New Year at the Boss's Bidding(16)

With the weight of the past pressing down on her, she forced her mind  back to the present, her voice sharper than she'd intended. 'It does  make me feel better, so I'll leave you to do the caveman job and light  the fire.' Before he could say anything she strode purposefully from the  room. Time away from the aura of power he exuded was necessary if her  heart rate was to return to anything like normal.

As she left the room she heard the low rumble of his laugh and  marvelled that she could find it so sexy, so appealing when he was  clearly mocking her, entertaining himself at her expense.

Xavier's charm was lethal if nothing else. Anywhere else she could walk  away, but stuck here in this rambling old house, cocooned from the real  world, it was different-very different and very dangerous.

'Don't fall for his charm,' she berated herself angrily, as she  continued to pack away her catering equipment, certain that first thing  tomorrow she would be on the way to see Vanessa before returning to  London and reality. This surreal interlude would be over, forgotten and  dismissed.





CHAPTER SIX

ALL AFTERNOON TILLY had tried to ignore the falling snow, knowing that  with each flake the likelihood she and Xavier would be alone here for  several days increased. The chance of leaving the manor had slipped away  as fast as the daylight and now she was faced with another night in  Xavier's company.

The ringing of her phone gave her yet another excuse to linger in the  kitchen. 'Tilly? Are you all right?' Vanessa's voice reconnected her to  the outside world.

'I'm fine.' She injected laughter into her voice in an attempt to put  Vanessa's mind at rest. 'Trapped in a beautiful manor house with an  incredibly sexy Italian man, of course I'm all right.'

'We've postponed the party until next week. I really want you there, Tilly.'

'I will be,' Tilly reassured her. 'I promise.'

'I have to go now, but you just remember that one big item on your  bucket list. This could be your chance, Tilly. Don't waste it.'

'Vanessa, behave yourself and get back to your fiancé.' Tilly ended the  call, still smiling at her friend's very unsubtle advice, but Vanessa  had only echoed what had already crossed her mind several times.

Thankfully Xavier was still ensconced in the small lounge with his  paperwork. She prepared supper and was pleasantly surprised to find he'd  opened a bottle of red wine when she took the food into him. They ate  in companionable silence and Vanessa's advice rattled around in her head  as loudly as the wind around the old manor house. Tilly sipped her  wine, reluctantly feeling calmer as she sat on the sofa before the fire,  lulled by its heat and the comforting glow of the flames.

'This is much nicer than the grandeur of the lounge,' she said, looking  around her, taking in the desk by the windows that Xavier had been  working at all afternoon, his briefcase open, papers spilling out.

'Sì, it is cosy but, more importantly, much warmer.' He looked at her, his dark eyes holding a message she couldn't resist.

She blushed at his words, concentrating on the orange flames as they  curled around the logs. She tried to change the subject, keep away from  stirring the tension that sizzled around them constantly. 'The wind is  getting worse.'

The lights dimmed, flickered then came back. She looked at Xavier, who  didn't appear at all perturbed, and forced herself to relax back into  the moment she'd just been pulled from.

The lights flickered again and the howl of the wind sounded like a  forlorn and lonely animal from the moors. Stop being so dramatic, she  told herself sharply, but her anxiety level rose as Xavier got up and  lit one of the large white pillar candles that adorned the mantelpiece.                       
       
           



       

'The power could go out.' He focused his attention on lighting more of the candles.

Was the weather due to be that bad? A trickle of fear ran down her  spine and staying in Xavier's company suddenly became a whole lot more  appealing. He wouldn't abandon her if the lights went out, would he?

'Surely that won't happen,' she said quickly and a little too sharply,  forcing those memories back. Now was not the time to remember the misery  of her childhood after her father had died or how Jason had walked out  on her so casually.

'In case you hadn't noticed, Natalie, we are in rural Devon, on the  edge of Exmoor. I would strongly suspect power cuts are more than normal  in this kind of weather.'

His matter-of-fact deduction irritated her and again she studied the  leaping flames of the fire, anything other than look from his broad  shoulders all the way down to his long legs. Every bit of him was  attractive and that spark fizzed in her once more as she remembered  being in his arms last night. She could still feel the heat of his touch  as he'd caressed her slumbering body awake. Vanessa's advice rushed  back. This could be your chance, Tilly. Could she abandon her fears for  just one night?

What was she thinking?

'In that case, thank you for lighting the candles.' What was the matter  with her? The tartness of her voice positively prickled with  challenge-something you didn't do with a man such as Xavier Moretti.

The lights flickered then went off and the glow of the fire and the  candlelight surrounded him as he turned to her. It was then she was  aware she'd given a startled gasp. She looked up into his face as he  laughed softly.

'You were saying, cara?' He sounded so different when he laughed, as if it was something he wasn't familiar with.

'Okay,' she conceded, and raised her glass to him, desperate to hide the emotions that were being unlocked. 'You win.'

He picked up the bottle of wine and poured more into her glass, then  his, before sitting on the sofa. He touched his glass against hers, the  sound strangely loud. 'To my win.'

No sooner had he said the words than the lights flickered back on.  'Maybe not.' The lightness of her voice almost betrayed her relief and  he looked at her questioningly. The gurgle of laughter that threatened  to rise from her left her in no doubt she shouldn't drink much more  wine, but right now, despite preserving her ideals of professionalism,  she was happy to be in Xavier's company.

'What would you have been doing this evening, at the party?' The  question, asked in such a deep and accented voice, caught her attention  and she looked at him, unaware of just how close he was now sitting to  her, until she looked into his eyes.

She tried to break eye contact, tried to prevent him from looking deep  into her soul, but she couldn't. She was compelled by something she'd  never known before. 'I felt so guilty about not being there, but it has  been postponed until next week. I promised that, whatever happened, I  will be there. I don't want Vanessa to think I'm hiding behind excuses.'

'Why would she think you are hiding, Natalie?' His sexy voice rose questioningly, his dark gaze holding hers.

'Hiding?' She hated the way her voice rose, but didn't miss the slight  narrowing of his eyes. 'I'm not hiding. I wanted this New Year to be  different from any other. I guess I was trying to prove to my family and  friends that I'd put the past behind me and moved on.'

'But you haven't, have you, cara? Not completely.'

What was going on here? It was as if all her past hurt was being  dragged out for inspection, forced out by this man and the situation  they were in. 'It's hard to forget the humiliation of being stood up  just hours before your wedding.'

'But you are still in love with this man?'

She wasn't in love with Jason, not the way she should have been, she  realised with a jolt. She'd been in love with the idea of companionship  and their longstanding friendship. She'd thought she'd found her  happy-ever-after with a trusted and safe friend. It was only now she  realised that all along she'd been afraid to love; she hadn't wanted to  be like her mother, constantly searching for something so elusive it  almost destroyed her.

The day her father had died, her relationship with her mother had  changed, leaving her emotionally alone. A gap soon filled by Jason's  friendship. He had been patient, never pressuring her to make it  physically more, so the fact he'd found that somewhere else only added  to her pain.

She shook her head in denial. 'He is about to get married. After telling me he wanted freedom to live life to the full.'                       
       
           



       

Indignation at the revelations he'd made to her about wanting more than  just friendship came flooding back. She knew then she'd lost a friend  as well as a fiancé. Sadness had been in his eyes as he'd told her he  wanted more than friendship and he'd fallen into an affair.

'He'd said we should go out and find life, live it to the full, make the most of every opportunity.'

'Did you?' He watched her intently but she looked into the leaping orange flames of the fire.