Oh, so grudging. And he’d be damned if he’d let her do that to him. So he started poking.
‘You have a turret?’
‘It’s my bedroom.’ Then her pale skin forked between her eyes. ‘Used to be.’
He opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off. ‘That is not an invitation.’
‘I’m very happy with my place overlooking the Thames, actually.’
Her hair swung in silky pieces around her angular jaw. ‘Swanky river view; why does that not surprise me?’
‘Why is it swanky to overlook water?’
‘It’s just such a cliché.’
He let that one through to the keeper. Better than admitting he needed the sounds and smells of the water splashing the sides of the embankment to keep himself sane. Awkward silence fell again.
‘How are you enjoying the sleep-ins?’ he finally ventured.
‘All two of them? Lovely. I could get used to it.’
Just part of what baffled him about Izzy Dean: apparently miserable in her job yet a work ethic strong enough to have her at her desk before everyone else arrived. Brilliant operator until the day she just … stopped trying.
He leaned one hip on the kitchen island and kept his voice as casual as he could so she wouldn’t remember that he’d virtually promised to leave when she gave him his beer. ‘When do you start your new job?’
Her pupils flared enough to see from across the island. ‘Not … immediately. I’m looking forward to some time off.’
‘Nice for some.’
‘Please …’ The word bloomed mist on the edge of her glass as she took a sip. His whole body tightened at the reminder of her spectacular performance in the office. ‘You can’t tell me your management salary doesn’t buy you whatever leisure time you want.’
‘Not if I want to keep making that salary,’ he muttered. ‘I haven’t had a decent break in five years.’
That, at least, was true. He spent nearly as much time at home researching the business as he did in the office delivering it. Downtime was lost time in his book.
‘Well, that explains a lot.’
‘Such as?’
‘Perhaps if you had a holiday now and again you would be a little easier to work with.’
With champagne came courage, apparently.
‘You think I’m hard to work with?’
She didn’t miss his emphasis. ‘I do, actually. I’m more of a more flies from honey kind of person.’
Yeah. He’d bet. Pretty much anything to do with honey fitted Isadora Dean. Her skin tone, her voice. His eyes drifted straight to her lips.
Honey. Definitely.
‘You think a manager should be nice to his staff, all the time?’ he said, to distract himself from that line of thought.
‘I think a working relationship is a partnership, not a tyranny.’
‘A partnership in which I pay you to work.’
‘Just think how much more productive I’d be if I was interested in earning your respect.’
Ouch.
But he at least took some solace from her use of the present tense. Maybe this whole thing was just a ploy for more money from an ambitious employee. Effective: he was authorised to up her pay packet by ten grand.
‘I have thirty-three direct reports in this role. Not too sustainable to be buddy-buddy with each of them.’
Especially not when he kept finding reasons to haul a particularly sexy and recalcitrant one into his office.
‘Boohoo.’ She tossed back the last of her champagne. ‘Anyway, officially not my problem since I’m not your employee anymore and never will be.’
He shifted closer. And he liked it. He’d never allowed himself to get this close to her before. Too dangerous.
‘Never?’
She stood her ground. ‘Nope.’
‘You have no price that you’ll eventually come to after a day or two of faux deliberation?’
Insult blazed heavily in her pretty eyes. ‘Nope.’
She pressed her hand to her breast and all it did was remind him she had them. His eyes went straight to those long, champagne-sticky fingers pressed against her blouse and the slight curve beneath. But he fought it.
‘Everyone has a price.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ She gaped. ‘To see what it will cost you to get me back?’
He wasn’t about to let her start thinking that she was special. ‘We invest a lot in our staff. I don’t like to see anyone walk away with that investment. Or our corporate knowledge.’
‘I signed your confidentiality agreement. Broadmore Natále’s secrets are safe with me.’
Actually, he believed her. She might be a princess but she’d always been a discreet and professional princess. Wednesday excepted. And peering up at him as she was—all enormous-eyed and unflinching—she certainly looked very sincere.
And he was through begging.
Rifkin be damned.
‘I told them you’d tell me to go to hell.’
Realisation dawned in her eyes. And with it, a hot little smile. ‘Oh, I see … You’ve been sent.’
He just glared.
She shifted onto one hip and the move changed the angle of the classy outfit she was wearing, highlighting the line of her body. ‘That must really pain you.’
You have no idea.
‘I gave it a shot,’ he breathed. ‘I need to get your keycard back, then.’
All warmth from their sparring drained from her eyes like the dregs from her glass. ‘Security can’t just disable it?’
‘They’re ten-quid access cards.’
She flushed and actually looked a little hurt that he didn’t even consider her worth ten pounds.
Really? That was her hot button—devaluing her? Handy to know.
‘Whatever. Follow me.’
The sudden distance she put between them was almost like a cool chill after the warmth of their heated discussion. Exactly when had it stopped being business and started being flirting? He took one final tug on his beer then left the three-quarters-full bottle on the kitchen bench and trailed her back out through the doors, being sure to appreciate the round sway of her arse.
Now that he could.
‘WATCH YOURSELF,’ IZZY murmured exactly as her ex-boss ducked sideways and down to avoid clipping his egotistically big head on the steel frame of the mezzanine stairs going up to the bedroom above them. Though a scar would probably only make him more handsome.
She shoved her shoulder against her door.
‘You’re kidding me,’ he said over the party music. ‘This