had always thought her bedroom was airy and spacious, but as soon as Blake stepped through the door the proportions suddenly seemed to shrink and the oxygen supply dip below the level of comfort.
‘It’s not usually this messy,’ she was annoyed to find herself explaining, hastily gathering up the scattered clothing from the rumpled bedcover. ‘I—I left in rather a hurry yesterday.’
His all-encompassing glance had taken in the orderly possessions on her mirrored dressing-table, the neatly coordinated clothes hanging in the open wardrobe and the tidy row of photo frames on her tallboy.
‘Are these your parents?’
‘What?’ She looked up from rummaging in the bulging side pocket of the soft-sided case that held her laptop to see him studying a photo of herself aged ten, flanked by a blond couple exchanging laughing looks over her nut-brown head. ‘Oh, no, they died when I was little—that’s my father’s sister and her husband—Aunt Tess and Uncle Pat—they brought my brother Sean and me up.’ Her voice was coloured with unconscious warmth as she attempted to take the edge off his hostility by adding, ‘They hadn’t planned on having kids themselves, so we were a bit of a drag on their lifestyle, but they never made us feel unwanted—’
‘Do they still live in Invercargill?’
She stiffened. She was sure she hadn’t mentioned her origins last night. He must have discovered it while delving into her identity. It gave her a shivery feeling to think that he knew things about her that she hadn’t chosen to tell him. Not that she had anything to hide, she consoled herself. The fact that she had lived the majority of her life in a small town on the southernmost tip of the South Island was a point in her favour as far as she was concerned.
‘Yes, they do. As I’m sure your paid snoop will confirm,’ she said tartly, pulling out the compact disk in its clear plastic protector. She had been a self-deluded idiot to think for even one second that Blake MacLeod’s unfinished business with her was anything to do with what had happened between them in his room last night.
He turned. ‘A wise man knows his enemies.’
‘I’m not your enemy,’ she protested, slapping the disk into his outstretched hand. ‘And I don’t steal,’ she added with all the force of angry sincerity. ‘When I found this lying on the back seat of my car last night, I had no idea where it came from—’
He stared impassively down into her wide-set eyes. ‘Copies?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I want any and all copies you’ve made,’ he said, slipping the CD into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘And don’t bother to tell me you didn’t burn any, because I wouldn’t believe you.’
She gritted her teeth. He made it sound as if good computer housekeeping was a criminal act. ‘Since I didn’t know what the disk was, of course I made a back-up copy before I tried to open it,’ she informed him.
‘Is that where you were last night…at your office, downloading my confidential data on to Maitlands’ network? I suppose you were hoping I wouldn’t notice anything was missing until today. Unluckily for you, I decided to do some more work after you ran out on me—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I never went near the office,’ she said tightly, massaging her aching temple. ‘Why would I? I told you, I didn’t know what the disk was, and I couldn’t very well return it until I found out who it belonged to, could I? I happened to have my laptop with me, so I used that to check it out.’ She found the copy she had made and shoved it at him. ‘There. Now, feel free to leave after you apologise!’
Her bitter sarcasm had little effect. ‘Did you make a printout or email it to anyone?’
Her generous mouth thinned. ‘Of course not. And, no, I’m not going to turn over my computer to you—you’ll just have to take my word for it.’
‘And why should I do that?’
‘Because I’m a very trustworthy person,’ she snapped.
His steely gaze was unrelenting as it inspected her shiny face. ‘You expect me to believe this was all an unfortunate coincidence…? That you didn’t seduce me in order to gain access to information in my hotel room—’
‘Any seduction going on was entirely mutual!’ she choked.
A faint gleam appeared in his grey eyes. ‘You have an odd idea of mutuality. Or do you usually get your kicks from picking up strange men and skipping out on them as soon as you’ve taken your own pleasure?’
She clenched her hands at her sides. ‘I don’t usually pick up men at all,’ she rebutted fiercely. ‘I don’t go in for meaningless one-night stands—’
His voice deepened into a dark drawl that wrapped around her like black velvet. ‘Then why did you invite yourself to my hotel room? Why did you lead me on the way you did…let me undress you, touch you, taste you…?’
She shivered at his evocative words, her skin prickling from her scalp to her toes at the erotic memory of his sensuous skill, her limbs weighted with a strange heaviness that had nothing to do with fatigue.
‘Look, you’ve got your disk back and I’ve apologised; what more do you expect?’ she said raggedly. ‘Can’t we just forget about last night?’
‘No, I’m afraid we can’t,’ he said, with an implacable gentleness that seemed more threatening than his former raging temper. ‘Because we both know that you opened and read those files—didn’t you, Nora?’
His soft words made it more of a statement than a question and her gaze dropped to the item in question, her thick brown lashes screening the guilty expression in her eyes as she watched him pocket it with its twin. ‘It was security protected.’
A sceptical sound rumbled in his chest at her evasive answer. ‘R-i-g-h-t. And you’re a hacker from way back. You’re one of Maitlands’ resident computer whizkids, constantly manipulating the interface between man and the sharp end of technology.’ He flaunted his newly acquired knowledge of her background with ruthless intent: ‘You took papers at Otago University while you were employed there, but you never bothered doing a full degree course—you’d already proven yourself in the market-place, hawking your software skills since you were in high school. Coming up against a good security block like the one on this disk would be a challenge rather than a deterrent to someone like you.’ His cool contempt was not unmixed with admiration. ‘Given the time, opportunity and Internet access, bypassing it would be well within your capabilities. So don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to be an innocent fluff-head.’
She winced at the accuracy of his insight, his accusing words pounding into her tender skull like hot nails. ‘OK, OK—so I peeked at your boring reports,’ she admitted sulkily. ‘I know I shouldn’t have—but, well—it was a choice of that or the porno channel.’
‘What in the hell are you talking about?’
His abrupt scowl made her regret her loose tongue. ‘I—I stayed the night in a motel a couple of blocks from here.’ The words dragged themselves reluctantly out of her mouth. ‘I couldn’t sleep, the TV reception was dreadful and the inhouse video channel was playing adult movies, so I decided to pass the time with my laptop.’
Finding
