demand peace and quiet when I’m working.’
Her eyes flew open. ‘She did!’ She couldn’t get Aunt Katherine into trouble. ‘But, you see, I thought you’d already left for your run.’
She glanced at his office door and had to fight the urge to slap a hand to her forehead. She was supposed to check if that door was open or closed. Open meant he was gone and she could clean this set of rooms without disturbing him. If it was closed that meant he was still working…and she had to be church-mouse quiet. Biting her lip, she met his gaze again. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot to check your office door. It won’t happen again, Mr Coleman, I promise.’
He didn’t reply. Nothing. Not so much as a brass razoo. Which was an odd expression. She’d look it up…if she could get an Internet connection. She eyed him uncertainty. He might not be a big bear of a man, but he fitted her image of a bear with a sore head to a T. Which might not be fair as she didn’t know him, but she wasn’t predisposed to like him either, the horrid old Scrooge.
He turned away, and she sagged with the relief of being released from those icy eyes. But then he swung back, and she went tense and rigid all over again. ‘I’m going for my run now, Ms Hartley. In case my attire had slipped your attention.’
His sarcasm stung. Her fingers tightened about the vacuum cleaner, and suddenly it was Elliot’s voice, Elliot’s mocking sarcasm, that sounded through her head. She thrust out her chin. ‘Did you just call me stupid?’ She might only be the maid, but she didn’t have to put up with rudeness. ‘Look, I made a mistake and I apologised. It doesn’t mean I’m stupid.’
‘Oh, Imogen!’ She could practically hear her mother’s wail. ‘What about Aunt Katherine? You promised!’
Jasper Coleman had been in the act of moving towards the front door, but he turned back now with intimidating slowness. Rather than back down—which, of course, would be the sensible thing to do—she glared right back at him. She knew she might be a little too sensitive on the topic of her sharpness of mind and her reason—her intelligence—but she wasn’t being paid enough to put up with derogatory comments directed at it.
At least, that was what she told herself before she started quaking in her sensible ballet flats. Her sense of self-righteousness dissolved as Jasper drew himself up to his full height. Any idiot knew you didn’t go poking bears.
‘I don’t know you well enough to make a judgement call on your intelligence, Ms Hartley.’ He gestured to his office door. ‘A question mark does, however, hang over your powers of observation.’
She bit her tongue and kept her mouth firmly shut. Thankfully it appeared that he didn’t expect an answer, as, without any further ado, he strode from the room. A moment later she heard the click of the front door closing. He didn’t do anything as uncouth as slam it.
‘Of course your attire hadn’t slipped my attention,’ she muttered, pushing her earbuds into the pocket of her skirt. She was a dressmaker. She noticed what everyone wore.
Though for some reason she’d really noticed what he’d been wearing. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense because his attire had been so very generic. Those nondescript running shorts had come to mid-thigh and were neither ridiculously tiny nor ridiculously tight. His T-shirt, though, had hugged his frame as if it’d been spray-painted on, highlighting the flex and play of firm muscle.
Oh, Imogen, who are you trying to kid?
It wasn’t his clothes but the body inside the clothes that had held her attention so avidly.
Scowling, she pushed the image of her perplexing boss from her mind and completed the rest of the cleaning as quickly as possible, vacuuming and dusting immaculate surfaces. But, as her aunt said, they were immaculate because they were cleaned five days a week. Without fail. Because it was what the lord of the manor decreed, apparently.
Jasper’s office was as immaculate as the rest of the house. And just as cold. Unlike her workspace at home, he didn’t have any photographs sitting on his desk, no sentimental knick-knacks or anything personal. His room was functional and blank. He was supposed to be some kind of computer wunderkind, though how on earth he could create in a space that was so beige was beyond her.
She gave a final flick of her duster to the enormous desk, glanced around the room with a critical eye, and was about to leave when her gaze shifted to his computer…for the third time in about as many minutes. She bit her lip. She’d bet—given all the fancy tech gadgetry he had in here—he could log onto the Internet without a single problem.
She’d been trying to find out—for three days now—if the waters surrounding the island were safe. Aunt Katherine had no idea. She preferred the calm waters of the lagoon to the surf.
Jasper swam in his twenty-five-metre pool twice a day—from six to seven each morning and again in the evening. The man was obviously a fitness freak—three hours of cardio a day. Imagine? ‘Kill me now,’ she muttered. Not that she disapproved of fitness. She just couldn’t do fitness for fitness’s sake. She had to do something fun or it just wouldn’t happen. Give her a Zumba or dance class, or the surf. She loved swimming in the ocean.
If it was safe.
Not giving herself any time to hesitate, she slid into her boss’s chair, woke his computer from sleep mode and clicked the Internet browser icon. Surely he wouldn’t mind? It’d be in his best interests to keep his staff safe, right? Occupational health and safety and all that.
She recalled the look in his eyes less than thirty minutes ago, and her own churlish, ‘Did you just call me stupid?’ and grimaced. He might make an exception in her case and feed her to the sharks.
‘So just hurry up and find out what you need to find out,’ she ordered, typing in: Swimming in Brazilian waters.
The search engine results loaded onto the screen. ‘Eureka.’
She leaned forward, intent on clicking the link to a website that looked as if it would give her the information she needed.
‘Do not move a muscle, Ms Hartley,’ a deceptively soft voice said from the doorway.
Imogen froze. She moved nothing but her eyes to meet her employer’s gaze. ‘Is there…?’ She swallowed. ‘Is there a snake or a scorpion about to pounce on me?’ Her voice came out hoarse, but she was too afraid to cough and clear her throat in case she incited some animal to attack.
‘Don’t be ludicrous. Of course there isn’t. Unless you call yourself a scorpion or a snake,’ he added, striding towards her with a purposeful step, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Danger. The word whipped through her for the second time. This man was dangerous. She should’ve followed her first instincts. Leaping to her feet, she shot around the farthest side of the desk, keeping its wide expanse between them. She grabbed a paperweight in one hand, and then seized a pen and held it like a dagger in her other.
He slammed to a halt so quickly he swayed where he stood. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t like the look in your eyes.’
For some reason, her words made him pale. His chest lifted as he dragged in a breath. ‘I don’t like undercover journalists.’
‘I’m not a journalist,’ she spluttered, ‘undercover or otherwise!’
‘I hold the same contempt for industrial spies.’
She pointed the pen at his computer. ‘You think I’m snooping in your personal files or…or your work files?’
Lips that shouldn’t look quite so full twisted. ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’
Wow, was this man paranoid or what? No wonder he lived on a desert island. And no wonder her aunt had warned her to be circumspect around him—difficult and temperamental had been the words she’d used.
‘We