A Spanish Affair

The grey eyes were so dark as to be almost black, Georgie thought inconsequentially, and surrounded by such thick black lashes it seemed a shame to waste them on a man. And he seemed even bigger than she remembered. ‘Then please call me Georgie,’ she managed politely.

He inclined his head briefly. ‘And the second thing is that I find myself in need of your assistance today, Georgie,’ he continued smoothly. ‘My secretary, Pepita, has unfortunately had a slight accident this morning and twisted her ankle. Perhaps you would take her place on site and take notes for me?’

Oh, no. No, no, no. She’d never survive a day in his company without making a fool of herself or something. She couldn’t, she really couldn’t do this! If nothing else this confirmed she was doing absolutely the right thing in trying to find a new secretary to take her place for Robert.

Georgie called on every bit of composure she could muster and said steadily, ‘Perhaps you had better ask Robert about that. It would mean closing the office here, of course, which is not ideal. His men are finishing work on a shop we’ve been renovating and are expected to call in some time this afternoon, and there’s the phone to answer and so on.’

‘You have an answering machine?’ Matt enquired pleasantly.

‘Yes, but—’

‘And your presence will only be required during the discussions with the architect and planner. After that you may return here and perhaps type up the notes for me,’ he continued silkily.

Oh, hell! It would be today his precious secretary decided to twist her ankle, Georgie thought helplessly. She doubted if Matt de Capistrano would be around much in the normal run of things; a wealthy tycoon like him had his fingers in a hundred and one pies at any one time, and within a few weeks she would hopefully be out of here anyway. This was just the sort of situation she’d been trying to avoid when she’d decided to find a replacement secretary for Robert. ‘Well, like I said, you’d best discuss this with Robert,’ she said faintly.

‘And if Robert agrees? I can tell him you have no objection, yes?’ he persisted.

No, no and triple no. ‘Of course, Mr—Matt,’ Georgie said calmly.

‘Thank you, Georgie.’

His accent gave her name emphasis on the last ‘e’ and lifted it into something quite different from the mundane, and she was just coping with what that did to her nerves when the hard gaze narrowed as he said conversationally, ‘You do not like me, Georgie.’

It was a statement, not a question, but even if it had been otherwise Georgie would have been unable to answer him immediately such was the state of her surprise.

‘This is not a problem,’ he continued smoothly as she stared at him wide-eyed. His gaze rested briefly on the dark gold of her hair, which hung to her shoulders in a silky bob, before he added, ‘Unless you make it one, of course.’

‘I… That is—’ She was spluttering, she realised suddenly, and with the knowledge came a flood of angry adrenaline that strengthened her voice as her mind became clearer. If he thought she was some pathetic little doormat who would let him walk all over her just because he was bailing them out, he’d got another think coming! She was no one’s whipping boy. ‘I have no intention of making it one,’ she answered smartly.

‘This is good.’

Georgie’s soft mouth tightened further as she caught what she was sure was the hint of laughter in the dark voice, although his face was betraying no amusement whatsoever, and she struggled to keep her tone even and cool as she said, ‘In fact, I don’t expect to be working for Robert much longer, actually. It’s far better that he has someone else working for him here so that I can divide my time between looking after the children and temping work. So I doubt our paths will cross after that.’

To her absolute horror he sat down on a corner of the desk, his body warmth reaching into her air space as he said quietly, ‘Ah, yes, the children. How old are they? Are they coping?’

That same expensive and utterly delicious smell she’d caught wafting off the hard tanned body before was doing wicked things to her hormones, but Georgie was pleased to note nothing of her inward turmoil showed in her voice as she answered evenly, ‘The twins are seven, coming up for eight, and they are coping pretty well on the whole. They have lots of friends and their teacher at school at the moment is actually Sandra’s—their mother’s—best friend, so she is being an absolute brick.’

‘And your brother?’ he asked quietly, his head tilting as he moved a fraction closer which made her heartbeat quicken. ‘How is he doing?’

Georgie cleared her throat. There were probably a million and one men who could sit on her desk all day if they so wished without her turning a hair and without one stray thought coming into her mind. Matt de Capistrano was not one of them.

‘Robert is naturally devastated,’ she said even more quietly than he had spoken. ‘Sandra was his world. They’d known each other since they were children and after they married they even worked together, so their lives were intrinsically linked.’

‘I see.’ He nodded slowly, and Georgie wondered if he was aware of just how sexy he looked when he narrowed his eyes like that. ‘Such devotion is unusual, one might even say exceptional in this day and age of supermarket marriage.’

‘Supermarket marriage?’ she asked bewilderedly.

‘One samples one brand for a while before purchasing another and then another,’ he drawled in cynical explanation. ‘The lawyers get fatter than anyone, of course.’

‘Not all marriages are like that,’ Georgie objected steadily. ‘Some people fall in love and it lasts a lifetime.’

The grey eyes fastened even more piercingly on her face and now the metallic glint was mocking. ‘Don’t tell me you are a romantic,’ he said derisively.

She had been, once. ‘No, I am not a romantic.’ Her voice was cool now, and dismissive. ‘But I know what Sandra and Robert had was real, that’s all.’

She couldn’t read the expression on his face now, but as he opened his mouth to speak Robert chose that moment to open the door of his office, his face breaking into a warm smile as he said, ‘I thought I heard voices out here. Come on in, Matt. There’s just a couple of points I’d like to discuss before we leave.’

