‘Yes, Ross?’
‘Um, how old are you exactly?’
Ursula blinked. Again, the uncharacteristic use of the word ‘um’. ‘But you know how old I am!’
His mouth assumed a stubborn little-boy curve. ‘Not exactly, I don’t,’ he hedged obstinately.
‘How exact do you want? Down to the nearest minute? Are you plotting my horoscope for me?’
‘Very funny.’
‘Don’t you know that it’s rude to ask a lady her age?’
‘But I don’t know any ladies,’ he mocked. ‘Only women.’
The velvet sensuality which underpinned his words had the undesirable effect of making Ursula’s cheeks grow scarlet.
‘Ursula,’ he teased, ‘you’re blushing.’
‘Well, you caused it!’ she snapped.
‘Only because you were being so coy about your age.’
‘That was not coyness!’ she returned. ‘It was a perfectly natural wish to keep something of myself back!’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. You keep plenty of yourself back,’ he remarked obscurely, and took a sip of his coffee before catching her in the inky crossfire of his eyes. ‘So are you going to tell me?’
Ursula found herself wondering briefly whether there was ever an age that a woman was happy to admit to! ‘I’m twenty-seven—twenty-eight soon.’ She stared across the room at him. ‘Why do you want to know?’
He batted her back an innocent look. ‘Does there need to be a reason?’
Ursula shrugged, and the upward movement caused her long dark hair to catch the light in a blue-black gleam. She wore her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders—not a terribly practical style for work, but at least it diminished the width of her unfashionably round face. Or so she thought. ‘Of course there needs to be a reason!’ she told him. ‘I’ve worked with you for the past six years and you’ve never bothered asking me before!’
‘Maybe I’m planning to surprise you—’
‘You mean you’re going to turn up on time tomorrow morning?’
He laughed, but it was a slightly uneasy laugh. ‘You’re right,’ he sighed. ‘I have been late a lot recently.’
Ursula quickly straightened the papers on her desk into a neat line. She wasn’t going to ask why. Didn’t need to. Married men who kept turning up late in the morning usually had a very legitimate reason for doing soy—presumably because they had been distracted by the womanly wiles of their wives.
And that was an area of Ross’s life which Ursula determinedly kept her nose out of. She was glad that Ross was happily married—she just didn’t want it rammed down her throat every five minutes.
‘So why the sudden interest in my age?’ she quizzed. ‘Have you decided that I’m due a pay rise as a reward for long service? Or maybe just for being long-suffering?’
Ignoring her question, Ross picked up a pencil and with three swift, hard strokes on a sheet of scrap paper managed to produce an uncanny likeness of a philandering Cabinet Minister who had been in the news all week. ‘It’s disturbing,’ he said, after a minute, ‘to think of you getting on for thirty.’
‘It is very disturbing,’ Ursula agreed equably, ‘when you put it like that. Because I’m not! Now who’s the mathematically challenged one? I happen to be more than two years off thirty! I’m not exactly queuing up for my pension just yet! And, besides,’ she added defensively, because taking a resolute attitude helped diminish the fear of a lonely old age, ‘thirty isn’t very old, not these days.’
‘No. You’re right. It isn’t.’ His voice was thoughtful as he fixed luminous dark eyes on her. ‘And is there a man on the scene?’
Ursula blinked with surprise. What on earth was the matter with Ross today? First inviting her to Katy’s party. And now this. He had never asked her about her love life before. ‘Y-you mean...a boyfriend?’ she asked breathlessly.
Ross gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Do you only go out with boys, then, Ursula?’
If only he knew!
But no one knew, not even her sister, though Ursula suspected that Amber must have guessed her embarrassing secret. That she had reached the grand old age of twenty-seven and had only ever had one serious boyfriend. And even he hadn’t been that serious; not if you judged the relationship in the way everyone else did—in terms of sex. Because—shame of all shames—in a liberal world where experience was everything, Ursula O’Neil remained an out-of-touch virgin.
‘No, there isn’t a boyfriend,’ she told him, hoping she didn’t sound too defensive. ‘I’m quite busy enough with my line-dancing and my French Appreciation lessons. And I read a lot. I don’t need a man to justify my existence, you know!’ She frowned at him suspiciously. ‘And why have you suddenly started taking an interest in my personal life?’
‘No reason,’ said Ross innocently. He absently took a bite from his biscuit and then looked at it in surprise before finishing it, like someone who hadn’t realised how hungry they were before they started eating. He popped the rest of it in his mouth and crunched it.
‘Miss breakfast this morning, by any chance?’ queried Ursula.
‘How did you guess?’
‘The way you practically bit your fingers off? That gave me just a tiny clue!’
He smiled as he licked a stray crumb off his finger with the tip of his tongue. ‘You know, you’re bright, funny and extremely tolerant, Ursula.’ There was a pause as he looked across his desk at her. ‘Do you ever think about changing your job?’
Ursula might have felt insecure about her looks and lack of attraction to the opposite sex, but she was supremely confident about her work, and it didn’t occur to her that Ross might be hinting at her to leave. She assumed an expression of mock shock. ‘You really want me to answer that? On a Monday morning, when you’ve got a headache? What’s up, Ross—worried that I’ll walk out and leave you in the lurch?’
‘I’m serious, Ursula.’
‘Well, so am I.’ She blinked at him, dark, feathery lashes shading her unusually deep blue eyes. Her best feature, or so her mother always used to say. ‘I presume that wasn’t a prelude to “letting me go”, or whatever horrible euphemism it is they use these days when someone wants to sack you! Was it?’
‘Sack you?’ He gave a gritty smile. ‘I can’t imagine the place without you, if you must know.’
Which sounded like a compliment, but left her with a rather disturbing thought. ‘Do you think I’m stuck in a rut, then, Ross?’
‘The question rather implies that other people do,’ he observed. ‘Anyone in particular?’
‘My sister,’ Ursula admitted.
Ross knitted his dark brows together. ‘Amber? The model?’
‘She doesn’t really model very much these days—not since she got herself involved with Finn Fitzgerald—’
‘But she doesn’t approve of you working here?’
Ursula bit her lip, wishing that they’d never started this wretched conversation. Life was so much easier if you just drifted along without asking too many questions along the way. ‘She thinks six years in one place is a long time.’
‘And she’s right,’ he said slowly.
Ursula looked up in alarm. Maybe she had misjudged things. Him. Maybe subconsciously he did want her out.
Ross saw