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‘Leave the little tyke alone. He’s probably still sore that he missed the final free throw the last time he played and lost his team the game…’
Kalera sighed as the challenge lingered in the air, and sure enough there followed a long series of scuffling sounds and numerous muffled thumps and shouts and then a whooping sound of victory. She hid a smile when Duncan returned, slicking back his ruffled black mane, a faint sheen of perspiration on his brow, his chest heaving slightly under his T-shirt.
‘I thought you went out there to break it up, not to encourage their unruliness,’ she said, handing him another rejection letter to sign.
He met her chiding gaze with a rueful grin. ‘If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em,’ he said, signing with an extravagant flourish.
‘One day you’re going to be goaded into a challenge you can’t win,’ she told him.
‘I’m as gracious in defeat as I am in victory,’ he said, and laughed at her incredulous look. ‘All right, so I rage and sulk and throw things…but I’m quick to get over it.’
And so he was, she mused. His tantrums were always brief because there was invariably another idea bubbling up from the depths of his genius to seize hold of his imagination and divert his boundless energies into setting himself a fresh challenge.
The broad band of blue sky outside the tinted window had turned to rose and then to red-gold and then deep indigo before Duncan finally looked at his watch and threw down his pen. ‘Goodness, is it that time already?’
‘How time flies when you’re having fun,’ said Kalera drily as she placed the last of the—to her, incomprehensible—‘Janet and John’ files for Bryan Eastman into the safe-quality lockable drawer in Duncan’s desk and handed him the key.
As far as she could see, most of what they had done tonight could have easily waited until the next morning and once Duncan had found out that she didn’t have a date with Stephen for him to ruin it had only been his stubborn refusal to admit to his ulterior motive that made him insist that they work this late. At least she felt she had gained some kind of victory in their subtle battle of wills by pretending to be oblivious to the passage of time, forcing him to be the first to cry a halt, but now her rumbling stomach
betrayed the fact that it was well past her usual dinner time.
‘Hungry?’
In view of her audible digestive system a reply was unnecessary, she thought grumpily, so she countered with a wary question of her own. ‘Are we finished?’ she queried, in case he merely intended suggesting a break to send out to his favourite restaurant to deliver them a gourmet meal.
Although she had accepted the perk as no less than her due whenever they had worked long hours in her pre-engagement days, now the idea of sharing an exquisitely prepared culinary experience for two in the hushed confines of the deserted office suddenly seemed dangerously intimate. Although there were doubtless still a few other night owls scattered through Labyrinth’s network of offices working their own form of glide time, she felt very much alone with Duncan—on his turf and his terms.
Duncan was looking at her with that slightly dreamy, absorbed look of concentration that made her scalp tingle and her skin feel too tight for her body. A look that shared secrets and probed beneath the calm, practical façade which she had adopted to protect herself from an unpredictable world. It beckoned to rebel elements in her nature which she’d thought she had safely subdued but which were showing a nasty tendency to slip their leash and make a mockery of her efforts to embark on a serene life of placid contentment with the man of her choice.
‘I guess so—as far as work is concerned, anyway.’ Now his deep, gravelly voice seemed to have developed the ability to insinuate itself into her pores and set up a sympathetic vibration along her nerves that made her quiver like a tuning fork.
He stood up and switched off the desk lamp which had augmented the overhead lighting. ‘Come on.’ He hooked up the battered black leather bomber jacket from the back of his chair with a casual finger and slung it over his shoulder. ‘You must be tired as well as hungry by now. I’ll take you out for a bite to eat before you drive home—it’s the least I can do when you’ve been such a trooper. I can ring the brasserie across the road for a reservation—’
‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head so violently that a hairpin dislodged from the sleek French twist and a feather-fine wisp of slippery gold hair drifted down over her breast. She hurriedly scooped it up and repositioned the pin. She was feeling light-headed but she had an inkling that it wasn’t from hunger! Murky suspicion swam up from the depths of her brain as she mentally pictured the small, trendy restaurant with its romantic, candlelit tables—mostly for two. No one could expect to get in there on Friday night…unless he already had a reservation. ‘Really, it’s not necessary.’
‘Actually, it is. Under union rules I have to provide you with a meal when your working hours are extended beyond twelve without at least twenty-four hours’ notice.’
Kalera, who hadn’t even known that she belonged to a union, regarded him with thinly veiled disbelief.
‘I really don’t feel like eating out.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said, swiftly conquering a flare of impatience. He had waited this long; he could endure the torment of her wilful ignorance a little longer. ‘But we both need food, preferably with something more nourishing than a snack or greasy take-away, and I certainly don’t feel like scratching around in the kitchen at this hour…’
‘Well, I do,’ she said contrarily. ‘I’ve got a well-stocked fridge and once I get home it won’t take me long to whip up something hot and filling—’
‘Mmm, that sounds like a wonderful idea!’ said Duncan, seizing on her words with frank delight. ‘I can’t remember the last time anyone offered me any genuine home cooking—the jaded café society set seems to prefer eating out. Why don’t you leave first, and I’ll follow you home in my car…?’
Astounded by his audacity, Kalera opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t been issuing an invitation.
‘Harry used to boast about what a good cook you were,’ he continued confidingly. ‘Did you know that your recipes were part of his golf-coaching technique? When I was rampaging through the rough and tearing my way from bunker to bunker Harry used to try and calm me down between shots by telling me about the exotic dishes you’d cooked up from some new book or other. He used to get quite poetic about it. Harry certainly loved his food.’
Kalera smiled at the amusing glimpse into their singular friendship. ‘He did, didn’t he?’ Her defences slipped another notch. ‘He always bought me a cookbook on our anniversary,’ she remembered.
‘Your Harry was a very subtle man.’
‘Do you think so?’ She felt a little jolt of surprise at his undoubted admiration. As far as she was concerned Harry, although quiet and thoughtful, had always been a very straightforward person. ‘He gave me cookbooks because he knew I enjoyed trying new recipes; what’s so subtle about that?’
‘He gave you cookbooks because he liked to eat exotic foods and didn’t like to cook.’ Duncan grinned. ‘Dear, unassuming Harry was one of the most astute judges of people I’ve ever met—I take my hat off to his magnificent ability to quietly get his own way while keeping everyone else around him happily preoccupied with their lesser lot!’
