Australian Boss: Diamond Ring: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring

He was her boss. She should say goodnight and walk inside…‘Brent, thank you for tonight—’

‘Thank you for attending the Awards ceremony with me.’ He paused. ‘You got more than you bargained for with our exchange of a family night for the Awards night.’

‘My family situation isn’t even worth words in comparison to what happened tonight.’ She shook her head. How could she even think her paltry difficulties with her family mattered now? ‘Brent, I just don’t know how to comfort—’

‘Don’t feel sorry for me.’ Though he interrupted her, he did it gently, wrapping his fingers around hers where she’d been toying with her keys. ‘My past is what it is. I’ve moved on from it.’

‘Maybe, but you went on trying to conceal a part of yourself that you shouldn’t worry about that way.’ She bit her lip. Her breath stuttered in her throat and she whispered, ‘I can’t talk—’

About it any more? Brent certainly didn’t want to.

‘Then we won’t talk.’ He uttered the words with an accepting edge. ‘I’d rather do this, anyway.’ He bent his head to hers.

Touched his lips to hers.

A soft, seeking, giving and taking exchange. Lips to lips. How could it be all of this between them? And yet, somewhere inside herself, Fiona had wanted and needed his kiss and not even known how much she did.

Now she knew.

A taste of delight and sweetness and desire and pleasure. Her fingers wrapped around his forearms, and his hands were about her waist.

It felt good and right to have his mouth over hers, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of her waist. For a few wonderful moments, she lived in the sensations of kissing him.

His mouth caressed hers as though he needed and wanted to kiss her this way. Their gazes were locked, his lashes dusky crescents that fanned against his cheeks as he focused wholly on her. And then those lashes swept down fully and her eyes closed too, and it was all sensation and feeling and the beat of her heart in her breast and the spread of such warmth all through her.

That warmth told its own story. She had invested emotionally in him, at least to a degree, even when she knew that was dangerous. A little hint of panic surfaced as Fiona made this realisation.

And the moment that panic hit, she realised something in Brent had changed as well.

He ended the kiss and dropped his hands away from her. Stepped back, and some kind of regret showed in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. It can’t go anywhere. You and I can never—’

He cut off the rest of the sentence, but he didn’t need to finish it. Fiona could do that herself.

Now that he’d felt the reality, had touched the reality of her generous curves, he did not want her. The house of cards that had been desire and pleasure and closeness and a hope she should never have allowed, crumbled down.

Fiona tipped up her chin and told herself it didn’t matter. It absolutely, fiercely did not matter. ‘Goodnight, Brent.’

‘Goodnight. I’m—’

Sorry.

At least he didn’t say it.

With one last glance from a troubled green gaze, Brent walked away.

Chapter Six

REPEAT after me: I am a professional, I am a professional, I am a professional. I’m focused on my work, my career, my ‘five year plan’ and my goals for success…

Fiona attempted, yet again, for the umpteenth time, to figure out what was wrong with the feature plants in the painting she was working on. If she could feel settled or focused about anything at all, it might help her make a decent assessment of the problem.

And how could she feel settled when all of her was utterly distracted and had been since the night Brent had kissed her and walked away straight afterwards?

‘Stupid thing.’ She grabbed the open container of ochre paint from her work shelf.

Perhaps, if she blended a little white into it, she’d overcome the toning issue she had going on. If indeed the problem actually was a toning issue. The colour wasn’t right. That much she’d known from the start. She just wasn’t certain if that was the entire problem.

‘I shouldn’t call the painting names. I’m the problem, not it.’ She muttered the words, set the container on a small work table and set about mixing the white in.

Overall, this painting was not going well. That much she could say for sure, and that was a problem because the client expected to receive this artwork on Monday.

Brent was in the next room, working on something. Well, she assumed so. He’d had the door pushed across all morning so she couldn’t be certain of anything, really, but she doubted he was having the same difficulties concentrating as she was.

In fact, he seemed just fine ignoring what had happened between them after the Awards night dinner. All of it. The revelation of his autism. The meeting with his father. Their kiss. His regret and rejection after it. Maybe it had been a sympathy kiss—for her sake. She had been very upset on his behalf and he was a kind man.

The thought made her cringe because to her it had been anything but that.

But he’d backed away from it, had clearly been put off by it. What other conclusion could she draw?

Fiona gave her paint one last vigorous stir. She would simply have to get on with her work, that was all. Take a leaf from her boss’s book and only focus on the responsibilities they shared here. That was smart anyway. The only sensible thing to do, really, in the face of the fact that Brent didn’t…want her.

So there. That was decided. Fiona snatched up her newly blended paint, briefly admired the glossy consistency of it and swung about to carry it to her easel.

‘I need to go up into the mountains. This project—’

‘I’m going to just focus on work…Oomph.’

As their words crossed each other, Fiona came up against a solid wall of chest. Paint hit that chest in a broad, gooey blob, slopped over her hand and splashed its way down until drips hit the floor.

‘Oh, no.’ The paint container wobbled in her hand. Fiona got it upright, but that was pointless now.

‘I guess I should have knocked first or something.’ Brent spoke in a slightly dazed tone while his fingers rose to his chest.

‘It’s my fault. I should have been looking at what I was doing.’ Fiona’s hand rose, too. She brushed at the dinner-plate sized splodge soaking into his shirt, sticking it to the firm muscles of his chest.

And then she stilled as Brent’s fingers explored the paint, sliding back and forth through it, not to clear it off, but to get the full tactile experience of it.

The sight of that exploration was one of the most beautiful, sensual things Fiona had ever seen. Maybe he caught her staring because his fingers came to a standstill and very green eyes searched her gaze while heat coated his cheekbones.

Embarrassment, but why?

Because that’s his condition speaking.

‘You must think I’m strange—’

‘I’m sorry I stared. It was just that you looked so—’ She couldn’t complete the words. Couldn’t tell him that his expression had made her imagine his hands stroking her skin that way.

‘I…um…I’ve ruined your shirt.’ Her mouth pointed out the ridiculously obvious while the rest of her tried to catch its breath. ‘I was trying to fix a problem with this artwork. The colour change probably wouldn’t have fixed it, anyway. I need to see the particular seed pod that grows on the plants I’ve used in the painting. The trouble is they don’t go to seed pods until they’re quite mature. I won’t find what I need at any young plant nursery.’