was behaving like an idiot, she realised, just standing here staring at him, completely tongue-tied by his unexpected appearance in the gallery.
She drew in a deep breath, willing herself to behave naturally. Well, as naturally as it was possible to be when confronted by the man who had haunted her days and filled her dreams for last six weeks!
‘What can I do for you, Mr Cavendish?’ she prompted with calm efficiency.
‘You can come upstairs to my office with me,’ he repeated firmly. ‘Now!’ he added, not even waiting for her answer this time, but turning abruptly on his heel and striding forcefully out of the room.
Kate, who was working nearby, shot Hebe a questioning look as she trailed out of the gallery behind Nick, and Hebe gave her a how-should-I-know? shrug in reply.
Because she really didn’t know what this was about. They had had dinner together, spent a night together, but she hadn’t told anyone about either of those things, let alone tried to contact Nick himself. So what was his problem?
The more she thought about it, acknowledging his brooding silence as he lithely climbed the stairs ahead of her to his office on the second floor, the angrier she became.
Had he expected, on the basis that she had spent the night with the boss, that she would have left her job here before he returned? Was that the reason he was so angry? Because he hadn’t expected to see her still here at all?
Well, that was being more than a little unfair, wasn’t it?
She loved her job here, liked the people she worked with too. Besides, none of the awkwardness of this situation was her fault, damn it!
Nick eyed her irritably as he closed his office door behind them. Unless he was mistaken, from her flushed cheeks and glowing golden eyes, he would take a guess at her being one very indignant young lady.
He perched on the edge of his cool Italian marble desk, which more than one customer at the gallery had tried to buy from him. He had always refused to sell it, though, liking the way it complemented the rest of the room, which was wood-panelled and slightly austere, although it did have a huge picture window that looked out over the river.
‘So, what are you so angry about, Hebe?’ he drawled ruefully, dark brows raised over mocking blue eyes. ‘The fact that I was less than polite just now? Or the fact that I haven’t called you for two months?’ He met her gaze challengingly.
‘Six weeks,’ she came back sharply, her cheeks flushing with colour seconds later.
‘Whatever.’ He shrugged, knowing exactly how long it was since he had last seen her, but having no intention of letting Hebe know that he did.
He had been so sure that Hebe Johnson would be just like all the other women he had known over the last two years—taken and then forgotten. But for some inexplicable reason he hadn’t quite succeeded in doing that where she was concerned. Memories of those golden eyes, that lithe silken body, came flashing into his mind at the most inconvenient of times. Irritating him intensely.
The flash of anger now in the depths of her warm eyes, and the way the fullness of those sensuous lips had tightened slightly, told him his careless attitude had only succeeded in increasing her anger. Which didn’t particularly affect him.
Not on a business level, anyway.
On a personal level, he found both things sexy as hell!
She looked good today too, dressed in a cream blouse tucked into the tiny waistband of a knee-length fitted black skirt, her legs long and silky.
So much for his absence from the London gallery these last six weeks, his deliberate lack of the promised telephone call, his self-assurances that when he came back he would have forgotten all about Hebe Johnson!
Even before he’d seen the painting he had known he hadn’t managed to do that.
His own mouth tightened as he glanced over to where he had placed the painting, on a stand to one side of his wide office, with a cover over it to protect it. But also so that Hebe Johnson shouldn’t see it until he was ready for her to do so…
Hebe eyed Nick scathingly as he stood looking at her, and, even though inside was shaking, she gripped her hands tightly together to prevent Nick from seeing they were trembling.
‘I’m sorry—were you supposed to call me?’ she came back, with all the coolness she could muster.
Which was quite considerable, if the way his mouth thinned and his eyes narrowed to glittering blue slits was anything to go by!
‘Okay, Hebe, forget that for the moment,’ he dismissed briskly. ‘And tell me what you know about Andrew Southern?’
She frowned as she dredged her memory for the relevant facts about the artist, having no idea why Nick was asking the question—unless it was an effort on his part to prove that she didn’t know her job, so giving him an excuse to fire her?
She swallowed hard. ‘English. Born 1953. Started painting in his early twenties, mainly portraits, but later moved on to landscapes—more recently the Alaskan wilderness—’
‘I’m not asking for a bio on the guy, Hebe!’ Nick cut in tersely, standing up restlessly. ‘I asked what you know about him?’
‘Me?’ She blinked, stepping back slightly in the face of his leashed vitality. ‘I’ve just told you what I know about him—’
‘Don’t be so coy, Hebe,’ he cut her off again abruptly, blue eyes mocking. ‘I’m not asking for details, just a confirmation that you know him. And if you can contact him personally.’
She was totally bewildered now. This conversation didn’t appear to have anything to do with that night six weeks ago at all, nor with an effort to prove her incompetent, but everything, it seemed, to do with the artist Andrew Southern. Of whom she was an admirer, but had certainly never met him, let alone knew him personally.
She wasn’t going to acknowledge the relationship, Nick realized frustratedly. Well, the guy was old enough to be her father, so maybe that explained her reluctance to talk about him. Whatever, Nick had been trying to arrange a meeting with Andrew Southern for years. For once neither the name Nick Cavendish nor the Cavendish Galleries themselves had opened that particular door. And now it seemed that Hebe, of all people, might be the key to that meeting.
From deciding that he had to stay as far away from Hebe as possible in future, or else take her to his bed again, he had now discovered that if he wanted to get anywhere near Andrew Southern with the idea of an exhibition of his work, then Hebe was the person he had to talk to.
‘Look, Hebe, let’s start this conversation again, shall we?’ he reasoned pleasantly. ‘I accept that I overstepped the employer/employee line with you six weeks ago, but by the same token you have to accept that it wasn’t all one sided, huh?’
Hebe eyed him derisively. If that was his attempt at an apology for the night they had spent together, or for his non-existent telephone call since, then it was pretty lame. Besides which, an apology for the former was insulting, to say the least, just as an off-hand apology for the latter was totally inadequate.
She had been so miserable these last six weeks, wondering where she
