All Work and No Play (2 page)

She gaped at him. “You noticed all that?”

Giles sighed. “I notice a lot about you, Anna.”

Her heart did a strange flip-flop, but she pushed the
sensation away. Now was not the time to let
herself
go
gaga over Giles. But she was touched at his perception, and in her moment of
weakness his concern broke through her usual barriers.

“What I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential,” she
said. He nodded as he straightened to attention. “I just found out that Oscar’s
work has some serious flaws which he’s attempted to cover up. They would have
come out during user acceptance testing and been a serious embarrassment to me.
I need to go through every single one of Oscar’s programs and re-test them. It’s
going to take some time.
A lot of time.”
An unwelcome
thought hit her. “Have you noticed anything suspicious in Neil’s programs?”

“Nothing.
He seems like a competent
programmer.” Giles was frowning. “Why would Oscar do something like that? Did
he have a grudge against you or the company?”

“I’m not sure why he did it.” Anna slid her fingers through
her hair. “I always liked him. He seemed a nice, quiet guy, and I was genuinely
happy for him when he decided to follow his girlfriend to India. Maybe I put
too much pressure on him. Maybe he faked his test results, knowing he wouldn’t
be around much longer, to get me off his back.” She bit her lip. “Maybe I’m a
lousy project manager.”

Damn, why had that slipped out? She might have doubts, but
she couldn’t afford to appear less than one hundred percent confident.

But when she glanced at Giles, he didn’t seem smug or
condemning. “I don’t think you are.”

She drew in a deep breath as she realised that Giles’s
opinion of her mattered more than she’d expected. This was getting crazy. “I
don’t want my boss to find out. Not yet, anyway. I want everything ready for user
acceptance testing by Friday, just like we planned.”

“But you don’t know how much extra work Oscar’s left you.
It’s better to tell Lionel now.”

Anna shook her head stubbornly.
“No way.
I’ll get it done by Friday. Then I’ll tell Lionel. The last thing I need is
people saying I can’t handle the pressure.”

“That’s not what they’ll say.”

“
Wanna
bet? You might be able to
waltz in and have everyone falling at your feet, but I’ve had to work twice as
hard to prove myself, and not everyone was happy about my promotion. I can’t
afford to let anything go wrong.”

“Anna, this could happen to anyone. It isn’t your fault.”

“Maybe not, but this problem is my
responsibility, and this is how I’m going to take care of it.”
She
tilted her chin at him, challenging him.
“
So.
Are you going to tell Lionel anyway?”

Giles rested hands on hips and huffed out a breath.
“Of course not.
I’m on your side.”

Again, a wave of gratefulness hit her. She couldn’t understand
how much Giles’ support meant to her.

“Thank you. I really appreciate that.” As she breathed out,
she felt some of the pressure easing off her. If nothing else, talking about
the problem had helped her.

Giles’s
lips quirked in a brief smile, but
it was
enough to send a tremor through her.

“I’m glad you’re
finally
appreciating me.”

There was no way she could miss the glint in his eyes or the
sudden awareness pulsing between them. It had always been there, she acknowledged,
that arc of sexual consciousness sparking between her and Giles. She’d managed
to ignore it, suppress it, until now.

“You have your uses,” she quickly replied, eager to return
to their former footing before he’d followed her into the stationery closet.

His smile widened. “You must be feeling better, since you’re
back to putting me down.”

Goodness, if she allowed herself, she could really melt
under that mega-watt, roguish grin of his.
Get
a grip, Reynolds
.

She cleared her throat. “We should go back to work.”

“Why, certainly.”
He turned with a
flourish and opened the door. At least, he tried to, but the door remained
shut.

Anna groaned. “I just remembered. The lock needs to be
pressed down otherwise the door doesn’t open from the inside. I forgot to do
that when I ran in here.”
Because she’d been in such a state.
“We’re locked in.”

Giles banged on the door, but no one came. The stationery
closet was tucked out of the way, and this side of the office was empty.

“No one’s going to hear us unless they’re coming to get
stationery,” Anna said as Giles continued to hammer on the door. “Do you have a
phone?”

He shook his head.
“Left it on my desk.
You?”

“Same.” She ran her hands over her face as she let out a
deep groan of frustration. “This gets better and better, huh? I have God knows
how many of Oscar’s programs to fix up, and I’m stuck in a bloody stationery closet!”

“It could be worse.”

“How?”

“You could be stuck here on your own.”

“If I was here on my own and you were out there, then you
would hear me pounding on the door and let me out,” she pointed out.

“True.”

