She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t a real engagement and it wasn’t going to be a real wedding. We weren’t going to...’ She huffed the tightness from her chest. ‘I wasn’t going to sleep with Shaun. We don’t have that kind of relationship.’
‘Really?’ Elias’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re what,friends?’
She didn’t know why he sounded so sceptical. ‘Is that so hard to believe? We were in the same group home for a while.’
‘Group home?’
‘Foster homes,’ she explained.
‘Why was Shaun doing it then?’
Darcie hesitated. She was unsure of what Elias’s reaction would be to the fact that she’d given Shaun money. So she opted for partial truth. ‘I told you he loved Lily’s mother, my friend Zara. He was doing it for her.’
‘Not because he wanted you?’
‘No.’ She braced again. ‘Aside from the fact that he told you, isn’t it obvious given how quickly he abandoned me when you showed up and started raging?’
Elias’s frown only deepened. ‘So you weren’t going to sleep with him at all through the marriage?’
‘I wasn’t going to sleep withanyone.’
‘But that night you decided the engagement didn’t count and you thought you’d try me? Did you want one last romp before you sacrificed your sex life so you could foster your friend’s daughter?’
She felt a blush burning its way up her entire body. She’d thought it her one chance foranykind of sex life. ‘I guess you could put it that way.’
‘How else would you put it?’ He leaned closer. ‘Explain it to me, Darcie. Why, when you’ve worked for me for years, did you suddenly decide to proposition me out of the blue?’
‘I knew I was leaving and you weren’t going to be my boss anymore, and I got a little drunk and I was...’ She rolled her shoulders. She’d hoped he’d forgotten those five minutes of pure mortification, but she couldn’t explain the last part. It wastoopersonal. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. You didn’t want me. Nothing happened aside from me making a massive fool of myself.’
‘I didn’t want you?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘Obviously?’ He was like a statue again. ‘You knew I couldn’t possibly say yes.’
She stared at him sceptically. He never said no to other women. He had short flings all the time. Sometimes it had felt like he’d sleep with anyonebuther.
‘You were tipsy,’ he gritted. ‘I’d watched you. You’d had three glasses of champagne when you never normally drink a drop.’
Well, yes. She’d been drowning her sorrows and crazy courage had surged in their place.
‘Moreover, and more importantly,’ he rasped, ‘I was your boss. There was a power imbalance—one that had been there from the moment we met.’
‘But I was leaving.’
‘I didn’t know that then,’ he shot back.
But it wouldn’t have made any difference. She’d humiliated herself. ‘I’m sorry I put you in an awkward position.’
‘An awkward position?’ He echoed in disbelief. ‘You have no idea what position you put me in that night.’
Heat scorched her face.
‘Darcie Milne. Assistant extraordinaire.’
Bitterness rose. ‘You didn’t want to lose me as an assistant.’ She wasn’t awomanto him. She didn’t think he’d ever seen her as one.
‘No. I was never going to risk losing my best assistant.’