Mills & Boon Modern February 2014 Collection. Кэрол Мортимер
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her?
But something made her reach out her hand and to lay it softly over the thud of his heart. ‘Well, whatever your motivation was, we both enjoyed it—unless I’m very much mistaken.’
At this he turned his head, and his grey eyes were thoughtful as he studied her. ‘Sometimes you surprise me, Leila.’
‘Do I?’
‘More frequently than I would ever have anticipated.’ He stroked his hand over the curve of her hips. ‘You know, we ought to think what you’re going to do next week.’
‘Next week?’ She drew her head back and looked at him. ‘Why—what’s happening next week?’
‘I’m going back to work. Remember?’ He kissed the curve of her jaw. ‘Honeymoons don’t last for ever and I do have to work to pay the bills, you know.’
Suddenly she felt unsettled. Displaced. ‘And in the meantime, I’m going to be here on my own all day,’ she said slowly.
His grey eyes were suddenly watchful. ‘Not necessarily. I can speak to some of my directors, if you like. Introduce you to their wives so you can get to know them. Some of them work outside the home, but plenty of them are around during the day—some with young children.’
Her heart suddenly heavy, Leila nodded. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful and, yes, it would be good to meet women whose company she might soon welcome once her own baby arrived.
But Gabe’s words made her feel like an irrelevance. As if she had no real identity of her own. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister and, now, someone’s wife.
Well, she did exist as a relevant person in her own right and maybe she needed to show Gabe that—as well as to prove it to herself. Back in Qurhah, she had yearned for both personal and professional freedom and surely this was her golden opportunity to grab them.
‘I don’t want to just kill time while I wait for the baby to be born,’ she said. ‘I want a job.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘A job?’
‘Oh, come on, Gabe. Don’t look so shocked. Wasn’t that what I wanted the first time I ever met you?’ She lifted her hand and touched the dark-gold of his hair. ‘You thought my photos were good when I first showed them to you. You told me so—and I’d like to think you meant it. Wouldn’t your company have work for someone with talent?’
‘No,’ he said.
Flat refusal was something Leila was used to, but it was no less infuriating when it was delivered so emphatically by her husband. She felt the hot rush of rebellion in her veins. ‘I’m not asking you to pull any strings for me,’ she said fiercely. ‘Just show my work to someone in your company—anonymously, of course—and let them be the judge.’
‘No,’ he said again.
‘You can’t keep saying no!’
‘I can say any damned thing I please. You’re asking me for a job, Leila—remember? And I’m telling you that you can’t have one. That’s the way it works when you’re an employer.’
She stared at him mulishly and thought that, at times, Gabe’s attitude could be as severe as her brother’s. ‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘I’d like to know exactly what it is you’re objecting to. The accusations of nepotism, which won’t stand up if I get the job on my own merits? Or is it something else—something you’re not telling me?’
Gabe got off the sofa and began to walk towards the bedroom, shaking his head as if denying her question consideration. She thought that he was going to leave the room without answering when he suddenly turned back and it was only then that she realised that he was completely naked. And completely aroused. Again.
‘It’s your proximity I’m having a problem with,’ he declared heatedly, wondering how she managed to get under his skin time and time again. ‘I’ll have to be with you the whole damned time, won’t I? In the car. In the canteen—’
‘Standing by the water cooler?’ Her mouth twitched. ‘Or does some minion bring you water on a silver tray in a crystal glass?’
‘We’re talking about my life—not yours, princess!’ he iced back. ‘And how can someone judge your work when you don’t have it? You haven’t even brought your portfolio with you, have you? You left it in Qurhah.’
‘Yes, I did. But I have all the images on a USB stick,’ she said sweetly. ‘So that won’t be a problem.’
Gabe made a stifled sound of fury as he walked away towards the bathroom, wishing for the first time ever that he had a door to slam. But he had chosen the apartment because there were no doors. Because one room flowed straight into the next, each characterised by a disproportionate amount of light and space. He had chosen it because it was the antithesis of the places he’d inhabited during his childhood—and now the very determined Princess Leila Scheherazade was making him want to lock himself away. She was invading his space even more than she had already done. And there didn’t seem to be a damned thing he could do to stop it.
He would have someone show her portfolio to Alastair McDavid—at Zeitgeist’s in-house photographic studio. And he would just have to hope that Alastair found her work good—if not quite good enough.
He turned on the shower and his mouth hardened as the punishing jets of icy water began to rain down on him. Because something told him that his hopes were futile and that Leila would soon have her exquisite foot in yet another door.
CHAPTER NINE
THE PANORAMIC VIEW outside his penthouse office gave him a moment’s respite before Gabe refocused his gaze on the woman who was sitting at the other side of his desk.
Of course his hopes had been futile. And of course Leila got the job she’d secretly been lusting after. Leaning back in his swivel chair, he looked into the excited sparkle of his wife’s blue eyes. Though maybe that was an understatement. She hadn’t just ‘got’ the job, she had walked it—completely winning over Alastair McDavid, who had described her photos as ‘breathtaking’ and had suggested to Gabe that they employ her as soon as possible.
Gabe drummed his fingertips on the polished surface of his desk and attempted to speak to her in the same tone he would use to any other employee. But it wasn’t easy. The trouble was that he’d never wanted to kiss another employee before. Or to lock the door and remove her clothes as quickly as possible. The X-rated fantasies which were running through his mind were very distracting, and his mouth felt as dry as city pavement in the summer. ‘At work, I am your boss,’ he said coolly. ‘Not your husband or your lover. And I don’t want you ever to forget that.’
‘I won’t.’
‘While you are here, you will have nothing to do with the Qurhah campaign.’
‘But—’
‘No buts, Leila. I’m telling you no—and I mean it. It will only complicate matters. People working on the account might feel inhibited dealing with you—a woman who just happens to be a princess of the principality. Their creativity could be inhibited and that is something I won’t tolerate.’ He subjected her to a steady look, glad of the large and inhibiting space between them. ‘Is that clear?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so. And—barring some sort of emergency—you will not come to my office again unless you are invited to do so. While you are here at Zeitgeist, you will receive no deferential treatment—not from me, nor from anyone else. You are simply one of the four hundred people I employ. Got that?’
‘I think I’m getting the general idea, Gabe.’
Gabe couldn’t fail to notice the sardonic note in her voice, just as he couldn’t fail to notice the small smile of triumph she was trying to bite back, having got her way as he had guessed all along she would. And maybe he should