Oh-So-Sensible Secretary (9 page)

Very slowly, very deliberately, he undid the first two buttons and looked down at me, his eyes dark and blue.

‘No, you still look horribly cool,’ he said, which must have been a lie because my heart was thundering in my chest and I was burning where those blunt, surprisingly deft fingers had grazed my skin. I opened my mouth, but the words jammed in my throat, piling into an inarticulate sound that fell somewhere between a squeak and a gasp. He was barely touching me, but every cell in my body was screaming with awareness and I couldn’t have moved if I had tried.

‘I may have to work a bit harder on this one…’ he went on
and, bending his head, he blew gently just below my ear. The feel of it shuddered straight down my spine and clutched convulsively at its base. In spite of myself, I shivered.

‘Mmm, yes, this may just work,’ said Phin, pleased, and then he was trailing kisses down my neck, warm and soft and tantalising.

I really,
really
didn’t want to respond, but I couldn’t help myself. It was awful. It was as if some other woman had taken over my body, tipping her head back and sucking in her breath with another shudder of excitement.

My heart was thudding in my throat, and I could hear the blood rushing giddily in my ears.

‘You see where I’m going with this,’ murmured Phin, who was managing to undo another couple of buttons at the same time. ‘I mean, we did discuss how important it was to make it look as if we found each other irresistible, didn’t we?’

‘I think that’s probably enough buttons, though,’ I croaked as he started on the other side of my neck. His hair was tickling my jaw and I could smell his shampoo. The wonderfully clean, male scent of his skin combined with the wicked onslaught of his lips was making my head spin, and I felt giddy and boneless.

Perhaps that was why I didn’t resist as Phin steered me over to the great leather sofa. There was no way my legs were going to hold me up much longer, and as we sank down onto the cushions I felt as if I were sinking into a swirl of abandon.

‘OK, no more buttons,’ he whispered, and I could feel his lips curving against my throat. ‘But…I…don’t…think…you…look…
quite
…convincing…enough…yet.’

Between each word he pressed a kiss along my jaw until he reached my mouth at last, and then his lips were on mine, and he was kissing me with an expertise that literally took my
breath away. Since I’m being frank, I’ll admit that it was a revelation. I’d never been kissed so surely, so thoroughly, so completely and utterly deliciously. So irresistibly.

I certainly couldn’t resist it. I wound my arms around him, pulling him closer, and kissed him back.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know who he was or what I was doing, but I thought…Well, I don’t know what I thought, OK? The truth is, I wasn’t thinking at all. I was just
feeling
, the slither of the satiny shirt against my skin, the hardness and heat of his hands on me as he pushed the slippery material aside.

Just tasting…his mouth, his skin.

Just hearing the wild rush of my pulse, the uneven way he said my name, my own ragged breathing.

Just
touching
—fumbling at his T-shirt, tugging it up so that I could run my hands feverishly over his smoothly muscled back, marvelling at the way it flexed beneath my fingers. I let them drift up the warmth of his flanks and felt him shiver in response.

What can I say? I was lost, astonished at my own abandon, and yet helpless to pull myself back.

Or perhaps I’m not being
entirely
honest. I was aware at one level of my sensible self frantically waving her arms and ordering me back to safety, but Phin’s body felt so good, so lean and hard as it pressed me into the sofa, and his mouth was so wickedly enticing, that I ignored her and let my fingers drift to the fastening of his jeans instead.

Afterwards, I could hardly believe it, but the truth is that there was a moment when I
did
know that I’d regret it later, and I still chose the lure of Phin’s hands taking me to places I’d barely suspected before. I succumbed to the excitement rocketing through me, and if Imelda and the photographer hadn’t arrived just then who knows where we would have ended up?

Except I do know, of course.

What I don’t know is whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing. I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed it, though.

As it was, the piercing ring of the doorbell tore through the hazy pleasure and brought me right back to earth with a sickening crash.

I jerked bolt upright. ‘Oh, my God, it’s them!’

Frantically I tried to button up my shirt and shove it back into my trousers at the same time as pushing my hair behind my ears. ‘What were we
doing
?’

