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lashed the gears under his critical stare.
By the time she had manoeuvred into one of the unmarked empty spaces and carefully locked the car, Marcus had parked the Volvo and was standing talking with his daughter. As she approached they both turned.
‘Nicola tells me that you were so busy shopping, you didn’t get time to eat.’
‘No…well, we’re going to send out for some sand’ wiches from the office,’ said Harriet, casting a reproachful look at the girl. But she couldn’t really blame Nicola. Apart from having first call on her loyalty, Marcus Fox was an expert in worming things out of people!
‘I have a better idea. I haven’t eaten yet either, so why don’t we have a quick lunch together now and make up the extra time by working a little longer this evening? Deal?’
She might have known that any deal-making didn’t include her, brooded Harriet darkly a bare ten minutes later as she perused a large menu.
Like father like daughter, she thought, frowning over the top of her menu at the pair ranged against her on the other side of the small, elegantly set table.
Nicola might be shy and retiring, but she possessed a strong will and, having got what she wanted—lunch with her father—she had blossomed into a delightful chatterbox. From little things she had said over the past couple of days, Harriet was beginning to suspect that Nicola didn’t not want to go to school so much as she wanted to spend more time with her busy father…and the only way to do that was to invade the separate world of his workplace. Escaping her daunting grandmother’s rigid supervision also probably had something to do with her sudden desire for a job, and she was clever enough to have realised that the most logical thing for her highly protective father to do when faced with such a request was to tuck her safely away under his corporate care.
Oh, yes, in her own quiet way Nicola Fox was as adept at manipulating events to her advantage as was her father. It was probably genetic! When Marcus had said that his daughter was mature for her age Harriet had mistakenly jumped to the conclusion that he had been referring to her over-eagerness for social and sexual development. Instead he had been warning her to expect a mini-adult. Harriet would have to pull her socks up if she was going to avoid being further entangled in their family intrigues. She was supposed to be a queen on the chessboard of life, not a sacrificial pawn.
‘Hungry?’ asked Marcus, looking up from his menu to catch Harriet’s muted glare.
She lowered the menu to show him her teeth. ‘Ravenous!’
‘Good. You look as if a puff of wind would blow you over. Soup to start with, and then something more substantial, don’t you think?’
‘Mmm, I’m starving!’ said Nicola, triggering a pang of guilt in Harriet at her thoughtlessness in brushing aside the younger girl’s comments about finding something to eat during their shopping spree.
‘It’s too hot for soup,’ she announced contrarily, having been eyeing the description of the mouth-watering soup of the day. She rapidly skimmed down the prices, seeking the most expensive items on a very expensive menu.
She had to pay him back somehow for contriving to torture her with his company! At the restaurant that he had whisked them off to yesterday, Harriet had been too embarrassed by the memory of herself crying in his lap to do anything but pick at the omelette that she had distractedly ordered. Marcus had been infuriatingly relaxed and natural, refusing to leave her out of the conversation, so that, for Nicola’s sake, she had had to talk and smile and act as if she were perfectly comfortable lunching with the chairman of the board.
It had been the first time that she had spoken with him since he had kissed her on her doorstep, and Harriet had had great difficulty in keeping her eyes away from his mouth, suddenly seeing sensuality where before she had noticed only sternness. Marcus had claimed that he had wanted to allow Nicola a full day to settle in before he formally celebrated her new job by squiring her to lunch, but Harriet had wondered whether he had waited to be sure that she wasn’t going to presume too much on a casual kiss now regretted. As if she would! The modern, free-thinking woman dispensed such favours like candy.
She glowered at the menu. So what if his kiss had been the equivalent of Belgian chocolate on the candyscale? That was merely because so far she only had boiled sweets with which to compare it. She wasn’t going to let one disastrous evening put her off. Yesterday she had allowed him to tie her into knots worrying about what he was thinking and what he thought she was thinking. Today she didn’t care!
‘Harriet?’ She looked up to find the waiter standing patiently beside her, as he had obviously been for some time. Marcus leaned across to run a kind finger along the top of her menu. ‘Would you like me to explain anything for you?’
Now he was implying that she was too unsophisticated to understand restaurant French. It was about time he forgot her pathetic performance of the other night and learned to respect her toughness!
‘Yes,’ she said crisply. ‘You can explain why men complain about the talkativeness of women but insist on interpreting their thoughtful silences as helpless confusion.’ Harriet snapped her menu closed and reeled off her exorbitant choices, her eyes directly challenging his.
She was immensely gratified when he was the first to look away. His lids fell, his long black lashes concealing his expression as he looked down at his menu. A tiny compression of his mouth a few seconds later was the only hint that he realised what she had done.
‘Wow! Are you really going to eat all that?’ said Nicola, impressed, as she gave the waiter her small order with a shy smile.
‘Of course she is,’ commented Marcus, neatly cutting off any thought of a dignified retreat. ‘Harriet is a woman governed by her appetites. Just the soup of the day and the grilled fish, thank you, Sean.’ He handed the menu back without taking his eyes off Harriet’s flushed face. ‘Isn’t that right, Harriet?’
‘The soup and the fish?’ She deliberately misunderstood. ‘You’d know that better than I, since you obviously come here often.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You called the waiter by name.’
‘He was wearing a name-tag,’ said Marcus blandly. ‘Didn’t you notice?’
No. Of course she hadn’t! Marcus Fox had a habit of narrowing down her range of focus to a dangerous extent. She made great play of looking around her now, pretending an interest in the other diners that she didn’t feel. Several men caught her eye and she gave them each the bold hint of a smile and immediately felt better. She picked up the wine list that Marcus was ignoring and leafed idly through it.
‘I know something that you haven’t noticed,’ she heard Nicola say.
‘Oh, and what’s that?’ Her father instantly turned all his attention to her. ‘That you’ve spent your first paycheque before you’ve even earned it? How like a woman!’
