mess,’ she added ungraciously, knowing there was no mess, that she kept her home as tidy as she kept her office.
But the thought of Ross in her home, the one place she never had to remember him having been, was not a pleasant one. Her little terraced house was her sanctuary. A sanctuary that was about to be invaded!
‘I’ll do that.’ Ross grinned knowingly. ‘While we’re there, you could also change into something a little less … businesslike,’ he added before continuing on his way to his own office.
Tazzy glared at the now closed door between the two rooms. She had no intention of changing into something less businesslike! Businesslike was how she liked to be whenever she was around Ross, and she had no intention of ever changing that.
Whoever the practical joker was who had sent her first the kitten, and then these roses, had a lot to answer for. Because she had no doubts that it was the anonymous gifts she had received today that had prompted Ross into inviting her out to lunch, if only to try and find out from Tazzy exactly how serious the relationship was.
When there was no relationship!
CHAPTER THREE
‘PIERRE will be more than pleased to see us both at about one-thirty,’ Ross told Tazzy with satisfaction as he strolled back into her office a couple of hours later.
Pierre Gaston owned one of the most select restaurants in London, with extortionate prices to go along with that prestige; no doubt he would be pleased to see another two customers in his restaurant at lunch-time!
But, Tazzy noted with a certain inner smugness, it had taken Ross almost two hours to come up with a restaurant that had availability.
Although the fact that it was Pierre’s meant she might just have to rethink her decision not to change out of the grey suit and white blouse she had worn for work today. The women that frequented such a restaurant had a totally different idea of ‘power dressing’ from the one she had: designer suits and diamonds, probably!
‘You were right about everywhere being full,’ Ross admitted with a grimace as he came over to sit on the side of her desk. ‘I tried Pierre’s as a last resort.’
That was one of the endearing qualities about Ross that so made her love him; he hadn’t needed to admit to her that he had found difficulty, after all, but he had done so anyway.
‘Not that you aren’t worth it,’ he hastened to add with a boyish smile. ‘I just had somewhere a little more—well, less formal, let’s say—in mind.’
‘There really is no need to take me out at all,’ she assured him, calmer now than she had been a couple of hours ago. Everything was back under control, even the red roses were out of the way on top of a filing cabinet in a couple of vases she had borrowed from Mrs Brown; she simply hadn’t the heart to throw such beautiful flowers in the bin—whoever they might have come from! ‘I can promise you, I’m not involved in a relationship, and have no intention of letting anyone “steal me away” from your employment,’ she added impatiently.
He shrugged. ‘The roses say differently.’
Admittedly, the roses, five dozen of them in all—Tazzy had counted them as she’d put them in the vases!—must have cost someone a small fortune, especially today of all days, but, as she couldn’t even take a wild guess at who might have sent them, the gesture was totally wasted on her!
She shook her head. ‘Couldn’t you just take my word for it that they don’t? It would save you having to go to the expense of taking me out to lunch.’
‘No, I said I was taking you out, and that’s what I’m going to do,’ Ross insisted. ‘So we had better leave here—’ He broke off as the second knock of the morning sounded on Tazzy’s office door, a rather bemused Mrs Brown once again the perpetrator, another man trailing in her wake.
Tazzy had tensed the moment the knock had sounded on the door, and as she saw the enormous box of chocolates the man carried in his hands—a red heart-shaped box of chocolates, tied up with a red ribbon—she knew she was right to feel that way!
She closed her eyes, hoping—and praying!—that the chocolates hadn’t come from her mystery admirer too, that they weren’t even for her. Although perhaps, in the circumstances, that would be hoping for too much!
Mrs Brown looked even more bemused than she had earlier. ‘This gentleman has instructions to deliver the chocolates personally, too,’ she told them.
‘Miss Darling?’ The man looked at Tazzy enquiringly.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed abruptly, unable to even look at Ross this time as the delivery man crossed the room to place the box of chocolates into her hands—goodness knew what Ross was making of all this! ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
The man grinned. ‘Eleven o’clock the man said, and eleven o’clock it is,’ he said with satisfaction.
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