‘Great,’ he said suddenly, breaking the spell. ‘It’s all set up, then. I’ll be catching the afternoon flight out of Heathrow and will be with you by—’ he glanced at his watch ‘—two o’clock your time.’
Your time? Afternoon flight? Roberta went still, quickly trying to work out just what all that could mean. Then her heart made a sinking dive, because she suddenly recognised the name Jenson, and that could only mean New York.
Mac was flying out to New York this afternoon, to consult with his head of enterprises over there, and once again she was being left alone and frustrated, half made love to and half defeated by a man who played around with her feelings as if they were inanimate toys!
‘I like the dress,’ he murmured, making her aware that he had finished his call and was now eyeing the simple black wool dress she was wearing, which hugged her figure from throat to wrist to knee. ‘It makes me want to peel it off you. Is the gorgeous tan all over—or are those interestingly intimate bits still creamy white?’
‘None of your business,’ she snapped, trying to come to terms with this latest in a long line of mood-flatteners that Mac was so good at dealing out.
‘I could take you, right here across this desk,’ he murmured, ‘and simply find out for myself.’
‘Sorry,’ she refused. ‘But that’s one delight I’m saving for the man I marry.’
‘Ah,’ he said, again showing that he was never slow on the uptake. ‘We’re back to fighting again, are we?’ On a grimace, he turned a little so that both hips rested on the desk, then folded his arms across his chest. ‘What caused it this time?’ he asked wearily.
She ignored that. ‘I’ve offered you my resignation,’ she reminded him. ‘I’m still waiting for you to endorse it.’
He ignored that. ‘Meet someone while you were on holiday, did you?’
‘What if I did?’ she challenged. ‘It is my sole aim in life to find a man who really understands and respects what a woman like me needs,’ she informed him coolly.
He had the cheek to laugh at that. ‘I understand you very well when you’ve got your legs wrapped around me and I’m lost deep inside you,’ he stated teasingly. ‘And I entirely respect your need to have me that way sometimes!’
‘Sex!’ she sighed in disgust. ‘You always have to bring everything down to sex!’
‘Great sex,’ he extended. ‘Mind-blowing, totally-out-of-ourselves sex! Does this guy who’s to have the privilege of taking you across my desk give you anything even remotely as good as that?’
Roberta stared at him for a moment in complete bewilderment. ‘You’re crazy—do you know that?’ she gasped. ‘Having a conversation with you is like walking through a maze! There’s never any beginning to it or a proper end!’
‘And with you it’s like treading carefully through a minefield of contrariness!’ he threw right back. ‘I’m trying to find out what turned you from the warm and giving woman I was holding in my arms a few minutes ago into the biting little witch you are right now!’
Her eyes flashed green sarcasm at him
. ‘Have dinner with me tonight and we’ll discuss it.’ She threw one of his own classic fob-offs at him, giving him a very good clue as to what had upset her at the same time.
And Mac was not slow. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re angry because I have to fly out to the States.’
‘I’m angry,’ she corrected him, ‘because I’ve let you divert me once again from the course I am determined to take! Which is,’ she added, before he could say a single word, ‘to get your endorsement of that letter of resignation so I can finally break completely free from you!’
‘Why bother when you know you don’t really want to?’ he deflected infuriatingly, then sighed when it looked as if she was about ready to explode with frustration. ‘You’re right,’ he conceded, ‘and this is getting out of hand. So I’ll do us both a favour.’ Reaching behind him, he picked up her letter and brought it to where they could both see it. ‘If I do—this...’ Smoothly he ripped her letter in two, while all Roberta could do was stand there and watch helplessly as the pieces fell discarded to the floor. ‘Now all you have to do,’ he went on calmly, ‘is wait a whole week before typing out another one. By then I will be back from the States and we can discuss this more thoroughly—over dinner, as you proposed—and I will guarantee you—unreservedly,’ he promised, laying a mocking hand over his heart, ‘my whole and complete attention for whatever time it takes.’
‘Unless the phone rings,’ she grunted.
‘Roberta!’ he snapped with waning patience. ‘I’m really trying to make this work for us—can’t you see that?’ he appealed.
‘Why?’ she said.
‘Why?’ Mac stared at her, nonplussed for a moment, then made a weary sound of surrender. ‘I’m going to give up on this,’ he decided, straightening up to stride over to her. ‘Just promise to wait a week—one week!’ he insisted as his hands took a forceful grip on her slender shoulders. ‘Before you do anything about trying to leave here—please?’ he begged, at her stubborn look. ‘I don’t want to go to the states right now but I have to go. There’s a problem there that only I can sort out! But when I get back, I promise you, we’ll talk. Talk seriously about us and where we’re going to go from here.’
‘But I don’t see what good it will do!’ she cried. ‘We’ll only continue to go around and around in circles again, as we always end up doing!’
‘No, we won’t,’ he determined, and something in his eyes forced her to accept that he meant it. ‘Not this time. A week, bunny rabbit.’ He bent his head and kissed her gently. ‘Be generous towards me for this one last time, and wait the week.’
On a heavy sigh, she closed her eyes. His gentle kiss, the husky plea and the sweet sound of his special name coming so intimately from his lips were melting her like butter inside, so that she didn’t even know she’d said, ‘OK,’ until she heard the word slide off her tongue.
And it was only once she was standing on the other side of his door, with her eyes closed tightly over defeated eyes, that she acknowledged to herself that she had let him do it again. He had talked her round yet again—seduced her round yet again!
CHAPTER NINE