Standing in the chilly afternoon shadows that stretched over the Soho pavement, Aidan watched through the glass pane of Cluny’s front door as Tim, the assistant manager, came towards him. Chewing a mouthful of food and grinning, the fair-haired Australian threw the lock.
‘G’day, mate!’ he cried in his distinctive twang as he swung the door open. ‘Good to see ya.’
‘You, too,’ Aidan said, stepping into the welcoming, aroma-infused warmth of the restaurant. With a classic décor of polished wood and shiny fittings, Cluny’s was a successful, well-respected London establishment. It was also owned by his uncle, and it had been through that family connection that Aidan had found himself temporarily working there six months earlier. Bored by his long recovery from the stroke and eager to feel useful and self-sufficient again, he’d jumped at the chance to fill the shoes of the head barman who’d walked out without notice. Even though he’d been there a relatively short time before the breakup with Annabel had precipitated the end of his stand-in role, the timeless elegance of the European-style interior felt instantly familiar.
He dropped his overnight bag by the coat-rack and shook Tim’s hand as a hail of greetings came from deeper inside. Seated around several tables that had been pushed together, an assembled group of employees were tucking into their staff meal ahead of the upcoming evening service.
Following Tim across the room, Aidan spied Annabel seated at one end of the table, her expression a mask of stiff silence amid a sea of smiles as she stared back at him. He’d been fully expecting this unscheduled visit to catch her unawares, but he’d bet her surprise was no match for his own at seeing her sitting there. From what he’d learned from his time working for her, Ms Frost had never joined in with the daily staff meal. She’d preferred to keep a professional distance by eating alone in her office, and, with her fearsome reputation as an ice queen, the staff had been only too happy not to have her spoiling their appetites.
Although he wouldn’t go so far as to say the scene in front of him now painted a picture of perfect, cosy contentment, things had obviously started to change since she’d returned to work after the attack. Maybe, with both sides showing a bit more understanding and compassion for the other, Annabel’s frosty outer layers were starting to thaw.
Approaching the table, Aidan said hello to old faces including sweet-natured Donna, the waitress, Jon, the junior barman, and Stu, who’d been taken on as Aidan’s permanent replacement.
‘How come you’ve been such a stranger?’ Tim asked with a theatrical pout as he retook his seat and swiped a hunk of crusty bread around his bowl to collect the last of the thick dark sauce clinging to the sides. ‘You haven’t been in to see us once since you left. Have you moved back to Ireland already and become Lord of the Pile, or do you just not love us any more?’
In his peripheral vision, Aidan could see Annabel still sitting as if frozen. From the moment they’d first met, she’d made it clear that one of her rules was never to mix her business and personal life. What’s more, she’d particularly disapproved of workplace attachments. As a gambling man, he’d found the challenge of trying to make her break her own rules irresistibly attractive, of course, and had relished every moment of the campaign he’d undertaken to make it happen. Some of the tactics he’d employed had been far from fair, he’d be the first to admit, but, no matter how dirty he’d been prepared to play in private, he’d always respected her need for professional discretion. Was their relationship still her guilty little secret, he wondered, even though their circumstances had now changed?
‘Lord of the Rubble Pile, maybe,’ he said. ‘And no, I haven’t moved back yet, but I’ve not been in London much either. Getting this renovation project off the ground hasn’t left me with much time for anything but filling out forms and jumping through planning hoops.’
‘Then sit with us for a moment, mon ami,’ Anton Dubois, Cluny’s award-winning head chef, invited in his thick French accent. He reached to take the lid off a large casserole dish in the centre of the table with a flourish. ‘Have some bourguignon and tell us all your news.’
Aidan shook his head in regret. ‘As delicious as it looks and smells, no, thanks. I’m actually on my way to catch a flight back to Cork now. I had to stop by to see Annabel about something.’ They didn’t need to know that the something was, in fact, nothing; that, rather than heading straight to the airport as he’d intended, he’d given in to a compulsion to come by for no other reason than to see her before taking off for Ireland.
Annabel all but leaped to her feet. ‘Why don’t you come through to the office?’ she said, looking eager to hustle him out of there.
Leaving the rest of the staff to finish their meal, he followed as she took off towards the kitchens as fast as the narrow fit of her pencil skirt would allow. It had been a week since their reconciliation, and during those seven days they’d managed to meet a few times, though not nearly as often as he’d have liked. Trying to work a social life around the long shifts typical of the restaurant trade was bad enough, but with someone as driven as Annabel – who worked over and above what was expected in order to keep up with her own exacting standards – it was harder yet. Still, determined as he was to stick to his promise of dating her properly, he’d managed to pin her down one morning for an early brunch, taken her to a movie on her night off and, as a chance to grab some precious time together before he had to head back to Ireland today, he’d met her for a nightcap at the end of her shift last night.
