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‘I—don’t think so, thank you,’ she refused uncertainly, wondering if he really just expected her to leave now that the night was over.
An awkward silence followed.
What was she waiting for? Nick wondered impatiently. He had offered her coffee, she had refused, now it would be better for both of them if she just—
‘I—perhaps I had better be going.’ She spoke awkwardly as she seemed to sense his unspoken urging. Questioningly. As if she expected him to ask her to stay.
For what reason? They’d had dinner. They’d made love. They’d both enjoyed it. And now it was over. What else did she want from him? Because he had nothing else to give!
‘My flatmate will probably be wondering where I’ve got to,’ she added with a frown.
Nick hadn’t bothered to ask last night whether that flatmate was male or female. He had been too caught up in smothering, numbing, his own inner pain, to care.
But he felt curious now, and wondered if Hebe Johnson were engaged, or at least had a steady boyfriend. She didn’t come over as the sort of woman who indulged in extra-relationship affairs. But then, she hadn’t exactly come over as the sort of woman who would go to bed with him last night either—and look how wrong he had been about that!
This was extremely awkward, Hebe decided uncomfortably as she continued to stand in the doorway, having no idea how she was supposed to behave the-morning-after-the-night-before. Probably because it was a long time since there had been a morning-after-the-night-before for her!
Not that she was a complete innocent—she had been in a relationship years ago, when she was at university. But she had never stayed in a man’s apartment all night before, and as this man was Nick Cavendish, her employer for the last six months, it was doubly awkward.
He merely looked relieved at her suggestion that she leave. ‘If you’re sure you don’t want coffee?’ he prompted dismissively, as he poured some coffee into a mug for himself—black, with no sugar.
The repeat of the offer was made more out of politeness than anything else, Hebe realised with a sinking of her heart, as Nick sat down at the breakfast bar to take a sip of the steaming brew, no longer even looking at her.
She had been completely overwhelmed by the attention of this ruggedly handsome, gorgeously seductive man the night before, and hadn’t been able to believe her luck when he had seemed to return her interest. But it looked as if she might have plenty of time to repent at leisure if his distant behaviour now was anything to go by.
Her cue not to make this any more embarrassing than it already was…
‘I’ll go, then,’ she announced brightly. ‘I—thank you for dinner last night,’ she added awkwardly.
And everything else, she could have added, but didn’t. After the intimacies they had shared the night before, this really was too embarrassingly awful. Something she didn’t intend ever to repeat if this was what it felt like the following morning.
She looked a little bewildered by his abruptness, Nick acknowledged with a certain guilty irritation after glancing at her. Those amazing gold-coloured eyes were wide with wariness, and her cheeks had gone slightly pale at his obvious lack of enthusiasm.
What had she expected, for goodness’ sake? That he would make declarations of undying love for her this morning? Assure her he couldn’t live without her and invite her to come along with him to New York when he left later this morning?
Damn it, this was real life—not some fairy story. And they were adults, not romantic children!
They had both had a good time, but that was all it had been.
‘I’m going back to New York later on today,’ he told her dismissively. ‘But I’ll give you a call, okay?’ he added—knowing he had no intention of doing any such thing.
He should never have become personally involved with an employee in the first place, so he certainly didn’t intend to arrange to see Hebe Johnson on a social level again.
For one thing, he knew that if he met up with Hebe again, away from the gallery, then they would end up in bed together again too. Even now, looking at the soft pout of her mouth, that quicksilver hair, the willowy curves of her body in the silky blouse and fitted black trousers, he felt the stirring of desire for her—an ache he was absolutely determined to do nothing about.
She was definitely being given the brush-off, Hebe realised painfully. She wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t know that when a man said I’ll call you after spending the night, without so much as asking for your telephone number, it meant that he had no intention of ever contacting you again!
Of course Nick was slightly different, in that he could, if he wanted, get her telephone number from Personnel at the Cavendish Gallery. She just didn’t think, from his dismissive attitude this morning, that he was ever going to want to.
The excitement of having dinner with him last night, and the hours they had spent making love, and now being summararily dismissed this morning had ultimately to be the most humiliating experience of her entire life.
She couldn’t get out of here fast enough!
She looked as if she were going to make a mad dash out of here without so much as a goodbye, Nick realised. Well, that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He frowned unwittingly, acknowledging that he didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of a casual dismissal. He was always the one to bid farewell, not the other way round.
He stood up, smiling slightly as he crossed the kitchen to put his arms about Hebe’s waist and pull her into the hardness of his body. ‘Goodbye, Hebe!’ he murmured, his arousal undeniable.
She looked up at him, five or six inches shorter than his own six feet two inches in height, her eyes golden globes of uncertainty.
Hell, she had beautiful eyes, Nick thought with an inward groan. Beautiful everything, if his memory didn’t deceive him. And he knew that it didn’t.
Maybe they could meet again after all—
No! Don’t be an idiot, Nick, he rebuked himself impatiently. Much better to just leave it like this.
Leave it, and hope that with time they would both forget last night had ever happened…
He certainly intended doing exactly that!
