somewhere. She ran her fingers beneath the desk, under the drawers, in case it was taped there. Well, no. First place a burglar would look, obviously. Even a first time burglar like her.
If you didn’t count the school secretary’s office…
Where would she keep the spare key to her desk drawer?
Safely in the drawer so she wouldn’t lose it, but then she didn’t have anything worth locking up. Okay, there were files and disks containing months of painstaking research. Nothing anyone would want to steal, though. But supposing she did…
In her bedside drawer seemed a likely place. Who would ever find it amongst all the clutter?
But would a man think that way? What did men put in their bedside drawers, anyway?
She had no way of knowing but, short of any other ideas, she abandoned the study and ran up the spiral staircase to the upper floor, emerging in a wide gallery where comfort had been allowed to encroach on the severity of the minimalist theme.
The floor was covered with a lovely old Turkish rug, there was a huge, much used leather armchair and the walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with shelves crammed with books that looked as if they’d been read, rather than arranged by an expensive decorator just for effect. She moved towards them on automatic, stumbling over a low table she hadn’t noticed and sending a heap of magazines slithering to the floor.
The noise was horrendous. But it brought her back to her senses. This was no time for browsing…
There was only one door leading from the gallery. Rubbing her shin, she opened it, stepping into a wide inner hallway lit from above by a series of skylights and groaned as she was confronted by half a dozen doors, opening the doors to an airing cupboard and two guest suites before she finally found Mallory’s room. It had to be his room. It was in darkness, the heavy curtains still shut tight against the feeble morning sunlight.
She left the door open to give her some light and looked around. There was very little furniture, which rather confused her.
The whole apartment was so different from the McBrides’ which, like the apartment block that Sir William had designed, had an art deco feel to it. Even the garden.
But it seemed that Mallory’s taste for minimalism extended even to his sleeping arrangements. A very low—and very large—unmade bed dominated the room. Mounded up with a mountainous quilt and pillows and flanked by a pair of equally low tables, each with a tall lamp.
She crossed quickly to the nearest one. At first, she couldn’t work out how to open the narrow, flush-fitting drawer. The lamp would have helped, but her hands were shaking so much with nerves that she was sure to knock it flying if she attempted to switch it on.
Instead, she got down on her knees and felt underneath, relieved to discover that the trick to it was nothing more complicated than a finger ledge.
She pulled and discovered the answer to her question. The drawer contained a quantity of products that suggested Richard Mallory was a man whose guiding principle in life was ‘be prepared’.
Frequently.
She closed it quickly. Okay. Enough was enough. She was running out of time here. And Sophie was running out of luck. She’d check the other table so that she could say she had done everything possible. After that, she was out of there.
Then, as she began to get to her feet, something caught her eye. A glint of something small and shiny under the table, right up against the wall, that might be a key. For a moment she was torn. What was the likelihood that this was the key she was looking for?
But then it had to fit something…
She had to lie down and stretch out flat before she could reach it. It felt right—long and narrow—and she emerged, flushed from the effort as she backed out, holding up the object to get a better look. Light, she needed more light. As she reached for the lamp it came on by itself. Startled, she stared at it for a moment, then grinned. That was so brilliant! She’d heard of lamps that did that…
But this was not the time to investigate. She turned her attention back to the small metallic object she’d picked up. ‘Oh, drat…’
‘Not one of yours, I take it?’
The voice, low and gravelly, had emerged from the heaped-up quilt, along with a mop of dark, tousled hair and a pair of heavy-lidded eyes. It was followed by a hand which tossed aside a remote and lifted the sliver of platinum from her open palm and, warm fingers brushing against her neck, held it up against her ear.
Not a key, but an earring. Long, slender…
And that was just his fingers.
‘No,’ he said, after looking at it and then at her for what seemed like an age, during which her heart took a unilateral decision not to beat—probably something to do with all the magnetism flowing from those electric blue eyes—before dropping it back into her hand. ‘Not your style.’
A sound—something incoherent that might have been agreement—emerged from Ginny’s throat. Recycled charity shop was cheap. That was its attraction. Whether it could be described as a style…
‘If you tell me what you’re looking for I might be able to help?’ he prompted.
More of Richard Mallory emerged from beneath the quilt as he propped himself up on one arm. Naked shoulders, a naked chest with a spattering of dark hair that arrowed down to a hard, flat stomach…
‘Um…’ she murmured, mesmerised.
‘I’m sorry?’ One brow kinked upward. ‘I didn’t quite catch that.’
The sleepy lids were deceptive. His eyes, she realised, were wide awake. How long had he been watching her? Had he witnessed her attack on his bedside drawer?
She swallowed hard. There was nothing to do but bluff it out and hope for the best. If she could handle a room full of eighteen-year-old undergraduates who thought they knew it all—and who almost certainly knew a lot more than her about pretty much anything other than Greek myth—she could surely handle one man…
As his eyes continued to burn into her, she decided she’d take the lecture hall any day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option. Bluff would have to do it.
‘I said, “um”,’ she replied, pushing her glasses up her nose as she found her ‘teacher’ voice. After all he couldn’t sack her…
He could, of course, call the police.
‘Um?’ He repeated the word back at her as if it was from some foreign language. One he’d never before encountered.
Bluff, bluff.
It was easy. She did it all the time. It was how she had got through the lectures she had given to help support herself through her doctorate. All she had to do, she reminded herself, was use the classic technique of imagining that he was naked. From what she’d seen so far she wasn’t finding it difficult. He probably was naked…
Oh, bad idea.
Think of something else. Her mother…
‘Not the acme of clear
