‘But we both know this is going nowhere andyoumight not have a problem carrying on with it until it fizzles out, butIhave.’
‘Why?’ he questioned, eyes narrowing.
Grace could see him thinking, working things out, joining dots that she didn’t want him to join.
‘Because I want more for myself,’ she told him quietly and truthfully. ‘I’m thirty-one years old and I have no intention of wasting my time with something that’s not going anywhere. We get along and the sex has been great fun but that’s where it ends. Essentially, I’m not your type and you’re not mine.’ Every word that passed her lips hurt but none of that hurt showed in her determined expression. ‘And I’m not getting involved on a pointless joy ride that’ll be over in the blink of an eye and whatever you say about it not affecting our working relationship, it probably would. There’s a very good reason you say that you’ve never been tempted to mix business with pleasure and even if you’re the boss and you can do exactly what you want, it’s still not a good idea. How would it work? Practically?’
‘What do you mean?’ He flushed, and Grace’s eyebrows shot up in an amused question.
‘I mean, Nico, think about it. I get to the office usual time, bring you a cup of coffee, as per usual, and we spend the day...dovetailing around one another until the clock strikes six and then what? We lock the outside door and suddenly throw ourselves at one another and rip off our clothes and make wild love on your office desk?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous, Nico,’ she said wryly. ‘It would be embarrassing, and our working relationship would totally end up suffering.’
Not to mention her heart.
She thought of her mother, always searching for the right one, getting hurt along the way.
She had had little sympathy because of the fallout left in the wake of her mother’s never-ending parade of possibilities. When her mother had disappeared to the other side of the world, Grace had resigned herself to it being the full stop to a chequered love life that had seen her have no time to spare for the children she had had.
Now, she had a reluctant admiration for the way Cecily had always picked herself up, dusted herself down and carried on. She hadn’t been the most responsible parent on the planet, but all those knocks along the way would have hurt and yet she had still played her acting games with Grace and her brother, like the kid she essentially had been, and dazzled her way through her hurt. And Australia? Perhaps that had finally been True Love. Who was Grace to begrudge her that? She had disappeared leaving her adult children behind to look out for themselves and maybe that was just tough love. Maybe that had been all she had had to give.
Loving Nico had opened Grace’s horizons and shown her the nuances in life. It was seldom a case of black and white, with the right guy coming along, ticking all the boxes with no broken hearts along the way because measures had been put in place to protect those hearts. She had been so careful, had assured herself that she had learnt all the lessons necessary to make sure she controlled her love life instead of her love life controlling her, and yet, here she was, ambushed by the very thing she had fought to protect herself from.
At least her pride hadn’t been flushed down the drain. At least she had only allowed Nico to see sides to her that she wanted him to see.
How many times, in those lazy moments when they had been flushed and content after making love, had she been tempted to tell him about her childhood? About the stress of having Cecily for a mother? The responsibilities that had been shouldered when she’d been just a kid? About Tommy and all the problems now on her plate?
She had held back because a little voice inside had warned her that oversharing would be a mistake.
Whatever her feelings for Nico, he would never have appreciated that level of depth because, in his eyes, what they had had just been a bit of fun. Exciting and thrilling but just some fun.
Now, she was glad that she had held back because she would carry on working for him until she got another job and she would pretend that everything was fine. She would do what her mother had been an expert at doing. She would put a smile on her face and dust herself off and carry on.
She had to smile when she thought how much she had fought against having anything in common with Cecily. Now, she sincerely hoped her acting skills were up to scratch.
‘Of course, I’m very flattered.’ Grace offered a placating smile. ‘But like I’ve said, you know that I’m a sensible person...’
‘I never thought I’d hate the sound of someone being sensible,’ Nico growled.
Grace overrode the interruption. ‘I’m sensible enough to know that whatever dying embers of attraction might still be there when we get back to London, it would be sheer folly to fan them into life.’
‘That’s a very overblown way of saying that the sex is great. So why stop when the going’s good? Anyone would think that this is about more than what’s on the table.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean this is great sex. It’s not aGone with the Windsearing love story.’
‘I knowthat.’ She laughed dismissively. ‘Do you honestly think I’d be crazy enough to read more into this than what’s there?’ She raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes and made a convincing show of indifference mixed with amusement. ‘Like I said, Nico, let’s put this behind us when we get to London. We have a lot to do...deals that have been hanging in the balance...’
Nico looked at her narrowly for a few seconds, then he shrugged and threw her a shadow of a smile.
He raised both hands in a gesture of rueful resignation.
‘You can’t blame a guy for trying.’
They were back on track. Grace should have been relieved, but she felt a punch of misery at what was being lost.