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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
NICK woke up alone.
Which was strange, because he was pretty sure he hadn’t been alone when he’d fallen into a satiated asleep several hours ago.
Something about a goddess…?
Ah, yes—Hebe, the goddess of youth.
Tall, slender, with a long, straight curtain of silver-blonde hair and eyes of so pale a brown they were gold. Strange magnetic eyes, that gleamed with a multitude of secrets.
Not that he was interested in learning those secrets. Hebe had merely been a distraction, a way of putting the past and all the pain and the significance of the day behind him. He had wanted to forget, be diverted, and the presence of Hebe Johnson had certainly provided that. For a few hours, at least.
So where was she? It was still dark outside, and the tangled sheets beside him were still warm, so she couldn’t have been gone long.
He frowned slightly at the thought of her having just disappeared into the night. That was usually his privilege! Wine, dine and bed a woman, but never ever become involved—least of all allow them into the inner privacy of his life.
Of course that was slightly more difficult when it was his bed they had shared!
Because she didn’t live alone, he remembered now. Something about a flatmate. So after dinner he had brought her back to his apartment over the gallery for a drink instead—and other things!—breaking his cardinal rule in the bargain.
Two rules, in fact, he acknowledged with a grimace as he remembered that Hebe actually worked for him, two floors down, in the Cavendish Gallery on the ground floor.
But desperate times called for desperate measures, and so he had brought Hebe back here, needing to lose himself in the lithe beauty of her perfect, long-limbed body. And he had. He’d found himself dazzled, bewitched—the fact that she wasn’t one of the sophisticated women who usually had a brief place in his life, adding to the excitement of the evening. To the point that his pain had been anaesthetised, if not completely erased.
Nick gave a groan as he remembered what yesterday signified, moving to sit up in the bed, needing to get away from the scene of that heated lovemaking now, and standing up to turn his back on those tumbled sheets before walking out of the bedroom.
Only to come to an abrupt halt as he saw he wasn’t alone after all.
Hebe, the goddess, was just switching the light off as she came out of the kitchen with a glass of water in her hand, her nakedness only shielded by the fine silver-blonde hair that reached almost to her waist.
Nick instantly felt a stirring of renewed arousal as he looked at that golden body—legs long and silky, hips and waist slenderly curvaceous, breasts firm and uptilting, the nipples rosily pouting.
As if begging to be kissed. Again.
He had noticed her at the gallery several months ago, her beauty such that it was impossible for her not to stand out. But he hadn’t so much as spoken to her until yesterday.
And now he wanted her. Again.
‘What are you doing?’ he prompted huskily as he padded softly across the room to join her, with only a small table-light for illumination.
Hebe’s breath caught in her throat just at the sight of him. She was still not quite sure how she had ended up in Nick Cavendish’s apartment. In his bed. In his arms.
She had been captivated by him since the moment she’d first seen him. In love, or more probably in lust, she acknowledged ruefully as she easily remembered each kiss and caress of the previous night, having been totally lost from the first moment Nick had held her in his arms and touched her.
Or perhaps she had been lost before that…
An American, the charismatic Nick Cavendish owned the London art gallery where she worked, as well as others in Paris and New York. His time was equally divided between the three, with apartments on the top floor of each building always ready for his use.
Hebe had been working at the gallery for several weeks before she’d first caught a glimpse of the elusive owner.
When he’d walked forcefully into the west room of the gallery four months ago, seemingly filled with boundless energy as he fired instructions one of the managers, Hebe had felt as if all the air had been knocked out of her lungs.
Over six feet tall, his body lithe and muscular, with overlong dark hair swept back from his olive-skinned face, and eyes a deep, deep blue, there was a wild ruggedness about him that spoke of the energy of a caged tiger. With the same threat of danger!
But she had never in her wildest dreams imagined he would notice her, a lowly junior employee. She had been leaving the gallery the evening before when she’d accidentally walked straight into him, but instead of getting a scornful look, as she had expected, they had both laughed and apologized. Still, she’d been totally stunned when he’d asked if she would join him for dinner, on the basis that she had worked at the gallery for some months now and it was time the two of them became acquainted.
Became acquainted!
They had become a lot more than that last night. Hebe was sure that not an inch of her body hadn’t known the intimate touch of his hands or lips.
Her cheeks were flushed now with the memory of that intimacy.
And at the naked perfection of his body now. A body, as she had discovered the previous evening, that had that olive tan all over, a light covering of dark hair on the muscular width of his chest, and down over powerful hips and thighs.
As she saw the renewed state of his arousal, she felt a liquid melting between her own thighs as heat coursed through her already languorous body.
