‘I felt sorry for you,’ he told her. ‘Making the mistake of falling for the boss isn’t a crime in itself—stupid, yes, but not a crime—and being stuck on foreign shores when you happen to realise your stupidity isn’t fun, I should imagine. Manhattan seemed a useful antidote.’
Amy tried to sift through his words, suspiciously aware that not many of them were flattering to her.
‘Why is it stupid?’ she snapped, ruffled at herself for staring at a man who thought she was stupid.
‘Because bosses rarely notice minions.’ He, certainly, had no idea what the woman who did their catering looked like, if indeed it was a woman.
‘Oh, right, and you speak from bitter experience, do you?’ Amy sniggered, sensing a perfect opportunity to get back at him. ‘Do you have a crush on your boss? Is that why you’re cooped up doing his garden instead of living in a house that you own, married with two kids, doing your own garden?’
It took a few seconds for Amy’s words to sink in, then he couldn’t help himself. He laughed until his face ached, until he could feel people staring curiously at him wondering whether he was all right, until tears threatened to roll down his cheeks. Finally, when the laughter had subsided he risked a look at her and laughed all over again at the frosty expression on her face.
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Amy waited until he had quite finished. ‘I don’t know what you find so funny,’ she told him, looking down her nose and trying to ignore the way that burst of laughter had made him seem even sexier. ‘It’s pretty odd that a man like you is still living in someone else’s house, doing someone else’s gardens.’
‘A man like me?’
Amy shrugged and stared down at the remnants of coffee in her cup. For somewhere cheap and cheerful, the restaurant had proved to be top-notch as far as food was concerned, and full of people who looked neither cheap nor, for that matter, particularly cheerful.
‘Lots of people fall for their bosses,’ she said defensively, because he looked as if he might succumb to another bout of uncontrollable laughter. ‘Unscrupulous secretaries are always running off with the men they work for!’
‘Are you saying that you’re unscrupulous?’
‘I’m saying that it’s not the most incredible notion in the world for a woman to fall for the guy she happens to work for.’
‘You’re not James’s secretary.’ Thank God, Rafael added to himself. He could picture her bending over his desk, exposing a little too much cute little thigh, looking at him with all that blonde curly hair falling over her face, looking young, girlish and wanton all at the same time. A bit like she looked now. He felt his body respond with slamming speed and he shifted in his seat to try and rid himself of his inconvenient erection.
‘I realise that,’ Amy snapped. ‘Oh, I have no idea why I’m having this conversation with you! You would never understand!’
‘Because I’m not a boss?’
‘Well, you are a boss…’
‘But none of my employees are sexy little pieces…’
Was he referring to her as sexy? She gulped back some more water hurriedly and reddened.
‘And if they were, I would certainly be attracted to one of them. That’s a little Victorian, isn’t it? I realise you think I’m a dinosaur, but I’m certainly not a male chauvinist.’
‘I didn’t say that you were…I’m just defending my…feelings for James. Yes, crazy. Yes, stupid, as you so kindly pointed out. But, no, not that unusual.’
‘You mean the feelings you had for James.’
‘Well, it’s not really any of your business, is it, Rafael? We keep getting back to this. Why are you so interested in whether I’m after your boss or not, anyway?’
‘He’s out of your league.’
Amy snapped out of her meandering thoughts and looked at Rafael, shocked. ‘Now that is an antiquated way of thinking,’ she said slowly. ‘And I think that it’s time we went now if we’re to make it back to the house at all tonight.
Rafael paid without argument but as soon as they were out of the restaurant, he turned to her and said abruptly, ‘Spit it out.’
‘I thought,’ Amy said, without bothering to pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about, ‘tonight that maybe I had been wrong about you. I thought that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t as arrogant and…well…but I was wrong…’
‘Because I told you that you were out of his league?’ Rafael hailed a yellow cab and Amy allowed herself to be shuffled inside. It was late and the traffic was less ferocious than it had been earlier when they had travelled back to the apartment.