go downstairs and face Janine, who’d obviously known exactly what was coming, until she had pulled herself together.
She jabbed pins in her hair, applied a bright don’t-care-won’t-care coating of lipstick and some mental stiffeners to her legs before she attempted the stairs she’d run up with such optimism only a few minutes earlier.
She’d been ten minutes, no more, but Janine was waiting with a cardboard box containing the contents of her desk drawers.
‘Everything’s there,’ she said, not the slightest bit embarrassed. On the contrary, the smirk was very firmly in place. They’d never been friends but, while she’d never given Janine a second thought outside the office, it was possible that Janine—behind the faux sweetness and the professional smile and ignoring the hours she put in, her lack of a social life—had resented her bonuses. ‘It’s mostly rubbish.’
She didn’t bother to answer. She could see for herself that the contents of her desk drawers had been tipped into the box without the slightest care.
Janine was right; it was mostly rubbish, apart from a spare pair of tights, the pencil case that one of her brothers had given her and the mug she used for her pens. She picked it up and headed for the door.
‘Wait! Miles said...’
In her opinion, Miles had said more than enough but, keeping her expression impassive, she turned, waited.
‘He asked me to take your keys.’
Of course he had. He wouldn’t want her coming back when the office was closed to prove what havoc she could really cause, given sufficient provocation. Fortunately for him, her reputation was more important to her than petty revenge.
She put down the box, took out her key ring, removed the key to the back door of the office and handed it over without a word.
‘And your car keys,’ she said.
Until that moment none of this had seemed real, but the BMW convertible had been the reward Miles had dangled in front of his staff for anyone reaching a year-end sales target that he had believed impossible. She’d made it with a week to spare and it was her pride and joy as well as the envy of every other negotiator in the firm. Could someone have done this to her just to get...?
She stopped. That way really did lie madness.
No doubt Miles would use those spectacular sales figures to back up his claim of ‘burnout’, suggesting she’d driven herself to achieve the impossible and prove that she was better than anyone else. So very sad...
He might even manage to squeeze out a tear.
All he’d have to do was think of the damages he’d have to pay Darius Hadley.
Taking pride in the fact that her fingers weren’t shaking—it was just the rest of her, apparently—she removed the silver Tiffany key ring Toby had bought her for Christmas from her car keys and dropped it in her pocket, but she held on to the keys. ‘I’ll clear my stuff out of the back.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Janine said, following her to the door. ‘I need to make sure it’s locked up safely.’
She wasn’t trusted to hand over the keys? Or did the wretched woman think she’d drive off in it? Add car theft to her crimes? Oh, wait. She was supposed to be crazy...
‘Actually, you’ll need to do more than that. I’m parked in a twenty-minute zone and it’ll need moving before— Oh, too late...’
She startled the traffic warden slapping a ticket on the windscreen with a smile before clicking the lock and tossing the keys to Janine as if she didn’t give a fig. She wouldn’t give her the pleasure of telling everyone how she’d crumpled, broken down. It was just a car. She’d have it back in no time. Just as soon as Miles stopped panicking and started thinking straight.
She emptied the glovebox, gathered her wellington boots, the ancient waxed jacket she’d bought in a charity shop and her umbrella and added them to the box, then reached for her laptop bag.
‘I’ll take that.’
‘My laptop?’ She finally turned to look at Janine. ‘Did Miles ask you to take it?’
‘He’s got a lot on his mind,’ she replied with a little toss of her head. In other words, no.
‘True, and when I find out who’s responsible for this mess he won’t be the only one. In the meantime,’ she said, hooking the strap over her shoulder and patting the soft leather case that held her precious MacBook Pro, ‘if he should ask for it, I suggest you remind him that I bought it out of my January bonus.’
Janine, caught out, flushed bright pink but it was a short-lived triumph.
‘There’s a taxi waiting to take you to the Fairview,’ she said, turning on her heel and heading back to the office.
Tash glanced at the black cab, idling at the kerb. Even loaded as she was, the temptation to stalk off in the direction of the nearest Underground station was strong, but there was no one apart from the traffic warden to witness the gesture so she climbed aboard and gave him her address.
The driver looked back. ‘I was booked for the Fairview.’
‘I have to go home first,’ she said, straight-faced. ‘I’m going to need a nightie and toothbrush.’
* * *
Darius strode the length of the King’s Road, fury and the need to put distance between himself and Natasha Gordon driving his feet towards the Underground.
A minor setback? A house that she’d made unsellable, and a seven-figure tax bill on a house he couldn’t live in—what would merit serious bother in her eyes?
Cornflower-blue, with hair that looked as if she’d just tumbled out of bed and a figure that was all curves. Sexy as hell, which was where his thoughts were taking him.
Once on the train, he took out the small sketchbook he carried with him and did what he had always done when he wanted to block out the world. He drew what he saw. Not the interior of the train, the woman sitting opposite him, the baby sleeping on her lap, but what was in his head.
Dark, angry images that had been stirred up by a house he’d never wanted to set foot in again but just refused to let go. But that wasn’t what appeared on the page. His hand, ignoring his head, was drawing Natasha Gordon. Her eyes, startled wide as he’d confronted her. The way her brow had arched like the wing of a kestrel hovering over a hedgerow, waiting for an unsuspecting vole to make a move. The curve of hair drooping from an antique silver clasp, the tiny crease at the corner of her mouth that had appeared when she’d offered him a smile along with her hand. It was as if her image had burned itself into his brain, every detail pinpoint-sharp. The blush heating her cheeks, a fine chain about her neck that disappeared between invitingly generous breasts. Her long legs.
Was he imagining them?
He couldn’t remember looking at her legs and yet he’d drawn her shoes—black suede, dangerously high heels, a sexy little ankle strap...
He did not fight it, but drew obsessively, continuously, as if by putting her on paper he could clear his mind, rid himself of what had
