CHAPTER FOUR
‘MR POLLACK WANTS to see you in the function room.’
Leah stiffened in her grey leather office chair.
The moment she had been dreading all day had finally arrived.
He’d said a polite hello to her when he’d arrived this morning with his male PA in tow, a dark-haired, solid fellow in his early thirties. But she hadn’t set eyes on either man since. According to Trish at lunchtime, both men had spent all morning going over the sales figures for the past two years, and were planning on spending the afternoon talking to the managers in the marketing division.
By four o’clock, Leah had thought she’d escaped a confrontation over what she’d said in the car park. But it seemed she was wrong.
‘Why on earth would he want to see me?’ she queried Mandy as she rose reluctantly to her feet.
Mandy shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. I’m just the messenger. Maybe he wants to ask you out,’ she added with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
‘Very funny.’
The temptation to dash off to the ladies’ room to check her appearance was intense. But Leah refused to indulge her vanity, or that secret part of herself that still found Jason Pollack cripplingly attractive. She hadn’t stared at him when he arrived this morning, looking suave and smooth in a navy pinstriped suit, crisp white shirt and wine-coloured tie, along with matching kerchief in his breast pocket.
She’d looked at him, as he had looked at her. And said a polite hello, as he had to her. But that was all.
Taking a deep, gathering breath, Leah squared her shoulders and set off down the corridor that ran off the reception area to her right, at the end of which lay a large room that the company used for meetings and functions.
The door was ominously shut, which only increased her nerves. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be alone.
Her tap tap on the door sounded firm, despite her hand shaking.
‘Come in,’ ordered a rich male voice through the door.
His, of course.
Another deep breath as she turned the silver door handle, then pushed open the door.
He was alone, sitting at the boardroom table whose polished length stretched along in front of the tall windows that overlooked the back lawns. That wall faced west and, at this hour, the rays of the low-set sun slanted through the uncurtained sheets of glass, casting his handsome face into shadows, but lighting up his jet-black hair.
Leah hated the way her stomach was churning. Hated him for making her feel like this. So vulnerable, and so very foolish.
Jason had steeled himself against her beauty.
What a futile exercise!
She took his breath away again as she entered, her walk as bewitching as the rest of her. She must have once taken ballet lessons, he decided. Or been a model. Her posture was superb. So was the rest of her.
She was wearing pale pink today, a softly feminine dress that wrapped around her slender yet curvy body, covering everything, hiding nothing. Her hair was up, but loosely, a style he’d always liked. As she came closer he could smell her perfume, a tantalising scent that reminded of him faintly of vanilla.
His flesh leapt to attention, making him glad he was sitting at a table. ‘You wanted to see me, Mr Pollack?’ she said, her green eyes still flashing a frosty dislike at him.
Jason wished he hadn’t sent for her now. He was wasting his time here. Torturing himself for nothing. Clearly, he’d misread her yesterday morning. He’d thought he’d seen a spark of mutual attraction in her eyes at the time; thought she’d just been playing a hard-to-get game when she’d walked away and ignored him.
Even after the incident in the car park, his male ego had managed to momentarily convince himself that her spirited attack was another ploy of the same hard-to-get game. Jason had been the target of many beautiful but ambitious female employees over the last few years, and had become somewhat familiar with their tactics. Some were quite brazen, others more subtle, feigning an initial uninterest, despite their body language telling him otherwise.
During his drive home, Jason had desperately clung to the hope that Ms Johanssen had been one of the latter kind. But as he’d brooded over dinner last night, he had finally come to the more logical conclusion that the girl probably had a steady boyfriend, and was sick to death of being hit on by men. Given how stunning she was, that must happen all the time.
Unfortunately, the thought that Leah Johanssen had a boyfriend, that she might even be living with someone, had not sat well with Jason. The image of her wrapped in some other man’s arms that very night had kept him tossing and turning into the wee small hours.
By morning, a bleary-eyed Jason decided not to make a fool of himself with her a second time. He would ignore her from now on, as she had ignored him.
He might have succeeded in this strategy if Bob hadn’t told him over afternoon tea that office gossip had the beautiful blonde receptionist of Beville Holdings without a current boyfriend.
