‘Nice to meet you,’ Harry hedged, unwilling to give away too much. ‘So this is your party?’
‘My flatmate’s actually. She’s just out of a dreadful job.’
‘Do you always celebrate employment changes?’
‘This one we do. Izzy’s been miserable for months. Lousy job, lousy new boss. She’s well out of it.’
Lousy?
‘Maybe a job is what you make it,’ Harry defended.
‘She made that one long enough.’ Tori pouted prettily. ‘You can’t polish a turd.’
To have his entire career aspiration and management expertise summarily written off stung. Like a bitch.
‘Would you like a drink, Harry?’ Poppy offered, though he wasn’t sure how she thought he would manage a glass with both hands full of busty, wriggling woman.
‘I’d love one,’ he said. ‘And I wouldn’t mind meeting your flatmate. Congratulate her on her … new-found freedom.’
Drag her back to the firm kicking and screaming, if necessary.
‘Conveniently they’re in the same place. Izzy’s hiding in the kitchen.’
Hiding? That wasn’t the woman he knew. Isadora Dean was always the centre of attention in any space. Laughing and shaking back her dark blond mop and generally being delightful to her adoring audience.
And thoroughly distracting to him.
She should have been in her element at a party that was all about her.
He set Tori to her feet and she happily took him by his loosened tie and led him through the crowd to the kitchen.
‘Izzy,’ she gushed dramatically, entering with him and Poppy in tow. ‘A man without a drink is a tragedy not to be borne.’
The woman in question emerged from behind the fridge door, a warm smile on her face, and turned automatically to the sink full of ice and beer. But the smile died the moment she saw who stood in her kitchen.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’
‘Izzy!’ Poppy’s shock could have been for the language as much as the tone.
‘Dean.’ He nodded, cautiously.
‘What is he doing here?’ she hissed again, as if he weren’t in the room. Kind of desperately.
‘He’s a guest …’ Tory squinted, then twisted to look at him. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘He’s my boss!’ Dean sputtered.
Tori dropped his tie and it fell, flaccid, against his suit. Both women turned on him and there was a surprising amount of unity in the three angry female faces now facing him.
‘Ex-boss,’ he reminded her. Though hopefully not for long. He thrust his hand out to finish the introductions Poppy had started. ‘Harry Mitchell.’
‘You’re really him?’ Poppy squeaked.
‘But you’re gorgeous,’ Tori helpfully contributed. ‘I imagined you hideous and old.’
Dean’s face flamed. ‘Tori! Bad enough you’ve been giving him a lap dance—’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t know, Iz. Obviously.’
Dean reached for her glass and clutched it, white-knuckled, like a weapon. ‘Why are you here?’
‘To see you.’
‘I hope you’re not planning on begging her to come back.’ Poppy laughed. ‘You could have saved yourself the tube fare.’ Begging. Cajoling. Bribing. Little Miss Potty-Mouth had suddenly become Britain’s most wanted. As galling as that was.
‘There was an email circulating, inviting all staff.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m staff.’
‘You’re not staff, you’re my supervisor,’ Dean pointed out. He took a shred of comfort from her use of the present tense.
‘Management weren’t excluded,’ he thrust. As if staff communiques usually came with small print.
‘So, now even my party invites are sub-standard?’ she parried. ‘Common decency excludes you.’
Yeah, this was more the Isadora Dean he recognised. Uptight and defensive. And all pink and breathless when she was riled. Which he took care to do often. ‘Well, I’m here now.’
‘You’re not welcome,’ she pointed out, as if there was any question at all. And not the rudest thing she’d ever said to him. His memory filled with her offensive departure and then overflowed with the memory of those lips sucking on her finger.
He cleared his throat.
‘Could be worse. At least I’m not moving in.’
Dean blinked at him. ‘What?’
‘There’s a guy out there with two full duffel bags. At least you know I’m only here for a few hours.’
Poppy’s face creased. ‘Out there?’
He cast her a sideways look. Gentler, because he quite liked her and she’d genuinely tried to save him from Matahari earlier. ‘Go see for yourself.’
Poppy threw Dean an apologetic look and then excused herself, the party noise surging until the doors swung shut again as she stomped through.
One down, one to go. He needed Dean alone for this conversation. If he was going to demean himself it wouldn’t be with an audience.
‘He was pretty buff, too,’ he added casually, looking right at Tori.
To her credit she stood firm. For about four seconds. Then …
‘Sorry, Iz,’ she whispered before hastening out after Poppy.
Dean’s eyes darkened even further when his returned to her. ‘This is my home, Mr Mitchell.’
‘Harry.’
The indignation on her face did what it usually did to him and stirred around in places he tried not to disturb. Righteousness leaked out of her like wayward passion.
‘You weren’t invited.’
‘I hardly broke in. The downstairs door was wedged open. I think the law would back me on this one.’
‘Employee harassment laws might not.’
‘You’re not my employee.’ Not currently. The only reason he was letting his hormones off the chain just a little.
She grabbed the champagne bottle and refilled her glass, spilling it over in her haste. Liquid gold ran down her long, expressive fingers where she clutched the glass stem. ‘You truly expect me to believe that you were so bereft of something to do on a Friday night in London that you came along to the farewell party of an employee who’d just told you to—’
‘Careful, Dean. Do you really want to say it twice?’
Her anger subsided like the fizz in her champagne. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Isadora, how can we improve if we get no feedback?’ he asked reasonably.
‘Izzy!’ she gasped. ‘No one calls me Isadora.’
‘It’s on your file.’
‘But that doesn’t mean I like to be called it.’
And, just like that, he had her permission to call her by her familiar name, and hostilities between them cranked down a notch. Though not so far that he didn’t make a mental note for