He had put his hand at her back as they had walked out of the restaurant. It had just been a light touch but Charlotte had been extremely conscious of it.
The train jerked to a halt and her eyes flew open. It was her station; she struggled to step out, battling amongst the hordes getting in.
The April rain was cold against her skin as she emerged again onto the streets above. But her mind was still tuned into the night before. They had walked back towards his apartment and he had invited her in for coffee. ‘You may as well wait for a taxi in the comfort of my place,’ he had said easily.
So she had followed him up to the stylish penthouse apartment. She had never been to his home before, and it had felt different being somewhere with him that wasn’t work-related at all. It had made her suddenly self-conscious. And when he had reached to take her coat, she had felt more acutely aware of him than she had ever done.
As he disappeared through to the kitchen to make the coffee she had wandered around the lounge, admiring the décor. ‘Who did the interior design to this apartment?’ She called out the question to him through the open door.
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t particularly interested in interior designers until I met you.’
She smiled at the compliment. Then noticed a photograph of a little girl, about three years of age, with dark shiny hair and a mischievous grin.
‘Who is this?’ she asked as Jordan came back through to the lounge.
‘That’s my daughter, Natasha.’
‘I didn’t know you had a child! She looks adorable.’
‘Yes.’ He put the tray of coffee down on the table and then went over towards her. ‘She was adorable.’ He reached out a hand and took the photograph from her.
‘Was?’ Charlotte had a cold feeling inside as she heard the ominous tone in his voice and saw for a moment raw emotion in the darkness of his eyes.
‘She died almost two years ago.’
‘I’m so sorry, Jordan.’
She watched as he carefully put the photograph back where it had been. And in that instant she wanted to reach out to him, soothe the shadows from his face. Jordan was always so controlled, so confident; she had never seen that rawness of expression on his face before. Instinctively she reached up and touched him, trailing her fingers in a soft caress along the side of his cheek.
He caught her hand in his and then, as their eyes met, the unguarded emotion changed into something else, and he turned the hand to kiss the inside of her wrist. The gesture was totally unexpected and there was something extremely provocative and yet sensitive about it…something that made her insides turn over.
‘You look beautiful tonight,’ he murmured, and his eyes moved over her body in the softly flattering blue suit. ‘But then, you always look beautiful.’
She raised questioning eyes to his. There had always been some kind of turbulent chemistry between them; maybe subconsciously that was why she had always kept a distance from him. Because she knew he spelt danger. But now that feeling of danger was teamed with something else, something much more powerful. She felt it spiralling inside her like a spinning top, whipping around and around in her insides. And she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
He had reached out and touched her face the way she had his and the touch had been like a spark to a can of petrol because the next thing she remembered she had stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
She had made the first move.
Remembering that made her heart stand still.
After the initial moment of surprise he had kissed her back. And what a kiss that had been! Just thinking about it now made her insides clench with desire again. Jordan Lynch knew exactly the right way to kiss a woman. His lips had travelled over hers with a slow, seductive warmth that had been so deliriously wonderful it had made her toes curl.
As passion exploded quickly out of control, there had been a moment when Jordan had pulled back. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he had asked seriously.
She had smiled and reached to kiss him again.
Remembering that now made Charlotte’s skin burn.
Hurriedly she let herself into her flat and leaned back against the door. She was faced with her familiar, modern, perfectly designed home, but it felt different to her now. It was as if the person who had left here last night was not the same person who had returned. It was as if she didn’t know herself any more.
The phone rang on the hall table and her nerves jumped. Would that be Jordan? She didn’t answer it and after a few moments the answering machine clicked in.
‘Hi, sweetheart, it’s David. I hoped I’d catch you before you left for work. Look, I just wanted to tell you again how sorry I am. It was one night, honey, and it didn’t mean anything, not compared with my love for you. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake, a moment of insanity. Anyway…’ His voice trailed off, became more hopeless than eager. ‘I’m flying back to England tomorrow. I’ll call you then.’
The earnest, pleading voice touched the far recesses of her mind. Yesterday she wouldn’t have understood a moment of insanity, but yesterday she had been a sensible person and now…now she didn’t know what the hell she was doing any more.
CHAPTER TWO
HIS timing was wrong. Jordan knew that, he’d known it last night but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. He disliked himself intensely for the weakness. Yet perversely he didn’t regret it. Charlotte had been everything he’d dreamed she’d be; passionate, warm…it had been intensely pleasurable. How could he regret that?
He reached for his briefcase and climbed out of his car. When should he tell her? he wondered. Today wouldn’t be right, not now. He was grimly aware that he was putting off the inevitable again. Charlotte was going to find out, and sooner rather than later, whether he told her or not. It was better that she heard it directly from him and not through a third party. But not today.
The sky was a heavily leaden grey. It was reflected in the choppy waters of the River Thames and the modern glass building that was the central administrative centre for McCann Developments.
Charlotte’s grandfather, George McCann, had started the business years before. He was a builder who had worked his way up from small beginnings to create a successful development firm of good repute. Charlotte’s father, Simon, had taken over the running of the place twenty-five years ago and things had ticked along fairly well until they had hit the recession five years ago, leading to dwindling profits and eventually the necessity of taking on Jordan as a partner.
Being the newcomer on the block hadn’t been as easy as Jordan had anticipated. But he was a talented architect and an experienced businessman with a nose for a good deal. He’d been here for just over a year and already the profits were up. Along the way he’d had to make a few changes to streamline the running of the place, and he knew that even more changes were necessary if the business was to thrive.
His thoughts went to Simon McCann. He admired him and the business was sound. That was the reason he had invested in it in the first place, but just recently he had noticed a change in Simon. He had become reluctant to look at new designs that were essential for them to keep ahead of the opposition. It was almost as if he had lost his enthusiasm. And it was becoming more apparent that if Jordan was to make any real inroads into the success of the business he would need to have the casting vote.
It was coming to crunch time, when he might be forced to get Simon to sell his share of the business to give him overall control, and he didn’t think Charlotte would be too happy about that.
Added to all of that there was the matter of the missing money.
‘Morning, Jordan.’ His secretary paused to wait for him by the lifts in the front lobby.
‘Morning,