He wasn’t that huge. Just…moderately huge. It was just… He was one of those men whose presence filled a room. And he filled this room right up to its vaulted ceiling.
A quick sweep of her trained dressmaker’s eyes put him at six feet one inch. And while his shoulders were enticingly broad, he wasn’t some barrel-chested, iron-pumping brawn-monger. Mind you, he didn’t have a spare ounce of flesh on that lean frame of his, and all of the muscles she could see—and she could see quite a lot of them as he’d traded in his suit jacket for running shorts and a T-shirt—were neatly delineated. Very neatly delineated. That was what gave him an air of barely checked power.
That and his buzz cut.
So…not exactly a bear. And probably not dangerous. At least not in a ‘tear one from limb to limb’ kind of way. None of that helped slow the pounding of her pulse.
‘Ms Hartley, am I right in thinking you’re taking personal calls during work time?’
He had to be joking, right? She could barely get a signal on her mobile phone. She started to snort but snapped it short at his raised eyebrow. It might not be politic to point that out at this precise moment. ‘No. Sir,’ she added belatedly. But she said it with too much force and ended up sounding like a sergeant major in some farcical play.
Oh, well done, Imogen. Why don’t you click your heels together and salute too?
‘Not a phone call. I was listening to a playlist my father sent me. He’s a sound engineer…and he leaves little messages between songs…and I talk back even though I know he can’t hear me. So…’ She closed her eyes.
Too much information, Immy.
‘I expected your aunt to have made it clear to you that I demand peace and quiet when I’m working.’
Her eyes flew open. ‘She did!’ She couldn’t get Aunt Katherine into trouble. ‘But, you see, I thought you’d already left for your run.’
She glanced at his office door and had to fight the urge to slap a hand to her forehead. She was supposed to check if that door was open or closed. Open meant he was gone and she could clean this set of rooms without disturbing him. If it was closed that meant he was still working…and she had to be church-mouse quiet. Biting her lip, she met his gaze again. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot to check your office door. It won’t happen again, Mr Coleman, I promise.’
He didn’t reply. Nothing. Not so much as a brass razoo. Which was an odd expression. She’d look it up…if she could get an Internet connection. She eyed him uncertainty. He might not be a big bear of a man, but he fitted her image of a bear with a sore head to a T. Which might not be fair as she didn’t know him, but she wasn’t predisposed to like him either, the horrid old Scrooge.
He turned away, and she sagged with the relief of being released from those icy eyes. But then he swung back, and she went tense and rigid all over again. ‘I’m going for my run now, Ms Hartley. In case my attire had slipped your attention.’
His sarcasm stung. Her fingers tightened about the vacuum cleaner, and suddenly it was Elliot’s voice, Elliot’s mocking sarcasm, that sounded through her head. She thrust out her chin. ‘Did you just call me stupid?’ She might only be the maid, but she didn’t have to put up with rudeness. ‘Look, I made a mistake and I apologised. It doesn’t mean I’m stupid.’
‘Oh, Imogen!’ She could practically hear her mother’s wail. ‘What about Aunt Katherine? You promised!’
Jasper Coleman had been in the act of moving towards the front door, but he turned back now with intimidating slowness. Rather than back down—which, of course, would be the sensible thing to do—she glared right back at him. She knew she might be a little too sensitive on the topic of her sharpness of mind and her reason—her intelligence—but she wasn’t being paid enough to put up with derogatory comments directed at it.
At least, that was what she told herself before she started quaking in her sensible ballet flats. Her sense of self-righteousness dissolved as Jasper drew himself up to his full height. Any idiot knew you didn’t go poking bears.
‘I don’t know you well enough to make a judgement call on your intelligence, Ms Hartley.’ He gestured to his office door. ‘A question mark does, however, hang over your powers of observation.’
She bit her tongue and kept her mouth firmly shut. Thankfully it appeared that he didn’t expect an answer, as, without any further ado, he strode from the room. A moment later she heard the click of the front door closing. He didn’t do anything as uncouth as slam it.
‘Of course your attire hadn’t slipped my attention,’ she muttered, pushing her earbuds into the pocket of her skirt. She was a dressmaker. She noticed what everyone wore.
Though for some reason she’d really noticed what he’d been wearing. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense because his attire had been so very generic. Those nondescript running shorts had come to mid-thigh and were neither ridiculously tiny nor ridiculously tight. His T-shirt, though, had hugged his frame as if it’d been spray-painted on, highlighting the flex and play of firm muscle.
Oh, Imogen, who are you trying to kid?
It wasn’t his clothes but the body inside the clothes that had held her attention so avidly.
Scowling, she pushed the image of her perplexing boss from her mind and completed the rest of the cleaning as quickly as possible, vacuuming and dusting immaculate surfaces. But, as her aunt said, they were immaculate because they were cleaned five days a week. Without fail. Because it was what the lord of the manor decreed, apparently.
Jasper’s office was as immaculate as the rest of the house. And just as cold. Unlike her workspace at home, he didn’t have any photographs sitting on his desk, no sentimental knick-knacks or anything personal. His room was functional and blank. He was supposed to be some kind of computer wunderkind, though how on earth he could create in a space that was so beige was beyond her.
She gave a final flick of her duster to the enormous desk, glanced around the room with a critical eye, and was about to leave when her gaze shifted to his computer…for the third time in about as many minutes. She bit her lip. She’d bet—given all the fancy tech gadgetry he had in here—he could log onto the Internet without a single problem.
She’d been trying to find out—for three days now—if the waters surrounding the island were safe. Aunt Katherine had no idea. She preferred the calm waters of the lagoon to the surf.
Jasper swam in his twenty-five-metre pool twice a day—from six to seven each morning and again in the evening. The man was obviously a fitness freak—three hours of cardio a day. Imagine? ‘Kill me now,’ she muttered. Not that she disapproved of fitness. She just couldn’t do fitness for fitness’s sake. She had to do something fun or it just wouldn’t happen. Give her a Zumba or dance class, or the surf. She loved swimming in the ocean.
If it was safe.
Not giving herself any time to hesitate, she slid into her boss’s chair, woke his computer from sleep mode and clicked the Internet browser icon. Surely he wouldn’t mind? It’d be in his best interests to keep his staff safe, right? Occupational health and safety and all that.
She recalled the look in his eyes less than thirty minutes ago, and her own
