Back In The Boss's Bed. Sharon Kendrick
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me Adam.’
‘If you insist.’
‘Oh, I do,’ he responded. ‘I do.’
His dark face momentarily relaxed into one of lazy mockery. Kiloran swallowed, feeling out of her depth and it was a curious sensation. Men didn’t usually faze her—even exceptionally good-looking men like this one, though she had never met a man quite like Adam Black. The aura of power and success radiated off him, but she was damned if she was going to be cowed by that. ‘Perhaps it’s time you provided me with a few answers yourself,’ she said quietly.
He raised his eyebrows, trying to ignore the way her lips folded into pink petals. So she was trying to pull rank, was she? Hadn’t it sunk in just how precarious her situation was? How people’s livelihoods were at risk? Or was she just thinking of her own, spoilt little self?
He decided to humour her. Maybe if he gave her enough rope she would hang herself. ‘And what exactly do you want to know, Kiloran?’
His voice was a steely honey-trap, but Kiloran let it wash over her. ‘Just why my grandfather has called you in?’
Dark brows were knitted together. ‘I should have thought that was obvious—he wants me to help you get out of the mess—’
‘I’ve created?’
‘Helped to create,’ he amended.
‘Please don’t patronise me—’
‘Patronise you?’ Adam had had enough. ‘Listen, if I were patronising you, you’d soon know about it!’ He leaned forward by a fraction, then wished he hadn’t because she smelt of some evocative scent—something flowery and delicate which shivered over his senses—and he jerked back as if someone had stung him. ‘You know damned well why he’s called me in!’
‘Oh, yes—your reputation for getting things done is legendary.’ She paused. ‘But that doesn’t explain why you’ve condescended to take on such a lowly assignment.’
His eyes glittered—what had he thought about giving her enough rope? ‘Well, well, well—that sounds like a pretty fundamental problem to me,’ he mused. ‘If you consider your own company to be “lowly”.’
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it!’ He was twisting everything she said! ‘Just that you usually deal with far bigger ventures than this one!’
‘Maybe I wanted a change.’ He looked towards the large French windows, which overlooked the garden, where the view was as pretty as something from a picture, distracting enough, but far less distracting than the whispering movement of her silk as she crossed one bare brown leg over the other. ‘A change of scene. A little country air.’
Kiloran felt the breath catch in her throat and it felt as if someone were tiptoeing over her grave. He was uncannily echoing her own sentiments and suddenly this seemed like trespass in more than one way—now he was coveting her land as well as her company! ‘How much are you being paid?’
Adam recognised the implied insult. So that was how she still saw him, was it—the poor boy from the wrong side of town who was not worthy to sit at the same table as the princess? But his face remained as coolly impassive as before. ‘That’s none of your business!’ he said silkily.
‘Oh, I think it is.’
His smile became bland, and the tone in his voice quietly emphatic. He was damned if he was going to tell her that he wasn’t being paid a penny! Let her think what she liked of him. ‘Sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a private deal between your grandfather and me. And while I am in charge, it will remain that way.’
While I am in charge. Kiloran stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking in a foreign language!
‘You mean—I’m going to be answerable to you?’
‘I’m afraid you are.’ He shrugged as he saw her green eyes widen with genuine shock and for a moment he felt an unwilling tug of empathy. ‘That’s what generally happens in situations like this.’
All the control which had seemed to be slipping away from her ever since she had discovered Eddie Peterhouse’s defection now slid away from her entirely, and most of all she felt a sinking sense of hurt. Why hadn’t her grandfather spoken to her first? Checked whether she would object to having this impassive-faced man waltzing in and taking charge of everything. Including, it seemed—her!
She fixed her expression to one of studied calm. Let him see that a one-off error of judgement did not mean that she couldn’t be as professional as he was. ‘So where do we begin?’ she asked coolly.
There was a pause. ‘Why don’t we start with you telling me something about yourself,’ he said unexpectedly.
Something in the way he said it threatened her equilibrium. It sounded like the kind of question a man asked on a date, when he wanted to get to know you better, and this was certainly no date. ‘Like what?’
He wanted to know what her golden hair would look like when it was freed to tumble down over the luscious swell of her breasts. He wanted to know if she cried out when she came. He wanted…‘Why, your job history, of course,’ he replied evenly.
Some distracting darkening in his eyes made it difficult for her to concentrate. She swallowed. ‘I went into the City, straight from university, stayed in my first job for three years and was working for Edwards, Inc. when Grandfather got ill—and the rest you know. The usual route.’
He said nothing for a moment. Usual for most people, maybe—and especially for privileged little princesses like Kiloran Lacey. Nothing like his own hard, clawing journey up the ladder.
‘I see.’ He leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing as he watched her. ‘Well, you obviously have some experience—’
‘You sound surprised!’ she observed.
He ignored that. ‘And we’re going to need to establish the full extent of the embezzlement. Obviously. And then evolve some kind of strategy to resolve it. Aren’t we, Kiloran?’
Despite her good intentions to remain cool and professional, Kiloran found it hard not to squirm beneath that grey-eyed scrutiny. It didn’t help that he was making her feel incompetent, and neither did it help that he was so overpoweringly attractive.
He was making her aware of herself in a way which was quite alien to her. Since when had her breasts begun to ache and tingle just because some man’s eyes had flickered over them in casual assessment? And why was she suddenly and acutely conscious that, beneath her dress, she had nothing covering her bottom other than a tiny and ridiculously insubstantial thong?
Her pulse beat strong and heavy, like a dull hammer at her wrists and temple. ‘Wh-what do you want to know?’ she asked from between parched lips, wondering if he had this effect on everyone.
‘You can help me by giving me a few salient facts.’
‘Like what?’
‘Tell me about Eddie Peterhouse. How long he worked for Lacey’s—general stuff.’
‘He’d been with the company five years—’
His eyes bored into her. ‘And you joined—when?’
‘Two years ago.’
Adam gave a humourless smile. ‘Which was around about the time the theft started.’
The accusation buzzed unsaid in the air around them. ‘What are you implying?’ she said shakily.
He didn’t answer, not straight away. Let her work out the implication for herself. ‘What did he look like?’
She narrowed her eyes at him in bemusement and gave her head a little shake. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
The movement meant that he could see the tight thrust of her nipples pushing against the thin green silk, and