had he asked her to lunch? Did he have some elaborate punishment in mind because she had answered back to him on the phone?
‘Like I said the flu epidemic has left us very short-staffed today.’
‘But otherwise you’d have been delighted to come?’
In face of this sardonic observation it took all of Scarlet’s will-power to conceal her feelings behind a blank expression.
What were her feelings? In one word—shallow; this was biology at its most basic. She knew what lust felt like, and never had it been less welcome or so extreme, but when you came right down to it she really shouldn’t have been letting it get to her this way. There was absolutely no need to stress; it wasn’t as if she’d never felt sexual attraction before. She knew about the tightening in her stomach and the rest; it was a biological response—like sneezing.
She took a deep breath and was conscious of the fabric of her borrowed top chafing against her erect nipples; lower, the tell-tale liquid heat was even more of a give-away. Sneezing? Maybe not the best analogy.
She saw a smile touch his sensual lips. To her horrified eyes it held a knowing quality that suggested she wasn’t hiding anything from him; she felt a flare of anger—her condition was entirely his doing.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to go,’ she told him abruptly.
‘Rain check?’
She looked at him blankly. If he thought she was strange and peculiar, that was fine, because she was. Being attracted, even in a blind, mindless way, to a man like this could quite safely be categorised as peculiar…also wantonly stupid and brainless!
‘Fine, whatever…’ she mumbled, before virtually throwing herself through the door in her haste to remove herself from the room.
She literally bumped into David about thirty seconds after she had emerged from his office. She suspected he had been lurking there waiting for her to appear.
‘Steady, you’re in a hurry,’ he said, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her. ‘You came around that corner like you had the hounds of hell on your heels.’
After what she had just endured the hounds of hell would be child’s play.
‘The girls will be missing me. I promised I’d be back to help with the lunches.’
David’s right hand remained on her shoulder. ‘How did it go?’
‘What…? Oh, with Mr O’Hagan? Fine, absolutely fine.’
David looked at her face and groaned. ‘Oh, God, you’re such a terrible liar, you always were. What did you do?’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘But you said something.’
Scarlet’s expression grew defensive. ‘Of course I said something. I may not warm to womanising playboys—’ annoyingly this was something that was hard to say without sounding, not only prejudiced, but distressingly intolerant ‘—but I’m not a total idiot.’ Actually the jury was still out on that one.
‘Well, this particular womanising playboy finds time in his schedule to run a highly successful international company.’ He looked into her stubborn face and sighed. ‘Would it hurt you to be nice to the man, Scarlet?’
‘How nice would that be? Will treating everything he says as a pearl of wisdom do, or did you want me to sleep with him?’
‘Do you have to be facetious, Scarlet?’ David demanded, allowing his aggravation with her to surface.
‘It’s easier than—’
‘Easier than what, Scarlet?’
Good question. ‘He’s not an easy man.’
‘I found him perfectly affable, but, easy or not, Scarlet, he is funding a number of bursaries to help students from less-well-off backgrounds.’
The seconds ticked by while Scarlet stood staring at him with her mouth slightly ajar. Finally she gulped and took a deep breath.
‘You’re kidding!’ Her grin faded as no corresponding smile appeared on David’s face. ‘Oh, God, I feel such a…’
‘Narrow-minded, judgemental?’
‘Amongst other things,’ she admitted miserably.
David shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you have a problem accepting the man is capable of acting altruistically?’
Scarlet did. It wasn’t the man; it was the type of person he represented.
She had no problem seeing past an unattractive face, and she didn’t judge anyone by their accent, their bank balance or the car they drove, but when it came to people who lived their lives being seen in the right places wearing the right clothes and with the right people she came over with terminal intolerance. She knew it and wasn’t proud of it, but she couldn’t help it.
Scarlet knew about people like that. Her sister had been a member of their very exclusive club, and how many of them had visited when Abby had been ill in hospital, losing her hair after intensive chemo? Abby’s friends had had more important things to do, when she had contacted the names in her sister’s address book and explained the situation and told them how much it would cheer her sister up to see a friendly face.
A few had made vague promises, but in the end not a single one of those good friends had turned up to show support, she recalled bitterly. When the going got tough, the Roman O’Hagans of this world disappeared in their fast cars.
‘I’m not kidding. This is not common knowledge,’ David added, laying a warning finger to his lips and looking as though he was regretting sharing the confidential information with her. ‘Mr O’Hagan was most insistent on his name not being made public.’ David gave a wry smile as he thought of all the name plaques he had unveiled in his career. ‘Which makes him unique in my experience,’
‘Really!’ she exclaimed, unable to stop the bitchy retort. ‘I’d have thought he’d be used to it! Well, he’s not exactly publicity shy, is he?’ she added defensively. It seemed pretty perverse to Scarlet that someone who lived his life in the glare of publicity would be bothered about his altruism being made public. ‘Maybe it’s a tax thing?’
She realised that, far from agreeing with her, David was looking annoyed, and added with as much conviction as she could muster, ‘Or maybe he’s a very modest, generous man.’
CHAPTER FIVE
SCARLET lowered the blinds over the glass partition and removed her borrowed finery before folding it neatly over the back of her chair. Standing there in just her white cotton pants, she shook out her own clean clothes. Creased, certainly, but a whole lot better than what she had been wearing.
If she had looked half decent would she have emerged from her encounter with Roman O’Hagan looking less of a loon?
Such speculation was pointless. Scarlet turned her thoughts firmly away from that traumatic and humiliating interview she had
