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She was still pale, and she looked somehow small and frail in the light summer dress she wore, but at least she was back on her feet. Euan had cleared up the broken glass from the kitchen floor, checked that she was sleeping, and gone back downstairs, leaving the door to the flat open so that he could hear if she called for him. He was almost disappointed that she hadn’t. Two hours later he’d heard the sound of the shower and then the pad of her bare feet on the stairs.
‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’ She sat down beside David’s desk, the filmy printed material of her dress moulding itself to the shape of her legs. ‘I’m...sorry, I was feeling pretty rough this morning. I didn’t mean to be rude.’
If she had been, he hadn’t noticed. Probably too busy drinking in the pleasures of having her close. Which was wrong, on almost every level that he could think of. ‘It never occurred to me you were.’
She seemed to be weighing the statement up. ‘Thanks.’
‘You get migraines often?’
‘Once every couple of months maybe. I take the pills and sleep a bit and then I feel better.’
He nodded. ‘Do you always use the tablets you had in your bag?’
‘Yeah. For years.’
‘They might not be the best thing...’
Stop. Right now. Euan’s sense of self-preservation snapped into action. It was inadvisable to throw attraction into the mix with someone who could end up supplying one of the charity’s most important organisational tools. It was wrong to want to hold onto someone when the two emotions that most readily sprang to mind when he imagined himself in a relationship were guilt and betrayal. And now he was thinking about getting involved with her medical treatment? That was professional suicide.
‘Might be an idea to go back to your own doctor and get him to review your medication. There are new drugs coming out all the time. Migraine’s one of those things that we’re still in the process of understanding,’ he said instead.
Her laugh was cut short, and she pressed her fingers to her temple. ‘My doctor doesn’t understand it at all. Most of what I know about managing it came from other sufferers on discussion boards on the web. He’s just good for the drugs...’ She flushed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean...’
Euan smiled. ‘It’s a fair point. A lot of people who suffer from chronic illness know more about their treatment than doctors do.’
This time she thought before she spoke. ‘Yeah. I didn’t mean to imply that all doctors are useless.’
As there was no one else in the room, Euan took that as a compliment. ‘Never thought you did.’
A lazy smile spread across her face. A particularly beautiful smile, Euan thought.
* * *
Usually a migraine didn’t stop her from working for more than a couple of hours—as soon as the drugs kicked in, she’d be back at her computer screen, wearing dark glasses if necessary. It appeared that Euan had other ideas.
‘Do I have to confiscate that?’ Sam had picked up her laptop when she’d gone upstairs to find something to eat and he looked at it pointedly.
‘You could try...’ She smiled, as if somehow that might be a joke, but no one touched her laptop. Ask any software developer and you’d get the same answer. ‘I’m just going to do something while I eat...’
‘No. And no.’ He was smiling too, but this was rapidly turning into a battle of wills. ‘You’re not going to open that laptop today, and you’re not going to work while you eat. Doctor’s orders.’ He frowned, as if the last bit was somehow a problem.
‘I...’ Sam decided that telling him she did that all the time was only going to get her into more trouble. ‘It’s no big thing.’
‘Then don’t do it.’ He was purposely misunderstanding her. He opened one of the drawers of David’s desk and Sam saw a pile of files inside, neatly stacked. ‘Put it in there.’
Okay, if it was going to make him happy. She could always take it back out again. ‘There. Okay now?’
‘Yep.’ He smiled and turned the key in a lock set into the frame. The click of levers told Sam that the whole desk was now probably secure, and Euan put the key into his pocket.
‘You think that’s going to stop me?’ She picked up the paper knife on David’s desk and Euan looked at it warily, as if she was about to stab him. ‘I’ve opened enough locked drawers before.’ She tapped the point of the knife on the top of the desk.
‘Not with that, you won’t. David keeps all the sensitive stuff in his desk drawers and that’s a se
curity lock.’
One look at the lock told her that he wasn’t bluffing. Sam put the knife down with a clatter and plumped herself down on a chair, wincing when her head throbbed from the sudden movement.
