Nicola Marsh - Out of Hours...Office Affairs - Can't Get Enough / Wild Nights with her Wicked Boss / Bound to the Greek

“Claire. Good to see you,” he said, leaning forward stiffly to kiss her cheek.

Ignoring his formality, she hugged him, pressing her cheek close to his.

“How are you?” she asked warmly.

“Good, good. A little annoyed at having to make this extraneous trip to Melbourne when we’re so close to heading off, but these things happen.”

Unsure of what he was talking about, Claire followed him into the dining room and waited till they had been seated before venturing further.

“You’re organizing another expedition, I take it?” she asked.

Obviously her father was unaware that he hadn’t communicated with her for some time.

“Yes. It’s a joint Australian-Swiss assault on Everest. We were supposed to leave next month…but I don’t want to bore you with the details. How is work? And your marathon thingy?”

She blinked with surprise. Her father never tired of talking about his work, and he never enquired after her life. She struggled to pull her thoughts together. “Work is good. Busy, but good. We’re very close to launching our first edition of the magazine. And my triathlon training is coming along well. Just two weeks to go now.”

He made the appropriate noises as he studied the wine list, while she studied his face. Was this truly the breakthrough she’d been hoping for all her life? Or, if not that, exactly, perhaps the beginning of a thaw?

“This is the magazine that you devised, the hardware thing?”

Another surprise—he’d read her e-mails, actually remembered their content.

“Yes. It’s more home renovation and decoration than hardware, really. But you’ve got the basic idea.”

He shot her an assessing look, then indicated her menu. “Better hurry up and decide—I can’t stand waiting around for my meal,” he said, already signaling for the waiter to come over.

There was a momentary hiatus in their conversation as Claire hurriedly decided on a salad as entrée and fish for her main, and the wine waiter poured some wine into her glass—a red, her father’s choice.

“So, I guess this Beck character who runs all those magazines of yours must be pretty pleased with you, then.”

“Well, he’s certainly happy to have landed a new client.”

She took a mouthful of her wine, wondering that her father even remembered what company she worked for.

“But you know him, yes? You’ve spoken with him?”

For the first time she registered that this was more than just polite interest from Harry. What was going on here?

“I’ve had several meetings with him, of course. Have you met him somewhere?”

Her father shook his head vigorously, tearing his dinner roll apart. “No, but I will tomorrow. Just trying to get a bit of a feel for the man. What do you know of him? Is he a sports man?”

Claire sat back in her chair, baffled and bemused. Why would her father care what she thought of her boss, or what he thought of her? And why on earth would her father, renowned explorer, be having a meeting with Morgan Beck, millionaire publisher?

And then she got it.

“Is he thinking of funding one of your expeditions?” she asked flatly. She watched her father’s face closely, feeling that this moment was pivotal somehow. It was possible she was wrong, that her father truly had found some smidgen of sentiment in himself as the years rolled by and was genuinely interested in his daughter’s life.

“As a matter of fact, yes. It’s a bit of a difficult situation, actually. This Beck character was interested in getting involved right from the get-go, but then we had a better offer from the Swiss side of things. Now our Swiss guy has dropped his bundle, and I’m hoping to talk Beck into renewing his offer.”

Harry was animated and enthusiastic as he explained his situation to her, describing the details of the assault, the makeup of the team, the differing experience levels, the problems he’d had and overcome.

And she sat there, watching his face light up with passion for his subject, for the only thing he’d every really loved, the bitter taste of disappointment in her mouth.

Who had she been kidding, really, when she thought that her father had suddenly become all Brady Bunch?

Harry seemed to sense her preoccupation, and he broke off his recital to consider her. “Is something wrong, Claire? Don’t you like the wine?”

She stared at him for a beat, tempted to just let things slide like she always had. But suddenly she couldn’t bear the thought of pushing her own thoughts and feelings down again. Yesterday she’d admitted to Jack that she was the disappointment of her father’s life. But it didn’t have to be that way. She wasn’t a bad person—she was just different from what he’d wanted in a child. But did that mean she had to accept the crumbs from his table for the rest of her life?

“You know, I thought you’d asked me here to spend time with me , because you wanted to see me,” she said.

“Yes, of course, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” her father said, the picture of surprise.

“No, it’s not. We’re having dinner because you want something from my boss. You’re not really interested in my magazine or my triathlon or anything else in my life.”

She tried hard to keep the tears out of her voice, but they were lurking there, giving her a husky vibrato. Her father was pulling an exasperated face, and shaking his head.

“I don’t know where you’re getting all this from, Claire. I was in town, I asked you to dinner—it was as simple as that.”

“Really? Fine, then tell me when my triathlon final is. I told you earlier, when you asked, because you were so interested in my life, so it shouldn’t be any big stretch for you to remember what I said.”

She held her father’s eye, challenging him.

“I can’t recall the exact details, but I know it’s soon…” her father began, and Claire pushed her chair back and stood up.

“I am your daughter, and I love you, but I am not going to be the only one participating in this relationship. I call you and e-mail you and offer to fly to visit you for Christmas every year, and you can’t even remember a conversation we had five minutes ago.”

Slinging her handbag over her shoulder, Claire turned to leave.

“You let me know if you’re prepared to put a bit of effort in, because I’m not going to make it easy for you anymore,” she said over her shoulder.

She walked straight out and didn’t look back.

She was proud of herself all the way home in the car. Then reaction set in. He would be so angry with her, she probably wouldn’t hear from him for months and months. She never, ever caused a fuss with him, because she knew how he hated having to deal with emotional messes. She understood, deep in her heart of hearts, that if she didn’t keep up the contact with her father, she would never hear from him. Whatever faint connection that existed between them would fade and shrivel, and she’d be utterly alone.

It was a scary thought, but she refused to take it to bed with her. She was a grown, adult woman. She had an exciting, vibrant life of her own. She was about to launch a new magazine. She had a real chance at winning the state triathlon finals. And she’d had dirty, wild elevator sex with the office playboy not twenty-four hours ago.

Never did she think that she would turn to those stolen, wanton moments with Jack as a source of comfort, but the world was a strange and amazing place. For some reason, thinking of him, going over their argument today, and the discussions they’d had in the elevator, made her feel a whole lot better. She had stuff going on in her life. She didn’t need her dad.

Inevitably her thoughts turned from what she and Jack had talked and argued about in the elevator to what they’d done, and before long she was imagining what might have happened in Jack’s office today if he’d kissed her again instead of stapling her shirt shut. What if he’d slid her shirt off, and then her bra? She would have reached for his jeans, because she’d been thinking about having him inside her ever since he’d withdrawn from her. Maybe she would have sunk to her knees and taken him in her mouth, loving the look on his face as she laved him with her tongue. And maybe he wouldn’t have been able to stand it for long, and he’d have pushed her onto that stupid, squishy couch in the corner and reached down between her legs to push her panties aside—too impatient to remove them entirely—then he’d be inside her again and—