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She inclined her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. ‘When do you want me to start?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘How about…now?’
CHAPTER TWO
LUKE was surprised at how quickly Sara settled in. By the beginning of the following week, it felt as if she’d always worked with him. He’d persuaded her to man the office and take phone messages while he was out, and Sara turned out to be brilliantly organised. If he was out of the office she emailed the messages to him so he could act on them if they were urgent. Or she dealt with queries herself and sent him an email to tell him what she’d done.
He loved the fact that she used her initiative instead of running to him with questions.
And whenever Luke reached a point in his work when he was about to stop and make himself a mug of coffee, Sara was there before him. Just as he was about to look over to her desk and ask if she wanted a coffee, too, she’d place a mug on the coaster on his desk. Rich, smooth coffee, the exact strength he liked, with no milk and one spoonful of sugar. Perfect.
‘Have you been talking to Di or something?’ he asked when he’d finished his coffee.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because you second-guess me, the way she did. It’s almost like having her back—and she had four years to get used to the way I work.’
Sara laughed. ‘No, I haven’t talked to her. Not about you, at any rate. She called the other day to see how everything was and I told her to put her feet up with a mug of ginger tea and stop feeling guilty.’
‘Good. That’s what I told her, last time she rang.’ He paused. ‘So how did you…?’
‘Know how you work? Observation,’ she said. ‘Most people have routines.’
‘So you’re saying I’m set in my ways?’
She spread her hands. ‘Work it out for yourself, boss,’ she teased.
‘You’re just as set in your ways,’ he retorted, slightly nettled.
‘Meaning?’
If she was going to be straight with him, then he’d be straight with her. ‘You’re here on the dot of nine, you always take exactly an hour’s lunch break and you leave at the dot of five. And you never, ever work late.’
‘Because I’m good at time management.’ She returned to her own desk. ‘Besides, the longer the hours you work, the more your productivity drops. By the third day of working late, you’re actually running behind.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘Easy.’ She scribbled something on a piece of scrap paper, then walked over to his desk and put it in front of him. ‘One curve. The x axis is time, the y axis is your productivity rate. Now, would you agree that it’s higher in the morning, when you’re fresh, and lower at the end of the day, when you’re tired?’
‘Yes.’ Though he could see exactly where this was heading, and he had a nasty feeling that she’d boxed him neatly into a corner.
‘So if you’re not fresh, because you’re tired from the previous day, you’ll start further along the x axis, from a lower productivity point, as if you’ve already worked a couple of hours. And the more days you work late, the further along the x axis you start each morning.’ She folded her arms. ‘My point, I think.’
‘Hmm. And what about personal variables? Some people are best first thing in the morning, others are better later in the day.’
‘True.’
‘And some people thrive on working long hours. Point to me.’
‘Some people think they thrive on it,’ she countered. ‘I hate that culture where you have to be seen to be in early and work late. Presenteeism isn’t good for you. The way I see it, if you want to get more done, you need to work smarter, not harder.’ She frowned. ‘Do you ever take time to smell the roses, Luke?’
‘I don’t need to smell any roses.’
She looked at him over the edge of her rimless glasses—glasses, he’d noticed, she only used for computer work. ‘Yes, you do. Everyone needs to refresh themselves, or they’d burn out. So what do you do?’
He shrugged. ‘I go to the gym.’
‘You own several gyms. So that doesn’t count. It’s work.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Can you tell me, hand on heart, that whenever you go for a workout or what have you, you don’t start appraising the place and thinking about how to maximise the use of the gym?’
‘When I play squash or have a workout, I focus on what I’m doing. Otherwise,’ he said with a grin, ‘I’d be at the bottom of the squash ladder.’
‘Whereas you’re at the top?’
He spread his hands. ‘Top or second. Whatever.’
‘And the moment your workout or your match ends, you switch over to business, don’t you?’
‘It’s who I am.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s what you do. Who you are is…’ Her voice faded and for a second he caught an odd look in her eyes. Something that made his pulse skip a beat. But then it was gone, and he had to remind himself she was off-limits.
‘So aren’t these parties you go to any fun?’
‘They’re overrated,’ he admitted. ‘Or maybe I’m getting old. But, yeah, I’m starting to find them boring.’
‘Is that why you change your girlfriend so frequently, too?’
‘Probably.’
‘Maybe,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you’re seeing the wrong kind of woman.’
He nearly asked what kind of woman she thought fitted the bill. But maybe it was better not to know. Better not to wonder if a certain bossy blonde would fill the empty spaces he almost never admitted were in his life.
Before he realised what he was doing, he asked, ‘How about you?’
‘I go to the theatre and the cinema with my friends. We might go out for a meal—anything from a pizza to tapas to Thai, as long as it’s good food. Or I’ll go home to be spoiled by my parents and play with my toddler niece and take the dogs for a long run in the orchard.’
Hmm. She hadn’t mentioned her partner. Or maybe the guy was so much part of the furniture that she didn’t bother mentioning him by name.
But there was a bigger danger area here. Even if she had been free, she was clearly very close to her family—a world away from his own life. So it was definitely better to keep things strictly business with her.
‘So I take it you don’t work weekends?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘That’s a pity,’ he said. ‘Because I could do with you this weekend.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m going to see a hotel,’ he explained. ‘And, as I think you have a gut feel for what needs fixing, I’d be interested to see what you thought of it.’ He spread his hands. ‘Of course I’d pay you for your time, because it’d mean an overnight stay, but if you came with me I’d respect your right to clock-watch—and I promise you can stop answering my phone and let it go to voice mail at five o’clock on the dot. And you can take a couple of days off next week—paid—to make up for the time.’
