direction of the tiny office she had just come from.
‘Really, Mr—Nick,’ she began indignantly. ‘You can’t just come in here and—’
‘And what?’ he prompted, releasing her once they were in the privacy of her office, the door firmly closed behind them. ‘Show a little concern for someone who, obviously tired from a day’s work last night, looks as if she had been run over by a steamroller?’
‘Thanks!’ Joey muttered drily, moving to sit behind the desk. She would feel better with a little distance between the two of them; her arm still tingled from where his fingers had held her!
‘Run over by a steamroller’. Was that really how she looked? Probably, she conceded—it was how she felt too!
‘Well?’ Nick faced her across the desk, arms folded stubbornly across the width of his chest.
Joey gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I don’t even know you—’
‘What do you want to know?’ he rasped, dark eyes narrowed speculatively. ‘I’m thirty-five. Single. Financially independent—believe it or not,’ he added smiling wryly. ‘And I’m not leaving here until I find out what happened to the spiky, self-confident woman I met here last night!’
Joey stared up at him frustratedly, his sheer size making her very aware of just how small this office really was. ‘Nothing happened to me,’ she dismissed impatiently.
‘Liar,’ he murmured reprovingly.
She frowned. ‘I do not appreciate being called a liar,’ she snapped.
He shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Then stop being one,’ he advised lightly.
Joey drew in a sharp breath. ‘Don’t you have work to go to?’ she told him pointedly; after all, it was almost ten o’clock.
‘Eventually.’ He nodded. ‘I’m still waiting, Joey,’ he reminded her softly several minutes later, the silence between them stretched weightily.
She swallowed hard, totally overwhelmed by this man’s persistence. Ordinarily she would have just insisted he leave, but her sleepless night, her worry over David Banning’s presence in England, meant that her defences weren’t as firmly in place as they usually were. In fact, she felt quite tearful.
She didn’t just feel tearful, Joey realised as the tears began to fall hotly down her cheeks!
‘I thought so.’ Nick nodded, moving quickly round the desk to pull her up into his arms. ‘Poor baby,’ he murmured softly against her hair as he cradled her against the hard warmth of his chest.
‘I’m hardly that,’ she choked tearfully, devastated by her emotional breakdown. Maybe if Nick hadn’t been so kind to her… ‘This is ridiculous,’ she decided self-disgustedly, pushing away from him. ‘I’m ridiculous,’ she muttered, smoothing back the silkiness of her hair; it was preferable to meeting the concern in those dark brown eyes.
‘It’s nothing to feel ashamed of,’ Nick rebuked gently. ‘We all cry sometimes.’
Most people cried sometimes, Joey inwardly conceded. Although somehow she doubted that David Banning ever did; there was a hard steeliness about him that made him a more formidable force than his brother had ever been. Daniel had just ignored or laughed off anything he found unacceptable in his silver-spoon life. Things like having a daughter…
‘I’m not ashamed,’ she returned, back under control now. ‘But, as you can see, the salon is rather busy this morning—’
‘Have lunch with me?’ Nick cut in determinedly.
Joey almost laughed at the incongruity of the suggestion; lunch with a building labourer, and dinner with a powerful American banker. Could the two men be any more different? Although she knew which one she preferred!
‘Haven’t you missed enough work already for one day?’ she reasoned. ‘Even though you don’t work for Dominic Mason, I’m sure your boss can’t be this understanding!’
Nick shrugged unconcernedly. ‘I do more than my fair share of work,’ he dismissed. ‘Lunch, Joey,’ he said again. ‘You look as if you need a break from here. And something to eat might do you some good too,’ he added grimly.
It probably would; she had been too upset to do more than drink a cup of coffee before leaving the house this morning. But did she want to have lunch with this man? A man whose touch she could still feel, minutes later, tingling up the length of her arm…?
One look at his determinedly set face told her that she really didn’t have a lot of choice about it, that Nick wouldn’t leave here until he had her agreement to meet him for lunch.
She sighed heavily. ‘There’s a sandwich bar just down the road. I’ll meet you in there at one o’clock.’
‘A sandwich bar,’ he repeated drily. ‘Can’t we do better than that?’
They probably could. But, like her, he probably had a pretty tight budget—especially after his ‘heavy date’ the evening before! Besides, the way she felt at the moment, she wouldn’t do justice to more than a sandwich.
‘I only have an hour for lunch; a sandwich will be fine,’ she insisted.
‘Non-negotiable, hmm,’ he realised knowingly.
‘Non-negotiable.’ Joey agreed with a brief smile.
‘Then it will have to do.’ Nick nodded. ‘One o’clock. Don’t be late, or I’ll come looking for you,’ he warned in parting.
Joey stared after him, wondering how on earth she had got herself into this situation. One minute the man had been a written-off bad debt, and the next she found herself with a date to meet him for lunch!
She had thought yesterday was a bad day, but this one didn’t look as if it was going to be any better!
CHAPTER THREE
‘COME on, Joey, choose a sandwich,’ Nick encouraged smilingly as she continued to study the menu, despite the hovering waitress. ‘The government doesn’t take this long to make a decision!’
The problem was, she didn’t feel like eating anything. As the morning had progressed the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach had deepened—and it had nothing to do with hunger. Being forced into meeting this man for lunch was guaranteed not to improve that hollowness.
After Nick had gone this morning she had spent at least ten minutes remonstrating with herself for being badgered into having lunch with him at all—although she didn’t doubt for a moment that he would carry out his threat to ‘come looking for her’ if she didn’t turn up. His presence at the salon this morning had already created enough speculation, without adding to it.
She closed the menu. ‘Just cheese on brown bread. Oh, and a cappuccino,’ she told the waitress with a smile.
‘It took you ten minutes to decide that?’ Nick teased once they were alone again.
Joey didn’t
