Three Blind-Date Brides: Nine-to-Five Bride

‘You’re welcome.’ Oh, the soft deepness of his voice.

Marissa’s abdomen clenched in a reaction she wholly did not want to admit was happening. She hadn’t joined Blinddatebrides.com to find Mr Virile and Able to Produce Strong Children, nor Mr Gentle and Sweet With Said Children. She certainly wasn’t looking for those traits in the man before her.

‘The next time you’ll put your head all the way under the water, okay, Julia?’ His smile was gentle, encouraging and, to Marissa, quite devastating. ‘Fishes do that all the time.’

Julia …

The woman smiled and turned her head and the likeness between all three of them clicked it all fully into place.

This child was Julia—a sweet little girl about four or five years old with a shock of dark hair flattened wet against the back of her head and still dry in the front. The woman beside the pool was Rick’s sister. The entire scene was so far removed from what Marissa had expected, she couldn’t seem to find her breath or get her legs to move.

Or perhaps that was simply the impact of so much raw sensual appeal concentrated in the man in front of her, and the crazy twisting of reactions inside her.

And Rick wasn’t involved.

Now she thought about it, hadn’t Gordon said when she’d first started here that Rick was a solitary man and seemed to keep his dating low-key and … transitory?

And hello, that wouldn’t exactly make him a candidate for a relationship. Plus Marissa didn’t want to have one with him. He might be in a swimming pool, but the term ‘corporate shark’ still meant more than a boss doing laps in chlorine-scented water.

Oh, but he hadn’t looked like a boss or a shark when he’d held his niece so tenderly in his arms. Marissa clenched her teeth because she was not going down this track and that was that!

Maybe she made a sound because Rick’s head turned and his expression closed as though she’d caught him at something he hadn’t wanted her to see.

Why would he feel that way about giving a swimming lesson to his niece? Not only that, but surely he’d guessed what Marissa thought about ‘Julia’ and yet he hadn’t said a word.

‘I’m sorry for barging in.’ Sorry and quite annoyed by his hidden depths, whether that made her unreasonable or not. ‘I have an urgent fax and I thought—’ She’d thought he’d be behind one of those closed doors beyond the pool with a lover. ‘Er … I didn’t realise there was a swimming pool up here.’

‘It’s not a problem. We’ve taken enough of Rick’s time away from his work anyway.’ The woman smiled as she wrapped her daughter in a towel and gathered her into her arms. ‘I’m Faith, by the way. Rick’s youngest sister.’

‘Marissa.’ She sought the comfortable communication skills that should have flowed naturally. ‘Marissa Warren. I’m filling in while Rick’s secretary, Tom, is on sick leave.’

‘Ah, I see. For a while?’ The other woman glanced at Rick and her eyes seemed to gleam. ‘That should make for an interesting change.’

‘It’s not for all that long.’ Rick cleared his throat. ‘Didn’t you say you needed to be going, Faith?’

His sister’s mouth softened. ‘Yes. There’s a chance we might get a call from Russell tonight if things with his unit go as planned. I don’t want to miss that. I asked Mum and Dad if they’d like to come over, speak with him and then watch you-know-who while I finish the call. The deployments are hard and he doesn’t have his parents around, but Mum and Dad were too busy.’

Something in Rick’s face seemed to tighten with … sadness? Some kind of regret for his sister? A measure of long-standing anger? ‘What time? Do you want me to phone conference in from the office?’

‘No, that’s okay.’ Faith lifted her daughter higher into her arms. ‘Julia and I will be fine on our own but I appreciate the offer.’

They left after that and Marissa faced the company’s boss where he stood in the water. No tattoo on the right biceps. Just muscles that seemed to invite the stroke of questing fingers. Marissa wanted to stay annoyed at him for concealing the truth about Julia from her. Instead, she could only see his kindness to his sister and niece, meshed with the appeal of a great deal of male sensuality.

Somehow this Rick was even deeper and more difficult to try to ignore. ‘Your niece and sister seem lovely. It’s … er … it’s kind of you to give the little girl swimming lessons.’

‘I’m a skilled diver and for some reason Julia feels safer in the water with a man.’ His closed expression warned her off the topic, yet families were all about being there for each other, right?

Why would he mind her knowing he’d been there for his sister and niece?

Before she could consider possible answers, he climbed from the pool. In the brief time it took him to walk to the nearby lounger, snatch up a towel and wrap it around his hips, her concentration fled completely.

‘I always try to swim here every day anyway.’ His gaze swept, heavy-lidded and resistantly aware, over her. ‘For the exercise.’

‘You look very fit. Exceptionally fit, really. Quite muscularly fit.’ Heat washed over her from her toes to the top of her head as she acknowledged that saying so might not have been particularly prudent. And why was he looking at her that way? He was the half-naked one.

Board shorts and a towel. The man is perfectly adequately covered. This was quite true. The problem was that the board shorts had clung, hadn’t they? And the towel still left a lot of skin on display. His waist was trim and his shoulders were stunning.

‘Your hair wasn’t wet yesterday.’ The blurted words were an accusation, as though, if his hair had been wet and she’d worked out he’d been swimming, she would have felt more prepared for the sight of him this way. ‘And you didn’t smell like chlorine. I have a really good nose for that sort of thing.’

‘Today’s the first day Julia’s allowed me to put my head under the water, and I shower afterwards.’ His hair fell in a dripping mass over one side of his forehead and was pushed back from the other.

Spiked lashes blinked away the droplets of water that clung to them. ‘I want her to like swimming so I have to accommodate her fears. With her father away, she needs someone …’

‘I … er … it must be difficult for your sister, having a husband in the armed forces and unable to do the daddy things at times.’ Did the words even make sense? How could she concentrate, with every ounce of her so aware of the sight of him this way?

Not only that, but her hormones insisted on pointing out that Rick had seemed quite appealing indeed in the daddy role. Well, uncle, but it was the same general kind of thing.

Not really.

Yes, really.

She had to get over this idea of wanting a baby!

She had not thought that in association with Rick, anyway. She’d merely had a brief moment of considering how, in a bygone time, as in at the dawn of time, women may have reacted to strong men by wanting to … um … mate with them.

Which Marissa did not want to do—at all, whatsoever—with her boss.

It seemed expedient to get out of here. But she couldn’t quite recall how to bring that about. ‘Um … well …’

‘Yes?’ Rick’s gaze locked with Marissa’s. He felt worked up and overwrought for no reason he could explain. Other than to name the reason ‘Marissa’ or, at the least, ‘his reaction to Marissa’. That was something he didn’t want to do.

Her fingers tightened around the papers in her hands. ‘The fax.’

‘Let me see what it says.’ He took the pages from her, careful not to touch her. Bent his head to read while she finally looked everywhere but at him.

The knowledge of that belated restraint absurdly made him want her all the more. ‘I’ll need the files on this from the Civil Engineering department. Go straight there, will you? See if you can catch someone before they close for the day but tell him or her they don’t need to hang around. This is something I’ll have to address myself.’

‘I’ll go right now.’ With relief evident in every line of her body and expression on her face, Marissa took the fax, wheeled about and escaped with it.

Rick watched her go. She seemed more than glad to get away from him now. Which was, of course, exactly as he wanted things to be …

CHAPTER SIX

From: Englishcrumpet

Just let Tony down gently.

From: Sanfrandani