Only their fingertips were touching, but Kate could feel desire quivering deep inside her. Her skin tingled and her face grew hot as longing shivered along her veins, clenching her stomach with the steady, insistent tug of physical yearning.

`Perhaps someone will buy you some rings some day,' he went on.

`Perhaps,' she croaked, then cleared her throat hastily.

Luke's eyes were unreadable. `Make sure he doesn't buy you diamonds. Diamonds are too hard for you. You need warmer stones, rubies or emeralds or pearls. Or topaz, to match your eyes.'

With a supreme effort Kate pulled her hand away. `It's not an immediate problem,' she said shortly. He wasn't being fair. Didn't he know how her heart soared just to be near him? Couldn't he see how she burned at his touch?

She was his secretary. She must remember that. Cool. Sensible. Businesslike. Wasn't that how she had decided to be? Wasn't that how she was?

Kate closed the lid of the box and turned it slowly between her hands, her head bent so that all Luke could see was the dark sweep of her lashes against the clear skin.

`No, I suppose not,' he said in a flat voice.

The companionable atmosphere had tensed, and the silence that fell jangled uneasily between them. Kate found that she was holding the box too tightly, and put it down, hiding her hands beneath the table in case Luke should see their shaking.

She stared blindly down at the plastic ashtray advertising Gauloises. Luke's face danced in front of her eyes: firm nose, firm mouth, firm jaw. The line of his cheek, the lines around his eyes. She ached with the need to reach out and touch him.

Suddenly Luke picked up his glass and tossed back the dregs of his wine. `Come on,' he said, putting the glass back down with an abrupt click, `We'd better go if we want to catch that flight.'

It was a silent journey back to London. Luke buried himself in a report, and Kate looked out of the window at the blue lightness above the clouds and reminded herself of all the reason: why she shouldn't love him.

It was pointless. It was stupid. It was a complete waste of her life. He wasn't even very nice. She would do far better to fall in love with someone who would appreciate her, like Xavier. The sensible thing to do would be to convince herself that Paris had gone to her head. She would concentrate on her work and forget that Luke was anything other than her boss.

Well, she would try.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FORTUNATELY for Kate, so much needed to be done to finalise details for the new contract that she had little time to think, and when she was able to go into work with a calm pulse and a heart that did no more than lift very slightly when Luke came into the room she decided that she had simply been over-reacting to the excitement of Paris.

She and Luke had slipped into a routine of sheer hard work, and Kate often had to work late, translating or collating documents when the phones stopped ringing at the end of the day. She didn't mind. The longer she worked, the less time she had to think about whom Luke was taking out to dinner.

He seemed tired and preoccupied much of the time, but it didn't stop his going out every night, either with Helen or a girl called Lynette, who rang persistently, usually when Kate was at her busiest.

She and Luke had found an even balance, Kate decided. Apart from one or two notable occasions, Luke was generally polite and treated her as a valued and efficient employee. Kate told herself she was glad. Once or twice she would look up from her word processor and their eyes would meet for a glancing moment before both looked quickly away.

One day Luke came into the office, to find Kate holding a huge bunch of roses and searching for the card.

`Who's been sending you flowers?' he scowled.

Kate opened the envelope and pulled out the card. `They're from Xavier,' she said slowly, reading the message.

'Xavier! What's he doing, sending you flowers?' Luke snatched the card out of her hand. "`Hoping to see you soon, Xavier,"' he read with disgust. `When's he coming?'

`I've no idea,' said Kate. `I'm surprised he didn't mention it on the phone. I speak to him quite often.'

`I hope you're not using the office phone to organise your love-life,' Luke said ungraciously. `I won't have my staff making personal phone calls all day.'

Kate cast him a look of calm reproof. `You know perfectly well that I have to talk to Xavier about business. He's dealing with most of the detail on the contract. It's one of the reasons you employ me, after all, to talk to him about the arrangements in French.'

`As long as they're the only arrangements you're talking about!' Luke went into his office and shut the door behind him with a bang.

The flowers seemed to put Luke out of temper for the rest of the day. He was in a nit-picking mood and nearly drove Kate up the wall by finding fault with everything she did, and changing his mind about some travel arrangements so often that Kate had difficulty holding on to her temper.