“I don’t suppose you’re the MacGyver type? You know, you could
get us out of here by just using a paper clip and
hole
punch?”

“Sorry, no. I’m not a boy scout. I’m just a nerdy geek.”

Anna couldn’t help snorting. “I hate to tell you this, but
nerdy geeks don’t look like you.”

Interest glimmered in his eyes. “They don’t?”

“Nope.
You look more like a fashion
model for Burberry than a geek.”

That lethal smile flashed at her again. “Sorry to disappoint
you,” he murmured in a way that told her he wasn’t disappointed at all.

Warmth rose in her as she realised what she’d said. “You
have to excuse me.” She waved a hand, trying to appear offhand. “I’m not myself
at the moment.”

Giles leaned back against the door and trailed his gaze over
her. “You shouldn’t be yourself more often, then.”

She
really
had to
get a grip on this conversation. “You’re not flirting with me, are you, Giles?”

Folding his arms, he didn’t seem at all ruffled by her
directness. “What do you want me to say to that?”

“I want you to say no, of course.”

“Do you?”

That awareness between them flared higher this time, and her
heart began to thud loudly. It was no use lying. She couldn’t hide her
attraction to him, and Giles knew that, damn him.

Huffing in frustration, she turned sideways, unwilling to
have those clever blue eyes trained on her, winkling out her secrets.

“This is a disaster,” she muttered to herself.

“Is it?” He moved closer, and the closet felt way too small
and intimate.

She flashed a grimace at him. “I don’t get
involved
with people at work,” she
retorted, desperate to maintain some kind of barrier between them.

“Neither do
I
,” he replied, “but
then, I’ve never been tempted at work.
Until now.”

Anna sucked in a breath. Oh boy. So he was tempted.
By her.
That made her dizzy, but why? She was used to male
admiration. It didn’t get her all hot and bothered. But this time was
different.

She kept her gaze fixed on the reams of paper on the shelf
before her. “You should
un-
tempt yourself then,
because I don’t need to tell you how bad it would be for my career if I...if
we...” She shrugged impatiently. “Oh, you know what I mean!”

He didn’t speak for a while, and she felt his heavy gaze
resting on her. “At least I know it’s not one-sided.”

She couldn’t resist snickering at that.
“So
glad your male ego is still intact.”

His smile was wry. “But it has taken a battering. You didn’t
like me much.”

“True.” She could be honest with him now. “I still don’t
like you much.”

“Because of my
Pommie
accent?
That’s a bit prejudiced, don’t you think? After all, I don’t
mark you down because of your mangled Aussie vowels.”

“Mangled?” she spluttered before she cottoned on that he was
teasing her. “Okay, I admit I was—am—prejudiced against your whole toffy
appearance because it reminded me of my dad.”

“Your father’s English?”

She nodded. “Came out here, married my mum, had two kids
with her, then dumped us when I was eight and went back to the Old Dart, never
to be heard from again.”

“That’s rough.”

“My mum struggled to raise me and my brother, but my dad
never gave us a cent, even though he’d inherited a fortune from his parents.”

“And that’s why you won’t even let me buy you a coffee?”

“Something
like
that.”

“And you object to the way I dress?”

She hesitated, wondering how honest she should be. “I like
the way you dress,” she admitted. “But the hand-tailored suits and the silver
cufflinks and everything else...it’s so alien to me. My mum used to buy us
second-hand clothes from
Vinnies
. To this day I can’t
splurge on clothes. I once spent six hundred dollars on a handbag. Even though
I could easily afford it, I was nauseous all night, and the next morning I
returned the damned thing.”

She stopped abruptly. Why was she babbling on like this to
Giles?

“It’s true I’ve had a privileged upbringing.” He looked
almost apologetic. “When I was growing up, it was all ponies and prep schools
and holidays in Antigua. And I suppose the hand-tailored suits and silver
cufflinks go with the territory. But they’re just clothes, Anna. Underneath
them, I’m as human as you are.”

She swallowed at the thought of Giles without his clothes.
The softness of his shirt didn’t disguise the broadness of his
chest,
the cut of his pants didn’t hide the strength of his
legs.
In fact, his elegant clothing only emphasised his
athletic build, and he knew it too, the devil.

“Only human?” she managed to get out. “And here I was
thinking you were some kind of tech guru.”

He closed the gap between them, and she found herself
trapped with a shelf digging into her back and Giles’s body tantalisingly close
to hers, so close she could smell his subtle, heady cologne.

“I’m very human, Anna.” His husky voice twined around her
name, owning it, as he picked up her hand and pressed it against his chest. “Here,
see for yourself.”