Which was why Jason had sent for her.
Bad move, as it turned out. All that had been achieved was a more acute reminder of how devastatingly desirable he found this girl.
As confident as Jason was in his own attractiveness to the opposite sex, there seemed little hope that Leah Johanssen secretly fancied him. Women who secretly fancied men didn’t look at them the way she was looking at him at this present moment—like he was a snake that had crawled into her bedroom.
‘Please, sit down,’ he said to her in curt tones, and indicated the chair opposite him.
‘It’s ten past four,’ she shot back without moving an inch. ‘I go home at four thirty.’
Brother, she really had it in for him for whatever reason. He supposed he had come on a bit strong yesterday. Not one of his most subtle invitations.
But someone might like to tell her that threatening her new boss with sexual harassment charges wasn’t exactly a good career move.
‘This won’t take long,’ he said a bit sharply.
‘Very well,’ she said, and with a toss of her lovely head, pulled out the chair and sat down, her back ramrod straight, her knees primly together.
Jason gritted his teeth. ‘I wanted to apologise to you for what happened in the car park yesterday.’
An apology! It was the last thing Leah was expecting.
‘It was arrogant and presumptuous of me to ask you out like that,’ he added, using the exact words she’d called him in her mind. ‘I’m sorry, Leah. I realise how annoying it must be to be on the end of unwanted attentions and invitations. A girl as beautiful as yourself is probably always getting hit on by men. It must be doubling annoying when it’s your new boss at work. Trust me when I say it won’t happen again.’
Leah just sat there, totally dumbstruck. Her fear all day had been over his asking her to leave. An apology had not been expected.
Men like him rarely apologised for anything!
‘That’s all, Leah,’ he went on abruptly. ‘Thank you for coming.’
As Leah levered herself up out of the chair, she found that her hands were clenched tightly together and her heart was racing like mad. Suddenly, she wanted to say something to him, to soften that hard, tight-lipped expression on his face. But what?
I’m sorry too. I overreacted. I really would have loved to go out to dinner with you last night. But I was afraid you’d make me want to go to bed with you and then I’d have to take off my clothes and you’d see my scars and…
A small shudder rippled down Leah’s spine as she realised her thoughts seemed to be spinning out of control.
‘I will be calling you in for a proper interview later in the week,’ he added matter of factly. ‘Only about work matters,’ he hastily reassured. ‘I hope to interview all the employees of Beville Holdings. I trust you won’t find that a problem?’
‘Not at all, Mr Pollack.’ Thank heavens she sounded normal!
‘Jason, please,’ he insisted. ‘I always do business on a first-name basis.’
‘Jason,’ she repeated, the name feeling right for him. A strong name for a strong man. Leah was already beginning to forget why it was she hadn’t liked him.
Oh, yes. He’d married an older woman for her money, hadn’t he? And now he was single again, a bachelor playboy with a penthouse and a sports car and eyes that kept telling her he wanted to add her to his list of successful takeovers. His mouth might have apologised, but those burning black eyes kept betraying his true agenda.
Leah hadn’t come down in the last shower. Jason Pollack was still interested in her. Men like him didn’t back away gracefully. They went after what they wanted with every means at their disposal.
And he had lots of means at his disposal. Money. Position. Power. And more sex appeal than any man had a right to.
Their eyes met and locked, hers struggling to hold on to the coolly haughty expression that she’d adopted since entering the room. She could feel herself melting, surrendering to the heat that radiated from his gaze. Not just her eyes. But her mind. And her whole insides. Melting to mush.
What would it be like, she wondered, to be his girlfriend? To eat with him, and sleep with him. To just be with him.
Images filled her mind. Erotic images. Corrupting images.
Just in time she snapped out of it and spun away from him, her hands making fists by her side as she marched towards the door.
‘Have a pleasant evening, Leah,’ he called after her. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Jason was still sitting there, mulling over Leah’s contradictory body language when Bob came in, holding a couple of plastic folders.
‘Well?’ Bob said, sitting down in the chair that Leah had just vacated. ‘How did it go with the delectable Ms Johanssen?’