Whew! As the door closed behind the two men Georgie slumped in her chair for a moment, one hand smoothing a wisp of silky hair from her flushed face. Something gave her the impression this was going to be one of those days!

She had been banking on using the time the office was quiet with Robert on site to organize the arrangements for the twins’ birthday party. She and Robert had suddenly realised the night before that the children’s birthday was only a couple of weeks away and neither of them had given it a thought. Sandra had always made a big deal of their birthday and Georgie wanted to keep everything as normal as she could in the circumstances, so—Robert being unable to face the thought of the house being invaded by family and friends and loads of screaming infants—she had thought of booking a hall somewhere and hiring a bouncy castle and a magician and the full works.

The buzzer on her desk interrupted further musing. ‘Georgie?’ Robert’s voice sounded strained. ‘Could you organise coffee, make it three cups, would you, and bring in your notebook? I want you to sit in on this.’

What now? Georgie thought as she quickly fetched out the best mugs and a packet of the delicious chocolate caramel biscuits her brother loved. He had lost a great deal of weight in the last months and she had been trying to feed him up since she’d come home.

Once the coffee was ready she straightened her pencil-slim skirt and demure, buttoned-up-to-the-collar blouse and steeled herself for the moment she faced those piercing grey eyes again. Since her first day of working for Robert she had always dressed well, bearing in mind that she was the first impression people received when they walked through the door, but today she had taken extra care and it was only in this moment she acknowledged the fact. And it irritated her. Irritated and annoyed her. She didn’t want to care what Matt de Capistrano thought of her. He was just a brief fleeting shadow in her life, totally unimportant. He was.

The brief and totally unimportant shadow was sitting with one knee over the other and muscled arms stretched along the back of the big comfy visitor’s seat in Robert’s office when she entered, and immediately her body’s reaction to the overt male pose forced her to recognise her own awareness of him. Georgie was even more ruffled when her innate honesty emphasised that his flagrant masculinity was all the more overwhelming for its casual unconsciousness, and after serving the men their coffee and offering them the plate of biscuits she sat down herself, folding her hands neatly in her lap after placing her own coffee within easy reach. She was not going to fidget or gabble or react in any way to Matt de Capistrano, not if it killed her.

‘So…’ Robert’s voice was still strained. ‘To recap, you feel Mains and Jenson will have to go?’ he said to Matt, referring to the two elderly bricklayers who had been with Robert since he first started the firm fourteen years ago.

‘What?’ Georgie forgot all about the non-reaction as she reared up in her seat. ‘George and Walter?’ She had known the two men even before she had come under Robert’s wing and they had always treated her like a favourite granddaughter, as had their wives. The first summer she had come to live with Robert and Sandra, when she’d been bitterly grieving for her parents, Walter and his wife had taken her away to France for two weeks to try and take her mind off her parents’ untimely death and they had been utterly wonderful to her. ‘You can’t! You can’t get rid of them.’

‘Excuse me?’ The steel-grey eyes had narrowed into slits of light and he was frowning.

‘They’re like family,’ Georgie said passionately.

‘Family’s fine,’ Matt said coolly. ‘Inefficient employees are something else. Walter Jenson is well past retiring age and George Mains turned sixty-five a year ago.’

‘They are excellent bricklayers!’ Her green eyes were flashing sparks now.

‘They are too slow,’ he said dismissively, ‘and this is not a charitable concern for geriatrics. Your brother must have lost thousands over the last few years by carrying men like Mains and Jenson. I’ve no doubt of their experience or the quality of their work, but Jenson was off sick more than he was at work over the last twelve months—severe arthritis, isn’t it?’ he asked in a brief aside to Robert, who nodded unhappily. ‘And Mains’s unfortunate stroke last year has slowed him up to the point where I believe he actually represents something of a danger to himself and others, especially when working on scaffolding. If you drop something from any sort of height you could kill or maim anyone beneath.’

‘I don’t believe this!’ She glared at him angrily. ‘They are craftsmen, the pair of them.’

‘They are old craftsmen and it’s time to let some young blood take over,’ Matt said ruthlessly, ‘however much it hurts.’

‘And of course it really hurts you, doesn’t it?’ Georgie bit out furiously, ignoring Robert’s frantic hand-signals as she jerked to her feet. ‘Two dear ol—’ She caught herself as the grey gaze sharpened. ‘Two dear men who have been the rocks on which this business was built just thrown on to the scrap heap. What reward is that for all their faithfulness to Robert and this family? But faithfulness means nothing to men like you, does it? You’ve made your millions, you’re sitting pretty, but you’re still greedy for more and if more means men like Walter and George get sacrificed along the way then so be it.’

‘Have you quite finished?’ He was still sitting in the relaxed manner of earlier but the grey gaze was lethal and pointed straight at Georgie’s flushed face. ‘Then sit down, Miss Millett.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Sit down!’

The bark made her jump and in spite of herself Georgie felt her legs obey him.

‘Firstly, your brother has made it clear just what he owes these two employees and they will be retired with a very generous package,’ Matt ground out coldly. ‘I think, as does Robert if he speaks the truth, that this will not come as a surprise to them; neither will it be wholly displeasing. Secondly, you talk of sacrifice when you are prepared to jeopardise the rest of your brother’s employees’ livelihoods for the sake of two elderly men who should have retired years ago?