Australian Boss: Diamond Ring: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring

As a colleague and someone he’d begun to admire in that capacity…

He helped Fiona into his truck and talked about this and that as they made their way back towards her home.

If he talked, maybe she would forget the unpleasantness of the evening. And maybe he would forget how much he wanted to draw her into his arms and kiss her to take her mind off the fact that her family didn’t treat her the way they all should. That desire was not businesslike.

Words pushed past his lips anyway. ‘What’s wrong with them? They don’t—’

‘I’m glad you got to meet my family, that they got to meet my boss and hear a little about the work I’m doing.’ Fiona spoke over the top of him. Her words were deliberately upbeat as he turned the truck into an empty parking space in the apartment complex’s courtyard. Upbeat but edged with that same breathless quality as earlier, when their knees had brushed beneath the table.

She went on, ‘I hope that will have made my goals a little more real to them, a little more understandable.’

A little more acceptable? Her family made her feel abnormal when she was a great person in her own right. And that was clearly something that had been going on for a long time. That was Brent’s assessment and it was one that was…a little too close to the bone for comfort.

Brent turned off the truck’s ignition and strode around the front to open her door and help her out. ‘You have a good start in a job that’s in your chosen field. There are plenty of people out there who never manage to say that much. Your family should be proud of the way you’ve pursued and begun to obtain your goals.’

‘Thank you and…maybe they are.’ She spoke in a way that seemed to try to keep the uncertainty out of her tone. And gave a soft smile, no doubt aimed at easing the moment. ‘Well, I promise you I will do my utmost to support you in return when it comes time to go to the Awards dinner.’

‘Your company on the night will be more than enough.’ Brent all but growled the words. ‘I’ll walk you up.’

See her into her apartment safely and then leave. That was what he needed to do, not linger here wanting nebulous things he didn’t want to name but knew would get him into trouble if he went after them. Things that had to do with odd notions, such as comfort and closeness and acceptance.

What was the matter with him tonight? Where were these deep buried thoughts coming from?

When they reached the top of the staircase and made their way to her front door, Fiona put her key in the lock and turned to face him. ‘They didn’t pry too much into your business, I hope. When I was in the kitchen clearing away dishes.’

He pushed his hands into his pockets, frowned and took them out again. ‘They didn’t pry too much.’

She seemed to relax a little at that. ‘Would you like a coffee or something before you drive on? I’ve only got instant—’

‘No. Thanks. But I’ll see you inside.’ He had to know she was safely secured behind these walls. That was only common courtesy.

‘O-okay.’ She pushed the door open and walked inside.

Brent followed, closed it after him and glanced around.

A hand-woven rug brightened the floor. Those splashes of orange and sky-blue and red and green were echoed in throw cushions and the table lamp and an abstract Fiona Donner original on the wall.

She’d made a beautiful home, welcoming and individual and full of her life and vitality and sweetness. Brent wanted to sit on her sofa and just…be there among these things that held meaning for her. As though, if he did that, he’d…belong.

The inexplicable feeling washed through him, so much more than a simple awareness of her, even if that awareness had been causing him enough problems all by itself.

It took him enough by surprise that he hesitated in the centre of her small living room.

He should go.

He wanted to stay.

Since when had his emotions reached for such odd things? He didn’t even do that whole ‘feelings’ arena. Linc and Alex—he loved them, but that was it. His inability to maintain a relationship with his father had taught him what his limits were. The autism—he hadn’t been able to get past that. With Alex and Linc it was different, but they’d all come up together, had faced down their demons together.

With Fiona, Brent wasn’t even prepared to let himself be attracted to her. He wasn’t in the market for a relationship, and Fiona was someone who should be given that if a man was interested in her.

So say goodbye and leave. Do it now before any other temptation comes over you.

‘Well, thanks again.’

‘I should go.’

They spoke at the same time.

Fiona paused and her lashes fluttered over eyes the colour of the sky in the mountains on a warm summer day. Clear, sweet blue.

So lovely. He could appreciate the pure aesthetics of her, couldn’t he? Just appreciate that?

Yes? And where was the distance to go with that kind of remote appreciation?

Brent didn’t know the answer and, because he didn’t, and because he couldn’t quite make his feet take him to the door and through it, he addressed another issue that he did want answers to.

‘Your family made tonight all about themselves.’ Maybe she didn’t want to discuss this, but what if she needed to? What if he needed to talk with her about the way her family had treated her?

His fingers reached out and brushed the back of her hand. She had smooth, soft skin like the petals of a rose. Too late not to touch her now. He’d done it. ‘Your parents could have tried to be a bit accommodating of your tastes in terms of entertainment.’

‘They think I need to fit in, be more like them, but I’m just…not. I tried that. It didn’t work.’ Her soft sigh was a whisper between them. ‘But I love them, and they don’t mean to make me uncomfortable.’ She gestured with her hand to dismiss the topic. ‘Thank you for your company, anyway.’

‘You’re welcome.’ And he had to go.

Brent walked to the door and tugged it open and, with a low, ‘Lock it after me,’ he stepped through. On the other side, he waited until she did as he had asked, and then he walked to his truck and drove away.

What he thought about her family, about all this, didn’t matter in the end. Whatever he now knew of her, whatever empathy he felt for her, he had nothing to offer anyone, and especially not someone like Fiona.

That was what he had to remember.

Chapter Four

BRENT parked his truck and made his way into the club. Fiona had left her flat keys on her work desk, half-hidden away between two separate messy piles of paper. He had discovered this fact as he’d cleared chocolate wrappers from her work area.

Not wrappers from chocolates his graphic designer had eaten from the stash in her bottom desk drawer.

But wrappers from the chocolates he’d eaten his way through while he’d examined her design program. He hadn’t planned to eat the treats. He’d opened the drawer in search of a notepad and, though he’d told himself not to be tempted, somehow his hand had ended up in the drawer and the rest, as he focused all his attention on the nuts and bolts of her program and then on the work she’d done within it, had been, as they said, ‘history’. He’d have to replace the candy stash before she got to work on Monday.

She was on the dance floor. His gaze locked onto her and he quickly forgot his thoughts. Dear God, she looked magnificent. A black skirt that came to just above her knees, high-heeled boots and a scoop-necked cream top that clung to her curves as she moved all combined to make her a highly irresistible package of appeal.

When the number ended, Fiona smiled at her partner and moved off the floor with him. She stood half a head taller than the man. At just about the moment Brent forced himself to acknowledge he felt jealous of that man, they joined a large group of people seated at some tables pulled close together.

The fellow put his arm around one of the women in the group and dropped a kiss on her cheek.

‘Brent.’ Fiona’s exclamation came as he approached the tables. ‘What brings you here—?’

‘You.’ The word was low, husky and far too intimate, reflecting thoughts that poured through him, pushed past his defences.