doubted that she had a sweetly submissive bone in her body. Theo, used to viewing all problems in life as soluble, could not for the hell of him work out why he was bothering with a woman who rattled him when, without too much effort, he could easily find one who didn’t. Considering things logically, why would he voluntarily put himself into a situation that had the potential to give him a headache? Women, he firmly believed, should never give men headaches. They were the gentle sex and their duty was to calm.
He muttered an oath under his breath, snatched up the manual and attempted to get his brain round the concepts of global business protocol.
Sophie Scott was not calming. She had also rejected his advances. Theo scowled and snapped shut the business book. The laptop computer was right there, next to him, ready and waiting for him to bring it to life, but the thought of reading through yet more urgent emails bored him.
He switched off the light and let his thoughts roam freely over selected snippets of the conversation they had had earlier, dwelling on the way she had firmly but politely warned him off making a pass at her. Obviously she had never been told that to warn a man off something was to wave a red flag under his nose. Or at least that was the way it worked with Theo.
What was the point of a challenge if you didn’t rise to it? Theo always rose to a challenge. He savoured the prospect of having her, of overwhelming her prudish concerns, of releasing the fire he knew was there inside her.
He woke up the following morning with an uncomfortable sensation of coldness and realised that there was no heating in the cottage. The fact that he slept without pyjamas didn’t help matters. His mind was racing, though, and the cold was almost a welcome spur to the well-spring of energy he could feel inside him. He had a very quick and very cold shower and by nine-thirty he was on the way to her office.
Sitting on the floor and wrapped up in various layers of thick clothing because there was no way that Sophie was going to sit around in her coat, she was barely aware of Theo pushing open the office door.
In fact, she was not at all aware of his presence until he was looming over her; then his shadow alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone.
With a little yelp of shock, she stumbled to her feet, sending various sheets of paper shooting off her lap on to the ground.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, dusting herself down and glaring at him.
‘Where’s the rest of your motley crew?’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’ She had pretty much given up trying to remember that she was his landlady and obliged to display good manners, even though she might not feel like it. She had been sitting on that wretched floor for the best part of an hour, simply because it had seemed easier to get down to the level of the boxes rather than continually drag them up to her level. Her jeans were dusty, her hands were dusty, her hair was probably dusty too and her clothes were a shambolic assortment of things that should really have been binned years ago but had somehow managed to slip through the net. She felt a mess and she looked a mess and there he stood, outrageously sexy in a pair of cords, a thick cream sweater and a battered leather jacket that screamed casual style.
‘I thought I would drop in, maybe give you a hand with some of this paperwork, seeing that I can’t do any work myself because of the power cut.’
‘You can still write without a computer,’ Sophie felt constrained to point out. She hoped that it wasn’t part of his game plan to spend the morning under her feet just because his computer was out of action for a few hours. ‘I mean, aren’t you writers supposed to be inventive?’
‘I think you’re thinking of people like your father.’
‘I said inventive not inventors.’
‘Show me what you’ve done already and how your filing system works.’
‘You don’t have to sit and help me with this.’
‘In other words, you’d rather I didn’t.’
‘I’d work a lot faster if I don’t have to stop to explain stuff to you.’
‘I’m a very quick learner. You would be surprised.’
‘You should use this opportunity to see something around here,’ Sophie suggested desperately. ‘I mean, if you really think that you can’t write a chapter or two of your book without a computer.’
‘Why don’t you just accept my offer of help in the manner in which it was intended?’ Theo said with mounting impatience. ‘Especially as there is no one around at the moment to help out anyway. Where is the gang of three? Christmas shopping?’
Sophie guiltily thought of Robert. True to his word, he had not shown up but she had spent the morning half expecting him to telephone her and was relieved that he hadn’t. His proposal, coming out of nowhere as it had, had shaken her to the core. He had been a friend and a helping hand to her when she had needed one but was that any reason to consider developing a relationship with him? On the other hand, she wasn’t getting any younger and they did get along, at least on a superficial level, which was the only level they had previously enjoyed.
What was the harm in just seeing whether there was something there that could be developed further?
‘Don’t tell me the boyfriend has deserted the sinking ship?’ Theo slid open the drawer of one of the metal filing cabinets and began looking at the files.
‘You need a computer,’ he said, as the level of paperwork became ever clearer. ‘It’s the only way you’ll be able to keep track of everything here and, aside from that, it’s a bloody fire hazard.’
‘I’ve got a computer,’ Sophie told him airily.
‘Where is it?’
‘Upstairs. I just haven’t got around to…logging some of this stuff in…It takes time, you know…All that computer work, et cetera…I mean, it’s all right for you. You just have to sit there telling stories and typing away.’
It occurred to Theo that the whole figment of his occupation was becoming a burden, but he quickly reminded himself how much more satisfying it was to be incognito, at least for a short while. Hadn’t he lived his entire life with the weight of expectation on his shoulders? Without any siblings to share the responsibility, he had had little option but to fulfil his duty as son and heir to a shipping empire. Just as well he had found it to his liking. All the same, it was good to be suddenly in this make-believe role, with only himself to please and absolutely no one else.
‘I know a thing or two about computers. I could have a look at what you’ve done so far, see whether it mightn’t require some updating.’
‘You know about computers? How do you know about computers? No! Let me guess! The way you seem to know about everything. Information just wafts into you, through osmosis! Lucky you.’
‘You haven’t logged any of this on to a computer, have you?’
Sophie wanted to ask him how he had the nerve to waltz into her office and begin making assumptions about her approach to the workload. Did he think that it was a walk in the park trying to come to terms with your father’s death and sort out the chaos he had left behind without you ever suspecting a thing at the same time? However, there he was, sitting there and looking as though he knew what he was doing,
