His Christmas Acquisition (16 page)

This was a moment in time, a moment which he wanted to extend because he was enjoying himself. He had broken through his self-imposed taboo of sleeping with someone he worked with, and now that he had done that it was all systems go as far as he was concerned.

He wouldn’t be lying there, getting himself twisted into little knots, as he mentally journeyed into the future and found all the flaws in his plan. He wouldn’t be stressing because at some indeterminate time their relationship would end and he would be left hurt and ripped to shreds. None of that would occur to him, because for him she was a casual fling, something that had defied belief in taking shape and, having taken shape, had further defied belief by being enjoyable. And Ryan Sheppard was a man with a very healthy capacity for enjoyment.

Looking at him now, he was the picture of a man satisfied with what he saw as a perfectly reasonable solution to a situation.

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this,’ he confided, ‘but you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever taken to my bed.’ He folded her in his arms and covered her leg with his thigh. ‘And, as an added bonus, you make me laugh.’

Jamie would have given anything to just close her eyes and carry on living for the moment, just as she had spent the past days doing. She had slept with him and loved every minute of it, but now they were about to head back to London, and she could no longer pretend that she was the kind of girl who could live indefinitely in the present without a thought of the future. She was cursed with the burden of responsibility and too well-trained in the many ways of dumping it on her shoulders.

‘When I touch you,’ he admitted roughly, ‘I forget what the concept of stress is. I’ve never played truant until now—all those trips when the thought of work never crossed my mind. And my mother is overjoyed with this situation.’ He kissed her eyelids, which fluttered shut. ‘Let’s not put a spanner in the works by talking about regret. We agreed to put on an act. We didn’t have to, as it turns out. Let’s see where this thing takes us, Jamie, and when it’s over I won’t have to concoct a lie to my mother.’

When it’s over
. She wondered how he could build so many negatives into something he was trying to persuade her was a positive step forward, but of course he wouldn’t even be aware of that. He was so accustomed to the short-term nature of his relationships that he wasn’t even capable of thinking of them in any other way. Every adjective he used reminded her that, for him, this was a sexually satisfying but temporary situation. How long would it take, once they had returned to London, before the sexiest woman he had ever taken to his bed became yesterday’s news?

Here, on the island, there was no competition. In London, there would be competition lurking round every corner, waiting to ambush him from behind every door, phoning him and texting him and emailing him. Where would
she
stand then? He would no longer be playing truant and she wouldn’t be the person making him laugh.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position, feeling suddenly very exposed without a stitch of clothing on.

‘We should get up. Get dressed. I’m hungry, and your mother will be back soon. I’m sure she won’t want to stay out for too long in this sun, not after what she’s been through.’

‘I doubt she would turn a hair if she discovered that we were doing more than filing reports in here.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Jamie told him sharply. She began levering herself off the sofa, only to be pulled back down so that she half fell on top of him, her breasts squashing against his chest.

‘This conversation isn’t over,’ he grated. ‘You opened it, and neither of us is going anywhere until it’s been closed.’

‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

‘You damn well do, Jamie.’

‘Okay. You want me to tell you that I’ll continue sleeping with you until you decide that you’re sick of me and chuck me over for your usual blonde-haired, legs-up-to-armpits bimbo!’

‘Where did
that
come from?’ He pinned her to the sofa and stared at her fiercely, although underneath his bristling brows she could see his bewilderment. He hadn’t a clue what had prompted that outburst and that, in itself, was hurtful. She had a brief, searing fantasy in which he soothed away her fears and insecurities by telling her that there would never be another blonde-haired, legs-up-to-armpits bimbo, that she was the only woman for him, that he worshipped the ground she walked on and loved her to death. The fantasy vanished virtually as soon as it materialised.

‘I’ve really … enjoyed
this
, but when we get back to London, things between us are going to get back to what they were. I know it’s going to be difficult, but it won’t be impossible. You’ll be busy and distracted with other deals in the pipeline. I’ll be busy trying to get rid of my sister who
is still at my house. Your mother will probably want to see you a bit more often than she has in the past. In no time at all, we’ll both look back on this as if it was a dream, something that never really happened.’

