‘Nearly right,’ she managed. ‘I was up half the night creating a media presence for Hadley Chase on Facebook and Twitter.’
Nearly right. Nearly true. She’d done that within half an hour of getting home. The major time had been spent finding and following media types—and the people they followed—journalists, the local Berkshire newspapers and county magazine. Anyone who had an interest in country houses, property, local history, social history. Anyone who might conceivably be interested in following Hadley Chase.
She’d spent the rest of the night trying to come up with a really convincing reason why she should call him and cancel. She needed to keep her distance, keep it professional.
She also needed to get to Hadley Chase this week, rather than at the convenience of a lawyer who thought she was poison, so here she was, on the dot of eight o’clock, her brain out to lunch and her stomach throwing a butterfly party while she drooled over the man.
Forget strictly business. She should have lured him up to her flat and invited him to shag her brains out. Maybe then she’d be able to concentrate on the job in hand.
He glanced back over his shoulder, giving his attention to the traffic. Giving her a moment to catch her breath.
She focused on the memory of a house with an orange front door. And that had been the best bit. A kitchen with every tile on both walls and floor a different colour. Heard herself saying, ‘So jolly...’
Maybe he wasn’t as cool as he looked either and needed a moment of his own because he didn’t press her on the plan. Which was just as well. She wasn’t getting paid so she couldn’t afford to throw money at the problem; she was going to have to be inventive.
‘How’s Mr Gr...er...Gary?’ she said, raising her voice above the noise of the engine when the silence had gone on too long.
‘Comfortable, according to the nurse I spoke to.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Not half as sorry as he is, I suspect.’
‘I meant I’m sorry that you have to do this. You didn’t want to be involved. In the sale.’
They were stopped in traffic and he looked across at her as if unsure how to answer her. His eyes were liquid silver in the morning sunlight, with a hint of steely blue. Then someone hooted impatiently from behind and once they were rattling along the motorway the noise of the engine, the tyres, the trucks rushing past, made anything but the most urgent conversation impossible.
Tash made an effort to focus on the problem ahead—she had no illusions about the Chase being an easy sell—but she was sitting within inches of Darius Hadley. Sunlight was glinting over the steel wristband of his watch, drawing attention to the hand wrapped lightly around the steering wheel, the fingers that had been inside her, driving her wild with pleasure less than twenty-four hours ago.
Who could focus on anything but the mesmerising flex of the muscles in his forearm, his thigh as he changed gear, switched lanes?
Swamped by lust, heated by the sun beating in through the windscreen on her breasts, thighs, she closed her eyes to shut out temptation. When she opened them again, her cheek was pressed against his shoulder, she was breathing in the scent of warm male and her first inclination was to close them and stay exactly where she was.
She felt, rather than saw, Darius glance down at her. ‘It must have been a late night. Not many people can sleep in a Land Rover.’