explosive sound of laughter was clearly audible to Rowena as she stalked, head held high, from the crowded ante-room crowded with leather-clad clones.
‘I hope you’re satisfied now!’ she gritted to Quinn.
‘Don’t fret, Rowena, I’m sure your ice-cold bitch image can survive worse than this.’
‘I hate you!’ If that were true, how it would simplify matters.
‘I can live with that,’ he lied, increasing his pace to keep up with her. ‘It’s being ignored I’m not so comfortable with,’ he concluded grimly.
‘I’ve heard of men who turn to stalking when they get given the push, but I never thought you’d be one of them, Quinn. If only I’d known then what I know now…’ As if it would have made any difference, a self-derisive voice-over in her head insisted on supplementing.
‘I haven’t been given the push.’
Rowena came to an abrupt halt in front of her PA’s desk. Hands planted on her hips, she swung around, causing her silver-blonde hair to bell around her face before settling down into the loosely tendrilled nape-length style she’d recently adopted.
‘Consider yourself pushed, Quinn.’
Quinn smiled. ‘Like hell I will!’ Ignoring her loudly voiced protests, he placed his hand against her chest and thrust her through the open door of her office. ‘Hold all Ms Parrish’s calls,’ he instructed the startled-looking young woman behind the desk.
‘Call Security, Bernice!’ Rebecca yelled shrilly just before Quinn kicked the door closed. ‘I suppose you think this ridiculous caveman act is impressive!’ she jeered, retreating to the other side of her large desk—the symbol of her authority. Unfortunately it didn’t afford her that warm, in-charge feeling it normally did.
‘If you think spending just one night with me entitles you to behave like this you’re sadly mistaken, not to mention living in the wrong century. As for taking off your clothes—I’m not even going to ask!’ she choked, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the thought of Quinn parading half naked in front of the other women. ‘If I hadn’t come in when I did, heaven knows how far you’d have gone!’
‘And you don’t like that idea?’ Quinn didn’t sound as though her disgust displeased him.
It made her feel sick to the stomach. ‘I hate to spoil your pathetic male fantasies of women fighting over you, but I simply don’t like the idea of you wasting my staff’s time. We have deadlines to meet, you know. How would you like it if I smuggled myself into your hospital and tried to pass myself off as a nurse?’
‘Give me a minute here, I’m just picturing you…Does the uniform have one of those cute frilly caps?’ Rowena didn’t have time to respond to this outrageous piece of sexism before his languid air of mockery vanished, revealing the sort of penetrative expression that made her nostalgic for his irritating mockery of seconds before. ‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Rowena?’ He sat down on the edge of her desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
‘I had my hair cut.’
‘That’s not what I mean. You’ve lost weight.’
‘Thank you.’
Her hips had always been the envy of her more amply endowed friends, but losing almost a stone in weight during the past few weeks meant that the short skirt she was wearing today no longer clung to her hips, but hung loosely.
‘You look terrible.’
In case I hadn’t got the point, she thought caustically.
‘You don’t lose that sort of weight so quickly unless you’re ill or under a lot of pressure,’ he announced authoritatively.
Her glance slid evasively from his. Did morning sickness count as being ill? ‘Well, thanks for the medical assessment, Doctor, but I’m neither. It’s just too many late nights, and no time to eat.’
‘In fact life’s just one long party.’ He didn’t bother hiding his scepticism.
‘Absolutely,’ she maintained defiantly.
‘Which no doubt accounts for you ignoring my e-mails and phone calls—although that isn’t a problem now, is it? Not since you had all your numbers changed and went ex-directory.’ Rowena watched with an irritated frown as he began to mess up the row of pencils laid out symmetrically on her desk. Looking at his long, clever fingers brought a sudden rush of memories, his fingers dark against her pale breasts. His fingers sliding between…
Rowena caught her full lower lip between her teeth. She resented the fact he was making her behave guiltily. ‘That was pure coincidence,’ she announced with stilted defiance.
He lifted his head, and from beneath the sweep of inky dark lashes looked enquiringly across at her. ‘And is it coincidence that had me made persona non grata at your apartment building?’
Rowena had a firm policy of ignoring things she couldn’t deny and she did so now with a careless toss of her fair head. ‘I’ve only just got back, Quinn. New York was hectic.’ She wished straight off she hadn’t mentioned New York.
She thought of New York and, unlike normal people who had spent any time there, she didn’t associate with the vibrant, alive, noisy, scary, exciting place it was. No, Rowena immediately associated it with Quinn, incredible sex and the frightening consequences of the latter…
‘What about the weekend you came home?’
‘You knew about that?’ Startled, she glanced up to see an expression she couldn’t quite place on his face.
‘Wasn’t I meant to?’
‘It was no secret.’ Recovering a little composure, Rowena managed to continue in a persuasively reasonable tone. ‘I’ve just started a new job. I’ve hardly had time to make contact with every casual acquaintance I have.’ She gulped, but the sound was drowned out by the sibilant hiss of his indrawn breath.
Oh, God, that had come out all wrong and then some…!
‘Casual acquaintance,’ he said very softly and deadly silkily. Then, even softer, ‘Casual acquaintance. Tell me, Rowena, how do you say hello to people you know quite well?’
She closed her eyes as an image appeared in her mind’s eye of herself walking down the crowded New York street three months ago, surrounded by a seething mass of humanity. Maybe it had been the mild culture shock of moving to another city where she knew nobody, or maybe it had been the stress of proving herself, but she had never felt so alone in her life.
Then she’d seen him. She hadn’t even needed to get a proper look at that unmistakable profile—his innately elegant, long-legged stride would have been sufficient proof. Two men in the world couldn’t move that way. Without thinking she had barged through the people separating them, breaking every rule of pedestrian etiquette and probably bruising a few shins to get to him.
Waving her bag above her head, she’d shrieked his name like a demented banshee until she’d been hoarse. She’d almost been at his shoulder when he’d finally turned around and Rowena, her face flushed,
