LITMIR.BIZ

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… a touch.

      ‘We have to leave in thirty minutes,’ he told her nonchalantly.

      ‘I’ll be ready.’ It was disquieting how he could look at her with intensity yet sound so coolly businesslike at the same time.

      He nodded. ‘I’m going across the road to the deli for something to eat and a coffee; do you want me to bring you something back?’

      ‘No thanks.’ She didn’t think she could eat anything; her stomach was too busy churning with nervous apprehension.

      ‘Sure?’

      ‘Very sure indeed, thanks.’

      His dark eyes were lingering on her face now, and she wished she’d taken the time to brush her hair. She put a self-conscious hand up to the tumble of curls and tried to push it back. ‘If you will excuse me, Alexi, I’m just on my way for a shower.’

      ‘Go right ahead.’

      ‘I will, if you would just move out of my way.’ She really didn’t want to brush past him, not after their earlier encounter.

      He laughed. ‘Heavens, Kats, you could get a tank past me, and you’re only the size of a baby doll.’

      He hadn’t called her Kats in a long time. It had been his pet name for her when they’d made love, and the memory of him whispering against her ear and stroking her sent a fierce wave of emotion through her.

      ‘Don’t call me that.’

      ‘Why not? You used to like it.’

      ‘Well, I don’t now!’ She glared up at him. ‘This is the start of our new professional working relationship, remember? And I think we should start as we mean to go on.’

      He smiled at that, and it made anger sizzle inside her—however it was an anger that started to undergo a metamorphosis as his gaze moved slowly over her scantily clad body again.

      How the hell did he do this to her? she wondered in disbelief; how could he look at her like that and make her want him?

      ‘And, just for the record, I wouldn’t be walking around like this if there was an en suite bathroom in my room,’ she assured him sharply.

      ‘Wouldn’t you?’

      ‘No, of course not! It’s most inconvenient!’

      ‘Well, then, you better move to the room across the hallway.’

      Her eyes flicked warily to the door he had indicated.

      ‘This is a four-bed apartment, Katie,’ he told her with a shake of his head. ‘And you selected the only room that doesn’t have en suite facilities.’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me that this morning?’ Her face suffused with colour.

      ‘Well, we had other things on our mind this morning, didn’t we?’ He smiled as he watched how easily she blushed. He enjoyed winding her up, enjoyed the way she threw the full fulminating heat of her gaze on him.

      ‘You really are intolerable sometimes!’ She marched past him at speed, slammed the bathroom door behind her and leaned back against it.

      Damn man! He was absolutely infuriating … and infuriatingly gorgeous at the same time. The thought crept in with unwelcome force. She was sure he could get anyone he wanted into bed with just a teasing look.

      Her eyes connected with her reflection in the mirror opposite. But not her, she reassured herself firmly. Not her.

      She went across and turned the shower on, then took some cleansers and a body wash from her bag. She was about to slip out of her dressing gown and under the steamy hot water when she suddenly felt queasy. The feeling just hit her out of nowhere.

      What on earth was wrong with her? she wondered as she clung to the side of the basin and waited for the feeling to pass. She’d had a few hours’ sleep so it couldn’t be tiredness. She hadn’t eaten anything that would make her ill. And she couldn’t be pregnant because she had done that test and it had come back negative.

      A curl of apprehension stirred inside her suddenly.

      But she still hadn’t had her period, and it was over two months late now!

      The realisation sent apprehension spinning into full-blown panic. It would be OK, she reassured herself. The test had definitely been negative, and her periods were irregular sometimes.

      Even so, they were never this late!

      She looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin was so ashen it looked almost opaque. But she couldn’t be pregnant, she told herself again. However, just to reassure herself, maybe she should buy another pregnancy-testing kit.

      The boardroom was hot and stuffy, and there were so many people around the long polished table that there was hardly room to breathe.

      Katie had found herself wedged between Alexi, who was presiding at the head of the meeting, and a hefty man who seemed determined to encroach into her space. One of his elbows was almost in her ribs. She tried to lean away from him, but that brought her too close to Alexi. And she would rather have been prodded to death than get too close to him.

      The confines of his apartment were too much for her, never mind the space at this table! This morning had been hell. It was totally weird to be in such a close situation with a man who had once known every curve of her body intimately. How did you move on and forget that? How did you go from being lovers to sharing an apartment platonically?

       And what was she going to do if she found out she was expecting his baby?

      Her fingers tightened on the pen she was holding as she tried to focus on the conversation and jot down the relevant information she needed.

      ‘So, gentlemen, if you would turn to page two you will see the chart for the projected expansion into the market,’ Alexi instructed.

      Katie watched as everyone dutifully turned over the pages.

      She wouldn’t be pregnant, she told herself calmly. She’d probably just got a stomach bug. And she did feel a lot better now.

      And as for sharing the apartment it wouldn’t be for long. They’d be home tomorrow, and anyway perhaps she would just get used to being around Alexi again, and after a while all these feelings inside her would just go away of their own accord.

      Their eyes met as she glanced up and immediately the theory seemed ludicrous. How could she get used to being around someone who made her whole system melt into emotional chaos?

      ‘Katie, do you want to run through the schedules you are setting up for us?’ he asked suddenly.

      ‘Yes, of course.’ She tried to inject the right amount of professionalism into her tone and squeezed back from her place to dutifully do as he had asked.

      She was very conscious of his eyes following her as she stood up and went to turn on the projector so that she could make her points with the visual aid of the screen.

      ‘As you can see, the sales are up in that sector, but we need to concentrate on our main targets.’

      Alexi tried to concentrate solely on the graphs that Katie was pointing to. But she kept sidetracking him. She looked fantastic in the tight-fitting little grey suit; he could see every curve of her figure as she stretched.

      ‘I’ve taken the accountants’ provisional estimates and, as you see, the results are very exciting.’ She flicked a switch so that the next graph came up on screen.

      Not as exciting as the way she had kissed him in the early hours of the morning, or the way she had looked in that short robe … The thought crept into Alexi’s mind, along with the image she had presented with her long hair tumbling around her shoulders, and her curvaceous body tantalisingly hidden by silk.

      She was too damn sexy.

      His eyes followed her around the

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