Page 23 of Boss With Benefits

‘Not for a decade.’

‘Do you mind about that?’

‘God, no,’ she said with a shudder. ‘I can barely believe we’re related and I’m very happy relying on myself. I’ve been doing it for years. I can’t ever imagine not. They could be dead, for all I know. I really don’t care.’

‘You’re very tough.’

He sounded impressed and a warm tingly feeling that had nothing to do with desire beginning to wind through her. ‘I’ve had no choice,’ she said, ruthlessly stamping it out. ‘Once I decided to reject the life that could have been mine, it was the only option. It’s been quite a journey and not an easy one, but I don’t regret a moment of it. Apart from my one reckless affair, obviously. That was a bad career move. So, what about you? Where did you grow up? What was your home environment like? I’ve read about your father. It couldn’t have been easy.’

But she didn’t get an answer. His gaze that was on hers darkened and intensified and her pulse began to pound. ‘I think that’s best saved for another time,’ he murmured suggestively, and before she could protest, he rolled on top of her and silenced her with his mouth.

He kissed her until her head emptied of everything but him. He caressed her breasts, with which he’d developed something of an obsession, and she lost what little was left of her mind. Then, when he finally stopped ignoring her desperate pleas for release and thrust hard into her, there was nothing but fierce heat, ragged breathing and the slickness of their bodies moving together. He was in no hurry. In fact, he seemed to be intent on tormenting her. He drove her to the brink and then pulled her back so often it felt like punishment. When he eventually allowed her to fall apart in his arms, she saw stars for a full five minutes.

This happened again when she tried to find out more about his sister and their relationship. And again when she recalled him telling her that the magazine article was inaccurate because that depiction of him wasn’t who he was any more.

It was more than a coincidence, she felt. Just like during the first week of the audit, she suspected he was doing whatever he could to avoid her more challenging questions, and in spite of the pleasure he gave her on these occasions, the imbalance of the situation was becoming a problem. At least for her. It felt like an insult. It felt transactional, and it reminded her too much of her relationship with Drew, who, because he’d been less invested in her than she had in him, had held all the cards.

This was meant to be a meeting of equals, body and mind, and it wasn’t. Knowledge was power and Adam had all of it, and it had now reached the point that this state of affairs had to be addressed.

‘Do you realise that it’s been a week since we got here, and you haven’t told me one single significant thing about yourself?’ she said over a supper of grilled spiced fish and a mango and avocado salad that had been prepared by the housekeeper who lived on the island but she’d yet to meet. ‘Whenever I try toengage you in a conversation about you or anything even in the slightest bit personal, you distract me with sex.’

Adam glanced up from his plate. The flickering candlelight cast dancing shadows over the sharp planes of his face. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes twitched and a muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘How is that a problem? Are you bored?’

‘Of the sex? No,’ she said, while thinking,As if.He was keeping her extremely well occupied with sex that was varied and inventive. But that was partly the trouble. ‘It’s just that it makes me feel as though I’m nothing more than an object of pleasure.’

He frowned and put down his fork. ‘I understood you were on board with this being purely physical.’

‘I am. To a degree. But I would like to know a bit more about the man I’m sleeping with. I would like some respect. I’ve told you a lot about myself these last few days yet have had zero in return. It makes me uneasy. I can’t help wondering what you have to hide.’

‘I don’t have anything to hide,’ he said smoothly, although tension was beginning to radiate off him in waves. ‘Perhaps it’s simply that I value my privacy. Perhaps I don’t like talking about myself. I never asked you to tell me anything, Ella. I’m under no obligation to reciprocate. This is nothing more than a three-week fling. Don’t make it something it isn’t.’

At that, Ella’s eyes narrowed and her hackles went up. What was he suggesting? That she’d weakened and was now after some sort of relationship with him? Heaven forbid. She was perfectly happy with no strings and no pressure. She always had been. Emotional intimacy was not, and never would be, required.