The heat of his flesh warmed her palm and sent a rush of
desire crashing through her defences. His bass heartbeat vibrated in her
bloodstream, transmitting his excitement. Her skin flushed, and sweat dampened
between her breasts as she stood and stared at him, transfixed by his boldness,
his nearness, and the sensual sweetness of touching him.

“Giles—” The breathy want in her voice shocked her. She
licked her lips, suddenly unsure of herself. Why was this so difficult? Why
couldn’t she move or speak?

His other hand reached up, his fingers brushing her cheek.
His touch was feather light, and devastating. She wanted his lips on hers.
Needed them.
Right now.
Her hunger
must have showed in her face because his expression altered, his eyes suddenly
burning with need.

Her fingers curled into his shirt as she pulled him closer.
The shelf behind her rattled as his body pressed into hers. The air was humid
with their shortened breathing. He lowered his head, his mouth coming towards
hers, causing her toes to curl in delicious anticipation—

The door rattled, and someone on the other side swore. With
a gasp, Anna thrust Giles away from her as if he were a vampire. The door
handle jiggled up and down several more times. Sweating, Anna pounded on the
door.

“Hello!” she hollered. “We’re stuck in here. Can anyone help
us?”

“Just a minute,” came a muffled voice.

Anna’s legs were shaking. Behind her, she could hear Giles’
uneven breathing. It sounded like he was fighting for control, just like her.
She didn’t dare look at him.

The door swung open, and light flooded the closet.

“Hey, how long have you been in here?” Tracey, the summer
student, blinked at them in concern. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah.
Thanks for rescuing us.”
Anna stalked out of the stationery closet, still not acknowledging Giles.

She heard him thank Tracey and warn her about the door lock.

Anna ignored her desk and kept on walking towards the exit,
intent on reaching the women’s restroom. Her body was damp, her legs were
shaking, and her heart was pounding in her chest. What the hell had she just
done? She couldn’t trust herself to be alone with Giles, but unfortunately there
was going to be a lot of that before the week was done.

Straining with frustration, Giles
watched Anna stalk away from him. Her navy, knee-length skirt and plain blue
shirt did little to hide her curvy figure. He’d noticed her from his first day
at
FrogLeap
.
Hard not to when she
was the only female at managerial level.
Even harder when she was a
knockout and smart and hardworking and seemed to dislike him on sight. Yes, he
could admit that his ego hadn’t enjoyed it when she resisted his charms, charms
that worked so easily on other women.

However, it wasn’t wounded pride that made him want to
pursue her, but rather the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking how great she
was and wanting to change her opinion of her, something that had never happened
to him before. Anna Reynolds intrigued and attracted him powerfully, and the
fact she’d admitted sharing his feelings left him unusually breathless and
excited.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he contemplated how close
he’d come to kissing her in the stationery closet before they’d been
interrupted. Even now his blood was still stirred by the memory. Anna might
dress conservatively, but nothing could disguise her lush lips and full cheeks,
or those thick eyelashes fringing intelligent eyes the colour of cognac. There
was an exotic ripeness to her that she tended to suppress here in the
workplace. But one glimpse of it back in that stationery closet, and he was
hooked. He had to taste that wildness again, even though he knew the pitfalls
involved.

He walked back to his desk and sat down, waiting for his
horniness to subside. It took some time before he could concentrate on his
work. Recalling Anna’s predicament, he quickly scanned through Neil’s programs
which he’d taken over, looking for any errors. Apart from a couple of minor
bugs, he didn’t find anything sinister or systematic. So Neil, whom everyone
had castigated for jumping the fence to a rival company, had done a fairly good
job.
Whereas Oscar, the dopey-looking guy, had apparently
hidden a malevolent streak.
His indignation on behalf of Anna grew, and
when she finally returned, he jumped to his feet.

“Listen,” he began, but before he could continue she held up
her hand to silence him.

“No, you need to listen,” she said, her face set, her voice
firm. “You need to forget everything that happened in that closet.”

“Everything?”
He could understand
why she might be regretting almost being caught in the middle of a kiss, but
the rest? “You don’t mean Oscar—”

“Yes, that’s precisely what I mean. I will take care of it.
You just focus on what I assigned to you.” She moved with purpose to her desk
and sat, her back ramrod straight. She had tidied up her thick, brown hair into
a knotted
updo
, and her taut body exuded a decided
‘don’t mess with me’ attitude.

Giles wasn’t about to let that put him off. He walked up and
stood over her, aware that her face was in line with his crotch, but determined
not to let that affect him.

