Page 22 of His Secretary's Nine-Month Notice
Besides, she missed her job. She missed the adrenaline rush and the frantic pace of life. She missed being kept intellectually stretched. She loved her music, and enjoyed the freedom of being able to devote time to it—to help with the foundation her father had set up to give help, tuition and lessons to gifted kids—but she still missed the intellectual rush she had always felt working for Matt.
She’d agreed to work with him, safe in the knowledge that his time in the country would be limited. One week and he’d be off. That had been three days ago and counting.
Admittedly, there was a lot to do. They got stuck in. The very brainy, gifted but juvenile owners of the start-up had to be yanked down to earth at frequent intervals. Their lawyers were all university friends and conversation went off-piste at an alarming rate. Violet, attuned to Matt’s personality, was adept at guessing when he was being pushed to the limits, and she liked being able to step in and defuse potentially awkward situations.
In between all the captivating, time-consuming and thorny issues that had to be untangled, Violet went to see her father. Sometimes Matt came with her and she was ashamed to find that she enjoyed those visits. Her father came alive in Matt’s presence, opening up to his charm and his obvious enthusiasm for the rock history that defined him.
And they’d gone sightseeing. A little, here and there. Perfectly normal—except she was uneasily aware that they weren’t a ‘normal’couple, taking in the sights.
‘I’m pretty happy to do my own thing,’ he’d shrugged on the first night. ‘I’m staying at one of the Hyatt hotels. There’s a bar. Food will be available. I’m perfectly capable of lending a helping hand to people when it comes to getting them to talk to me.’
Violet could believe that. The man could charm anyone.
She was working with him, quite out of the blue, and that was one thing. It was quite another thing to start socialising with him, but the lines between them were now so blurred. And she was enjoying his company. She had forgotten how witty he could be. She’d not really made any friends out here and it was nice having an escort. One dinner became two, and two merged into three, and she began blanking out the issue of his departure, not wanting to think about it.
It felt good to talk about her dad. When she talked about him, surprisingly she found herself talking about her past, lulled into confidences that would never have happened when she had been working for Matt in London.
‘I like the new Violet Dunn,’ he had murmured the night before when he had seen her to her front door and had been about to take his polite leave, as he always did. ‘Long may she live.’ His eyes had rested on her, hooded and lingering, sending a shiver of racing excitement skittering through her.
She hadn’t forgotten that kiss. It was never mentioned. But it had lodged there in her head like a burr, escalating feelings inside her that made her feel as though she were on a rollercoaster ride, soaring up and swooping down so that her stomach was constantly flipping over.
Now at six thirty in the evening, with business finally reaching a satisfactory conclusion and signatures all on paper, they were relaxing in one of the coolest bars in Melbourne. The curved walls were simply bottles of alcohol upon bottles of alcohol on glass shelves, and the lighting was mellow and subdued. They were sitting in two turquoise chairs, facing one another, and as yet the place was uncrowded.
‘You’ve been invaluable.’
Violet blushed. She guiltily thought of all the other non-business entertainment they had enjoyed. At first, it had been hard to overcome her ingrained reticence, but it had been stupidly easy to move on from that place and to start enjoying his company. Way too easy.
‘Thank you,’ she replied huskily, then added tentatively, ‘You were right. It’s done me good. Taken my mind off...everything. And with Dad coming back home tomorrow and in such a good place, thanks to your bracing chats and positive encouragement, well, all told it was a good idea. And I’ve enjoyed getting back into the swing of working to a deadline.’
‘The offer still stands,’ Matt drawled. ‘There’s still work to be done now that the takeover has been completed. It wouldn’t have to be a permanent situation. A few weeks, no more.’
Violet thought of having a link remain between them—exchanging emails, hearing his voice down the end of a line, even if the conversation was work-related.
‘It’s fine.’ She smiled politely and bid a mental farewell to her momentary weakness. She remembered why she had known that walking away would be for the best. She remembered those stirrings of attraction she had felt, the way he had consumed her thoughts.
‘In which case, this...’ he raised his whisky glass in salute ‘...will be our last drink shared. I leave tomorrow. Been here slightly longer than anticipated, but needs must.’
She kept on smiling, but suddenly the bottom of the world had dropped from beneath her. She hated it. Hated the surge of fear that swept over her in a tidal wave. Fear of the void he was going to be leaving behind.
‘Of course. I’m surprised no one’s sent a jet over to ferry you back.’
Matt looked at her steadily, slightly twirling his glass between his fingers.
‘I wouldn’t have taken the ride back,’ he murmured softly.
‘Too much work to get through?’
‘All Work and No Play has always been my motto. The play here has been too enjoyable for me to have accepted an early ferry back to base camp.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You, Violet. I mean you.’
There was a potent, masculine charm he always reserved for women. She had never been in the firing line of that charm. She was now, and she licked her lips, nerves stretched to breaking point. There was no point asking him what he meant because she knew what he meant. She’d known it for a while, had sensed the frisson of electricity between them, had enjoyed it.
‘This is my last night here and I’m going to put all my cards on the table. I want you. I want to go to bed with you.’ He relaxed back in the chair, watching her over the rim of his glass as he sipped the amber liquid. They could have been casually talking about the weather.
‘I...’
