Bound by His Desire

Chapter 2

Pamela looked at herself in the mirror wearing her plain black trousers and sensible white blouse. They were perfectly suitable clothes for the office; understated, efficient and boring. They would work for the breakfast meeting she had with Nick, but she wished she had a sexy little dress. The type of dress some of the girls in the office wore. Wraparound dresses which accentuated the body, but were still demure enough to be worn in a professional capacity.

She sighed and pinned her hair back with a boring black clip. She recognised the girl in the mirror. It was the girl she'd always seen. But after yesterday, experiencing what it felt like to be all dressed up and looking beautiful, she wanted to be that girl again.

The room phone ringing had her pulling her attention from the mirror and walking over to answer it.

'Hello?'

'Good morning, Pam, I hope you slept well?'

Pam gripped the phone a bit tighter, her heart beating a little faster as it recognised the voice on the other end of the phone.

'Hi Nick, I slept well, how about you?'

Such a mundane conversation they were sharing, so domesticated and a little surreal.

'I slept fine. I wanted to let you know I've got to make a quick call before I can meet you. I didn't want to let you get down there and think I'd forgotten we had arranged to meet up.'

'Oh, okay, no problems. Do you want to change the time to meet?'

Pam was crossing her fingers in hope he would agree and she'd have time to run down to the hotel boutique, to see if they had something a little more fashionable for her to wear.

'No, it's fine, you go down and order and I'll get there as quickly as I can.'

'Right, I'll see you then. Bye.'

She hung up the phone on the sound of Nick saying goodbye to her. She shouldn't feel disappointed there was no time to go down to the hotel boutique. What was she trying to prove anyway? The way she was dressed today was who she was. She was discreet, reliable Pamela Bishop. The girl no one ever saw in the office. The girl who went about her duties, each day, in a quiet and efficient manner. The girl who caused no ripples or disruption to the mechanics of how the office operated. She laughed when she realised she'd pretty much echoed the same words Nick had said about her last night. They were true and, up until yesterday, she had always been proud of her achievements and how she conducted herself in her professional life. Why, all of a sudden, was she finding herself lacking? Why was she feeling so out of place in the corporate world?

Pam pulled herself out of her funk. It was probably the let-down from the buzz of organising the wedding. It had been exciting to go over the plans with Jasmine. To hear the way she spoke about Luciano, love infusing each and every word. She wanted that type of love in her life, and maybe taking off to the other side of the world could be one way to achieve the dream. Perhaps her knight in shining armour was waiting for her in New York right now. Biding his time until they met. Perhaps her new and exciting future was about to begin.

Nick finished up his call and put some papers into a folder. He was anxious to get back to New York and sort out the mess he'd left behind. He was picking up some of the pieces here and sorting them out. Once he got back on the ground in his office, everything would go back to normal.

As he made his way down to meet Pam, he tried not to let his mind wander to how it had felt to hold her in his arms. The way her lips had tasted sweet under his, a combination of champagne and strawberries from the dessert.

He felt his body stir to life again and he forced himself to remember what had happened to his family when his father had gotten involved with his assistant. He wouldn't let that happen again. Last night was one of those odd nights. When the romance of the evening had somehow gotten under his skin. He wasn't romantic. He wasn't the type to let his emotions get the better of him.