‘Do you, Megan?’
Megan stared back at him. She knew that nine women out of ten would have fancied him. Maybe if she hadn’t worked for him she might have felt differently. As it was, she found it easier to imagine being kissed by a block of concrete than by Dan McKnight. She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’
Dan smiled. ‘Thank you for not bothering to spare my feelings,’ he murmured. ‘And, fortunately, the feeling is entirely mutual. You’re probably the last woman in the world I would choose to have a relationship with.’
Megan glared. Surely there were nicer ways he could have put it? ‘Thanks very much!’
He flicked her a look from between the dark curtain of his lashes. ‘So. Are you busy this weekend?’
Megan hesitated. There was a sort of unspoken rule that if you were a single woman and a man asked if you were busy you always said that, yes, you were. Very. From this, they would come to the conclusion that you had a wonderful, exciting life of your own and you weren’t just sitting around waiting for Mr Wonderful to come galloping into it on his white charger.
But Megan had always had a problem with telling lies. Even if they were only tiny ones.
‘Er, no. I’m not. I’m free, actually.’
‘So would you do it, Megan?’
‘Pretend to be your love-struck girlfriend, you mean?’
‘That’s right.’
Megan looked at him. At the cool grey eyes and the thick, dark hair. At the body which was surprisingly lean and muscular for a man who didn’t have a job which was fundamentally physical. ‘No,’ she said flatly.
Dan’s eyes widened. He wasn’t the kind of man who often had to ask a woman for a favour—those were usually offered freely enough. Neither was he used to being turned down quite so firmly or so emphatically as Megan Phillips had just done, and he suddenly found the novelty of being refused almost stimulating.
And certainly surprising.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘Because I’m your assistant—I can’t go along pretending to be your lover.’
‘I wasn’t actually expecting you to consummate our fictitious relationship.’ He bit back a smile. ‘That would be taking method acting a little too far!’
If Megan hadn’t grown up on a farm and been so matter-of-fact about the act of procreation, then she might well have been embarrassed by a remark she suspected had been made with just that aim in mind. As it was, she was able to return his mocking stare with an unruffled look of her own. ‘I hardly know anything about you.’
‘You seem to have extracted a lot more information than most people,’ he told her truthfully.
‘Not enough if we’re supposed to be in love.’
‘Ask me anything you want,’ he coaxed softly.
‘What would I have to do?’
‘Very little. Eat a few meals with me. Maybe play a little tennis. Laugh at my jokes. Withstand the third degree from my mother. Gaze adoringly into my eyes—’
‘I don’t know about the gazing adoringly into your eyes bit,’ she told him honestly. ‘I’m not that good an actress!’
He pursed his lips together, like someone who’d been amused by an unexpected source of entertainment. ‘Well, if the pleasure of my company doesn’t tempt you enough, here’s an added inducement.’ He paused for effect before saying softly, ‘What if I told you that a very famous actor was also going to be there this weekend?’
Slightly relieved that he hadn’t done anything so vulgar as offer her money, Megan willed herself not to look too interested. He probably meant somebody who’d been in a series of coffee advertisements. ‘Oh? And who’s that?’
Dan enjoyed the moment. ‘Jake Haddon.’
Megan’s face froze in disbelieving surprise. It was a full ten seconds before she could speak. ‘The Jake Haddon?’
‘Is there more than one?’
Megan swallowed, more confused than excited. Because not only had Jake Haddon just starred in the year’s biggest-grossing film—but the upper-class Englishman with a fine line in irony had been voted the sexiest star of the decade!
‘Jake Haddon,’ she questioned slowly, speaking each word with extreme care, just in case she had misheard him, ‘is actually going to be at your mother’s house?’
‘That’s right.’
Megan frowned. In her world, famous actors didn’t just happen to stay with your parents. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Yes, he is.’ He saw the disbelieving look in her eyes and felt obliged to elaborate. ‘He grew up locally. We went to the same village school for a while, before he moved away. But we always kept in touch.’
What sort of world did he inhabit, she wondered, if he was mixing with people of that calibre and had never let on about it? Why, if Jake Haddon were her friend, she’d have his posters plastered all over the office walls!
As Dan spoke, he watched the excitement working Megan’s face—an excitement she was unsuccessfully trying to suppress. And he wondered why he should feel an odd twinge of disappointment that she should be so transparent.
Had he imagined that she would differ from other women, by not being attracted to a man because of who he was, rather than what he was? When would he ever learn? His mouth turned down at the corners. ‘So. Changed your mind about coming?’
Megan knew that she shouldn’t be swayed by a famous name. And instinctively—for whatever reason—she suspected that part of Dan wanted her to say no.
Say no? She would have to be locked up first! She very nearly leapt up and down with excitement. Just wait until she told her brothers about this! ‘I certainly have!’
‘So you’ll come?’
‘Yes, please!’
‘Oh, the hypnotic lure of celebrity,’ he murmured drily.
‘It’ll be something to tell my grandchildren!’ she defended.
‘Just make sure they’re not Jake’s grandchildren, too,’ he warned. He saw the confused look on her face grow into one of indignation as she worked out what he meant by that remark. ‘He has, er, something of a reputation with women,’ he added quickly. ‘As I am sure you can imagine.’
She wasn’t surprised. Looking the way Jake Haddon did, he probably had to surround himself with an army of minders! Still, actors who were constantly being offered big bucks by Hollywood did not tend to run after unsophisticated assistants who’d grown up on a pig-farm!
Megan leaned back in her chair and curved her mouth into a wide smile. ‘So. A heartthrob actor and a man who is being emotionally stalked by a woman he can’t bear
