His self-control was impressive.
Okaaay... She unpeeled her tongue from the roof of her mouth, snatched in a little oxygen to get her brain started and said, ‘Serious purchasers understand that there will be problems with this type of property, Mr Hadley.’
‘They expect to be able to view the upper floors without endangering their lives,’ he pointed out. He hadn’t raised his voice; he didn’t have to. He’d made his point with a quiet, razor-edged precision that made Miles’s full-blown irritation look like a toddler tantrum.
‘Natasha!’ Miles prompted, more sharply this time. ‘Have you got something to say to Mr Hadley?’
‘What?’ She dragged her gaze from the seductive curve of Darius Hadley’s lower lip and fixed it somewhere around his prominent Adam’s apple, which only sent her mind off on another, even more disturbing direction involving extremities.
Do not look at his feet!
‘Oh, um, yes...’ She’d tried desperately to get her brain in gear, recall the notes she’d made, as she stared at scuffed work boots, jeans smeared with what looked like dry grey mud and clinging to powerful thighs. He’d obviously dropped whatever he was doing and come straight to the office when he’d seen the ad. Did he work on a building site? ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘there’s more than one set of stairs so it isn’t a problem.’
‘And that’s your professional opinion?’
‘Not that I recall there being anything wrong with the main staircase that a thorough seeing to with a vacuum cleaner wouldn’t fix,’ she added hurriedly when Miles sounded as if he might be choking. Come on, Tash...this is what you do. ‘I did advise the solicitor handling the sale that they should get in a cleaning contractor to give the place a good bottoming.’
A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘And what was their response to that?’
‘They said they’d get the caretaker to give it a once-over.’
Some property owners did nothing to help themselves, but this probably wasn’t the moment to say so.
‘So it’s just the woodworm, rot and missing lead flashing on the roof that a potential buyer has to worry about?’ Darius Hadley raised his dark brows a fraction of a millimetre and every cell in her body followed as if he’d jerked a string.
Amongst a jangle of mixed messages—her head urging her to take a step back, every other part of her wanting to reach out and touch—she just about managed to stand her ground.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘according to the paperwork, the woodworm was treated years ago.’ Something he would have known if he’d taken the slightest interest in the house he’d apparently inherited. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s the cobwebs that will have women running screaming—’
Behind Hadley’s back, Miles made a sharp mouth-zipped gesture. ‘Mr Hadley isn’t looking for excuses. What he’s waiting for,’ he said, ‘what he’s entitled to, is an explanation and an apology.’
She frowned. Surely Miles had already covered that ground? She assumed she’d been called in to discuss a plan of action.
‘Don’t bother; I’ve heard enough,’ Hadley said before she could get in a word. ‘You’ll be hearing from my lawyer, Morgan.’
‘Lawyer?’ What use was a lawyer going to be? ‘No, really—’