sat up and looked at her intently. ‘See? Now isn’t it liberating to speak your mind?’
‘I know you think it’s funny to confuse me.’
‘Am I confusing you?’
Jamie went bright red and tightened her lips. ‘You don’t seem to have any morals or ethics at all when it comes to women!’ she snapped. ‘I’ve worked with you for well over a year and you must have had a dozen women in that time. More! You play with people’s feelings and it doesn’t seem to bother you at all!’
‘So there’s a lurking tiger behind that placid face of yours,’ he murmured.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You asked me for my opinion, that’s all.’
‘You think I use women? Treat them badly?’
‘I …’ She opened her mouth to tell him that she had never thought anything whatsoever about the way he treated women, not until this very moment, but she would have been lying. She realised with some dismay that she had done plenty of thinking about Ryan Sheppard and his out-of-hours relationships. ‘I’m sure you treat them really well, but most women want more than just expensive gifts and fun and frolics for a few weeks.’
‘What makes you say that? Have you been chatting to any of my girlfriends? Or is that what you would want?’
‘I haven’t been chatting to your girlfriends, and we’re not talking about me,’ Jamie told him sharply.
Her colour was up and for the first time he noticed the sultry depths of her eyes and the fullness of her mouth. She was either blissfully unaware of her looks or else had made a concerted effort to sublimate them, at least during working hours. Then he wondered how he had never really noticed these little details about her before. It occurred to him that they had rarely, if ever, had the sort of lengthy conversation that required eye-to-eye contact. She had managed to avoid the very thing every single woman he met sought to instigate.
‘I treat the women I date incredibly well and, more importantly, I never give them any illusions about their place in my life. They know from the start that I’m not into building a relationship or working towards a “happy family” scenario.’
‘Why?’
‘Come again?’
‘Why,’ Jamie repeated in a giddy rush, ‘are you not into building relationships or doing the happy-family thing?’
Ryan looked at her incredulously. Yes, he always encouraged an outspoken approach, both within the working environment and outside it. He prided himself on always being able to take what was said to him. He might choose to totally ignore it, of course, and did a great majority of the time, but never let it be said that he wasn’t open to alternative opinions.
Except who had ever asked him such an outlandishly personal question before?
‘Not everyone is.’ But he was keen to bring the conversation to an end now. ‘And, now that the cabaret show’s over, I think it’s time we get back to work.’
Jamie gave a little shrug and instantly resumed her professionalism. ‘Okay. I didn’t manage to find the time to look at those reports about the software company you’re thinking of investing in. Shall I go and do that now? I can have everything ready for you by this afternoon.’
So, to Ryan’s vague dissatisfaction, the day kicked off the way it always did: with Jamie working wonders with her time, sitting outside his office in her own private cubicle, where she did what she was highly paid to do with such staggering efficiency that he wondered how he had ever managed without her around.
His phone rang constantly; she fielded calls. The creative bods who worked on some of the games software three floors down burst into his office with some new idea or other, became over-exuberant; she ushered them out like a head teacher whose job it was to keep order in the classroom. When he made the comparison, his keen eyes noted the way she blushed and smiled, and then he grinned when she told him that she wouldn’t have to play head teacher if he was a bit better at playing it himself.
At three, he grabbed his coat; he was running late for a meeting with three investment bankers. She told him at the very least to take off the rugby shirt and handed him something a little more presentable from the concealed, fully stocked wardrobe in the suite opposite his office. Everything was back to normal and it was beginning to grate on him.
At five-thirty, he got back to his office after a successful meeting to find her gathering her things together and slipping on her coat. About to switch off her computer, Jamie felt her heart flutter uncomfortably. She hadn’t been expecting him to be back before she left.
‘You’re leaving?’ Ryan tossed his coat over his desk and began pulling off the unutterably dull grey woollen jumper which he had obligingly worn for the benefit of the bankers.
Underneath, the white tee-shirt barely concealed the hard muscularity of his body. Jamie averted her eyes, mentally slapping herself because she should be used to all this by now and she wasn’t sure why she was suddenly reacting to him like a complete idiot. Maybe it had something to do with her sister being back on the scene. There would be a psychological connection there somewhere if she could be bothered to work it out.
‘I … I would have stayed on, Ryan, but something’s come up, so I have to dash.’
‘Something’s come up? What?’ He headed straight to where she was still dithering in front of her computer terminal and lounged against the door frame.
‘Nothing,’ Jamie muttered.
‘Nothing? Something? Which is it, Jamie?’
‘Oh, just leave me alone!’ she blurted out, and to her horror she could feel her eyes welling up at the sudden intrusion of stress that had presented itself in her previously uncomplicated life. She looked away abruptly and began fiddling with the paperwork on her desk, before turning all her attention to her computer in the desperate hope that the man still leaning against the door frame would take the hint and disappear. He didn’t. Worse, he walked slowly towards her and she felt his finger on her chin, tilting her face up to his.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
‘Nothing’s going on. I’m just … just a bit tired, that’s all. Maybe I’m … coming down with something.’ She shrugged his hand off but she could still feel it burning her skin as she quickly stuck on her thick black coat and braced herself for the biting cold outside.
‘Is it to do with work?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Has something happened here at work that you’re not telling me about? Some of the guys can be a bit rowdy. Has someone said something to you? Made some kind of inappropriate remark?’ He suddenly blanched at the possibility that one of them might have seriously overstepped the mark and done something a little more physical when it came to being inappropriate.
Jamie looked at him blankly and shook her head. ‘Of course not. No, work’s fine. You’ll be relieved to hear that.’
‘Some guy giving you grief?’ He tried to sound sympathetic but his imagination had broken its leash and was filling his head with all sorts of images that were definitely in the ‘inappropriate’
