It was expressionless and even but she knew exactly how he meant it, and immediately she rebelled. He had told her in the first week that the making and receiving of private calls was quite acceptable, as long as she chose the appropriate time and didn’t talk to her long-lost cousin in Australia every day, but this was the first call—the very first call—she had made. And she wouldn’t have had to do that if he had given her more notice about the Japan trip, either! Well, he certainly needn’t think he was browbeating her or making her feel guilty, she told herself hotly. Even Mr Stanley had allowed her more licence than this.
‘Yes, thank you.’ It was cold and curt and told him his attitude had been noticed and was not appreciated.
‘Then perhaps you’d do a better job on these predicted sales figures than Mr Mason’s secretary has. I can only just work out what they mean and I don’t expect Mr Katchui to have to wade through columns and columns of unnecessary rubbish.’ His voice was clipped and terse, as though she were the one at fault. ‘Whatever we’re paying the woman it’s too much,’ he finished on a growl.
‘Right.’ Cory’s jaw was set as she took the proffered report. ‘We will need to leave here no later than half past two; the flight is at four.’ Her voice was as terse as his and just as cold.
She had been so busy concentrating on avoiding touching his hand that her grasp on the papers was minimal, and as the last page became adrift and began to fall she made a grab for it at the same time as Max bent to retrieve it. They didn’t exactly make contact, but as her brow brushed against his and the warmth and smell of him encompassed her the effect on Cory was like a powerful electric shock, and the rest of the papers fanned out in a graceful arc about his bent head as she shot backwards.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ This time her lunge forward resulted in their heads cracking together with enough force to make Max see stars for a moment or two, and she was aware of her illustrious boss staggering a little and saying something extremely rude before he took a visible hold of himself and said, ‘Leave them, leave them for crying out loud. I’ll do it.’
Cory took a very long deep breath as she watched him bend his knees and gather up the pages, and she tried to ignore the way powerful shoulder muscles bunched under thin silk and the way the pose brought expensively cut trousers tight across lean thighs.
‘Thank you.’ It was succinct in the extreme but all she trusted her voice to say. She was just grateful it wasn’t a croak.
‘My pleasure.’ He glared at her once on straightening before banging the crumpled papers on her desk and turning on his heel, disappearing through his door and slamming it behind him.
Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Cory stared after him as she willed her heartbeat to return to normal. Not content with aiming to knock him out once, she’d had to go back for a second shot at the title! She bet she knew what he was thinking as he sat in there: Come back, Gillian; all is forgiven. The thought brought a weak smile in spite of her embarrassment. In all the six weeks she had been with Gillian she had never once seen the older woman anything but composed, placid and patient when dealing with her volatile boss. Well, they said variety was the spice of life…
Max didn’t risk poking his head out of his office until ten minutes before they were due to leave and, as luck would have it, just as she typed the last number on the neat and concise sales figures she had displayed clearly enough for a child to understand.
‘Just finished,’ Cory said brightly as she pressed the print key. She didn’t look directly at him; she just couldn’t.
He walked across to her desk and stood waiting a moment without speaking, and then, as she handed him the first methodical and compact page of figures, glanced at it intently before raising his eyes and giving her one of his rare and devastating smiles. ‘Excellent. You’ve checked it all?’ he asked briefly.
‘Yes.’ She didn’t add that she’d found several of the columns on the original report had been wrong and that she’d had to go back to Mr Mason to confirm what was what. She had an idea that his secretary wasn’t going to last long anyway.
‘Right.’ He had put down the first sheet of paper and was fastening the collar of his shirt and pulling his tie into place as he said, ‘Time to get moving, I’m afraid. You’re all ready?’
Ordinary though his actions had been, there was a curious intimacy to them that Cory couldn’t have explained but which made her cheeks flush, and now she busied herself tidying the other printed pages and handing them to him as she said, ‘Yes, I’m ready.’
Was the rest of his body the same golden-brown as his face and throat and arms? With his great height and muscled lean frame he must look pretty sensational unclothed… A sudden shiver at the thought awoke her to what she was thinking, and she was weak-kneed with relief that he had turned and gone back to his own office to fetch his things, shutting the door behind him.
What was the matter with her? she asked herself faintly. Had she gone stark staring mad? She couldn’t afford to harbour any thoughts like that about Max Hunter. It was all the more disconcerting because she had never, ever let her imagination run riot with anyone else, even Vivian. But Vivian wasn’t like Max. The thought opened her eyes wide as she plopped down on her seat and then leapt up again to tidy her desk and fetch her suitcase and jacket from her washroom, all the time telling herself she was his secretary, his secretary, for goodness’ sake, and she would be out on her ear if he so much as caught a glimmer of what she was thinking. He would misconstrue it, think she fancied him or something, and she didn’t. She didn’t. She really didn’t.
Due to a last-minute call from the States and then one from Mr Katchui himself, Max didn’t join her in the outer office until nearly three, but the drive from the offices in Brentford to Heathrow was straightforward and Max’s chauffeur drove the car competently and fast through the heavy afternoon traffic.
The couple of package holidays Cory had been on in the past just didn’t prepare her for the sort of treatment afforded the exalted first-class passengers, but she couldn’t enjoy it to the full with every nerve-ending screaming. It was being with him like this. He was obviously the type of man who automatically took care of the woman he was with, and although it was nice—it really was—to be folded into him by his arm round her waist as he used his body as a barricade to protect her in the chaos of the terminal, not to have to carry her heavy case, to be whisked through the usual mind-numbing red tape in a way that made her breathless, it was disconcerting as well. In fact it was more than disconcerting if she was truthful.
And she was vitally aware of the little stir his presence caused among the female contingent too—not that Max seemed to notice. The older women and the very young ones weren’t too bad—the former discreet and the latter somewhat awestruck, but there were a couple of predatory females in the VIP lounge in particular who were quite blatant in their appreciation. And it rankled. The more so because they totally ignored her as though she didn’t exist.
Once on the plane—and never in her wildest dreams had she imagined air travel could be so luxurious—Max’s jacket and tie were immediately discarded and he settled back in his seat with all the appearance of being utterly relaxed. ‘Take your shoes off, loosen anything that needs loosening and prepare for a long journey,’ he drawled lazily as the amber gaze took in her tenseness. ‘We’re nearly twelve hours in the air and the time difference means we land around midday Tokyo time. We’re meeting Mr Katchui late afternoon, and it’s going to be a long twenty-four hours whatever way you look at it. Once we’ve eaten try and catch a few hours’ sleep.’
Cory nodded carefully. Yes, she’d try, and she would also aim to be the efficient, cool secretary a man in his position had the right to expect, she told herself flatly.
Sexual chemistry had its places, but the office was not one of them, she reflected soberly as she undid the buttons of her thin linen jacket and eased her court shoes off her feet. She just didn’t recognise this side of herself when she thought about it. She had never considered herself to be a particularly sensual person; her love for Vivian had care and fondness and warm affection at its core, and of course she had thought he was a