Ryan couldn’t quite believe that she was effectively dumping him. He knew that she had been a reluctant bed-partner. He knew that she had principles which, once upon a time, he would have derided as positively archaic but which he had come to respect. But once she had slept with him, he had assumed a straightforward path leading towards a mutually agreed-upon outcome. Hell, people embarked upon marriage with fewer scruples and less psychoanalysis! The thought of no longer being able to touch her—or, worse, of seeing her on a daily basis and no longer being able to touch her—made his blood run cold, but Ryan suddenly felt as though he had gone the extra mile in the seduction stakes. He wasn’t going to beg.

‘Besides, it would be awkward. Sooner or later, people would find out. You know how that office buzzes with gossip. Both of us would lose respect.’

‘Do yourself a favour and don’t worry on my behalf. Gossip has never bothered me.’

‘Well, it would bother
me
,’ Jamie told him coolly. ‘I’ve never liked the thought of people talking about me behind my back. Anyway, let’s be honest, this isn’t a relationship that’s going anywhere.’ She was disgusted with herself for the tiny thread of hope that continued to blossom inside her, the hope that he would leap into instant denial or at least pretend to give the matter some serious thought.

But he just said with an impatient shrug, ‘Why does a relationship have to go somewhere? We’re happy with this. That’s all that matters.’

‘Not to me!’

‘Are you telling me that you want me to ask you to marry
me?’ Ryan said slowly, fixing her with those fabulous eyes that gave the illusion of being able to see right down deep into her innermost soul.

‘No! Of course not!’ Jamie gave a shaky laugh. In her head, she could imagine his incredulity at such a preposterous idea: the secretary who after a few days romping in the sack suddenly got thoughts above her station, encouraged by his mother. ‘But I don’t want to spend time with someone in a relationship that’s not going anywhere. I guess I’ve learnt some lessons from Greg.’ Within reason, she was determined to be as truthful as possible.

‘Right.’ Ryan stood up and strolled towards the bundles of discarded clothes on the floor, his back to her, offering her a rejection that made her eyes sting. ‘So it’s back to business as usual,’ he remarked, pulling on his clothes while she continued to watch him helplessly. He found himself thinking of creative ways he could use to get her to change her mind and scowled at his own weakness. He had had the rug pulled from under his feet and that, he decided, was why he now felt like hitting something very hard.

She had managed to scuttle back into her tee-shirt and knickers by the time he eventually turned around.

‘We could continue to enjoy ourselves for the little time here we have left …’ Jamie was ashamed of the desperation behind this suggestion.

The fact that she was as cool as a cucumber enraged Ryan even more. She had been nothing if not a star pupil, he thought savagely. From shrinking violet, she was now brazen enough to offer her body to him for a day and a half, with their cut-off point doubtless to be when Junior was carrying their cases to the car.

‘A few more sex sessions for the road?’ he asked with thick sarcasm and Jamie flinched. ‘How many do you think we can fit in before the car is revving in the drive to take us
to the airport?’ This was supposed to have been fun. Once they returned to London, they would be working alongside one another and there would be no room for misplaced emotion.

Ryan shook his head, frustrated at his own inability to put things into perspective. Had it been a mistake to start this in the first place? Jamie was nothing like the women he had slept with in the past. At her core, she was intensely serious. She wasn’t into the clubs, the parties and the expensive trinkets, and he had been challenged and seduced by the novelty of someone so different from what he was accustomed to. Add to the mixture the fact that she was intelligent and humorous, and then throw in the ease with which she had engaged his notoriously picky family members—was it any surprise that he had chosen to overlook the simple reality that she would not be satisfied with the sort of relationship he preferred?

‘Get dressed.’ He couldn’t have a conversation with her when her body was still on tempting display.

