Chapter Two
ERIN HAD NO idea what to expect when she pushed open the door to her large, airy office on the Monday morning at eight sharp, half an hour before most of the workforce began making an appearance but usually a couple hours after her workaholic boss had been at his desk.
Her office was linked to Raffaele’s via a bank of sleek walnut sliding doors with panes of smoked glass. If he happened to be in a meeting and needing privacy, the doors would be shut but mostly when he was in, they remained open so that she could, with a glance, see whether he was busy or not.
If her office was large, his was five times the size, large enough to incorporate a separate seating area and a scaled-down boardroom. Many an evening had been spent there working to wrap up a deal.
Right now, as she divested herself of her cardigan, she was relieved to see that the doors were shut.
It gave her more time to continue going down rabbit holes berating herself for confiding in him, when she’d spent so long avoiding that particular trap.
Amid all her heated thoughts as she’d tossed and turned in bed the evening before, the one that jumped out at her was the one she was least willing to confront.
Feelings for her boss, which she had only ever entertained now and again before stuffing them away and pretending that they didn’t exist, could no longer be ignored because they went a long way to explaining why she was so rigid about maintaining her privacy with him.
Yes, she disapproved of his antics when it came to the opposite sex.
She scorned the way he picked women up, enjoyed them for a while and then discarded them before moving on to the next one.
And of course she knew that however attractive the man was for her on a personal level, he could never prove a serious temptation because she could never emotionally engage with a commitment-phobe.
She wanted that love her parents shared.
She wanted the guy who would lie down on the railway tracks for her.
She might be realistic when it came to her parents’ life choices, living on the road and kidding themselves that tomorrows were never going to get in the way of their enjoyment of the present, but on the emotional front…
? They had set a template for her to follow and it was firmly embedded in her.
She’d had one stumble, a stumble that was in the past, a stumble, she liked to think, that had been a valuable learning curve. A broken heart had stiffened her resolve never to fall for the wrong guy again, to look carefully at the man she would one day trust with her heart.
Raffaele, with his casual disregard for permanence, represented everything she found unappealing.
So that being the case, why should she have such strong opinions on what he did or didn’t do?
On any of the choices her boss made? Shouldn’t she be indifferent to whatever chaos ensued from his unregulated private life?
So what if he asked her to buy presents for the women he always ended up walking away from?
It was hardly a back-breaking chore. In fact, it often allowed her an afternoon off, scouting through stupidly expensive stores she would never otherwise have entered, and that was sometimes very entertaining. So why the ruffled feathers?
And why should it matter what her boss knew about her background?
She was aware that it was an unorthodox one but she wasn’t ashamed of her parents.
Yet the thought of him teasing out the details of her personal life made her feel vulnerable, made her feel as though she was advertising herself as a woman rather than as an automaton created solely to play the role of Personal Assistant.
Her rebellious eyes were fond of straying in his direction and only she knew her darkest fantasies, so deeply buried that they were only allowed out at night, when her mind was allowed to wander.
They were forbidden and delicious but they were contained.
Was there a disturbing jealousy swirling around inside her at the thought of him and the catwalk models he was so fond of?
She eyed the closed door, took a deep breath and then briskly walked towards it, gave a perfunctory knock and slid it open.
Raffaele was sitting behind his desk, which was as big as a single bed. He was sprawled in the leather swivel chair, his long legs extended, his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head.
The minute Erin walked in, he opened one eye, then both, then sat up, pulling the chair towards the desk and looking at her with his head to the side.
‘You haven’t brought my coffee,’ he said provocatively. ‘I’m very thirsty.’
‘The doors were shut. I thought you might have been in a meeting.’
‘Only with my thoughts.’
‘I didn’t realise,’ Erin said politely, ‘that having a meeting with your thoughts necessitated closed doors.’
‘Anything to improve the thinking process. How was the rest of your weekend, Erin? How’s your father doing?’
Erin was instantly disabused of the hopeful notion that he might have forgotten what she had told him.
