Top-Notch Men!: In Her Boss's Special Care

The waiter arrived with their meals and once he’d left, Allegra said into the little silence that had fallen, ‘You never told me what your parents do for a living.’

Joel put his glass back on the table before answering. ‘My father is a teacher and my mother hasn’t worked outside the home since my brother and I were born.’

‘That must have been nice for you and your brother,’ she said, ‘having a full-time mum at home.’

‘It certainly had its advantages.’ He reached for his cutlery and asked, ‘What about your early childhood? Did your mother choose to work or stay at home?’

‘My mother wasn’t the stay-at-home type. My father did a lot of the child care in the early days, but I seem to remember a few child-care centres along the way.’

‘But you had a happy childhood?’

‘Of course. My parents were a bit “out there” at times, but I can’t remember ever being unhappy. Even when they went their separate ways, they did it so wonderfully well that I was the envy of all my friends for having such trendy, cool parents.’

Joel looked at her in silent envy. His childhood had been marked with tragedy, a tragedy relentless and ongoing. The last time he’d visited, just two days ago, his mother had aged and visibly shrunk even further, and his father’s face had become a mask of pain from their situation, each line more deeply etched, each shadow a darker curtain.

Allegra became aware of his silence and wondered if she was boring him. ‘I’m sorry …’ She pushed her glass out of her reach. ‘I tend to talk too much about myself when I drink wine.’

He gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Truth serum?’

‘Next I’ll be telling you all my innermost secrets.’

‘You seem to be pretty much an open book to me. You wear your heart on your sleeve, which is unusual in a medico. It usually gets hammered out of you at medical school.’

She lowered her gaze to the small flickering candle on the table, a small frown bringing her finely arched brows together for a moment. ‘Well I must have been absent that day at medical school.’

‘What happened?’

Allegra brought her eyes back to his, surprised yet again at the warmth she could see reflected there. ‘I lost my best friend during second year.’

‘An accident?’

She shook her head. ‘Suicide.’

‘I’m sorry. That must have been a tough time.’

‘It was … I blamed myself for not seeing the signs.’

‘Most people who know a suicide victim suffer the same guilt. Look at Mr Lowe today. I’m sure that’s why he’s unable to cope. He probably thinks it’s his fault.’

‘Yes … but in Julie’s case I should have known. I was her best friend. We’d shared everything since the first day we met during orientation week at university.’

‘You can’t always read people’s minds,’ he pointed out.

‘My mother would totally disagree with you,’ she said, trying to lighten the conversation. She gave him a little smile and added, ‘She insists she can infallibly detect what people are thinking just by looking deeply into their eyes.’

‘Oh, really?’ He didn’t bother disguising his scepticism but this time it was tempered with a smile. ‘And have you perhaps inherited this little gift?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t really put it to the test.’ She leaned forward to look into his eyes. ‘Let me see now … Hmm—you definitely have sleep on your mind. I can see you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks if not months.’

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘There might be something in this after all.’

She leaned closer to peer even more, her hair falling forward to brush the back of his hand where it rested on the table near his glass in a soft-as-air caress that sent a charge of electricity straight to his groin as her greener-than-green gaze meshed with his.

‘What do you see in my eyes now?’ he asked, his voice sounding a little rough around the edges.

Allegra looked deeply into his darker-than-night eyes, an unexpected pulse of desire beginning to beat a steady tattoo low and deep in her body. Her chest felt as if it had shrunk to half its size, the air she tried to breathe into her lungs catching on its way down. She moistened her lips, her skin lifting in awareness in a way that had never happened to her before. Her breasts felt full and heavy, her nipples puckering beneath her black lace bra as she felt the searing burn of his dark gaze as it held hers.

She sat back in her chair and tucked her hair behind her ear as she gave a little self-conscious laugh. ‘I’ve definitely had way too much wine to drink.’

‘The eyes are supposed to be the window to the soul,’ he said as he signalled to the waiter for the bill. ‘But what if you don’t have one?’

‘Everyone has a soul,’ she protested.

He gave her one of his cynical smiles. ‘Don’t go looking for one in me, Allegra, for you won’t find one. It died a long time ago.’

Allegra followed him out of the restaurant a short time later, her heart contracting painfully at the thought of what he had seen and experienced out in the field to have hardened him in such a way. She’d seen shadows of pain in his eyes that she knew no amount of sleep would ever erase. And she knew if he’d looked deeply into her own he would have found the very same shadows lurking there …

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘THANK you for dinner,’ Allegra said once he’d walked her to the door of her apartment block. ‘I had a good time. It was a nice restaurant. Not a pizza in sight.’

‘Aren’t you going to ask me in for coffee?’

‘I was going to but I wasn’t sure if you would take it the wrong way.’

‘I take it the same way you do—black.’

She gave him a quelling look. ‘I meant … well, you know what I meant.’

He smiled at her flustered expression and before he could stop himself lifted a finger to her cheek, trailing his knuckle over the creamy curve where a spot of heightened colour had pooled.

Allegra ran her tongue over her lips in a nervous gesture. ‘I’d better go in. It’s getting late and I’m on early and …’ She stopped when she saw the dark glitter in his eyes as they caught and held hers, her stomach hollowing in anticipation.

His head came down slowly, his warm breath brushing over her lips before he placed his mouth on hers in a soft, hardly touching kiss.

She looked up at him, her heart increasing its pace as he ran his tongue over his lips as if tasting her sweetness.

‘I probably shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.

She swallowed the restriction in her throat and croaked, ‘Why?’

‘Because now I know what it feels like, I want to do it again.’

‘Oh …’

‘It could cause all sorts of problems,’ he said, taking her by the shoulders and bringing her one tiny step closer, her breasts brushing against his chest.

‘You think so?’ she asked, leaning into his hardness instinctively.