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In two long strides he was stood in front of her.
‘Okay, what?’ His low tone dictated a voice level for a private conversation. She just stared at him, a blank expression on her face. He hated it when she did that.
‘Is something wrong?’
He frowned. ‘You tell me.’
The smiling continued. ‘Nope, you’ve lost me, I’m afraid.’
Given the opportunity, he would love to. ‘You’re smiling.’
‘Am I?’ She smiled even more. ‘Is there a law against that?’
‘You don’t smile.’
‘I most certainly do. See?’ She tilted her head and smiled a big fake smile that showed her straight teeth.
‘You don’t smile at me.’
‘Does that upset you?’ She blinked innocently.
He practically growled at her, instead whispering through slightly gritted teeth, ‘You could just come on over and do that thing you do to help sell this house.’
She shrugged, smiling over his shoulder at the Lamonts. ‘Oh, you’re doing just fine, from what I can see.’
He studied her through narrowed eyes for several long moments. She was just so completely and utterly irritating. Everything about her irritated him, from her beautiful, flawless, not-a-hair-out-of-place exterior to her highly organised way of doing things. She was what would have once been termed as ‘unflappable’, and that just really annoyed Adam.
Adam, who lived by the seat of his pants in a chaotic little world of his own.
It had worked for him his whole life, and he had never felt there was a single thing wrong with it. Until Little Miss Perfect came along.
‘Stop smiling at me, then.’
She raised her elegant eyebrows a barely visible notch and looked up at him with cool blue eyes. ‘Well, if it’s annoying you so much…’
Adam shook his head, cupped one large hand over her elbow and pulled her up from her perched position on the edge of the desk. ‘Customers, Dana. The people who pay our wages.’ He leaned close to her ear. ‘People we are not having an argument in front of. So, whatever it is you’re doing—quit it.’
Dana gently extricated her elbow from the warm grasp that tingled through to her skin, smoothed the front of her jacket with her hands and then side-stepped to get past Adam’s bulk. Her calm smile remained throughout. She had irritated him, and that was always worthwhile.
Mrs Lamont smiled as she approached. ‘The house is beautiful, Dana. You have just done some wonderful things with the plans for the interior. I’m so glad Lucy recommended you.’
Dana smiled a more genuine smile. Louise Lamont’s sister Lucy had been a friend from her college days, and Donovan & Lewis had designed her new home for her just a few months ago. ‘I’m really glad you like it, Louise. All we did was put what you’d described into a few pictures, and it’s every bit as beautiful as you knew it would be.’
Ah. There it was. That thing she did.
Adam smiled. Louise Lamont hadn’t had any more of an idea of what she wanted in a house than she had of how to perform major brain surgery. Every design magazine she’d bought had changed her mind, until the place was pretty much bound to end up looking similar to Santa’s grotto. Then there was Dana, and suddenly Louise had loved a mixture of modern clean lines and classic design, just as if she’d wanted it all from the beginning and it had been her idea and not Dana’s. The woman really did believe that the house had been all her idea and that she was practically a design genius!
Devious.
Louise positively beamed. ‘Lucy can’t wait to see you at the reunion. She says she’s going to tell everyone that they should see Donovan & Lewis if they want a house done.’
Dana felt warmth tinge her cheeks. She avoided Louise’s direct gaze and glanced over her shoulder. ‘I’m not actually going to make it to the reunion, I’m afraid. We’re terribly busy at the moment.’
Adam’s eyebrows raised. She was uncomfortable? That got his interest.
‘Oh, but you must, Dana. Everyone’s expecting to see you since that article you had done in Ireland’s Home & Hearth.’ She practically drooled the name of the design magazine. It had been obvious from day one that that was where Louise would have liked to see a photo spread of her new house. Nothing to do with family comfort or a personal pleasure in her surroundings…
‘Not this time.’ Dana smiled sweetly. ‘But I’m sure I’ll make the next one.’
Now, that was a lie. Adam didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He’d just caught Dana Taylor lying about something. Oh, this was good. It had to be something big, and Adam really, really needed to know what it was. That kind of information could prove worth a fortune on the open market. How to flap the unflappable…
‘Well, we’re not so busy we couldn’t spare you for one evening, Dana.’ He stepped into the fray with a wide smile. ‘A reunion, is it? I just love those—don’t you, Louise?’
Louise fluttered her eyelashes at him, blushing faintly at his use of her first name. Good God. Dana wanted badly to be sick.
