.

      ‘I didn’t want to go to the pub either. I’ve been working on an idea for the Berkeley account.’

      ‘I can see that.’ He glanced up at the wall. ‘But it’s Christmas; they aren’t going to do anything with it until the New Year and anyway I’m going now so you’re going to have to leave too.’

      I picked up all the stuff I’d been working on, but left everything I’d put up on the walls. He stepped back and let me walk out. Then he knocked off the light, shut the door behind us and followed me.

      I went over to my desk. The light was out in his office and his coat was in a heap on the desk next to mine.

      ‘I shut your computer down. I thought you’d gone and been sloppy and left everything out.’

      I poked my tongue out at him as he dropped into the chair before the desk next to mine. One ankle lifted to settle on his opposite knee as he sprawled back in the chair, watching me.

      I put everything down on my desk and then opened the drawer in the pedestal.

      His skinny black trousers hugged the muscular definition in his legs as he leaned back in that cool, nonchalant pose.

      He picked up a pen that had been lying on the desk tapped one end of it, twisted it over with his fingers and then tapped the other end, and kept on turning it and tapping it in an absentminded way as I shoved all my work into the drawer.

      ‘So what are you doing for the holidays?’

      ‘Nothing.’ I locked my drawer, then looked at him.

      ‘Me neither. Have you got anyone to go and visit, or anyone coming to you?’

      ‘No. I’m all alone.’ I gave him an awkward smile as I straightened up, ready to go. He didn’t make a move to get up.

      ‘Me too.’

      His blue eyes looked at me and his fingers stopped turning the pen, then lifted to brush his black hair off his brow. There was that tug and my tummy did a dozen backflips like it had taken on a tumbling act.

      ‘You know, Ivy, we needn’t spend the holiday alone.’

      Shit. What was coming?

      ‘We could spend it together, if you want?’

      ‘If I want…’

      ‘I’m going away. I’ve got a cottage in the Lake District. It’s my haven. It’s entirely isolated. You could come, if you want?’

      ‘If I want?’ I repeated. Where was this going?

      His eyebrows lifted. ‘Ivy, come on, you get it. You could spend Christmas here alone. Or we could go away together and spend Christmas having naughty sex and leave the world to get on with their happy families’ celebration.’

      I should feel insulted, I should feel shocked. What I felt was nothing like that – I felt – tempted…

      He stood up. ‘You fancy me. We’ve had chemistry going on since you started here. Admit it.’ He was standing close to me, arms at his sides, looking at me like he wanted to reach out and touch. I wanted to reach out and grab, I always had.

      ‘Give into it,’ he said, as though it was the most normal thing for him to come on to me and ask me to go away with him.

      ‘Oh. You‘re so tempting,’ I said sarcastically and turned my back on him, deliberately, to cross the room and fetch my coat. My heartbeat raced manically. God, my body would love to do that. Sex! Naughty sex! The wicked side of me, the girl on Santa’s bad list, wanted to ask how naughty? But I didn’t really need to ask; I’d seen the glint in his eyes that had implied very naughty. But he was my boss.

      ‘I can be more tempting.’ I heard him getting closer as he followed me to the coat racks.

      His voice ran fingers across my innards like they were guitar strings.

      After I’d taken my coat off the hook I turned and faced him. A part of me was terrified and it yelled, don’t be more tempting! While the wicked me, the bitch that had refused to marry Rick because he was boring, wanted to leap at Jack’s offer.

      I smiled.

      One eyebrow and one side of his lips lifted. ‘You are tempted. I knew you fancied me.’

      ‘I didn’t know you fancied me that much.’ I slipped my arms into the sleeves of my parka. It would be entirely reckless of me to say yes.

      His hands lifted, saying, look at you. ‘Seriously, Ivy, you must know what you look like, who wouldn’t?’

      ‘That isn’t a compliment that’ll win me over.’

      ‘I’m saying you’re gorgeous.’ He stepped closer and then his hands gripped the edges of my coat. ‘And there is one thing I’ve always known about you, you were too good for Rick. That guy was never right for you.’

      My tummy did pirouettes. ‘I am tempted.’ My answer was a broken, dry-mouthed whisper. He’d had me at ‘Rick was never right for you’.

      He glanced up at the ceiling, his head tilting back. ‘Yes. Come on temptation.’ His gaze dropped back to me. ‘Actually, why don’t we scrap naughty sex and go for all-out nasty sex, a whole week of it.’

      ‘And what happens when we get back?’ I could hear the words in Rick’s voice. Don’t be crazy, Ivy, he’s your boss. I’d spent too many years listening to Rick’s cautions.

      ‘Nothing happens. We act like normal.’ He looked around. ‘I don’t see anyone here; who’s to know we went away together?’ Then he looked back at me. ‘It’ll be our secret.’

      ‘But you’re my boss—’

      ‘I’m not going to sack you if you have sex with me.’

      ‘Or you have sex with me. This is your suggestion.’ I’d only ever done it with Rick. Was that desperately sad? It felt sad, and I was one hundred per cent sure that doing it with Jack would be incomparable to doing it with Rick. My bad girl wanted to know what it would feel like.

      His eyes glinted. He still had a hold on my coat. The expensive aftershave he wore filled the air around us.

      I breathed in and ended up breathing in his out-breath, he was so close.

      ‘As far as I remember, sex takes two people. If we have sex we agree no one’s to blame, no one’s leading the other one. We’re doing it for a bit of fun because we have nothing better to do and we’ll come back feeling much better than if we’d sat at home pissed off with everyone else enjoying themselves.’

      Naughty. Nasty. Sex. My heart thudded, adding a bass beat to the moment, and my tummy was wobbly like a jelly shot. This was what I’d turned Rick down for – to feel a rush like this – this pounding and excitement in my blood. ‘Yes okay. Alright.’ The words left my lips without any bidding from my brain.

      ‘You’re sure?’ He sounded surprised.

      But I was up for this. This was what I’d thrown my life up in the air to feel. This feeling was the thing I’d craved. Excitement.

      He let go of me. I’d expected him to kiss me. But then it wasn’t romance he was offering.

      ‘I promise you, you won’t regret it.’

      ‘You…’ A nervous laugh escaped my throat. ‘You’re so full of yourself.’

      His hands suddenly pressed either side of my head, his long fingers sliding into my hair. Then he did kiss me. It was hard and dominating. Nothing like the soft, gentle way that Rick kissed.

       Oh, no, she’s absolutely right. I cheated. Loads.

      I hadn’t ever admitted it, not even to myself in my head, but I’d wanted him to kiss me since I’d started here two years ago even though I’d