‘I hope you don’t mind—I was thirsty,’ she answered him huskily, holding up the glass of water she had been drinking from.
Nick was thirsty too—but not for water. Taking the glass out of her hand, he placed it on a table, his eyes darkening as his head lowered to kiss one enticing nipple. He looked up into Hebe’s face as he stroked his tongue moistly over that sensitive tip, feeling the increasing hardness of his own body as she groaned low in her throat, eyes gleaming like molten gold as her body arched against him, dark lashes sweeping low over her flushed cheeks.
She was beautiful, this goddess of youth, and he wanted to lose himself in her once again. Not to blot out the painful memories of yesterday this time, but because he wanted her with a fierceness that told him he wouldn’t be gentle with her. That he couldn’t be. He needed to drive his body into hers, but knew she would meet that desire with a heat of her own. As she had before.
He straightened to swing her up into his arms, capturing her mouth with his, tongue plundering, as her arms moved up about his neck, her fingers becoming entangled in the darkness of his hair.
Hebe was trembling as he laid her down amidst the twisted sheets, his mouth deepening its possession of hers as one of his hands caressed the burning tip of her breast, the nipple already hard and aroused, sending sensations of heat and liquid fire through the rest of her body.
She restlessly caressed the broad width of his back, before trailing a path to the firmness of his thighs, touching him there, loving the feel of his hardness against her hand. The groan low in his throat assured her that he approved too.
Nick fell back against the pillows as Hebe began to kiss his chest, down to the hollow of his flat stomach, and even lower over the hardness of his thighs. His breath caught in his throat as he felt the sensuous flick of her tongue against his heated flesh, and at the same time he knew that he wouldn’t be able to take too much of this, that he wanted to be between the engulfing warmth of her thighs, inside her, stroking them both to that shuddering climax that he remembered so clearly—twice—from the night before.
He moved above her, looking down into her aroused face as he slowly entered her, her hips moving up to meet his, taking him deep inside her as she began to move slowly against him.
Hebe gasped minutes—hours?—later, as she felt the pleasure pulsing hotly through her, her body shuddering and quivering as that pleasure erupted out of control, taking her with it.
Taking Nick with it too, pulsating deep and deliciously inside her as he surrendered to the sensations of his body.
Hebe lay with her head resting against his chest in the aftermath, his arm about her waist, holding her loosely at his side.
She had never experienced anything like this. Their bodies seemed completely in tune, their lovemaking almost balletic in its intensity of emotion.
She smiled to herself as she realised how happy she felt, how totally relaxed and fulfilled. She really could so easily fall completely, mindlessly, in love with this man. If she wasn’t already!
Which, considering her uninhibited response to him, she had a feeling she just might be.
Whatever, she felt closer to him than she ever had to anyone before, and wondered what the future held for them. Would they spend the day together? It was Sunday, so neither of them had to be at work today. Maybe they would make breakfast together? Before making love. Then perhaps they would go for a walk in the nearby park. Before making love. And then they could…
Hebe, exhausted and happy, drifted off to sleep.
Nick lay sleepless beside her, his body filled with satiation but his mind suddenly crystal clear.
Hebe Johnson was beautiful and desirable, and responded to him in a completely uninhibited way that he found irresistable. But it was her lack of control that warned him he had to resist her. Not for him the silken shackles of any woman, the cosy togetherness that tightened those ties until no thought or action could be called his own. Never again. That way lay all the pain and despair he had tried so hard to blot out the night before.
And she was still his employee. Untouchable, in fact. Though he had already done a hell of a lot more than touch her!
Creating a situation he had always avoided in the past.
Since his divorce two years ago he had known lots of women, had wined and dined them, bedded them, and moved on without any regrets. None of those relationships had lasted long enough to forge any sort of bond, least of all an emotional one. But an employee, as he had always known and therefore avoided, was going to be a little more difficult to walk away from.
But he was going to do it anyway. Walk away and not look back.
Quite what he’d do about the fact that Hebe worked for him he wasn’t sure yet. The easiest way would be to dispense with her services at the gallery. But it didn’t seem quite fair that she should lose her job because she had gone to bed with him. In fact, most women would assume their job was more secure after going to bed with the boss!
He turned slightly to look at her as she slept in his arms. Was that the reason Hebe had come so willingly with him the night before? The reason she had come back here and made love with him?
If it was, she was in for a nasty surprise!
No one, and nothing, held Nick Cavendish any more—least of all a silver-haired siren with golden eyes.
Hebe felt almost shy as she came into the ultra-modern kitchen several hours later.
