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“How about I got held up by the shoe police for wearing such ugly shoes and to avoid being arrested I had to wear these?”
“You’re pushing your luck.” The corners of his mouth twitched, in total contrast to the frown marring his brow. “I told you to wear appropriate footwear today.”
Unable to contain her laughter a second longer, she chuckled and slid the pumps out of her bag. “Relax, Professor, I was just teasing you.”
His lips stilled and his expression darkened. “Like last night?”
Surprised he’d brought up the kiss, she perched on the edge of an overstuffed chair and swapped shoes. “Don’t sweat it. I hope you didn’t lose any sleep over what happened. I certainly didn’t.”
Checking out her shoes and wrinkling her nose at the come-down, she thrust the purple sandals into her bag and looked up at him from beneath her mascara-ed lashes. “As sensational as the kiss was, it’s not worth losing sleep over. So, what did you want to see me about?”
She watched male pride war with indignation, knowing he’d be torn between discussing her flattery further and wanting to forget the kiss ever happened.
Sadly, it looked like his common sense kicked in and he walked around his desk and took a seat in an imposing leather chair that looked as uncomfortable as the one she sat on.
“There’s been a change of plans.”
He picked up a piece of expensive ivory paper that looked suspiciously like her CV and rattled it in her direction.
“I know you were going to spend the first few weeks conducting tours in the Australiana gallery predominantly, and helping out with organising a few workshops to familiarize yourself with the museum, but I need you to do more.”
The bubble of happiness that sustained her through most days popped as the implication of his words sunk in. It had been hard work swotting up on all the info required to take tours of one gallery, imagine how much time she’d have to invest for more. And what with organising paperwork for the lease and completing her latest sculpture…this wasn’t good.
He continued, oblivious to her escalating tension. “I think the quickest way to get you up to speed is to throw you in the deep end, and what with the flu bug hitting us hard at the moment and staff going down almost daily, I want you to take on the Aboriginal Centre and the Science gallery too.”
Great. She may need this job to obtain the lease on her own gallery but what would be the point if she didn’t have any pieces to fill it? She needed time to sculpt, but learning about these new areas of the museum at night meant she wouldn’t have a free moment.
She’d have to tell him.
But what about her ‘you can trust me I’ll be the best damn tour guide you’ve ever seen’ spiel she’d given him last night? If she backed down now and said she couldn’t do it, would he chalk it up as another mark against her, or worse, fire her?
Clutching her bag to her chest, somewhat comforted by the stab of stiletto through the soft leather, she tried to think up with a quick-fire response. However, before she could come up with anything suitable, he handed her a bulging folder.
“Here. I know it’s a lot to take in but I need you up to scratch ASAP. You’ll find information on those two galleries in here.”
“When would you like me to start taking tours in the new galleries?”
“Tomorrow.”
His direct stare unnerved her more than his unreasonable timeframe. For a fairly straightforward ‘what you see is what you get’ type of guy, his eyes glittered with triumph, as if he knew she couldn’t fulfil her professional promise and had called her on it.
Floundering for something characteristically witty to say and coming up lacking, she gripped her bag tighter and opted for partial honesty.
“I appreciate your faith in me but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, what with getting used to the one gallery, acquainting myself with the layout and staff and—”
“Either you can do it or you can’t.” He cut her off, his tone razor sharp and brooking no argument. “And if you can’t…well, I guess we’d have to re-evaluate your contract.”
Damn him. The laid back, sexy guy from last night had morphed back into the powerful CEO and she didn’t like the change one bit.
As for threatening to fire her…no way she’d let that happen. Losing this job wasn’t an option. And the potential fallout for Lana if she got retrenched…no, she couldn’t even think about letting her cousin down.
“Of course I can do it.”
Squaring her shoulders, she released her death grip on her bag, knowing she’d have to do some quick thinking to come up with a workable solution to this doozy of a problem. She may have a photographic memory but cramming in a folder’s worth of tour guide expertise in one night would be impossible.
And Aidan would know it.
With a mental ‘duh’ it hit her. This was a test.
