Michelle Celmer - The Duke's Boardroom Affair / Convenient Marriage, Inconvenient Husband - The Duke's Boardroom Affair

Had he gone back to the car?

“Nice view,” she heard him say, and turned to find him standing in her cluttered living room gazing out the window.

He was in her flat.

The fact that it was in total disarray notwithstanding, he was just so there. Such a distinct and overpowering presence in a room that until that very moment had always felt open and spacious. Now they might as well have been locked in a closet together for the lack of breathing room.

Just relax. This is not as bad as it seems. You’re completely overreacting.

She folded her arms across her chest, doing her best to sound more annoyed than nervous. “You don’t take direction well, do you?”

He turned to her and smiled, and she felt it like a sucker punch to her belly. The worst part was that she was pretty sure he knew exactly what that smile was doing to her. And he had intended exactly that.

You just had to kiss him, didn’t you?

He gestured out the window. “You have an ocean view.”

Barely. Only a few snippets of blue through the buildings across the road. Nothing like the view from his home. Although it was looking decidedly more pleasing with him standing there.

Ugh. She really had to stop these random, destructive thoughts.

“I don’t recall inviting you inside,” she said.

“Yeah, you might want to work on those manners.”

She shook her head. “God, you’re arrogant.”

He just grinned and gestured to the city street below. “How do you like living in the heart of the city?”

It was different. Her father’s estate, their estate, had been in a rural setting, but she’d spent the majority of her time working in the city. A home in the bay area seemed the logical choice. “It’s…convenient. Besides, I needed a change of pace. A place that didn’t remind me of everything I’ve lost.”

She cringed inwardly. Why had she told him that? It was too personal. Too private. She didn’t want him getting the idea that she liked him. She didn’t want to like him.

He nodded thoughtfully. “And how is that working out for you?”

Lousy, but he probably already figured that out.

“I’m ready to go.” She walked to the door, grabbing her keys and purse from the table.

He didn’t follow her. He just stood there, grinning, as though he knew something she didn’t. “What’s the rush?” he asked.

She looked at her watch. “It’s eight-twenty.”

He shrugged. “So?”

“Isn’t the car waiting?”

“It’s not going anywhere without us.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. Or maybe the real problem was she liked it too much. Yesterday she would have considered his probing gaze and bone-melting grin offensive, but this morning it made her feel all warm and mushy inside.

Kissing him had definitely been bad idea.

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said, taking a few casual steps toward her.

Her heart climbed up in her throat, but she refused to let him see how nervous he was making her. “About?”

“Last night.”

She was tempted to ask, Which part? but she had the sinking feeling she already knew. So instead she asked, in what she hoped was a bored and disinterested tone, “And?”

He continued in her direction, drawing closer with every step. “I think I’ve had a change of heart.”

Uh-oh.

She hoped he meant that he’d had a change of heart about the way he objectified the opposite sex, but somehow she didn’t think so.

“Now that I know what I’ll be missing, maybe I won’t be cooperating with the family after all.”

Oh, yeah, kissing him had been a really bad idea.

He was coming closer, that look in his eyes, like any second he planned to ravish her. And the part that really stunk was that she wanted him to. Desperately. She had assumed that playing the role of the aggressor last night, socking it to him when he was all confused and vulnerable—and a little bit adorable—would somehow put her in a position of control.

Boy, had she been wrong.

He’d managed to turn the tables on her. At that moment, she’d never felt more out of control in her life. And the really frightening thing was, she kind of liked it.

“I mean, what’s the worst that will happen?” he said.

Hopefully something really bad. “Hanging?”

He was standing so close now that he could reach out and touch her. And though every instinct she possessed was screaming for her to back away, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of so much as a flinch.

“And then I got to thinking.” He leaned in, his face so close to hers she could smell the toothpaste on his breath. “Who says they even have to know?”

Bloody hell, was she in trouble. If he decided to kiss her right now, she would have no choice but to kiss him back. And then he would know the truth. That she wasn’t nearly as rigid as she’d led him to believe.

His eyes locked on hers. Deep brown irises with flecks of black that seemed to bleed out from his pupils. Full of something wicked and dangerous. And exciting. And God knew she could have used a little excitement in her life.

No, no, no! Excitement was bad. She liked things even-paced and predictable. This was just chemical.

It took everything in her, but she managed to say, with a tone as bland as her expression, “Are you finished?” “Finished?”

“Can we go to work now?”

The grin not slipping, he finally backed away and said, “You’re tough, Victoria Houghton.”

Didn’t she wish that were true. Didn’t she wish that her heart wasn’t pounding so hard it felt as though it might beat right through her rib cage. That her limbs didn’t feel heavy with arousal. That her skin would stop burning to feel his touch.

Don’t let him know.

“Yes, I am,” she lied.

A playful, taunting grin lifted the corners of his lips, and he reached past her to open the door. “But I’m tougher.”

By three o’clock that afternoon Victoria managed to catch up on the backlog of calls and e-mails. No thanks to Charles, who, in a fraction of that time, proved himself to be a complete pain in the neck.

He popped into her office a minute after three, for what must have been the fifth time that day. “I heard the phone ring. Any answer to the employment ad?”

He knew damned well that she had just placed the ad with the employment agency that morning and they weren’t likely to hear anything until at least tomorrow.

He parked himself behind her chair, hands propped on the back, his fingers brushing the shoulders of her jacket. The hair on her arms shivered to attention and she got that tingly feeling in the pit of her belly. But telling him to back off would only give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was getting to her.

“It was your mother,” she told him, leaving off the again that could have followed. The woman was ruthless. The kind of mother who drove her children away with affection. It probably didn’t help matters that Charles was an only child and the sole focus of her adoration.

No wonder he didn’t want to settle down. He was already smothered with all the female attention he could handle.

“What are you working on?” he asked, leaning casually down to peer at her computer monitor, his face so close she could feel his breath shift the hair by her ear.

“A template for an updated, more efficient call and e-mail log.”

He leaned in closer to see, his cheek nearly touching hers, and, did he smell delicious. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and take a long, deep breath. Nuzzle his skin. Maybe take a nibble.

“How does it work?” he asked.