The Boss and Her Billionaire (21 page)

His cell buzzed.

Work interrupting again. Maybe this was good. Give her time to digest who he really was. That he lived and worked close by. “Look, I have to go, but please let me explain.” He wanted nothing more than to

tell her everything right here, right now, but this turn of events was overwhelming. For him, if not for her. He had to be able to tell her why he’d left, but only when they had time to talk properly. And when his cell wasn’t buzzing insistently.

Checking the diary on his phone, he saw a free spot. “We’ll have dinner tonight. I’ll send a car for you.

No—” He stopped her as she opened her mouth to speak. “Please don’t refuse. We should talk. You’ll be picked up at six.”

And with that he ran off into the towering building, guilt and a flicker of hope coursing through him.

She walked back to her office in a daze. Dylan was here in Sydney, and he wanted to see her. The

glimmer of hope flared, but she pushed it aside to concentrate on what had just happened. He wanted

to see her. Was that what he’d said, that he wanted to see her? Or did he just want to end their affair properly?

Had she been mistaken, or had he actually looked guilty?

Angry and confused, she tried to make sense of the little he’d told her, but it was impossible. She didn’t know enough to make sense of it.The towering office blocks transformed themselves into a dense

forest, and Michaela became disoriented. She found it difficult to distinguish between the grays of the buildings and those of the road, and it wasn’t until some stranger grabbed her arm that she realized she had almost walked out in front of the busy oncoming traffic.

Snap out of it.

When she finally reached her office, she went straight to the toilets to splash water on her face.

The surprise both of seeing Dylan in his real world and of his effect on her scattered Michaela’s

concentration as effectively as an elephant sitting in the corner of the office. She pushed through a few phone calls and managed a paragraph on the report she was supposed to be writing, but mostly she

stared out the window, looking at the city she now called home. The city that Dylan apparently called home, too.

Just before six o’clock, she nipped back to the bathroom, this time to check her hair. She smoothed it into a neat ponytail and dabbed on a slick of lip gloss. Her tan hadn’t yet faded—she’d topped it up over the weekend, strolling along the coastline walk at Bondi Beach—but as she looked at herself she shook her head.

Perhaps she shouldn’t go to dinner.

Get real. She wanted to see him, needed to hear how Dylan would explain why he’d ended their affair so abruptly. No, she would go to dinner, but that would be all. After confronting him about his callous

abandonment, she could finally get Dylan Johns completely out of her mind, out of her life, and out of her heart. He’d been sneaking in to torment her thoughts more than she liked to admit. The wolf dream was a sign she hadn’t moved on. Tonight, she’d find out what she needed to know, and then she’d wash

her hands of Dylan Johns for good.

She put a hand to her belly. No. There was nothing to worry about there. No reason for Dylan to be tied to her life anymore.

With a sigh, she gave her hair a final pat and went downstairs to meet the driver.

She’d expected a cab or perhaps a modest sedan, so when the sleek new Jaguar pulled up alongside the

curb, she paid it no attention.

“Ms. Western?” The driver was in a suit as sharp as Dylan’s, and Michaela had to shake her head to

believe what she was seeing. “Mr. Johns asked me to collect you. He said he’d spoken to you and you’d be expecting me. Is there something wrong?”

With a start, Michaela realized she was staring, and she gave the driver a tight smile. As she slid into the black leather interior, she realized why Dylan had been so keen to pay for all their excursions off the cruise ship. She’d thought he was just trying to be gentlemanly, especially as she knew she was making more money than he was, but it seemed his small dancer’s salary was irrelevant to his day-to-day life.

The car was impeccable and still had that indefinable but immediately recognizable new car smell.

Touching the cool leather hand rest, Michaela pictured Dylan sitting in this car, driving this car, even accompanying other women in this car. She shivered and banished the thought. She looked down at her

pale blue silk shirt and the simple black pencil skirt she’d bought in her first few days in Sydney. They were smart enough for the office—indeed, they fit in well with the business uniform of most of Sydney’s female workforce—but in this car they were entirely too reserved, lacking the glamour the Jaguar

promised.

