Lovers In The Afternoon. Carole Mortimer

you’re adult enough that you could design something for my office suite without letting personalities enter into it?’ he raised dark brows.

      ‘It isn’t a question of that,’ she said stiffly. ‘I just don’t want to work for you. Wasn’t one member of my family enough for you?’ she added disgustedly.

      ‘You mean Liz?’

      ‘Who else?’ she scorned.

      ‘Liz was the best personal assistant I ever had.’

      She had been a little too ‘personal’ as far as Leonie was concerned! They had met because of her sister’s relationship with Adam, and they had parted for the same reason. ‘Look, I’ll talk to David tomorrow,’ she told him tautly. ‘I’m sure he’ll be only too glad to send someone else over to work with you.’

      ‘I don’t want anyone else,’ Adam said flatly. ‘I wondered about you and him for a while, you know,’ he added softly.

      She looked over at him with startled eyes. ‘David and I?’

      ‘Mm,’ he nodded.

      Her mouth tightened resentfully. ‘And what stopped you wondering?’ she snapped.

      He shrugged. ‘Your dates were too occasional for them to be anything more than placating the boss who has designs on you,’ he dismissed.

      Leonie’s eyes widened. ‘You’ve been having me watched!’ she realised disbelievingly.

      ‘You are my wife——’

      ‘Was,’ she corrected tightly. ‘We’re legally separated, and once the appropriate time has elapsed our divorce will be finalised.’

      ‘I was just seeing if we couldn’t speed up the proceedings,’ he explained.

      Leonie blinked at him for several timeless minutes, unable to believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you trying to say you were after evidence of adultery against me?’ she said with disbelief.

      Adam shrugged. ‘I thought you might feel more comfortable about our new arrangement if we were already divorced. I knew that I couldn’t wait three years for you.’

      ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t oblige!’ Somehow the knowledge that he had done such a thing hurt her unbearably. God knows she had enough evidence of adultery against him! But she had chosen not to subject any of them to the embarrassing ordeal of revealing their personal lives in public. Knowing that Adam had considered doing it to her made her angry.

      ‘Maybe I should have had you followed,’ she glared at him.

      ‘Oh, I’ve been living very quietly since you left me,’ he dismissed.

      ‘Quietly doesn’t necessarily mean alone,’ she snapped.

      ‘In this case it does.’

      And she knew the reason for that; Liz had continued to stay with her husband Nick. ‘Look, we’re getting away from the subject,’ Leonie sighed. ‘You’ll have to have someone else do your work for you.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Adam, I will not be bullied by you into doing something I don’t want to do.’

      He held up his hand defensively. ‘Have I tried to bully you? Did I bully you into anything tonight?’ he added throatily.

      Her mouth tightened. Tonight had been incredible, there was no denying that, and plenty of women would be only too agreeable to the sort of non-committal relationship Adam was now offering her. But not her. She had made a fool of herself over this man once, she wasn’t going to do it again.

      ‘Admit it was everything you thought it could be,’ he encouraged softly. ‘No complications of marriage, other people, just you and me making beautiful love together.’

      Just talking about the experience made her body tingle. ‘But it couldn’t stay that way indefinitely,’ she reasoned impatiently. ‘Sooner or later one of us would expect more——’

      ‘Not me,’ Adam assured her with finality. ‘I’ve tried being married to you; it didn’t work out.’

      She swallowed down the pain his casual admission of their year together caused. It hadn’t worked out, she would be the first to admit that, but to hear Adam talk so casually about the commitment they had made caused a constriction in her chest, as if someone had physically struck her.