“Anna, stop treating me like a mere programmer,” he said. “
FrogLeap
hired me as a consultant, and I’m here to give you
the best of my experience and advice.”

“No.” She stood up to face him. “You were assigned to me
because I needed a programmer, and that’s what I want you to do now. Code some
programs. I don’t need your consulting advice.”

He clenched a fist, unexpectedly furious at her
pigheadedness. “You’re angry with me because you almost let me kiss you.”

Her eyes widened before they darted around for possible
eavesdroppers. Then they glared at him. “I’m angry with you because you don’t
respect my authority,” she hissed at him.

He blinked. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s my fault, of course. I shouldn’t have touched you.”
She pressed her lips together. “I had a moment of weakness.
But
no more.”
She aimed a gimlet stare at him.

Remorse twisted in Giles’ gut. He was just as responsible as
she for what had happened in the stationery closet, but she was heaping all the
blame on herself. And now, when he wanted to help her, she couldn’t accept because
she believed it would weaken her position even further.

He held up his hands, palms facing her, in a gesture of
surrender. “Look, I’m not interested in undermining your authority. I just want
to help you fix Oscar’s mistakes. If we both work on his programs, we’ll finish
it in half the time.”

But Anna stubbornly shook her head. “I’ll take care of
Oscar’s work,” she insisted. “I’ll just have to work overtime.”

“You mean more than we are already? Last week we were
working back until seven or eight every night. You can’t do more than that.”

Her chin jutted up. “I’ll do what’s necessary.”

He wanted to grasp her obstinate chin and press his mouth
against hers.
Would she still be unyielding then, or would
she slowly melt into him?
His body ached to find out, but his head
restrained the urge.

“I can stay back tonight too,” he said. If he was here, at
least she would have company and someone to bounce ideas off.

“Oh? I thought you had a date tonight with
whatserface
?
Persephone?”

The cogs in his brain slowly turned over. He remembered that
Persephone had called him earlier this morning, and they’d arranged to meet at
six, but how did Anna know that?

“Yes, I do.” He lifted his eyebrows at Anna. “Been
monitoring my calls?”

She turned pink with embarrassment. It was the first time
he’d ever seen Anna blush, and he found it a huge turn on.

She hugged her arms, lifting her shoulders defensively. “I
couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, the way you were cooing at her. Is
she your girlfriend, then?”

The question made him frown. Did Anna think he was the type
of man who would try to kiss another woman when he had a girlfriend?

“No,” he replied shortly. “We knew each other back in
university.”

They’d slept together a few times, but it had never been
serious for either of them. Later, Persephone had started dating a lawyer, but
she’d recently broken up with him, and she was here in Sydney on holiday.

“I don’t want you to miss out on catching up with old
friends,” Anna said. “I’ll be fine.”

She turned away from him and resumed her seat, as if the
subject was closed. Giles wanted to object, but he sensed that in her present
mood she wasn’t exactly amenable. Better to wait until she’d cooled down.
Better for him, too, to cool down.
Having come so close to kissing
her and realising one of his fantasies about Anna, his senses were trigger
happy around her, and he didn’t completely trust himself not to do something
stupid like grab her and kiss her right here in the office.

No, he needed time to get himself in order. But that wasn’t
easy when he was in such close proximity to Anna. Maybe it wasn’t such a good
idea to work back late with her, if he couldn’t control his appetites.

***

She shouldn’t have let slip that
she’d overheard his phone conversation. That had been a mistake. Now he would
think she was hung up on him when she wasn’t. Giles could see this Persephone
girl anytime he wanted.
Persephone...what a perfect name for
an
upperclass
English girl.
The kind of girl
Giles was used to. She was willing to bet that Persephone was stunning and
sophisticated because only the best would do for Giles St Clair.

Anna huffed irritably. She wasn’t doing a very good job of
focusing on her work load. But first she had to cancel her dinner date with her
two best friends. She texted them a brief message and returned to the program
she was debugging, only to be interrupted a few minutes later by a phone call.

“Working late again?” Stephanie lamented as soon as she
answered. “Anna, that’s too bad.”

“I’ll survive.” It was typical of Stephanie to call and worry
over her. Stephanie was the mother hen of their group, the carer and nurturer,
the designated driver.

“But you worked late all last week too. And besides, I
wanted to hear all the gossip about you and Megan from New Year’s Eve.”

