The Best Of February 2016. Catherine Mann
him to believe their wedding could go ahead.
“I understand you might have to take certain measures if the baby proves to be yours, but none of that has to affect plans that have been in the works for years.”
Her tone had been persuasive, which set off all his inner lie detectors.
He just didn’t see himself sleeping with Sorcha after three years of anticipating it, then firing her within hours. He wouldn’t do that to her. Over the years, when he had contemplated becoming sexually involved with her, he’d expected it would put an end to her employment with him, but via a lengthy affair that involved cruising on his yacht. Perhaps a visit to his place in Majorca.
Despite entertaining that fantasy more or less daily, he hadn’t wanted to lose her at work. She was the best damned PA he’d ever had. So he’d fought his attraction and kept his hands off her for three long, interminable years.
It had been a delicate balance.
And with that much sexual tension built up, it was no surprise he had eagerly pounced if she had proved agreeable, but it didn’t make this situation any easier to understand or navigate.
Especially when his phone was blowing up with messages from his family that he didn’t have to cancel his wedding.
Damn it, it was done. Perhaps too summarily, and with too much relief, but it was done.
Pocketing keys and phone, he left the car and strode single-mindedly into the hospital—and recoiled at the smell.
It was dinner hour. He’d had enough of that generic hospital-food aroma while recovering from his crash, but determination to get to the bottom of things propelled him through his repulsion to ask for Sorcha’s room number.
Seconds later he took the stairs in swift leaps, paced quickly down the hall, had to identify himself to a guard—what the hell was that?—and finally pushed through her door.
To find her sleeping.
The rush of adrenaline that had been coursing through his arteries since he’d taken the call from the hospital pooled into a full body burn. It wasn’t so much the angelic look of her that brought him up short, although that had always fascinated him when she’d fallen asleep on planes and curled up in break rooms. She wasn’t wearing makeup, which was an oddly vulnerable look for her, blond lashes and brows barely visible, lips a pale pink, translucent skin the color of freshly poured cream.
No, the intravenous tube attached to her wrist and the wheelchair next to the bed stunned him. A prickling uneasiness stung his back and gut and limbs.
He had visited a woman in hospital after childbirth exactly once: when his sister had been born. His mother had sat on the bed looking as flawless as she had on every other occasion of his life. His six-year-old brain hadn’t computed that the baby in the tiny bed on wheels beside her would turn into a child like himself. The room had smelled of flowers and he had not been allowed to take one of the colorful balloons suspended above them. They were just for looks. His parents had been as calmly satisfied as they were capable of being, having produced a third child as scheduled and without setbacks.
There was no baby in Sorcha’s clinically barren room, however. No flowers. No balloons.
His heart lurched. He stepped closer to read the labels on the IV bags, one saline, the other an antibiotic. A breast pump had been unpacked from its box and the instructions left on her food tray. She’d been given consommé and gelatin for dinner. Liquids after surgery, he distantly computed, tempted to brush that strand of blond hair from where it slashed in stark contrast across the shadow beneath her eye.
Sorcha had had a baby.
Despite all that had happened, his brain was still trying to absorb that much and couldn’t make sense of the rest. Paternity test? Him? A father?
Three years ago, she had landed her position as his PA with a claim that should have made his fathering her baby impossible.
He’d wanted her from the moment she’d entered his office wearing a pencil skirt and a fitted jacket, both moving like a caress on her slender curves as she walked toward him. She’d had just enough of her throat exposed to avoid being either prudish or inviting. Her blond hair had been held in a simple clip at her nape, her makeup subtly highlighting her pure features. Her smile had only faltered for one blink before it became pleasant and confident. She’d shaken his hand as though they were equals, smoothly pretending her tiny start of sexual awareness hadn’t happened.
He’d seen it, however. After a lifetime of always seeing it, he was far more surprised if a glimmer of attraction didn’t happen in a woman’s face. He was marginally surprised that Sorcha suppressed and set aside her response so well. In his experience, women were either disconcerted by his male energy and became flustered, or quickly tried to find an answering reaction in him by flirting and growing supple with their body language.
Adept at compartmentalizing his own rise of attraction, particularly in the workplace, he’d taken her hand and invited her to sit, ignoring the sizzle in his blood. But the fact it was there, and so strong, had him deciding against her before she’d bent her narrow waist and pressed her delightfully flared hips into the leather of the interview chair. As much as he preferred his surroundings to be aesthetically pleasing, he’d learned beautiful women could be a detriment in the office, creating politics and causing colleagues to behave badly.
He’d gone through the process of listening to her pitch, however, since he’d promised he would, and she had captured his attention with her wrap-up.
“Finally, I have a solution to a problem that has impacted your productivity for several years.”
“What problem is that?” he’d asked with forced patience, thinking drily, Dazzle me. He knew all the challenges he faced as he expanded from running his own chemical engineering firm into heading the Montero conglomerate. He’d already made plans for every single pothole in the road.
“You’ve been running through personal assistants at three and four a year,” she said matter-of-factly. “Stability at your base will be paramount as you pick up and run with all your added responsibilities. I’m prepared to offer you a five-year commitment and a promise that I won’t sleep with you.”
He’d leaned into the backrest of his executive chair to take a fresh assessment of the admittedly competent PA from his father’s London office whose brazenness was astonishing. He incinerated powerful men in seconds with this battle-ready stare, but if she was shaking under its laser heat, she was remarkably good at maintaining her demeanor.
“Please take that as a statement of my suitability, not a challenge,” she added with a tight smile.
“‘Excellent communication skills’ also means knowing what not to say, Ms. Kelly.” He flicked his we’re-done glance from her to the door and tapped his keyboard to bring up the next applicant’s file.
“Whether you actually slept with your PAs isn’t the issue. The perception that you do is an image problem and will persist if you hire one of my older, male competitors.” She thumbed toward the roomful of hopefuls beyond his office door. “Hire me, and I’ll actively put rumors to rest. Furthermore, I won’t throw myself at you or pitch a jealous fit at having to pamper the women who are in your life. I won’t hit on them, either. Or on any of your associates.”
She was well-informed. The previous male assistants he’d tried had done exactly that, offering “consolation” to the women he’d broken off with. The married women hadn’t been able to keep up with the demands of his travel schedule while the one matronly woman he’d tried had brought a lot of judgment with her. The rest had been a mix of what Sorcha had just described: women given to flirting or openly inviting him or his fellow executives into their beds, searching for a more comfortable situation than working for a living. Even if they hadn’t gone that far, they’d too often grown possessive and resentful of his dates.
As for sleeping with any of his PAs, it had happened once in his early years, before he had realized such mistakes could leave