Lessons in Love (5 page)

‘Emily!’ announced Mark as he entered the office. ‘I’ve got some wonderful news to tell you!’

‘Don’t keep me in suspense, then,’ she said, brightening as she took in his widely grinning mouth. At least someone was happy!

‘Come into my office, and I’ll tell you all about it.’ She followed him through the door which connected their offices, curiosity almost bursting from her.

‘Lisa and I are finally going to have a baby!’ he announced proudly.

‘Oh Mark, how wonderful for you!’ she exclaimed, genuinely happy for him. ‘Wow, that’s incredible,’ she said, flinging her arms around him in a congratulatory hug, and kissing him on the cheek. Mark and Lisa had been trying for years to have a child, and Mark had confessed to Emily several months earlier that they were seeking IVF treatment. It seemed like the costly procedure had worked, and Emily couldn’t have been happier for them.

‘Ah hm!’ Emily spun around, wondering who could have entered the room so quietly, and lo and behold, there stood her nemesis.

‘I didn’t realise the door was open. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to let you in the office,’ she said coolly, wondering at the same time who had given him permission to enter her boss’s office.

‘Obviously you had more important things to do,’ he said tartly.

‘Yes, that’s right. Well gentlemen, I’ll be getting back to work now. Is there anything I can get either of you? Tea? Coffee?’ she asked, her normal professional self.

‘No thank you,’ Nicholas replied abruptly.

‘No thanks Emily, I’m right,’ Mark said, grinning. She couldn’t help smiling in return; even Nicholas’s less than friendly entrance couldn’t get Mark down today.

She settled at her desk with a mountain of letters Mark had prepared over the weekend and earlier that morning. She shook her head in wonderment that he’d actually had the time or the inclination to get so much done.

Nicholas exited Mark’s office after another long meeting. He strode to the door, and Emily breathed a small sigh of relief as his hand reached for the knob, but he turned around to face her, and her breath caught in her throat, as his gaze roved over her face and down her body, taking in every inch of her. His look was anything but warm, and something like disgust played across his features. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it with a snap and a brief shake of his head, before turning the knob and walking outside.

Emily sat staring after him for several moments. What on earth had that been about? A funny, uncomfortable feeling assailed her stomach, and she knew that something had transpired but couldn’t for the life of her think what it was. She was going to have to put an end to his animosity somehow. Their relationship couldn’t continue this way, not when he had to work with Mark, and certainly not when he had to be her lecturer for an entire semester. But at least, she thought, she couldn’t harbour any romantic feelings towards him when he behaved like a complete jerk!

Nicholas shook his head in disgust. He hadn’t thought Emily Peterson could surprise him any more than she already had, but he’d been wrong!

Someone could have knocked him over with a feather as he’d witnessed the intimate embrace between Emily and her boss. There was no mistaking the obvious passion between them, the way their bodies were pressed together. And Mark a married man too! It had almost made Nicholas reverse his decision regarding Overington Industries, but he had worked with men who were worse than adulterers before, and business came first. What others did with their personal lives was none of his business. But the sight of Emily and Mark together had torn something inside him, and filled him with an emotion almost as powerful as rage. It had been some time before he could acknowledge what it was: jealousy. He’d spent his entire life well out of the clutches of the green-eyed monster, but it had caught him at last.

He ground his teeth in anger as he climbed into his car. Emily set fire to parts of him he’d thought no woman could. Why, he simply didn’t know. She was a lovely woman, that was undeniable, but he’d dated women just as beautiful as Emily, many even more so. There was something else about her though, something in her attitude, in her ambition, that stirred a chord with him. But more than that, he could see that behind her carefully controlled exterior there lurked a woman with passion, a passion he wanted to see ignited – but by no other man than him.

Emily entered the lecture theatre and sat in the most inconspicuous position possible. There was no way Nicholas would call on her today, but the further and more unobtrusively she sat from him, the better.

She almost groaned out loud thinking about the request Mark had made of her after Nicholas’s departure that morning. Apparently Nicholas was looking for a house and Mark had kindly suggested to him that Emily would be glad to help. What Emily could do that a good real estate agent could not, she had no idea, but at the time there had seemed no good reason for her to refuse.

‘His price range is quite high,’ Mark had said, ‘around eight hundred thousand, so he’s going to want something special.’ Ballarat wasn’t exactly a huge metropolis, she’d thought, irritated. And there certainly weren’t many houses that ran to such high prices which would be on the market at any one time. How hard could it be for Nicholas to find one he liked? However she somehow found herself agreeing to visit a number of real estate places to see what they had on offer. So, instead of a relaxing lunch hour, she’d trawled the main street of town, visiting several real estate agents for information on houses in Nicholas’s price bracket, which, as she’d anticipated, were few.