Phin was infuriatingly unperturbed. He was barely breathing unsteadily. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but
I’ve
been doing my bit for our pretence—and with all due modesty, I think I’ve excelled,’ he said, and grinned as his eyes rested on my face. I dreaded to think what I looked like. ‘Now you really
do
look the part.’

The bell rang again, more stridently this time. ‘Ready?’ asked Phin, and without waiting for me to answer strolled to open the door.

I could hear him exchanging chit-chat with Imelda and the photographer in the narrow hallway as I desperately tried to compose myself. I was horrified when I looked in the mirror to see that my hair was all over the place, my eyes huge and my lips swollen. I hardly recognised myself. I looked wild. I looked wanton.

I looked
sexy
.

I looked the part, just like Phin had said.

The next moment Phin was ushering Imelda into the room. She stopped when she saw me. ‘Hello,’ she said, obviously surprised.

‘Hello,’ I said weakly, and then remembered—far too late,
I know—that I was the one who had set up this interview. I cleared my throat and stepped forward to shake her hand. ‘We’ve spoken on the phone,’ I said. ‘I’m Summer Curtis—Phin’s PA.’

‘Ah.’ Imelda looked amused, and when I followed her gaze I saw that she was looking at my shirt, which I had managed to button up all wrong in my haste.

Flushing, I made to fix the top button, and then realised that I was just going to get into an awful muddle unless I undid them all and started again. As Phin had no doubt intended.

‘Not just my PA,’ said Phin, coming to put his arm round my waist and pulling me into his side.

‘So I see,’ said Imelda dryly.

Her elegant brows lifted in surprise. I didn’t blame her. She must have known as well as I did that I wasn’t exactly Phin’s usual type, and I lost confidence abruptly. We’d never be able to carry this off. Not in front of someone as sharp as Imelda.

‘Shall I make coffee?’ I asked quickly, desperate to get out of the room. My heart was still crashing clumsily around in my chest, and I was having a lot of trouble breathing. I felt trembly and jittery, and I kept going hot and cold as if I had a fever.

Perhaps I
did
have a fever? I latched onto the thought as I filled the kettle with shaking hands. That would explain the giddiness, the way I had melted into Phin with barely a moment’s hesitation. My cheeks burned at the memory.

Not just my cheeks, to be honest.

When I came back in with a tray, having taken the opportunity to refasten my shirt and tuck myself in properly, Phin was leaning back on the sofa, looking completely relaxed. He pulled me down onto the sofa beside him. ‘Thanks, babe,’ he said, and rested a hand possessively on my thigh.

Babe?
Ugh. I was torn between disgust and an agonising awareness of his hand touching my leg. It felt as if it were burning a hole through my trousers, and I was sure that when I took them off I would find an imprint of his palm scorched onto my skin.

‘So, Phin,’ said Imelda, when we had got the whole business of passing around the milk and sugar out of the way. ‘It sounds as if you’re making a lot of changes in your life right now. Does your new role at Gibson & Grieve mean you’re ready to stop travelling?’

‘I won’t stop completely,’ he said. ‘I’ve still got various programme commitments, and besides, I’m endlessly curious about the world. There are still so many wonderful places to see, and so many exciting things to do. I’m never going to turn my back on all that completely. Having said that, my father’s stroke did make me reassess my priorities. Gibson & Grieve is part of my life, and it feels good to be involved in the day to day running of it. It’s time for me to do my part, instead of leaving it all to my brother.

‘And then, of course, there’s Summer.’ He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss it. His lips were warm and sure, and a shiver travelled down my spine. I did my best to disguise it by shifting on the sofa, but I saw Imelda look at me. ‘She’s changed everything for me.’

‘You’re thinking of settling down?’ She made a moue of exaggerated disappointment. ‘That’s another of the most eligible bachelors off the available list!’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Phin, entwining his fingers with mine. ‘I was always afraid of the idea of settling down, but since I’ve met Summer it doesn’t seem so much like giving up my freedom as finding what I’ve been looking for all these years.’

You’ve got to admit he was good. No one could have
guessed he’d been ranting about cushions and commitment only a few minutes earlier.

Imelda was lapping it all up, while I sat with a stupid smile on my face, not knowing what to do with my expression. Should I look besotted? Shy? Smug?

‘You’re a lucky woman.’ Imelda turned to me. ‘What’s it like knowing that half the women in the country would like to be in your place?’

