‘I won’t be holding my breath.’
Wrong on both counts.
He’d been bothered the minute he’d set eyes on her. Unable to get her out of his mind. And breathless ever since she’d walked into his studio with that mesmerising sway of her hips.
‘How will you get there?’ he asked. A tiny frown puckered her smooth forehead. ‘The Chase. Now that the devious Denton is driving your Beemer?’
‘Oh...’ She shook her head, as if clearing it. ‘I’ll hire something.’
‘A waste of money. You’d be better off putting a deposit on a van,’ he said. ‘That way you can put your name on the side and use it as free advertising. Sell the house and I’ll design you a logo.’
Things were safer than feelings...
‘If I sell the house,’ she pointed out, ‘I won’t need one.’
‘If you sell the house, Natasha, you won’t need to work for anyone else. It won’t only be eager estate agents, and horny men pining for you, but desperate vendors who’ll be beating a path to your door.’
‘Thanks, but self-employment doesn’t figure in my five-year career plan.’
‘I think we’ve established that right now you don’t have a career or a plan.’
‘The career is temporarily on hold. The plan is a work in progress,’ she said and, as if to underline the fact that—perks notwithstanding—this was strictly business, she offered him her hand.
Despite the danger to his simmering libido, he was unable to resist taking it. Small, soft, with perfectly groomed nails, it lay like a touch of velvet against his clay-roughened palm evoking X-rated thoughts and he needed to get her out of his studio before common sense went to hell in a hand basket.
‘Please go,’ he said.
Her lips parted as if she was going to say something. Clearly she thought better of it and, having opened the door, she stepped through into the street and closed it behind her without another word.
He slipped the latch before Patsy decided to pop in and give him the third degree, leaning his forehead against it while he called the estate executor to update him on the situation.
Brian Ramsey spluttered and protested at the inappropriateness of allowing Natasha access to the house, but Darius cut him short.
‘You chose Morgan and Black to handle the sale. They messed up,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll do it my way. Please make sure that Gary Webb is available tomorrow to let her in.’
‘Mr Webb is on sick leave and really, in the light of recent events, I have to insist that Miss Gordon is accompanied by someone responsible. Tell her that if she comes in the office later this week I’ll check the diary and see when someone is available.’
Oh, right. Next month some time. Maybe. This was the man who’d conspired with his grandfather to ensure that a Hadley remained at the Chase for another generation.
‘What’s the matter with Gary?’ he asked.
‘He had a fall.’
* * *
Tash walked away on legs that were all over the place, her stomach churning with every kind of emotion imaginable.