Page 23 of Arrogant Heir

I can’t believe I feel like an outsider in my family home. Seems she has also cast a spell over him and Seb, not only me.

‘I was telling Jamie about your father and how he and your mother used to travel together on business, and that they were wonderful parents too,’ Grandfather says.

My face stiffens. I don’t want to talk about my father. No, let me rephrase that. Ican’ttalk about my father. I’ve tried and I just fall apart. Her caramel eyes are on me again and they brim with emotion. I see she knows I’m upset and feels sorry for me.

This is going from bad to worse. I avoid the conversation and stand up abruptly, striding towards the bell and ringing it. ‘I’m ravenous. When is dinner?’

Jamie is still watching me, and I excuse myself for a minute. Hopefully dinner will be served by the time I get back, and there’ll be no more talk of our feelings. That’s one thing I refuse to talk about.I’m not going there, Red.

That night, I struggle to sleep for more than an hour at a time. And when I slide into another bout of restless sleep, I see Jamie’s face in my dreams. She keeps plaguing me with questions and says, ‘Let’s talk about your father.’

As dawn arrives, splinters of light seep through the shutters, and I fall into a mercifully deep sleep where I’m safe from Red.

CHAPTER17

Jamie

I’m sitting on the opposite side of Damian’s desk—as usual—while he’s on the phone. His muscles ripple beneath the fine fabric of his shirt as he flicks through documents and talks. He’s clean shaven and his black hair glistens; still damp. The reports in the media were accurate. The Rochester heir really does look like a Greek God.

He told me he works out every morning in the home gym, so I guess he has a shower before he comes down to his office. I imagine him standing beneath a luxury rain shower like the one in my cottage—muscular forearms massaging the shampoo into his dark hair and soaping his delicious broad shoulders. I wonder what it would be like to run my hands over his wide chest. And what would it be like to be the reason he loses his finely tuned control? I am getting hot just at the thought.

He ends the call and looks at me. My guilty fantasy causes my face to grow warm and I lean over to shuffle in my bag to avoid his all-seeing eyes.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he says, his shapely lips curving into that curious half-smile that’s now so familiar to me. It’s as though he wants to smile, but he’s not willing to waste a whole one.

I don’t know why he’s so restrained. I’ve caught glimpses of a fun side to him when he’s chatting with Seb, but it’s like he won’t allow himself the freedom to relax. There’s even been the occasional time when he’s let his guard down with me and we laughed about something. But it's only ever about work.

He’s an enigma to me. I understand he lost his dad in an accident, and it affected him terribly, but I can’t wrap my head around why he is so distant and grumpy most of the time. Seb isn’t uptight like Damian, and he’s lost even more. His father and his wife.

Damian has got everything going for him: an amazing career—a legacy, a wonderful family, and when his grandfather dies, he’ll inherit Greystone, and have more money than he’ll ever know what to do with. So, what is his problem?

And more worrying for me right now is what ismyproblem? Why the hell am I fantasising about my arrogant boss? If he could read my thoughts, I’d die a thousand deaths.

I don’t get crushes lightly—the last time I had a crush was when I met Simon. We kept bumping into each other at a coffee shop, and that blossomed into a five-year relationship. Okay, so it shrivelled and died, but the point is I don’t fall for every handsome guy I meet.

Damian is hogging my thoughts and featuring in the starring role in my novel. He won’t leave! I’ve tried evicting him from the story, but he insists on striding across every page. My male main character has a different name and looks different—I’ve given him brown hair—but I’m not fooling myself.

The sexual tension in the book is building and the female main character is struggling to keep herself together. Given how much time we’re spending together, both in real life and in my fictional world, it’s no surprise I’m dreaming about Damian and fantasising about him in the shower, but it must stop or I’m going to get hurt again and make a fool of myself. I know it’s only a sexual fantasy, and he’s not the type of guy to have a relationship with, but it’s a dangerous line to tread.

Simon is still texting me every day and has started calling me again, too. I’m doing my best to keep him at a distance, but I won’t lie—it feels good to know he wants me back. It’s tempting to just fall into his arms, but I won’t let myself do that. I’d be setting myself up for disappointment. He needs to make amends for what he’s done, and it will take more than a few texts and apologies. My mind instantly takes me to grand gestures in romance novels. If he wants me back, he’s going to have to grovel in a major way. There’s no chance I’m falling into being his girlfriend again if we’re not getting married.

He asked me to give him some time and perhaps we can get married next year, but it was a half-hearted gesture. I said he should take all the time he needs because our wedding is off the table now, anyway. It doesn’t feel right, and I don’t trust him the way I need to trust my future husband. Yes, I can be tough when I need to be. He’s made a fool of me and I’m in control now.

Meanwhile, I suppose it’s only natural after a long-term relationship to miss sex. Not that sex with Simon was smoking hot, but it was regular and pretty good. That must be why Damian is hogging my thoughts. I can’t take it seriously, though. He’s a notorious playboy with a heart of steel and an even more metallic manner. He’s strictly off-limits, so what am I doing?

I notice his eyes dip to my cleavage and wonder if he’s attracted to me at all, or if checking out women is just a habit. From what I saw in the papers, he’s more into leggy, supermodels than the petite five-foot-nothing type like me. I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed.

Be relieved, I tell myself. He’s off-limits in every way—not only am I working for him, but he also has no respect for women. How can he have if he uses them for sex so blatantly? In my research, I read a lot about him and there were so many pictures of him with different women. Some well-known socialites and other nameless faces who were no doubt thrilled to be seen on the arm of a famous billionaire.

It's true that all the stories were from a couple of years ago, and I couldn’t find anything more recent, so maybe he’s cooled his jets and is behaving himself. I can’t imagine Arthur being happy about that kind of behaviour splashed across the tabloids. Maybe that’s the real reason for staying in London. He needed to scratch that itch without his grandfather being any the wiser.

I need to move the book forward now and stop snowballing about my feelings for him. An idea floats into my head and the adrenalin rushes through my body. I bite the bullet and ask him to tell me about when his dad died. The half-smile disappears, and a heavy shutter rolls down over his handsome face.

‘Why is that important to the book?’ His tone is clipped and his voice icy.

My heart races, but I maintain eye contact. I need to know what happened and why he is like he is. If not for the book, then at least for my own sanity.

I straighten in my chair and bring myself up to my full height. My blouse neckline flops to the side, revealing more of my cleavage, and I hastily rearrange the material. ‘It’s important because you and your siblings have taken a bigger role in operations sooner than you would have if he were alive. Or is that not the case?’

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