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Worst case scenario would be... Hmm, well, that would be what he was doing now. Closing his eyes, then bolt-opening them as though he’d seen something horrific behind his eyelids. Smiling like he was trying not to throw up. Agreeing with her, “Yeah, jet lag’s a bitch.” And then reaching past her to close the door with the air of a guy who’d dislocate his own arm if necessary to avoid contact with her.
About the only good thing to be said for such a response was that he was obviously intent on ignoring her momentary lapse into oversexed insanity—praise the Lord!
She bent to fiddle with the clasp on her briefcase, buying herself a minute to recover, reassuring herself that all she really had to do to get past this episode of utter mortification was not thrust her hips at him like a nymphomaniac again. Should be easy enough: she’d had ten years’ practice pretending not to lust after him.
Fixing a smile on her face, she took her briefcase by the handle and straightened—and if she was daunted to find that Matt had taken himself out of touching range, presumably for his own safety, at least she had enough self-control to keep smiling.
“We’ll talk in the library,” Matt said, looking at her right eyebrow. “Through here.” And he opened a door to the left of the entrance hall and fled.
Romy dropped her briefcase again—and her smile with it—covering her face with her hands to trap the groan she just couldn’t keep inside. She wasn’t sure she’d cope if he started addressing all his remarks to her eyebrows. Deep breaths. More deep breaths. Phew. She slowly lowered her hands—and then drew in a few more deep breaths as she finally noticed the grandeur of her surroundings, which were definitely in the mansion-not-a-house category.
The floors were a chocolatey-dark wood, the walls painted low-sheen gold. Two impressive staircases curved their way to an upper floor. Behind and between the staircases were two massively proportioned doors, closing off what she presumed was the living area. To the right was a door matching the one Matt had gone through to get to the library.
She tilted back her head, expecting to find a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and even when that was exactly what she found, she couldn’t quite believe it. All that was missing was a gigantic vase of exotic flowers on a marble table and Matt’s entrance hall would rival the lobby of the five-star hotel she was staying in. Her entire flat, with its jammed-together living, dining and kitchen areas, would fit into this one space.
She tried to imagine the library, using this as an example, and decided she couldn’t actually get past the fact that Matt had a library. He only read ebooks! How did an e-reader require an entire room?
Of course, Matt had only moved in a week ago; the first she’d heard he was even looking for a place was when he’d emailed her three days after her fateful phone call, asking what he’d need to set up his new kitchen. So the library was probably just an empty room waiting to be repurposed. Or maybe it was nothing but a grandly named study housing a desk, a couple of chairs and his computer paraphernalia. Because libraries weren’t Matt’s style. Libraries were what the Teague Hamiltons and Veronica Johnsons of the world had in their homes. And not because Teague and Veronica were any more loaded than Matt—by his twenty-seventh birthday last year Matt had made a fortune selling the online payment software he and Artie (his partner in all things geek) had built while still at college. It was more that where Teague and Veronica carried the suggestion of the bred-in-the-bone wealth that went with stately homes, self-made Matt was just Matt. He still drove a beaten-up Toyota, still wore Levi’s, T-shirts and Vans when barefoot wasn’t an option, still drank Sam Adams.
A curse floated out to her through the doorway on the left, followed by a thud.
Ha! And he still swore like a sailor and had the patience of a gnat.
She reached up a hand to pat at her hair. Took off her overcoat and gave her dress a more thorough brush down. Adjusted the silicon-lined band at the top of one of her thick black thigh-high socks, which had slid down half an inch. Re-pasted her smile. Picked up her briefcase.
Showtime.