She gave him a speaking look at the phrase ‘clock-watch’, but when she spoke her tone was mild. ‘This weekend.’
‘Unless your partner will have a problem with it?’
‘Partner?’ She looked mystified.
‘Justin,’ he enunciated. Saying the man’s name helped him remember that she was spoken for. That she was off-limits.
Her face cleared. ‘Oh, Justin. He isn’t my partner. He’s my oldest brother. I share a flat with him.’
Luke’s heart missed a beat. He’d managed to keep his hands off Sara so far by telling himself that she was attached and therefore off-limits.
Now it turned out that might not be the case.
Given how blank she’d looked when he’d asked her about her partner…it made him pretty sure that she wasn’t attached at all.
All of a sudden the room seemed to shrink. Right now, Sara was close enough to touch.
And, oh, he wanted to touch.
Taking her to Scarborough would be a spectacularly bad idea. Way too full of temptation—temptation he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist.
Then he realised that she was speaking. ‘Sorry?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Pay attention.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Would you mind repeating that?’
‘Please,’ she prompted.
He’d like to hear her saying that word in other circumstances. In a different tone. All husky and sensual and on the edge of losing her control.
All the blood in his body went south, and he had to swallow hard and close his eyes for a moment to regain control. He just hoped she didn’t look down at his lap, because the evidence of his thoughts was pretty clear. ‘Please.’
‘I said, did you mean telling you honestly what I think?’
‘Given that half my clients will be female, I need a female point of view. Which, obviously, I don’t have. And you tell it like it is—which is what I want to hear. You don’t have a hidden agenda.’
‘You said the weekend,’ she said. ‘Would you want to leave on Friday?’
‘Yes. We’ll stay Friday evening and Saturday, and come back Sunday. And I’ll let you have Monday and Tuesday off to make up for the time, as well as paying you while we’re away.’
‘It’s not about the money.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘It should be. You’re running a business, not a charity.’
‘Staying in a hotel with you.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘That means separate rooms, yes?’
‘Of course it means separate rooms. I’m asking you to join me as my consultant. My colleague.’ Even though he would’ve liked to ask her for a different reason, he knew that mixing business and pleasure was a stupid idea. Besides, although it had turned out that Justin was her brother, not her partner, she hadn’t actually said she was unattached. ‘So your partner won’t mind?’
‘I already told you, Justin’s my brother.’
‘Which is why,’ he pointed out, ‘I didn’t ask you again if Justin would mind. I asked you if your partner would mind.’
‘I’m single, if that’s what you mean.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I could ask you the same. Will your partner mind me accompanying you?’
‘I’m not seeing anyone right now,’ he said, ‘so it’s not a relevant question. That’s why I asked you to come with me: to give me a female viewpoint.’
‘What about your mother? Your sister?’
‘I don’t have either.’
She flushed. ‘I’m sorry, Luke. I didn’t mean to stamp on a sore spot.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ he said lightly. He knew Sara would assume that his mother was dead; he had no idea whether his mother was still alive or not, but he’d lost her a long time ago. Even before he’d walked out on his family, nearly half a lifetime before. ‘Let’s change the subject, hmm?’
‘Good idea.’ She looked relieved. ‘Um…what sort of dress code are we talking about?’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever you want. I should warn you now, it’s not a posh hotel. It might’ve been, once. But now it’s…’ He stopped, trying to think of a nice way to put it.
‘Shabby genteel?’ she suggested.
‘Pretty much.’
‘And you’re going to turn it around. Restore it to its former glory.’
‘If all the figures stack up and my gut feeling tells me to go for it—yes, that’s the idea.’ And he needed to get out of here. Before he did something utterly stupid. Like swivelling his chair round, taking Sara’s hands and pulling her off balance so she landed in his lap and he could kiss her until they were both dizzy. He glanced at his watch. ‘Right. I have a meeting. I’d better go.’
‘There isn’t a meeting in your diary.’
Well, of course she’d know his schedule. She was acting as his PA. ‘I forgot to put it in,’ he fibbed. ‘I’m going to see the temp agency. Interview a few potentials.’ And that was exactly what he was going to do. Even though they weren’t expecting him. Because right now he needed to put space between himself and Sara. For both their sakes.
Sara forced herself to concentrate on the task in hand when Luke had gone. Strange how the office felt empty without him.
And she still felt guilty. Not about the banter—she was pretty sure he enjoyed it just as much as she did, and she knew that he’d come up with a dozen valid reasons why working overtime was good for you, to counter her arguments—but about the fact she’d inadvertently hurt him. There had definitely been a flash of pain in his eyes when she’d mentioned his mother and he’d told her he didn’t have one. It was a fair bet that the rest of the men in his family were the sort who’d bury themselves in work rather than discuss their feelings, and Luke himself had admitted that he dated a different girl every couple of weeks. So he probably didn’t allow himself to get close to anyone in case he lost her, the way he’d lost his mother.
A man alone.
It made her want to put her arms round him, give him a hug and tell him that everything would be fine.
Not that she had any intention of doing that. Because she knew it wouldn’t stop at a hug. Several times in the last week she’d looked up and met Luke’s gaze; he’d quickly masked his expression, but not before she’d been aware of the flare of heat. Desire. Interest.
Exactly the same way she felt. And, the more time she spent with him, the stronger those feelings became.