She turned her head slightly towards Adam and gave him one of her best ‘stay the hell out’ smiles. He’d witnessed them several times, so it shouldn’t take much for him to know it was time to stop.
‘I love them, Adam.’ The woman actually giggled like a ten-year-old. Dana knew that for a fact, due to the endless giggling of her own ten-year-old. Oh, come on! She glanced at Mr Lamont to see if he’d noticed. But they’d obviously hit that period in their marriage where he had developed selective deafness.
‘You should go, Dana. I bet it would be fun.’
Under normal circumstances she’d have wiped the grin off his face with a swift, cutting remark that would in turn have led to a disagreement and stony silence in the office for a few hours. Instead she took a small breath and stared him straight in the eye. ‘You know how seriously I take my work, Adam. I really don’t have time to go.’
Adam had translated her smile to mean ‘stay the hell out’, and grinned even wider. This was great. Seriously. He’d pay good money for moments like this. He slung an arm around her slender shoulders, fitting her pretty much under his expensively scented armpit, and, giving her a squeeze, continued to flirt with Louise.
‘She’s just so dedicated, isn’t she? But I think I’ll manage to persuade her to go along, don’t you?’
‘Oh, I’m sure if anyone can it would be you. I’m sure you’re very persuasive.’
Ugh! The very thought. Dana managed not to shudder.
‘Not this year. Maybe next time.’ She side-stepped out of Adam’s grip and pointed at the plans in front of Mr Lamont. ‘You’ll see we’ve kept the staircase open to allow light to flood through to the dining room.’
Mr Lamont nodded and studied the plans again.
Adam wasn’t so easily distracted. ‘When did you say this thing was, Louise?’
‘Oh, it’s this weekend. It’s not too late for Dana to go. She was so popular back in college. I think that’s why Lucy said Jim took such an interest—’ Louise’s eyes burned into the back of Dana’s head. ‘Oh, Dana, I do hope that’s not the reason why you’re not going. Is Jim going to be there? Oh, my, that could be awkward, couldn’t it?’
Adam’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Jim who?’
Dana’s eyes locked with Mr Lamont’s for a second before she smiled and turned back round. ‘Jim Taylor. My ex.’ She aimed the words at Adam with an icy stare. ‘And, no, that’s not the reason I’m not going, Louise,’ she lied without losing her smile. ‘I really am busy. After all, we wouldn’t want your project falling behind schedule, would we?’
Louise looked terrified at the very idea. ‘Oh goodness, no, we wouldn’t! I’ve planned to have photographers there for Christmas—haven’t I, Paul?’
Paul Lamont glanced in her direction. ‘If you say so, pet, I’m sure you have.’
‘Well, then.’ Dana nodded coolly. ‘We’d better get these final plans approved, hadn’t we?’
She shot a sidelong threatening glare at Adam as she turned. She could see plainly how he wanted to continue enjoying her discomfort, and with a spark of her eyes she warned him to drop the subject. Just try it and see what happens, bucko!
Adam took the hint and dropped it.
Until about twenty seconds after the Lamonts had left…
‘You’re not going to this reunion because your ex-husband might be there?’ He nodded with a sarcastic twist of his lips. ‘That’s mature.’
Dana folded the Lamonts’ plans carefully and placed them back inside their manila folder. ‘None of your business, is it?’
‘Possibly not, but—’
‘I think you’ll find the conversation ended with “possibly not”.’ She turned and frowned over at him. ‘Stay out of things that don’t concern you, Adam. You’ll live longer that way.’
‘What are you so worried about? Are you afraid he’ll find out you still love him or something?’ He waded on in with his size thirteens. ‘Is that it? Or maybe you don’t want him to know that you’ve stayed single all this time?’
On her way to the filing cabinet, Dana stopped dead and swung round with flashing eyes. ‘I am not still in love with him! And I’ve damn well had dates since I split with him. Not that that’s any of your bloody business either!’
Adam actually rocked back slightly. Little Miss Perfect had a temper? Since when? His mind moved more slowly than usual, distracted suddenly from simple thought by how her flashing eyes and flushed cheeks changed her usual cool exterior. She looked sexy. All she needed was to do the whole ‘remove one pin and shake her hair loose’ thing…
He recovered with, ‘You don’t have a date, do you?’
She placed a hand on her hip, cocked her head to one side and practically spat the word at him. ’What?’
