‘She…just seemed reluctant to tell you…this herself so I volunteered to do it on her behalf…Now, let’s get out of here.’
It only took them five minutes to make it out of the building, but it could have been five hours. Why would Lily be reluctant to talk to her? They had always talked about everything. At least until this man had come along.
She shot him a look of pure resentment.
‘You’ll have to put up with my driving, I’m afraid.’
‘My driver’s waiting. We’ll use him. I can deliver you back to your car later.’
Rose opened her mouth to protest and realised that he was waiting for the predictable objection.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay? Does that mean that you’re not going to launch into a feminist rant about being able to drive yourself?’
‘I never launch into feminist rants,’ Rose said hotly. ‘I just stand up for the things I believe in.’
‘You shoot your mouth off.’
‘I do not shoot my mouth off and I resent being told that I do.’
‘And I don’t much like the fact that you’re gossiping about me behind my back. I’m obviously on your mind if you feel so strongly about me.’
‘You are not on my mind!’ They had reached his car, how she had no idea because she had been so wrapped up in defending herself.
Nick pulled open the passenger door for her and she slid primly inside, making sure, he noted, to wrap her coat very tightly around her, as if depending on it for protection.
It was out of keeping for him to ever leave work at the ridiculous hour of four forty-five, but he wasn’t regretting his decision. Apart from the fact that he was doing Lily a favour, he was also enjoying himself with her sister. His palate, after years of getting precisely what and whom he wanted, was jaded. Rose, with her bristling, yapping aggression, was a novelty and who was he to resist the allure of the new?
He had also been curious to see the people she worked with, not that that had been possible given the size of the place.
‘Where can we go?’
‘At five-thirty?’
‘Maybe we should just head back to your house. It’s close enough.’
‘No!’ Overreacting again. And also forgetting about the little chat because she had been so wrapped up bickering. All fodder for his oversized ego. ‘There’s a brasserie about half an hour away. Joe’s Brasserie. On Fields Road. I guess there’s as good a place as any.’ She turned away and stared out of the window, acutely conscious of his muscular thigh way too close to hers for comfort. Just being alone with the man in this confined space made her feel guilty. He belonged to Lily and to Lily’s world. She shouldn’t even recognise his physical attributes, although she gratefully accepted that she was human, after all, and, anyway, she disliked him intensely so what did it matter?
‘You’re tense. Why? Does it make you nervous sitting in this car with me?’
‘Why should it?’ Rose turned to look at him and blinked away the disconcerting impact his shadowed, angled face had on her. ‘I’m tense because I don’t know what you’re going to tell me but I have a feeling that I won’t like it.’
‘In that case, take your mind off the possibilities and tell me about your job. I didn’t expect you to work for such a large organisation.’
Rose shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about herself or her job, but she couldn’t see a way around it. ‘I like it there. The size doesn’t bother me. Anyway, don’t tell me that your offices are sweet and small and cosy.’
Nick laughed under his breath. ‘Better designed.’
‘How?’ Rose asked grudgingly, interested to find out how a big clump of concrete and glass could be designed into something less soulless than Fedco.
‘Clever use of partitions and copious amounts of plants.’
‘Right. And you did that yourself?’
‘I approved it at every stage, yes. Does that jar with your picture of me striding through offices, whipping the employees and making sure that they’re chained to their desks until I tell them that it’s time to leave?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact it does.’
Nick laughed louder and gave her a brief, appreciative glance. When he sifted through his extensive repertoire of women, he couldn’t think of a single one who had ever made him laugh.
‘In that case, accept my apologies. Is this the place you were talking about?’
Rose nodded, pleased to see that it was already beginning to get busy. Brasseries in London never seemed to be quiet, and that suited her because she didn’t want that weird, discomforting feeling she got when she was alone with him. And that laugh had done something in her, made her feel oddly hot and uncomfortable.