LITMIR.BIZ

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date stand you up?’ he couldn’t resist asking, wondering if there was a more direct way he could ask her who she was having lunch with without making himself look more of a moron than he already was.

      Eyes huge behind the lenses of her tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, Catherine shook her head.

      She didn’t seem inclined to add anything, so Max asked, ‘Did you want that report for a particular reason?’

      He watched, fascinated, as the tip of her tongue came out to scoot quickly across her bottom lip.

      She had the sexiest bottom lip he’d ever seen.

      ‘No,’ she said, and the bottom lip pinched itself in, in its usual repressed fashion.

      Still looked sexy, though.

      Max sucked a drop of blood from his wound, waiting to hear what Catherine would add. But it seemed no more information was forthcoming. ‘Then do you think I could have it back?’ he asked politely.

      ‘It?’

      ‘The report.’

      ‘Of course,’ she said, looking down as she hived off some pages from the back and held the rest out to him. She turned quickly on her heel.

      Before she could take a step, Max asked, ‘Don’t I get to look at those pages, too?’

      She stopped. Her shoulders tightened. And then she shrugged and said over her shoulder, ‘Just some shredding you picked up by mistake with the report. I wanted to take care of it before I left for lunch.’

      And then she was running out.

      And Catherine North had never run anywhere in this office. Until today.

      So... What was so special about today?

      Max’s mouth turned down. In short—nothing.

      His return to the office had been monumentally disappointing. Not that he’d had any business expecting anything to be different just because he’d been away for two weeks and they’d left things a little...

      Ugh. A little nothing! That was how they’d left things.

      They’d worked hard that night, and she’d been so gob-smackingly smart, and warm, and energised, and it had been great. Like a revelation. No, not a revelation—a confirmation...of something he’d always suspected. That Catherine was...special.

      And then they’d taken the elevator down to the car park and he’d said, ‘Thank you for your help,’ and she’d said, ‘No problem,’ and they’d looked at each other... One, two, three, four beats.

      And then they’d gone to their cars and driven off.

      And he’d flown to Canada as fast as he’d been able to book and go.

      Yep, he really was a moron.

      ‘Moron’: word of the day. And it was all his.

      He went back to page one of the report.

      Two minutes later he was cursing and slamming it down again. He was getting nowhere. And all because Catherine was...different. As if something had changed.

      Running away to Canada without telling her had obviously been a mistake. But he’d just been...cautious. No, he was never cautious. More like reluctant. Reluctant to mess around with their excellent working relationship by giving in to his curiosity about her. Curiosity about what it would be like to—

      No! He shot to his feet. He would not go there, even in his head.

      He started pacing around the office, letting out some excess energy.

      Not going there. Because it was one thing flirting in the office when you both knew the score, but quite another to hit on a strait-laced virgin who was not interested. Even his father, serial secretary-dater and all-round loser, didn’t go there.

      And Ms North was not remotely interested. Ms North did not know the meaning of the word ‘flirt’. Ms North would skewer him with a letter-opener if he laid a lukewarm look on her, let alone a questing finger. Look at the way she’d freaked when he’d held her fingers for a couple of seconds—as if he was an eagle and she was a tiny bird struggling to get free of his talons. And the reception he’d got on arrival today, which had given new meaning to the word ‘unwelcome’. She’d even had it in for his new tie.

      He looked down at his tie, decided she was right, and tugged it off. Laughed again as he went back to his desk and sat down.

      And then he wondered if he was going mad, laughing about his tie in the middle of this mess. His hands went diving into his hair. It— No, she! She was so...so frustrating.

      At first it had been a novelty, having an assistant who wasn’t remotely interested in his body.

      But it had moved past that, to another novelty: being seriously attracted to someone who looked as if she’d faint if she heard the word ‘sex’.

      Even without today’s hair and top and toenails—even when she was buttoned to the hilt in ill-fitting shirts covered with drab cardigans in shades of porridge and grey and dinge-green—he’d started feeling a little tortured—but in a weirdly good way—being near her.

      That lemony fresh perfume she wore combined with her natural scent beneath it—lovely. The way her luminous hazel eyes shone behind her lenses when she was arguing her case—adorable. The habit she had of touching the button at her collar as though reassuring herself it was done up—intriguing. And when her fingers sneaked up to her perfectly shaped ear to touch the discreet gold hoop—demure...and yet somehow not demure.

      He cursed under his breath, reached for the report again and saw another tiny bead of blood from the paper cut. He grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and blotted it. Frowned at his hand as he remembered the look on Catherine’s face. There had been something at the bottom of the report Catherine hadn’t wanted him to see.

      Max thought back again to his arrival that morning. He’d been so shocked at how she looked he’d been blinded to anything else at first. But if he dug past that there had been...dismay. No, more than dismay. She hadn’t wanted him anywhere near her. Because of...

      The printing!

      She’d been on edge because—and the truth was slapping him in the face now—he’d disturbed her printing something she shouldn’t have been printing. She hadn’t wanted to tell him what the document was—not that he’d really cared; he’d only asked because she’d looked so guilty. He’d wanted to goad her a little, get one of those mind-your-own-business glares out of her that just cracked him up. But now...?

      What would a personal assistant be printing that her boss shouldn’t see? What would have her running in and snatching it out of his hands? Hmm...

      Oh. Oh! Well, of course. A job application!

      But she’d been printing reams. Too long for a letter and CV.

      So not just one job. More than one. Which meant she wasn’t attracted to a special job she’d just happened upon but wanting to leave this job and going all-out scattergun to do it. God knew how many emails she’d sent to complement so many snail-mail CVs.

      It was like an arrow between the eyes, and for a full minute he couldn’t think straight.

      And then he could think. But his poor benumbed brain seemed willing to accommodate only one thought: Catherine wasn’t allowed to leave.

      He forced himself to put that ironclad fact to one side. Because if his bogged brain didn’t start working how was he going to figure out a way to make her stay?

      Just ask her to!

      Okay, that seemed logical—although how he could do it out of the blue, when she hadn’t actually indicated she was unhappy with her job, was not immediately obvious.

      Except... Damn. She’d said today she couldn’t afford to go to Kurrangii. Had to be a message in that. He

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