her thoughts kicking and screaming back to the present, Rowena slid a wary, half-defiant look in the direction of her staff.
Their expressions were respectful enough now but Rowena wasn’t fool enough to imagine that this situation would last for two seconds once she was out of the door. She hadn’t gained her hard-nosed, cool-headed reputation by accident and now in two seconds flat she’d blown her cover wide open.
‘Happy? Hardly,’ she snapped venomously, fixing Quinn with a look of loathing. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse us, Quinn was just leaving.’ Clinging to the tattered shreds of her dignity and trying to show she was still in charge, Rowena shoved Quinn’s jacket at him and nodded imperiously in the direction of the door.
‘So soon,’ Quinn bemoaned sarcastically, throwing his jacket casually over his shoulder. ‘We hadn’t even started talking money yet.’ He waved casually to the three watching women as Rowena, seething with exasperation, grabbed him by the arm.
‘That would be right!’ Rowena flared contemptuously—God, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? ‘You always did have your eye on the big bucks, Quinn. Why else go in for plastic surgery?’
‘Perhaps I thought I could make a difference,’ he suggested mildly.
Rowena sniffed, unwilling to admit even to herself that her accusation of avarice had been out of line, not to mention totally inaccurate.
Quinn was considered a world expert in facial reconstructive surgery and, though he did make big money from the high-profile clients who sought him out, Rowena knew he didn’t restrict his expertise to those who could pay for it. The vast bulk of his workload was, and always had been, within the NHS, even though he could have made much more by working exclusively in the private sector. Not that money mattered to Quinn, coming as he did from a wealthy, privileged background.
‘Three-thirty in my office, Sylvia!’ Rowena called, putting a bold face on her unorthodox departure.
The three women exchanged glances as the door closed. ‘I knew I recognised his name…’ Anna cried. ‘He did Lexie Lamont’s new nose, so they say, and I saw him on that telly programme last month—the one about that teenager who got hit in the face by a jet ski.’
Sylvia nodded. ‘I saw it; the girl got all choked up every time she talked about him.’
‘Small wonder!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Did you see the before picture? She mashed just about every bone in her face to pulp—all he had to go on when he rebuilt it were pictures.’
‘There’s no mistake, then, he’s really a doctor. I suppose it’s lucky we didn’t send the others home,’ her assistant reflected.
A naughty grin appeared on Sylvia’s pretty face. ‘Is it just me or do you get the impression boss lady isn’t too keen on sharing…?’
The explosive sound of laughter was clearly audible to Rowena as she stalked, head held high, from the crowded ante-room crowded with leather-clad clones.
‘I hope you’re satisfied now!’ she gritted to Quinn.
‘Don’t fret, Rowena, I’m sure your ice-cold bitch image can survive worse than this.’
‘I hate you!’ If that were true, how it would simplify matters.
‘I can live with that,’ he lied, increasing his pace to keep up with her. ‘It’s being ignored I’m not so comfortable with,’ he concluded grimly.
‘I’ve heard of men who turn to stalking when they get given the push, but I never thought you’d be one of them, Quinn. If only I’d known then what I know now…’ As if it would have made any difference, a self-derisive voice-over in her head insisted on supplementing.
‘I haven’t been given the push.’
Rowena came to an abrupt halt in front of her PA’s desk. Hands planted on her hips, she swung around, causing her silver-blonde hair to bell around her face before settling down into the loosely tendrilled nape-length style she’d recently adopted.
‘Consider yourself pushed, Quinn.’
Quinn smiled. ‘Like hell I will!’ Ignoring her loudly voiced protests, he placed his hand against her chest and thrust her through the open door of her office. ‘Hold all Ms Parrish’s calls,’ he instructed the startled-looking young woman behind the desk.
‘Call Security, Bernice!’ Rebecca yelled shrilly just before Quinn kicked the door closed. ‘I suppose you think this ridiculous caveman act is impressive!’ she jeered, retreating to the other side of her large desk—the symbol of her authority. Unfortunately it didn’t afford her that warm, in-charge feeling it normally did.
‘If you think spending just one night with me entitles you to behave like this you’re sadly mistaken, not to mention living in the wrong century. As for taking off your clothes—I’m not even going to ask!’ she choked, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the thought of Quinn parading half naked in front of the other women. ‘If I hadn’t come in when I did, heaven knows how far you’d have gone!’
‘And you don’t like that idea?’ Quinn didn’t sound as though her disgust displeased him.
It made her feel sick to the stomach. ‘I hate to spoil your pathetic male fantasies of women fighting over you, but I simply don’t like the idea of you wasting my staff’s time. We have deadlines to meet, you know. How would you like it if I smuggled myself into your hospital and tried to pass myself off as a nurse?’
‘Give me a minute here, I’m just picturing you…Does the uniform have one of those cute frilly caps?’ Rowena didn’t have time to respond to this outrageous piece of sexism before his languid air of mockery vanished, revealing the sort of penetrative expression that made her nostalgic for his irritating mockery of seconds before. ‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Rowena?’ He sat down on the edge of her desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
‘I had my hair cut.’
‘That’s not what I mean. You’ve lost weight.’
‘Thank you.’
Her hips had always been the envy of her more amply endowed friends, but losing almost a stone in weight during the past few weeks meant that the short skirt she was wearing today no longer clung to her hips, but hung loosely.
‘You look terrible.’
In case I hadn’t got the point, she thought caustically.
‘You don’t lose that sort of weight so quickly unless you’re ill or under a lot of pressure,’ he announced authoritatively.
Her glance slid evasively from his. Did morning sickness count as being ill? ‘Well, thanks for the medical assessment, Doctor, but I’m neither. It’s just too many late nights, and no time to eat.’
‘In fact life’s just one long party.’ He didn’t bother hiding his scepticism.
‘Absolutely,’ she maintained defiantly.
‘Which no doubt accounts for you ignoring my e-mails and phone calls—although that isn’t a problem now, is it? Not since you had all your numbers changed and went ex-directory.’ Rowena watched with an irritated frown as he began to mess up the row of pencils laid out symmetrically on her desk. Looking at his long, clever fingers brought a sudden rush of memories, his fingers dark against her pale breasts. His fingers sliding between…
Rowena caught her full lower lip between her teeth. She resented the fact he was making her behave guiltily. ‘That was pure coincidence,’ she announced with stilted defiance.
He lifted his head, and from beneath the sweep of inky dark lashes looked enquiringly across at her. ‘And is it coincidence that had me made persona non grata at your apartment building?’
Rowena had a firm policy of ignoring things she couldn’t deny and she did so now with a careless toss of her