It was his reputation as a babe magnet that seemed to be confirmed by this still-life-with-champagne tableau.
Despite being his next door neighbour, albeit on a temporary basis, their paths hadn’t yet crossed so she’d had no opportunity to check this out for herself. Not that she was the kind of ‘babe’ he’d look at twice—she wasn’t any kind of ‘babe’, as she’d be the first to acknowledge.
Whether or not he magnetised her.
Not that he would. Magnetise her.
No matter how superficially attractive, she didn’t find anything appealing about a man who had a reputation for casual affairs, even if the gossip columns loved him for it. But then she didn’t think much of gossip columns, either.
She pushed her spectacles up her nose and, putting her hand over her heart in an effort to cut down on the jack-hammer noise it was making, made a big effort to concentrate on what Sophie had told her.
He’d taken the disk home with him earlier in the week and it would be lying about on his desk somewhere. Probably.
Totally confident of her ability to find the thing—‘I mean, how difficult could it be?’—Sophie had been weak on actual details.
About as weak as her reason for not doing this herself. If this was such a breeze, why couldn’t she squeeze through the rain-soaked hedge—the very prickly rain-soaked hedge—and get it herself? After all, she only lived a few floors down, in the same apartment block.
‘But darling, you’re living next door to the man. It’s just so perfect. Almost as if it was fate. If he even suspects I was anywhere near his study I’ll not only lose my job, I’ll never get another one. The man’s a complete bastard. He has absolutely no tolerance for anything less than perfection…’
Right. Of course. She remembered now. Sophie couldn’t risk getting caught. The whole point was to save her job. The only mystery was why she was working for a computer software company in the first place. She usually preferred a little light PR work, or swanning about looking decorative in an art gallery…
Sophie had made it all sound so simple. A quick trip through the hedge that divided her roof garden from his and Bob, apparently, would be her uncle. Which was why Ginny had been nominated to ransack this ‘complete bastard’s’ apartment, ‘borrow’ the disk, copy and return it—thus saving Sophie’s job—without his ever knowing she’d been there.
Piece of cake.
A low groan escaped her lips. She wasn’t built for burglary. Or was it breaking and entering? When she hadn’t actually broken in?
A fine legal point that she was sure the magistrate would explain as he passed sentence if she didn’t find the disk and get out of there before Mrs Figgis returned from her daily dalliance over a double latte with the porter.
Unfortunately, although she was sending urgent ‘move’ messages from her brain to her feet, her synapses appeared to be on a go-slow. Or maybe they were just frozen with terror like the rest of her.
Never again, she vowed, as the message finally got through and her feet came unstuck from the spot to which she had been glued for what seemed like hours. This was positively, absolutely, totally the last time she would allow Sophie Harrington to talk her into trouble.
No. That was unfair. She’d managed to talk herself into trouble. But who could resist Sophie Harrington when she turned on the charm?
Twenty-four years old going on fifteen.
This was just like Ginny’s raid on the school secretary’s office all over again. That time it had been Sophie’s life-or-death need to reclaim her diary before the headmistress read it. Only an idiot would carry such an inflammatory document around with her. Only a complete idiot would be stupid enough to write it in class…
Except that on this occasion if she got caught pulling her best friend’s irons from the fire she risked a lot more than a shocked ‘I expected better from you’ lecture and a suspension of visits to the village for the rest of the term.
She dragged her mind back to reality. Cloakroom, kitchen… She came to a stunned halt as she took in the brushed steel and slate wonder of Mallory’s state-of-the-art kitchen. What couldn’t she do in a kitchen like that?
Richard Mallory wouldn’t need to use magnets on her, she decided, just offer her the run of his kitchen…
For heaven’s sake! She had less than fifteen minutes and she was wasting them drooling over his top of the range knives!
She moved quickly across the room and opened a door on the far side of the two-storey-high living space. Desk, laptop… Bingo!
Good grief, it looked as if a madman had been working without cease for a week. In contrast to everywhere else that had looked almost unlived in. Apart, that was, from the champagne bottle and flutes. One of them barely touched.
So, which of them had been in too much of a hurry…?
She really didn’t want to think about that and, dragging her mind back to the study, decided that untidy was good. It meant he probably wouldn’t be obsessive about locking stuff away.
It also meant there was a lot to look through. Empty water bottles, chocolate bar wrappers—he had seriously good taste in chocolate—and a ton of paper covered with figures littering the desk and floor.
Unfortunately, once she’d looked under all the papers, she could see that was all there was. Not a disk in sight.
She dragged her wandering mind back into line and tried the desk drawers. They didn’t budge. So much for the casual-about-security theory. And the key would be with him, on his long weekend in the country. Along with the owner of the black silk stocking.
Although, if that was the case, why the note? She jerked her curiosity back into line.
Why on earth would she care?
She checked her watch. Six precious minutes gone…
Okay. Keys came in sets of two so there had to be a spare somewhere. She ran her fingers beneath the desk, under the drawers, in case it was taped there. Well, no. First place a burglar would look, obviously. Even a first time burglar like her.
If you didn’t count the school secretary’s office…
Where would she keep the spare key to her desk drawer?
Safely in the drawer so she wouldn’t lose it, but then she didn’t have anything worth locking up. Okay, there were files and disks containing months of painstaking research. Nothing anyone would want to steal, though. But supposing she did…
In her bedside drawer seemed a likely place. Who would ever find it amongst all the clutter?
But would a man think that way? What did men put in their bedside drawers, anyway?
She had no way of knowing but, short of any other ideas, she abandoned the study and ran up the spiral staircase to the upper floor, emerging in a wide gallery where comfort had been allowed to encroach on the severity of the minimalist theme.
The floor was covered with a lovely old Turkish rug, there was a huge, much used leather armchair and the walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with shelves crammed with books that looked as if they’d been read, rather than arranged by an expensive decorator just for effect. She moved towards them on automatic, stumbling over a low table she hadn’t noticed and sending a heap of magazines slithering to the floor.
The noise was horrendous. But it brought her back to her senses. This was no time for browsing…
There was only one door leading from the gallery. Rubbing her shin, she opened it, stepping into a wide inner hallway lit from above by a series of skylights and groaned as she was confronted by half a dozen doors, opening the doors to an airing cupboard and two guest suites before she finally found Mallory’s room.