AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Don’t look so worried, Jac. I doubt he even noticed I’m female.’ She remembered a glitter in his dark eyes before they were shielded by his lashes and wondered...
‘That’s the sweet thing about you, Rose.’
Rose’s smile became fixed. To her way of thinking, when people said‘sweet’they meant‘boring’.
‘You have no idea that you’re gorgeous.’
Rose’s fleeting irritation became embarrassment. ‘I’m excited—it’s a fantastic opportunity,’ she said, steering the conversation into less personal channels.
‘Just be careful.’
‘Careful?’
‘Our boss, he’s the big fish, a classic Great White, all teeth and no conscience. He can be charming, but—’
‘I didn’t rate his charm,’ Rose cut in, her nose wrinkling as she added, ‘and I may besweet—’ her lips moved in a moue of distaste ‘—but I’m not dim. I know what he is...but then who wouldn’t be a bit up themselves if they looked in the mirror every day and saw that face?’ An image of the fascinating angles and strong planes floated through her mind. What would it feel—She cancelled the rogue line of thought before it progressed into dangerous territory. ‘But honestly, Jac, if Iwaslooking, which I’m not,’ she tacked on hastily.
‘Why the hell not? Is it that ratbag Sutton? Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rose, don’t let him put you off men.’
‘No, of course not.’ The Andy Sutton incident was not one of the finer moments in life, but in the scheme of things it hadn’t been a big enough deal totraumatiseher. She had even managed to laugh about it with Jac the Monday after the dinner party from hell. ‘He blanked me the other day, you know.’
‘Rat...slime ball.’
Rose laughed. ‘I opened my mouth to say hello and he walked straight past as if I wasn’t there.’
‘What a total...’ Jac growled.
‘Well, I did embarrass him—his face when he saw I was wearing jeans and a tee shirt! They were mybestjeans, and the tee shirt did have sequins.’ She gave a small gurgle of laughter, though it hadn’t seemed funny at the time. ‘A casual dinner, he said.’ Which turned out to mean one step down from black tie—the women had all been done up to the nines in designer dresses.
‘He let you make your own way home in that rain.’
‘I’m a big girl, Jac, and honest it’s not because of him I’m not looking. If there is someone out there for me, I’ll meet him and if not?’ Her slender shoulders lifted, causing the bag slung across one shoulder to slip down her arm.
‘Oh, my God, you’re a romantic!’ Jac despaired. ‘Prince Charming doesn’t come knocking on your door, you have to put yourself out there. All right,’ she added, folding her arms across her generous breasts. ‘So what would you be looking for, should you be looking.’
‘Well, not a pretty face...’
Or even a beautiful one.
She blinked. The face that floated into her head was all angles, carved planes and intriguing hollows, and the effort it took to banish it made her scowl, her annoyance aimed at herself for allowing him space in her mind for free.
‘And,’ she continued, retrieving her thread, ‘I’d like someone who can laugh at themselves.’ She arched a satiric brow and heaved her bag more firmly on her shoulder. ‘Can you see the Gorgeous Great White laughing at himself? Yeah, GGW. I like it.’
Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she groaned and lifted a hand to her fiery head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me to run a comb through my hair before I went up—’ She stopped dead, her heart throwing off an extra thud before it promptly sank into the region of her trainers—hers wasn’t the only face she saw reflected there.
Her life didn’t flash before her eyes but every word of the exchange did.
‘I would have knocked but the instruction seemed quite clear,’ the GGW said, displaying his white even teeth.
The older woman leapt as if shot. Rose flinched. The guilty looks they exchanged gave him a certain satisfaction. It was not an ego-enhancing experience to hear yourself calleda pretty face who was a bit up himself. Or that he was thelastman Rose would be looking for. Luckily Zac’s ego was pretty robust, although had the situation been different he might have enjoyed making Rose Hill eat her words.
His smile was, Rose decided, cruel. She couldn’t understand why women went for bad boys. Not that he was a boy, he was all man... While she waited for the floor to open up at her feet the worddangerousfloated through her head.
When the floor didn’t open she fought the childish urge to close her eyes and become invisible—it had worked when she was five. Jac was no help. She appeared to have been struck dumb by shock. It made Rose feel slightly better to see she wasn’t the only one who became a basket around this man.
Rose took a deep breath and did the only thing possible in the circumstances—she acted as if he hadn’t heard a word they’d said. There was an outside possibility he hadn’t, but if he had then that was his fault forlurking.
‘I was just explaining to Jac about my temporary placement.’ She glanced at Jac and hesitated. Despite Jac’s admittedly cautious enthusiasm, she was probably thinking of the staffing headache that Rose’s absence would cause when she went swanning off to Greece.
