Out of Hours...Her Ruthless Boss: Ruthless Boss, Hired Wife / Unworldly Secretary, Untamed Greek / Her Ruthless Italian Boss

That was all it was.

Could it be enough? For her?

Was she willing to accept so little, simply because it was more than she’d ever had?

Lizzie shook her head. No. She wanted more, wanted what she’d told Cormac. Love. Respect. Marriage, even.

Nothing he was prepared to give her. Nothing she should want from him.

And yet…

She wanted him.

She didn’t trust him. And she didn’t trust herself.

Yet the want, the need, the hunger was still there, even as she knew that an affair with Cormac would lead only to more hunger, more need that could not be satisfied. Not by Cormac.

He wasn’t interested in loving her. He didn’t even respect her. And marriage was out of the question.

So where did that leave her? Nowhere, Lizzie realised with a grim smile, except exactly where Cormac wanted her…in the palm of his hand. Literally.

Cormac saw her as she approached the camp, and there was a look of thunderous fury on his face as he strode towards her, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake before he kissed her hard on the mouth.

‘Where were you? We’ve all been half mad with worry, thinking you were lost or dead—’

‘I told you I would walk,’ Lizzie said stiffly, her mouth bruised from his kiss. ‘I didn’t think you’d care.’

‘I didn’t think it would take you so long,’ he retorted. ‘I had visions of you trying to swim back, being caught in the undertow.’ He sounded both accusing and anguished, and over his shoulder Lizzie saw Hilda smiling in concern, Jan looking worried.

Of course. This was part of Cormac’s charade. He’d given her her cue, and was undoubtedly waiting for her response.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said, and he relaxed a bit. ‘I didn’t realise you’d worry so much.’ Or at all. ‘Forgive me?’

‘You’ll just have to make it up to me later.’ He gave her a wolfish smile and, taking her hand, led her towards the waiting vehicles.

Lizzie closed her eyes and let him lead her. For a moment she’d thought he hadn’t been acting. For a moment it had felt real.

Never. Never.

The ride back to the villa was quiet save for the chattering and whirring of birds and bugs as twilight gave way to a cloak of velvety darkness.

By the time they arrived, everyone was tired from a day in the sun, and Hilda arranged for trays to be brought privately to the rooms.

She patted Lizzie’s cheek in farewell. ‘We’ll see you at breakfast. All couples have their quarrels, no?’ Behind Hilda, Lizzie saw Jan frown at Cormac.

The afternoon had cost him, she supposed, in credibility. God knew it had cost her something, too.

Lizzie managed to smile rather weakly at Hilda. She was not looking forward to enforced quarters with Cormac all evening.

Back in the room, he said tersely, ‘Do you realise how dangerous that stunt you pulled was? Jan kept making remarks about how easily I’d managed to lose my wife, and Stears jumped in, saying maybe I’d never had her in the first place.’

Lizzie shrugged. ‘You obviously made up for it with that little display of husbandly concern. Jan and Hilda looked thrilled.’

He paused. ‘Yes, that was rather good, wasn’t it?’ He ran a hand through his hair and gestured towards the bathroom. ‘You can have the shower first.’ He paused again and Lizzie glanced at him, saw him frowning. ‘Then we should talk.’

She nodded, surprised and a bit wary, before gathering her things and heading for the blessed oblivion of a hot shower.

Standing under a jet of scalding water, she wondered what Cormac wanted to talk about. No doubt he was afraid she’d read something into the afternoon, something that obviously wasn’t there. She understood the afternoon had been about lust, and lust only. She didn’t need a lecture.

Yet the realisation hurt. It was stupid, because she’d known all along and yet it still hurt. She hurt.

What would have happened, she wondered, if Wendy and Dan hadn’t disturbed them? Would Cormac have taken her right there, on the hard sand?

Would she have let him?

Would she have been able to resist?

After her shower, she put on a simple shift dress in loose cotton. She exited the bathroom, combing her fingers through her damp hair, and Cormac didn’t say a word as he moved past her to take his own shower.

There was a light knock on the door and a member of staff from the kitchen brought in a tray of food.

‘Thank you,’ Lizzie murmured, and glanced down at the makings of a delicious meal—a chicken dish fragrant with cloves and banana, cornflour pancakes and a fresh fruit salad. For dessert there was coconut cream pie.

She decided to wait for Cormac to eat, even though she dreaded seeing him, talking to him. She could still hear the sounds of the shower and suddenly the room seemed too small, too hot and confined.

Lizzie threw open the shutters and gulped in a breath of fresh sea air, tangy with salt and heavy with the fragrance of frangipani and orchids.

The windows of their room looked directly out onto the beach and, without even thinking about what she was doing, Lizzie swung her legs over the low sill, landed in a flower bed and took the few short steps to the sand.

She felt better out there, under a cool night sky, the air as soft and heavy as velvet. She heard the rustle of palms in the breeze, the lap of the waves and the sound of laughter from another bedroom.

She sat down on the sand, cool and hard in the darkness, and drew her knees up to her chest, her chin resting on top.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that, her mind blessedly blank, but eventually she heard the creak of the shutters and then the sound of Cormac swinging himself over and walking across the sand.

‘What are you doing out here?’

‘Being by myself,’ she replied, and heard him sigh.

‘Chandler…’

‘People might be able to hear,’ she warned him in a low, terse voice.

‘Lizzie.’ Somehow her name on his tongue sounded so intimate. He sat down next to her, his arms resting on his knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Lizzie turned and looked at him, surprised and wary. She couldn’t see much of him in the moonlight, no more than the gleam of his eyes and teeth.

‘What for?’