He had released her hand and Tessa made good the opportunity to skirt round her desk and head towards the coat stand in the corner of the room. She could feel his eyes following her every movement.
‘I do have a bit of shopping to do, actually,’ she flung lightly over her shoulder as she put on her coat.
‘Oh, yes. What?’
‘This and that.’ She shrugged and then, wondering whether he was going to stay on, hovered for a while. ‘Are you going to be working now?’
‘Yes,’ Curtis informed her gravely. ‘I thought I might just get in a couple of hours’ work. You know, tidy my desk and get all my pens and pencils in some kind of order for when I return after the Christmas break.’
Tessa lowered her eyes, but her mouth was twitching. However much she knew that she should keep her distance from him, there were times, as now, when he made her want to grin. And it had been for ever since he had adopted that teasing tone with her, the one that made her toes curl and the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end.
‘That’s very important,’ she returned with equal gravity. ‘There’s nothing worse than getting back to your desk after a little break to find that all your stationery’s in a muddle.’
‘Actually, I just came to get my mother’s Christmas present from the drawer. Hang on a minute and I’ll come down with you.’ He disappeared into his office, fetched a box without bothering to turn the light on, and reappeared, still in his coat, which he hadn’t removed.
Tessa picked the first neutral subject she could think of as they walked towards the lift, and asked him what he had bought for his mother.
‘An antique brooch and some matching earrings,’ he said. ‘For some reason she’s into things like that.’ He was tossing the box lightly from one hand to the other. Tessa caught it in mid-air and handed it to him.
‘I don’t think you should be doing that,’ she said sternly. ‘What if it drops and breaks?’
‘The shop has very carefully wrapped the contents in tissue paper,’ Curtis said, pocketing the box, ‘so I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening.’ He looked at her sideways, amused and irritated to see the way she huddled against the side of the lift as though to stand any closer to him might bring her into contact with an infectious disease.
‘What last-minute things have you got to buy?’ he asked, stepping aside when the lift shuddered to a stop so that she could brush past him. In a minute she would be gone, eaten up by the black wintry evening outside. ‘What are your plans for Christmas?’
‘A stocking filler for my sister and not much, to answer your questions.’ Tessa turned to him and forced herself to smile. What was he going to be doing for Christmas? He wouldn’t be seeing Susie. She knew that for a fact. He and Susie were no longer an item. The company grapevine, with its usual irreverent efficiency, had long ago gleaned that Curtis and his Barbie doll had run their course. For the past four weeks, bets had been on as to what the replacement would look like and Curtis, fully aware of the furious speculation, had responded by informing them that he would be trying out celibacy for the foreseeable future. This in itself was sufficient to raise the tempo of the guessing games.
‘Not much…hmm…sounds a little dull…’
Tessa had an instant replay in her head of him kissing her in the kitchen, caressing her, pushing up her shirt and bra so that he could attend to her breasts. All because he had felt sorry for her because she was dull. A spurt of anger made her turn to him.
‘And what are you going to be doing?’ she enquired with barbed sarcasm. ‘Have you got a thrilling few days lined up? I mean, you never said…Susie the Barbie doll is no longer around, so who’s the replacement? Have you decided to go for a different model this time or stick to what you know? Someone blonde and busty with a vocabulary that just boils down to the one word yes?’
She could have kicked herself when he smiled a long, slow smile at her.
She turned away abruptly and headed towards the exit, aware that he was following her, his footsteps as stealthy as a cat’s.
‘I didn’t realise you’d been following the progress of my love life with as much gusto as everyone else,’ Curtis murmured alongside her as they stepped out into the freezing embrace of a winter in full throttle. ‘I don’t recall ever seeing you adding any contributions to the board in the corridor.’
The board in the corridor had been the bright idea of one of the computer whizkids. It charted each and every speculation from anyone who cared to have input and entries ranged from petite brunette with Hollywood aspirations to older woman with a yen for toy boys. Curtis eyed it with amusement every time he walked past and occasionally wrote his own cryptic message on it himself.