The car whisked her through the Sydney city streets, making good time despite the heavy traffic. The

late summer evening was cooling when the driver pulled up outside an exclusive restaurant overlooking the harbor, and Michaela wished she’d brought her jacket.

Dylan was waiting for her, his hair whipped by the wind, apparently impervious to the cold. She scolded her heart to stop its happy skipping so she could concentrate on the anger she needed to get through

the evening unscathed.

A gust of wind whipped through her thin blouse, bringing goose pimples to her skin as she stepped out of the car. “You came.” Dylan tried to take her elbow, but she shrugged him off, not prepared to test her resistance to his touch just yet. Be calm, be calm, be calm.

“Of course I came. I figured I might as well get a nice dinner out of you.” She tried to keep her face serious, her eyes hard even while her heart was cracking. The pain of his abandonment felt as fresh now as it had been at first.

He straightened, his jaw locking. “A nice dinner you shall have. I should’ve called you, even if I couldn’t face you at the time. I made the wrong decision, Michaela. I’m sorry. Come in, we have a table with a wonderful view.”

Michaela followed him into the restaurant and congratulated herself on being strong. Let him think she was just after some payback. After all, he was loaded. Thinking about him as nothing more than an

arrogant, rich man might keep him out of her heart until she could move on.

Dylan was right about the view. Their table, perched on a private balcony, provided a spectacular ocean vista. The candles were already flickering, and this coupled with the descent of the sun gave Sydney a magical quality. But still Michaela shivered.

“You’re cold. I’m sorry. I thought it would be a warmer evening. Would you prefer an indoor table?”

Dylan asked.

“No, this is fine.”

“Well, take my jacket then.” He shucked off his beautifully tailored suit jacket.

“No, thank you. I’m fine,” she said firmly and sat down so he couldn’t drape his jacket over her.

After a moment’s silence, he sat down, too, putting his jacket over the back of his chair. He opened the wine menu with a flourish.

A waiter appeared from nowhere, and Dylan ordered an outdoor heater and a bottle of New Zealand

sauvignon blanc. The heater appeared and was lit before Michaela had a chance to protest, but she was ready when the waiter reappeared with the bottle of wine.

“No, thank you, not for me.” She didn’t want to blur her reason with wine…or let the alcohol go to work on her lust. Why did Dylan Johns have to be so sexy?

Dylan gave her a strange look but said nothing until the waiter had retreated. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Here, have a tiny taste.” He poured a generous measure into her glass before she could get her hand

across the top. As he did so, Michaela saw the label and remembered she’d had it at a wedding once.

The vintage was expensive and—when she let her resolve down and tasted it—delicious. Just a few sips

wouldn’t hurt.

“The Australians can pride themselves for their reds all they like,” Dylan said, his eyes following her as she took one more sip of the crisp wine, “but nothing beats a New Zealand sav.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to verbally agree with him on anything yet. Another silence descended over the table. She was sure he’d be able to hear her heart racing in the midst of the quiet. “So you’re just a glorified money man?” Not exactly polite table talk—and was he blushing?

Dylan simply nodded and pointed to the waiter behind her. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering the chef’s special menu for both of us.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Trust me, you’ll be pleased I did when it arrives. The woman is a magician.”

“Woman?”

“Yes, the chef here trained in Paris, but she’s Australian born and bred. And she definitely knows what to do with the local produce.”

“You know her very well, then, do you?”

Dylan paused, regarding her calmly. “She did some catering work for the firm when my mother was

alive.”

“Your mother died?” Michaela had to force her hands to stay still as she watched Dylan’s face crease.

The sigh seemed to spread throughout his entire body. “Her illness was the reason I had to leave. Brian was using her absence from the office as an excuse to do some risky deals. I couldn’t let that happen—it was adding extra stress my mother didn’t need. I thought I’d be able to take some weight off her

shoulders, help her get better, but I was too late. It happened too fast.”

