One Night with Morelli(46)

                ‘No, it’s still this morning.’

                Inside the office she closed the door and leaned against it. This was not just a disaster, it was a… What the hell was it?

                She had forgotten!

                How could she have forgotten?

                For six months her every waking moment had been focused on this deal; she had invested all her time and energy on it; she had lived and breathed it, focused on a goal and gone for it. She told herself that failure was not an option but she knew it always was, and that knowledge had made her wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night on more than one occasion.

                And now on the very brink, she glanced down at her watch, and then lifted a hand to her face in shock. Within minutes she’d be receiving that crucial decision and she’d completely forgotten about it!

                What did they say? Pride came before a fall… She had gone back to her flat that morning to change feeling pretty smug. Well, actually more relieved. Eve knew she wasn’t like her mother or any of the other women she knew who lost the capacity to be objective when there was a man in their bed, but there had been a niggling doubt—what if great sex stole her self-respect and made her willing to compromise all her principles?

                Well, she’d had great sex; to her shock, the sort of mind-bending, head-banging sex that she’d had really did exist outside novels! Her body still ached from it—in a good way—and for a short time she’d stopped being the Queen of Caution and allowed her impulses full rein. It had turned out to be a totally liberating experience. Draco was an incredible lover but equally importantly in the cold light of day he was still an arrogant pain in the neck, which might for all she knew be what made him a great lover; the point was, she knew he was. She wasn’t making excuses for his shortcomings; she wasn’t about to put him on a pedestal or keep her mouth shut when she knew he was wrong.

                It was a relief to have her theory confirmed. It wasn’t sex that turned women into willing slaves; it was love. She didn’t love Draco, and the very idea of falling in love after twenty-four hours made her lips twitch into a fleeting ghost of a smile.

                Love… To be honest, she didn’t even like him that much. If she never saw him again, she wouldn’t lose any sleep. That was why in some ways he was right. He was perfect as a lover—there was nothing between them but unbridled lust, nothing complicated by emotions. It had just been sex—very good sex, to be sure—but there were a lot of men out there who were not Draco, men whose hands weren’t so skilful perhaps… An image of his long fingers gliding over her skin drifted into Eve’s head, igniting heat low in her pelvis until she pushed the image away and reminded herself that she was in no hurry to repeat their night of passion. Another uncomplicated moment might happen but she was not going out looking for it.

                Uncomplicated or not, the unwelcome fact remained that a night spent with him had knocked the contract that she’d worked so hard for completely out of her head…

                Maybe I’m the exception that proves the rule—the woman who can’t multitask.

                It’s business success or sex; I can’t do both.

                Failing to summon a smile at her humour and not willing to acknowledge she was uncertain on this unfamiliar ground, Eve took a seat at her desk. She released a deep sigh, but the calm that the minimalist arrangement usually inspired, with no photos or personal items cluttering her working space, just the essentials, failed to materialise. She touched the row of pencils, taking comfort from the symmetry.

                She needed to clear her head and focus.

                Before she could do either, the phone bleeped and that was it. She gritted her teeth and lifted it, trying not to think of the people who had told her that she was running before she could walk.