CHAPTER SEVEN

      TARA OPENED HER eyes and for a moment she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. She was lying in a bed—the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in—in a room which seemed composed mostly of huge windows. Windows to the front of her and windows to the side, all looking out onto the fairy-tale skyline of New York. She blinked as she levered herself up onto her elbows. Like giant pieces of Lego, the tall buildings soared up into the cloudless October sky and looked almost close enough to touch. Sitting up properly, she leaned back against the feathery bank of pillows and looked around some more—because last night she’d been too dazed and tired to take in anything much.

      It was...amazing, she conceded. The ceiling was made of lacquered gold, the floors of polished parquet, so that everything around her seemed to gleam with a soft and precious life. On an exquisite writing desk stood a vase of pure white orchids so perfect that they almost didn’t look real. And there, in one corner of the room, was her battered old suitcase, looking like a scruffy intruder in the midst of all this opulence.

      She flinched.

      Just like her, really.

      Lucas must have put a glass of water on the bedside table and she reached out and gulped most of it down thirstily. On slightly wobbly legs she got out of bed and found the en-suite bathroom—a monument to marble and shiny chrome—and, after freshening up and brushing her hair, thought about going to find Lucas. She needed to talk about returning to Ireland and he needed to realise that she meant it and he couldn’t keep her here by force. But her legs were still wobbly and the bed was just too tempting and so she climbed back in beneath the crisp sheets and before she knew it was dozing off.

      She was woken by the sensation of someone else being in the room and her eyelids fluttered open to find Lucas standing beside the bed, staring down at her. His jaw was unshaven and the faint shadows shading the skin beneath his vivid green eyes made it look as if he hadn’t had a lot of sleep. Black jeans hugged his narrow hips and long legs and his soft grey shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, offering a tantalising glimpse of the butterscotch-coloured skin beneath. Tara swallowed. It should have felt weird to have her one-time boss standing beside her bed while she lay beneath the duvet wearing nothing more than a baggy T-shirt, but somehow it didn’t feel weird at all.

      This is my new normal, she thought weakly. The same normal which was making her breasts sting with awareness as her gaze roved unwillingly over his powerful body. Because this man has known you intimately, she realised. Known you in a way nobody else has ever done. She felt a clench of exquisitely remembered desire, low in her belly, and before she could stop them vivid images began to flood her mind as she remembered how it felt to encase him—big and hard and erect. Despite everything she’d been brought up to believe, it hadn’t felt shameful at all. It had felt right. As if she hadn’t known what it really meant to be alive and to be a woman—until Lucas Conway had entered her and she’d given that little gasp as brief pain had morphed into earth-shattering pleasure.

      Her heart was thumping so hard she was afraid he might notice its fluttering movement beneath her T-shirt and so she sat up, her fingers digging into the duvet, which she dragged up to a deliberately demure level, just below her chin. Only then was she ready to give him a cautious nod. ‘Good morning.’

      He returned the nod but didn’t return the sentiment. ‘Did you sleep well?’

      ‘Very well, thank you.’

      ‘Good.’

      They stared at each other cautiously, like two strangers forced into close proximity. Tara cleared her throat, wishing she could get rid of the sense of there being an unexploded time bomb ticking away unseen in one corner of the room. But maybe that was what babies really were. She forced her attention to the pale sunlight which splashed over the wooden floor. ‘Is it late?’

      ‘Just after eleven.’

      ‘Right.’ Her fingers didn’t relax their hold on the duvet. ‘I need to start thinking about leaving—and it’s no good shaking your head like that, because I don’t work for you any more, Lucas. You can’t just tell me no and expect me to fall in with your wishes, just because that’s what I’ve always done before.’

      His eyes narrowed and she saw the hard light of the practised negotiator enter them, turning them into flinty jade colour. ‘I wouldn’t dream of laying down the law—’

      ‘You’ve had a sudden personality change, have you?’

      He completely ignored her interjection, and didn’t respond to the humour which was intended. ‘We need to talk about where we go from here,’ he continued. ‘Just hear me out, will you, Tara?’

      Once again she shifted awkwardly but the movement didn’t manage to shift the syrupy ache between her thighs, which was making her wish that he would tumble down on top of her.

      And where did that come from?

      Since when had she become so preoccupied with sex?

      She swallowed.

       Since the night Lucas Conway had introduced her to it.

      With an effort she dragged her thoughts back to the present, wondering why he was talking so politely. He must want something very badly, she thought, instantly on her guard. ‘Okay,’ she said.

      He traced his thumb over the dark shadow at his jaw, drawing her unwilling attention to its chiselled contours. ‘Would you like coffee first?’

      ‘I’m not drinking coffee at the moment, thank you. I’ve already had some water and I think you’re playing for time. So why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what’s on your mind, Lucas?’

      Lucas’s jaw tightened with frustration. It was easy to forget that she’d been working for him and sharing his house for years. Longer than he’d lived with anyone at a single stretch—and that included his parents. But despite the relative longevity of their relationship, Tara didn’t really know him—not deep down. Nobody did. He made sure of that because he’d been unwilling to reveal the dark emptiness inside him, or the lack of human connection which had always made him feel disconnected from the world. Now he understood what had made him the man he was. He’d been given a kind of justification for his coldness and his lack of empathy—but that was irrelevant. He wasn’t here to focus on his perceived failings. He was here to try to find a solution to an unwanted problem.

      ‘You don’t have any family, do you, Tara?’

      She flinched. ‘No. I told you at my interview that my grandmother brought me up after my mother died, and my grandmother has also since passed.’

      Lucas nodded. Had she? He hadn’t bothered probing much beyond that first interview, because if you asked someone personal questions, there was always the danger they might just ask them back. And Tara had impressed him with her work ethic and the fact that, physically, he hadn’t found her in the least bit distracting. What a short-sighted fool he had been.

      Because the truth was that she was looking pretty distracting right now—with those wild waves of hair bright against the whiteness of the pillow and her amber eyes strangely mesmeric as they surveyed him from beneath hooded eyelids.

      ‘Why don’t you put some clothes on?’ he said, shooting the words out like bullets. ‘And we’ll have this discussion over breakfast.’

      ‘Okay.’ Tara nodded, not wanting to say that she didn’t feel like breakfast—just relieved he had turned his back and was marching out of the room, wanting to be free of the terrible awareness which had crept over her skin as his green gaze had skated over her in that brooding and sultry way.

      After showering and shrugging