Hired For His Pleasure: The Talk of Hollywood / Keeping Her Up All Night / Buttoned-Up Secretary, British Boss

‘The traitor …’

Jaxon gave a rueful shake of his shaggy head, having quickly pulled on faded denims and a black tee shirt before coming downstairs. ‘Exactly when did you take the keys to the Harley off my dressing table …?’

‘When I heard the shower running in your bathroom.’ She had the grace to look a little guilty. ‘I am sorry I took them without your permission, but at the time I didn’t feel I had any other choice.’

‘Is that your idea of an apology?’

‘No.’ She sighed. ‘It was very wrong of me, and I do apologise, Jaxon. My grandfather would be horrified if he knew!’

‘I’m horrified—but probably not for the same reason!’ Jaxon gave her an exasperated glance as he too easily imagined what might have happened if she had managed to ride the Harley. ‘How could you even have thought taking my motorbike was going to work, Stazy, when there are enough guards patrolling the grounds for them to hear a mouse squeak let alone the roar of an engine starting up?’

‘I didn’t even get the bike out of the garage,’ Stazy acknowledged self-disgustedly.

There had been no excuse for what she had allowed to happen in her grandfather’s study earlier that evening, and just thinking about those intimacies once Stazy reached the privacy of her bedroom had been enough to make her want to get as far away from Bromley House—and Jaxon—as possible!

Admittedly it had taken a little time on her part, but once it had occurred to her that she could ‘borrow’ the keys to Jaxon’s Harley and then take the less used and hopefully less guarded back road out of the estate to leave, she hadn’t been able to rid herself of the idea.

Unfortunately, as Jaxon had already pointed out, just starting up the engine had brought three of her grandfather’s guards running to where the motorbike was parked at the back of the house. Quickly followed by the humiliation of having the keys to the motorbike taken from her before being escorted back inside.

With the added embarrassment that Jaxon now knew exactly what she had planned on doing too. ‘Obviously I didn’t really think beyond the idea of going to London to see my grandfather,’ she accepted guiltily.

‘Obviously!’ Jaxon gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘You could have been killed, damn it!’

In retrospect Stazy accepted that her method of leaving Bromley House really hadn’t been a good plan at all. Not only had starting the engine sounded like the roar of an angry lion in the stillness of the night, but there had still been no guarantee that she would have found it any easier to leave by the back road. She would never know now.

No, in retrospect, taking the Harley hadn’t been a good plan at all. And, if Stazy was being honest, she now admitted it had also been an extremely childish one.

Why, oh, why did just being around Jaxon make her behave in this ridiculous way …?

She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘I just feel so—so useless, having to sit here and wait for news from my grandfather.’

Jaxon’s expression softened. ‘I’m sure Geoffrey is well aware of exactly how you feel, Stazy—’

‘Are you?’ she said warily.

‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Look, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning, and no doubt the kitchen staff all went to bed hours ago. So why don’t the two of us go down to the kitchen and make a pot of tea or something?’

She smiled ruefully. ‘Tea being the English panacea for whatever ails you?’

He shrugged. ‘It would seem to work in most situations, yes.’

It certainly couldn’t do any harm, and Stazy knew she was still too restless to be able to sleep even if she went up to bed now. ‘Why not?’ she said softly as she crossed the room to precede him out into the hallway.

The house was quiet as Jaxon and Stazy crossed the cavernous entrance hall on their way to the more shadowy hallway that led down to the kitchen, with only the sound of the grandfather clock ticking to disturb that eerie silence.

A stark reminder, if Jaxon had needed one, that it was very late at night and he and Stazy were completely alone.

And if Stazy believed there had been no repercussions for him after having to walk away from her earlier this evening then she was completely mistaken!

A fifteen-minute cold shower had done absolutely nothing to dampen Jaxon’s arousal. Nor had sitting at the desk in his bathrobe to read through the notes he had already accumulated for the screenplay. Or telephoning his agent in LA and chatting to him about it for ten minutes.

None of those things had done a damned thing to stop Jaxon’s mind from wandering, time and time again, to thoughts of making love with Stazy in Geoffrey’s study.

As he was thinking about it still.

Self-denial wasn’t something Jaxon enjoyed. And walking away from Stazy—not once, but twice in the past two days!—was playing havoc with his self-control!

The cosy intimacy of the warm kitchen and working together to make tea—Jaxon finding the cups while Stazy filled the kettle with water and switched it on—did nothing to lessen his awareness of her. Not when his gaze wandered to her constantly as the slender elegance of her hands prepared and warmed the teapot and he all too easily imagined the places those hands might touch and caress. The smooth roundness of her bottom in those black fitted denims wasn’t helping either!

‘Feeling any better?’ Jaxon prompted gruffly, once he was seated on the other side of the kitchen table from Stazy, two steaming cups of tea in front of them.

‘Less hysterical, you mean?’ She grimaced.

He shook his head. ‘You weren’t hysterical, Stazy, just understandably concerned about your grandfather.’

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged with a sigh. ‘Still, I didn’t have to be quite so bitchy about it.’

‘You? Bitchy?’ Jaxon gave an exaggerated gasp of disbelief. ‘Never!’ He placed a dramatic hand on his heart.

She smiled ruefully. ‘You aren’t going to win any awards with that performance!’

‘No,’ he acknowledged with a wry chuckle.

Stazy sobered. ‘Do you think my grandfather is telling us the truth about this threat?’ She looked across at him worriedly. ‘It occurred to me earlier that he could be using it as a smokescreen,’ she continued as Jaxon raised one dark brow. ‘That maybe this screenplay and the making of the film might have brought on another heart attack …?’

‘Why am I not surprised!’ Jaxon grimaced ruefully. ‘Do you seriously believe your grandfather would lie to you in that way?’

‘If he thought I would worry less, yes,’ she confirmed unhesitantly.

Unfortunately, so did Jaxon.

Although he honestly hoped in this instance that wouldn’t turn out to be the case. ‘Then it’s one of those questions where I can’t win, however I choose to answer it. If I say no, I can’t see that happening, then you aren’t going to believe me. And if I say it’s a possibility, you’ll ask me to consider dropping the whole idea.’

Stazy was rational enough now to be able to see the logic in Jaxon’s reply. ‘Maybe we should just change the subject …?’

‘That might be a good idea,’ he drawled ruefully.

She nodded. ‘As you probably aren’t going to be able to speak to my grandfather about it for several days yet, perhaps you would like to tell me what it is you found earlier and wanted to talk to him about …?’

Jaxon gave a wince. ‘Another lose/lose question as far as I’m concerned, I’m afraid. And it seems a pity to spoil things when we have reached something of a truce in the last few minutes …’

‘It’s probably an armed truce, Jaxon,’ Stazy said dryly. ‘And liable to erupt into shots being exchanged again at any moment!’

‘Okay.’ He grimaced. ‘Curiously, what I’ve found is something the reporter who wrote the biography seems to have missed altogether …’

‘Hmm …’

Jaxon raised one dark brow at that sceptical murmur. ‘You don’t think he missed it?’