Having woken up alone in Nick Cavendish’s huge four-poster bed, with the disarray of the bedclothes a stark reminder of the heated lovemaking that had taken place there both last night and earlier this morning—as if she needed any reminder—she had collected up her scattered clothes and gone through to the luxury of the adjoining bathroom to shower and dress before going in search of Nick.
He was here, in the spacious kitchen, his back towards her as he made coffee, having pulled on faded denims and a black tee shirt over his nakedness.
Hebe looked at him, watching the muscles rippling in the broadness of his back as he moved, his shoulder-length dark hair brushed back to curl loosely against the nape of his neck.
Aged thirty-eight—twelve years older than her own twenty-six—he was without doubt the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. All over, she remembered with a pleasurable flush. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body, and his hands—those hands that had caressed her so thoroughly—were long and tapered. And he made love with an artistry that spoke of an experience she came nowhere near matching.
Of course he had been married. For five years, according to Kate, another assistant at the gallery. Hebe had learnt this after Nick’s second whirlwind visit three months ago, when he had snapped and snarled at them all before disappearing again on his way to terrorise the staff at his Paris gallery.
Kate had explained that he could be like that sometimes—that there had been a son from the marriage, a little boy who had died when he was only four. His death had precipitated the break-up and divorce of his parents two years ago, and still sometimes sent Nick Cavendish spiralling into a inferno of dark emotions that seemed to find no outlet.
Not surprising, really. Hebe could imagine nothing more traumatic than the death of your young child. But these intriguing snatches of information about her employer had only increased her interest in this enigmatically charismatic man.
She had watched him covertly during his lightning visits to the gallery. She had seen him dark and brooding as on that second visit, and smiling occasionally, but once laughing outright, which had softened and smoothed the lines of experience from his face, making him look almost boyish. Except for the deep well of pain never far from those intense blue eyes.
So he swept sporadically into the gallery, bringing his life and vitality with him, inspiring the people around him with his intensity, fascinating and intriguing Hebe—before once again disappearing and taking all that vitality with him.
But never in Hebe’s wildest dreams had she ever imagined he would invite her out to dinner in the way that he had, that she would spend the night here with him in his apartment.
Nick sensed rather than heard Hebe’s entrance into the kitchen, and he was aware of her silence as she stood in the doorway behind him whilst he continued to prepare the coffee, to delay the moment when they would have to make conversation. Conversation, he found, served very little purpose after spending the night with a woman.
To him, the following morning had always been the worst part of the brief, unfocused relationships he had indulged in before and since his divorce. What were you supposed to talk about, for God’s sake? The weather? Who was going to win the tennis championship this year? The big U.S. golf tournament? Hardly post-lovemaking conversation topics, any of them!
But the alternative was discussing when they would see each other again—and that was just as unacceptable to Nick. Especially in this case. He knew now that he had made a terrible mistake in getting involved with Hebe Johnson, and certainly didn’t intend compounding the situation by pretending this relationship—one-night-stand?—had any future.
Oh, well—time to face the music, Nick decided impatiently, and he turned to face her. The quicker he got this over with, the sooner he would be able to get on with his life.
She was once again dressed in the black silk blouse and fitted black trousers she had worn the day before, her hair falling silkily about her shoulders, her make-up attempting, and not quite succeeding, to hide the slight redness to her chin, where his late-night stubble and the intensity of their kisses had scratched that delicate creamy skin.
He wasn’t even going to go there! No more thoughts of how wild and willing this woman had been in his arms. Otherwise he would just end up taking her back to bed again.
‘Ready to leave?’ he questioned dismissively as he took in her appearance. ‘Or would you like a cup of coffee before you go?’ He held up the coffeepot.
Hebe frowned at his abruptness. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her, could he? So much for her imaginings of them spending the day together, talking together, laughing together, making love again…!
‘I—don’t think so, thank you,’ she refused uncertainly, wondering if he really just expected her to leave now that the night was over.
An awkward silence followed.
What was she waiting for? Nick wondered impatiently. He had offered her coffee, she had refused, now it would be better for both of them if she just—
‘I—perhaps I had better be going.’ She spoke awkwardly as she seemed to sense his unspoken urging. Questioningly. As if she expected him to ask her to stay.
For what reason? They’d had dinner. They’d made love. They’d both enjoyed it. And now it was over. What else did she want from him? Because he had nothing else to give!
‘My flatmate will probably be wondering where I’ve got to,’ she added with a frown.
Nick hadn’t bothered to ask last night whether that flatmate was male or female. He had been too caught up in smothering, numbing, his own inner pain, to care.
But he felt curious now, and wondered if Hebe Johnson were engaged, or at least had a steady boyfriend. She didn’t come over as the sort of woman who indulged in extra-relationship affairs. But then, she hadn’t exactly come over as the sort of woman who would go to bed with him last night either—and look how wrong he had been about that!
