“Good morning, Holly.”
Connor stood in the doorway to his office. It was all she could do not to jump at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t allowed herself to realise, until now, how much she’d missed the timbre of her name on his lips. How much she’d missed him.
“Good morning, Mr. Knight.”
Holly busied herself putting her handbag away and checking the papers in the in-box on the corner of her desk. She heard Connor sigh from behind her.
“I think we’ve gone past you calling me Mr. Knight, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. We did. But that was last year.”
“So we’re to pretend it never happened?” Was it her imagination or had the liquid velvet in his tone suddenly turned to molten steel?
“I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you.” She kept her head averted. There was no way she could meet his gaze. He’d see too much. He’d see how much she loved him, how much his lovemaking had meant to her. She couldn’t do that. Not now, not ever.
She would never be a part of his world, just as he could never understand hers. She’d learned that particular lesson when she’d been placed in a home more affluent than most. A budding adolescent already with the attitude from hell, she’d appealed just a little too much to the teenage son of her caregivers. They hadn’t believed her claims when she’d finally drummed up the courage to tell her new foster mother of his unwelcome attentions. They’d closed ranks, snapping together like a gilded trap, telling her caseworker that her behaviour was uncouth at best and that she’d never fit in. Perhaps she’d be more comfortable with a different family. One on the other side of town. Holly had learned that “like stuck with like.”
Pushing back the pain of past hurts, Holly jerked her mind back to the present. Andrea needed her now, more than ever before. A relationship with Connor Knight was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
Her phone rang and she lifted the receiver. “Connor Knight’s office, Holly speaking.”
“Holly, it’s Miriam Sanders.”
The administrator at Andrea’s hospital. Icy-cold fear shrouded Holly’s body. Her fingers gripped the phone, squeezing so tight it hurt. “Yes?”
“Look, this is difficult for me to say, but Andrea’s needs have been reassessed in light of her recent deterioration, and I’m afraid we’ve had to revise the cost of her care.”
Holly slumped in relief issuing a silent prayer of thanks it wasn’t the news she’d been dreading.
“How much more?” She held her breath. When the administrator mentioned the sum it was all she could do not to scream “No!” into the receiver.
“So as you can see,” the woman continued, “we need your guarantee of payment.”
Holly did a quick mental calculation. With a bit more juggling she could meet the increase, just. “Yes, I’ll pay. I’ll find the money from somewhere.” She hung up the telephone with a wrenching sigh.
“Problem?” Connor’s voice made her jump. She’d forgotten he was there. Listening. How much had he heard?
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Her stomach pitched again uncomfortably, and she blindly started to sort through the mail on her desk, willing him to turn away and go back into his office. Willing him, against everything her mind and her body cried out for, to just leave her alone.
The almost silent swish of his door closing gave her the answer she sought, yet cut her to the quick. Stop being an idiot, she rebuked silently. What did you expect? That he’d sweep you in his arms and tell you he’d make everything all right? That he loved you? Ha! Not in this lifetime.
The printed words on the correspondence she gripped tightly between her fingers shimmered and swirled. Holly blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. Since Andrea’s condition had declined so severely her emotions had been such a mess.
The day passed in a blur. A blur peppered by Janet’s excitedly related story about how she had met some wonderful holiday squeeze at New Year. Holly tried to summon the energy to be happy for her, but failed miserably. Instead, she struggled to focus on the work at hand—a particularly sensitive contract that Connor had dictated specific alterations to.
She worked long into the evening on the document, heedful that Knight Enterprises expected to close this deal with a major public fanfare and had courted both print and television media for some time about releasing the details. Her head and neck ached with the strain of sitting at her computer station without a break. While Janet had brought her several cups of tea during the day, more often than not they’d cooled in the mug unnoticed as her fingers continued to fly over the keyboard.