‘Good. Thank you.’
‘Which bit? The weekend or your father?’
‘Both. Shall I fetch you some coffee, Raffaele? There are a few things I wanted to ask you about the Saudi investment fund. I had a look at it, as you asked, on Friday and—’
‘Coffee first, Erin. My mind isn’t on hedge funds at the moment.’ He shot her a smile without taking his eyes off her face.
‘Now that we’ve entered this new and exciting phase in our working relationship, I think it’s vital we keep the connection going.
I’ve always thought that it’s important that co-workers have more than just a superficial relationship.
A three-dimensional relationship really expands our ability to work productively together. ’
‘Really? I don’t remember you mentioning anything of the sort in all the time I’ve worked here.’
‘Haven’t I?’ He frowned with an expression of puzzlement. ‘Perhaps,’ he continued as his expression cleared, ‘that’s because you’ve always encouraged me to keep my distance and naturally I would never have disrespected your boundaries by being curious about you in any way, shape or form…’
‘I’m not the sort of person who spends a lot of time trading confidences,’ Erin said impatiently.
‘Which I’m sure is something we’ll get to in due course.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Erin countered as politely as she could.
Raffaele grinned, stood up and took his time stretching. ‘Been here since six,’ he said. ‘Stiff joints from sitting in a chair for too long.’
Erin didn’t say anything. She thought that his joints might have been a little less stiff if he’d made himself a cup of coffee but actually she welcomed the opportunity to regroup in private. Of all the things she had expected, a direct reminder of what she’d told him hadn’t featured.
Why she would expect subtlety from her outspoken boss she had no idea, but as she scuttled out of his office, half sliding the doors shut behind her, her head was in a whirl.
She’d been comfortable watching him from the sidelines.
She had been very happy having her harmless fantasies, safe in the knowledge that theirs was exclusively a working relationship.
And if, in the deep recesses of her mind, she saw the possibility of something more, then there was no sign of such wild abandon in her dealings with him.
Having moved from pillar to post during her formative years, sometimes attending school for months on end, sometimes home-schooled by her parents or else just burying her head in books and doing the learning herself, Erin had become a private person.
It had been difficult to make friendships when she wasn’t around long enough for them to flourish and although she had had a couple of boyfriends, one reasonably serious when she’d been at university, she had always found it difficult to open up, to show the softer, more vulnerable side of herself.
She knew that that was why the guy she’d dated for over a year had broken up with her. He’d wanted more of her than she’d known how to give. He’d wanted someone, he had thrown at her, ‘less inhibited, less uptight’.
‘You’re a nice girl,’ he’d said from halfway out of the door, shaking his head in frustration, ‘but I don’t know who you really are, Erin Fisher, and no one ever will unless you learn to open up!
You’re bloody hopeless! What man is ever going to be interested in a woman who can never let her hair down! Complete waste!’
How his parting shots had stung, had made her feel incomplete and helpless.
Those biting words had made her scared to take more risks on love just in case she made another mistake, another misjudgement.
She would take her time and not be rushed into having her choices dictated by her biological clock.
She would only risk loving if certainty of that love being returned was as guaranteed as was humanly possible. She would do her utmost to protect her heart and never let it be damaged again. Never.
A crush on her boss, because that was what it was, was perfect because it had allowed her to press Pause on doing anything proactive about her love life.
Abruptly finding herself on the receiving end of his curiosity was a lot less perfect, especially as she only had herself to blame.
Erin made the coffee. Suddenly, after years of pleasant hibernation from dipping her toes in the dating game, she wondered how she had ended up where she had.
She was nearly twenty-nine!
She’d vaguely known that at some point in time she would find the guy she wanted to settle down with, but she’d been in no particular hurry to get there.
Maybe, she thought ruefully as she headed back to the lion’s den, there was more of her parents in her than she’d thought.
She’d always considered herself so responsible. She’d stuck to the straight and narrow like glue, unlike her forever wandering parents, who had never really paid attention to how their thirst to roam the world had affected their only child.