Taken by the Boss: His Very Personal Assistant / In the Banker's Bed / The Takeover Bid

Someone—Lewis, it seemed as the other man opened the door and entered the office—had knocked on the door, a knock Kit hadn’t heard in her total awareness of Marcus. Her cheeks blushed scarlet as she saw the knowing look harden Marcus’s eyes.

‘I have the papers here I thought you should look at,’ Lewis told Marcus slowly, obviously sensing the tension in the room as he looked at the two of them questioningly. ‘But if you’re busy, I can always come back later…?’ He seemed aware that he had interrupted something—although, hopefully, not actually what that was!

‘I was just leaving, anyway,’ Kit assured him, deliberately avoiding meeting Marcus’s eyes as she turned away.

‘Kit…?’ he called out as she reached the open door.

She stiffened, turning slowly back to look at him, wishing he would just let her escape.

‘That extended lunch break you requested…’

‘Yes?’ she replied warily, very aware of Lewis as he studied the papers in his hand in an effort to try looking as if he weren’t listening to their conversation.

‘It’s fine with me,’ Marcus told her.

She drew in a sharp breath, wanting to make a cutting reply back, but unwilling to add to Lewis’s curiosity by doing so. ‘Thank you,’ she accepted tersely, at last able to escape to the relative sanctuary of her own office.

She had known it was going to be difficult to come in today and just continue working with Marcus, as if nothing had changed between them over the weekend. That was one of the reasons—despite what Marcus might have thought!—she had returned to her guise as efficient, prim Miss McGuire. But the fact that Marcus had kissed her in the way that he had showed he had no intention of forgetting the intimacy they had shared over the weekend. How much longer, Kit wondered miserably, would she be able to continue working for him…?

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘KIT… isn’t it?’

Kit stared at the woman sitting behind the wide oak desk, hoping the trembling of her legs wasn’t visible as she stood on the thickly carpeted floor in front of that desk. The last thing she wanted was to appear in the least lacking in self-confidence.

‘You asked to see me,’ Catherine Grainger reminded at Kit’s continued silence.

Yes, she had. She had telephoned Catherine Grainger’s office first thing this morning; lunchtime was the only time the other woman was available to see her. But now that Kit was here she had no idea what she was going to say to her!

Her hands were clammy, she felt alternately hot and then cold—and she seemed to have forgotten how to talk!

The older woman gave an impatient sigh. ‘I’m sure my secretary has already explained to you that I’m very busy today, so if you have something to say then I really wish you would get on with it—’

‘My name is Catherine McGuire!’ The words burst out starkly before Kit even had time to formulate them in her mind.

Catherine Grainger remained unmoved, her face hard and unyielding. ‘I believe my secretary did mention that was the name of my one o’clock appointment, yes.’

‘Doesn’t that name mean anything to you?’

Catherine Grainger lifted elegant shoulders in dismissal. ‘Should it?’ she returned coolly.

Kit drew in a sharp breath, her face deathly pale now, her hands clenched tightly into fists at her sides. ‘I’m your granddaughter!’

Catherine Grainger continued to look at her, her expression impassive, not showing so much as a flicker of her eyelids to demonstrate that what Kit had said meant anything to her.

Kit stared back, still amazed that this woman, so cold, so hard, could possibly be her mother’s mother!

She had always known who her grandmother was, of course, had been told the truth by her parents at a very young age, after she had asked them why she didn’t have grandparents like the other children at school. But actually coming face to face with her the previous weekend, knowing exactly who and what she was, had been something of a shock.

A shock, now she had been told the truth, Catherine Grainger didn’t seem to share…

Catherine gave a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

It wasn’t a question, or an exclamation, just a simple statement of fact!

Kit was startled. ‘You already knew…?’

‘I guessed. You look remarkably like your mother did at this age,’ she explained unemotionally.

‘You haven’t even seen my mother since she was nineteen!’ Kit exclaimed, stunned beyond measure that this woman had known all the time exactly who she was. And had said nothing…

‘True,’ Catherine Granger confirmed. ‘But you’re still very like her to look at. The likeness was enough for me to—ask certain questions, in order to find out exactly who you were.’

Kit’s eyes widened. ‘Of whom?’

‘Does that really matter?’

‘What questions did you ask?’ Kit persisted.

‘Your surname was enough to tell me all that I needed to know.’ Her grandmother’s top lip turned back scornfully.

‘And yet you said nothing?’ Kit said incredulously.

Catherine Grainger’s eyes narrowed icily. ‘What was there for me to say? So you’re the daughter of Heather and that man—’

‘That man is my father!’ Kit interjected. ‘And he has a name. Tom McGuire,’ she announced proudly.

Her grandmother’s mouth thinned. ‘He’s old enough to be Heather’s father, and your grandfather!’

Kit stared at her disbelievingly. ‘And is that the only reason you objected to their relationship all those years ago? The reason you made my mother choose between the two of you?’

Heather had explained to her daughter that her own mother didn’t approve of her choice of husband, that it had come to a choice between the two, and that Tom had easily won.

Having met Catherine Grainger at the weekend, and looking at her now, Kit could easily understand why Heather had chosen to be with the man she loved, and who loved her, rather than this cold, unemotional woman. What Kit couldn’t understand was why Catherine had forced Heather to make that choice in the first place…

‘Isn’t that reason enough?’ Catherine came back derisively.

‘Not to me, no!’ Kit denied.

Catherine gave a humourless laugh. ‘I don’t really think this is any of your business, do you?’

‘None of my—!’ Kit gasped disbelievingly. ‘What sort of woman are you?’

Those grey eyes—like Kit’s own, only hers were warm as velvet rather than cold as ice!—hardened glacially. ‘Heather was nineteen years old, hardly more than a child herself—what did she know about love?’

‘Enough for that love to have lasted twenty-eight years!’ Kit told her grandmother triumphantly.

Catherine looked unimpressed. ‘They’re still together, then?’