and they’d probably already fed the nephew from the outback enough to poison her chances of staying on.
Back-stabbing was an art form in the advertising world and she’d already suffered a good deal of spiteful innuendo concerning her promotion to Oliver’s right hand. He might have been past middle age but he had been virile and active enough to give the scandalmongers fuel for their fantasies.
‘Won’t you get a fair hearing?’ Callum asked, his expression hard and assessing as he watched the expressions flitting across her face.
She shrugged. ‘The nephew is some farmer from the outback,’ she observed dismissively. ‘I doubt very much if he’ll have an opinion of his own.’ After Oliver’s dynamic, hands-on management style she doubted if anything was ever going to be the same again.
‘Still, you could hold his hand and make yourself as indispensable as you did to the uncle.’
The soft voice held a strange underlying acid note that made her eyes narrow and look beyond the languid air of casual interest. The blue eyes gazed back at her benignly, his lips drooped at one corner in a lopsided smile; it was an expression that was somehow strangely familiar. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
‘I’ve no desire to hold anyone’s hand and that goes for you too,’ she said forcefully, her mind returning to her more immediate problems. ‘I can’t possibly spend the night with you.’
‘Why not compromise? Sleep off your afternoon’s excess and you can drive us back this evening.’
His simple statement made all her worries about imminent seduction suddenly seem foolish. She cursed her overreaction. Verbal sparring of a sexual nature was probably as mundane as discussing the weather to him. That was what he did—made lonely women feel attractive. Mortified, she felt her spine stiffen defensively. He was probably more worried about getting back to town as early as possible. She was, after all, just another job, like any other lonely woman.
‘That sounds reasonable,’ she said briskly. Pride brought her chin up to an aggressive angle. ‘What will you do?’ It was deeply embarrassing to think she’d convinced herself that he was actually interested in her.
‘Sleep, if you’ve no objection,’ he drawled. ‘My body clock’s still haywire. I’ve been out of the country.’
‘You’re Australian?’ He nodded, a wing of dark hair flopping into his eye; he brushed it back impatiently and her imagination was captured again by the long, elegant shape of his hands and fingers.
She closed her eyes and shook her head; the whole procedure took seconds but it did help focus her thoughts. The southern hemisphere seemed to have played a large part in her life recently, what with Oliver’s nephew coming from there too. She could have done without either!
‘I’m sure we can come to a civilised arrangement. I’m very sorry to delay you,’ she said formally. ‘Perhaps you could arrange some coffee for me?’ About time I started acting like the cool career woman I’m meant to be, she thought.
A dark brow shot up and he gave her a slow, sardonic stare. ‘Miss Brisk Efficiency,’ he drawled, preparing to move away. ‘Perhaps, as I’ve fulfilled my contract, you should intersperse your commands with the odd please and thank-you.’
She flushed at the remonstrance and gritted her teeth resentfully. She knew she was overcompensating for her ridiculous behaviour earlier but she wasn’t about to admit it to him.
She was still staring after Callum, reflecting that he was the most appalling man she’d ever met, when Harriet appeared with a rustle of silk at her side. The bride got right down to the subject which was making her lips quiver with temper.
‘I might have known you’d try and ruin my day out of pure spite!’
The sheer inaccuracy of this statement temporarily robbed Georgina of speech. ‘Why would I want to do that?’ she said eventually, her tone meant to deflate what looked like a volatile situation. The last thing she needed right now was a scene.
‘As if you didn’t know. I suppose you don’t know Alex hasn’t taken his eyes off you.’ The cold eyes swept disparagingly over Georgina’s finery. ‘You really don’t have the figure to take that outfit.’
‘Then I expect Alex is only marvelling at my bad taste,’ Georgina responded, her temper wearing paper-thin by this point. ‘You really have no need to worry, Harriet; I have no aspirations to take your husband from you. I’m not alone, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘What’s wrong, Georgie—hasn’t he found out yet you’re frigid?’ The blue eyes sparkled with malice as she gave a brittle laugh. ‘Alex said it was like being in bed with a statue. I’m not worried about you,’ she sneered. ‘I just didn’t want you to make a fool of yourself.’ With a final, triumphant smile she swept away, her long skirts hissing on the floor.
Georgina was secretly amazed at how she’d managed to keep her own expression blank. Each poisonous dart had hit its target but she’d never let the other girl know. She could have told her that Alex had in fact slept with his new wife before her, but she didn’t want to stoop to the same name-calling tactics as her cousin.
The timetable of events only made her own humiliation worse. It was ironic that when, after resisting Alex’s attempts to make their relationship more intimate, she had finally felt she was ready he had already been unfaithful to her with Harriet. I gave my all and it obviously compared unfavourably with what he already had on offer, she thought with bitter self-mockery.
‘You look pale. Are you all right?’ Callum asked, returning with a cup of coffee.
‘Sorry, did you say something?’ she responded vaguely. It was hard to put the bitter recollections aside and concentrate on the present.
‘The girlie chat with the blushing bride has left you looking like a basket case,’ he observed bluntly.
‘Well, I’m not about to share all the grisly contents with you,’ she said, straightening her shoulders. ‘So you’ll have to settle for a coffee while I go and apply some blusher.’
Callum found himself admiring the determined set of her jaw and the ramrod line of her slender back as she wound her way through the throng. Whatever else she was, Georgina Campion had guts.
Georgina had had two cups of coffee, the bride was ready to leave and Georgina’s head was splitting. They were all crammed in the foyer for the ritual send-off when Harriet deliberately caught her cousin’s eye; the look of triumph was malicious. Recalling her encounter with Alex earlier, Georgina could almost feel sorry for her, with the emphasis on almost She could certainly meet the stare with perfect equanimity—a fact that made Harriet’s pretty features harden.
Georgina wondered what she had ever done to make the girl dislike her so much. She watched as Harriet’s arm moved in an arc and the bouquet hit her full-force in the face, knocking her hat off in the process. The action brought a flurry of giggles and high-spirited comments. Georgina felt her eyes water with pain but smiled through the tears.
By the time Callum retrieved her hat it had been trampled on. She was clutching the rather limp flowers unenthusiastically as he dusted it down and handed it back to her. He watched the narrow-eyed, dispassionate intensity as she brushed a stray tear from her watering eyes.
‘There goes a week’s pay,’ she observed, dropping it in the nearest waste-paper bin. She didn’t need any reminders of this day.
‘Georgie, can we offer you two a lift anywhere? Your mother’s?’ Uncle George included Callum in the good-natured offer.
‘We have a room actually, but thanks anyway,’ Callum said, speaking for them. She felt the weight of his hands once more on her slumped shoulders, wielding the strength of tensile steel as they rested deceptively lightly upon her.
‘I think you can drop the role now,’ she snapped as her uncle moved away with an affectionate admonition not to be a stranger. ‘You’ve more than