Jamie went bright red and gathered up the rest of her clothing, taking his command for what it was. Now that they were over, he was already relegating her to his past. He was a guy who specialised in moving on when it came to women and he was already moving on, no longer interested in her body, possibly even turned off by the physical reminder of what they had shared.

She would take her cue from him. It had been a mistake to suggest that they enjoy themselves for the brief time they had left on the island, and she knew that that sign of weakness would return to haunt her at a later date.

‘We’ll have to maintain this fiction while we’re still here,’ Ryan told her with a shuttered expression and Jamie nodded, thankful for her hair swinging across her face as she looked down, hiding her giddy confusion.

She composed herself before raising her eyes to meet his. ‘Of course.’

Her calm smile got on his nerves. He gritted his teeth together and shoved his hands into his pockets, where they bunched into fists.

‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ Jamie said awkwardly, trying to elicit a response, but the Ryan she had known over the past few days had disappeared from view. In his place was a cold-eyed stranger that chilled her to the bone and made her wonder whether they would ever be able to rescue their working relationship and return it to the uncomplicated place it had once inhabited.

‘Sorry? For what?’ He shrugged casually, walked towards the door and held it open for her to precede him out of the office, straight into the balmy tropical air that suddenly made him feel as though he was trapped in a greenhouse. ‘I asked you to come here. You were quite happy to remain in London and play nursemaid to your sister.’

Jamie bit her lip and stifled the urge to argue with him on that point. He was now her boss once again and she seemed to have lost the right to speak her mind. Besides, he was barely aware of her presence, walking briskly towards the French doors and out onto the breezy veranda. She lagged behind and chose to hover by the door with her arms folded.

Ryan sprawled on one of the wicker chairs and stretched out his legs. ‘I also persuaded you to play a role because it suited me, so I have no idea what you’re sorry for, unless it’s for climbing into bed with me—but, hell, we’re both adults. We knew what we were signing up for.’ He glanced over his shoulder to where she was dithering slightly behind him. ‘Why don’t you go and see to the arrangements for our flights back? And then you might as well use the rest of the day to get your things together.’

Jamie left him staring out at the distance. Effectively dismissed,
she miserably obeyed orders. She managed to get them flights for the following day, which was a relief. In front of his mother, they made a passable show of togetherness but she retired very early for bed.

Landing in London was like reconnecting with a place she no longer recognised. After the sharp, bright technicolor of the island, and the slow, tranquil pace of life, the hustle and bustle of the grey streets and even greyer skies was a mournful reminder of what she had lost.

She felt like a different person—the person who had lived life in the slow lane, imagining herself to still have feelings for Greg, had disappeared. Ryan had awakened her and, for better or worse, she was no longer going to be the careful person in the background she had spent years cultivating.

For that, she was thankful. On every other score, the bright smile she kept pinned to her face bore no relation to the misery and confusion she was feeling inside—especially when, as they delivered Vivian to Claire and Hannah, both of whom had made the trip to the airport to collect their mother, she saw Ryan pick up a mobile on his cell phone.

She knew him so well that when he turned away, lowered his voice, gave that throaty chuckle, she realised that he was on the phone to a woman.

‘Please tell me that I won’t start back tomorrow with the usual delivery of flowers for the new woman in your life?’ Her voice threatened to break when she said this, but it didn’t, and in fact she was rather proud of her composure. The sun had turned him into a bronzed god and her breath caught in her throat as memories flooded her head, making her feel a little dizzy, but she kept smiling and smiling, even when he raised his eyebrows in a question.

‘No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Okay!’ she said brightly, sticking out one hand to hail a cab.

‘But if it did,’ Ryan drawled, ‘would it bother you?’

Jamie tugged her coat protectively around her. ‘Honestly?’

Ryan felt an uninvited leap of interest. After the dance they had been doing around one another for the past day and a half, the thought of cutting through the facade was irresistible. A little honesty? Who could resist? He tilted his head to one side in a semi-nod.