The Irresistible Tycoon by Helen Brooks Page A

had happened but he knew instinctively it was the case. For some reason she saw him as the enemy and it was grating more and more with every day that passed.
    â€˜Her father?’ Kim thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans, her face tense. ‘No, she can’t remember Graham.’
    â€˜Come and sit down, Kim.’ Lucas indicated the sofa as he walked over to the chair he had vacated earlier, and again it was as if he were the host and she the guest.
    She sat down on the very edge of the cushions but as he drew his chair at an angle to the sofa it brought him much too close and so she shifted back in the seat, moving slightly away as she did so. ‘I’m very sorry about the report, Lucas.’ Her voice was tight and formal. ‘If it’s in the wrong envelope I know what damage it might do, so the offer stands about my resignation.’
    He stared at her for a moment, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, although he was careful not to touch her. The warm fragrance of her nearness invaded his air space and his senses were registering how much younger she looked with her hair loose about her shoulders, uninhibited even. But looks were deceptive. He could feel the tension in her like a live thing, keeping him at bay.
    â€˜I joined Kane Electrical straight from university and I was as green as they come,’ Lucas said quietly, his deep, slightly husky voice with its trace of an accent causing her nerve endings to quiver. ‘But I was keen.’
    He smiled at her, the silver-grey eyes wrinkling at the edges, and Kim forced herself to smile back although it was just a movement of her mouth. He had rolled up his sleeves while she had been out of the room and his muscled forearms were covered in a liberal dusting of black silky hair, and in the position in which he was sitting—with his dark head close to hers and the tanned jawline dark with aday’s growth of stubble—it was impossible to ignore his flagrant masculinity.
    â€˜My father is a cautious Englishman and my mother a fiery and impetuous Colombian, so I’ve had to learn to temper my mother’s explosive genes and perhaps take more risks on the paternal side. It works…mostly.’
    Kim nodded. So that was where the echo of an accent came from. His mother.
    â€˜However…’ Lucas paused, aware he had her interest. ‘In my first year of working for my father, my mother’s genes were rampant. I prefer that as an excuse than the foolishness of crass youth. I took a risk, a big risk, off my own back. There was no real need for it, I guess, but perhaps I felt the need to prove myself. I don’t know. Anyway, it was a mistake, a huge one; it nearly broke us. It makes your slip-up very meagre in comparison. I never made that mistake again.’
    He was looking at her very closely, his eyes intently searching her wide-eyed face. ‘You will never make the same mistake again, Kim,’ he said very softly, and somehow she got the impression he was talking about more than her blunder with the report.
    Kim drew in a deep breath, fighting the sudden and unwelcome tears that were pricking at the back of her eyes. ‘It’s…it’s very good of you to look at it like that,’ she managed faintly, keeping strictly to the matter of the day and refusing to acknowledge any hidden connotations in what he was saying. ‘But I’m aware it could be very embarrassing for you.’
    â€˜I’m not easily embarrassed.’ He smiled, an unconsciously sexy quirk to his hard firm mouth, and the breath caught in her throat.
    The flickering glow from the fire, the strength and warmth and irresistible drawing power of his dark magnetism were too seductive, too dangerous, and Kim surprisedthem both when she leapt to her feet, her voice high as she said, ‘Coffee. I’ll fetch some coffee.’
    â€˜Great.’ His voice was casual and relaxed as he too stood to