring the limp sandwiches in her desk in favour of a more celebratory meal of spaghetti Bolognese, followed by fudge cake and lots of interesting chats with the friends she had left several floors below. It was funny to think that Luc was actually wary about her spilling the beans on their one-night affair. To become a prime target for gossip was probably the last thing in the world Agatha would ever have wanted.

Four hours later, she was leaving the impressive glass building when Luc stepped in front of her, blocking her path. She hadn’t seen him, hadn’t heard him. He was as light as a panther on his feet. And he didn’t look in the best of moods.

‘I did what you asked. I finished the due-diligence report. It’s on your desk.’

‘Fun lunch?’

‘Sorry?’ She stopped and looked at him cautiously.

‘How are you getting back to your bedsit?’

‘Tube,’ Agatha said faintly. ‘Then bus.’

Luc didn’t answer. He stretched out one hand and miraculously a black cab appeared.

‘I can’t afford to take a cab to—’

‘Get in the taxi, Agatha.’

‘Are you all right? You don’t look too good. Are you feeling all right?’

Luc didn’t trust himself to say anything and that was a new experience for him. He waited until she was inside the taxi, then he lowered himself next to her, breaking his silence only to give the taxi driver directions to her house.

Agatha glanced across at his exquisite profile and stuttered into nervous speech, relaying calls he had received during his absence and progress she had made with a midsized publishing company in which Luc was interested. The company had fired Agatha’s interest because it specialised in gardening books. Anxiously aware that her babbling seemed to be falling on deaf ears, but unwilling to spend the rest of the car drive in complete silence stewing in her own confusion and alarm, she instead chose to chatter on about ideas she had for rejuvenating the company.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked eventually. ‘I mean, why are you coming back with me to my flat? I’m perfectly capable of getting there on my own. I don’t need you to babysit me. I thought we’d talked this through.’

‘I’m not sure we’ve talked it through enough.’ Luc turned in his seat and looked at her with blazing intensity. ‘Tell me how else you occupied yourself today. Feel free to skip the riveting conversations with clients.’

Agatha broke out in clammy, nervous perspiration. Not even the taxi pulling up outside her flat could save her from the necessity of answering because it quickly became apparent that he intended to escort her into her bedsit. She was like someone under house arrest.

‘Well, what do you want to hear?’ She turned on him the
second they were inside her little sitting area, hands on her hips, her blue eyes bright with anger. It wasn’t fair that he should be here, crowding her space when all she wanted to do was recover from the effects of him.

‘Okay, so I didn’t have those sandwiches at my desk. I went to the canteen because I fancied a bit of company. And, before you accuse me of gossiping, I didn’t say a word about…anything.’

‘I returned to the office shortly after I left. I’d forgotten some reports.’

Agatha looked at him blankly.

‘The reports were on your desk. You were at lunch.’

He strolled to the window, not for the first time thinking that her landlord should be shot. When he slowly turned round to look at her, it was to find that she had not moved from her hesitant position by the door, although she had removed her coat and placed it on the arm of the sofa.

‘I don’t see why I should feel guilty because I went to the office canteen for lunch,’ Agatha muttered in a moment of rebellion. ‘You can’t keep an eye on me a hundred percent of the time, and if you’ve come here to haul me over the coals for nothing then please just go. I’m really tired.’ She took a couple of steps and flopped wearily down onto the sofa, briefly closing her eyes and allowing the weight of everything to settle on her shoulders.

‘You left your computer running when you went to lunch.’ Luc walked towards her and remained towering over her until she opened reluctant eyes to look at him.

‘Did I?’

‘You should really close all tabs when you’re on the Internet browsing through dating sites.’

It took a few seconds for the significance of his words to sink in, then she sat bolt-upright and clenched her fists at her sides.

‘You were
snooping
around on my computer?’

Luc had the grace to flush but an apology couldn’t have been further from his mind. ‘I wanted to check and make sure that all the relevant documents had been downloaded before I wasted another journey. Checking them on your computer saved me the effort of going into my office. I use the word
your
with reservations—let’s not forget that the computer actually belongs to the company, and by extension to me.’

Agatha sighed with a growing sense of defeat. ‘Okay. Now you know and it’s no big deal. It’s the modern way of meeting people.’

‘It’s the modern way of getting into trouble.’ He could have kicked himself for waiting for her to come to him. While he had been playing the waiting game, she had been scouring the Internet to find men. He should damn well have obeyed his finely tuned hunting instincts. They had always worked for him in the past.

This woman challenged every ounce of control he had ever mistakenly assumed he had, and it all came down to one thing: lust. If he had suspected her of playing games with him, he would have had no trouble in walking away. If—unlikely though it might be—she genuinely didn’t fancy him, then he would likewise have shrugged his shoulders and put it down to one of life’s little experiences. But, against all odds, Agatha both wanted to walk away
and
fancied him