CHAPTER TWO (#u973dc111-b9aa-500a-ad24-486d2487f7b9)
SIX weeks later Hebe was still waiting for the promised telephone call from Nick Cavendish.
She had been a fool ever to expect that he would phone, of course, and several conversations with Kate over the last few weeks had confirmed that Nick Cavendish did not get seriously involved with any of the women he went out with. The number of women he had been involved with since the end of his marriage, also according to Kate, had been legion, and none of them, Kate had told her wistfully—as if she’d guessed Hebe’s interest was more than casual—had ever been employees of the Cavendish Galleries.
Or if they had they very quickly hadn’t been, Hebe had decided.
In fact, she had lived most of the last six weeks half expecting to be told her employment at the Cavendish Gallery had been terminated. Of course it wasn’t as easy as that to get rid of people nowadays, but she didn’t doubt that if he wanted her out of here, Nick Cavendish would find a way.
The fact that he was—at last!—due back at the London gallery next week, in time for the opening of an exhibition they were giving was not conducive to helping Hebe concentrate on her work.
In fact, she felt decidedly clumsy today, and had been dropping things most of the morning, not seeming to be coordinated at all. Of course she knew the reason for her steadily increasing nervousness. Nick’s arrival next week was approaching with a speed that made her head spin.
Maybe she should have called in sick for a few days. She was certainly feeling more than a little green round the edges, and hadn’t even been able to eat at all today. Her anxiety at the prospect of seeing Nick again seemed to be increasing daily.
Although why she should be the one to feel so nervously on edge was beyond her. After all, Nick Cavendish had been the one to invite her out, not the other way round. And she hadn’t invited herself back to his apartment either. In fact—
‘Hebe?’ rasped an all too familiar voice after six weeks’ silence close to her ear.
She spun round sharply, at the same time dropping the name cards she had been preparing for next week’s exhibition.
‘Sorry!’ she muttered, and she bent to pick them up with shaking fingers, taking the few seconds to bring some composure back to her demeanour.
Nick wasn’t expected until next week!
‘What are you doing here?’ she prompted slowly as she straightened, eyes deeply golden in the paleness of her face.
He returned her gaze mockingly. ‘It may have escaped your memory, Hebe, but I happen to own this gallery and have an apartment on the top floor of the building; I can come here any time I damn well please!’
Well…yes…But if she had had prior notice of his earlier than expected arrival she might not have overreacted in the way she just had. As it was, she felt completely wrong-footed.
She had made her mind up, during Nick’s six weeks of silence, that she was going to be cool and composed when he did come back and would make no reference, if he didn’t, to the fact that they had spent the night together in his apartment on the top floor of the building…
‘Let’s go up to my office,’ Nick added with barely concealed impatience. ‘I want to talk to you.’
He looked just the same, she acknowledged achingly. His olive skin was just as healthily tanned, his blue eyes as sharply intelligent, and his dark hair, though looking as if it had been trimmed slightly, was still long enough to rest silkily on broad shoulders. Dressed formally in a dark grey suit and snowy white shirt, with a silver-grey silk tie knotted neatly at his throat, he looked like a man who was firmly in control.
He looked exactly what he was, in fact—the confident multimillionaire owner of three prestigious art galleries.
Looking at him now, Hebe wondered how she could ever have thought he was seriously interested in her!
‘Hebe!’ he prompted, frowning at her continued silence.
She was behaving like an idiot, she realised, just standing here staring at him, completely tongue-tied by his unexpected appearance in the gallery.
She drew in a deep breath, willing herself to behave naturally. Well, as naturally as it was possible to be when confronted by the man who had haunted her days and filled her dreams for last six weeks!
‘What can I do for you, Mr Cavendish?’ she prompted with calm efficiency.
‘You can come upstairs to my office with me,’ he repeated firmly. ‘Now!’ he added, not even waiting for her answer this time, but turning abruptly on his heel and striding forcefully out of the room.
Kate, who was working nearby, shot Hebe a questioning look as she trailed out of the gallery behind Nick, and Hebe gave her a how-should-I-know? shrug in reply.
Because she really didn’t know what this was about. They had had dinner together, spent a night together, but she hadn’t told anyone about either of those things, let alone tried to contact Nick himself. So what was his problem?
The more she thought about it, acknowledging his brooding silence as he lithely climbed the stairs ahead of her to his office on the second floor, the angrier she became.
Had he expected, on the basis that she had spent the night with the boss, that she would have left her job here before he returned? Was that the reason he was so angry? Because he hadn’t expected to see her still here at all?
Well, that was being more than a little unfair, wasn’t it?
She loved her job here, liked the people she worked with too. Besides, none of the awkwardness of this situation was her fault, damn it!
Nick eyed her irritably as he closed his office door behind them. Unless he was mistaken, from her flushed cheeks and glowing golden eyes, he would take a guess at her being one very indignant young lady.
He perched on the edge of his cool Italian marble desk, which more than one customer at the gallery had tried to buy from him. He had always refused to sell it, though, liking the way it complemented the rest of the room, which was wood-panelled and slightly austere, although it did have a huge picture window that looked out over the river.
