At His Service: His 9-5 Secretary. Michelle Celmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ children were also in the equation. He’d paid the rent arrears, found the woman a job at the works, and arranged for nursery care for the children.

      She bit her lip and tried to control the tears that were threatening. ‘I didn’t think it was,’ she said. ‘But you have to understand where I’m coming from, Harry. In the matter of love, relationships, togetherness—call it what you will—we’re aeons apart. I—I don’t want to waste any more time on hopeless liaisons.’ That was the truth at least. ‘I—I want my heart to be my own again, and I’m the sort of woman who couldn’t sleep with anyone, even once, without being involved. It … well it wouldn’t be a fun thing for me. At least, it being fun wouldn’t be enough without love as well.’

      She saw him nod. ‘I’d like to know his name, just to be able to tell him what a damn fool he is,’ he said so softly she could barely hear him.

      Gina gulped. ‘I’m a fool as well. I knew what I was getting into but I couldn’t find the brake. I don’t think I ever will. That’s why I need to move away. I don’t want to become someone I don’t like.’

      ‘You love him very much.’

      It was a statement, not a question, but Gina answered anyway. ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘Life’s not all it’s cut out to be at times, is it?’

      It was fine until he’d come along. The puppy had never really settled since she’d half-strangled it, and now it began to squirm with definite intent. ‘I’ll put her back with her sisters.’ She stood up, aware of him following her as she walked through to the utility room.

      Outside the window, the first pink streaks of dawn were beginning to creep into a charcoal sky, and the dawn chorus was in full song. It was going to be another beautiful spring day.

      After depositing her charge with the other sleeping puppies, Gina left the utility room and walked through to the kitchen where Harry was waiting for her. ‘We might get in an hour’s kip before the alarm goes,’ he said, half-smiling. ‘Or they wake up.’

      She tried to match his easy manner. ‘I don’t have an alarm.’

      ‘I’ll bang on your door, don’t worry.’

      When they reached the landing, he paused with her outside her room, his voice soft as he said, ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Gina.’

      ‘What?’ For an awful minute she thought he had guessed.

      ‘By rubbing salt in the wound about this guy.’

      Her limbs turning fluid, she managed to say fairly coherently, ‘You didn’t,’ as relief flooded her.

      ‘And you’re not a coward. Far from it.’

      She had leant against the wall when he’d first spoken, needing its support, and he’d propped one arm over her head, his fingers splayed next to her hair. She was aware of the faint lemony smell of shower gel, the same make as she had found in her ensuite, presumably, but mixed with Harry’s body chemicals it was altogether more spicy, sexier. Summoning brain power from some deep reserve, she murmured, ‘Leaving is more an act of self-survival, Harry.’

      He nodded. ‘I’m beginning to understand that. And if you need a friend, any time, any place, call me, OK? I’ll be there.’

      He wasn’t a man to offer empty platitudes. Touched and very near to bursting into tears, she didn’t dare to attempt to speak. Instead she leaned forward on tiptoe and kissed him swiftly on his cheek.

      She heard his quickly indrawn breath, but he remained quite still as she slipped under his arm and opened her bedroom door. It was only when it was shut that she let out her breath, her heart pounding.

      She stood frozen inside the room, her ears straining to hear any sound from the landing, but it was absolutely silent. After some minutes she walked over to her bed, the tears streaming down her face, but her mind too weary to struggle with the reason why. With the robe still intact she pulled the duvet over her, shutting her eyes as the tears continued to seep under the lids.

      She fell asleep within a minute, her face damp and salty, and her body and mind utterly spent.

      CHAPTER SIX

      HARRY stood for some time on the landing, shaken to the core. Which was crazy, he told himself vehemently once his racing heart had begun to steady. It had hardly been a kiss, for crying out loud. And Gina had been quite unmoved, sailing into her room and shutting the door as though she hadn’t just turned his world upside down.

      No. No, it hadn’t been.

      Yes, it had.

      He groaned softly, raking the hair out of his eyes with an unsteady hand and padding to his own room at the far end of the shadowed landing. Once inside he began to pace the floor, his brows drawn together in a ferocious scowl.

      What the hell had happened out there? And downstairs; why had he asked her to stay around when he’d promised himself that was the last thing he’d do? What would he have done if she’d agreed to his ridiculous proposal? And it was ridiculous, however you looked at it. She was besotted by some bozo who had messed her around for months, if not years, and she was leaving him because she didn’t want a no-strings-attached relationship.

      So what did he do? Harry asked himself grimly. He offered her the same sort of deal. No wonder she’d looked at him as if he was mad.

      He walked over to the window, looking down at the sleeping garden where the first blackbird was singing its heart out, and then raised his eyes to the pink-streaked sky. The dawn of a new day. In the aftermath of his breakup with Anna, his mother had told him she viewed each dawn as the start of the rest of her life. The past, with all its regrets and mistakes, was gone and unalterable, the present and the future were virgin territory to make of what you would. He’d appreciated she’d been trying to help, but he’d been so full of anger and bitterness he’d dismissed her ideology as coming from one who had never really had anything to contend with. He had been arrogant then. He was still arrogant, perhaps. Gina would say there was no ‘perhaps’ about it.

      Smiling darkly, he turned from the window and looked over the room. When he had bought the house he’d had it redecorated throughout before he had moved in, and his room and en suite were a mixture of dark and light coffee-and-cream. No frills, no fuss, but luxurious, from the huge, soft billowy bed to the massive plasma TV and integrated hi-fi system. Everything just the way he liked it. His life was the way he liked it.

      Harry dragged his hand over his face. Or it had been, up until twelve months ago, when he had walked into his father’s office and a blue-eyed, red-haired girl had given him the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. Twelve months. Twelve months of disturbing thoughts and dreams, of dating women he didn’t want to date but who would provide a distraction and give his body some relief.

      He shook his head, beginning to pace again. Put like that, it sounded mercenary, even seedy. He’d used those other women, he couldn’t deny it. But they’d been happy enough with his conditions, he reasoned in the next breath.

      But with Gina there could be no conditions. He caught his breath, stopping dead and groaning softly. He’d known all along she was a till-death-do-us-part woman. What he hadn’t allowed for was that he would find it so hard to let her slip out of his life, or that СКАЧАТЬ