CHAPTER ONE

      NAOMI WOKE UP lying in a very warm, comfortable bed. She just stared out into the darkness and waited for dawn with butterflies dancing in her chest.

      Last night she had called Andrew and had told him that they were over.

      As expected, he hadn’t taken it well at all.

      But, then, he hadn’t taken her coming to New York to spend time with her father well either. In fact, they had broken up the night before Naomi had flown out. The next morning he had turned up at Heathrow with an engagement ring, telling her that he would wait.

      Now she didn’t look back at that time with tenderness. She had been sideswiped, Naomi knew. It had taken these months apart to see that she had said yes under pressure and that she didn’t need him to magnanimously grant her a year’s leave of absence.

      It was done and while she should feel relief and did, Naomi wasn’t thinking about Andrew any more.

      Instead the butterflies had turned into a flock of sparrows and she felt sick with dread at another difficult conversation she would be having at some point today.

      With Sev.

      Of course, Andrew had asked her if there was someone else and Naomi had hesitated for a beat too long before answering him.

      No, there was no one else, she had told him, and that was the truth.

      Sort of.

      Naomi had been working for Sev for three months now and, yes, he’d tried it on a couple of times.

      Once when they had been stuck in his jet for hours on a runway in Mali and he’d put down the book he always read on take-off and had suggested she might want to go for a lie-down.

      With him on top.

      Or she could be on top.

      He was generous like that, he’d told her.

      Another time had been in Helsinki when he’d come to her hotel suite to bring her up to date on a business meeting and to tell her that he’d changed his security code. Naomi had been making notes when Sev had declared himself permanently cured of his yen for blondes.

      And had suggested bed.

      Of course Naomi told him that, as flattered as she was by his offer, not only was she engaged, she would never get involved with her boss.

      He was the least romantic person she had ever met.

      And Naomi was completely in lust with him.

      For all she had been told how cold he was, Sev didn’t seem that around her.

      Despite dumping Andrew, Naomi looked down at the ring on her finger and was grateful for the decision she had made last night to keep wearing it while she worked out her notice with Sev.

      So, while technically there was no one else, Naomi would take all the help she could not to succumb to Sev’s charms.

      Oh, she’d love to sleep with Sev just to have slept with him.

      It was the aftermath she did not need.

      Or the absolute lack of aftermath on Sev’s part.

      Her phone buzzed an alarm and Naomi turned it off and then pulled back the covers and padded out to the kitchen and fixed herself a coffee.

      It was a beautiful apartment, with thirteen-foot-high ceilings, mahogany doors and gorgeous fireplaces. Not that she used them. Instead she relied on the regular heating, worried that she’d burn the whole complex down.

      Sev had the penthouse suite and he had been right—apart from the occasions when they prearranged to meet in the foyer their paths rarely crossed out of work.

      The problem was work and very long days spent together and even longer trips abroad.

      Or rather Naomi’s problem was her feelings for him.

      She took her drink back to bed and wondered if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life by quitting her job, and then, as if in answer, her phone rang.

      It was 6:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, but that meant nothing to Sev.

      Naomi was available pretty much 24/7 and there was no space from him. There was little to no time to catch her breath from the roller-coaster ride, no time to slow her racing heart down and regroup.

      ‘Hi, Sev.’

      ‘What time is it?’ Sev asked.

      Naomi bit back a smart retort—oh, she could have said that she wasn’t his personal talking clock but she conceded that he paid her enough for her to be one, if he so chose. ‘It’s six,’ Naomi said. ‘Six a.m.,’ she added.

      Just in case.

      ‘Okay, can you cancel my morning?’ Sev said. ‘Actually, just cancel the rest of my day. I’ll be back on board tomorrow.’

      Oh, no!

      Now she understood the odd question about the time. He wasn’t even in the same time zone.

      ‘Sev, where are you?’

      ‘On my way back.’

      ‘But from where? You’re supposed to be meeting Sheikh Allem at eleven and then we’re having dinner tonight with him and his wife. It’s been booked in for ages, it’s taken weeks to arrange.’

      ‘I know all that.’

      ‘So you have to be here.’

      ‘What’s the flying time from Rome to New York?’ Sev asked.

      Forget the time zone, Naomi thought. He wasn’t even on the same continent. ‘Just over eight hours,’ Naomi sighed.

      ‘So you see it’s not possible.’

      She could almost envisage him shrugging.

      ‘Sev,’ Naomi appealed. ‘Allem rang last night to say how much he and his wife are looking forward to this visit. He’s been so patient.’

      Sheikh Allem had been. He had asked Sev to come to Dubai to review his hotel’s security system yet Sev had been putting the visit off. Now he had flown with his wife to visit him.

      They were friends more than business associates but Sev didn’t need friends—he wanted Allem and his wife to back off.

      They refused to get the message.

      ‘Okay, okay,’ Sev snapped. ‘I’m on my way to the airport. When I get to the plane I’ll ask the pilot to put his foot down or whatever it is they do. Look, I haven’t a hope of getting there before three.’

      ‘What should I say to him?’

      ‘That’s what I pay you to sort out,’ Sev said. ‘Just use your charm, Naomi.’

      ‘It’s all used up.’

      ‘I have noticed,’ Sev responded. ‘You’ve been very...’

      ‘Testy?’ Naomi offered.

      ‘I don’t know what that word means.’