Scarlet watched as he sat the ludicrously large teddy bear he was carrying in her chair behind the desk. She looked at it. It wasn’t the sort of item that you could miss, but her attention had been so focused on the man himself she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying anything until that moment.
She doubted if she would have noticed if he had arrived accompanied by a full male voice choir!
His burden disposed of, Roman looked at Scarlet once more. He ran a hand through his glossy thatch of sleek dark hair. The action, like everything he did, was rivetingly graceful.
‘Is this about our telephone conversation yesterday?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I seem to bother you.’
If he knew how much she would have died of sheer mortification. ‘I’m assuming you came here for a reason, Mr O’Hagan.’#p#????#e#
‘Or can you simply not bear to be in the same room as me?’
‘I don’t want to be rude, Mr O’Hagan, but I’m really in a hurry. You were horrible,’ she admitted, despite her previous decision not to refer to the incident, ‘but no more than I expected from someone like you.’
‘Ouch…! But beyond threatening to sue you, have I done something to upset you?’ he wondered, a curious frown deepening the lines above the bridge of his masterful nose.
Other than undress me mentally? Not that she imagined for one moment that she had received any special treatment. Roman obviously had a very Latin attitude when it came to ogling women. Especially if they were wearing tight tee shirts and no bra!
‘Of course not.’ Even she was unconvinced by her tone. ‘Now, if you could tell me what I can do to help you? But I really do need to crack on.’
He ignored her interruption totally. ‘I didn’t really see how I could have offended you given we’ve not met before—though,’ he added, pausing to allow his eyes to traverse the slim, shapely length of her body, ‘maybe we have when you were wearing another disguise. I must say I prefer this one.’
She despised his slick patter and the fact it made her heartbeat accelerate.
‘Oh, that.’ She laughed uneasily, partly because his uninhibited scrutiny of her body was not something she was comfortable with. She was even less comfortable with her body’s response to that scrutiny. A shivery sensation slipped down her spine and she experienced a moment’s blinding panic.
Some people became withdrawn when they were nervous. Scarlet talked.
‘One of the children threw up all over me this morning—projectile.’ And he really wants to know this. ‘I usually keep some spare stuff here, but it’s always the way—the one time you need them they’re not here. The girls rallied around and lent me some clothes until mine could be cleaned. Though we do keep a box of spare clothes, for them, the children, obviously, just not for me.’ The hearty laugh she heard emerge from her lips sounded just as unbalanced as the babble that had preceded it.
Scarlet closed her eyes. If Roman O’Hagan hadn’t lost the will to live after that, she had. The room was filled with the sound of her own laboured breathing.
‘I would say that constitutes a bad day.’
The quiver of laughter she heard in his deep voice brought her head up. Hazel eyes shining with indignation through the lenses of her glasses, she glared at him. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘But not a tragedy either.’
‘Are you suggesting I can’t laugh at myself?’ she demanded indignantly. ‘Because, let me tell you, I have a great sense of humour…’ she met his wry eyes and added with a defensive sniff ‘…normally.’
She didn’t know why she was acting like this. She wasn’t a naturally aggressive person; her temper was even; she was one of life’s natural conciliators. There was just something about this man that brought out a latent combative streak in her nature.
‘Is there something I can do to help you…?’ she repeated.
He gestured towards the bear sitting in her chair. ‘I had left it in my car. My mother thought your son might like it.’
‘That’s very kind of her.’
‘Perhaps I could give it to him?’
She tried, but couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason to refuse this casual request. ‘He’s in the play room. I’ll show you the way,’ she offered, only partially managing to mask her extreme reluctance to do so.
Halfway through the door she backtracked and pulled her denim jacket off the hook behind the door. ‘It’s chilly,’ she told him, shrugging it on.