His Irresistible Darling (2 page)

“Yes, sir, of course.” She nodded and turned to leave.

“Oh, and Pippa.”

Damn it, freedom had been so close. She turned back to him defensively, still clutching her pad to her chest, and raised a brow.

He now rested his elbows on the arms of his leather chair and steepled his fingers together across his chest. “I know you call me sir just to annoy me.”

“Sir?” she asked innocently, tilting her head to one side.

“Just so we’re clear, you don’t need to call me sir to get under my skin.”

The inference was clear as she saw him try to hide what appeared to be a wry smile creeping to his lips. She was mortified to feel her cheeks redden in embarrassment. A smile on his face? Nah. Impossible.

She reached for the door handle but turned back, still holding the knob. “Do you have a hole punch, sir?” she asked lightly, tilting her head again.

He opened the desk drawer. “Yes, here. Why?” He held up his hole punch proudly.

“Oh no reason,” she said, shaking her head and smiling sweetly. “Just good to know where you keep it. You never know when I’ll need to punch something.” She turned and skipped back to her desk.

***

As soon as his office door closed Jumal dropped his head into his hands and raked his fingers through his hair. It was becoming a regular feature of his post-Pippa meeting analysis.

He was pretty confident that banging his head on the table wouldn’t help ease some of the pent-up tension and would simply give him more of a headache. A trip to the gym it was then. He reached to loosen his tie and ended up taking it off entirely and opening up his top button.

Since arriving on Dubain last October, Miss Pippa Darling was slowly, but oh so surely, turning his well-ordered life upside down. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, she’d been doing it since he’d met her again the previous Christmas at her family estate in Yorkshire.

A meeting still etched in his mind, and readily available for repeat viewing like a scene from a favourite film. He and Matt had been looking over his newborn foal when her sultry voice had interrupted from the stable entrance…

She had quite literally taken his breath away. At first sight he hadn’t known who she was, yet his entire focus had been drawn to her. A sledgehammer hit to his heart, and yes, a certain lower part of his body too. BAM. He’d had to force himself to turn away from her to greet Ana, Matt’s then girlfriend, now wife. He still couldn’t believe his oldest friend was married, very happily so, judging by how fast the pair had celebrated the birth of their first child.

When his friend Matt had introduced Pippa as his sister he’d felt his heart and stomach plummet, together with the aforementioned lower part of his body. Yes, he’d known that Matt had a younger sister but it had been years since he’d seen her and she’d only been twelve or so. He’d struggled to accept that the femme fatale who had stood before him and hijacked his ability to breathe properly was the same one he’d last seen wearing her dark brown hair in bunches, sporting a mouthful of braces and following her elder brother around like a lost puppy begging for scraps.

“Enchanté, Phillipa.”
He remembered, as if it was only yesterday, her shy smile and blushes, the way she’d brushed her hand through her hair and fiddled with her glasses as she had reminded him of their earlier meetings.
“Well you have certainly grown into a beautiful swan.”
He’d denied remembering her at the time. He couldn’t very well flirt with Pippa. It was
Pippa
for God’s sake, and there were some lengths even he wouldn’t stoop to, despite his reputation as a ladies’ man. A reputation he wasn’t sure he entirely deserved. Oh good Lord, had he really compared her to a swan… Would he ever learn?

Thankfully Ana had saved him from digging an even deeper hole, one which Matt would no doubt have thrown him into without much debate if he’d been aware of his friend’s carnal thoughts towards his little sister.

Pippa was young, very young, and his friend’s sister. Two facts which, when put together, equalled
stay the hell away from her.
He’d been trying to keep to that plan ever since, probably the sole reason for his increasingly frequent bad moods and dependency on cold showers. Of course the fact that she was now working for him and would be doing so until June meant that he hadn’t been entirely successful in his campaign to
stay the hell away.

Her goddamn perfume drove him wild. As she’d peered over his shoulder to look at his computer he’d had to put his hands under the desk to refrain from acting out his desire to grab her and pull her onto his lap. Her breasts had been right in line with his mouth. Great, now he was getting hard…

“Who’s a swan?”

