Australian Boss: Diamond Ring: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring. Nikki Logan

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      This time he didn’t shut it down. Oh, he looked away, but the awareness was still etched on his face when he did that.

      It echoed inside her, too. Fiona dropped her gaze to her cup again while her heart inexplicably pounded. It was a foolish reaction. One that she needed to quash because, even if he did find her attractive right now, that could change. In any case, he was her boss and it would be really far less than sensible for her to allow feelings towards him or to start believing he had any towards her.

      Maybe he simply found her opinions interesting and she was imagining anything else.

      They sipped their coffee standing right there, leaning against the kitchen counter. When the silence stretched, Fiona turned her gaze to Brent’s living room, to squashy chocolate leather sofas and chairs and long rows of magazines lined up like soldiers across a set of three coffee tables.

      There were neat stacks of library books set exactly so, and other books and pieces of paper arranged carefully all through the area and beside armchairs positioned around the room.

      ‘I see you like to bring your work home, and you’re very orderly.’ Was this why he had rushed her past the area? Because there was something quite different about the way he’d laid out all that work?

      His office space was similarly regimented, and it was different.

      He rubbed his hand over the back of his head. ‘I sometimes have to work on projects until they’re finished, whether that means bringing things home or not. Once I get started, I get very focused and I can’t stop. I’ve always been that way. Some people…find that objectionable but it’s how I am. Core me. It’s not something that’s going to change.’

      ‘Nor should it.’ If he changed, he might lose some of the intensity that made his work what it was. Why on earth would he even consider such a possibility—? ‘I imagine there’ll be times when I’ll do the same. Get deeply involved in the work, I mean.’

      He shifted on his feet, passed his empty coffee cup from hand to hand.

      ‘It’s time I went.’ One part of her didn’t want to leave, wanted to stay in his company longer.

      To talk about work issues, she told herself. Instead, she put her empty cup down on the counter top and made her way towards the front door.

      ‘I enjoyed our talk this evening.’ Brent paced beside her. His words brought them back to business, and of course that was a good thing.

      As she approached the door she noticed the photomontage on the wall. It was positioned so it would be the last thing he looked at as he left his home each day.

      Photos of him and his brothers.

      Fiona looked, and looked again. And the story embedded in those images hit her so deeply her breath stalled in her throat and for a long moment she couldn’t speak. She simply stood there, unable to shift her gaze.

      When she finally found her voice it wasn’t to state the obvious. Not, You were all institutionalised. Or, There are no parents, are there? At least not for a very long time. Or, You’re not biologically related.

      But, oh, they had created themselves into a family, first in that cold building in the background of several of the pictures, and later as they’d found their freedom and relocated here.

      They were three men who’d become men before their time, and had stood up for each other. It was all there, captured in the stark stares and guarded expressions of young boys and the determination of young men, and the laughter and wry smiles and inner shields of the men they were now.

      How had they all ended up alone? Parentless? In Brent’s case, extremely private, and she imagined the others had their issues with privacy, too. Just look at where they all lived.

      His brothers must have changed their names through legal channels, or perhaps they’d all chosen the last name MacKay and adopted it at some point? ‘I thought from the beginning that you and your brothers were close. I hadn’t realised all the reasons why.’

      Fiona didn’t have that closeness in her own family. It was a knowledge she lived with and tried not to think about. Right now it felt very blatant to her. Blatant and sad, and yet Brent and his brothers must have been through so much more. Indeed, the two things were incomparable.

      ‘We’re there for each other. The few people who’ve looked at those photos didn’t even realise—’ Brent opened the door.

      ‘That you’re a chosen family, not a “by birth” one?’ They were proof the former could be as strong as any example of the latter.

      ‘Yes. “Chosen” is the right word for it. For us, that’s better than where…we came from.’ He stepped out into the corridor with her. ‘I’ll see you back to your car.’

      End of discussion, and fair enough. Though she might want to know more, he was a private man and this was obviously very private business to him.

      They walked in silence. Moments later she stood beside her small car.

      ‘We have a meeting with a client at her home tomorrow.’ Brent rubbed his jaw with his hand. ‘It’s the troublesome client I told you about on Friday.’

      Fiona mentally reviewed her wardrobe. ‘I’ll be ready for it.’

      ‘Perhaps between us we can get her to stop blocking the plans at every turn.’ Brent waited while she seated herself, and then he pushed her door closed.

      She started the engine and rolled down the window.

      He leaned in. ‘Drive safely. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

      ‘Goodnight, Brent.’ He’d given her some things to think about. The family he had built and her questions about where he might have come from. His emotional guardedness. That regimented work lined up in his living room and in his office. The privacy he sought in his home and his work.

      ‘Goodnight,’ he murmured.

      With a final wave and an odd reluctance to leave him, and with myriad questions flitting through her mind and no answers anywhere in sight, Fiona drove away.

      Chapter Three

      ‘MRS FULLER will either have to get on board during this visit, or we cut our losses and dump the project. The work is interchangeable with a dozen other projects that all need my attention. At some point I have to assess what’s going to be best financially for the company overall and, right now, letting her mess us around further isn’t.’ Brent murmured the words as he and Fiona waited in the formal sitting room of the woman’s ritzy Sydney home.

      They’d been kept cooling their heels here for twenty minutes now with no sign of their hostess.

      ‘I agree. This isn’t a smart use of your time. The woman’s behaviour is insulting to you.’ And that insult made Fiona feel…protective towards her boss.

      Which was fine, because she was his employee. She had the right to feel that way. Even if she had been somewhat too personally conscious of her boss initially.

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