about an octave as he murmured, ‘Well, you really don’t look…’
‘That old?’ She meant her response to sound cheerful, unconcerned. Instead, it came out with a breathless edge, the result of that considering gaze on her. Of the way he had championed her, despite never having worked directly with her until today.
And perhaps a little because of her need not to feel quite as ancient as she did in the face of her looming birthday. ‘Thank you for thinking so.’
Thank you very, very much and you look appealing yourself. Very appealing.
Did hormones have voices? Whispery ones that piped up right when they were least welcome?
First chance we get, Marissa thought, those hormones and I are having a Come To Mama meeting and I’m telling them who’s in charge of this show. Namely, me.
Stupid birthdays, anyway. They should be cancelled after twenty-five and never referred to again.
You’ll have found Mr Right by your birthday and won’t have time to notice that over a third of your estimated life span has passed you by while you wasted some of it on Michael Unsworth, the cheating, lying, using—
‘Well. What was it we were saying?’ Marissa forced a smile. She mustn’t think of Michael, or of Rick Morgan’s charismatic presence.
‘We were discussing this bridge…’ Prosaic words but Rick’s gaze moved over her with a delicious consciousness before it was quickly masked.
He was attracted to her!
Her hormones cheered.
Marissa frowned.
He couldn’t be attracted. At all. Why would he be?
A moment later he blinked that consciousness away and turned to stare at the other man. ‘Unless you have something new to add to the discussion, Cartwright, perhaps we could wind this up.’
Focusing on work was a great idea, really. If her heart had already done a little flip-flop dance, well, that didn’t matter. She would simply force all systems back into submission because control was the thing.
Control her destiny and it couldn’t hurt—control—her, and that was exactly how she wanted things to be.
Rick cleared his throat. ‘Mr Cartwright, your committee members will have my report before your eleven o’clock meeting this morning.’
‘There’s no need to send it to everyone. I’ll deliver it at the meeting.’ The man actually seemed to believe that Rick would agree to this.
‘I assure you, it will be no trouble to see the report into the hands of the whole committee.’ Deep voice. Steel-edged politeness.
Marissa had arrived at work this morning expecting to be stultifyingly bored with office filing for at least the next several days. Instead, Rick’s secretary had propped himself up in her doorway and croaked out his request that she meet his boss on site so he could take himself off to the doctor.
Next minute Marissa had been whipping along in a taxi, and then she’d found Rick waiting for her at the bridge site like a knight in shining hard hat.
Well, not really a knight. No horse. But he’d listened patiently as she’d given a flurried explanation to go with her sudden appearance, then he’d said, ‘Yes, I know. Shall we?’ and had cupped her elbow to escort her onto the bridge.
That constituted contact, which was why she could blame this entire blip in her reaction to him on her senses, not her intellect.
Rick went on, ‘The report will explain why your ideas won’t work, and will agree with my assessor’s initial report and recommend the committee works directly with him from now on. Had there not been a temp from downstairs manning my office the day you made your appointment, you’d have been informed that you should meet with the Project Manager today, not me.’
Having a temp make an inappropriate appointment for him explained how Rick had ended up wasting his time on this meeting. Marissa had wondered. Her attraction to him didn’t explain anything, except her hormones apparently hadn’t read her Blinddatebrides profile or her list of requirements in a prospective mate.
Date. Prospective date. And this man wasn’t one. She expected all of her to take note.
‘You’ll be billed for this discussion. I hope your interactions with our company will remain amicable and be a little more focused in the future.’ Having made it plain that the man’s efforts to bypass the proper channels hadn’t come free of charge, Rick nodded. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us.’
Good. It was over. They could get back to the office and Marissa could forget this weird awareness of the boss and return to her real work. In this instance, taking care of the backlog of filing Gordon had left behind before he’d gone on holiday and, once that was done, a long list of non-urgent hack work he’d left for her.
Rick’s firm fingers wrapped around her elbow.
Instant overload.
Nerve-endings. Senses. Her gaze flew to his. He was already watching her. His fingers tightened.
For a frozen heartbeat his gaze became very intent indeed. Then he shook his head and swept her away along the bridge and she started to breathe again and reminded herself of her focus.
Nice. Ordinary. Guy.
Someone to have babies with. If they wanted to. At some point when they decided they’d like that. No rush at all. Again, Marissa was the leader of this particular outfit, not her clock or her hormones or anything else.
She frowned. What did she mean, clock? As in ticking biological clock? How silly. She simply wanted someone steady and dependable and completely invested in building a solid relationship of trust, friendship and affection with her.
Sure, that might mean a family one day, but she didn’t feel driven to have children. Just because she found herself noticing mothers with babies in supermarkets and shops and on the street…
No. The Big 3-0 didn’t stand for B. A. B. Y.
Not at all.
It only stood for birthday-she-didn’t-want-to-think-about.
Hmph.
And just because she’d noticed the Morgan’s boss…
‘Tom explained he was unwell before he sent you out here to meet me?’ Rick spoke the words as he steered her along. ‘Did he give you his travel pack?’
‘I met with Tom briefly at the office before his wife whisked him away to go to the doctor.’ Marissa tapped the bag that slapped against her hip with each step.
Rick must be around six foot two inches tall. Much of it appeared to be strong, ground-eating legs, not that she wanted to think about his legs, or even his anatomy in general. ‘And, yes, I have Tom’s travel pack.’
The shoes that went so nicely with her chocolate-brown knee-length skirt were also
