Flight of Fantasy

She had been reluctant to spend the money for the outfit but now felt relieved. At least she wouldn’t look out of place among the first-class passengers. That was it! The economy section must have been overbooked, forcing the airline to upgrade some of the passengers. It was probably this very outfit which had prompted them to choose her.

Relieved that she had solved the puzzle, she spun around, intending to return to the counter and thank the obliging clerk, only to cannon into a broad, masculine body.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she gasped as steely fingers clamped around her upper arms to steady her. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘As it happens, you’re just the woman I’m looking for.’

A gasp tore from her throat as she recognised the voice and looked up into a pair of all too familiar grey-green eyes. She was so close that she could see the tracery of yellow lines which went from the pupils to the outer edges of his irises like the spokes of a wheel. The effect was mesmerising.

The thought that she was the woman he was looking for left her momentarily speechless, until she realised he meant it in a business sense. Fool, she chided herself. Why else would a man like him want her? ‘Slade... I mean, Mr Benedict...’ she muttered when she finally summoned her voice.

‘Slade will do in the circumstances,’ he demurred.

In what circumstances? Had she left something vital undone at the office?

He still held her in a steadying grip, his long fingers firm around her arms. The heat travelled through her skin as if it had been touched by a branding iron. Without putting up an unseemly struggle she couldn’t twist free, so she willed herself to calmness. ‘I’m leaving in half an hour for the Sunshine Coast.’

‘I know.’

‘You do?’ As the words tumbled out she cursed her own stupidity. Of course he knew. He had approved her request for leave. She was annoyed by her own responses. He might be all-powerful over his employees but he had no right to detain her now, when her time was her own.

‘You said you were looking for me?’ she prompted, her tone cool to indicate that she didn’t welcome his intrusion.

He glanced at the boarding pass she still clutched in nerveless fingers. As if she hadn’t spoken, he nodded tautly. ‘You’ve checked in already? Good. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.’

Releasing her at last, he turned away as if fully expecting her to follow him. Her annoyance grew and she stood her ground. ‘Did I leave something unfinished at the office?’

The question caught him by surprise. ‘Not that I know of.’ But at least he stood still, regarding her with ill-concealed impatience.

‘Then why do we need to talk? If it’s about the promotion, I’ve already apologised for what I said.’

He looked puzzled, then annoyed. But he couldn’t have forgotten her foolish outburst after she learned that he had appointed a man from outside the company to fill the production vacancy.

She had been counting on the promotion to provide a much needed salary increase to give her mother a few extra luxuries. To have the job go to a man who didn’t even work for Benedict Communications had come as a bitter blow. She had said as much to her co-worker when the decision was announced.

‘Our male chauvinist boss strikes again,’ Denise, the researcher who worked with Eden, had responded as they helped themselves to coffee from the dispenser.

Spooning sugar into her cup, Eden had regarded Denise with disbelief. ‘You don’t think he overlooked me because I’m female?’

Denise shrugged. ‘What other reason can there be? You have all the necessary qualifications. You’ve filled in as an assistant producer when someone’s ill or on holiday, and you have the seniority. As far as I can tell, your only flaw is your sex.’

‘But that sort of discrimination is illegal.’

‘Tell that to our fearless leader. You’ll notice there’s a dearth of female talent in the top echelons of his empire.’

Eden sipped her coffee thoughtfully. ‘I hadn’t noticed, but you’re right.’

“Therefore, Slade Benedict is allergic to putting women into top jobs.’

‘He certainly isn’t allergic to women,’ Eden pointed out. In the social columns, Slade was regularly paired with some famous beauty or other.

‘Too true, but in the bedroom, not the boardroom.’

Denise’s irreverence was already making Eden feel better. ‘Slade Benedict prefers his women in the bedroom rather than the boardroom.’ She savoured the phrase. Since she couldn’t change her sex, it was less hurtful than being denied promotion because she wasn’t good enough.

‘It would be enlightening to know on what grounds you base your assessment,’ came a chilly voice close behind her.

Denise’s appalled expression told Eden not only that Slade was there, but that he had heard every word.

‘I—er—none, really,’ she dissembled.

She half turned to find him leaning against the wall with apparent indolence, his arms crossed over his broad chest. The seeming casualness of the pose was belied by the challenging fire which flashed in his grey eyes.

He was waiting for her to back her accusation of his sexism with facts, but she had none. Backing down wouldn’t help either, instinct told her. She had got herself into this so there was nothing for it but to brazen it out.

‘We were discussing the lack of females in the top ranks of the firm,’ she said, unconsciously straightening to her full five feet seven inches. It still left her a good four inches short of meeting him eyeball to eyeball.

Grudging respect flitted across his face before his gaze hardened. ‘Whom I appoint to my management team is hardly your concern, Miss Lyle. I presume this has something to do with your missing out on the production appointment?’

She felt the ground giving way beneath her but had come too far to retreat now. ‘Yes, it does. My qualifications are the equal of those of the man you appointed to the job.’

‘So you’ve decided that I rejected you because you’re a woman.’ His blatantly appraising gaze left her in no doubt that he was well aware of the fact, and she felt heat rising into her face. The assessment was so flagrantly sexual that her anger flared. How dared he treat her so disrespectfully?

She opened her mouth to protest but the wind was taken out of her sails when he cut across her. ‘I see you object to being judged on the basis of your sex. Yet that’s precisely what you were doing to me a moment ago, was it not?’

It was true, she had been judging him, not on the facts but on pure hearsay. ‘You’re right and I apologise,’ she said unreservedly.

‘Accepted,’ he said evenly. ‘I approved your application for leave this morning, you’ll be glad to hear.’

‘I hope it isn’t an inconvenient time for me to go,’ she said, seizing on the change of subject. ‘I’m taking a package holiday to the Sunshine Coast and the choice of departure dates is limited.’

‘Good, good,’ he dismissed the trivial details impatiently, then fixed her with a penetrating look. ‘Use the time to think things through and you’ll realise I made the right decision about the promotion. You’re a capable, enthusiastic researcher but it takes a lot more to make an assistant producer. Maturity and judgement for a start. Maybe in a year or two you’ll have attained them.’

He strode off towards the executive offices, leaving Denise staring open-mouthed after him. She hadn’t dared to speak after he joined them, and now gave Eden a shocked look. ‘I’m sorry it was my smart remark which got you into trouble.’

‘It isn’t your fault. I didn’t have to repeat it,’ she said with great fairness. She was still smarting from the frankly sexual way he had appraised her. Or was it her own instinctive reaction which shocked her?

Even while raging at his behaviour, some part of her had responded to it with chemical vibrancy. It was as if he had flipped a switch to ‘on’ deep inside her, setting hundreds of nerve-endings pulsating in sympathetic resonance.

He had turned her on. The evocative phrase was the only one which fitted her reaction, yet she refused to believe she could feel anything but fury towards him. He hadn’t denied promoting men rather than women to the top jobs in his company. If anything, his behaviour had confirmed his view of women as sex objects.

She had gone home that night and taken out her impotent rage on the housework, polishing floors with the same savage intensity that she would have liked to apply to removing the smug expression from his handsome features.

If he knew how he had affected her, he had given no sign of it, accepting her apology at face value and treating her much the same as always. Which was to say with businesslike coolness, until she left to go on holiday. And now he wanted to go somewhere to talk? ‘I can’t,’ she denied. ‘My plane...’

‘Leaves in half an hour,’ he reiterated. ‘You already pointed it out. Not that you needed to. It’s my flight, too.’

‘You’re going to the Sunshine Coast too?’