Distracted yet again by Miss Darling, he hadn’t heard his friend and finance director, Malik, come into the office. He raised his head and sat back in his chair.

“I knocked but you didn’t answer,” he continued.

“So you thought you’d just come in anyway,” Jumal challenged, but his tone was light.

“Yep,” he said, taking a seat opposite Jumal and popping his foot up to rest on his other knee. “So, do I even need to ask who has managed to cause our great leader to drop his head in his hands and mumble to himself about, er, stuff?”

“Nope,” Jumal replied, closing his eyes briefly, then looking up and shaking his head.

Malik laughed. “Well she certainly keeps you on your toes and the place has never been so lively. The rest of your staff love her, my friend.”

He met his friend’s gaze while considering how much to admit. “She drives me crazy, Malik. It’s not funny. I can’t concentrate.” He cursed inwardly. He hadn’t meant to say that last part and be quite so open about the effect Miss Darling had on him. He never showed weakness and Miss Darling was starting to be a weakness. He reached for his glass of water.

Malik raised a brow. “Annnd that would be a bad thing?”

“Of course.”

“Well, it’s only a few more months and then she will be leaving. Unless…”

He straightened in his chair. “Unless what?” he asked, coolly.

Malik shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if she’s that…” his friend paused and waved his hand as if looking for the right word “…distracting, you could always send her home early. I’m sure you could come up with some excuse that sounded legitimate.”

Jumal swallowed hard. The thought of Pippa leaving Dubain and returning to England made him nauseous.

“No,” he said, immediately dismissing the suggestion. “I promised her brother and, well… Just no.”

In actual fact he’d made a few promises to Matt. Firstly, look after her. Secondly, to keep his hands off. He’d never found it so hard to keep a promise in his life. The fact that she often made him want to strangle her one minute and kiss her senseless the next was beside the point. Matt wouldn’t differentiate.

“Anyway,” he said, clapping his hands together, needing to distract his childhood friend and himself from the topic of Pippa Darling. “Where are we up to with the Ansari deal? Miss Darling, PA extraordinaire, has made him an appointment to see me later today. Have you completed the due diligence checks? What’s his financial position?”

“Hmm, well it’s interesting. It’s a good deal and certainly worth going ahead with. His company is financially stable and there’s no evidence of him cooking the books. The fact he’s a local contractor is good for our public relations and local employment, but it’s certainly nothing on the scale of the Dubai government deal. When the ink is dry on that contract your company is going to be recognised as the world’s leading naval shipbuilding company. We’re going to go global. Although I think we should be prepared for the backlash from the Dubai builders. They aren’t going to take it lying down, Jumal. They thought they had that contract in the bag and they’re used to getting their own way. We should expect a backlash.”

“Let them come at me. It’s not like we haven’t dealt with it before. As for going global—” he shrugged his shoulders, nonchalantly “—something for my father to finally be proud of, but I want to ensure that we keep up the investment here, in Dubain. Build on what we’ve already started. That’s my priority now,” he stated, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice, knowing that Malik knew exactly what his father was like.

As childhood friends, Jumal had spent as much time at his friend’s home as his own and he was warmly welcomed. During their early teenage years Jumal’s home life was never openly discussed between the friends. Malik just seemed to know that his friend needed somewhere to have some downtime away from the pressures of an impossibly pushy father with aspirations for his son, which were demanded and never merely suggested. Since returning to Dubain after completing his Oxford University education, Jumal and Malik had re-formed their close bond and Jumal knew he was lucky to have such a confidant as both friend and trusted advisor. In his line of work, his enemies were never far away and the people he could rely on were few.

Feeling somewhat melancholy about his past, he cleared the lump in his throat before continuing. “By the way, Faridah called earlier. She’s received the first draft of the contract and has been working on it over the last few days, ironing out some of the usual discrepancies, so it’s moving along nicely. She’s going to come by and drop it in shortly,” he explained to Malik, gently rocking his chair from side to side.