What they hadn’t managed to do at any point in the week was spend another entire night together. Following the nightmare incident at her place, Annabel had thrown out all sorts of excuses as a way of ensuring they’d both ended up sleeping alone each night in their respective beds. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was actively avoiding the situation for fear of risking a repeat performance.
Ahead of him, she pushed through the doors into the kitchens without breaking her stride. Once he was through, leaving the doors to swing to behind him, Aidan closed the distance between them and reached out to rest his hand at the small of her back as he fell into step beside her.
Annabel sprang away from the touch as though jabbed with a hot poker. ‘Not here,’ she muttered, casting a look back over her shoulder. ‘What if someone sees?’
Well, there was his answer to the question of guilty secrets, then. He tried not to take it personally. ‘Ashamed of me?’ he teased.
‘No.’ Annabel cast him a flustered look. ‘It’s . . . it doesn’t feel comfortable.’
It was hard to keep remembering that even relatively casual gestures of affection were alien to her. While Annabel was no stranger to sexual encounters, she’d never been in a romantic relationship with a man. It felt good to know he’d get to be her first.
Her only, a growling echo emanated from the man-cave set in the deep recesses of his brain. He quickly blocked, in case any further club-swinging, chest-beating thoughts tried to escape.
‘It doesn’t feel comfortable because you’re not used to it.’ Which was something he intended to rectify. Starting now. He caught her hand and tightened his grip when her automatic reaction was to pull away.
Finding that she was unable to wrench herself free, Annabel settled for picking up speed and towing him across the kitchen instead. ‘Maybe. But I don’t think this is the place for it. Not at work. Not in front of the staff.’
‘Why not? Why shouldn’t they know you’re a normal human being?’ Aidan asked as she rushed him with small, scissoring steps through the rear doorway into the hallway leading to the staff room and her office. ‘I have nothing to do with the place any more, so there’s no threat to your authority, no reason not to have a relationship outside your business life.’
Before she could continue to find points to argue, he decided to nip the issue in the bud. Using his superior strength he pulled her to a stop and swung her to face him. ‘The bottom line is, I like touching you, Annabel. I like it very much. So you’re going to have to find a way to get used to it.’
He meant to reinforce his words with appropriate action right there and then, but before he could gather her close she dodged out of his reach and employed some strength of her own to tug him from the hallway and into the office. She rounded on him then. ‘There’s a time and place for it – preferably private on both counts.’
Private? Now that they were in this room he had the perfect solution to that. ‘How about we go down into the cellar?’ He inclined his head towards the locked door set in the wall behind her desk. ‘Just you and me and your tights. You are wearing tights, I presume?’ When he went to close the distance between them, she stepped backwards. Keeping hold of her hand, he began stalking her retreat across the room. ‘We already know it’s private enough down there that I could do anything I wanted to you.’ Annabel gave ground to his advance until she was backed up against her desk, trapped. He kept moving until there was not so much as an inch of space separating them. Then he released her hand, grasped her by the upper arms and held her firm. ‘Would you like that?’
He saw her wet her lips and swallow before she answered. ‘No,’ she said, but the denial was rendered unconvincing by the sudden husky quality of her voice.
‘You sure?’ Noting the flush blossoming over her fair skin, the sudden shortness of her breath, he’d bet her mind was full of the same x-rated images as were currently filling his own. He felt a self-satisfied smile tug at his lips. ‘Maybe I’ll just carry you down there anyway. Kidnap you and keep you naked to use as my sex slave.’
That earned him a flash from her eyes. ‘That wouldn’t end well for you.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t doubt it. But it’s a risk I’d willingly take. Besides, I could make use of those tights to tie you up.’
‘I’d scream. People would hear.’
‘Not if I gagged you,’ he threatened. ‘Oh, yes, I’m liking this idea more and more. Gagged. Bound. Naked . . .’ His words fell away in the face of the image they conjured in his mind. He wondered how long he’d be able to make himself last, taking her to the brink of pleasure again and again, until she was delirious with it. Begging him with those green eyes. Good God. Focusing his gaze on hers, he lost himself in the depths. ‘You’d have me totally at your mercy,’ he murmured.
She blinked at him. ‘I think you mean that the other way round.’
