The Rebound Guy (2 page)

So, while his HR manager might have battery acid for saliva, Jason couldn't afford to lose her. She'd been both his harshest critic and his biggest cheerleader, and what she didn't know about the UK sports equipment industry wasn't worth knowing. Without Julie, Aspire wouldn't be the up-and-coming company it was today, which meant he owed her. Big time.

For a second, just a second, he let down the permanent sheen of ‘nothing sticks' he always wore and softened his gaze. He looked Julie in the eye. ‘You can't leave,' he told her. ‘I don't know what I'd do without you.'

She rolled her eyes, but dropped into the chair on the other side of his desk and looked away.

He nudged the envelope towards her. ‘Please?' he said. ‘Take this back and shred it.'

She reached for it and pulled it towards her, but drew her hand away again when the envelope was half off the edge of the desk. ‘Not so fast.' She folded her arms across her considerable cleavage. ‘There are some conditions to the destruction of this letter.'

Jason slumped back in his chair and sighed. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like these ‘conditions' much. ‘Fire away,' he said wearily.

The hint of a victorious smirk played on Julie's lips. ‘One...no more flirting with the temps—that's how the whole mess begins.'

Jason tried not to smile. Okay, so he'd calm down a little. That didn't mean he couldn't be receptive if an attractive woman flirted with him, now, did it? However, Julie spotted the microscopic twitch of his lips and her eyes narrowed.

‘Two...' she said slowly ‘...no encouraging anyone employed by Aspire to flirt with you.'

You're a statue, he told himself. Don't react.

‘Or letting them flirt with you unprovoked.'

Dammit.

‘And definitely no physical contact with your employees.'

He raised his eyebrows and tried to look wounded. ‘What? Not even a friendly clap on the shoulder between buddies, a handshake at the beginning or end of a meeting...?'

Julie's scowl intensified. ‘Don't push it, Jason! You know exactly what I mean. I'm talking about female employees—unless you've worked your way through the whole office and are thinking of going a different direction?'

He grinned and shook his head. Nope. Definitely not tired of women yet. ‘So are handshakes allowed?' he asked innocently.

Julie peered at him a little more closely, as if she was trying to work out what was going on in his head. ‘Handshakes are allowed,' she finally said.

Jason nodded. A concession. No, a victory. It was always important to win something in negotiations; he just didn't know how he was going to use this to his advantage. Yet.

Julie uncrossed her arms and let out a breath. ‘Good.' She shook her head. ‘I don't know why you can't just find one woman you like enough to stick with for more than a weekend.'

Jason stood, then went and retrieved the minibasketball from where it was still resting against the window. ‘It's not liking them enough that's the problem,' he said as he rolled it into his palm and turned to face her. ‘It's liking them too much. There are so many amazing women out there—'

She made a face. ‘Spare me.'

‘There's nothing wrong with having a little fun while I'm still young.' Then, just to make her feel better, he added, ‘But maybe I will settle down...one day.'

‘My Jonathan is three years younger than you and he's already got a toddler and another one on the way. Now, if that's all,' she said, swiping her letter off his desk and heading for the door, ‘I've got one soggy temp to deal with and another who's asked for an appointment. She sounded spitting mad...'

She stopped at the doorway and peered over the top of her glasses at him. ‘That hasn't got anything to do with you, has it? Two in one day is a record, even for you.'

Jason just chuckled as she turned and marched out of the office.
Oh, Julie. If only you knew...

* * *

‘She did what?' the HR manager stuttered as her underling repeated the story Kelly had just told her. She swung round to face Kelly. Julie was wearing the look of a woman who was not having a good day. ‘You did
what
?'

Kelly folded her hands in her lap and looked the woman straight in the eye. ‘I stapled his tie to the desk.'

Julie's mouth moved but no sound came out.

‘It was the only way I could make him stay where he was supposed to,' Kelly added helpfully. ‘I'm sorry about the desk, but Mr Payne wouldn't take no for an answer. So I made him.'

That would teach him to not take her seriously.

The underling had to turn away and stifle her giggles behind a hand. Julie blinked a few times then seemed to recover herself. ‘Well, of course we'll investigate your complaint, Ms Bradford, but there are ways to go about this kind of thing. Ways that don't involve office equipment....' She lowered her chin and looked at Kelly over the top of her glasses.

