He stood there, shocked and, well, wet, wondering what else could go wrong. Then tears started to roll down the redhead’s face.
He could handle a long flight, being inconvenienced, having to track down his ride and being smacked in the gut by a very unexpected attraction...but a woman’s tears?
Nope. They were enough to drop him to the floor.
As her phone went silent, Lex closed her eyes, praying that this was a nightmare, that she hadn’t just started crying in front of her boss, the brand-new owner of Thorpe Industries, the man who, indirectly but ultimately, signed off on her pay cheques.
What on earth was wrong with her? She never cried. Why in front of him? And why right now?
Lex scrabbled in her tote bag for a pack of tissues and pulled out a small pack, her shaking fingers unable to pull back the tab to the opening. A tanned hand gently took the packet and pulled back the tab, allowing her to pull a couple of tissues from the pack. She wiped her eyes, thankful she seldom wore make-up. Streaks of mascara down her cheeks did not pair well with wet eyes and the post-box-red of her skin under her freckles.
Oh, how she longed for the floor to cave in beneath her feet. Anything would be preferable to standing here, feeling like a complete, over-emotional wreck. The last time she’d spontaneously cried was when Joelle had bleached her hair and she’d ended up looking like a half-ripe apricot. She’d been thirteen. She was now more than double that age and should be in control of her emotions.
The problem was that she normally was.
So why was she crying? What was wrong with her? She’d known sad, and she was a long way off from feeling that overwhelming emotion. Sure, she was tired, but she’d learned to function on minimal sleep. Was she stressed?
She was a woman in her late twenties trying, with the help of her sister Addi, to raise her young half-sisters, study, stretch their income further than it was supposed to go and keep their rag-tag family together. She was studying psychology. She knew that stress always found a way to express itself, sometimes when the person was least expecting it. It rolled through the body, looking for a way out, and sometimes it was released through tears.
And exhaustion inhibited the body’s ability to self-regulate and made it more prone to emotional outbursts. Yes, she tended to shove her feelings down, telling herself she didn’t have time to deal with them, that she’d process all she was feeling later when she was less tired, when she was alone. However, she never had time, was infrequently alone and there was a good chance that all those pesky feelings had piled on top of each other and spilt over and out.
But why did she have to cry in front of Cole Thorpe, her boss? Was it because, subconsciously at least, her attraction to him made her realise that she was still a woman, still capable of feeling sexually aroused and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, even if she’d wanted to? Was it because seeing him, knowing that she couldn’t just accept a potential offer to join him for a drink or dinner later, made her remember all she’d sacrificed for her sisters, all that she couldn’t have?
Had it made her see that she wasn’t a normal single woman, that she had more responsibilities than most, that she sometimes felt trapped, and felt guilty for feeling that way?
Possibly. Probably.
She could figure out the reasons for her tears later—they were so stupid!—but right now she needed to rescue this situation, preferably before Cole Thorpe fired her. If he did that, she’d have a very decent excuse to cry and another huge reason to stress. She desperately needed this job: it worked around her big sister-substitute mum duties.
Lex sniffed and lifted her eyes to see a black jersey being pulled up to reveal a washboard stomach and a muscled chest. Her mouth fell open as a steady hum started in her womb and the space between her legs buzzed, getting warmer by the second.
His sweater came off and he impatiently tugged down the black T-shirt that had ridden up his chest. She couldn’t help noticing his bulging arms as he dragged his jersey over his coffee-splashed face and chest. Then he dropped to his haunches, snapped open his leather bag and pulled out another sweater, pale-grey this time, and pulled it over his head. He shoved the black jersey into a corner of his bag and stood up.
From start to finish, his swapping of jerseys couldn’t have taken more than a minute, but Lex felt as if she’d watched the longest, sexiest movie in her life. And she wanted to hit rewind.
He was her boss, and Lex needed to stay employed, so maybe, instead of ogling him, she should apologise profusely and try and act like the professional she knew she could be. But, after having shared some serious eye contact, tossed her coffee over him and burst into tears, there was a good chance that she might have over-cooked her golden goose.
Lex held out her hand, gave him an embarrassed smile and cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry. For tossing coffee over you and crying.’
He put his hand in hers and gave it the briefest shake before dropping it as if it was a Cape Cobra. ‘And you are?’
She’d forgotten to give him her name.Great. ‘I’m Lex Satchell.’
He nodded, picked up his overnight bag and slung it over his shoulder. ‘I’ve seen enough of this airport, so I’d like to get out of here. Where’s the car?’
It was hard to think around him. ‘Uh, we need to go down a floor. It’s not far but, if you prefer, you can wait in the pick-up zone. I’ll take your bag to the car.’
‘I’ve got legs. I can walk.’
He had very nice, very long, very strong legs...Stop it, Lex!
‘Let’s go,’ he added, his tone brusque. ‘I want to check in at my hotel and drop in at Thorpe’s Cape Town headquarters today.’
So did that mean she wasn’t fired? Or was he just waiting for her to deliver him to wherever he wanted to go before he canned her? Lex started to ask him but he took off towards the escalator, moving quickly.
Lex followed his broad shoulders, feeling dazed and disoriented. He was implacable and unreadable, and she suspected she wasn’t the first, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, person who’d wonder which way was up around the inscrutable international businessman.
CHAPTER TWO