Getting herself out of this one was going to require some quick thinking, or talking at least.
‘Which, of course, it isn’t. I’m sure an hour of your time would cost me loads, whereas I only get paid…but I don’t suppose you get paid by the hour. And I don’t want an hour of it or even five minutes, though it’s obviously been an enormous thrill to meet you.’ Was that obsequious enough? She lifted a weary hand to her head. Oh, God…! Do I sound as much of a blithering idiot as I feel?
‘I’m delighted you’re thrilled.’
I might die of humiliation, she decided, listening to the amusement in his deep voice.
‘And I’m sorry if this is inconvenient,’ he continued, ‘but the vice-chancellor said there would be no problem.’
‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? You’re influential and rich and…’ Her scornful observation faded as their glances meshed once again. ‘That is, you’re…sorry.’ She managed to force her lips into a stiff smile. ‘That was rude.’
‘Yes, it was.’ It was hard to tell from his languid agreement if he was annoyed or amused.
David will kill me. She exhaled noisily and ran her hands, palm-flat, over her face in a brisk scrubbing motion.
‘I get the impression you’re having a bad day?’
‘What makes you say that?’ she asked gloomily.
A laugh was drawn from his beautifully tanned throat. Scarlet lifted her face, startled by the deeply attractive sound. He smiled at her, his teeth flashing very white in his dark face. She blinked—for a moment he had reminded her of Sam; the fleeting similarity made her almost feel disposed to think he might not be quite the monster she had imagined.
‘Well, if you carry on like this on a regular basis I can’t imagine they’d carry on paying you that enormous salary you spoke of.’
She let her hands fall away and shook her head. ‘I earn every penny I make. Especially today.’
‘What’s happened to make this a bad day?’
‘You…well, not just you,’ she added with a self-condemnatory grimace. ‘And I don’t mean you personally, it’s just I didn’t like leaving the staff to struggle. I’ve been putting in lots of extra hours this week to cover for sickness.’
‘And what happens if you get sick?’
‘Oh, I never get sick.’
Her solemn conviction struck him as funny. She must have picked up on his amusement because she added defensively. ‘I can’t remember the last time I was ill.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of tempting fate?’
Scarlet suspected he was making fun of her. ‘I’m not superstitious,’ she told him her expression contemptuous.
‘You’ve never pinched spilt salt over your shoulder, or counted magpies in a field, or crossed your fingers for luck?’
She shook her head. ‘Of course not. Don’t you believe me?’
‘I think everyone’s superstitious deep down; it’s human nature.’
This point of view amazed her. ‘You’re superstitious?’ she asked incredulously.
‘My father’s Irish, my mother’s Italian—the odds were stacked.’ His broad shoulders lifted. ‘What choice do I have?’
‘Well, I’m not superstitious, but I am really glad that your mother is better.’
‘But you’ve somewhere else you need to be,’ he completed smoothly.
It would be overstating it to call the glint in his eyes annoyance, but…! She probably was making the fact she couldn’t stick being in his company a bit obvious.
‘That’s very understanding of you, Mr O’Hagan.’
‘Perhaps we could continue our discussion over lunch?’
Scarlet heard his voice through a faint buzz in her ears as she tried to contemplate what he’d just said.
‘Lunch…?’ she parroted vaguely.
Best to look on this as a reflex—her hormones had gone into primitive autopilot mode and were acting independently of her brain. Hence the weakness in her legs, the warm heat thrumming through her body and the painful spasms knotting her stomach. He was an attractive man, end of story, no need to complicate it further.
‘Bring your son, by all means.’
‘Discussion?’ There seemed to be a time delay in her ability to translate what he was saying. ‘We weren’t having a discussion.’ Her straight brows arranged themselves in an interrogative line. ‘Lunch!’
There’s no such thing as a free lunch!
‘Good God, no!’
His eyes widened fractionally, but other than that nothing in his manner revealed his reaction to her response. It wasn’t that he was conceited, but a lifetime of being pursued and flattered by women had left Roman ill prepared to have an invitation of lunch rejected in an attitude of blatant revulsion.
‘Well, I know where to come if I need my ego deflated.’
Belatedly Scarlet recalled her promise to David. She tried to soften her blunt reply.
‘That is…it’s very kind of you to offer,’ she added, even though every instinct told her this was not a man predisposed to be kind.
She just stopped herself lifting her hand, which would have drawn attention to her face, which felt as though it were on fire. This was a man who never did anything without a reason. Which left the question, why had he asked her to lunch? Did he have some elaborate punishment in mind because she had answered back to him on the phone?
‘Like I said the flu epidemic has left us very short-staffed today.’
‘But otherwise you’d have been delighted to come?’
In face of this sardonic observation it took all of Scarlet’s will-power to conceal her feelings behind a blank expression.
What were her feelings? In one word—shallow; this was biology at its most basic. She knew what lust felt like, and never had it been less welcome or so extreme, but when you came right down to it she really shouldn’t have been letting it get to her this way. There was absolutely no need to stress; it wasn’t as if she’d never felt sexual attraction before. She knew about the tightening in her stomach and the rest; it was a biological response—like sneezing.
She took a deep breath and was conscious of the fabric of her borrowed top chafing against her erect nipples; lower, the tell-tale liquid heat was even more of a give-away. Sneezing? Maybe not the best analogy.
She saw a smile touch his sensual lips. To her horrified eyes it held a knowing quality that suggested she wasn’t hiding anything from him; she felt a flare of anger—her condition was entirely his doing.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to go,’ she told him abruptly.
‘Rain check?’
She looked at him blankly. If he thought she was strange and peculiar, that was fine, because she was. Being attracted, even in a blind, mindless way, to a man like this could quite safely be categorised as peculiar…also wantonly stupid and brainless!
‘Fine, whatever…’ she mumbled, before virtually throwing herself through the door in her haste to remove herself from the room.
She literally bumped into David about thirty seconds after she had emerged from his office. She suspected he had been lurking there waiting for her to appear.
‘Steady, you’re in a hurry,’ he said, placing his hands