Kelly nodded, the picture of innocence. No point telling the woman she'd have liked to staple something else of Payne's to the desk and the tie had just been a poor substitute. ‘Thank you.'

The underling sighed. ‘You know, a lot of girls think Will is a bit of a hottie.'

Well, a lot of girls needed their heads read.

Kelly didn't say that, though. She was busy proving she could be calm and professional and that she could keep control of her runaway mouth—and her stapling arm. She settled on something much less inflammatory. ‘But I'm just not interested. In him, or anyone.' She frowned. ‘Isn't there a company policy against that kind of thing?'

‘Mr Knight did away with that,' Julie said starchily, as she and the underling exchanged a cryptic look. ‘He says he doesn't want the company stuck in the Dark Ages, and that as long as his staff do their work well he doesn't care what they get up to in their personal lives.'

On any other day Kelly would have applauded the boss's decision heartily. Today, however, a medieval dating policy—maybe involving male chastity belts?—might have made her life a little bit easier. ‘Well,
I
have a personal policy about dating colleagues,' she said.

Julie gave Kelly a sceptical look then sat back down at her desk and leafed through her file. When she'd finished, she looked at her over her glasses again. ‘You've been with us just under a month and this is the third time we've moved you....'

‘I can explain about—'

Julie just raised her eyebrows. ‘It seems you don't have a problem speaking your mind, Ms Bradford, which I wouldn't normally consider a bad thing, but you do manage to rub people the wrong way. I'm wondering if we even have anywhere we can usefully place you immediately.' She squinted at the computer screen and reached for her mouse. ‘We
might
have another position for you....' However, the tone of her voice suggested she was just going through the motions.

Kelly's smile remained fixed, but inside her stomach dropped. She couldn't let them send her back off to the temp agency and give someone else the position.

The other woman shook her head. ‘No...sorry. Nothing suitable, really.' She looked up and gave Kelly a tight smile. ‘Of course, we'll contact your agency if anything opens up.'

Kelly stood up. ‘Look, this just isn't fair! I'd have happily worked hard for Will Payne if he'd acted appropriately. I shouldn't be the one who's penalised!'

Julie looked at Kelly's recently vacated chair, and it took all Kelly had to plant her bum back down on it.

‘It's not about punishment, Kelly,' Julie said, a hint more sympathy in her tone. ‘You know how temp work goes... We do need some short-term cover for a couple of the senior management team, but those posts require a certain level of skills—'

‘I have skills,' she said firmly.

‘And a certain level of...sensitivity,' Julie added.

Ah.

‘Please,' Kelly said quietly, hating the slightly scratchy tone that had crept into her voice. ‘I really need another chance. I'll do anything, work for anyone... You won't hear a peep of complaint from me, I promise.' Her voice caught on the last few words.

Oh, hell. Here came the waterworks. Great.

Kelly wasn't normally one for crying. In fact, it had been months since she'd had a good bawl, but every time she thought she was recovering from the events of the last couple of years, life dumped another obstacle in her path. To be honest, she was exhausted, and maybe the game of kiss chase she'd had with Payne this morning had just been the cherry on the cake. She scrabbled around in her handbag for a tissue. There had to be one somewhere! Essential piece of kit when you were mum to two boys under six.

Drat. She couldn't find one. And then she remembered why; she'd used them all up wiping mud off Ben's fingers before she'd dropped him off at her brother's house. Seems Ben had decided his uncle's front garden was a good place to dig for worms, and she hadn't wanted him to get muddy fingerprints on her new sister-in-law's cream sofa.

She sniffed back as much as she could and swiped at her face with her hands. Julie leaned across the desk and offered a tissue from a pink box covered in cartoon cats. Kelly took the last one, and Julie tutted and sighed before throwing the empty box in the waste paper basket. The underling rummaged in a drawer, produced an identical box and placed it on the corner of the desk. It had the feeling of a well-oiled routine.

Julie's tone was much more sympathetic when she spoke. ‘It'll be okay. You'll find something else. Aside from the...ah...personnel problems, your work has been top-notch.'

Kelly shook her head. ‘It's not just that...'

Another sniff. One that gurgled.
Nice.
She blew her nose.

She could handle the job thing. She was strong. A survivor. Everyone said so. And she didn't want this woman to think she was a snivelling ninny.

