WHILE she was not the best, during her first week Libby Marchant proved to be different.
Far from behaving like the spoilt prima donna he had once accused her of being, she had, according to the reports he had received, shown a willingness to throw herself with enthusiasm into everything requested of her.
He could find no fault with her work ethic and general keenness; it was the more personal quirky touches that he had doubts about. He liked the office environment to be an emotion-free zone, he expected his employees to leave their problems at home and, had the question ever arisen, he would have felt the same about home baking.
The muffin situation was getting seriously out of hand. He could barely walk past a desk without seeing some garishly decorated home-baked goodies on display. He was struggling to keep an open mind on the subject, though he suspected a baked-goods ban would not go down well so while it only affected personal waistlines he was holding fire.
The soccer situation was not so innocent. Could anything be innocent when young testosterone-fuelled sportsmen were involved? Rafael had been startled and not entirely pleased to learn only that morning that his new intern had been adopted as the mascot of the firm’s five- a-side soccer team after her appearance on the touchline had coincided with their first ever win.
The team, which had in his opinion more testosterone than talent in its ranks, apparently now called her their lucky charm. He had no doubt they called her other things in the changing rooms. Did she even realise she had made herself the butt of sexist jokes and ribaldry?
Arriving on the Monday of her second week, Libby received a summons to Rafael’s office.
Standing in the outer office, this time by invitation, she was directed to a chair by Rafael’s gorgeous blonde PA. Opinion in the building was divided on whether her relationship with their boss extended as far as the bedroom.
Libby waited and felt like a naughty schoolgirl summoned to the headmaster’s office.
Or as her family would have said—that monster’s office. She supposed there would never have been a good time to tell them, but the strength of their reaction when she had come clean the previous night had shocked her; so, if she was honest with herself, had the degree to which her own view of the situation had shifted.
She leaned back in her seat as selected highlights of the conversation drifted through her head.
She had not entered into the discussion over the dinner table concerning the rather unexpected reprieve. Her father, happily but rather unrealistically predicting that Rafael Alejandro would come to him for advice any day now, had contended that the Spaniard had realised he had made a mistake.
‘He doesn’t have the experience, just not the man to fill Aldo’s shoes, but they were big shoes.’
Libby, listening, had had to bite her tongue to stop herself revealing the truth. A week ago she might have agreed, but now it felt quite wrong that all the blame should be laid at Rafael’s door.
‘I’d thought of taking a trip to the races on Monday.’ ‘Excellent idea—we could all go,’ Kate Marchant had approved. ‘It would take your mind off things.’
Libby had felt guilty to find herself thinking that her father was too good at taking his mind off things.
‘How about you, Libby? I could speak to Mike about giving you a day off.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, Mike won’t mind,’ her dad had promised, patting her hand.
‘I handed in my notice last week.’ It was a risk but for once in her life Libby wanted to work without a safety net.
Her parents had stared at her. ‘But why?’ they had asked in unison, dismayed but not at that stage angry— the anger had come later.
‘Actually I have another job … well, internship really, but—’
‘Well, that’s excellent. Well done, darling, but why on earth didn’t you tell us?’
‘I’m working for Rafael Alejandro—not personally, obviously.’
‘You’re not serious!’
‘Blood pressure, darling,’ Kate Marchant had warned. ‘It’s just a joke—tell him, Libby …’
‘It’s true. I was working there all last week.’
From that point things had got extremely heated, her father had accused her of disloyalty and called her a silly little girl, her mother had cried.
‘But this experience could get me a good job.’ Still unwilling to raise false hopes, she had refrained from telling them the benefit her internship could bring their way.
‘You have a good job,’ her father had protested. ‘Dad, I cover dog shows. I’m bored.’
Her dad had given a contemptuous snort. ‘Bored! Since when?’
Since always, she had realised with a sense of shock.
‘He’ll see you now.’
The blonde PA’s voice jolted Libby back to the present.
‘Thank you.’ Libby took a deep breath and accepted the invitation to enter the inner sanctum.
The thought made her stumble, but luckily her grace- lessness went unnoticed—Rafael wasn’t looking.
He didn’t even glance up. She waited, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, her resentment and nervousness growing with each passing second that he continued to study the paper set on the desk before him.
It seemed ironic now that she had worried about sexual harassment. Far from his harassing her, the only time their paths had crossed since that first day Libby had been left with a tentative smile on her face feeling stupid as Rafael had blanked her totally.
Clearly his egalitarian rules had exceptions.
Libby told herself she didn’t want him to notice her; she didn’t want to notice him, not that way, but she couldn’t help it.
On that occasion it had taken Libby’s tumultuous pulse ten minutes to return to anything approaching normal.
Libby stared at the dark hair curling into his strong neck and, feeling things start to shift and tighten deep inside, thought what was she doing.
‘This week you will be shadowing …’ Rafael paused and lifted his head.
He saw her standing hands folded primly in front of her, her luscious body looking the total opposite of prim, looking in fact luscious, and he forgot what he was saying as lust slammed through his body with a force that pushed him back into his seat.
