‘I say, old chap,’ blustered Martin, the mirth slipping from his face. ‘Just a bit of harmless fun.’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ Campbell said politely. He pushed back his chair and grasped it firmly in case the growing urge to wipe the superior looks off their faces suddenly overwhelmed him. ‘I have other business.’
* * *
Claire steamed into the deserted staff dining room and made herself a cup of coffee. It was too early for afternoon tea so she had the large room to herself. Good. At least she’d be able to hear as she silently berated herself. In half an hour the noise level in the room wouldn’t allow for mental self-flagellation.
She flicked impatiently through her notes as she sipped the hot drink. Neat, concise, calm, reasoned. Absolutely nothing like her performance in the boardroom. She shut the folder in disgust. Try insulting and inciting. She’d blown it! Her agenda had been to flatter a few egos and gently persuade. Instead, she’d gone in with a caustic tongue and a sledgehammer.
Where they would go from here, she really had no idea. It would have to go back to the board and they would have to apply pressure. Claire had no doubt that eventually the obstetricians would have to back down. The board could be an immovable force when it wanted something badly enough. Fortunately, it believed in the birth centre.
But it all meant more time. As if the process hadn’t been slow enough already. This latest development delayed things further. Damn them, Claire thought as she stared into the murky depths of her coffee. Her eyes were a matching colour as she worried her bottom lip.
Unbidden, Campbell Deane’s face entered her mind—again. His red-blonde hair, his green eyes, the intensity of his stare. The way he said her name.
‘Claire.’
His voice startled her, causing the remainder of her coffee to swish perilously close to spilling into her lap.
‘May I sit down?’ He gestured to the seat opposite.
Still smarting from what had happened in the boardroom and irked by the way her hands were trembling, Claire wasn’t feeling very charitable.
‘Something wrong with all the other tables in this joint?’
Despite her deliberate rudeness, he threw back his head and laughed, and Claire was reminded how he had laughed at her golf faux pas. She felt her scalp tingle.
‘You’re not sitting at them.’ His laughter sobered to serious contemplation.
Claire felt her breath stop in her throat as their eyes locked and held. Cinnamon brown drowning in sea green. She pulled her gaze away with difficulty.
‘It’s a free country.’ Claire shrugged her slim shoulders. She had to be nonchalant, cool. She couldn’t let him see that somehow he’d created a chink in her defences. He mustn’t find out.
‘I’ll do it,’ he stated, pulling out the chair and sitting down.
‘What?’ She eyed him dubiously.
‘I’ll be the admitting obstetrician.’
Claire’s first reaction was to reach over and kiss him. But her ever-present sensible side cautioned her against wild impulses.
‘Why?’ she asked, trying to keep her bewilderment at this sudden turn of events in check.
‘Because the birth centre philosophy is everything I believe in. I’d love to be part of it.’
‘Didn’t sound that way in the boardroom.’
‘I was playing Devil’s advocate.’ He shrugged. ‘I wanted to test your conviction. See how passionate you were about your cause. Very, as it turns out.’
Claire blushed. She’d certainly left nobody in that boardroom in any doubt about how passionate she was about the centre. She regarded him seriously. Dared she hope? Could Campbell Deane be trusted?
‘You won’t be popular,’ she stated.
‘I’ve never really cared for what other people think.’
He shot her such a dazzling smile Claire wanted to reach for her sunglasses. He was flirting, she realised with dismay. Claire had been flirted with enough to recognise the signs. Oh, dear. This wouldn’t do at all.
‘You’re not doing this to … be popular with me?’ she asked.
‘Would it work?’ His green eyes sparkled with humour.
‘Definitely not. I don’t date.’
‘Oh? And why is that?’
‘Didn’t they tell you about me? About my sexual preference?’ Claire watched as Campbell valiantly tried to swallow his mouthful of coffee instead of spluttering it all over her crisp white uniform. ‘I’m not stupid, Campbell. I know what people say about me.’
‘I guess I didn’t expect you to be so open about it,’ he mused, facial contortions now under control. ‘So, is it true?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I hope not.’
Claire held her breath. A surge of energy had charged between them again. The surroundings faded away as her gaze locked with his. ‘And if I am?’ Claire couldn’t stop the question tumbling from her lips. She blushed as his gaze zeroed in on her mouth.
‘It would break my heart.’ His voice was little more than a whisper.
She registered his preposterous statement but still didn’t seem to be able to drag her eyes away from his hungry gaze on her mouth.
A burst of raucous laughter heralded the first people arriving for their afternoon tea. Claire quickly pulled herself back, the spell broken. How had she got so near? He seemed to exert some kind of magnetic pull she couldn’t resist.
‘This is an entirely unprofessional, inappropriate conversation,’ she stated briskly, gathering her crockery together and rising to leave.
‘Absolutely. I agree,’ he said, also rising and falling into step beside her. ‘Perhaps we could have a more appropriate conversation another time. Over dinner maybe?’
‘I don’t do dinner,’ she said primly.
‘Lunch?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose breakfast is out then?’ he suggested cheekily, and her step faltered at his implication. She stopped before she tripped.
‘You’re wasting an awful lot of time on someone whose not supposed to be interested in men.’
‘I think you are.’
‘Really? And how do you know that?’
‘The way you looked at me before … we definitely shared a moment back there. No one interested in women would look at a man like