‘Sorry,' she said, composing herself and sitting up straighter. She needed to get back control of this situation, and the best way she knew how was with the bald truth. ‘It's just been a rough couple of years. My husband ran off with his twenty-two-year-old personal trainer just after I was diagnosed with cancer, so you can see why I'm not particularly keen on the male species at the moment.' She looked up and met Julie's gaze. ‘I'm okay now, though—scans clear for over a year—but I couldn't work for a while and I had to sell the house....' She waited for a moment while the stinging sensation in her nose faded. ‘This job at Aspire was going to help me save up for a new one, so I would just really, really appreciate it if you'd give me a call if something new opens up.'

She hid the crumpled tissue in her clenched hands, placed them in her lap and waited. The manager and her underling stared back at her, jaws a little slack. Her no-varnish story had taken them by surprise. Good. Kelly started to feel as if she was on level ground again.

No one said anything for a few long seconds. Then Julie cleared her throat and leaned forward. ‘Were you serious when you said you would absolutely, categorically
not
date someone at work?'

Kelly nodded, even though the question confused her. Hadn't they said that was fine?

‘And do you think you can bring some of that gumption you've just shown me into the office each day, starting Monday? Because you're really going to need it if I give you this chance.'

Kelly nodded even harder. Bringing it with her wasn't a problem; it was keeping it locked away that was the struggle.

‘Then, Ms Bradford,' Julie said, giving her what
might
have been a smile, ‘I think I have the perfect post for you.'

TWO

Monday morning and
Jason was thinking again. Thinking hard. He balanced the minibasketball on his fingertips and narrowed his eyes as he visualised the ball dropping through the net, then he tensed his arm muscles in readiness and...

There was a sharp rap on the office door. The ball soared across the room and crashed into the bookcase, sending a photo of him with his father and younger brother plummeting to the floor. ‘What?' he barked out.

The door nudged open and a woman he didn't recognise poked her head through. ‘Mr Knight?'

Jason forgot all about the photograph. He forgot all about the half-size basketball rolling along his office floor. He spun his chair round to face the door, sat up straighter and smiled. Women loved his smile. ‘You found him.'

She scanned the room, found both fallen photo frame and ball then looked at him without smiling back. ‘Human Resources sent me up. I'm your new temporary PA.'

Jason's grin widened. ‘Come on in, then.'

He bounced to his feet and waited for her to cross the room. Normally, he was an impatient sort of guy. He didn't like to stand around doing nothing, but at this present moment he really didn't mind that he was rooted to the spot. The woman who walked across the carpet towards him was his favourite office fantasy: tall, long legs, glossy hair caught back in a low, short ponytail. She was wearing the standard temp uniform of white blouse, dark skirt, stockings and heels. Wowzer.

He loved the sexy librarian type—all reserve and manners until you said or did the right thing and then they transformed into a wildcat right before your eyes...or under your touch. Jason swallowed the pool of saliva that had collected under his tongue.

But then he heard Julie's voice, crisp and clear, inside his head.
No flirting.
Damn.

‘Jason Knight,' he said, extending his hand over the desk. ‘How are you finding Aspire?'

See? Nothing flirty about that.

‘Kelly Bradford. And it's been an eventful couple of weeks.' She made it sound as if that wasn't a good thing.

She stared at his hand for a moment. He could tell she didn't want to shake it, but thankfully the British gene for politeness hijacked her and she lifted her arm. They both leaned forward to reach over the wide desk, and Jason realised the top button of her blouse was directly in his line of sight. It wasn't straining; both blouse and button were perfectly respectable. The fastening wasn't even low enough to give a tantalising glimpse of cleavage, but he felt his blood pressure hitch all the same. He'd always liked buttons and the sense of promise that came with them, but when had they become so totally absorbing?

He should look away, shouldn't he? He should make this a momentary, almost unconscious, glance and meet her gaze. And he would. Soon.

‘If you've finished staring down my blouse, I wondered if you'd tell me what you'd like me to do first,' she said with a hint of frost in her tone. Was it wrong that he liked that even more?

Probably.

The tractor beam that had been holding his head in position suddenly released him, and he found himself staring back at her. Her chin tilted higher and there was fire in those eyes. Lesser guys would have blushed and stuttered. Jason just stared right back.

Okay...so he'd been wrong about the librarian thing. This one was a wildcat. And still as sexy as hell. Now he was intrigued to find out if there was a softer, more feminine side to her under the bristling exterior.