‘You?’
Rafael pushed away the image of her lying across his desk, her short skirt around her waist, and cleared his throat.
Following him around all day, sitting within feet of him! He did not trust himself to move the other side of the desk. ‘No, not me.’
‘Good …’ She met his eyes and blushed. ‘That is, I’m sure you’re too important to bother with interns.’ She sounded like a total sycophant on board the Rafael worshipping express with everyone else here. ‘I meant …’
It was Rafael’s deep voice that stopped her digging herself any deeper. ‘One intern bothers me a lot.’
Libby swallowed. ‘I … they do?’ He’d said she’d know when he asked her, but she didn’t—was this it?
His hot hungry eyes brushed hers for a split second before his lashes swept downwards.
Rafael, pretending he hadn’t heard her choked little gasp, directed his gaze at the paper before him. ‘Gretchen will fill you in with the details.’
Libby, hurt by the dismissal, confused by the mixed messages he was sending and eaten up by guilt because she was so fatally attracted to a man who had done so much damage to her family, turned slowly.
Rafael watched her walk away, her slender back straight, her head held high. He waited for the door to close before he dragged a hand through his hair and groaned.
He could have had her here and now on the desk … His head fell back; he was a fool.
His rule was not to mix business and his private life; he had delivered a lecture on the evils of sexual harassment to every member of the football team, but when principles were this painful wasn’t it time to change the rules?
He wasn’t just her boss, though; he held the fate of her family in his hands. Would she dare say no? He grinned and thought she would dare say anything, but would that doubt remain—would it sour any future relationship?
An expression of shock spread across his lean face— future and relationship were two words he never used in connection with a woman.
Following her now would be admitting that this woman had got so deep under his skin that he couldn’t wait three weeks.
He needed a cooling-off period.
He pressed the intercom and barked, ‘I will be going to Rio—arrange it.’
Rafael’s arrival mid-afternoon a week later at the London headquarters office coincided with the exit from the building of the regional manager, who did a double take when he saw Rafael.
Simon Smith rushed over. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked, looking concerned.
Rafael took the hand extended towards him in a firm grip; his problem, the one that had brought him back five days ahead of schedule, was five feet five and redheaded.
The two men shook hands. ‘Your family is well?’ Rafael, not normally someone who felt the need to fill a silence when he had nothing to say, heard himself murmur the pleasantry.
To cover his own unacknowledged embarrassment?
The possibility did not improve his frame of mind. He could rationalise as much as he liked—nothing would alter the fact he was responding to his hormones with all the restraint of an adolescent.
There was a shade of puzzlement behind the older man’s smile as he responded. ‘Very well, thank you, although James is—’ He stopped, awkwardness creeping into his manner as he added with a laugh, ‘I’m sure you don’t want to know about his latest—’
The indent between Rafael’s brows deepened. ‘James
…? Is he not the one who celebrated his twenty-first birthday at Christmas?’
Simon looked momentarily startled. He was amazed that his boss recalled he had children, let alone that he knew the age of his eldest. ‘You know how it is with children. No matter how old they are you still worry—’ He gave a shrug, regretting his comment. His employer’s opinion on the subject of professionalism and bringing personal problems into the workplace was well known.
‘No, I do not know,’ Rafael admitted shortly.
How could he? There had been no father figure in his life to worry about his choices or to guide him, not that Rafael felt the loss of something he had never had. He preferred to concentrate on the positive benefits he had gained from his unconventional upbringing.
His ability to make a decision and live with the consequences, good or bad, came from those years. Would a nuclear family have given him the sort of self- reliance that had been the bedrock of his success, Rafael doubted it.
Had his early years been different, would he have one day had a photo of his son in his graduation gown on his desk like Simon? Rafael did not know and there was no gain in speculating, he reminded himself. A man lived with what was and not what might have been, and fatherhood was not a role he had ever considered for himself.
Would it happen? He enjoyed being a free agent. Some people might consider him selfish but to Rafael’s mind it would be more selfish to take on a role that you were patently unsuited to.
Rafael pushed away the silent addition. It was not a matter of fear, it was a matter of practicality and personal preference. Of course, if things had been different he supposed it was possible he might have felt it his duty to continue the name of an ancient family. As it was he owed no loyalty to the family who had rejected him.
That rejection had freed him to do as he wished and he did not wish to spend his life constantly in the middle of some sort of domestic crisis like Simon here.
How did someone like Simon, with a challenging job and a large family, manage to cope with the various demands on his time?
It would not do for him. Rafael had always been scrupulous about keeping his own personal life separate from business, and his life had balance.
‘There is no problem,’ Rafael lied smoothly. ‘Things moved faster than anticipated and Lucas had things under control.’
Just as well someone did!
Ironically his team and the opposition had assumed that his lack of interest was some sort of clever mind game to throw the opposition off their game and it had.
He’d been lucky this time, but Rafael knew that luck and his reputation wouldn’t save him another time. Reputations could be lost overnight; all it took was a few bad decisions for the market to lose confidence.
Rafael knew he could not afford to lose