to be an innocent fluff-head.’
She winced at the accuracy of his insight, his accusing words pounding into her tender skull like hot nails. ‘OK, OK—so I peeked at your boring reports,’ she admitted sulkily. ‘I know I shouldn’t have—but, well—it was a choice of that or the porno channel.’
‘What in the hell are you talking about?’
His abrupt scowl made her regret her loose tongue. ‘I—I stayed the night in a motel a couple of blocks from here.’ The words dragged themselves reluctantly out of her mouth. ‘I couldn’t sleep, the TV reception was dreadful and the inhouse video channel was playing adult movies, so I decided to pass the time with my laptop.’
Finding that her computer was still in the car had been the saviour of her sanity through the long lonely hours. She had welcomed the company of a trusted old friend, one who was endlessly entertaining and who had never let her down. And the mystery disk had been a convenient distraction from her personal problems. With a complex puzzle to focus on, Nora had been able to shove her own misery to the back of her mind, her steady ingestion of vodka muffling any whispers of conscience.
‘A motel? What were you doing at a motel?’ Blake’s face had tightened with renewed suspicion, his nostrils flaring with distaste.
Nora squirmed inwardly under his accusatory gaze.
‘It’s a long story.’ she muttered. ‘A very long, very boring story,’ she hastened to emphasise as she saw his eyes flare with curiosity. ‘And it really has nothing to do with any of this…’
He put his hands on his hips, his sleek dark suit cloaking a lean frame that bespoke both immovable object and irresistible force. ‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’
She felt too fragile to keep battling his bull-headed stubbornness.
‘If you’ll just get me a couple of aspirin from the bathroom, I’ll tell you,’ she stalled, directing him with a limp wave of her hand. ‘They’re in the mirrored cabinet above the basin.’
She groaned as he remained welded to the spot. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake—I’m not going to run away as soon as your back is turned. I have a thumping great headache and I don’t want to go in there right now, OK?’
‘Why? Is there a body in the bath?’
His sarcasm conjured up the images she was trying so hard to scrape out of her skull. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she said, rubbing at her bloodshot eyes.
‘Explain.’
She automatically baulked at the rapped-out order. ‘Can’t you get the aspirin first?’
‘Stop whining and start talking.’
Nora had never whined in her life. Infuriated by his intransigence, she exploded and gave him an earful of her stored resentment, drawing a graphic picture of the sordid events of the previous day and taking a masochistic delight in painting all the gory details of her humiliating failure to satisfy the man she had honoured with her long-time affections.
‘Is it any wonder that I didn’t want to come home last night? I’d be happy never to see either of them ever again, but we all work for Maitlands so I’m stuck with having my nose rubbed in my stupidity five days a week.’
There was a crackling silence. ‘So what was I supposed to be?’ he asked with a distinct edge. ‘Your revenge on the straying boyfriend?’
‘No!’ The instinctive denial came from the depths of her femininity, but was tempered by her innate honesty. ‘Yes—no—maybe—I really don’t know.’ Nora slumped down on to the edge of the bed, closing her eyes and propping her elbows on her knees, resting her heavy head in her hands. ‘Maybe it started out that way, but I don’t know what I was thinking by the time I—we…It all seems so surreal now, like a bad dream…’
She heard him move away and was conscious of him using his cell-phone, but was too tired to strain to hear the lowvoiced conversation and when next she opened her eyes it was to see him crouched in front of her, holding out two flat white pills and a half-filled glass of water. Disorientated, she blinked, wondering whether in her state of extreme tiredness she had dozed off.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and downed them quickly, puckering her mouth at the chalky taste. ‘That wasn’t arsenic, was it?’ she joked weakly.
He eyed her pale face as he put aside the empty glass. ‘Have you given me reason to want to murder you?’
She smiled weakly. Even if she had gained his sympathy, his trust was obviously not so easily obtained.
‘Not that I can think of. I just thought—well—you might feel that I’d insulted your manhood…uh, the frail male ego and all that—’
He stood, towering over her. ‘My ego is very healthy, thank you…particularly after last night. There’s nothing more flattering for a man than to watch a woman come helplessly apart in his arms,’ he mused in that dark and dangerous drawl. ‘So violently aroused that she melts all over his fingers like sweet hot honey, and moans his name like a sexy mantra as she shudders to her first climax…’
Nora’s lips parted, but not a breath of sound trickled out of her shocked mouth, a wave of heat chasing away her pallor.
‘Or are you going to try and dismiss that as a bad dream, too?’ he goaded silkily, his eyes riveted to her upturned face as he watched the wild flush creep up to her hairline. ‘If you doubt my veracity as an eye-witness perhaps we could try a re-enactment to jog your obviously deficient memory…’
She shot off the bed as if the sheets were suddenly on fire. ‘Uh, I think perhaps I will go in to work after all. I mean, I have to face up to Kelly and Ryan some time, don’t I?’ she babbled, raking the tangle of curls away from her hot cheeks.
‘You’re obviously still feeling pretty fragile right now.’ He cut ruthlessly across her hectic tumble of words. ‘Do you really think you’re up to the challenge of confronting them in front of all your coworkers?’ His subtle emphasis on the provocative word triggered a predictable bristling of Nora’s pride.
‘Of course I am,’ she insisted thinly, despite a backbone that went to jelly at the thought. ‘After all, I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of!’
‘Quite.’ Her gaze shot suspiciously to his and met an expression of such bland innocence that she frowned.
The brackets around his mouth deepened into a smile that made her stomach twist itself into fresh contortions. ‘In that case, why don’t you get dressed for work and allow me to drop you off?’ he offered smoothly. ‘It’s the least I can do in the circumstances.’
She didn’t want to dwell on the circumstances. ‘Thanks, but I have my own car—’
‘If you drank the amount you claim you did last night, then your blood alcohol level would still be well above the legal limit,’ he pointed out sternly. ‘What would have happened if you’d been involved in a car accident this morning?’
She was shocked to realise that the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. She probably shouldn’t have been behind the wheel last night either, given the several glasses of wine she had consumed
