until he’d worked out the problem.
Getting away doesn’t work when you go home to Henry’s hideaway cottage each night. You think of her, anyway.
At least the cottage was one place Margaret wouldn’t find him. For some reason, Henry had never told Margaret of the small home, although Chrissy knew of its existence.
‘I’m noting a call.’ Chrissy’s arctic tone managed to convey both superiority and disapproval. ‘Forgive me if I take my job seriously!’
‘Fine. Whatever.’ He didn’t want to reminisce about the cottage. He just wanted to take her there and ravish her for as long as it suited him.
For the first time in his life he wanted a woman who was completely unsuited to him, and he couldn’t seem to stop the attraction.
Out of control was not a place Nate liked to be. He stalked into her office. ‘Who’s this Dimitri person, and what did he want?’ He stopped so abruptly that the tails of his coat flapped against the backs of his legs.
Chrissy had just stuffed a sheaf of papers into her holdall-style shoulder bag. Face flushed, gaze sliding anywhere but his way, she looked guilty as hell.
She might take a lot of things to and from the office, but they were personal items.
His mind leaped ahead. Supplied him with an answer to a question he hadn’t fully formulated yet. A sick feeling of disbelief started up in his stomach.
Tell me there’s some simple explanation, Chrissy, because I really don’t want to believe the worst of you.
The head of the stevedore company had phoned him again today. His concerns over last-minute alterations to shipping lists had been strong enough for Nate to instigate a discreet investigation of matters at the docks. He had suspected lax business practices on someone’s part. If it was more than that, if Chrissy was somehow involved…
‘Perhaps you might like to tell me what you just put in your bag.’ His tone was harsh, his expression no doubt as tight as it felt, but what could he do except demand an explanation?
She fussed with the bag, then slung it over her shoulder with a defiant flip of her hand. ‘It’s nothing. Just a few things I need to take home.’
‘The papers looked like computer printouts.’ He took a step toward her. ‘Why would you need to take your work home? You haven’t mentioned anything about it to me.’
Give me an explanation, Chrissy. Help me out here.
‘Well, I didn’t know you had bionic vision to see so much in one short glimpse.’ Sarcasm. A sweep of her desk with her gaze. She turned toward the door. ‘If I don’t cross paths with you at Henry’s hospital, I guess I’ll see you Monday.’
Dismissed. Just like that. Even though he was the one with the questions. The one who needed her to reassure him she had nothing to hide.
With a flounce and a sway of her bottom—covered in a red velvet skirt today, thank you very much—she strolled out the door. That bottom sway had been deliberate. He was convinced of it. Still, she was certainly cool under fire if she was hiding something from him.
‘You can’t get away from me that easily.’ He locked the strongroom, stalked out of the office and followed her into the corridor.
‘I’m not trying to get away.’ She cast a disgruntled look his way and kept walking, buttoning her burgundy coat with one hand as she moved. ‘I’m simply going home for the night. That is allowed, you know.’
He wanted her to be innocent of any wrongdoing. It was a demand somewhere deep inside him. From a place that wanted to believe in her, even though he shouldn’t care one way or the other.
It must be the knowledge that she cared so much for his grandfather. Nate’s own guilt at leaving Henry alone so much in past years ate at him.
Henry wanted him to stay. Permanently. It was in his eyes each time Nate visited him at the hospital. Nate couldn’t do that, and maybe he had comforted himself with the knowledge that Chrissy had been there for his grandfather. That she would go on being there for Henry.
How much did she really care, though, if she was hiding secrets? She can’t be hiding secrets. You must have it wrong somehow. ‘Why won’t you tell me—?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ She all but snapped the words, but that flush was there again on her face. ‘I’m only trying to help Henry.’
‘Then tell me what’s in your bag.’ He was a few steps behind her when she almost collided with Margaret Montbank as the woman emerged from the deserted tracking-department offices.
Aggravation coiled inside him. ‘What are you doing here, Margaret?’
Margaret’s initial shock gave way to arrogant bluster. ‘My husband owns this company. Why shouldn’t I be here? But, as it happens, I’m just leaving. Goodnight.’ She turned her back with the clear intention of suiting action to words.
Now Nate had two women trying to block his knowledge of what they were up to. His aggravation levels expanded accordingly. He stepped toward Margaret. ‘Wait a moment, please.’
Chrissy stepped forward, too. ‘Do tell us, Mrs Montbank. What brings you here?’
Nate hadn’t expected Chrissy to intervene. He should have realised she would.
Margaret’s polite mask slipped, revealing frustration and resentment. ‘Don’t question me in that tone, you snide little—’
‘That’s enough.’ It took Nate a moment to realise he had placed himself between his grandfather’s PA and Margaret in case the need to protect Chrissy arose.
Somewhat archaic of him. And Chrissy was probably the last person on earth who would need, or welcome, such a surge of protectiveness.
In a sudden change of tactic, Margaret tossed back her shoulder-length swathe of bottle-blonde hair and preened at him. ‘You’re so edgy, Nate. Couldn’t I have simply come here tonight to see you, darling?’
‘Bleurgh.’ Chrissy attempted, unsuccessfully, to turn her sound of disgust into a cough.
Surprisingly, much of Nate’s aggravation slid away in response to that small, sarcastic sound.
Henry’s wife offered a saccharine smile. ‘Oh, that’s right. The little secretary believes she has you all to herself, doesn’t she?’
Nate knew instantly where Margaret intended to take this. ‘Margaret.’
‘Don’t worry, Nate, dear.’ She lifted one arm, revealing a diamond-studded bracelet that had no doubt cost his grandfather a bomb. ‘I won’t tell Chrissy about our little affair six years ago. You were just a boy, really, not long out of university, and so smitten with me, the slightly older woman.’
‘Slightly older?’ He suppressed the ridiculing guffaw, but couldn’t stop the fury that was unleashed inside him. What gave her the right to put into words her own blatantly unfaithful attitude that had driven him away six years ago? He had left to save Henry from learning of it.
Yet she casually brought the subject up as though she didn’t give a damn who knew what she had tried to do.
‘This had better be the first time you’ve referred to that. And you damned well know there was no—’
‘Please tell me what you wanted in the tracking department, Mrs Montbank.’ Chrissy’s tone was pure office bland. The steam radiating from her was another thing altogether. She had clearly taken Margaret’s story and swallowed it whole.
Says a lot for what she thinks of you, Barrett.
Unaware of his thoughts, Chrissy addressed Margaret again. ‘It’s after hours now, as I’m sure you realised when you discovered the department was closed for the night, but I’d be happy to take a message for one of the tracking staff for Monday.’