he’s hard and cynical, and he looks down on you even while he’s looking you over. Suppose he infuriates you because you can’t stop thinking about him when you don’t want to, so that you just get angrier and angrier. Suppose he’s the wrong man in every possible way but that doesn’t seem to help because when he looks at you it makes you think of things you’d rather not think of. And then he does something—the last thing you expected—and it makes you want…it makes you want…oh, to hell with it! And him!
Charlie called her the next day and they arranged to meet for dinner the following evening.
‘And don’t worry about Roscoe turning up because he’s gone to Los Angeles,’ Charlie added.
‘Los Angeles?’ she murmured, recalling the words she’d overheard in his office. ‘But he was so definite about not going, said it was a waste of time.’
‘I know, and then suddenly he changed his mind, which is something he never does.’
‘Everybody does sometimes,’ she said mechanically, trying to ignore certain thoughts that clamoured for entrance to her mind.
They were astounding thoughts. They said he’d gone away to escape her after their two encounters, so confusingly different. He seemed to fight with her and kiss her, just as easily.
No, she corrected herself quickly. It hadn’t been a kiss, just a kindly gesture; almost medical in intent. But it had misfired. Meaning only to obliterate the memory of Vanlen’s lips, he’d replaced it with his own. Which surely hadn’t been his intention.
She remembered how quickly he’d backed off, clearly shocked. By himself, or by her? What had he read in her eyes that had sent him flying to the far side of the world?
The memories and questions raged inside her, warning her that the time was coming when she would have to face the truth. And the truth scared her.
At her insistence, Charlie took her to a sedate, conventional restaurant, where he was on his best behaviour. And, without Roscoe there, Pippa could raise the suspicion that had been nagging at her since the office meeting.
‘Now tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘You never did go into that shop, but Ginevra did, probably dressed in jeans with her hair covered. In the near darkness she looked like a man, so when she escaped and the owner caught up with you—well, it was her, wasn’t it?’
Charlie set his chin stubbornly. ‘You’re just imagining things.’
‘You gave the game away when Roscoe said people thought all lads were the same and you had that coughing fit. I suddenly saw what had happened. You were mistaken for her, and she just ran off and left you to suffer.’
‘Look—we were good together once and I can’t just drop her in it.’
Nothing would budge him from this position. Pippa seethed with frustration and ended the evening early.
Before going to bed, she sent an email to Roscoe. For some reason it wouldn’t come right and she had to reword it three times, eventually settling on:
Mr Havering,
I’ve just had a worrying talk with your brother. He didn’t break into the shop. It was Ginevra and three others. Mr Fletcher caught them but they ran off and by the time he caught up she’d vanished, and he assumed Charlie was the fourth.
Charlie’s having an attack of daft chivalry. I’ve tried to make him see sense, but he’s deaf to reason.
I’m afraid the ‘charms’ for which you hired me are drawing a blank, and it seemed only right to inform you of my failure.
I await your further instructions.
Yours sincerely,
Philippa Jenson
She read it through repeatedly, finally losing patience with herself for shilly-shallying and hitting the ‘send’ button violently. Then she threw herself into bed and pulled the covers over her head.
Next morning, she checked for a reply. But there was nothing.
Too soon. Think of the time difference. He must be asleep.
At work she accessed her home computer every hour, sure that this time there would be a response. Nothing.
Her email would have gone to his London office, she reasoned, and perhaps he wouldn’t see it until he returned. No way! An efficient man like Roscoe would link up from Los Angeles. He was ignoring her.
Her disappointment was severe—and irrational, she knew. This didn’t fit with her mental picture of him as a better man inside than he was on the outside. She felt personally let down.
She worked late that night, finally reaching home with relief.
Then she stopped, astounded, at the incredible sight that met her eyes. Roscoe was in the hall, seated on an ornate wooden bench. His head leaned back against the wall, his eyes were closed and his breathing suggested that he was asleep. He looked almost at the point of collapse.
PIPPA touched him gently on the shoulder and his eyes opened slowly.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Roscoe, what on earth—? Come upstairs.’
He retrieved the two suitcases near his feet and followed her into the elevator, where he closed his eyes again until they arrived and she led him out, along the corridor and into her apartment.
‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing to a comfortable sofa.
‘You must be thinking—’
‘Tea first, explanations later,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
She was smiling to herself as she filled the kettle. Her email had brought him home. The world was good again.
He drank the tea thankfully, but didn’t seem much more awake.
‘When did you last sleep?’ she asked.
‘I can’t remember. I was unlucky in catching a flight. I reached the airport just in time to miss one plane and I had to grab the next one. Only it went to Paris, so I had to get a connecting flight to London.’
‘You walked out on your conference? ‘ she breathed.
He shrugged. ‘After your email, what did you expect me to do?’
‘Email me. Text me. Call me.’
‘No, I had to talk to you properly.’
And for that he’d walked out on business.
Of course he’d done it for Charlie and his mother, Pippa reminded herself.
But common sense spoke with a feeble voice, defeated by the surge of awareness of Roscoe as a man. A man who’d tried to escape her and been defeated.
What was happening between them alarmed him because it threatened the life he’d achieved with such a struggle. But he’d seized an excuse to come back to her and now he was here, laying his gesture at her feet, waiting to know what she would do with it.
She was silenced for a moment. She’d misjudged him so badly.
‘The flight to Los Angeles is eleven hours,’ she said at last, ‘and then you came straight back—’
‘And I don’t even like flying,’ he ground out. ‘In fact, I hate it.’
‘I hate it too,’ she admitted. ‘It’s boring, you’re trapped, and I’m always sure we’re going to crash at any moment.’
He gave her a faint grin of understanding.
‘No wonder you’re exhausted,’