Lusty Billionaires Bundle(154)

Tessa breathed a sigh of profound relief. She managed to unglue her feet and follow him out of the kitchen, and even managed a smile when they were standing at the front door.

‘It’s been brilliant working for you,’ Anna enthused, making it difficult for Tessa not to be moved by the sincerity. ‘Guess I’ll see you next time I’m home? Which would be Christmas?’

‘I hope so,’ Tessa said, directing her attention to Anna but reserving the significance of her words for Curtis.

‘I’m sure Tessa will have no reason to leave the company before then,’ Curtis murmured to his daughter, conversing with Tessa just below the surface, as she had done with him.

Because, Tessa thought, closing the door on them and then leaning heavily against it to stop herself from subsiding to the floor, he certainly would give her no reason to go. Those twenty ruinous minutes would be history for him because they had meant nothing, hence he could assure her, truthfully, that they would not be repeated.

For her, however…

She let her legs do what they wanted to do and sat down, back to the front door.

Thank goodness he wouldn’t be around for a week. She could put everything in perspective and, really, she was not a silly, emotional girl. It was a calming thought. She simply wouldn’t allow Curtis Diaz to get under her skin and the fact that he had played her for a fool was mortifying…but helpful.

After all, who, in the end, could be attracted to a man who had had no qualms in making a pass at a woman out of pity?





CHAPTER SIX




‘YOU’RE not still here!’ Curtis stopped in the middle of the office and frowned. He, himself, wouldn’t be here but for the fact that he had forgotten his mother’s Christmas present in his desk drawer.

Tessa looked up guiltily and flushed.

Yes, here she was. Still. At four-thirty in the afternoon when the office was deserted because everyone had either gone home already or else had joined the group who had chosen to have a last lunch and drink at the pub down the road before the company closed for the Christmas break.

‘I was just about to leave,’ she said, switching off her computer and shoving things into her drawers, tidying up her desk. ‘I wanted to finish all my work before the break.’#p#分页标题#e#

‘How industrious,’ Curtis said dryly, strolling over to where she was doing her best to ignore him by concentrating hard on flicking through the remnants of her filing tray. ‘I think what’s left can wait, don’t you?’ He reached out and circled her wrist with his fingers, stopping her in mid-tidy.

Tessa’s heart did that familiar, lurching thing and she could feel every nerve in her body tense as she stilled and looked at him, at the lazy, perceptive eyes boring into her.

The past seven weeks had been a trial by ordeal. Her ordeal. After that incident in the kitchen, he had stuck rigidly to her request that they forget about what had happened. She had not seen him for the week after, when he had been out of the office, taking his daughter on various excursions, although they had spoken on the telephone regularly, at least twice a day, purely on work matters. When he had come back, things had returned to normal, the only difference between them that she could see was that he was slightly more aloof than he had been.

They settled back into a familiar routine, although he no longer pried into her private life. She was left to assume that the ease with which he had forgotten what had taken place told its own telling story about how much the misplaced episode had affected him. Not much.

‘Why didn’t you come to the pub with us?’ he was asking her now. ‘Don’t tell me you preferred to stay here and make sure all your pencils were neatly arranged in your drawer before you left? I thought your excuse was that you had to go and do some last-minute Christmas shopping?’

He had released her hand and Tessa made good the opportunity to skirt round her desk and head towards the coat stand in the corner of the room. She could feel his eyes following her every movement.

‘I do have a bit of shopping to do, actually,’ she flung lightly over her shoulder as she put on her coat.

‘Oh, yes. What?’

‘This and that.’ She shrugged and then, wondering whether he was going to stay on, hovered for a while. ‘Are you going to be working now?’

‘Yes,’ Curtis informed her gravely. ‘I thought I might just get in a couple of hours’ work. You know, tidy my desk and get all my pens and pencils in some kind of order for when I return after the Christmas break.’

Tessa lowered her eyes, but her mouth was twitching. However much she knew that she should keep her distance from him, there were times, as now, when he made her want to grin. And it had been for ever since he had adopted that teasing tone with her, the one that made her toes curl and the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end.