The Billionaire Bodyguard(19)

'Okay,'  she said, wondering if he had deliberately tried to make  himself sound  important. Paperwork! What paperwork did he have that  couldn't wait-his  timesheets? 'Tell me where to find you.'

Jay put the phone down and frowned.

'Andy!' he called. 'I'm expecting someone.'

Keri  found the building easily and took the stairs rather than the  elevator  to find herself in a large office which was high-ceiled and  wonderfully  dimensioned. True, the walls were dull and dingy, but the  reflected  light from the river helped, and the view of the swirling  waters from  the windows was spectacular.

An enormous man with the widest pair  of shoulders Keri had ever seen  crinkled up his blue eyes as she walked  in. 'Hi.' He smiled. 'Jay's  expecting you.' He clicked an intercom  button on his desk. 'She's here,  boss!'

Jay silently cursed, and  then said, 'Send her in.' How many times had  he told Andy to lose the  handle by which he had been known for years?

'Go right through.' Andy grinned, pointing to the door of an inner office.

Keri's forehead pleated in a small frown. Boss? 'Thanks.'

She  walked into the inner sanctum and it was not what she was   expecting-though, to be honest, what exactly had she been expecting?

Jay  was seated behind an impressive wooden desk, the sleeves of his  dark  sweater rolled up and a computer quietly humming away. Behind him  was a  map of the world, and there were lots of different coloured pins  stuck  in it. It looked, she thought suddenly, like a powerhouse. As if  this  was a place which mattered and he was a person who mattered.

Something didn't add up.

She stared at him.

'Hello,  Keri.' Her hair was tied back like a schoolgirl's and she wore a   knee-length leather coat, with long boots to match. She was very fond  of  leather, he thought, and the hot kick of lust became as scorching as   the desert.

She looked around the office again. 'Would you mind telling me what's going on? Why did that man call you boss?'

He guessed he could play the evasion game for as long as it took, but what would be the point?

'Because  I am. It's my company. I own it. I supply the drivers, and the  guards,  and private investigators too.' He didn't mention his  significant  portfolio of property. That might have seemed like a little  too much  information all at once.

It was like having a gauze curtain  whisked away from her eyes so that  her vision suddenly became  crystal-clear. Of course. Of course. It all  began to make perfect sense  now-why things had not quite added up.

The confident, almost  arrogant way he had behaved towards her when most  men were slightly  intimidated. His knowledge of French wines. You  didn't need to wear  fancy clothes or splash money around to prove you  were a rich  man-sometimes success could just ooze from every pore-and,  my God, it  certainly oozed from him.

'You … you lease these offices?'

'Well, I own them, actually. There are a couple more on the floor beneath.'

Her  eyes widened as the significance of that sank in. Offices in this  part  of London didn't come cheap. 'You aren't a driver at all, are you,  Jay?'  she said quietly.

He met the accusation full-on. He could see  the sudden stiffening of  her body, but worse than that was the fleeting  look of hurt which  clouded her big dark eyes. As if he'd betrayed her.  Hell, one night in  her arms and she was acting as if he owed her  something! 'Well, that's  not strictly true-'

The confusion began  to evaporate and anger took over-and in a way that  helped dissolve the  feeling that he had left her looking like a fool.  'Oh, please don't play  with words! I'm not doubting your ability to  drive a car!' She drew in  an angry little snort of breath. 'Did it  amuse you to deliberately  deceive me?'

'I did not deliberately do anything. Why would I  want to deceive you?  Don't read more into it than there was, Keri-one of  my drivers went off  sick at the last minute so I stood in for him.'                       
       
           



       

'Why didn't you tell me that at the time?'

'Why  on earth should I?' He gave a slightly incredulous smile. 'Can you  just  see the scenario if I'd suddenly just announced it to a client?  Hi, my  name is Jay, and actually what you see isn't really what you  get. I'm  not a driver; I own the company! How crass would that have  been?'

'You're missing the point!'

'Am  I?' His gaze was very steady as he moved across the room towards  her.  'I fail to see how. Would you have treated me differently if you'd   known?' He gave a slow smile as he remembered the way she had treated   him. 'Maybe that would have been something worth telling you for!'

'That is cheap!'

He  shook his head as he allowed himself the rare luxury of recall. How   long had it been since that had happened? A woman taking him on the  most  basic terms of all, without trappings or status? 'No, it's true,'  he  contradicted softly.

She backtracked through her memory. Maybe he  hadn't actually told her  any lies, but he must have been laughing fit  to burst-especially when  she had falteringly suggested that he was  wasted as a driver and he  might be able to find other work. 'Did it give  you pleasure to  masquerade as something you weren't?' she demanded  bitterly.

'Of course it didn't give me pleasure!' He sighed, held  the palms of  his hands up in a gesture of peace. 'It just seemed  irrelevant at the  beginning, and if I'd told you during or afterwards  then it might have  seemed like boasting. As if I was trying to impress  you with what I was  rather than who I was.' And hadn't playing his  wealth down become  second nature?

She glared at him. 'Well, if  you're so bloody rich then I suggest you  do something about these  offices-I've never seen anything so dingy in  my life!'

He started laughing. 'Are we still on for lunch?'

'I've lost my appetite!'

'No change there, then.'

She didn't smile back. 'Very funny.'

He  was aching to take her in his arms, but something in her eyes was   warning him off-and in a way that excited him almost as much as it   frustrated him. 'Have you any work lined up?' he asked suddenly.

Keri narrowed her eyes. 'Why?'

'Is that a yes or a no?'

'I  have a … ' She wasn't about to start telling him about the lingerie   contract-she could just imagine his reaction to that. 'A job in a few   weeks' time.' Other than that she was free-a welcome space in her   workload after jobs being booked back-to-back for months.

'And in the meantime? What do you normally do in between jobs?'

She  filled in her time as usefully as possible, that was what she did.  She  visited galleries and friends, and shopped and saw films.  'Depends.'

My, but she was paying him back for his supposed 'deception'. 'Do you want to do something for me?'

Her suspicious body-stance did not alter. 'Like what?'

'Why  not paint my offices?' He saw her mystified look and it amused  him. 'Is  it such a crazy idea?' he mused. 'You told me that you're good  at it.  You told me that was what you originally wanted to do, and  you've just  torn the place to pieces. You're right-they are dingy.'

The  suggestion pleased her more than it had any right to. It was, she   realised, a way to maybe find out who the real Jay Linur was. And a   chance to show him that she was not just some mindless clotheshorse who   paraded in front of the camera. To show him what she could do-maybe  more  importantly to prove to herself what she could do.

She stared at him. 'Why, Jay?'

Because  I want to make love to you again. Because you've left me with a  fever  in my blood and I need a little saturation therapy to make it go  away.  But maybe it was more than that. There had to be more to life  than  standing in a snowy field in the middle of winter wearing very  little.  Hadn't she said so herself?


He shrugged. 'You told me you  sometimes were bored with standing in  front of a camera, that interior  design was what you planned before  modelling came out and grabbed you-so  why not explore it as an option? I  can be your first legitimate  assignment, if you like.'

Keri stared at him, at the grey-green  eyes which were surveying her  quizzically. He was offering her an  opportunity to do something  different, allowing her to indulge the  creative side of her nature, but  it wasn't that which was making her  mouth dry with excitement.                       
       
           



       

She knew deep down that they would be  lovers again-she wasn't that  self-deluding. But this time she wasn't  going to make it easy for  him-not in any way. Sex wasn't supposed to be a  battle, but even so she  had given in too easily before. If Jay Linur  wanted her then he was  going to have to try a whole lot harder.