It was an email.
From [email protected]
The corner of his mouth twisted, and then the words on the screen seemed to slip sideways as he slowly read, then reread, the email.
Dear Mr Walker
I am writing to confirm that in accordance with our agreement, today will be the last day of my employment at RWI. My colleague, Anna Harris—nee Mackenzie—and I will, of course, be in close contact with the on-site team, and remain available for any questions you may have.
I look forward to the successful completion of the project, and I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for all your personal input.
Nola Mason
Ram stared blankly at the email.
Was this some kind of a joke?
Slowly, his heart banging against his ribs like bailiffs demanding overdue rent, he reread it.
No, it wasn’t a joke. It was a brush-off.
He read it again, his anger mounting with every word. Oh, it was all very polite, but there could be no mistaking the thank-you-but-I’m-done undertone. Why else would she have included that choice little remark at the bottom?
I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for all your personal input.
His fingers tightened around the phone.
Personal input!
He could barely see the screen through the veil of anger in front of his eyes, and it didn’t help that he knew he was behaving irrationally—hypocritically, even. For in the past he’d ended liaisons with far less charm and courtesy.
But this was the woman he was paying to protect his business from unwanted intruders. Why, then, had he let her get past the carefully constructed emotional defences he’d built between himself and the world?
CHAPTER FOUR
Three months later
GLANCING UP AT the chalkboard above her head, Nola sighed. It was half past ten and the coffee shop was filling up, and as usual there was just too much choice. Today though, she had a rare morning off, and she wasn’t about to waste the whole of it choosing a hot drink! Not even in Seattle, the coffee-drinking capital of the world.
Stepping forward, she smiled apologetically at the barista behind the counter. ‘Just a green tea. Drink in. Oh, and one of those Danish, please. The cinnamon sort. Thanks.’
The sun was shining, but it was still not quite warm enough to sit outside, so she made her way to a table with a view of Elliott Bay.
Shrugging off her jacket, she leaned back in her seat, enjoying the sensation of sunlight on her face. Most of her time at work was spent alone in an office, hunched over a screen, so whenever she had any free time she liked to spend it outside. And her favourite place was right here, on the waterfront.
It was a little bit touristy. But then she was a tourist. And, besides, even if it did cater mainly to visitors, the restaurants still served amazingly fresh seafood and the coffee shops were a great place to relax and people-watch.
It was two weeks since she’d arrived in Seattle. And three months since she’d left Sydney. Three months of picking over the bones of her impulsive behaviour. Of wondering why she had ever thought that the consequences of sleeping with her boss would be less messy than sleeping with any other colleague?
Her pulse hopscotched forward. It was a little late to start worrying about consequences now. Particularly when one of them was a baby.
Breathing out slowly, she glanced down at her stomach and ran her hand lightly over the small rounded bump.
She had never imagined having a child. Her parents’ unhappy marriage and eventual divorce had not exactly encouraged her to think of matrimony as the fairy-tale option that many of her friends, including Anna, believed it to be.
Being a mother, like being married, had always been something she thought happened to other people. Had she thought about it at all, she would probably have wanted the father of her baby to be a gentle, easy-going, thoughtful man.
She took another sip of tea.