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The woman with the snooty attitude and the blonde hair pretended not to see her as she walked past so Rose returned the compliment and promptly felt silly and petty, but she didn’t feel up to taking the high ground.
The first loo she saw she ducked inside, glad there were no executive types to stare at her. She went over to the vanity basins, and after a face-to-face confrontation with her pale-faced, wild-haired self in the mirror she made sure not to repeat the experience as she balanced her bag on the edge of the washbasin and rummaged through the contents, which was always an adventure in itself. She gave a small grunt of triumph as she found a strip of bog-standard painkillers in one of the zipped compartments, not her prescription meds for migraine but hopefully it would fend off an attack, or at least slow down the inevitable.
Rose swallowed them without water, contemplating as she choked on them a little the result if she walked back into Zac Adamos’s office and told him she’d changed her mind... Had she changed her mind?
Rose sighed. She was not a ‘jump in without thinking through the consequences’ sort of person. It was just so unlike her to make a decision without reading the small print.
‘It’s only a few weeks,’ she told her reflection, then frowned as she realised she didn’t know how many. ‘You might enjoy it.’
She sighed and thought, And now I’m talking to myself! Not a good start. The mockery faded from her eyes as she thought of the start in life the baby had. She struggled to see Zac Adamos as a hands-on parent. The poor little scrap would probably go straight from nannies to boarding school.
Catching herself in the act of inventing a scenario that cast the tall Greek in a poor light just because she didn’t like the man, Rose felt a stab of unease. She didn’t normally think the worst of people, and this Greece project showed he was making an effort. It must be hard. He’d tragically lost friends and found himself with a ready-made family, and being a single parent was not easy, even for someone with limitless funds, a category her boss fell into. But, obscenely rich or not, you couldn’t buy the support that came from having a partner to share parental responsibilities.
Or maybe you could? Rose was sure that any number of those leggy beauties he squired—or, more accurately, had sex with—would be happy to co-parent if it involved having a big rock on her finger.
Knowing she was being uncharitable but unable to stop the catty thoughts, Rose exited the loo, passing a couple of elegant women as she did so. They stared but she barely noticed. Her tangled thoughts left no space in her head for anything else.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEELUSIVESCENT—something flowery but not sweet—lingered in the office after she had left. The attraction was there, so he would acknowledge it.
As if he had much option, considering he was still semi aroused!
Acknowledge and move on, even without Marco’s red line. Zac would never act upon it. The charming, serene princess’s twin was the sort of woman he avoided, the sort of woman who did not consider sex a physical transaction.
He was pretty sure the redhead was into deep and meaningful. It was written all over her. In short she wasexactlythe sort of woman his mother hoped he would meet.
Having sorted out where she fitted in the scheme of things, he felt more comfortable, his boundaries back in place. Obviously he would need to be in her company but only to observe...that was after all what Marco wanted.No touching, Zac.
Thinking of his friend, he contacted Marco to give him a progress report.
‘So she’ll be living under your roof? That’s ideal.’
To Zac it was not. To have a woman who was the mirror image of one whose identical lips he had never fantasised about tasting, crushing, but was out of bounds was not at all ideal in his book. Painful, yes.
‘First impressions, Marco...’ The impression he intended to pass on to his friend would obviously have some exclusions. Marco might not be happy if Zac included the fact that the woman he was assessing was a living, breathing threat to any man’s sexual control. ‘For what it’s worth I don’t think you have anything to worry about.’
‘You don’t think there’s any danger to Kate? Her father came across as very plausible...’
Danger.The only person that he could see Miss Rose Hill being a danger to, other than his libido, was herself. But what did he know? Maybe it was an act, maybe she had learnt the skill of deception from her father—the negotiating her bonus down might just be a clever ruse... He had been the target of women before, perhaps it was all an act to get his attention...?
On the other hand, she might be determinednotto be her father. Or had she inherited the flaws of her parent?
Was the fear always there in the back of her mind that she might have inherited the genetic fingerprint of her father?No, Zac, that’s you, mocked the voice in his head.
‘First impressions, Marco, I can’t see inside her head, but she doesn’t come across as a con artist, but then,’ he conceded, ‘I suppose really good ones don’t.’
‘Sorry if I sound—’
‘Paranoid? No offence. I understand.’ Except of course he didn’t. He had never felt protective in that way about any woman in his life aside from his mother, not even come close, but then all the women that drifted in and out of his life could look after themselves.
Marco’s tired-sounding laugh echoed down the line. ‘None taken and Iamvery grateful, I don’t want to risk—’
‘How is Kate?’
The rest of their conversation, which Zac brought to a close by inventing an urgent appointment, concerned the health of Marco’s wife and her seeming perfection, which made Zac imagine her twin wearing the sort of priceless bling around her neck that the princess did. Rose wasn’t wearing anything else except her glorious hair and the sultry smile of invitation he had not seen but had imagined curving her plump lips.
As he stood gazing out at the City panorama, the imaginary image in his head lingered.