His mother had been sick—and died! Why hadn’t he just said so? All pretense of holding him at arm’s

length left Michaela’s head, and her hand reached to cover his before she realized what she was doing.

The flare of contact was immediate.

“I’m sorry to have left you like that,” he said, “but I was going anyway and…”

“If you’d just said your mother was ill—you didn’t need to explain that. Of course you had to go.”

Dylan put his other hand over hers. “Yes, but then you might still have had questions about us. I was always going to be stuck here, and you were going to be travelling the world, following your career. It was only ever going to be short-term. I should have told you more about my family from the beginning, but to tell you the truth, I wanted to walk away from it. The office, my brother and his wife, all of it… I should have realized I couldn’t do that. I have responsibilities. What I did wasn’t fair to anyone.”

No, it certainly hadn’t been fair. But she could understand it.

She understood him far better than she wanted to. Understood that he felt trapped, and that this

Dylan—this man with the tension in his shoulders and the harried look in his eyes—was living the wrong life. But knowing that didn’t mean she needed to fall over herself trying to change it.

“What now?” she asked.

Shrugging, Dylan looked down at their hands. “I’m back at the firm, and I’ll be there for years. It turns out Brian doesn’t really care about family at all. Thank God Lily’s kicked him out once and for all. He’s been seeing his mistress for years. Apparently, he just came back because she convinced him to. They

were after the money. I’ve never been so angry in my life. And to think what he did to Lily and the

children.”

His face showed the strain that the last few months must have put him under. His brother sounded like a complete . Damn it, her heart was going to melt before they even got to dessert. “Why don’t you just hire a manager?”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

Michaela bristled slightly. Nothing was ever simple. But usually nothing was ever as complicated as

people made it, either—a lesson she didn’t take enough heed of herself.He must have noticed her stiff posture. “Sorry. You’re a smart woman, Michaela. I’m sure if someone could work out a way to get my

firm going, it would be you. But without Mom here, and with Brian out of the picture, it’s pretty hard to find time to concentrate on anything but problem solving. I can’t let the firm dissolve. Mom would have hated that. She wanted me happy, but she spent decades building the business, and I can’t walk away.

You have to understand that?”

Did she?

She let the question pass her by. “So you are based here in Sydney?” she asked, changing tack.

“Our head office is here, yes, but we have operations all over the world.”

So polite. Was that what they were going to be left with? Polite conversation?

“It all started in New Zealand,” he continued, “with my father and then my mother. I was supposed to

study dance in Wellington but had to switch to business when Brian disappeared the first time. Mom

built up the international part of the business, and then I took over the Sydney office. She was a smart woman, my mother, and she got a bunch of very lucky breaks early on. There aren’t many firms that can boast what McCray’s have done. In fact, there aren’t any in the Australasian finance world that come

even close to our size and success. And it was all due to her.”

He held such a lot of respect for women in business. And here he was in Sydney with a flourishing

company and clearly plenty of money…

Don’t be a fool. You’re done with noncommittal men.

Nonetheless, her heartbeat stuttered again, a little hiccup of hope.

He seemed to straighten, and as his eyes met hers, he brightened. “I’m sorry to lay all of this on you.

You’ve always been good to talk to.”

Was that a glint in his eye?

No, Michaela. Don’t go there. Not after a few words and a bit of flirting.

But yes, definitely a glint. She’d fallen into his trap again. “No, Dylan.”

“No what?”

“No, I’m not going to pretend all this never happened and we can start over.”

“Oh.” He looked genuinely crestfallen. Like a schoolboy. The innocence of it moved her more than she

wanted. He looked up again, and the glint was back. “Maybe if we didn’t pretend nothing had

happened. If we just started where we left off…”

“No, I’m not with you tonight.”

Dylan had the decency to appear shocked. “I wasn’t even thinking about… Well, maybe a little. But I was wondering if, you know, seeing as we’re in the same city…”