For His Eyes Only by Liz Fielding Page B

‘That way you can put your name on the side and use it as free advertising. Sell the house and I’ll design you a logo.’
    Things were safer than feelings...
    ‘If I sell the house,’ she pointed out, ‘I won’t need one.’
    ‘If you sell the house, Natasha, you won’t need to work for anyone else. It won’t only be eager estate agents, and horny men pining for you, but desperate vendors who’ll be beating a path to your door.’
    ‘Thanks, but self-employment doesn’t figure in my five-year career plan.’
    ‘I think we’ve established that right now you don’t have a career or a plan.’
    ‘The career is temporarily on hold. The plan is a work in progress,’ she said and, as if to underline the fact that—perks notwithstanding—this was strictly business, she offered him her hand.
    Despite the danger to his simmering libido, he was unable to resist taking it. Small, soft, with perfectly groomed nails, it lay like a touch of velvet against his clay-roughened palm evoking X-rated thoughts and he needed to get her out of his studio before common sense went to hell in a hand basket.
    ‘Please go,’ he said.
    Her lips parted as if she was going to say something. Clearly she thought better of it and, having opened the door, she stepped through into the street and closed it behind her without another word.
    He slipped the latch before Patsy decided to pop in and give him the third degree, leaning his forehead against it while he called the estate executor to update him on the situation.
    Brian Ramsey spluttered and protested at the inappropriateness of allowing Natasha access to the house, but Darius cut him short.
    ‘You chose Morgan and Black to handle the sale. They messed up,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll do it my way. Please make sure that Gary Webb is available tomorrow to let her in.’
    ‘Mr Webb is on sick leave and really, in the light of recent events, I have to insist that Miss Gordon is accompanied by someone responsible. Tell her that if she comes in the office later this week I’ll check the diary and see when someone is available.’
    Oh, right. Next month some time. Maybe. This was the man who’d conspired with his grandfather to ensure that a Hadley remained at the Chase for another generation.
    ‘What’s the matter with Gary?’ he asked.
    ‘He had a fall.’
    * * *
    Tash walked away on legs that were all over the place, her stomach churning with every kind of emotion imaginable.
    She needed to sit down. Needed coffee. Ice cream...
    For heaven’s sake, she was a grown-up and smart enough to know that leaping on a man you barely knew was never going to end well, especially when it was supposed to be strictly business. Especially when her entire life plan depended on it being strictly business.
    What on earth had she been thinking?
    Scratch that. No one had been thinking, least of all her. Apparently she still wasn’t because she couldn’t wait for the return match and next time she’d have more than cake in her bag...
    She was grinning, helplessly, at the thought when her phone began to ring. She checked the number, ultra cautious since her name had been plastered all over the evening papers. Journalists might believe that she was safely tucked up out of harm’s way in the Fairview where they couldn’t get at her, but it hadn’t stopped them trying her number, leaving sympathetic messages, wanting her side of the story. As if she was going to fall for that.
    It wasn’t a journalist. It was Darius.
    ‘Text me your address,’ he said, before her brain could unscramble itself and deliver a simple hello.
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘The caretaker is in hospital and the legal lot insist that you’re accompanied by a responsible adult.’
    ‘That’s very, um, responsible of them.’ She’d bet the house that wasn’t all they’d said. They would have had a dozen good reasons why he should pull out of their deal. Given a minute, she could probably come up with at least that many