Avril Tremayne - Turning the Good Girl Bad

Next thing Max was tossing her notepad behind him onto the desk and catching her hand in his. Four whole months without physical contact, and in one morning three separate hits?

Today just sucked.

‘You’re shaking,’ he said, his face full of concern. ‘And you’ve hardly said a word for the past hour. Something’s wrong. Are you ill?’

‘No, I’m not ill,’ she snapped. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

Max looked disbelieving.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted, but he clearly wasn’t convinced.

Catherine tried to pull her hand free. ‘A bit tired, that’s all,’ she offered.

‘Tired? Why?’

Oh, for God’s sake.

‘Just a...a late night.’

She wondered what Max would say if she gave him the bald truth: A late night transferring a few sexual fantasies about you from my head to the page. Yeah—maybe not.

He let go of her hand—whew!—and folded his arms so his hands were jammed under his armpits.

‘Oh. A late night. I thought maybe—’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Must be lunchtime, right? I assume you have...’ Another clearing of the throat. ‘Do you have plans?’

She got to her feet with alacrity. ‘Yes, I do.’

He watched her for a long moment. X-ray eyes.

Catherine’s hand reached for the button that wasn’t there, and at last Max waved her towards the door. ‘Can you be back by one-thirty?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Catherine said, and dodged around him to grab her notepad.

She hurried from the office as Max reefed the report he’d taken from her in-tray off the desk, as though it would bite him if he didn’t subdue it.

Typical Max! He never just picked something up—he had to throttle it.

Back at her desk, Catherine neatened her work area mechanically. Simmering at the back of her mind was the worrying certainty that her working relationship with Max had gone off the rails this morning. That she’d been caught out.

Something’s wrong. Are you ill?

Yes, I’m sick with lust! What are you going to do about it?

He’d bypass the thermometer and go straight for the psychiatrist if he knew the truth.

She heard a curse float out from his office. He always cursed and tore his hands through his hair when something outside his control slowed him down, so he must have seen something wrong in the report.

She caught herself smiling, and pinched her lips to stop it. What the hell was there to smile at? If there was something wrong in the report Max had only himself to blame, because he’d choofed off to Canada instead of sticking around to beat it into shape.

And him choofing off to Canada was none of her business. She wished he’d go back to Canada. She wished he’d relocate to Canada and email his work in. Because it was not ‘our’ resort. It was his resort. And she would do well to remember that. Sharp, clear distinction between work and personal. Because work wasn’t personal. Work was work.

And, now she thought of it, she was going to change that scene in Passion Flower. That scene with Alex and Jennifer working in the office over a Thai meal—which she would make a...a...a Chinese meal. In fact she would delete the whole scene. Because in reality that interlude had ended with a brusque ‘Thank you for your help’ and a drive away—and what was so romantic about that? What did she think she was doing, turning that into a ‘Jenny, do you know how long I’ve wanted you?’ moment, complete with a slow reel in and a soft kiss?

She was a freaking idiot!

And her damned book sucked.

‘Sucked’: word of the day.

Her eyes moved to her in-tray, where her dark secret was buried.

Uh-oh. Where her dark secret was not buried.

Because the manuscript was sitting brazenly on top.

A whoosh of panic had her reaching for the back of her chair to steady herself. Until she remembered that the report had been covering it and Max had taken the report. That was the only reason the book was sitting there exposed.

Nothing to panic over.

Until she reached out to grab the pages so she could stick them in her briefcase...and saw the page on top.

She distinctly remembered scoring a red mark on the page when Max had called her name.

But there was no red mark on the page.

Catherine’s heart stopped, then started pounding. She slid into her chair, boneless. Flicked through her in-tray again. Sat stock-still for one appalled moment.

No red mark anywhere.

So...if the report had been on top of the manuscript, that meant...

No—God, no. Max Rutherford had picked up a few pages of her book along with his report!

And Max had started reading that report as she was leaving the office.

Hot, then cold, then hot. Hyperventilation. Paper bag...she needed a paper bag. Brain not working. Brain dead.

Then adrenaline tore through her veins and her synapses fired—electrified by pure fear—and she latched on to two essential facts: one, if Max had read even one sentence of those pages he would have come screeching out already and, two, she had to get those pages back.

Get them back immediately. But without running into his office, waving her arms and looking like an insane asylum escapee.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Nope—there was nothing for it. It was physically impossible for her to walk calmly into Max’s office.

She was going in like an insane person.

TWO Contents Cover Introduction Max was sitting in her chair, eyes glued to her computer screen. Ohhhhhhhh … Not much of a thought, but all she could manage initially. She reminded herself that she had turned everything off—the flash drive was in her drawer, the printed pages were shoved in her briefcase, and there was no way he could be looking at Passion Flower. He was probably looking for the Queensland report, to make some changes. So breathe. Breathe and be normal. ‘Mr Rutherford? Is there something you wanted urgently? You should have called me,’ she said, forcing herself not to run to her desk but to take it slowly, calmly. Max raised his head and looked at her—slack-jawed, marvelling, astounded. And Catherine knew. Max’s voice, when it finally came, was unbelievably husky. ‘You wrote this?’ Dear Reader Title Page Turning the Good Girl Bad Avril Tremayne www.millsandboon.co.uk About the Author AVRIL TREMAYNE read Jane Eyre as a teenager and has been hooked on tales of passion and romance ever since. An opportunistic insomniac, she has been a lifelong crazy-mad reader, but she took the scenic route to becoming a writer—via gigs as diverse as shoe salesgirl, hot cross bun packer, teacher, and public relations executive. She has spent a good chunk of her life travelling, and has more favourite destinations than should be strictly allowable. Avril is happily settled in her hometown of Sydney, Australia, where her husband and daughter try to keep her out of trouble—not always successfully. When she’s not writing or reading she can generally be found eating—although she does not cook! Check out her website, www.avriltremayne.com , or follow her on Twitter, @AvrilTremayne, and Facebook, www.facebook.com/avril.tremayne DEDICATION ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN Extract Copyright

Max sighed, unwilling to give up until he’d read every page of the report—even if he had yet to take in a single word.

His mind wasn’t on it. His mind wasn’t in the office at all. His mind was at lunch.

But he wasn’t going to acknowledge whose lunch his mind was at, or why it was there. Because he was a moron, and had done nothing right for two weeks, and nothing had felt right the whole time he’d been away, and enough was enough, and it was time to put his mind back where it should be.

So he just sat at his desk, flipping, skimming, flipping, skimming. Counting down pages until he found a word he could take in: ‘Conclusion’.