‘So, what are you so angry about, Hebe?’ he drawled ruefully, dark brows raised over mocking blue eyes. ‘The fact that I was less than polite just now? Or the fact that I haven’t called you for two months?’ He met her gaze challengingly.
‘Six weeks,’ she came back sharply, her cheeks flushing with colour seconds later.
‘Whatever.’ He shrugged, knowing exactly how long it was since he had last seen her, but having no intention of letting Hebe know that he did.
He had been so sure that Hebe Johnson would be just like all the other women he had known over the last two years—taken and then forgotten. But for some inexplicable reason he hadn’t quite succeeded in doing that where she was concerned. Memories of those golden eyes, that lithe silken body, came flashing into his mind at the most inconvenient of times. Irritating him intensely.
The flash of anger now in the depths of her warm eyes, and the way the fullness of those sensuous lips had tightened slightly, told him his careless attitude had only succeeded in increasing her anger. Which didn’t particularly affect him.
Not on a business level, anyway.
On a personal level, he found both things sexy as hell!
She looked good today too, dressed in a cream blouse tucked into the tiny waistband of a knee-length fitted black skirt, her legs long and silky.
So much for his absence from the London gallery these last six weeks, his deliberate lack of the promised telephone call, his self-assurances that when he came back he would have forgotten all about Hebe Johnson!
Even before he’d seen the painting he had known he hadn’t managed to do that.
His own mouth tightened as he glanced over to where he had placed the painting, on a stand to one side of his wide office, with a cover over it to protect it. But also so that Hebe Johnson shouldn’t see it until he was ready for her to do so…
Hebe eyed Nick scathingly as he stood looking at her, and, even though inside was shaking, she gripped her hands tightly together to prevent Nick from seeing they were trembling.
‘I’m sorry—were you supposed to call me?’ she came back, with all the coolness she could muster.
Which was quite considerable, if the way his mouth thinned and his eyes narrowed to glittering blue slits was anything to go by!
‘Okay, Hebe, forget that for the moment,’ he dismissed briskly. ‘And tell me what you know about Andrew Southern?’
She frowned as she dredged her memory for the relevant facts about the artist, having no idea why Nick was asking the question—unless it was an effort on his part to prove that she didn’t know her job, so giving him an excuse to fire her?
She swallowed hard. ‘English. Born 1953. Started painting in his early twenties, mainly portraits, but later moved on to landscapes—more recently the Alaskan wilderness—’
‘I’m not asking for a bio on the guy, Hebe!’ Nick cut in tersely, standing up restlessly. ‘I asked what you know about him?’
‘Me?’ She blinked, stepping back slightly in the face of his leashed vitality. ‘I’ve just told you what I know about him—’
‘Don’t be so coy, Hebe,’ he cut her off again abruptly, blue eyes mocking. ‘I’m not asking for details, just a confirmation that you know him. And if you can contact him personally.’
She was totally bewildered now. This conversation didn’t appear to have anything to do with that night six weeks ago at all, nor with an effort to prove her incompetent, but everything, it seemed, to do with the artist Andrew Southern. Of whom she was an admirer, but had certainly never met him, let alone knew him personally.
She wasn’t going to acknowledge the relationship, Nick realized frustratedly. Well, the guy was old enough to be her father, so maybe that explained her reluctance to talk about him. Whatever, Nick had been trying to arrange a meeting with Andrew Southern for years. For once neither the name Nick Cavendish nor the Cavendish Galleries themselves had opened that particular door. And now it seemed that Hebe, of all people, might be the key to that meeting.
From deciding that he had to stay as far away from Hebe as possible in future, or else take her to his bed again, he had now discovered that if he wanted to get anywhere near Andrew Southern with the idea of an exhibition of his work, then Hebe was the person he had to talk to.
‘Look, Hebe, let’s start this conversation again, shall we?’ he reasoned pleasantly. ‘I accept that I overstepped the employer/employee line with you six weeks ago, but by the same token you have to accept that it wasn’t all one sided, huh?’
Hebe eyed him derisively. If that was his attempt at an apology for the night they had spent together, or for his non-existent telephone call since, then it was pretty lame. Besides which, an apology for the former was insulting, to say the least, just as an off-hand apology for the latter was totally inadequate.
She had been so miserable these last six weeks, wondering where she had gone wrong, what she had done to make Nick Cavendish not even want to call her again, let alone see her.
And now he had turned up unexpectedly, dismissing their night together as the satisfying of a brief, mutual attraction, before going on to talk about Andrew Southern—an artist of phenomenal reputation, and known as a complete recluse, who had been so for almost thirty years.
Making her realise just how little she understood Nick Cavendish.
She eyed him coolly now. ‘Is that all?’
‘No, of course—!’ He broke off to draw in a deeply controlling breath. ‘Are you deliberately trying to annoy me?’ He looked at her with narrowed eyes.
She gave a mocking lift of her eyebrows. ‘I seem to be doing that without trying!’
