‘Um... Joss, I meant unzip.’
Oh, no, that was not what he’d signed up for. No way was he that stupid. He’d been keeping his eyes, hands and mind off this woman for years. He knew the limits of his self-control, and just this proximity to her was pushing it—never mind anything else.
‘I’m not sure that’s...’
‘Joss, would you just do it? Shut your eyes, if you want, but get me out of this thing! It’s not like I’m naked under here, in case you’re worried about your delicate sensibilities.’
He took a deep breath and unzipped, but the teeth snagged halfway down her back.
‘It’s stuck.’
‘Still? Brilliant. I was hoping it was just the angle I was pulling it. Can you unstick it?’
He wasn’t sure he wanted to—not when unsticking it meant exposing more creamy skin and finding out exactly what she’d meant when she said that she wasn’t naked under there.
Joss fiddled with the zip, passing the teeth slowly through the slider and unpicking the threads that had got caught. Finally it gave way and slid smoothly down Eva’s back, revealing a silk slip in a soft pink colour, edged with delicate cream lace. Worse than naked, perhaps, to be so close to seeing the body that he’d dreamed of, only to find it tantalisingly out of reach.
‘At last! Thank goodness for that,’ Eva said, stepping quickly out of the dress and reaching for another, which Joss had just noticed draped over his father’s chair. As the fabric was sliding over her head he turned for the door, but Eva stopped him. ‘Wait—can you zip up this time? I don’t want to be any later than I already am.’
Joss let out a sigh, but crossed the office again and reached for the slider of the zip, his fingertips very close to the rose silk at the base of her spine. He lingered for a moment as he swept her hair away with his other hand, revealing the wispy baby hairs at the nape of her neck and the invitingly soft skin behind her ear.
But before he could cover her safely, the door behind him opened.
‘Eva, are you in—?’
Damn his father and his terrible timing.
‘I’m sorry, Edward. I’ll be right there,’ Eva said, reaching for the zip herself and pulling it further down in the process of twisting round.
‘No, no—I can see I’m interrupting,’ Edward said. ‘I trust you’re both on your way.’
Joss couldn’t bring himself to look, but he could almost hear the huge grin on his father’s face, verging on a full-on laugh.
‘We’re waiting for you.’
His father left the room before Joss could explain that nothing had been going on between him and Eva. He shot a look at her, and saw she looked as taken aback as he did as she struggled with her dress. He pulled the zip up for her—no lingering this time—and strode for the door.
‘What are we going—?’ Eva started.
‘I’ll handle it,’ Joss said.
He walked into the boardroom, still fighting images of Eva’s lingerie-clad body and the look of intrigue and delight on his father’s face when he’d so clearly misinterpreted what had been going on in his office.
He was more used to seeing disappointment from his father, especially when it involved him and women. Since Joss’s first marriage had failed, his father had tried to hide his disappointment that he’d not been able to settle down with anyone else. He knew that when he’d first told his parents he was getting a divorce, they’d blamed the break-up on him.
And then, when he’d walked into the office as a single man, emerging from the dark clouds of clinical depression and divorce, he had realised the strength of his attraction to his father’s executive assistant.
He’d told himself that he would not be going near her—under any circumstances. His father doted on her, and would not take kindly to her feelings being hurt. And after what Joss had done to his marriage—the destruction he’d been powerless to prevent—he knew that he couldn’t expect to make any woman happy.
At least his father respected him professionally. He’d been working for the family’s chain of luxury department stores since he was in primary school, and had earned his position as Vice President of UK Stores. But professional respect and personal pride were two very different things, and Joss knew that an abundance of one would never compensate for the lack of the other.
All eyes turned to him as he entered the full boardroom, with Eva right behind him. They found a couple of spare chairs in the corner. Sunlight flooded in through the old lead-paned windows, brightening the panelled room, which could feel oppressive on a gloomier day.
Joss tried to catch his father’s eye, but he was either deliberately avoiding his gaze or so entranced by the view out of the window that he couldn’t bring himself to look away. The well-heeled streets of Kensington were bustling below, and Joss could tell just from the hum of the traffic that the pavement outside the store was filled with shoppers and tourists, stopping to take in the magnificent window displays for which the store was renowned.
Eventually, though, the old man cleared his throat and looked around the room, glancing at each of the board members in turn.
‘I’d like to thank you all for being here,’ Edward began, with a smile that Joss couldn’t interpret. ‘Especially at such short notice and on a Friday afternoon, when I’m sure you’d all rather be at a long working lunch. I’m afraid that, as some of you may have guessed, an emergency board meeting is rarely called to share good news, and today is no different. So, it is with regret that I have to announce that due to ill health I will be resigning from the company in all capacities with immediate effect.’
Joss felt fear and dread swell in an all too familiar fashion in the base of his stomach as the deeper meaning of his father’s words sank in. His father must be ill—seriously ill—to even consider leaving the business.
But Edward carried on speaking, leaving him no time to dwell.
‘You all know that over the years we have taken steps to ensure a smooth transition when the time came for me to hand over the reins, and so—if you are all still in agreement—I will be leaving you in the capable hands of my son, Joss, who will become Managing Director and Chairman of the Board in my place. Eva, of course, will be assisting Joss in his new role, as I suspect she knows more about my job than I do. I know you will continue to support them, just as you have supported me. Now, I imagine there will be questions, so I’ll answer them as best I can. Who’s first?’
The room sank into silence as Edward finished speaking. Joss looked closely at his father. Ill-health? His father hadn’t taken a day off sick in his life, and yet now he was resigning completely? Yes, they’d talked about succession plans. Any sensible businessman had contingencies for all eventualities, and Edward would not have wanted to leave the company in chaos if anything had happened to him. But had there actually been more to it than that? Had his father known that he would soon be stepping down?
The dread in Joss’s stomach twisted into stark fear as the implications of the announcement sank in and he realised what this must mean. His father wouldn’t resign because of a dodgy hip or ‘a touch of angina’, as he’d once described a health scare. He’d always sworn he’d be carried out of a Dawson’s department store in his coffin. For him to resign must mean he had had some terrible news.
Panic and grief gripped his throat as he noticed for the first time the slight grey tinge to his father’s skin, and the lines around his eyes that suggested a habitual wince of fatigue. Why hadn’t he noticed before? Why hadn’t he been looking? His father wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, and he was still working sixteen-hour days long past the age when most people would expect to retire.