to be dealt with too. I can’t help feeling time is of the essence.’
Don’t lose me my job, Livvy.
She grimaced and waited for him to take her to task for her insolence. He didn’t. Instead there was that darn silence again. She suddenly laughed. ‘You don’t feel that you can reprimand me at the moment because you’re in my debt.’
‘I have no wish to reprimand you. You’re worried, understandably so, and I share your concerns. I will own, however, to a little...surprise over your fieriness.’
She winced. She needed to tread carefully—channel her more level-headed sibling. ‘Babies bring it out in me,’ she offered weakly.
‘I see.’
‘I should go and let you make your travel arrangements.’ She blinked. ‘I mean...you are planning to return immediately, aren’t you?’ She’d simply taken that for granted.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Or perhaps you’d like me to organise your travel arrangements?’ She gave a silent scream. Were they part of her job description? She had no idea.
‘The arrangements are already underway.’
The tap-tapping noises in the background suddenly made sense. She wondered how many devices he had open in front of him besides his phone—his tablet and laptop perhaps? Those strategic silences suddenly took on a different complexion.
A moment later she dismissed that thought. No, she’d bet her life on the fact that Sebastian Tyrell was a master of the strategic pause.
‘I’ll be back in London as soon as I can.’
‘Travel safe, sir.’
‘Wait!’
She wanted away from him—now! Though she couldn’t explain why. ‘Yes?’
‘I’d like you and the baby to move into my house on Regent’s Park.’
Not a chance! ‘I’m sorry, Mr Tyrell, but I’m not comfortable with that. I’ll go back to my—’ she gulped back the word sister’s, covered it with a cough ‘—flat. I know where everything is there.’
‘I—’
‘Please don’t waste time arguing with me.’
‘Very well.’
She winced at the tightness of his voice.
‘You’re going to incur expenses—the baby will need things. Please charge them to my personal account. I insist that I take care of all the expenses.’
‘OK, will do.’ She made a mental note to keep all receipts.
‘I hope to see you very soon, Ms Gilmour.’
And then he was gone. Liv scowled at the receiver, miffed beyond measure that she hadn’t had the chance to hang up first. She dropped the receiver back into its cradle. ‘I can hardly wait.’
* * *
Liv sat bolt upright in bed and grabbed her phone before it could ring again. The clock by the bed read five forty-four a.m. Please don’t have woken the baby! She held her breath but no answering wail met her expectant ears. Thank you, God!
‘What?’ she growled into the phone without the slightest bit of grace. It was too early and she was too tired.
‘Ms Gilmour?’
Oh, God! ‘Mr Tyrell?’
A sigh heaved down the phone. ‘For the last five minutes I’ve been knocking on your door. I understand that it’s early, but I’m starting to worry that I’m disturbing your neighbours.’
‘Don’t you dare wake the baby!’ she whisper-hissed at him. ‘Don’t make another sound on threat of...of something dire!’
She leapt out of bed and shot to the front door of Liz’s flat, reefing it open as quietly as she could. Her finger halted halfway to her lips when she took in the man that stood on the other side. Six feet two inches of solid-muscled man stood there, bristling with square-jawed arrogance and wide-legged impatience. Dark chestnut hair, lighter on the ends, stood up at odd angles as if he’d repeatedly run his hand through it. She had to fight the impulse to reach out and smooth it down.
She swallowed. Liz had never mentioned how handsome Sebastian Tyrell was. Why not? A pulse started up in her throat, making her breath choppy and uneven. Sebastian Tyrell wasn’t merely handsome—the man was hot with a capital H!
‘I know I look a mess,’ he growled. ‘But you could have the manners to pretend to not notice. I’ve come directly from the airport, and it’s taken me more than fifty hours to get here, so what do you expect? And, I might add, you don’t look much better.’
Dear God, she was standing in the open doorway in her pyjamas. They were perfectly respectable. They covered everything adequately. Some would argue more than adequately.
He continued to stare at her. ‘What have you done to your hair?’
She tried to smooth it down. It probably looked like a rat’s nest, though she knew that wasn’t what he referred to. ‘A...a change is as good as a holiday,’ she mumbled.
He looked as if he were going to say something more, but then blinked and shook himself. ‘Are you going to let me in?’
‘You cannot wake the baby.’
* * *
Sebastian took in the martial light in his office manager’s eyes and raised both hands. ‘Understood.’
He’d never seen Ms Gilmour so...undone, if that was the correct term. He could barely discern a trace of his cool, efficient office manager in the woman in front of him. Granted, he’d never knocked on her door at the crack of dawn and dragged her from her bed either.
And then there was her hair!
It took all his strength not to reach out and touch it, to track a strand’s length to see if it contained some kind of magic.
He rolled his shoulders—jet lag.
To be fair, he’d never contemplated Ms Gilmour’s life outside of the office before now either. To be brutally honest, he’d barely considered her at all beyond appreciating her myriad business skills and her efficiency...and feeling guilty about refusing her leave request a fortnight ago.
Damn it all to hell! She’d had no leave left. He’d needed her in the office overseeing things while he was overseas. He wasn’t a tyrant, he was far from unreasonable, but he hadn’t been able to shake off the memory of the desperation that had momentarily threaded through her voice. When the London office number had flashed up on his phone three days ago, he’d thought she’d rung to hand in her notice.
Had her hair been a response to her disappointment at having her leave declined?
He dragged both
