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And of course she wouldn’t even if she wanted to, and she did because she reallydidn’twant to hear him say her name, roll it around his tongue in the way he had. She didn’t want that to an extent that she recognised was totally disproportionate.
The question ofwhythe sound of her name on his lips should make her skin prickle with antagonism was a question for a later date. It made as little sense as her embarrassingly visceral reaction to him. She was repelled by what he represented, a too good-looking man who possessed effortless charisma and no conscience, and, at the same time, attracted by the fact he looked like a fallen angel...if attraction was the right word for the itch under her skin.
The collision of opposites in her head was enough to give anyone a headache and she had one digging its claws into her temples at that moment.
What she needed was a couple of painkillers and a darkened room to fend off a migraine, the first in months and the last had been pretty torrid. She was too stressed to wrap up the truth as anxiety sparked defiance.
‘It depends... If you’re going to sack me, then no, you can’t.’
He blinked and then laughed, the softening of his features as he gave vent to his amusement making him appear a lot younger. It didn’t last, a moment later the hard calculating stare was back.
‘Do you have a guilty conscience, Miss Hill?’
If only!
The shock of the maverick thought that popped unbidden into her head widened her eyes. But she couldn’t ignore the pain stabbing at her temples, which was in danger of becoming as much of a worry as her dormant hormones springing into painful life. Perhaps the two were connected? Did physical primitive chemical responses give you a headache? Or maybe she was allergic to his overwhelming masculinity.
‘I have no idea why I’m here.’
But I really wish I weren’t.
She spoke so quietly that he strained to catch what she had said. ‘Are you all right?’
It came less like concern and more like an impatient criticism, leaving Rose with the impression that it would be an inconvenience if she wasn’t all right. It was an attitude she was familiar with; her dad had always acted as though on the rare occasions she had got ill she’d done so deliberately just to annoy him.
She lifted her chin, the irrational conviction that she would prefer to die than admit a weakness to this man rising to the surface. It would serve him right if she fainted away at his feet, though he would probably just step over her, and she had never fainted with migraine although she had thrown up. She pushed the alarming thought away.
‘I’m fine.’
He shrugged and accepted her words at face value. It was possible she was always that pale or maybe she was a party animal and had a hangover from the previous night.
‘I will get to the point. Firstly, I am not sacking you, secondly, I am offering you a job, though nothing of a permanent nature, more a...temporary placement.’
Her brow stayed furrowed and not just because of the throb in her temples. ‘A what?’
‘I have need of a nanny.’
‘Aren’t you a bit old?’ She regretted the quip the moment it left her lips and his expression suggested he wasn’t impressed. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured.
‘I have become the guardian of a baby, a six-week-old boy... His parents are dead and the person employed to look after him is leaving.’
He watched the last remnant of the antagonism she was struggling to hide melt away. ‘Oh, I am so very sorry.’
Her tender heart ached for the orphaned child. His expression did not invite sympathy but she felt it anyway, which a moment before she would have thought impossible. ‘There are agencies...’
‘I am aware,’ he returned tersely, realising as he responded that the alternative plans he’d had in reserve to fulfil his promise to Marco should his first attempt not work would not be needed. Rose Hill had a weak spot, and he had found it: she was a bleeding heart. She was leaking empathy from every pore.
Zac felt no compunction about exploiting this weakness, and he doubted he would be the first to do so. It was not his business how many men had found their way into her bed via a hard-luck story, not that he was heading for her bed...or even his conveniently close desk, he reminded himself.
Marco would never forgive him.
‘However, the fact that I am moving to Greece complicates the situation.’
‘Greece!’she exclaimed, unaware of the wistful expression on her face as she immediately imagined the romance of white sand, blue sea and bluer skies, ancient history.
Zac could almost see her heart racing beneath her denim jacket. Under the layers he imagined her skin warm and smooth, only for a second but long enough to make him impatient with his lack of control and the cause of it.
‘Have you ever been there?’