This was extremely awkward, Hebe decided uncomfortably as she continued to stand in the doorway, having no idea how she was supposed to behave the-morning-after-the-night-before. Probably because it was a long time since there had been a morning-after-the-night-before for her!
Not that she was a complete innocent—she had been in a relationship years ago, when she was at university. But she had never stayed in a man’s apartment all night before, and as this man was Nick Cavendish, her employer for the last six months, it was doubly awkward.
He merely looked relieved at her suggestion that she leave. ‘If you’re sure you don’t want coffee?’ he prompted dismissively, as he poured some coffee into a mug for himself—black, with no sugar.
The repeat of the offer was made more out of politeness than anything else, Hebe realised with a sinking of her heart, as Nick sat down at the breakfast bar to take a sip of the steaming brew, no longer even looking at her.
She had been completely overwhelmed by the attention of this ruggedly handsome, gorgeously seductive man the night before, and hadn’t been able to believe her luck when he had seemed to return her interest. But it looked as if she might have plenty of time to repent at leisure if his distant behaviour now was anything to go by.
Her cue not to make this any more embarrassing than it already was…
‘I’ll go, then,’ she announced brightly. ‘I—thank you for dinner last night,’ she added awkwardly.
And everything else, she could have added, but didn’t. After the intimacies they had shared the night before, this really was too embarrassingly awful. Something she didn’t intend ever to repeat if this was what it felt like the following morning.
She looked a little bewildered by his abruptness, Nick acknowledged with a certain guilty irritation after glancing at her. Those amazing gold-coloured eyes were wide with wariness, and her cheeks had gone slightly pale at his obvious lack of enthusiasm.
What had she expected, for goodness’ sake? That he would make declarations of undying love for her this morning? Assure her he couldn’t live without her and invite her to come along with him to New York when he left later this morning?
Damn it, this was real life—not some fairy story. And they were adults, not romantic children!
They had both had a good time, but that was all it had been.
‘I’m going back to New York later on today,’ he told her dismissively. ‘But I’ll give you a call, okay?’ he added—knowing he had no intention of doing any such thing.
He should never have become personally involved with an employee in the first place, so he certainly didn’t intend to arrange to see Hebe Johnson on a social level again.
For one thing, he knew that if he met up with Hebe again, away from the gallery, then they would end up in bed together again too. Even now, looking at the soft pout of her mouth, that quicksilver hair, the willowy curves of her body in the silky blouse and fitted black trousers, he felt the stirring of desire for her—an ache he was absolutely determined to do nothing about.
She was definitely being given the brush-off, Hebe realised painfully. She wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t know that when a man said I’ll call you after spending the night, without so much as asking for your telephone number, it meant that he had no intention of ever contacting you again!
Of course Nick was slightly different, in that he could, if he wanted, get her telephone number from Personnel at the Cavendish Gallery. She just didn’t think, from his dismissive attitude this morning, that he was ever going to want to.
The excitement of having dinner with him last night, and the hours they had spent making love, and now being summararily dismissed this morning had ultimately to be the most humiliating experience of her entire life.
She couldn’t get out of here fast enough!
She looked as if she were going to make a mad dash out of here without so much as a goodbye, Nick realised. Well, that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He frowned unwittingly, acknowledging that he didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of a casual dismissal. He was always the one to bid farewell, not the other way round.
He stood up, smiling slightly as he crossed the kitchen to put his arms about Hebe’s waist and pull her into the hardness of his body. ‘Goodbye, Hebe!’ he murmured, his arousal undeniable.
She looked up at him, five or six inches shorter than his own six feet two inches in height, her eyes golden globes of uncertainty.
Hell, she had beautiful eyes, Nick thought with an inward groan. Beautiful everything, if his memory didn’t deceive him. And he knew that it didn’t.
Maybe they could meet again after all—
No! Don’t be an idiot, Nick, he rebuked himself impatiently. Much better to just leave it like this.
Leave it, and hope that with time they would both forget last night had ever happened…
He certainly intended doing exactly that!
CHAPTER TWO
SIX weeks later Hebe was still waiting for the promised telephone call from Nick Cavendish.
She had been a fool ever to expect that he would phone, of course, and several conversations with Kate over the last few weeks had confirmed that Nick Cavendish did not get seriously involved with any of the women he went out with. The number of women he had been involved with since the end of his marriage, also according to Kate, had been legion, and none of them, Kate had told her wistfully—as if she’d guessed Hebe’s interest was more than casual—had ever been employees of the Cavendish Galleries.
Or if they had they very quickly hadn’t been, Hebe had decided.