about it—and she hadn’t made the move to London to live in a perpetual state of tension and stress.
‘Then Gillian has chosen well.’ It wasn’t what Cory was expecting and she was eternally glad the lift chose that precise moment to open its silent doors and deliver them in Reception. ‘Now, a nice relaxing lunch, I think?’
His voice was even and distant suddenly, and, ridiculous though it was, Cory felt as though the man now escorting Gillian and herself through the ingratiating smiles and nods in Reception was an entirely different creature from the one she had seen so far. He was cool and remote and self-assured, every inch the powerful tycoon and entrepreneur, as he strode through the hushed and immaculate surroundings and out through the gleaming brass and glass doors which one of the reception staff had fallen over themselves to open.
A blue and silver Rolls-Royce was parked at the kerb outside the building with magnificent disregard for yellow lines, and as Max led the two women towards it Cory had the notion she was taking part in a flamboyant movie, and any moment a director would be leaping in front of them and shouting, ‘Cut! It’s a take.’
The chauffeur had opened the rear door of the limousine the moment he had caught sight of Max, and now, as Cory followed Gillian into the rich leather interior, she wished there were a little more room in her skirt. Discreet, calf-length and prim it was, cut for scrambling in and out of breathtaking vehicles like this one it wasn’t, and she was vitally conscious of Max Hunter just inches behind her and no doubt with his eyes on the material straining over her backside.
She was hot and pink by the time she was seated next to Gillian, but then, as Max joined them on her other side and his hard male thigh rested against hers, she knew what a pressure cooker felt like. He was her boss. He was just her boss. Say after me…
If her life had depended on it Cory couldn’t have told anyone how long it took to reach Montgomery’s, the route the Rolls took through the heavy lunchtime traffic or even what the three of them discussed en route. Every fibre of her being, every cell in her body was concentrated on not making the biggest fool of herself ever, but she must have sounded fairly coherent and behaved normally because Gillian’s nice round face was quite cheerful and relaxed when the limousine eventually glided to a halt outside the sort of establishment that just reeked of class and wealth.
Of course the glass of champagne might have helped. When Max had leant forward and opened the polished wood cocktail cabinet in front of their seat Cory had determinedly stopped her mouth from falling open—twice in one morning was quite enough—but her eyes had widened all the same. The glasses were tall and exotic and chilled, the champagne was pink and frothy and tasted like all the summers she had ever experienced rolled into one, and Max’s toast—‘A welcome to the newest member of Hunter Operations’—brought the colour that had just receded from her cheeks flooding back again.
‘I don’t remember you doing this for me when we first started working together, Max?’ Gillian had already said, with her first sip of champagne, that it would go straight to her head, and certainly as her employer helped both women out of the car Gillian was as flushed as Cory as she grinned at Max.
He smiled easily. ‘I wasn’t sure how to treat a secretary in those days, Gillian, if you remember. I’ve learned as I’ve gone along.’
Cory envied the other woman’s quiet familiarity with their boss. Of course Gillian was a good few years older than Max and very happily married to boot, and she’d known him for years, but Cory just knew she would never, never, be able to adopt the almost motherly approach that Gillian did so well and which, at heart, was the basis for all good boss/secretary relationships. He just scared her to death. He did what?
Immediately the thought formed she caught it in horror. She wasn’t frightened of Max Hunter—she’d never been overawed by any man, even her old headmaster who was a tyrant of the first order and had scared everyone rigid. She was not frightened of Max Hunter! That was the most ludicrous, stupid, crazy notion she’d ever had! It was the champagne. It had to be the champagne.
‘Cory? Is anything wrong?’
Gillian’s gentle voice brought her out of the whirling maelstrom of her thoughts, and to the realisation that she was standing in the middle of the crowded pavement with people weaving around her. Hardly the pose for a young, dynamic secretary!
‘Shall we?’ Gillian gestured towards the building in front of them and as Cory’s eyes focused on Max she saw he was holding open the door of the restaurant, an expression of great patience on his face, but it was the look in the beautiful and compelling amber eyes that bothered her. They were narrowed and intent and piercingly steady, and they brought to mind a wildlife programme she had seen just the other night, when a quite magnificent tawny-eyed lion had been watching his prey—a delicate and fine-boned wildebeest—with frightening and fierce single-mindedness.
And then he blinked and smiled, heavy lids and thick black lashes sweeping down, and when he looked at her again he was just an unusually arresting and powerful man. A man any woman would think worthy of a second glance, a man of intimidating intelligence and undeniable presence but, nevertheless, just a man.
The meal was simply wonderful, and seated as they were in a quiet and private alcove, where they could see and yet not be seen, Cory found herself relaxing enough to enjoy the good food. From the moment they had been seated Max had set out to be a charming and amusing dinner companion, keeping the two women entertained with a monologue of witty and slightly wicked stories, and by the time Cory had spooned the last delicious morsels of feather-light crêpe Suzette into her mouth she had been lulled into a comfortable state of false security.
So it made it all the more shocking when, Gillian having disappeared to the ladies’ cloakroom a moment or two earlier, Max turned to Cory and held her eyes with his own as he said calmly, ‘Well, Cory? Have you decided whether to turn tail and run or stay yet?’ He raised those cruel black eyebrows again.
‘What?’ It was too loud—she knew her voice had been too loud and that was quite the wrong tack to take with this man. She needed to be calm, unflustered and in control, she thought feverishly as she watched him settle back in his seat and continue to survey her through slits of brilliant light that brought the poor wildebeest to mind again. Although at least on the plains there was somewhere to run.
He was the sort of man who was intimidating even when he wasn’t intending to be, and she wasn’t sure if he was intending to be now or not. He was so big, that was part of the problem—so masculine and uncompromisingly virile. Everything he did, every little gesture or movement, was so controlled and disciplined and it was formidable. He had an aura of authority, but not in a comforting or reassuring way—at least she didn’t find it so, Cory told herself nervously. Hunter by name and Hunter by nature…
Oh, for goodness’ sake, girl, pull yourself together! The rebuke was loud and angry in her head. She’d be crediting him with supernatural powers next and wouldn’t he just love that?
The thought acted in much the same way as a douse of cold water on her fluttering panic, and Cory forced herself to take several silent breaths before she smiled and said, her voice as cool as she could make it, ‘I really don’t know what you are talking about, Max.’
There, she’d said his name without the slightest pause or hesitation, even giving it a slightly scornful intonation.
‘No?’ The gold was very clear around the bottomless black pupils. ‘You mean to say you weren’t considering whether you’d come back tomorrow or just call it quits?’ he asked silkily.
‘No, I wasn’t.’ And she hadn’t been, not really. Admittedly she had wondered whether he would pull the plug on her, but she hadn’t seriously considered leaving herself. Whatever else, she wasn’t a quitter, and she said so now. ‘I agreed to take the position for a trial period to see if things worked out and I would honour that whatever,’ she said firmly. ‘And it works both ways—you might decide I’m not suitable,’ she added reasonably.
‘I knew within the first five minutes whether you were suitable or not,’ he said softly. ‘In business