‘I’m allergic to cats. Now if you’d said dog… Shall I call security?’ she asked politely.
‘I think I can cope with a cat, Miss Jones.’ She heard his startled intake of breath and then the shaken, ‘Oh, my God!—I really don’t believe this! Josh, you damn fool!’
Men like Jake Prentice didn’t sound that gobsmacked without pretty good cause! Nia leaped to her feet, her actions, it had to be said, impelled more by curiosity than a noble desire to be helpful.
Nia had a weakness for shoes, without the bank balance to compensate. The beautiful, impractical creations she wore today had been a sale bargain that she hadn’t been able to resist, even if they were a bit on the tight side. She did a lot of clattering before she erupted breathlessly into the inner sanctum.
The inner sanctum had a glass wall, views to make your average estate agent break into spontaneous song, and individual pieces of furniture that were earmarked to be the collectible antiques of the next century.
Nia didn’t have eyes for the interior decor, her attention was focused on the unlikely spectacle of her boss, all six foot five of him crouched on all fours on the floor in front of the vast curved blonde wood desk.
‘What’s wrong?’
As Jake lifted one unsteady hand to his dark head and spared her a fleeting look before shifting his stance slightly, Nia saw for the first time what he was staring at.
‘Oh, my goodness! That’s a baby,’ she said, staring with disbelief at the tiny creature strapped into a car seat. ‘It’s not mine,’ she added defensively as her employer’s stunned eyes reached her face.
He looked at her as though she’d said something even more imbecilic than usual. ‘I’m well aware of that, woman.’
‘Then it’s yours!’ she gasped, leaping to the obvious conclusion. On closer inspection there was something very familiar about those darkly fringed grey eyes.
‘No, it’s not mine!’
‘Are you quite sure?’ she persisted doubtfully, looking from the small chubby unformed face to the forbidding mature version.
Holding the carrying handle of the baby carrier at arm’s length, as though the contents were contagious, Jake got to his feet.
‘Miss Jones, I am one hundred percent sure that this baby could not possibly be mine.’ He was trying hard to be patient, but there were limits and this female seemed determined to stretch them to the breaking point.
Comprehension flooded over her and Nia gave a grimace of sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘Didn’t know what?’ he said in a measured tone that suggested he was trying desperately to retain his grip on reality in an increasingly surreal situation.
‘That you’re infertile. You shouldn’t give up hope. You know, they’re making the most amazing medical advances in that field. Why only the other week I saw this documentary…’
‘Miss Jones!’
His bellow of rage cut through her helpful observations. Nia’s rather full lips thinned to a line of disapproval and a militant light entered her green eyes.
Had this woman never heard of professional distance? Why couldn’t she keep to normal topics like the weather? In a few weeks his office had become a sanctum for every lovelorn soul in the building. He found all that damned empathy uncomfortable.
He closed his eyes briefly and cursed the day his real secretary had decided to extend her family. When Fiona had been here there had been no babies or children of any variety left under his desk.
‘Shut up…please.’ He forced himself to smile patiently. Fiona didn’t wear earrings that jingled in that distracting way, either. On her return he would give her an outrageously generous rise on the strict understanding she never left his employ again.
His attention was diverted to the infant he still held at arm’s length. The baby’s gurgles had become less contented and more urgent and its little face had deepened to an alarming shade of red.
‘Babies don’t like loud noises,’ Nia observed, not without a certain degree of spiteful satisfaction. ‘Neither,’ she added pointedly, ‘do I.’
‘I am not sterile.’
‘Of course not,’ she agreed kindly.
The damned woman was humouring him! ‘No really,’ he insisted, speaking from between clenched teeth. ‘I just happen to know for sure this baby isn’t mine because it’s my brother’s.’
‘Oh! I see.’ Nia screwed up her nose and gave a frown. ‘Well, actually, I don’t. Why did your brother leave his…is it a boy or girl?’
‘Boy.’
‘Why did he leave his son under your desk?’ That sort of carelessness went a bit beyond the forgetful.
‘When we find him, you can ask him,’ he promised grimly.
‘We?’ she queried suspiciously.
‘Do I have much scheduled for this afternoon?’
‘You might have the odd fifteen seconds to spare.’
He let this display of sarcasm pass, unfortunately he needed a bit of female cooperation right now. The baby let out an ear-piercing screech just to reinforce this fact at that precise moment.
‘Reschedule my appointments,’ he said hastily. ‘I’ll find Josh and you can watch the baby.’
The high-handed assumption of her automatic cooperation was so typical of the man, she thought indignantly. ‘Me! Why me?’ Why didn’t he ask Victoria or Jasmine or who was the other one…? She stifled a grin at the thought of these ladies’ responses if they’d been asked to babysit.
‘You’re a woman, aren’t you?’ He raised his voice to be heard over the baby’s wail.
She was amazed he’d noticed. ‘And that automatically qualifies me to look after babies?’ she suggested with a wide-eyed attentive look.
‘I’m just asking for a bit of give-and-take here, Miss Jones. This is an emergency.’
He must be desperate, he was using that high-voltage smile that he reserved for Jasmine, Victoria and, of course, Selina. How could she have forgotten Selina? His smile made all of those pencil-slim, extremely tall beauties very understanding when he kept them waiting for hours.
Well, if he expects me to start panting to please him, he’s doomed to disappointment. She’d been brought up in a male-dominated household and when the male of the species said give-and-take in her experience she was expected to do most of the giving!
‘I did the giving when I came in two hours early three days this week, on the understanding, you recall, that I could leave promptly at three this afternoon. If you go off searching for your brother, who might very well not want to be found, what chance is there of that?’
‘That’s a very selfish view to take,’ he observed regarding her with deepening dislike.
‘If it’s any comfort, my big brothers all share your opinion of my selfish disposition—all five of them. If you were looking for a temporary doormat, Mr. Prentice, you lucked out,’ she told him frankly. ‘I’m not about to sacrifice my personal life for your convenience, but I might make a rather obvious suggestion—why don’t you just phone your brother’s wife?’
‘I would if I could—she’s dead,’ he announced expressionlessly.
This flat matter-of-fact statement wiped the superior smile clean off her face. She looked from his