Back In The Boss's Bed

Adam hid a smile. So the old man had been confident he’d agree, had he? And why not? Didn’t he owe Vaughn Lacey for a favour given to a young boy in trouble, such a long time ago? He watched as Miriam deftly dealt with the drinks. She wore a black dress with a white collar—clearly some kind of uniform. He hadn’t seen such an old-fashioned set-up for years, but, admittedly, he had been living in America, which was altogether a more meritocratic society.

His eyes were drawn to an exquisite Augustus John etching, which hung on the wall, and he pursed his lips together thoughtfully. That piece of artwork alone must be worth a cool couple of million. He wondered how much else around the place was existing on past glories and how well Vaughn and his granddaughter would be able to adapt if any cut-backs were going to be necessary.

But now was not the time to start asking questions like that. He took the drinks from Miriam, and when she had let herself out he handed one to the old man and then raised his own, touching it to the other, the chink of crystal sounding as pure as the ringing of a bell.

‘To success. To the resurrection of Lacey’s,’ he murmured, raising the drink to his lips and wondering just what the hell he had let himself in for.

Vaughn gave a tight smile. ‘I’ll send for Kiloran.’

CHAPTER TWO (#u5f43010f-6cee-55a6-bb64-d92b2744aab3)

KILORAN smoothed her clammy palms down over her hips, feeling suddenly and inexplicably nervous. The corridor leading to the boardroom seemed to go on forever, a corridor which she had walked down countless times—so why the nerves?

Her grandfather had telephoned her at the house and asked her to meet him. Immediately. It had sounded more like a command than a request and he had spoken in a terse, almost abrupt way, which didn’t sound like him at all.

Was he about to tell her that he didn’t think there was any point carrying on? That they should call in the creditors? The end of the company and all that went with it?

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead as she pushed open the door of the boardroom, thrown off her guard as soon as she registered that her grandfather was not alone.

For a man stood, surveying her with a lazy, yet judgemental air. The kind of man who would make any woman’s heart miss a beat and whose expression would fill her with foreboding.

She turned to the familiar figure in the wheelchair. ‘Grandfather?’ she said uncertainly.

‘Ah, Kiloran,’ murmured her grandfather. ‘This is Adam. Adam Black. Do you remember him?’

It was like a little pebble being dropped into a pond. Slowly, the ripples of memory spread across Kiloran’s mind. She frowned.

Adam Black.

Of course she remembered him.

True, she had only been young, but some men came along who were so unforgettable that their image was scored deep in the psyche, and had been at an impressionable age. Reading stories about knights in shining armour who carried off with them the damsel in distress to some unnamed and yet pleasurable fantasy.

Adam Black had seemed to fit the role perfectly, and—judging from the female workers at Lacey’s—Kiloran had not been the only one to think so. Hadn’t groups of them found excuses to go to the loading bay, in order to catch a glimpse of the bare-chested man, as he’d effortlessly lifted great boxes of soap into the lorries? Hadn’t even her mother remarked that he was a fine-looking boy?

And so it was with astonishing and rather disturbing ease that Kiloran was able to recall Adam Black perfectly.

She turned her head to look at him.

The years had not just been kind to him, they had treated him with the deference usually only given to the chosen few.

The body was lean and lithe, his skin kissed with the faintest tan. The hair was still jet-black—thick and abundant as it had ever been with only a faint tracing of silver around his temples. The grey eyes were narrowed and watchful. He looked—not exactly unfriendly, but not exactly brimming over with bonhomie, either, and he was dressed in an immaculate charcoal-grey suit, as if he was ready for business.

She remembered the young man wearing nothing but a pair of faded denims, his bronzed back dripping with the sweat of his labours, and it seemed hard to connect him with this man, who stood before her now, a dark study of arrogant respectability.

Kiloran’s heart had begun to thunder beneath the thin silk of her dress, but the voice of reason began to clamour in her head.

Why on earth was he here?

And her childhood crush was eclipsed by the sudden crowding in of facts. She suddenly realised just why his name had sounded so familiar—and not just because he had spent one summer doing hard, manual work for her grandfather. She made the connection, and she was even more confused.