He shook his head slowly. She hadn’t the first inkling of the power she’d wield through such an act of submission. No idea of how completely she could bring him to his knees. Own him. ‘No. I meant exactly what I said.’
A clatter and a shout as something was dropped in the nearby kitchen broke the spell. Shaking off the sensual haze, Annabel slipped sideways from his hold and cleared her throat.
‘What did you want to see me about?’
He watched her hasty retreat to the other side of the desk. ‘Chicken,’ he ribbed with amusement, not the least deterred from his intention to have all that strong-willed woman freely submit to him one day. He pulled his phone from his hip pocket. ‘Can we take a look at the upcoming shift roster? I want to make a note of what days you have free.’
‘Why?’ she questioned, voice laced with enough suspicion to suggest he’d asked her to divulge state secrets.
‘So I can plan how best to split my time between here and Carriglea.’ He rounded the desk himself as she lowered herself into her chair. If the Tulaí project seemed full-on now in the early planning stages, he could only imagine how much more demanding things would become once construction started. ‘I’m going to be a busy boy. I need a schedule to work to.’
Annabel obviously approved of his sense of organisation, because without further ado she logged into the computer and called up the staff roster. Looking over her shoulder, he began plugging the relevant information into the diary app on his phone.
‘Also, can you block yourself out for the second weekend in June? We’ve an invite to Monaco for Damien Harcourt’s thirtieth birthday.’ One of the lasting legacies from Aidan’s time in the City was his friendship with the enigmatic entrepreneur. Once one of his major clients, Damien had turned out to share Aidan’s passion for gambling and equalled his skill at the poker table. With a family fortune worth billions, he also inhabited a very different world from most mere mortals – a rarefied world of glamour and fame which Annabel had had a small taste of when they’d been his guests at a spectacular, star-studded New Year’s Day ball in Vienna.
She looked up at him, her eyebrows raised. ‘We?'
‘Yes, we. As a couple.’
He watched her turn away and return her attention to the computer screen, leaving him to wonder what she thought about others rating them officially as a pair. ‘And before you look for excuses to say you can’t go – that’s plenty of notice to work out cover here, and it’s all expenses paid by Damien. He sends his regards, by the way.’
‘But,’ she said, sounding cornered, ‘I don’t really know him.’
He couldn’t help liking it when ballsy Ms Frost showed her nerves. ‘All the more reason to come along. Because that’s generally how you do get to know people, Annabel, by spending time with them.’ Something she was obviously out of practice with. ‘Note it in the diary for now and think about it later.’
Once he had all her days off for the next couple of months logged onto his calendar, Aidan put the phone back in his pocket. ‘Done.’
Annabel turned to look him in the eye again. ‘You didn’t have to come in to do this, you know. You could have asked me about it any time. Or phoned.’
He grinned and nodded, delighted that she’d caught him out, seen the ruse for what it was. ‘I could have easily done that, yes.’
The frank confession made her smile, too. A rare, spontaneous smile that lit up her face and left him feeling ridiculously proud to know his actions had pleased her.
‘So.’ All too quickly, Annabel slid her mask of cool control back on. She logged out of the computer and rose to her feet. ‘Have you got everything you wanted?’
‘Not quite.’ He scooped her against him and kissed her. A long, slow melding of mouths. A kiss to carry him through until his return to London the following week.
They were both a little breathy, a little dazed, by the time he pulled back.
Looking into her eyes as he stroked a thumb over her cheek, he asked, ‘Would you do me one favour while I’m gone, a mhuirnín?’
‘Maybe,’ she said, guarded even though her gaze was still a soft-focus green.
‘Think about getting some help for the nightmares. A counsellor, or Victim Support or even your GP. Anything you choose.’
She instantly stiffened under his touch. A single blink and her gaze was once again clear and sharp. But instead of biting his head off she simply muttered, ‘OK, I’ll think about it,’ without any fight at all.
As if he’d been born yesterday and couldn’t recognise a bluff when he saw one. She’d literally keep to her word and ‘think’ about it, but nothing more. If she thought he’d let her get away with that, she had another thing coming.
‘You do that.’ He grasped her lightly by the chin to ensure he had her attention. ‘And just so you know, as well as working on the touching in public thing when I get back, we’re going to be getting you a whole lot better acquainted with the use of the word “yes”.’ He shifted his fingers to cover her lips as they parted. ‘Because I have to admit, all this denial and prevarication is becoming a bit predictable.’
Replacing his fingers with his lips, he pressed one last swift, hard kiss to her gaping mouth.
‘Have a good week. See you next Monday,’ he said, and strode out of her office before she had time to stick him with a pencil.