November Harlequin Presents 2(22)
And Morgan had just better get used to the idea.
She’d come around. He’d give her to the end of the week. All he had to do was wait…
CHAPTER SIX
WEDNESDAY dawned bright and sunny all along the Gold Coast—unless you happened to be in Tegan’s head. If only she’d insisted on Morgan coming home when she’d called Monday night, and had not let herself be talked out of it, this charade would be over now. Instead she had another three days of Maverick to endure, another three days of trying to ignore his heated presence, another three days of fighting this inconvenient attraction.
And as the day wore on she waited for him to make another move on her. But it didn’t come.
Instead all Wednesday he hovered like a dark angel, brooding and intense, finding any excuse to leave his office to ask her a question or to drop something on her desk, and watching over everything she did. Watching her until she wanted to scream with the tension.
Five p.m. had never looked so good. She practically fled from the office, but she’d survived.
Thursday his mood was blacker, his efforts redoubled. When he emerged from his office, for what had to have been the third time in the space of ten minutes, she felt like throwing her hands up and screaming, ‘Enough!’
‘What is it this time?’ she asked instead, unable to keep the aggravation from her voice.
But instead of rummaging through her files, searching for some mysterious document before slamming the cabinet shut and marching off discontentedly as he’d done so many times previously, he surprised her by dropping some pages on her desk. ‘Rogerson needs this chart, but we both want some changes made first. Get on to someone in Projects and have them get this back to me on the double.’
He turned as Tegan looked at the project-development chart and Maverick’s handwritten notes and wondered what the drama was. She’d cut her teeth doing such tasks in her previous office job before she’d felt the need to do something more hands on and had joined GlobalAid. ‘There’s no need. I can do this for you right away.’
He looked back at her. ‘Since when have you used project-development software?’
She blinked. ‘Since I did a course. At night. Didn’t I mention it?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘All right,’ he said, his voice heavy with doubt. ‘Get Projects to send you the file. Then I want it on my desk in ten minutes.’
She had it there in seven.
Not that it improved Maverick’s disposition. That and the fact she’d done it all perfectly only seemed to further foul his mood. ‘Well, well, well,’ he muttered, regarding her steadily over the pages of the chart. ‘You appear to have many hidden talents. I wonder what other surprises you have in store for me?’
She swallowed under his leaden scrutiny and made a mental note to enrol Morgan on the next available project-development course.
‘If that’s all, then…’ she suggested, just wanting to escape.
‘No, it’s not all,’ he barked, launching himself from his chair and rounding the desk towards her.
She took a step backwards. It had been two days since he’d tried anything. Two days of praying he wouldn’t touch her, knowing she couldn’t trust herself if he did. Two days of secretly wishing he would.
He came to a halt in front of her, his wide shoulders blocking out the vista, his gunslinger dark looks becoming the view, and she trembled in anticipation.
His eyes scoured her face, settling on her mouth. His own lips looked like an invitation, parting slightly as she waited.
Then he offered her the papers she hadn’t realised he was still holding. ‘Fax this to Rogerson right away.’
On Friday she was over her momentary weakness. Friday had never felt better. It didn’t matter that Maverick had been in the worst mood he’d been in all week, a bad mood that seemed to have gotten progressively darker by the minute, because in just sixty short minutes she’d be out of here, out of the office for ever and away from Maverick. No more brooding tension; no more putting up with long, loaded looks; no more repressing urges that longed to be satisfied.
And Tegan couldn’t wait.
She’d made it. She’d lasted an entire week with Maverick without him suspecting a thing. Morgan’s job was safe, and any and all debts she owed her sister were now well and truly paid in full.
She was humming to herself when Maverick emerged from his office, a stack of paperwork in his hands. ‘What are you so happy about?’
She looked up at his scowling face, and once again felt that jolt that hit her every time she looked at him. She also felt something like a stab of disappointment. Life would be a lot simpler from now on but she was going to miss the electricity. Likewise, she’d miss the sparring and the heat. But those things didn’t stop her smiling now, not when she was so close to achieving her goal.