dressed in her cream trousers and cream and green checked shirt. Sarah had taken Jess for a walk, fortuitously, so the house was empty, and Francesca had taken the bull by the horns and walked into Raefe’s study. She sank into a chair.
They eyed each other until he said casually, ‘I thought you’d have shaken the dust of Bramble from your shoes by now, Chessie. I presume that brand-new four-wheel-drive vehicle is yours?’
‘It is—I had no intention of being at your mercy again over the matter of transport,’ she replied crisply, then added abruptly, ‘How do you want to do this?’
‘Do what?’ He’d changed into navy shorts and a white T-shirt, and the task of driving two hundred miles overnight appeared not to have made any impact on him as he lounged behind the beautiful mahogany table that served as a desk.
‘As if you didn’t know—arrange my departure,’ she said scornfully. ‘Because I refuse to simply disappear. I don’t do that to children, or people I happen to like.’
He sat up and clasped his hands on the desk. ‘What do you suggest, Chessie?’
Francesca reined in her anger at the insulting way he used her name. Everything was insulting to her, including the way his grey gaze lingered on the front of her checked blouse, as if he was seeing beneath it. ‘I could claim to have had a call to go home for some urgent reason. That way I can say goodbye properly.’
He appeared to reflect for a moment, then said, ‘We still haven’t got to the bottom of why you did this—want to tell me?’
‘Oh, I thought we had,’ she replied innocently. ‘You seem to have worked it out down to the last dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s!’
‘I gather you have another version, though.’ There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
‘Ah, but why waste my time, since you’re so determined to disbelieve anything I say?’ she murmured with irony, and added, ‘Look, let’s get this sorted out, shall we? I’d like to get back to Cairns by tonight.’
‘Chessie...’ He frowned, then sat back. ‘What would you believe of a girl who is frequently seen on the social pages in revealing gowns and with renta-crowd escorts? Whose twenty-first birthday party was a three-day event on Hayman Island? Who was given a Porsche for her eighteenth birthday? Whose name has been linked romantically with a lot of men and who, apparently, was banished up to this neck of the woods by her father because of an involvement with a married man?’
Francesca blinked. ‘Who told you that?’
‘It’s not true?’ he countered coolly.
‘No, it’s not! Not in that sense—I wasn’t banished. If you think my father can afford to moralise to me—’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Go on—so there was no married man?’ Francesca stared at him, then said wearily, ‘Yes, there was, but, believe me, it was he who was making a nuisance of himself, not the other way around.’
Their gazes locked and held, and Francesca’s deep blue eyes did not waver. Nor did they hide her sense of outrage.
This caused Raefe Stevensen to smile briefly and say, ‘So why did you do this?’
‘For the sheer pleasure of proving to you that I am not useless,’ she said proudly.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I must have hit quite a nerve.’
‘And I presume it would be too much to expect for you to admit that you may have made a mistake about me, but it doesn’t matter,’ she said swiftly, and stood up. ‘As they say in Asia, I hope you have an interesting life, Mr Stevensen. Your brand of arrogance certainly deserves it!’
But he only laughed softly. ‘Chessie,’ he remonstrated, still grinning, ‘you have a very short memory! Are you not the girl who started all this by threatening to buy out my means of livelihood and have me sacked? If that’s not arrogance...’ He shook his head wryly.
Francesca clenched her fists, and he watched with interest the effort she made not to take the bait. ‘Look, I’m going,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell them whatever I please, and—’
He interrupted her to say, ‘I’ve got another idea. Why don’t you stay for a couple of weeks?’
‘Oh, no. Oh, no! How can you possibly—?’
‘Perhaps we could start again,’ he said smoothly.
‘Start again? You’ve got to be joking.’ Her glance was withering.
‘No, I’m not.’
‘And neither am I. You seem to forget that all I did was take exception to being kept waiting for so long—the first utterly arrogant action in this duel if you ask me—’
‘I was on the phone,’ he said mildly.
‘And you surely don’t believe what I said was anything more than a retaliatory tactic?’ she shot back. ‘Whilst you...you insulted me, kissed me against my will and this morning took the unbelievable liberty of—of undressing me with your eyes, which is to put it very mildly. No. And don’t bother to offer to pay me either, Mr. Stevensen. This—baggage—would rather you owed her one.’ She turned on her heel.
‘There wasn’t a lot of you left to undress,’ he said. ‘But—I apologise for that.’
Francesca looked over her shoulder. ‘Only that? Oh, well, I didn’t think you had it in you to do even that. It won’t get you anywhere, though. Good day to—’
‘I apologise for the rest of it, then. Perhaps I did rather overreact.’
Francesca paused, then swung around. ‘You must rate me as really cheap, Mr Stevensen,’ she said gently. ‘That won’t do it either.’
‘All right, Chessie.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘What would do it?’
‘Nothing that I can think of—so you might as well get right on to Joyce Cotton at Acme, although I must tell you she was at her wits’ end until I turned up.’
She watched and waited, and saw his frown deepen as he studied her. Then he said abruptly, ‘Look, it so happens I really need you for the next couple of weeks. And, since it would appear that you have been both an excellent governess and cook, I would be much obliged if you would help me out. I take back the “useless” tag unreservedly.’
Francesca was silent for a moment, because she wasn’t sure that she believed him entirely, nor was she altogether sure whether she should be doing what she was doing. Then she discovered that she still had a few things to prove to Raefe Stevensen.
‘OK, I’ll do it. For two weeks.’
‘I thought you might,’ he said drily.
‘What do you mean?’ She blinked.
‘You heard Sarah this morning, didn’t you? It’s just occurred to me we had that conversation on the lawn virtually outside your window. And, accordingly, you knew I’d be fairly desperate. I’m only surprised you didn’t ask me to grovel at your feet.’
A