I cleared my throat. ‘To be honest, it hasn’t sunk in yet. It’s still very new.’

‘But it feels absolutely right, doesn’t it?’ Phin put in.

He was doing so much better than me that I felt I should make an effort. ‘Yes,’ I said slowly, ‘funnily enough, it does.’

And then, bizarrely, it didn’t seem so difficult. I smiled at him, and he smiled back, and for a long moment we just looked at each other and there was nothing but the blueness of his eyes and the thud of my heart and the air shortening around us.

It took a pointed cough from Imelda to jerk me back to reality. With an effort, I dragged my eyes from Phin’s and tried to remember what I was supposed to be talking about. Phin, that was it. Phin and me and our supposed passion for each other.

‘We’re so different in lots of ways,’ I told Imelda, and the words seemed to come unbidden. ‘Phin isn’t at all the kind of guy I thought I would fall in love with, but it turns out that he’s exactly right for me.’

‘So it wasn’t love at first sight for you?’

‘No, he was just…my boss.’

‘And what made the difference for you?’

Images rushed through my head like the flickering pages of a book. Phin smiling. Phin wiping cream from my cheek. Phin pulling the clip from my hair. Phin’s mouth and Phin’s hands and the hard excitement of Phin’s body.

‘I…I don’t know,’ I said hesitantly. ‘I just looked at him one day and knew that I was in love with him.’

I thought it was pretty feeble, but Imelda was nodding as if she understood and looking positively dewy-eyed.

I was all set to relax then, but that was only the beginning. I still had to endure an excruciating photo session, posing cuddled up to Phin or looking at him adoringly, and my nerves were well and truly frayed by the time it was over. I tried to get out of the photographs, pleading that the article was about Phin, not me, but Imelda was adamant.

‘All our readers will want to see the lucky woman who has convinced Phin Gibson to settle down,’ she insisted.

I can tell you, I didn’t feel very lucky by the time we’d finished. I was exhausted by the effort of pretending to be in love with Phin, while simultaneously trying to convince him that all the touching and kissing was having no effect on me at all.

But at last it was over. We waved them off from the steps, and then Phin closed the door and grinned at me. ‘Very good,’ he said admiringly. ‘You practically had me convinced!’

‘You didn’t do badly yourself,’ I said. ‘You weren’t lying when you said you were a good actor.’

No harm in reminding him that I knew he
had
been acting.

‘If you can fool a hard-boiled journalist like Imelda, you should be able to fool Jonathan,’ Phin said.

Why hadn’t I remembered Jonathan before? I wondered uneasily. Jonathan was the reason I was doing this. I should have been thinking about him all morning, not about the sick, churning excitement I felt when Phin kissed me.

‘Let’s hope so,’ I said, as coolly as I could. I looked at my watch. ‘We’d better get back to the office.’

‘What’s the rush? Let’s have lunch first,’ said Phin. ‘We should celebrate.’

‘Celebrate what?’

‘A successful interview, for one thing. Promoting Gibson & Grieve’s family image. And let’s not forget our engagement.’

‘We’re not engaged,’ I said repressively.

‘As good as,’ he said, shrugging on his jacket and slipping a wallet into the inside pocket. He held the door open for me. ‘You’re now officially the woman who’s convinced me to settle down.’

‘You may be settling down, but I’m certainly not spending my life with anyone who calls me babe!’

Phin grinned at me as he pulled the door closed behind him. ‘It’s a mark of affection.’

‘It’s patronising.’

‘Well, what would you like me to call you?’

‘What’s wrong with my name?’

‘Every self-respecting couple has special names for each other,’ he pointed out.

We walked towards the King’s Road. ‘Well, if you have to, you can call me darling,’ I allowed after a moment, but Phin shook his head, his eyes dancing.

‘No, no—darling is much too restrained, too
ordinary
, for you. You’re much sexier than you realise, and we need to make sure Jonathan realises, too. Shall I call you bunnikins?’

‘Shall I punch you on the nose?’ I retorted sweetly.

He laughed. ‘Pumpkin? Muffin? Cupcake?’

‘
Cupcake?
’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Phin. ‘But you’re right. I don’t see you as a cupcake. What about cookie?’