The Boss's Virgin(4)

She went to bed early that evening and was up in good time to get to  work. Tom was always there early, and expected her to be early too.  Working in an insurance company wasn't exactly thrilling, but the job  paid well and the work was never complicated or difficult.                       
       
           



       

Monday was always a calm day; the postbag was light and their workload  was easy enough to deal with as they always tried to clear their desks  by Friday afternoon, so she was able to go to lunch a little early that  day, to give herself time to get to Bond Street, and then hopefully grab  a snack before she went back to the office.

She caught a bus, then walked anxiously, hurriedly, to the bridal shop,  relieved to see that the pearl and rose coronet was still in the window.  The assistant sat her in a chair in front of a mirror, brought a  wedding veil and the coronet for her to try on.

Pippa gazed at herself, smiling; it really was perfect, just what she wanted.

'You look lovely,' the assistant told her, and Pippa thought she looked pretty good, too.

'It's exactly what I've been looking for,' she confessed. 'I'll take it.'

Then the smile went and her eyes widened in horror as she saw a reflection of the street outside behind her shoulders.

A man stood there, staring at her: tall, elegantly dressed, his black hair brushed and immaculate.

In the mirror their eyes met. His were fixed and glittering, bright and  hot as burning stars. Pippa stared into them, her stomach turning over,  grew icy cold and fainted.





CHAPTER TWO





She recovered consciousness slowly, not quite sure what had happened,  her lids flickering, then rising; she looked up, her green eyes dazed,  not focusing properly.

Two faces bent over her. The assistant looked anxious, upset. The other …

Pippa took one look at him and promptly shut her eyes again. She did not  want to believe he was real. Surely she wasn't imagining things,  dreaming him up in the oddest places, at the oddest times? Her head  buzzed with distressed questions. What was he doing here? Come to that,  what had he been doing outside the bridal shop? What was going on? First  the accident; now he'd turned up while she was trying on her bridal  coronet What was Fate up to?

'She's fainted again,' the assistant said. 'Oh, dear. Do you think she's  really ill? She's very pale. Should I ring for an ambulance? Or a  doctor?'

'No, I don't think she's ill; she's just playing dead,' said the deep, cool voice she remembered so well.

How dared he? What right did he have to read her so accurately? Angrily  she opened her eyes once more and glared at him, beginning to get up.

It didn't make her any less furious that he helped, as effortlessly as  if she weighed no more than a child, lifting her with one arm around her  waist, his warm hand just below her breast, the intimacy of the contact  making her heart thud painfully.

'Oh … perhaps we shouldn't move her yet,' the assistant nervously murmured. 'She may still be groggy.'

'Oh, she'll be okay. Would you run out and stop that taxi going past? Thanks.'

Pippa was still being held close to that long, lean body; the proximity  was doing drastic things to her, especially when she looked up and  sideways at the hard-edged, smooth-skinned, masculine face.

She heard the other girl's high heels clipping across the shop and knew  she was alone with him. Panic streaked through her; she pushed him away  and his arm dropped.

Those bright eyes gleamed with what she grimly recognised as mockery. So  he was finding the situation funny, was he? Her teeth met.

'Feeling better now?' he enquired softly.

'Yes, thank you.' Her voice was cold and remote, hiding the rage she  felt although she suspected he wasn't missing it; his argument was open,  unhidden.

The shop assistant rushed back, breathlessly said, 'The taxi's waiting.'

'Thank you,' He looked at Pippa. 'Maybe you should take the veil off before we go?'

'We' go? she thought She wasn't going anywhere with him.

But the assistant came to help her. 'So, did you want the coronet?'

'Yes, please.' Pippa fumbled in her bag, found her credit card and held it out.

The assistant offered her the payment slip a moment later and she signed  it, then took back her card and put it away, very slowly and carefully,  deliber-ately delaying in the hope that he might go outside to talk to  the taxi driver.