He marshalled his features into the picture of seriousness. She'd been blunt and honest and he figured she'd respect it if he responded in kind. And he couldn't get into trouble with Julie for that. Flirting was full of little lies—a smile that was too bright, a touch of an arm that was manufactured rather than an instinctive response, the leaving out of tiny unflattering details—so this definitely wasn't flirting.

‘I apologise for my wayward eyeballs,' he said. ‘What can I say? I'm a guy, and sometimes they act on their own, without a command from the main control centre.' He tapped a finger to his skull to make his point.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Oh,
that's
the main control centre, is it?' she said, her voice thick with sweetness. ‘I always thought men used that space for storing useless sports statistics and all the decisions were made much further south.'

Ouch. True, but
ouch
.

He grinned. ‘I do my best to rise above my biology.'

Her features didn't move. ‘You need more practice. Now...I'd like to do something more productive than stand here and chat about what's south of your belt buckle... I don't suppose you have any actual work you want me to do, do you?'

Jason threw his head back and laughed, which seemed to take his new PA completely by surprise. The hard edge disappeared from her expression and she just stared at him.

‘Julie was right. I can see you and I are going to get on just fine.'

He saw a hint of surprise behind those intelligent grey-green eyes. And relief. He realised she'd maybe come out with all guns blazing because she was nervous. He was the boss, after all. But Kelly Bradford had showed guts and quick wit, both qualities he liked in a woman.

Darn this new no-flirting policy of Julie's!

But he was going to have to live with the agreement he'd made. Thanks to the merry-go-round of different PAs he'd had for the last couple of months, progress on the McGrath deal had stalled and he needed to get it back on track. Maybe hanging on to one for more than a fortnight would help.

He picked up a folder that had been sitting on his desk and handed it to Kelly. ‘I'd like you to familiarise yourself with the Mercury shoes project. I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with a few sports personalities who I hope will endorse the shoes when we launch. We need a kick-ass presentation to convince them to take a chance on a new brand in the market.' If that didn't open the hallowed doors of McGrath's office to him, he didn't know what would.

She took the folder from him and hugged it to her chest, once and for all preventing any possibility of him being distracted by that top button.

‘Right,' she said and backed away a few steps. ‘Will do.' And then she turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind her.

Those curves in that skirt? Pure magic. Jason had enjoyed the view while it lasted, but he hoped his HR manager didn't have as much divine authority as she claimed to have, or he was in danger of being fried by a lightning bolt from the sky.

* * *

Kelly walked back to her desk on shaky feet. Once there she collapsed into her chair and stared blankly at the computer screen, still clutching the folder Jason had given her to her chest. What the hell had just happened back there?

Her boss had flirted with her, that was what.

That wasn't new, especially after that episode with Payne last Friday, but she hadn't expected it to become the norm.

She didn't get it. She'd always had a certain amount of attention from the male species, but in the last couple of months it had gone to a whole new level, which was weird, because for a while after her chemo had finished she'd wondered if she'd ever feel attractive again.

Maybe it was because the words ‘not interested' were practically dancing over her head in neon lights. Men always seemed to want what they couldn't have, and she was projecting that out into the universe with a fury.

Her new boss had flirted with her. So what?

Kelly hugged the folder even tighter to her chest, causing a couple of pages at the open side to curl.

She'd wanted to flirt right back. That was what.

She hadn't, though. Which felt like a victory, although she didn't know why. She let out a slow breath and placed the slightly creased folder on the desk in front of her.

As she'd stepped into the room and walked towards him the energy he projected had been tangible. The air had practically hummed with it. She wanted to catch some of that stuff and bottle it, save it for the times when she was on her own at the end of the day, a struggling single mother with two small boys who'd developed a complex and effective strategy to avoid bedtime, the times when she was just so weary she couldn't quite remember her own name.

Maybe that was it. Maybe it hadn't been a physical thing at all. It had just been that drive and dynamism that had attracted her. She'd used to have buckets of that—once. Where had it all gone?

But then she thought about Jason's dark, slightly unruly hair, those laughing blue eyes and those lips...those lips that just begged to be...

Kelly felt a jolt of warmth deep inside that had nothing to do with energy levels.

Blast. Just when she'd been halfway to talking herself out of it too.