But it was a beautiful February day, and the sky was bright with the promise of spring. Pale winter sunshine poured in through the window and the sweet fragrance of the roses hung in the air. In spite of Luke, Kate found herself humming as she went through some papers on her desk.

`What are you so happy about?' Luke snapped, erupting from his office without warning. He strode over to the filing cabinets and began rummaging around in one of the drawers. `I suppose you're feeling smug because of those roses cluttering up the office?'

'Are you looking for anything in particular?' Kate asked sweetly, ignoring his question.

`I want that file on David Young Associates. Why can't you keep these files in some kind of order?'

'They are in order. You're looking in the wrong drawer.' Kate rose, pushed him firmly out of the way, shut the drawer and pulled out the one beneath it. `The David Young Associates file lives here,' she said, retrieving a thick buff folder. `It's difficult to find, I know, because the label is confusingly marked "David Young Associates".'

Luke glared at her sarcasm and grabbed the file from her as the phone rang.

Kate answered it. `It's for you,' she said to Luke. `Helen Slayne. I think it must be a personal call.'

Luke took the receiver with bad grace and a look which said that he had not missed the point. `Yes, Helen, what is it…? No, I can't be any nicer. I'm busy.' He was obviously regretting taking the call in front of Kate, for he turned away and lowered his voice. `I'm not ignoring you. I've just got a lot on my mind at the moment.'

There was a pause. Kate, studiously carrying on with her paperwork, could imagine Helen's sultry murmurings. Luke watched her suspiciously over his shoulder as he listened. His gaze fell on the roses and he glowered at them. `All right,' he said. `Come in later and I'll take you out to lunch.'

He banged down the phone. `I'm going out to lunch,' he said unnecessarily, still glaring at the flowers.

`That'll be nice.' Kate kept her voice bland. `Would you like me to book you a table?'

Luke's jaw was working in the way it did when he was trying to control his temper. `I'll do it myself!' he said rudely, and banged back into his office.

Kate raised her eyes heavenwards. There was no pleasing him today! It would be a relief to have him out of the office for a couple of hours.

She was frowning over some shorthand when Helen made her entrance. She looked breathtaking as usual in leopard-patterned leggings and a provocatively cut top in a dull gold colour. Really, Luke had a nerve criticising her black dress for being revealing, Kate remembered indignantly.

A pair of sunglasses pushed on top of her head held the glorious silver-blonde mane away from Helen's face as she sauntered over to Luke's door with barely a glance at Kate.

When she emerged with Luke a few minutes later Luke was looking grumpy. He stopped to give Kate a number where she could reach him if necessary.

`Don't tell me you've got another secretary, darling!' Helen said lightly, deigning to notice Kate's existence at last. `The other one didn't last long, did she? What do you do to them?'

`What other one?' Luke asked irritably, still looking through his diary for the number of the restaurant.

`The last time I came round there was a rather plain, disapproving-looking female sitting here.'

`Kate was here then. Nobody could be more disapproving than her!’

'Really?' Helen's green eyes sharpened as she took in the fact that Kate was not nearly as plain as she remembered. `Quite a transformation!' She didn't sound as if she liked the fact.

Kate's lips tightened as Helen looked at her a little more closely.

`You know, there's something familiar about you,' Helen said slowly.

Luke had finished scribbling the number down and now tucked his diary back in his inside pocket. `Funny, I keep thinking that, too.'

Kate tensed as they both stared at her with narrowed eyes.

`Must be someone on television,' Luke said, giving up.

`Perhaps you're right.' Helen sounded unconvinced. `I wouldn't have said that we move in the same social circles, that's for sure!'

Kate's eyes were cold. `I expect I look familiar because you've seen me before,' she said briskly, hoping that her dismissive tone would divert Helen's attention from the real truth of what she said. `Luke was right. I was sitting here last time you came round.'

`That must be it.' Helen shrugged, losing interest as Luke took her arm.

`Let's get a move on,' he said impatiently.

Kate watched them go to the door before allowing herself to relax with a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, Helen chose that moment to glance back over her shoulder, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously at the relief writ large in Kate's expression.