She might then have a chance to escape, run off down the road, but he  waited beside her, perhaps anticipating her intention. Finally she had  to leave the shop, as they walked out on to the pavement he held her  elbow lightly, propelled her towards the taxi.

'I don't want to … ' she breathed.

'You might faint again; we can't have that.' He smiled, lifting her into the back of the taxi.                       
       
           



       

She couldn't quite catch what he said to the driver before climbing in  beside her, but before she could ask him the taxi set off with a jerk  which almost made her tumble forward on to the floor.

'Do up your seat belt,' she was ordered, and her companion leaned over  to drag the belt across her shoulder and down to her waist, clip it into  place, his long fingers brushing her thigh. He had a fresh, outdoor  scent: pine, she decided, inhaling it. She wished he would stop invading  her body space. It was far too disturbing.

'Where did you tell the driver to go?' she asked huskily as he sat back,  not meeting the eyes that watched her as if he could read her every  thought.

'I feel it's time we had a private chat. I told him to take us to my hotel. Have you had lunch?'

Agitated, she protested, 'I'm not going to your hotel! I have to get back to work.'

'You can ring and tell them you've been taken ill,' he dismissed. 'Have you had lunch?'

'Yes,' she lied, and received one of his dry, mocking glances.

'Where? You came out of your office, caught a bus and went straight to that shop. Where could you have had lunch?'

'You've been following me? Spying on me? How dare you? You had no  right,' she spluttered, very flushed now. 'Were you on the bus? I didn't  see you.'

'No, I followed in a taxi, then walked behind you along Bond Street.'

She thought harder, forehead wrinkled 'How did you know where I worked?'

'Your fiancé told me where he worked, so I rang up and asked the switchboard if you worked there, too.'

Simple when you know how, she thought; she should have guessed he would  track her down if he wanted to, but she hadn't thought he would want to.

'They tried to put me through, but someone in your office said you had  just left, were going shopping in your lunch hour. I was ringing on my  mobile from the foyer of the building. A minute later I saw you come out  of the lift so I followed.'

She was speechless. He made it sound perfectly normal to follow people  around, spy on them-nothing to get excited about. But she was so furious  she couldn't even get a word out.

He gave her a wry grin, eyes teasing. 'Stop glaring at me. I had to see  you. You knew that, from the minute his car crashed into mine. You knew  we had to meet again, that we have a lot to talk about'

'We have nothing to talk about! I don't want to talk to you at all. I just want to get back to my office and forget you exist.'

But she was so nervous that she put up a shaky hand to brush stray  strands of bright hair away from her cheek, aware that he watched the  tiny movement with those intent, glittering eyes.

'And you think you can do that, Pippa?' he drawled, moving even closer so that their bodies touched.

She couldn't bear the contact, shifted away into the corner, body tense and shuddering.

'Yes.' But her eyes didn't meet his and she felt him staring at the telltale pulse beating hard in her throat.

He reached out a hand; one long finger slid down her cheek then down her  neck, awaking pulses everywhere it rested, until it pressed down into  that pulse in her throat 'What's the point of lying? You're not  convincing me; you're only lying to yourself.'

'Don't touch me!' she muttered, knocking his hand away.

The taxi turned into a hotel entrance, set back from the road. She  looked up at the grand façade, ornate and baroque, with ironwork  balconies outside every other widow, flags flying on the steep roof. She  had heard of the hotel but never been inside it; it was far too  expensive. Normally she would have loved to go there for lunch, but not  with him.

'You get out here; I'll go on to my office!' she insisted, holding on to the seat with both hands.

To her relief and surprise, he got out without replying and paid the  driver. Only then did he turn back towards Pippa. 'Out you get!' He  reached over and undid her seat belt before she had notice of his  intention.

She wanted to yell, scream, hit him, but the hotel doorman had appeared  behind him, magnificent in livery dripping with gold braid, smiling an  obsequious welcome, and she was too embarrassed to make a scene in front  of such an audience.