hardly be on top of one another.’
Suddenly the tall, dark figure of Max Ryder appeared very slightly menacing, and involuntarily she took a step back. ‘But I didn’t know I was going to be sharing with you!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! We are living in the twentieth century, you know!’ he retorted. ‘Men and women do share flats these days—as you’ve obviously done yourself before. Or perhaps you consider yourself such a little sexpot that you think I won’t be able to keep my hands off you?’
‘No, I don’t!’ she parried, a blush creeping into her cheeks as her mind became alight with vivid images that his words had conjured up.
‘Well, that’s something,’ he said, with a kind of grim satisfaction. ‘Because, believe me, the last type of woman to attract me is some tall, skinny kid who doesn’t look old enough to be out of gym-slips!’
Shauna glared at him. It was one thing to decide that the man before her was the last person she’d ever fall for—it was quite another to discover that he felt exactly the same way—and his disparaging remarks made her bristle with indignation. Share a flat with him? Why, she’d rather share with a gang of escaped convicts!
‘And what about—privacy?’ she asked primly.
He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Privacy? Will you stop acting like the original vestal virgin? Slightly redundant anyway, since we’ve just collected your stuff from your ex-lover.’
He managed to make a young love-affair sound so sordid, she thought, her grey eyes sending out sparks of indignation.
‘You’ll have all the privacy you could possibly want,’ he continued. ‘For a start, I’m away in the country most weekends. Secondly, your room is on the opposite side of a very large flat, and it has its own bathroom. So does mine. So the chances of your coming across me in the raw are pretty remote.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘The good news for both of us is that I’ll shortly be having the flat divided into two completely separate apartments. It would have been done already if I had been here to sort the damned builders out. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of the country.’
That explained the tan, thought Shauna.
His eyes were mocking as they surveyed her. ‘Now, are those arrangements secure enough for your Victorian sensibilities, or would you like me to throw in a chastity belt while I’m at it?’ He gave an unexpected grin as he saw her colour heighten yet again.
‘You know, you really are going to have to do something about that blushing, if you’re going to work for me. And you a woman of the world!’
His teasing immediately defused the atmosphere. ‘I am not a woman of the world, if that means what I think it means.’
He was staring at her curiously. ‘Tell me, you didn’t lie about your age in your letter, did you?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she flung back at him. ‘Of course I didn’t lie! Do you always think the worst of people, or are you just used to people lying to you?’
‘All the time,’ he mused. ‘Particularly women, and particularly about their age. Except that they usually lop a few years off, whereas in your case …’
There was something distinctly unsettling about the way those green eyes bored into her, she thought, but, refusing to rise to this, she stared steadily at him. ‘Will you be needing me this evening?’ she asked pointedly. ‘Because I’d like to unpack and—’
He shook his head. ‘You’re free until tomorrow morning at ten sharp. Oh, and there’s one more thing—house rules.’
‘I am very tidy,’ she interrupted. ‘And I do not leave dirty dishes in the sink.’
‘There’s a dishwasher, actually—and the maid comes in twice a week. No, I’ve only one rule and that’s no overnight guests. I don’t care who you go to bed with—just don’t do it here. I don’t intend to have my sleep disturbed.’
She went white beneath her tan and glared at him. He was obviously going out of his way to shock her, but he was going to be disappointed—she had absolutely no intention of rising to his challenge, or of offering him any information on the current state of her love-life. The question was whether she could put up with working for a man who could be quite so contentious. She continued to stare at him as she contemplated the only alternative, which would be to walk out of here right now.
She couldn’t. It was a brilliant job—she’d never find another like it. And if the only fly in the ointment was the conceited Max Ryder—well, surely she could put up with that? And at least he had made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t dream of making a pass at her, so in that sense, at least, she was quite safe with him.
The green eyes had been observing her with the faintest touch of amusement. ‘Changed your mind, have you?’
She pretended to look perplexed. ‘Changed my mind? About what?’
‘Staying.’
Her wide mouth closed in a determined line. Roll on the day when the builders arrived! ‘Certainly not, Mr Ryder. I look on it as a challenge.’
The glimmer of a smile. ‘Call me Max. And there’s plenty of food in the kitchen. Help yourself.’
‘Thank you very much,’ she answered politely, but, as she closed her bedroom door behind her, she reflected that her voracious appetite of earlier had mysteriously disappeared.
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