Adam Black—the Adam Black—was here in her boardroom? The man that the investment journals called ‘The Shark’ because of his cold and cutting ways? She had read about him, in the way that anyone in the business would have done. She had seen him quoted in the papers and read about him in the magazines which covered big mergers and acquisitions. And seen his regular appearances in the gossip columns, too. The camera loved him and so did women, beautiful women, invariably. He had acquired a reputation for loving and leaving—though maybe not for loving, but certainly for leaving.

So why was he here? She stared at him in confusion.

‘You remember my granddaughter?’ Vaughn was saying. ‘Kiloran Lacey?’

Adam gave a brief, curt nod. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he murmured.

A very long time ago. Certainly, his snatched, snapshot memory of a girl in pigtails bore no resemblance to the woman sitting at the huge, round table wearing a dress as darkly green as her eyes. Her long, shapely legs were outlined by the thin fabric, but not even her magnificent legs could detract from the lush breasts, the silky material of the dress doing very little to disguise their almost shocking fullness.

He had remembered fair hair, tightly bound in pigtails, but the colour of her hair was as pure as spun gold, although most of it was caught back in a knot. She had her mother’s hair, he thought fleetingly. And her mother’s eyes—or at least they were the same colour. Because the eyes which returned his stare were cool and intelligent and assessing, not hot and hungry and predatory like her mother’s. But women wore different masks, didn’t they? Who knew what kind of woman Kiloran Lacey really was?

But outwardly, at least, she was perfect.

Her skin was as pale as clotted cream, which contrasted so vividly with her rich green eyes. She had the kind of natural beauty which, in another age, would have had artists clamouring to paint her.

Her lips were wide and lush and full, and held the merest suggestion of a pout of displeasure as she looked at him as if he had absolutely no right to be there. And that little pout stirred at his senses in a way it had no right to. Or maybe it was the unsmiling look on her face. Adam was used to an instant response from women, and for once he wasn’t getting it.

‘Nice to see you,’ he said shortly.

Kiloran kept her voice steady. ‘Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?’ She gave him a polite smile. ‘I don’t understand why you’re here, Mr Black.’

‘Call me Adam.’ His mouth thinned into a bland smile. ‘Please.’

Something about his superior, almost arrogant self-assurance made Kiloran begin to simmer. How dared he look as though he had every right to stand around lording it and as if she—she—were in some way superfluous! She felt like calling him something far more uncomplimentary than his first name, but she drew a deep breath. ‘Adam,’ she managed steadily. ‘This is something of a surprise.’

‘I’ve asked Adam to establish the full extent of the embezzlement,’ said her grandfather.

Embezzlement. There it was. Such a horrible word, and no less horrible because it was true. A fact. A smooth-talking accountant with a convincing line in lies and she had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

‘But I’ve been working on that myself,’ she objected. ‘You know I have.’

‘And you’re involved, Kiloran,’ drawled Adam. ‘So I’m afraid it isn’t quite that easy.’

Her heart missed a beat as she stared at him incredulously. ‘Are you trying to suggest that I’ve stolen from my own company?’

He shook his dark head. ‘Of course not. You weren’t involved in the process itself,’ he said blandly. ‘But, unlike me, you won’t be able to take an impartial overview of the situation.’

‘I think you underestimate me,’ she shot back and she met the answering look in his eye which said as clearly as if he had spoken it, I think not.

‘Why don’t I leave the two of you in peace?’ said her grandfather hurriedly, and began to manoeuvre the wheels of his chair in the direction of the door.

Kiloran scarcely noticed him leave, her breath was coming in short and indignant little blasts, which was making her chest rise and fall as if she had been running in a particularly fast race.

Adam wished to hell that he had the authority to tell her to put a jacket on, but what reason could he give? That he found the sight of her moving breasts too distracting? That her hair was too shiny clean and blonde and her lips positively X-rated? That the silken look of her white and golden skin made it seem a sheer crime to have it covered in anything other than a man’s lips?

Instead he curved his mouth into the sardonic smile which would have made people who knew him well have serious misgivings about his next words.