Last Friday, Anna and Megan had spent New Year’s Eve
together, with Megan, recovering from a bad breakup, determined to kiss a new
man before midnight struck. Anna had tried to help her friend by introducing
her to a nice guy, and things had looked promising until Megan had suddenly
dropped everything and raced across the city to be with a stranger she’d just
met, something the cautious Megan would never have done before.

“Megan has a juicy story to tell you,” Anna said.
“Apparently something big happened on New Year’s Eve. Last time I spoke to her,
she sounded like she was still on cloud nine, though she wasn’t ready to give
me the details.”

“Ooh, I’m so happy for her. She deserves something good
after that douche bag of a boyfriend.
And what about you?
Any juicy stories?”

“No, my New Year’s Eve was very boring. I have to go now,
Stephanie. Talk to you later.”

“Don’t forget to eat something healthy for dinner,”
Stephanie advised her before hanging up.

Anna’s New Year’s Eve had been a disappointment. She’d gone
out looking to relax and blow off some steam after the pressure cooker of work.
At the back of her mind, she’d hoped to hit it off with someone, a man who
could make her forget about work, about deadlines, and about Giles, if she were
honest enough. She wasn’t a fan of one night stands, but in this case she’d
have made an exception. One night of mindless, no-strings-attached shagging
would have been perfect for getting the kinks out of her muscles.
And for reminding her that there were other
shagable
men out there besides the maddening, debonair Giles.

But she hadn’t even come close to meeting a
shagable
man. In fact, the memory of Giles had somehow made
every other guy out there look asexual. It was as if he’d taken all her
hormones hostage and was slowly torturing them.

Stop thinking about shagging and Giles, she told herself. He
was only a few metres away on the other side of the pod and seemed to have an
uncanny knack of sensing her moods. She
couldn’t
let him sense this one.

***

“When are you
coming back to London, darling?”
Persephone reclined in her seat,
flipping her blonde, cascading hair over one shoulder while her manicured
fingers toyed with her gin and tonic.

They were in a five-star hotel overlooking the harbour with
the setting sun casting a golden light over the plush lounge. Draped in
expensive silk, Persephone looked right at home here, but Giles had felt
vaguely uncomfortable ever since he’d sat down with her. And her question
didn’t make him feel any easier.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I like it here.
Might stay a few years.”

Persephone put down her drink, looking disconcerted.
“A few years?
You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I mean, the weather’s nice here, but” —she pulled a
face— “it’s not
London
.”

Maybe that was precisely why he liked being in Australia.
Here, he wasn’t weighed down by tradition and expectation and familial habits.
Here, he could breathe freely,
be
his own man.

“And what about your family?”
Persephone leaned across the table. She seemed quite worried for him. “They
won’t want you so far away.”

His parents wholeheartedly approved of Persephone because
she was ‘their type.’ His parents, he had to admit, were snobs, though he loved
them despite that. His brothers weren’t as bad, but Giles was different from
them.
Always had been.
He was the unacknowledged ‘grey’
sheep of the family.

“I’m not on the moon,” he pointed out. “It’s only a plane
trip away from London.”

“Oh, the trip was
ghastly
!”
She gave a shudder as her clipped tones rung out in horror.

Giles couldn’t help frowning. Was that how he sounded to
Anna?
All haughty and superior?
No wonder she hadn’t
warmed to him at first.

The waiter arrived with a platter of bar snacks, and the
conversation drifted to less tricky subjects. Persephone was her usual self,
chattering about the friends they had in common and what they’d all been doing,
but Giles felt strangely disconnected. He’d only been away from the UK for a
couple of months, but already he could sense the bonds loosening, and he
realised he didn’t mind at all.

An hour later, Persephone went off to the ladies’ to repair
her makeup, while Giles sat in their booth, wondering what Anna was doing and
whether she’d bothered to eat any dinner. He was betting she hadn’t. Last week,
when they’d worked late, she’d barely stopped to grab a chocolate bar from the
vending machine. Tonight, with the extra pressure she was facing, she might not
have even done that.

Coming to a quick decision, he signalled to the waiter and
ordered some California rolls to go, giving his credit card at the same time to
settle the bill. Moments later, Persephone slid her arm over his shoulders as
she eased into the booth beside him.

“What should we do next?” Her smile was arch, her fingers
suggestive. “Want to come up to my room for a bit of fun?”

When he’d agreed to see Persephone, he’d wondered if she had
this in mind, but now that she’d raised the subject, he found his body totally
unresponsive to her. In fact, her perfume was too cloying, her lipstick too
garish, and her eyes too calculating. Persephone was as beautiful as ever, and
once upon a time he’d have gladly followed her upstairs, but now she did
nothing for him. It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t changed; he had.