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‘Go to bed, Anna. You are the guest.’
Escape seemed a better option than arguing or suggesting he didn’t know how to stack a dishwasher.
‘Last door on the right,’ he said in response to her questioning look.
‘Right, then, goodnight.’
‘Sleep well, Anna,’ he called after her.
Anna didn’t expect to sleep at all. Maybe it was the room’s cool Scandi-blonde vibe or her total exhaustion, but she slept a solid dreamless seven hours and woke wondering where she was.
The blissful amnesia didn’t last long. Rolling out of bed, she sat on the edge—she had slept in her bra and panties—and hid her face in her hands for a full indulgent thirty seconds before she remembered she had never got around to contacting her mum.
No one picked up, not exactly a shock, so she left a text before having a look to see what was going on in the world. Only to discover she was!
She was reeling from the level of her exposure when she noticed the missed calls and the texts.
The university expressed great regret, but they apparently had a duty of care to their students and their reputation to consider so, after due consideration, they had decided to rescind their offer.
It took her a few moments to overcome the waves of nausea before she was able to grab the robe from behind the door. Still tying it, she headed straight to the living area where Soren, wearing a towel wrapped around his middle, was drinking coffee.
Shock nailed her to the spot as she took in his broad shoulders, the deeply tanned, perfect, lean musculature of his torso, his long hair-roughened legs and impressive powerful thighs.
All he needed was a mythical hammer, and he could have been mistaken for the Viking god who wielded it.
‘Oh, no!’ she groaned. Shock seemed to have temporarily paralysed the self-censoring area of her brain. ‘Get some clothes on, please!’
‘Good morning, Anna.’
There not being an option of a convenient black hole opening up at her feet, she ignored the sardonic mockery in his voice and the wicked gleam in his heavily lidded eyes.
‘Is the job offer still there?’
His grin vanished, replaced by a hard calculating look. ‘It is.’
‘Good, then I’ll take it. Oh, and, yes, you were right: no job. Apparently I am a danger to students!’ She gave a shrill little bitter laugh. ‘But I need to speak with the clinic first, and the offer of clothes—order a few and I’ll pay you back for them.’
His lips twitched. ‘I’ll take it from your first pay cheque,’ he promised.
‘But the flight, will there be time...?’
‘The new wardrobe will arrive in...ten minutes.’
‘You knew I’d change my mind,’ she accused.
‘I was confident that you would see the advantages of the arrangement,’ he corrected smoothly. ‘Help yourself to coffee, the croissants are still warm, and I will go to put some clothes on.’
By the time Anna had showered a pile of boxes and bags lay on her bed along with a set of empty designer cases.
She stood there staring at them, shocked at the sheer quantity—this was no one’s idea of a capsule wardrobe—while Soren yelled through the closed door.
‘Just pick out something for travelling and dump the rest in the cases,’ he suggested. ‘I need to attend to a few things. Alberto will pick you up and bring you to the airport. Oh, and, Anna, he has instructions not to take you to the clinic even if you beg. The press have the place staked out.’
Did anyone ever say no to him? she wondered, tipping the contents of one of the bags onto the bed. The slither of colourful silk turned out to be several matching bra and panties sets...in the right size.
As the pile of items grew it became clear that there was more than a year’s salary worth of designer clothes lying there, including two ball gowns that were not something a librarian wore, and she hadn’t got to the line of shoeboxes yet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
