over Cleo’s appearance. If anything, she seemed to approve of how Cleo looked, which was a relief.
‘I knew you wouldn’t be late,’ she said with a ready smile.
‘I almost was,’ Cleo returned. ‘I got caught in a sun shower on the way over and had to make a side trip to the ladies’ before coming up. I’m afraid my hair is still damp,’ she added, patting it with her right hand.
‘You walked all the way here?’ Grace said, sounding surprised.
Cleo nodded. ‘Faster than a taxi these days.’
The woman’s eyes dropped to Cleo’s shoes, then to her own. They had stiletto heels, though not as high as the receptionist’s.
‘I can never walk far in these shoes,’ Grace said. ‘Yours are way more sensible. But enough of this chit-chat. Byron’s anxious to meet you.’
Cleo’s stomach tightened as she was ushered over to the door that clearly led into Byron Maddox’s inner sanctum. She wasn’t usually given to nervous anxiety. Since Martin’s death, nothing much fazed her any more. Watching your husband die slowly of cancer did something to your emotions. She sometimes envied Scott’s wife, Sarah, who had a warm, bubbly personality. Cleo suspected that most people she met and dealt with found her distant, and cold. Scott really should be the one to be here doing this, not her.
Oh, well, she thought resignedly as Grace knocked on the door. What will be, will be.
‘Come in,’ a male voice invited. It was a pleasant enough voice. Not too deep or too threatening. She disliked bosses who barked at their employees, especially their PAs. But, of course, Byron Maddox would not be a barker. He’d be a charmer. Cleo had read up about him. Underneath the charm, however, would lie the mind of a man who’d built his own successful company in five short years. She had to be careful not to underestimate him. He might have the look of a playboy—and the lifestyle—but he was sure to be a chip off the old block. No one would dare underestimate Lloyd Maddox. Colleagues and enemies had done so in the past at their peril. Or so she’d read in an article written by a journalist in Forbes magazine.
Grace opened the door. ‘Cleo’s here,’ she said in a highly natural and familiar manner, which boded well. Clearly, she wasn’t afraid of her boss. Cleo’s own tension eased somewhat.
She stepped into an office that would have done a Hollywood producer proud. Everything was very spacious, very expensive and very male, from the thick sable-coloured carpet to the book-lined walls and the built-in drinks cabinet. Two chocolate-brown chesterfields flanked the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window that stretched along the far wall and provided an uninterrupted view of Sydney and the harbour, with all its splendid icons. Stretched in front of this window was a huge desk, made in a rich dark wood, behind which sat Byron Maddox in a high-backed brown leather swivel chair.
He rose immediately after Grace retreated and closed the door, thus giving Cleo a complete view of his attractions. Which were considerable.
Cleo already knew he was a handsome man, a tall, fair-haired god with the kind of even facial features and good bone structure that made male models and movie stars so photogenic. But in the flesh, he was more than that. Maybe it was his sparkling blue eyes, or his sexy mouth, or his tall, broad-shouldered frame, which was superbly housed in the type of business suit that screamed Italian tailoring. His effect on Cleo was instantaneous and quite startling. Her female hormones—which she’d believed dead and buried—leapt into life, threatening to bring an unwelcome and humiliating heat to her neck and face.
Luckily, she managed to keep her reaction restricted to just a racing heartbeat and a squishy feeling in her stomach, but it was the disorientating effect on her brain that rattled her the most. She could hardly think straight!
Cleo was still out of kilter when he said something in greeting, then reached out his hand to shake hers, accompanying the gesture with a winning smile that showed perfect white teeth. Her own returning smile felt robotic, her teeth clamped tightly together as the corners of her mouth lifted only slightly. She must have put her own hand out as well, because suddenly it was encased within the warmth of his, his other hand reaching to cover their handshake at the same time, keeping her fingers solidly captive in his clasp.
It was possibly a well-practised ploy, Cleo was to think later—after her brain started working again—but it worked brilliantly at the time, making her warm to him even further as well as want him in a way she’d never wanted a man before.
This last appalling thought snapped her out of her uncharacteristically muddled state of mind. How could she possibly want Byron Maddox like that? And so quickly? It had taken her weeks to go to bed with Martin. And she’d been deeply in love with him. Yet within seconds of meeting Byron Maddox all she could think about was how it would feel to lie naked in his arms, to have his mouth explore every part of her.
Cleo was shocked by her desires. He’d be good in bed, she just knew it. After all, he’d had plenty of practice. Martin had been a virgin when they met, as had she. They’d both been highly embarrassed after their first fumbling attempts at sex. They’d worked things out eventually and she’d quite enjoyed herself at the beginning of their relationship. But not all the time. No, definitely not all the time.
Cleo stared into Byron Maddox’s blue eyes with the certainty that she would enjoy herself every time with this man.
But it was all just fantasy, she knew, using her hard-won strength of character to control her rampant desires and face reality. Cleo knew full well that she would never have the opportunity to find out what kind of lover Byron Maddox was. She was not the sort of woman this bachelor playboy took to bed. She wasn’t blonde, or beautiful, or sexy. She was a very ordinary brunette with no fashion sense and zero sex appeal.
Well, that was life, she supposed. Her life, anyway. It was perverse, however, that after not caring about men or sex since Martin’s death, the one man she found fascinating in that regard was totally out of her reach.
Which was just as well, she thought, as she carefully extracted her hand from his and found her best business face. She already had a difficult mission to achieve today with this man. She didn’t need the distraction of trying to seduce him as well—the ridiculous impossibility of that mission evoked a wild urge to laugh. She smothered the impulse much more easily than she was smothering her highly unwanted cravings.
‘I am so sorry Scott wasn’t able to keep his appointment with you,’ she said with cool politeness. ‘Hopefully, I can tell you everything you need to know over lunch.’
* * *
Byron doubted it. Because he wanted to know quite a lot. Not just about McAllister Mines but about Cleo Shelton, PA extraordinaire. And a woman of contradictions.
Byron was usually a good judge of females but this one had him stumped. When she’d first walked in he’d been taken aback by her appearance. Dull was his initial thought. Dull and boring. He hated boring. He also hated black pant suits and drab black pumps and severe, scraped-back hairstyles. He liked women to look like women.
But when he came closer to her, he’d seen she wasn’t as plain as he’d originally thought. Or as old. No more than thirty. She had lovely unlined olive skin and fine dark eyes. Her mouth was a little wide but her lips were nicely shaped. It was her lack of lipstick—or any make-up at all—that gave a colourless first impression. Her hairdo did little for her as well. Talk about unflattering!
He hadn’t known what to make of her, especially when he saw the look she gave him as he walked towards her. For a few seconds her eyes had glittered the way a girl’s eyes glittered when sexual attraction raised its delightful head. When he’d shaken her hand, he’d felt heat in her palm, plus a slight quivering up her arm. And oddly, he’d responded in kind, suddenly finding his own hormones sparking as well. He’d liked the way she’d stared at him. Liked it a lot, his sexually charged imagination filling with images of how she would look without those dreadful clothes on, her mouth gasping wide with pleasure.
But then abruptly, everything changed. She pulled her hand away and, when