Nicholas entered the room, immediately arresting Emily’s thought processes, and true to form, her heart skipped a beat and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. He was looking even more desirable than usual, if that were possible. His hair was slightly windblown, and although he raked his fingers through it in irritation more than once, he couldn’t tame its unruliness.

But his poor humour of that morning remained, and his eyes were hard and cold as he looked across the assembled students.

‘Quiet please! We have a lot of work to get through this session,’ he began, irritation at the students’ chatter evident in the tone of his voice. His mood translated into hard work for the students, and to Emily it felt as though the lecture would never end. But end it did, and by then she was fuming. She’d known that Nicholas wouldn’t draw attention to her today, but he’d gone one step further and totally ignored her. Even when she put up her hand to ask a question, he’d paid her no heed. No matter how hard she’d gesticulated, he’d deliberately averted his gaze and answered everyone else’s questions. Emily was not going to let him get away with that. She packed her bag quickly and made her way down to the front of the room as fast as she could, but he was too swift for her, and had vanished through the open door by the time she’d reached the final step.

She stood for a moment, silently fuming, before striding out of the room. He would not ignore her the next time she needed help. There was no way she was going to let him!

Unfortunately, things went no better on Tuesday. Nicholas actually cut the lecture short by five minutes because of an urgent appointment he had to attend. Of course, there was their business dinner that evening, and regardless of how Nicholas felt about it, she’d question him then, and ask him why he’d so rudely ignored her on Monday.

That evening, Emily chose her outfit carefully. After some deliberation, she selected a sleek, but not-too-revealing black knit dress. She wanted to look good, sexy even, but not overtly so. As she always wore her hair up for work, she decided to leave it down, flowing long and natural down her back. After applying her makeup carefully and subtly, she decided the final product was very satisfactory indeed.

But somewhere inside a questioning voice asked why she was going to so much trouble to look good. For all that she responded to Nicholas in an intensely sexual manner, he was the last man she really wanted to be involved with. It occurred to her that it was this which was part of the attraction. She could admire him from the outside while having no fear that there would ever be anything between them.

Emily drove to the restaurant, heart pounding in fear and anticipation, her throat constricted by some insidious fear. She couldn’t believe how nervous she was! Nicholas had a magnetic pull that drew her to him like a moth to a flame. She grimaced at the tired cliché and squared her shoulders as she pulled into the last available space across the road from the popular restaurant.

She made a final inspection in the rearview mirror, and ascertained that she looked good, but an uncomfortable feeling assailed her. Get a grip! she firmly instructed herself, and taking a deep breath she stepped out of the car and into the cool night air.

The
maître d’
ushered her to one of the tables in the front window of the restaurant where she could await the other members of the party. She stared out the window, hoping that Mark would arrive before Nicholas, but her hopes were dashed when moments later his now familiar car drove slowly past the window. Emily fervently hoped Mark would arrive soon. The thought of being alone with Nicholas made her slightly nauseous. She watched hopefully out the window for Mark’s Holden Commodore, but to no avail, as the arrogant bearing of Nicholas Cavanaugh appeared in the restaurant before her.

‘Ahh, Miss Peterson, you’re here. Where is Mr Overington?’ She wondered with irritation why he had to be so darn formal with her. He’d gone from cold, to semi-friendly, and back to frosty, and Emily hadn’t the slightest idea why.

‘He hasn’t yet arrived,’ she replied, thinking it patently obvious.

‘In that case, I’d better join you.’

‘That would be the sensible thing to do,’ she replied coolly. Uncomfortable moments passed, and Nicholas began tapping an irritating tattoo on the tabletop. Perhaps now would be a good time to broach him with the questions she needed to ask for class.

‘I…ah…actually have a question for you,’ she began, inwardly cursing for her nervous stuttering.

‘Yes?’ he queried, turning to look at her. At that instant she almost lost her nerve to speak. His manner was cold, but his eyes were anything but. She’d never seen eyes which could express so much. She only wondered how they’d look when he was in the grip of passionate desire, and felt her skin flush with heat.

‘It’s Monday’s lecture. I wanted to ask you in class, but you evidently had no time.’ He looked slightly sheepish for an instant and then his usual look of arrogance re-appeared.

‘I don’t have the time to answer everyone’s questions, Emily. Perhaps you should try looking it up in the text?’ She bit back the desire to give him a scathing retort, knowing how useless it would be.

‘I’ve tried that. I’d hardly ask unless I needed to, would I?’

‘Fine, we’ve got time. Fire away.’ She did, and was pleased by the clarity of his response. However he was feeling towards her personally, when it came to work he was professional.

‘Thanks for that,’ she replied gratefully. ‘You made it much easier to understand.’ His demeanour towards her seemed to have shifted subtly and she felt herself relax a little.

