A Stranger's Kiss by Liz Fielding Read Free Book Online Page A

you want to stay?’ She reached for a pencil.
    ‘Our hosts will arrange accommodation. You only have to organise the flight.’
    ‘Oh, right. Who’s the other passenger?’
    ‘You, my dear.’ The pencil snapped against the pad. ‘Is something the matter?’
    ‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘Of course not.’
    His lip curled. ‘No, I didn’t think it would be a problem. You must want to work for me very badly, Tara. Just how far are you prepared to go, I wonder?’
    ‘As far as Bahrain, apparently,’ she said, sharply. ‘I had assumed that Jane would be back by next week.’
    ‘I’m touched by your concern,’ he said, with heavy irony. ‘But you needn’t worry. There’s nothing seriously wrong with Jane, other than a slightly raised blood pressure. She’s not ill, Tara. She’s pregnant.’
    ‘Pregnant!’ His eyebrows rose at the sharpness of her response. ‘I thought...’ She stopped. What she had thought was so dreadful that she couldn’t even think the word. Relief brought a smile to her lips. ‘Well, that is good news. But are you absolutely sure?’
    ‘Yes, Tara, I’m absolutely sure,’ he said, with conviction. ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘No reason, particularly. It’s just that working for you — well I can’t imagine when she ever found the time.’
    ‘Can’t you?’ His smile was unexpectedly wolfish. ‘I’d offer to demonstrate right now, but I’m afraid I have a meeting that I can’t avoid.’
    Heat suffused her cheeks. ‘I’m here as your temporary secretary. I don’t have to prove whether I have reached the “required standard” in any other subjects. Even if it comes under the heading “double time”.’ Even before the words were out of her mouth she knew she had made a stupid mistake.
    He moved swiftly to her desk, his eyes snapping angrily as he caught her chin and forced it up.
    ‘You’re quite wrong there, Tara. In this job sex comes under the same heading as washing-up. You do it on your own time.’ His mouth fastened upon hers with brutal determination. She struggled briefly, but first she was trapped by her chair and then trapped by the treacherous willingness of her lips to respond. But as they parted and she began to kiss him back, he abruptly straightened and stepped away from her, his green eyes glittering with anger. He strode swiftly to the doorway, but turned there, breathing heavily, as if he had just run up a long flight of stairs. ‘Remind me to deduct that from your bill.’
    * * *
    For what seemed an endless time Tara sat fixed to her chair, turning the phone in her hand, but Beth had enough to worry about without her partner going all weak and wobbly on her.
    The trip to Bahrain was purely business. He couldn’t have made it plainer and until the contract was in the bag she would simply have to keep her head and mind her tongue. No more late night suppers in the penthouse. No more stupid remarks that gave Adam Blackmore openings to score the kind of point he had just made.
    The tips of her fingers brushed her lips, still tingling from the lightning raid he had made there. She withdrew them abruptly. It should be easy enough. She only had to think of Jane.
     ‘Pregnant.’ She repeated the word, recalling the conviction with which he had affirmed Jane’s condition. He had been absolutely certain. Jenny Harmon must know, but hadn’t said a word. She had merely said that Jane was taking some sick leave. There could be only one reason why it was a secret, why Adam was paying for her to attend a private clinic.
    A long sigh escaped her lips and she made an effort to move. It was none of her business after all. Jane wouldn’t be the first secretary to have an affair with her boss, although not many husbands were accommodating enough to look the other way when a baby was involved. Unless her husband was no longer part of the equation and they were merely awaiting her divorce before she became Mrs Blackmore.
    ‘It’s none of my business.’ She said the