Michelle Douglas – The Maid, The Millionaire And The Baby (страница 3)

‘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 seem to be at an impasse, Ms Hartley. I never for one moment meant for you to think that you were in physical danger from me.’

Oddly enough, she believed him.

‘But I want to look at that computer screen to see precisely what it was that had you grinning like a Cheshire cat and shrieking “Eureka”.’

That was probably a very good idea. ‘How about I go this way until I’m standing in front of your desk?’

‘And I’ll go this way—’ he gestured in the opposite direction ‘—until I’m behind my desk.’

‘I want it on record that I take exception to the charge of shrieking, Mr Coleman. I don’t shriek.’

‘Duly noted, Ms Hartley.’

‘Right, well…let’s call that Plan A, shall we?’ Imogen Hartley’s lips lifted, but that didn’t assuage the acid burning in Jasper’s gut. The fear in her eyes as he’d started towards her had nearly felled him. What kind of brute did she take him for?

‘Do you want me to count?’ He didn’t want to give her any further cause for alarm. ‘On the count of three—’

With a frown in her eyes, as if he puzzled her, she shook her head and started moving around the desk. He kept his own steps measured and unhurried as he moved in the opposite direction.

Once they’d switched places, rather than looking meek and mild, or guilty and ashamed, Imogen Hartley made an exaggerated flourish towards the computer like a model in an infomercial.

He muffled a sigh and took his seat. At least she didn’t look frightened any more. Steeling himself, he turned to his computer. He stared at it for several long moments, blinked, and then eased back, his shoulders unhitching. ‘You’re checking the surf conditions?’

She nodded.

He tried to keep a frown from forming. ‘Did you really think Ilha do Pequeno Tesoura—’ he used the full Portuguese name of the island ‘—would be in the database of some surfing website?’

‘Well, no, not exactly. But we’re only a leisurely thirty-minute boat ride from the coast. Which means it’d be quicker by speedboat,’ she added with a shrug, as if that explained everything.

A speedboat would reach the island in less than fifteen minutes. And her shrug explained nothing.

‘So I thought that checking the surfing conditions on the coast might tell me what I needed to know.’

‘Which is?’

She gestured, presumably towards the Atlantic Ocean on display outside his office window. ‘If it’s safe for me to swim on your beach.’

‘Why?’

Two vertical lines appeared on her brow as if he’d just asked the most ridiculous question ever put to her—as if two seconds ago she’d considered him a sensible man and now she didn’t.

Two minutes ago, she’d thought him a scary man. He’d never forgive himself for that.

Still, those lines on her brow were oddly cute…and kind of disturbing. Disturbing in the same way that seeing her dancing and singing while she’d been vacuuming had been disturbing. This woman was full of life and energy and spontaneity—full of unguarded reactions. It reminded him of normal people, and the outside world, and life. It was why he’d been so unforgivably short with her. The ache she’d unknowingly created inside him—an ache he’d thought he’d mastered a long time ago—had taken him off guard. It was why he’d come back early from his run—so he could ask Katherine to apologise to the girl on his behalf.

Apologise yourself now.

He opened his mouth. He closed it again. Katherine had rolled her eyes when she’d spoken of her niece—had said she was flighty and impulsive…recovering from the latest in a string of unsuitable relationships…had hinted, without saying as much, that her niece would find him irresistibly attractive. Be that as it may, while she might be irresponsible this girl was untouched by all the ugliness that surrounded him. And he’d like to keep it that way. It’d be better for all concerned if she considered him a temperamental grump rather than a reasonable human being.