‘So-so,’ Jason replied. Better, actually, than he’d expected. He’d finally seen that spark in her eyes again, the one he’d glimpsed when they’d first met. Though this time, for a few seconds, it had been more than a spark. More of a sizzle.
‘Did you ask her out?’ ‘Not yet.’ Despite her momentary lapse, when she’d shown him that she was attracted to him, Jason knew he was going to have to be patient.
Not that he felt like being patient. He was still wildly erect under the table, a most unusual state of affairs. The prospect of more nights of tossing and turning was not a pleasant one.
‘You have that look in your eye,’ Bob said ruefully. ‘The one you have when there’s some company you’re really keen on acquiring. Haven’t seen it directed towards a girl before, though.’
‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Jason said, thinking that he hadn’t met a girl quite like this one before.
Karen would have liked Leah, came the sudden and highly unexpected thought.
Karen had always hated women who fell at his feet. Which they had. Most of his life.
Karen had been the first member of the opposite sex who’d initially spurned his advances. And meant it.
It had taken Jason three months of persistence and lots of persuasion before she consented to go out on a date with him. Their age difference had really worried her. Plus what other people thought, especially once she promoted him to CEO of WhizzBiz Electronics.
Jason wondered what it was that worried Leah about him. Something did. He could sense it. His training as a salesman had made him very sensitive to body language.
Maybe she had a hard and fast rule not to mix business with pleasure. Or maybe she’d been burned, like Bob had been last year, and was wary about dating again.
He needed to know more about her. Knowledge was, indeed, power.
‘Did you get what I wanted?’ he asked Bob. Bob placed the orange plastic folder on his own lap, then slid the blue one across the table, right into Jason’s waiting hands.
Jason’s conscience bothered him only slightly as he opened the file and began flicking through the printout of Leah Johanssen’s employment record.
I’m the boss, he told himself. It’s my right to know the background and qualifications of my employees.
Yeah, especially ones you fancy, his dark side pointed out mockingly.
‘I…er…printed out Trish’s file as well,’ Bob suddenly confessed. ‘You know—Jim Matheson’s secretary.’
Jason’s head snapped up to stare at his PA. ‘What on earth for?’ He sure as hell didn’t fancy her.
‘I think she’s nice. I like her.’
‘You do realise she’s having an affair with Matheson, don’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ Bob said. ‘I sort of gathered that. But Matheson’s married, and I’m not. You and I both know he’s not going to leave his wife for his secretary. Men like Matheson are serial adulterers. You can bet that Trish isn’t the only piece of skirt he’s had around here.’
Bob’s observation sent the most awful thought into Jason’s head. Possibly because he was looking at Leah’s resumé at the time.
His stomach contracted fiercely as he saw that she had had no qualifications for her present position when she’d been hired last year. No qualifications for any job, really.
Which meant…what?
Jason had spent a dreadful night last night, imagining her in the arms of some nameless boyfriend. Thinking of her being taken by Jim Matheson on his oversized desk—or on the leather chesterfield in his office—made him feel physically ill!
Logic came to his rescue just in time. Would a girl who’d knocked him back so forcefully sleep with a creep like Matheson for some second-rate receptionist job?
Absolutely not. If she’d been that type, she’d have accepted his invitation to dinner yesterday.
No, Leah Johanssen was deeper than that. And far more complex. A real mystery woman. Not only did she not have many employment qualifications, she had no past employment record. What had she been doing with her life before starting work here?
‘Look, let’s get back to business,’ he said suddenly, and shoved the pages back into the folder. He’d look at them later, when he had to time to think about nothing but her. ‘Give me your first impressions of Beville Holdings as a company.’
Bob leant back in his chair, hooking his right foot over his left knee. ‘Well, the problem clearly lies with management, both in sales and marketing,’ he said. ‘But the sales division is by far the worst. Jim Matheson is one slick but rather shifty customer. He’ll definitely have to go. And I have no ulterior motive for saying that,’ he added swiftly.
‘Good. Because no way will I be firing Jim Matheson just yet. Not till after I find out what damage he’s done. By the way, did you manage to hire someone yesterday to do some speedy market research on all their products?’
‘Yep. Should have a report by the end of the week.’
‘Great. You’ll be coming with me here again tomorrow, by the way. And every day this week.’
