Impatiently he spread the papers relevant to what he was talking about out on top of the rest on the table. ‘Here.’ He stabbed with a finger. ‘And here and here and here—all concessions he had no right to demand and we must have been mad to agree to!’
The words on the papers swam in front of her eyes, her mind rocking on the realisation that, in the fifteen minutes she had been out of this room, Mac had let himself in, made himself comfortable, then sifted through a daunting mound of paperwork to filter out every point worth criticising! Dazedly she lifted her eyes to his face, which was lean and taut in profile, seeing for the first time a side of him she had never personally witnessed before. Oh, she knew all about his razor-sharp reputation, his keen intelligence, his ability to home right in on the nitty-gritty of a problem in a way that kept all those around him dancing nervously on their toes in an effort to keep up.
But this much, in fifteen minutes? Her mind boggled.
‘Patents,’ she managed to utter constrictedly. ‘We want the patents Brunner holds.’
‘At any price?’ Mac asked succinctly.
‘Fibre optics is a revolutionary product, Mac, you know that.’ He nodded, and Roberta moistened her lips, the fact that he hadn’t snapped her head off giving her the courage to continue. ‘Well, those patents Brunner is selling with the business revolutionise the revolution! He knows he can virtually ask his own price. In his shoes, you would be demanding the same pound of flesh.’
‘True,’ he accepted. ‘But me being me, and my company being the solid institution it is, I wouldn’t be selling those patents at all, would I?’
Her lowering eyes acknowledged the mockery he had just made of her argument. He was right. And the only reason Franc Brunner was having to sell was because his company was in dire financial difficulties—which made all those so-called concessions Mac was annoyed about a real mockery to good business sense.
‘This whole deal is a disgraceful mess. You know that, don’t you?’ he prompted grimly.
Squirming a little inside, Roberta nodded. She had begun to think that way herself—weeks ago, in fact, when Franc Brunner had really begun to squeeze Joel.
‘Joel has behaved like a soft touch, and that has made Brunner greedy.’ Mac ruthlessly hammered the point home. ‘So greedy, in fact, that even now at the eleventh hour, when everything is supposed to be settled bar an official signing, he’s trying to pull yet another fast one over us. It won’t do, bunny rabbit,’ he murmured softly. ‘It just won’t do.’
Roberta stiffened, the use of that pet name and the way his hand came across to squeeze her knee waking her up at last to the reality of just who she was sitting here with.
The Boss. From the moment he had begun talking she had seen him only as the big boss, who had a right to question and criticise anything he saw fit regarding work. But suddenly he was Mac again, her lover—ex-lover! And she lifted wary green eyes to his.
‘What are you doing here, Mac?’ she demanded suspiciously.
For the first time he looked her directly in the eye—not that he was willing to give anything away with it. ‘Working,’ he answered coolly. ‘I told you. Working—just like you.’
‘But this Brunner thing is Joel’s baby,’ she persisted. ‘You don’t usually intrude on his domain.’
‘Joel is in Portsmouth.’
Roberta nodded. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Which is why I’m here in his place.’
‘Is it?’
Her stomach knotted, the darkening look in his eyes and the way he spoke those two soft words enough to drench her in a heated sense of alarm.
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ she demanded warily.
The hand at her knee moved to her thigh in one smooth, sinuous caress, sending sharp shards of electricity sprinkling through her body. ‘What would you like it to mean?’ he countered softly.
‘I—’ No! She jumped up, dislodging the hand and the dangerous mood he was trying to encourage. Then she turned on him furiously. ‘You arranged all of this, didn’t you?’ she accused.
‘Arranged what?’ He was being deliberately obtuse, preferring to let his gaze follow the contours of her body
, barely concealed beneath the skimpy robe.
‘Joel’s sudden disappearance to Portsmouth!’ she snapped. ‘My having to come here in his place! You arranged the whole damned thing!’
Mac smiled, relaxing back into the sofa so that he could run his eyes over her angry face and bright, flashing eyes. ‘You’re almost excruciatingly sexy when you get angry,’ he observed. ‘Did you know that?’
‘And that,’ she retaliated hotly, ‘is just about the most ineffective remark you’ve ever made to me!’
‘Ineffective, hmm?’ he mused. ‘An interesting choice of words—especially when your body-language says otherwise.’ Mockingly he dropped his gaze to where her arms had somehow become wrapped tightly around her body, as if to contain whatever was happening beneath them.
Roberta sighed, sheer exasperation in the sound because he was right; he only had to murmur suggestive words like those to her to set her body alive. ‘Just tell me why you’re here,’ she insisted. ‘Business or pleasure? Because if you’re here to deal with business, then, as you’re my boss, I shall be only too willing to work with you. But if it’s pleasure you’re after then you can, quite frankly, go to hell.’