She'd done her best to rein in what she'd been feeling when she'd been in there, despite the fact that although she'd stood as straight as a poker on the outside, something inside had gone soft and gooey, and she'd almost felt as if she'd been leaning towards him, curving invitingly...

Kelly lowered her head and rested it so her brow made contact with the folder she'd just placed on her desk. Oh, hell. Maybe she'd just been too long without a man. It had been almost three years since she'd split from Tim and there hadn't been anyone else.

Yet
, a small but optimistic voice in the back of her head reminded her. There hasn't been anyone else
yet
.

Whatever.

It had been a long time. And how was a girl supposed to keep her head about her when she walked into a room and came face to face with Jason Knight? All that testosterone, those broad shoulders—hadn't she heard he'd been a swimmer once?—that lazy smile lit up with wickedness... It had all been too much for her poor sex-starved circuits and they'd gone into overload.

She inhaled and sat upright again. Right. She had a job to do. She couldn't sit here impersonating a jellyfish all day. Especially as she'd got the sense from Julie in HR that this was her last chance. She had to make this post work for the next few months. Her nest egg depended on it.

She blew out a breath and turned on her computer. There was plenty of work to do. And more interesting jobs than the stuff Payne had given her, that was for sure. She'd just bury herself in that and forget about the man on the other side of the office door.

A thud from inside made her jump. She went very still.

A very thin office door, it now seemed.

What had just happened? Had he knocked something over, fallen off his chair? She was just debating whether she should go and check on him when the noise came again. And then, a few moments later, again.

The basketball.

Thud.

Kelly flinched in her seat.

Great. If he was going to keep this up all day, she'd never have a chance of forgetting his existence and getting on with her work. Her forehead met the desk again. Lord, oh, Lord, what had she and her big I'll-take-any-job-you-offer-me mouth got her into now?

* * *

Kelly waited outside her brother's front door after pressing her thumb to the doorbell. The silence lasted a split second and then there was the thunder of little feet and squeals of
‘Mummy!'
in the hallway. On the commute, tiredness had set around her like concrete, but now it cracked and started to crumble.

Moments later her sister-in-law opened the door and Kelly bent down to greet her two boys. It was more like being hit by a pair of charging bulldogs than being hugged, but she smiled and kissed the tops of their heads before they ran off back to a room where a television was blaring. She stood up and smiled wearily at Chloe.

‘Thanks for looking after them today. That's the one downside of temping—patchy work can mean patchy childcare.'

Chloe smiled back and shrugged. ‘No problem.'

‘I spoke to my usual childminder earlier and she says she can pick up again from tomorrow.'

Chloe stood back so Kelly could pass by, closed the door then followed her into the large kitchen-diner at the back of the house. ‘Well, let us know if you need us again. I think Dan misses the boys since you moved out.'

Kelly had lived here for more than a year after she'd sold the house. Her brother had been great, but when she'd felt well enough she'd insisted on branching out on her own. All the time she'd been relying on him she'd felt as if she hadn't quite finished her recovery, and that hadn't been good. She really, really needed to feel as if she was moving on, putting the nightmare of the last few years behind her.

Chloe headed for the fridge. ‘I know it's only Monday, but you look like you've had one hell of a week.' She pulled a bottle of pinot grigio out of the fridge door and poured them both a glass. ‘I didn't think it could get much worse than what you told me happened last Friday, but you look a bit...frazzled...this evening.'

Kelly chuckled and slumped onto a stool at the breakfast bar. Her sister-in-law was too polite. She knocked back a good long slug of wine. ‘What you mean is that I look like I've been run over by a truck.'

‘You look fine,' Chloe said soothingly. ‘Just tired. Please don't tell me the new boss has been doing circuits round the desk with you too!'

Kelly shook her head. More to dislodge the mental image that had suddenly warmed her ears than to disagree.

‘Well, that's a relief!' Chloe said, laughing.

Kelly didn't join her.

‘What's he like—the big boss?'

Kelly swallowed. Tall. Broad. With thick dark hair and a twinkle in his eye that could light kindling....

‘Oh, he's okay,' she said, looking down into her glass and swilling the wine around.

When she looked up again Chloe was smiling at her. ‘More than okay, I reckon.'

‘I didn't say anything of the sort,' Kelly said stiffly.

Her sister-in-law sighed. ‘You didn't have to, Kells. It's written all over your face. You're a terrible liar, you know.' She grinned. ‘He's nice, isn't he?'