‘I’m glad to hear it. I’m sorry if you thought I was being unreasonable. I understand you have a lot of family duties also.’ Mark had obviously must have told him about her brother and sister.

‘Yes, Veronica and Steven can take up some of my time. And other household duties, of course.’ Nicholas raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘There are two of them?’

‘Yes, I thought Mark must have told you about them.’

‘No, I saw you the other day at the lake.’ She felt as though she’d been hit by a sledgehammer as she remembered what she’d said to Sonya about him. A sinking feeling filled her as she realised what he could have heard. She found that she couldn’t meet his gaze. Finally she got a grip and forced herself to look at him; she couldn’t take back anything she’d said about him now.

Fortunately, Mark and Lisa chose exactly the right moment to arrive, full of apologies for being late.

‘That’s perfectly all right. I understand,’ Nicholas said, all smiles again.

‘Hi Mark. Hi Lisa,’ Emily said, taking the older woman’s hand. ‘Congratulations Lisa, I’m so happy for you!’

‘Thank you, Emily,’ Lisa said, smiling warmly, as the two of them met in a fond embrace. ‘I haven’t seen you for such a long time! You’ll have to come over for dinner again sometime. How are Steven and Veronica?’

‘They’re fine. Growing up quickly, of course, as they do at that age. Just think, in a few more years they’ll have outgrown me entirely!’ The two women laughed, and Emily happened to catch the expression on Nicholas’s face as she looked away from her friend. He looked so dark, so brooding and angry, that she almost shivered, sure she’d done something to provoke his ire. But again, she had absolutely no idea what.

They were soon seated at a comfortable table in the back corner of the room. Emily was disturbed to find herself facing Nicholas, who was all charm to Mark and Lisa but barely had two words to say to her. Fortunately, neither Mark nor Lisa noticed anything amiss, and the evening went remarkably smoothly. Mark and Nicholas talked business most of the time, while Emily and Lisa caught up with each other, discussing children and the things Lisa had to look forward to.

‘I almost forgot,’ Mark began, ‘I asked Emily to pop into some of the real estate places in town.’

‘That was very kind of you,’ Nicholas said, looking at her for the first time since they’d sat down to dinner. Emily realised Mark and Nicholas were both looking at her expectantly.

‘There are few houses in your price range available, but there are a couple of houses around the lake, undoubtedly the best area in town, and another one close by. Mark told me you wished to live in town, so I didn’t ask about country properties.’ He nodded, indicating for her to continue. She pulled the clippings she’d been given of each house and passed them over. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t know all your requirements,’ she continued. ‘All the houses listed in that price range are, well, very big.’ As far as she knew Nicholas had no family. There was the possibility that he had a wife and two point four children stashed away somewhere, but the thought left her mind as abruptly as it had come. No, the man had bachelor written all over him.

‘I want something big,’ he said. ‘I like to think in terms of the best investment I can make. It is common sense to buy a home in the prime area of town, especially when the prices are so reasonable.’ Emily almost gaped at him. Reasonable? Eight hundred thousand dollars?

‘Emily would also be happy to accompany you on any inspections you care to take,’ Mark said to Nicholas. Emily turned and gaped at him. That hadn’t been part of the plan! What was Mark trying to do? She knew he wanted her to get along with Nicholas, but this was ridiculous.

‘Oh?’ Nicholas raised his eyebrows at her.

‘Whenever you want to go,’ she said in resignation.

‘How about Saturday morning? I’d love to know your impression of these houses.’ She just bet he would! She smiled as pleasantly as she could, and was relieved when the waiter came around offering coffee or dessert. The meal was over much more quickly than she’d imagined it would be, and for that she was grateful.

As they left the restaurant, Mark and Lisa made their goodbyes to Nicholas and Emily, heading for their car which was parked behind the restaurant. Emily made to leave herself, remembering to say a polite farewell to the man standing behind her.

‘Goodbye, Mr Cavanaugh,’ she said formally. ‘I’ll see you in class.’

‘Yes. You will.’ She started away from him, but he grabbed her arm, stopping her. She yanked away in shock, as heat from where he’d touched her flooded through her body. She spun to face him.

‘Sorry,’ he said, sounding anything but. ‘There was something I didn’t understand. I couldn’t help but overhear some of your conversation with Lisa Overington. You speak as though your children are much older than the toddler I saw you with.’ She looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment.

‘My children?’ she asked, confused, and then laughed. ‘Veronica and Steven aren’t my children. They’re my brother and sister! You must have seen me with Sonya’s son Paul.’ She shook her head.

‘But I heard you referring to yourself as his mother!’ Nicholas persisted. Emily shook her head.