‘Thank you. And I don’t have an ulterior motive for saying that, either. I simply hate staying in the office all by myself, doing nothing but take phone calls. Yesterday was such a bore.’
Jason gave Bob a droll look. Their office was located within Jason’s penthouse, with every possible mod con and a heated lap pool a few metres away in which both men swam every day. When he sold WhizzBiz Electronics and became a corporate pirate, Jason decided that renting office space was a waste of time and money. So he’d sold the large home he’d shared with Karen, and bought the top floor of a new skyscraper smack dab in the middle of Sydney.
It had cost him fifteen million dollars, but was probably worth double that now.
‘Poor Bob,’ he said, with not a trace of sympathy in his voice. ‘Any important calls yesterday, by the way?’
‘Let’s see now. The usual canvassing crap and invitations to stuff you hate. There was one rather interesting invite, though. From Joachim Bloom, asking you to a dinner party at his home next Saturday night. I told him I’d get back to him.’
‘Joachim Bloom,’ Jason repeated thoughtfully. ‘Name sounds familiar. Remind me. What does he do?’ This was Bob’s greatest asset as Jason’s PA. He knew everything about everyone who mattered—money-wise—in Australia. Read all the business magazines from cover to cover every month, as well as the business section in every newspaper, every day.
‘He’s a stockbroker. Old money, but he’s managed to increase his fortune somewhat. Always makes it on to the top two hundred richest in Australia list. A great contact if you want to start taking over strange little companies you know nothing about. He’d probably be able to tell you more about Beville Holdings in one night than we’ll be able to find out this entire week.’
‘A bit late for that, don’t you think?’ Jason remarked, toying with the idea of actually saying yes. He wasn’t partial to dinner parties, but he’d spent every Saturday night for the past six months with Hilary and suspected he might not want to spend this Saturday night alone. He might be tempted to ring Hilary out of sheer sexual frustration and that would not do. Because it wasn’t dark hair he wanted to wake to on the pillow next to him, but blonde.
‘Where does Mr Bloom live?’ he asked, still thinking of long blonde hair spread out on his pillow.
‘Vaucluse.’
‘Is there any other address for old money? Okay. Ring him back and accept.’
‘Will do,’ Bob said as he fished out his phone. ‘I have his number and address in here.’
Whilst Bob rang Mr Bloom and accepted the dinner invitation on his behalf, Jason gathered up his papers into his briefcase, including the folder with the file on Leah.
He’d bring her in for that chat soon. But not too soon.
Friday, he decided. By then, he might know how best to handle her.
By then, you’re going to be in a bad way, whispered a frustrated voice inside his head.
Just keep busy, he told himself.
‘All done,’ Bob said. ‘You’re expected at seven thirty. Saturday night. Black tie.’
‘Black tie! Good God, who’s coming? The Queen?’
‘The best of Sydney society, I suppose.’
‘Then why’s he asking me? I’ve never been part of that crowd.’
‘You want me to ring and cancel?’
‘No, no. I’ll go. At least the food will be good. And the wine.’
‘By the way, he enquired if you had a partner and I said no. Hilary is history, isn’t she?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Good.’
Jason frowned. ‘You didn’t like Hilary?’ As much as Jason didn’t make a habit of discussing his personal life with Bob, it was impossible to hide it. Hilary had often dropped in at the penthouse during the day when Bob had been there.
‘She was after you for your money,’ Bob pronounced, startling Jason.
‘But she had money of her own.’ Hilary’s first husband had been well off, her divorce settlement considerable. She’d owned a very nice house at Harboard Beach, where Jason had spent many weekends with her.
‘Some women can never be too rich.’
Jason thought about Hilary’s fury when he wouldn’t marry her. She’d claimed to be madly in love with him. But maybe it had never been a matter of love. Jason respected Bob’s judgement of character, plus his intuition about people.
‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘Come on. Let’s get going. It’s been a long day.’
The reception desk was deserted by the time they walked past. Leah’s car wasn’t in the car park, either. She was gone.
Jason wondered for a moment where she lived. But then he realised he had that detail in his briefcase. He had lots of details about her, not just her address.
Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get home to discover every single one of them.
23-10-07, 04:34 AM
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