His tie had been hanging either side of his collar on that occasion and the first two or three buttons of his shirt had been undone, revealing a hard tanned throat and just the beginning of a smidgen of body hair below his collar bone, and she hadn’t been able to believe what it had done to her.
Not that she was attracted to him. The thought was fierce and one which came into play several times a day without fail. Not in the slightest. It was just that after little Mr Stanley, with his bald head and paunch and unfortunate tendency to sniff all the time due to chronic catarrh, Max Hunter’s particular brand of aggressive male virility was something of a shock. But she’d master what was after all nothing more than an animal response, a fleshly, purely physical thing. Of course she would. No problem.
She just hoped it would be sooner rather than later, she admitted to herself the next moment with a deep sigh. This stupid…awareness of him made her jittery and nervous, and although she was careful to hide it she was constantly on edge in his presence.
Cory breathed in and out a few times, her gaze wandering round the big light sun-washed room, and coming to rest on a huge cake tin perched on top of the small fridge in the minute kitchen in one corner of the bedsit.
She had been home for the first time this weekend, and before she had set off back to London, her mother had packed her faithful little Mini with enough food to keep an army for a month.
Her brow wrinkled as she thought of the two days she had just spent in Yorkshire. She had relished the time with her parents—she had always been close to the pair of them and they had had a riotous evening out on the Saturday when all three of them had eaten and drunk far too much—but meeting Vivian again for the first time in six weeks had been hard. Well, more than hard if she were honest.
As soon as he had spied her bright red Mini parked outside the house on Saturday morning—she had travelled down late on Friday night after Gillian’s farewell party—he had been knocking at the door, and it had been all of three hours before she could get rid of him. Get rid of him? The thought stopped Cory in her tracks as she made to walk across the room. She’d never want to get rid of Vivian, would she? She hadn’t meant it like that, not really. It was just that she felt awkward now he was engaged to Carole—that was it—uncomfortable and unsure of how she should behave. And he had seemed so…unhappy? No. The denial was immediate. Of course he wasn’t unhappy, just harassed with all the wedding arrangements and so on. And that was perfectly understandable; of course it was.
She shook her head slightly as she walked across the room. She was going to have a shower in the small bathroom across the landing directly opposite her door, and then fix herself toast and coffee before she got ready for work. She had plenty of time—she had woken a good hour before her alarm was due to ring—but she wanted to get into the office nice and early and have Max’s post opened and ready for him on his arrival at Hunter Operations. She intended to start as she meant to carry on, and that would involve one hundred per cent commitment. But that was all right—certainly for the next few years at least. The last thing, the very last thing she was looking for after the heartache of the previous few months was a romantic involvement of any kind. Work was safe—you knew where you stood with career ambitions and the like—it was men who were the unknown quantity and liable to cause you heartache and grief.
A pair of hard amber eyes suddenly shot into the screen of her mind and she paused, her hand outstretched towards the big bath sheet on the little stool by the door, as she told herself that was different. Max Hunter was her boss, that was all, and any nervousness or flutters she felt about him were quite legitimate when you considered her financial security was in his hands. And that was the only reason, the only reason, that this magnetism problem was getting to her. It was. For definite.
Cory arrived at Hunter Operations at a quarter past eight, but when she walked into her office and looked through the open interconnecting door into Max’s domain she realised he must have been in residence for half the weekend, from the amount of papers strewn about his desk and floor. The man was a workaholic!
‘Good morning.’ His voice was preoccupied. And she had opened her mouth to make the necessary response when he continued, ‘Can you be ready to fly out to Japan this evening?’ His tone suggested he was asking for nothing more unusual than a cup of coffee.
‘Japan?’ The therapy of a leisurely soak in hot bubbles followed by toast and coffee on her tiny balcony immediately vanished as she gazed at him in amazement.
‘Uh-huh.’ He didn’t raise his head as he spoke but she saw he was frowning at the papers in front of him. ‘This deal with Katchui is getting too complicated; I need to get over there and sort a few things out face to face. You can’t beat flesh contact.’
He looked at her then, two piercingly sharp rays of golden light holding her to the spot before he lowered his head again. ‘Two first-class tickets any time after three this afternoon; see to it, would you? And I need some coffee, black and strong, and a sandwich. Ham, turkey, beef—not salad or cheese. I need nourishment, not punishment,’ he added dryly.
‘Right.’ She tried to make her voice brisk and secretarial rather than bemused and stunned, which was how she felt.
‘And I need that tape on your desk typed up before midday; if we need to make any changes we’ll have to do it before we leave.’
‘How…how long do you expect us to be away?’ Cory asked faintly. Talk about life in the fast lane; this was express mode.
‘Five days, a week at the most.’ Again the amber light raked her face. ‘It’s not a problem?’ It was said in a tone that suggested it had better not be.
‘No, no, of course not.’ A week in a foreign country with Max Hunter for company? she thought weakly. And he asked if it was a problem? But it went with the territory and she had known that when she’d accepted the position; it was just that she had expected a few more weeks to get…acclimatised.
The morning sped by on winged feet, and once she had presented the report for Max’s eagle-eyed scrutiny at just gone eleven Cory dashed back home and frantically threw clothes and other necessities into a case, dug out her passport, and was back in the office before twelve and straight back at work.
It was almost half past one when it suddenly dawned on Cory that she hadn’t let her mother know about the trip, and she had just dialled the number and heard the receiver being lifted at the other end when Max chose that moment to put in an appearance with a sheaf of papers in his hand and a preoccupied expression on his face.
Blast! Cory heard her mother speak the number and didn’t like to put the phone down. He never came to her; in all the weeks she had been at Hunter Operations the buzzer had invariably summoned Gillian into the inner sanctum. She spoke quickly into the phone. ‘Hi, it’s Cory. I’m just ringing to let you know I’m going on a business trip to Japan for a few days, so don’t worry if you ring the house and there’s no answer.’
‘Japan?’ Her mother was all agog. ‘How exciting, dear. I’m glad it wasn’t this weekend anyway; we had a lovely time, didn’t we? It was wonderful to see you; your father and I so enjoyed it.’
‘It was wonderful to see you too,’ Cory said uncomfortably, vitally aware of the big dark figure on the perimeter of her vision.
‘And Japan, you say? Well, well. Now make sure you take some travel sickness pills—you know how you are—and—’
‘I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go.’ She knew, without looking at him, that he was scowling. There were dark vibrations coming across the airwaves. ‘And I’ll look after myself, don’t worry. I’ll phone you as soon as I get back.’
‘All right, darling, and thank you for letting us know. I hope everything goes well and that you have a lovely time. Love you.’
‘Love you.’ It had been their stock goodbye all through her days at university and since she had