“Only you would end up with a fiancée who is also a company lawyer.” Malik winked at him. “Some guys have all the luck,” he teased, rising from his chair. “We still on for a workout tomorrow night before hitting the hammam?”

“Sure,” Jumal replied, only partly listening.

“Okay good. I’ll bring down the due diligence report on Ansari when it’s typed up. Let me know how you get on,” Malik called as he walked out the door. Or at least that’s what Jumal thought he’d said…

Wait, why didn’t he just email it over?

Jumal hadn’t been listening, his mind once again focused on a certain long-haired brunette who had perfected the art of driving him crazy. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the mahogany desk, dropping his head back into his hands, his thoughts once again drifting back to their first meeting.

***

“Aaagghhhh. I swear that man is soooo frustrating,” Pip complained as she dropped her pad back onto her desk and slumped dramatically in her chair. She pulled off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose, a habit she’d developed over the last couple of months working at JAA Enterprises. Well, it was better than taking up smoking.

“I never know from one day to the next what the hell he expects from me,” she said, now holding out her palms. “One minute he criticises me for not using my initiative and then he berates me when I do. There is just no winning with him. How the hell Greta put up with him all those years I’ll never know. The woman must have been a bloody saint…or had a secret stash of chocolate and red wine in her drawer.” She paused for a breath. “And I swear if he treats me like a high school kid on work experience one more bloody time I’ll…agghhhhh!”

Her tirade over, she slumped forward and folded her arms on the desk, dropping her chin onto her forearms.

“Well maybe if you—”

“Nah-ah, don’t even say it. I know, I know I make it worse for myself but I can’t help it with him. He drives me crazy.”

She knew she could occasionally act out and overreact. What was it all those child gurus and experts said about kids acting up for their carers? Wasn’t it something about being naughty to get their attention?! She could relate.

Melina looked up from her work. “It’s strange,” she mused, shaking her head. “He’s not usually so cranky. You just seem to bring that out of him too. It’s your special talent!”

She raised her head slightly. “You’re not helping,” she said, deadpan, before dropping it back down with a thud. “Ouch.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Take a deep breath and then come join me for a smoothie in the plaza, my treat, and I’ll fill you in on some of my plans for your birthday party,” she promised, clapping her hands together excitedly. “It’s gonna be amazing,” she added in a sing-song voice.

Pip sat back up and smiled at her passionate new friend. A break away from the office was just what she needed to calm down and the plaza was one of her favourite places in the bustling city. It was located in the centre of the myriad tall, glass skyscrapers of all different shapes and sizes, some of which were on the edge of avant-garde even for her taste. The tables and chairs had plenty of shade provided by palm trees and funky triangular shade sails in bright colours draped over the intimate seating areas from huge white pillars, with an eclectic mix of permanent stores selling the more internationally favoured food and street vendors selling local fare such as
fatayer
, which was a bit like a meat pie.

Her personal favourite was when she and Melina would get a traditional communal plate of pitta bread, barbequed lamb skewers, hummus and chickpeas, which you could eat using your fingers. It wasn’t frowned upon like back home! The smells were always mouth-watering, but she only allowed herself to indulge once a week and stuck to her packed lunches most of the time. The young children from the office crèches enjoyed having playtime in the cooling water fountains, and Pippa loved hearing their excited screams of delight as they ran around through the jets. She would happily spend her whole lunch break there just soaking up the relaxed atmosphere.

“A nice meal out with everyone would be lovely, really. You don’t need to go to any trouble.”

“Nonsense, you only turn twenty-one once and we’re not just going to let it slip by uncelebrated, especially as I know how much you miss your family.”

“I do,” she confirmed with a sigh, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Matt has Ana and Harry wrapped in cotton wool and there’s no way he’ll let them fly out here. Ah, you should have seen Harry when I spoke to them yesterday on Skype. He’s so cute and has the most amazing mop of red hair. Ana had to struggle to stop George from trying to lick his face all the time. My nephew is gonna be a little heartbreaker.” She couldn’t help but smile when she thought of her tiny nephew.