Yet it struck her suddenly that that was precisely what would happen if she pursued her avid interest in him. She’d be creating a connection that went way beyond the physical. She might startfeeling things for him she didn’t not want to feel. What if warm and tingly became the norm? What if she developed the urge to rush tohisdefence? She might find herself wanting to extend this affair. Getting involved. Losing her focus. And she needed none of that.

Despite the heat of the evening, an ice-cold shiver race down her spine. Her head swam for a moment and her lungs squeezed. Thank God he’d alerted her to what was going on before she travelled too far down that dangerous path, she thought, drawing in a slow steady breath to ease the quick flare of panic. She hadn’t recognised what was going on because it had never happened before, but she did now.

So going forward, she would back right off. She would respect his wishes and protect her own. She would not succumb to such weakness again. She would not allow him to damage her self-esteem when she’d only just recovered it. She would focus on getting him out of her system and nothing else.

‘You know what?’ she said, not wanting to even think about how close she’d come to forgetting her number one goal when it came to men—to keep it casual. ‘You’re absolutely right.’

CHAPTER TEN

ADAMKNEWHEwas right. What was going on here was just sex, nothing more, and he’d made that perfectly clear. So when Ella finally stopped trying to get him to talk, he ought to have been delighted. It was exactly what he wanted. It was alarming enough that the desire he had for her remained so strong. But the thought of developing some sort of rapport with her that might lead to emotion of the unpredictable kind brought him out in hives, and he’d been in danger of becoming far too interested in her anyway.

At what point precisely had he stopped trying to maintain his indifference? he wondered as he sat on the terrace with a bottle of beer two evenings later and stared out to sea while she slept inside. When she’d told him about her upbringing? That had certainly shaken him up. He couldn’t imagine the poverty and despair of it. Materially, he’d grown up with every privilege going—two roofs over his head, more money in the bank than he could count, a first-class education that had swept him from the country’s top boarding schools to Cambridge. She’d had nothing. Less than nothing. Yet she’d pulled herself up through sheer grit and determination, and he couldn’t deny he was in awe of her for it. The night they’d met and she’d dispatched her lecherous fan with a knee to the groin, he’d thought her magnificent and beautiful and fierce, and he still did. He was even impressed by the tenacity that had caused him so much trouble while they’d been working together.

But he didn’t need to admire her. He didn’t need to think anything about her. Or identify with her ambition and her burning drive to succeed. Wondering what else they mightshare apart from a non-existent family support network was not required. The fact that they weren’t as different as she believed was irrelevant. So in theory, the fact that she’d backed off was a win.

However, bizarrely, he wasn’t at all pleased by the withdrawal of her attention. Because she didn’t just stop trying to poke around in his psyche. She pretty much stopped talking altogether, and only when it was denied him did he realise that somehow he’d got used to her telling him all about herself. He’d found himself looking forward to their conversations, wondering what she might reveal next, on tenterhooks for any titbit she gave him.

Her sudden disengagement therefore left him feeling slightly flat. The sex, while still as frequent as ever, had become a little—how could he put it?—soulless. There was a ripple of tension between them, and the whole point of having an affair in the first place was to clear the air of that.

He couldn’t shake her accusation of disrespect. Or the recollection that by her own admission, her previous affair had knocked her self-esteem. Her comment about feeling like an object of pleasure troubled him deeply, even though no-strings sex had always been the deal. He’d found himself dwelling on it and analysing his previous interactions with women, which rarely went beyond one or two nights and never more than a week. Had he distracted them with sex too? Very probably, although it had never given him cause for concern. But somehow this was different. With Ella, such a strategy made him feel queasy. He wasn’t entirely sure why.

All he knew was that they didn’t seem to be on the same page any more, and that was disturbing. So rectifying the problem became his number one priority. He needed to re-establish control. He needed to put the passion back into the sex and show that he did respect her.

After drumming up and discarding a number of ideas, he eventually, reluctantly, had to accept that just one would work. However much he might loathe the thought of it, he had to give her what she wanted. At least, in part. Only then, he felt, would the equilibrium be restored and the affair back on track.

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