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She stepped out smartly, not slowing even when her thigh muscles began to complain and burn. That was about the same time that she realised this arrangement gave him a very good view of her bottom. He was probably comparing it unfavourably with the innumerable curvaceous bottoms he knew intimately.
She glanced suspiciously over her shoulder and he smiled back innocently.
‘You’d be insulted if I wasn’t.’
Turning back, she stomped her way up the rest of the steps at a breakneck speed that reduced her legs to jelly by the time she reached the top, where she promptly forgot her aching legs.
‘Oh, my goodness, this is...’ She looked around, too enchanted to maintain her icy distance as she smiled. The swimming pool they were standing beside was built into the section of roof and surrounded by a terrace filled with lush greenery. It was stunning in itself, but it was the most spectacular view across the capital and out to sea that was truly breathtaking.
‘This is your office?’ she asked, thinking,Nice work if you can get it.
His lips twitched. ‘No, but it does have access to my office. This way.’ He opened a door that was partially concealed behind a classical statue of a bare-chested woman being ravished by someone Marco was probably distantly related to.
This time she followed him down the internal staircase and proved her moral superiority by not looking at his bottom, or not much.
‘Take a seat.’
She looked around. There were options aside from the modern-looking chair behind the massive desk that was empty bar from a few monitor screens, an Anglepoise lamp and a photo, of what or who she couldn’t see from where she was standing, but if the gallery of snaps on the wall of exposed stone were any indication they were of Freya. Or maybe his late wife. There were none of her on the wall, which seemed...None of your business, Kate.
The other two walls were covered floor to ceiling in bookshelves where the books werenotcolour coordinated, and a surreptitious glance at the spines suggested the collection was eclectic. The last wall was taken up by open leaded windows set in a deep stone embrasure that offered a view almost as good as the one from the pool.
She stood there for a moment feeling awkward before she selected one of the leather chesterfields and sat down.
‘I’m just going to change into something less comfortable.’ He flashed her one of his enigmatic smiles and vanished.
If he’d returned thirty seconds earlier, he would have found Kate studying the gallery of framed photos that covered one wall, trying to work out why a man who had this amount of photos was so physically absent from his daughter’s life, but when he did emerge she had retaken her seat and was sitting with her hands primly folded in her lap.
His quick change had obviously included a shower. She could smell soap and shampoo mingled with his clean, inimitable personal scent as he walked past her to the desk.
His hair, wet and slicked back, curling on his neck, caught the light shining in from the window as he propped his denim-clad rear on the desk top and stretched his long legs out in front of him. His attitude was a match for the navy shirt, the sleeves of which he’d rolled up to reveal his sinewed bronzed forearms. He wore a pair of faded jeans that clung to his thighs in a way that made her tummy muscles quiver. All the laid-back designer casual contrasted starkly with the steely gaze he pinned her with—no casual there.
The moment stretched beyond what was polite, but then he clearly didn’t think the normal social rules applied to him. He made his own rules.
‘You look guilty. What have you been up to...?’ Then, ignoring his own question, he spread his hands, palms up. ‘So, what was so important?’
CHAPTER SIX
KATETOOKAdeep breath and tried to organise her thoughts into some sort of coherence.
One long finger had started tapping the polished surface of his desk. ‘You have my attention.’
Which was part of the problem. His unblinking regard was unsettling. It was those eyes; she shook away the crazy idea that he could read her mind and cleared her throat, wondering if he had a timer going and any minute he’d look at his watch and say,That’s it for today.
Or was that a therapist?
‘It’s about Freya.’
He did the brow thing again, his growing impatience communicating itself across the intervening space.
‘Did my...?’ Hesitating, she lifted her eyes from her contemplation of her interwoven fingers. ‘Did the previous nanny ever mention Freya’s reading?’
‘She did say that it is very advanced for her age.’
‘Ah...right. Well, her language is certainly extremely advanced for her age, and I can see how it might have looked to someone that her reading was too,’ she said tactfully.
‘Lookedthat way?’ He shook his head and rose to his feet, towering over her, his eyes watchful and not friendly.
She’d seen defensive parents before but not as beautiful as him, none that made her tummy muscles quiver. None that had kissed her.
