Best of Bosses 2008(125)

Much as she had ended up enjoying her evening out with Ted, she hoped it wasn’t him. She was certain that she would see him again because, as she wryly acknowledged, he enjoyed talking and in the field in which he worked so did nearly everyone else, she suspected, so a good listener was a valuable find. He had also shared a major confidence with her and that, in itself, would be a strong bond between them. All very nice, but she was looking forward to an hour or so of mindless television, drifting in and out of thoughts of Nick.

She tried to wipe the disgruntled expression from her face as she went to open the front door. She was pretty much prepared to give Ted one cup of coffee, but really nothing else. His urge to confide would have to wait for a more convenient hour.

But when she pulled open the door, it wasn’t Ted hovering on her doorstep. It was Nick. Rose was so startled that she remained speechless for a few heart-stopping seconds. It seemed that he made a habit of appearing on her doorstep and sending her into a state of paralysing confusion.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded coldly. ‘You can’t keep just turning up on my doorstep, Nick.’

‘Are you going to invite me in?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I have better things to do than talk to you.’

‘Aren’t you dressed in the wrong clothes for the better things you have in mind?’ Wrong approach. This wasn’t how things were meant to develop, not that he knew quite how things were meant to develop. He had just known, when he had seen them walking out of the restaurant, wrapped around each other like a couple on the way to the altar, that he had to do something. He couldn’t just turn his back and walk away because he would be haunted by her for the rest of his life and that was a consequence he had no intention of accepting. He needed to get her out of his system and he wasn’t going to achieve that by antagonising her.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Rose informed him, her voice cooling by several degrees. ‘And I don’t like your attitude.’

‘I apologise.’

‘What?’

‘I apologise. I can see your point of view. I show up here, uninvited and unannounced, without so much as a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates…’

Rose felt the colour crawl into her skin. She didn’t know what was going on but there was a lazy warmth in his eyes that made her shiver with a horrible excitement, which she tried valiantly to slap down.

‘What’s going on, Nick? Why would you bring me flowers or chocolate?’

‘Let me in, Rose. Give me a chance to explain.’ It was an effort keeping his voice smooth and even and controlled because his only thought was that Ted the reformed producer was lurking somewhere inside her house, probably in her bedroom. True, women on the threshold of a rampant affair didn’t usually deck themselves out in track suit bottoms and what looked like an ancient tee shirt from when she was a kid, but who was he to tell? The woman was a law unto herself.

Poor, hapless Ted wouldn’t have known what he was letting himself in for when he decided to make a play for her. He would have been expecting a sexy version of the bimbos who littered the movie world. Rose must have come as a nasty surprise. Nick was tempted to smirk at the thought, but he contained himself and did his utmost to look penitent.

Rose, conversely, was looking back at him with deep, unhidden suspicion.

‘It’s late.’

‘I know and I’m sorry about that.’

‘Stop apologising, Nick. It doesn’t suit you.’

Nick shot her a winning smile. ‘You’re right. It doesn’t. Let me come in?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ She swung open the door and he walked past her into the hallway and then turned around so that he could subject her to another of those sexy smiles that made her head spin.

‘Go and sit in the lounge and I’ll bring you some coffee,’ she said, just to get rid of him while she gathered her composure in privacy somewhere.

Flowers? Chocolate? She had no idea what he was playing at, but it had sent her into a tailspin. Even as she bustled around in the small kitchen, making him his mug of coffee, she was acutely aware of him sitting in her lounge, just a matter of a few metres away. Whatever he was up to, she thought firmly, she was having none of it. She reminded herself that he had a girlfriend. A bright, sparkling, picture-perfect model with limited vocabulary. Just the kind of woman he was inevitably drawn to, never mind his brief diversion with her. And anyway, she was a free and liberated young woman now, no longer hiding behind routine and safety to protect her from the big, bad world.