‘For this reunion. You don’t have a date.’ He folded his arms across his broad chest and took a deep breath. ‘And you don’t want to see him with some sweet young thing on his arm while you’re doing the whole lonely-pint deal.’ Dana truly, truly hated him in that moment. If she hadn’t before, she did now. There was nothing more smug than an already arrogant male being proved right.
‘Whatever you think.’ She turned and marched the last couple of steps to the filing cabinet, wrenching the drawer open with too much force when she got there. Damn him. She hated losing her temper.
There was silence for a few moments, as Adam thought and Dana started counting inwardly to calm her temper.
Adam took another breath. ‘I’m right, then.’
‘Oh, gee.’ She turned and glared. ‘Aren’t you always?’
Adam recognised sarcasm. Even when it had all the grace of a hippo in high heels. Not that Dana was the teeniest bit over the recommended weight for her height. God forbid. That wouldn’t be perfect, would it? No, the woman curved where she was supposed to curve, both in and out. ‘Pretty much.’
Dana took a deep breath and moved around the office with silent grace, collecting files and errant pens and putting them back into their allotted places. ‘Now that you’ve managed to score a hit, can we drop this one?’
No chance. Adam smiled inwardly. She should know him better by now.
‘So why can’t you get a date?’
‘You tell me—you’re the one with all the answers.’
‘Have you tried—hell, I dunno—’ he shrugged and leaned back against his desk ‘—asking someone?’
She actually laughed out loud. ‘You know, I haven’t.’ With a small turn of her patent leather heel she looked him straight in the eye, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against her own desk in an exact mirror of his stance. ‘Who would I ask, exactly?’
‘You’re bound to know someone.’
‘With my schedule?’
‘Well, you must have friends who know someone.’
She smiled mirthlessly. ‘Not someone who’d be suitable for the whole—’ she unfolded her arms to make speech marks in the air with her fingers ‘“—slap in the face, up yours, Jim” effect I’d want, no.’ She folded her arms again.
Adam’s eyes narrowed. ‘You need someone to irritate him?’ Her personality wasn’t enough? ‘What—someone to make him jealous or something?’
‘Not in the way you think.’
He continued to stare at her. ‘In what way, then?’
She took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t understand, so what’s the point?’
‘Try me.’
It would be a new direction if she decided to take that path. It would mean telling him something private, something vaguely embarrassing—even a little, well, girlish in places. It would also be opening a small window into her life. Into the secrets and pain she carried with her, well buried, from her past. In giving him that information she would be giving him ammunition for their next argument. And, even if he didn’t ever use it, she would still know he knew. It was a big risk.
He watched the debate unfold in her eyes as she continued staring at him. They were the only part of her that she wasn’t able to mask with an air of remote coolness. When she was annoyed or irritated, amused or excited by something, it all showed in her eyes. It was why she wore sunglasses so often to hide them, or dropped her chin, or turned her head slightly. Oh, yeah, he knew those little tricks of hers—knew them well enough to know when he’d scored a hit.
‘How about if I promise not to use it against you at a later date?’
She was surprised by the offer. It almost seemed sincere. Adam Donovan trying to be nice? Nah. Not in her lifetime.
‘Why do you need to know?’
He shrugged again. ‘Maybe I might actually be able to help.’
A small smile twitched at the edges of her mouth. ‘Oh, really? How exactly would you see that working? And, more importantly, what would it cost me?’
‘You have a very suspicious mind.’
‘Around you? Yes, indeed I do.’
‘I just offered you an olive branch of sorts.’
‘Yes, you did, and that’s why I’m suspicious.’
‘Would it kill you to try trusting me just once?’ He frowned at her. ‘It’s not like you’ve tried it before, is it?’
He had a point. Trusting him was something she’d never done or considered since she’d met him. And there probably was an underlying reason for that, if she decided she wanted to look for it. But then, in fairness, she’d seen him in action. Apart from his business dealings, Dana had witnessed nothing that would lead her into trusting him with personal information. If she’d become anything in the last eight years it was a survivalist. But she was curious nevertheless.
‘Again: why do you want to know, exactly?’
Good question. Blinking at her questioning eyes, he decided not to search too deeply for a reason. He’d go with a sensible answer. He worded it carefully. ‘Maybe if you actually took the time to trust me with information occasionally, I might do the same thing.’
‘And that would be interesting to me because…?’
He pressed his lips together and managed to swallow a sarcastic answer. ‘It might improve the atmosphere in this office, for one thing. If we tried actually getting to know each other a little instead of this constant bickering.’
