‘Well, I feel more comfortable wearing them. The fact is that—’
‘Well, I don’t.’ He was curt, abrupt. ‘You work for me, and I don’t want to see them again. And you can also stop tying your hair back as if you’re doing some kind of religious penance.’
Lucy gasped. She could feel the colour washing out of her face, only to be swiftly replaced by mortified heat.
Knowing that she had nothing to lose, she didn’t curb her tongue, but her voice when it came was slightly strangled. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to comment on while you’re at it?’
Aristotle leaned back against the window and negligently crossed one ankle over the other, crossed his arms over that formidable chest. His eyes took on a slumberous quality that made Lucy’s breath falter and a tight coil of sensation burn down low in her belly.
‘Have you thrown out that skirt yet?’
Lucy’s hands clenched. She didn’t feel the edges of the envelope any more, or remember what she was here to do. Right now she was being subjected to the lazy appraisal of a man who, she told herself, was just like every other man who had traipsed in and out of her mother’s life. The fact that her predominant emotion wasn’t the anger she’d expected made her feel very vulnerable.
‘It’s none of your business where that blasted skirt is. You can rest assured that you won’t have to be subjected to seeing me wear it again, because I’m here to—’
‘That’s a pity.’
Lucy’s mouth was still open on the unfinished part of her sentence. She blinked as his words sank in. She shook her head. She had to have misheard. Distracted, and hating herself for it, she asked, ‘What did you say?’
He stood then, and even though he didn’t come towards her she took a step back.
‘I said, that’s a pity. You’d be surprised how much of my mental energy that skirt has been taking up. I think I may have been too hasty in my judgement of it.’
Lucy shook her head again and could feel herself trembling inwardly. She felt as if she were in some twilight zone. What about the Augustine Archers of the world, impeccably groomed to within an inch of their skinny designer lives? Surely he couldn’t really mean that he preferred…? Her mind shut down at that, but the words slipped out and she watched herself as if from a distance as she said faintly, ‘But…it was just a high street skirt that shrank in the wash. I didn’t have time to get a new one. You thought it was inappropriate enough to have me taken to task for it.’
‘That was a mistake.’ His eyes flicked down over her body, and Lucy’s flesh tingled as if he’d touched her. Even though she wore perfectly fitting and respectable trousers, a highnecked shirt and a jacket, she felt undressed.
When his eyes rose to meet hers again she registered the dangerous gleam in their depths. The bubble of unreality burst. Self-preservation was back. The envelope. She held it out now, with a none too steady hand.
Aristotle looked from her face down to it and then back up. He arched an enquiring brow.
Lucy stammered, ‘It’s—it’s my letter…of resignation.’
Ari’s hands clenched. Something surged through his body—a primal need not to let this woman go. No way was she walking out of here. That ruthless feeling was back.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s not.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Lucy replied automatically, a little perplexed.
‘No. It’s not.’
Anger started to lick upwards as it dawned on Lucy that this wasn’t going to be the quick result she’d hoped for.
‘Yes, Mr Levakis, it is. Please accept my resignation with the grace with which it’s tendered.’ She held out the envelope further. ‘I am not available for…extra services outside work, and your behaviour the other night was not acceptable.’
Lucy’s eyes had turned to a dark slate-grey and they were flashing. There was a resolute tilt to her chin. Ari marvelled that he hadn’t noticed it before now, but this woman had passion oozing from every pore of her tightly held body. She had backbone. Far from fading into the background, as he’d so misguidedly believed her to have done from day one, she’d been there under his nose the whole time. He could see now that her appeal had been working on him subliminally, bringing him to the point he had now reached: the point of no return, unless this woman was with him.
Ari moved around the desk and perched on the edge, arms still folded. When he saw Lucy’s eyes flick betrayingly down to his thighs he smiled inwardly, and smiled even more when he saw a flush stain her cheeks. How had he ever though of her as plain or unassuming? He ignored her outstretched hand and the white envelope.
Lucy refused to show how intimidated she was by moving back, but she wanted to—desperately. Her breath was coming in shallow bursts. She felt as if she wanted to reach up and undo the top button of her blouse.
Aristotle cocked his head and asked enquiringly, with a small frown, ‘Now, exactly what part of the other night would you say was not acceptable?’ He answered himself. ‘The part where I escorted you safely to your door? Or perhaps the part where I accepted the coffee you made me?’
Lucy’s other hand balled into a fist and she bit out, ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’
His face cleared, the frown disappeared and he said, ‘Ah! You mean the part where I proved just how mutual our attraction is?’
Chapter Four