At His Service: His 9-5 Secretary. Michelle Celmer

to jog along as we were indefinitely. I wanted more.’

      He looked shocked. ‘Did he know how much you cared for him?’

      That was rich, coming from the man who—if office gossip was to be believed—discarded girlfriends like cherry stones once he’d enjoyed their fruit. Talk about a case of the pot calling the kettle black! Gina shrugged, keeping her voice steady and unemotional when she said, ‘That’s not really the point. We wanted different things for the future, that’s all. I was ready to settle down, and he wasn’t. Actually, I don’t think he will ever settle down.’

      He stared at her, a frown darkening his countenance. ‘In other words, he strung you along?’

      ‘No, he didn’t string me along,’ Gina said severely. ‘He was always absolutely straight and above board, if you must know. I suppose I just … hoped for more.’ And always had, from the first moment she had laid eyes on him. Always would, for that matter, if she didn’t put a good few miles between them.

      ‘You are being too kind. He must have known the sort of girl you are from the start.’

      She couldn’t do this any more. Her voice low, she said, ‘Could we change the subject, please, Harry?’

      He opened his mouth to object, but the waitress was at their side with the coffee. He waited until she had bustled off, and then spoke in a very patient tone, which had the effect of making her want to kick him. ‘Believe me, Gina,’ he said gently, ‘I know the type of man he is, and he’s not worthy of you.’

      That was true at least. ‘Really?’ she said drily. ‘You know this without even having met him?’

      ‘Like I said, I know the type. Now, I’m not saying he’s wrong not to want to settle down, I’m the same way myself. But I wouldn’t get involved with someone who had for ever on their mind, and there’s the difference. And a man can tell. Always.’

      He really was the most arrogant male on the planet. ‘How?’

      ‘How?’

      ‘How can you tell if a woman is looking for something permanent or just a roll in the hay?’ she asked baldly.

      He looked askance at her. ‘I hope it’s never anything as crude as “just a roll in the hay”,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’m a man, not an animal. I’ve never yet taken a woman just because she’s indicated she’s available.’

      This self-righteous side of him was new. Gina fixed him with purposely innocent eyes. ‘So you have to get to know someone first? Find out if they can provide mental as well as physical stimulation, perhaps? Make sure their slant on life and love is the same as yours?’

      He stared at her as though he wasn’t sure whether she was mocking him or not. After a moment, his eyes glinting, he said, ‘You make it sound very cold-blooded.’

      In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘Perhaps because it is?’ she suggested sweetly.

      ‘I prefer to think of it as honest, and if this man you’ve been involved with had done the same you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in now,’ he ground out somewhat grimly.

      ‘But attraction, love, desire, doesn’t always fit into nicely labelled little packages, does it?’ Gina countered, the feeling that she’d hit him on the raw wonderfully satisfying. ‘It can be a spontaneous thing, something that hits you wham-bang in the heart and takes you completely by surprise. Something so overpowering and real that everything and everyone else goes out of the window.’

      He folded his arms over his chest, settling more comfortably in his seat as he studied her flushed face. ‘It can be like that,’ he agreed after some moments. ‘But, if it is, things inevitably go wrong.’

      ‘Of course they don’t—’

      ‘Was it like that for you with this man?’ he interjected swiftly. ‘A head-over-heels thing?’

      She hesitated, and immediately he seized on it. ‘You see?’ he said coolly.

      ‘What I see is that your attitude is a wonderful excuse for playing the field without fear of reprisals.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      Refusing to be intimidated by his growl, Gina met his glare without flinching. ‘You have the best of all worlds, Harry, you know you do. You can wine, dine and bed a woman as often as you like, and then walk away with a smile and a “I told you what to expect” when you’ve had enough. I find that … distasteful.’

      ‘Distasteful?’

      If the situation had been different, she could have laughed at the sheer outrage on his face. Funnily enough, his mounting temper had the effect of calming her. ‘Yes, distasteful,’ she said firmly. ‘You can’t tell me some of your girlfriends haven’t fallen for you because, whatever modern thinking tries to promote, sex means more to a woman than a man in the emotional sense. Just the sheer mechanics of it means a woman allows—’ She stopped abruptly as he raised a sardonic eyebrow.

      ‘Yes?’ he drawled with suspicious blankness.

      ‘It means a woman allows a man into her body,’ she said bravely, wondering why she was giving Harry—of all people—a biology lesson. ‘Whereas, for a man …’

      ‘It’s possession, penetration?’

      Ignoring her fiery cheeks, Gina nodded sharply. ‘Exactly.’

      ‘You don’t think the man feels anything beyond physical satisfaction?’

      ‘I didn’t say that.’ He knew she hadn’t said that. ‘But it is different.’

       ‘Vive la difference.’

      Her embarrassment seemed to have restored his equanimity. Drawing on her dignity, Gina said flatly, ‘I’m sorry if you find it old-fashioned or amusing, but I happen to think that love should enter the equation however things turn out in the end. And I know there’s no guarantee with any relationship; I’m not in cloud cuckoo land.’

      He looked at her quietly for a moment. ‘I wasn’t laughing at you, Gina.’

      And pigs fly.

      ‘In fact the time was I might have expressed the same views myself, but—’ He paused. ‘People change. Life changes them.’

      Gina said nothing. In truth she was startled by this last remark. His tone of voice, the look on his face, was different from anything that had gone before.

      ‘I guess I’ve become self-sufficient, independent. I like my life the way it is, and to share it with another person would be at best inconvenient and worst a nightmare.’

      She wished she’d never started this conversation. Breathing shallowly to combat the shaft of pain that had seared her chest, Gina said quietly, ‘You missed out cynical.’

      ‘You think I’m cynical?’

      She nodded. ‘Not just from what you’ve said tonight, but more over the last twelve months. I wonder, actually, if you really like women much, Harry.’

      For a moment he didn’t react at all. Then he said softly, ‘I assure you, I’m not of the other persuasion.’

      ‘No, I didn’t mean—I—I know you’re not—’

      He cut short her stammerings with a dark smile, his voice self-mocking when he said, ‘I know what you meant, Gina. It was my way of prevaricating.’

      ‘Oh.’ Sometimes his innate honesty was more than a little disturbing.

      ‘Because you’re right. I am cynical where the fair sex is concerned.’

      Why was being proved right so horribly depressing? Hiding her feelings, Gina nodded slowly. Picking her words carefully, she said, ‘Bad experience somewhere in your long-lost youth?’ She hoped to defuse what