Dark eyebrows climbed sardonically. ‘Really?’
He wasn’t being very gracious but she supposed she couldn’t blame him. Cory took a deep breath. ‘I’ll pay for any damage, of course,’ she said with a little upward jerk of her chin which wasn’t lost on the man in front of her. ‘To the phone, your suit…anything,’ she finished lamely.
The eyebrows went a touch higher. ‘Am I supposed to say thank you here?’ he drawled silkily.
What a thoroughly unpleasant individual. Cory found she could ignore the beauty of the sky-blue eyes quite well now. It wasn’t so much what he said but the way that he said it which was so nasty. ‘Not at all,’ she said curtly, her whole body stiffening. ‘I’m merely making the point, that’s all.’
Rufus had seated himself at the man’s side as though he had disowned her and was now looking the very picture of docility, his big head moving interestedly from one to the other as they had spoken. Cory found she could have throttled him. Preparing to clip the lead back on his collar, she said, ‘Rufus, come here,’ just as the flirtatious French poodle the dog had been eyeing up earlier sauntered past.
Her despairing, ‘Rufus, no!’ was lost as he sprang up, blind and deaf to anything but his hormones.
He had only gone a few feet when one bitingly sharp, deep ‘Sit!’ brought him skidding into the required position seemingly in mid-air. ‘Heel,’ followed with equal success, the dog performing a perfect Crufts manoeuvre to arrive in ingratiatingly quick time pressed close against the man’s legs. As an authoritative male hand stretched out for the lead Cory handed it over. The next moment both lead and dog were returned to her.
‘Thank you.’ It was said with extreme reluctance.
‘You can’t suggest he does what he’s told,’ the man said with irritating coolness. ‘It’s all in the tone.’
‘You’re an expert on dogs?’ Cory responded before she could stop herself.
‘No.’ In a leisurely exercise which stopped just short of being insulting, heavily lashed blue eyes wandered over her hot face. ‘I’m an expert on being obeyed.’
Somehow she didn’t doubt that.
‘Obedience classes would be good for you,’ he continued with insufferable condescension.
It didn’t escape her notice that he had said good for her rather than the dog. The fact that he had several bits of grass in his perfectly groomed hair gave her savage satisfaction. ‘He’s not mine,’ she said shortly. ‘My aunt recently acquired him from a dog sanctuary. They thought he’d been locked away in a shed from when he was a puppy and just thrown scraps now and again. She has been taking him to classes—’ it was wonderful to be able to say it in all truth ‘—but she’s broken her leg and so I offered to give him a walk this morning.’
The sapphire gaze left her face and turned downwards to the golden dog. ‘Poor old boy,’ he said directly to Rufus who wagged his tail furiously.
And then his voice lost the brief softness and returned to its former coldness when he looked at her again and said, ‘For the sake of the dog and not least anyone in his path, keep him on the lead while your aunt is indisposed, would you?’
She bit her lip hard to prevent the spate of words which sprang to mind and counted to ten. ‘I’d worked that one out for myself.’
‘Good.’
It looked as though he was going to walk away and now Cory said quickly, ‘Your phone; I meant what I said about paying for a new one. Do you want my telephone number and address?’
He raised his brow. ‘Are you always so exceedingly generous in giving complete strangers your private details?’
He was deliberately needling her and she recognised it but still couldn’t help being caught on the raw. ‘I’m not in charge of a dog which knocks people down every day,’ she returned smartly.
He muttered something she thought might be, ‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ before saying, ‘Don’t worry about the phone, Ms…?’
‘James. Cory James.’ She looked at him steadily through velvet-brown eyes just a shade or two lighter than her hair. ‘And I insist on paying for a new one, Mr…?’
‘My name is Nick Morgan and, I repeat, forget about the phone.’ He now took it from her, pocketing it nonchalantly.
‘I can’t do that.’ The obstinate streak which ran through her slender frame like a rod of steel came into play. ‘Rufus has ruined it and I wouldn’t feel happy unless I make amends.’
The square male jaw tightened. ‘It’s not necessary.’
‘I feel it is.’
‘Are you always this—’ he hesitated for the merest fraction of a second, and when he finished ‘—determined?’ she felt sure that was not what he’d been about to say.
‘Always.’ She didn’t smile and neither did he.
He folded his arms, surveying her for some moments without speaking. He was standing a couple of feet from her and in spite of herself her pulse was racing. It was his overwhelming masculinity that was sending the blood coursing, she told herself irritably, and she hated that he could affect her so. It wasn’t attraction—it definitely, definitely wasn’t attraction, she reiterated as though someone had challenged her on it—but more an awareness of the you Tarzan, me Jane type of definition of the sexes. What with his height, which must be at least six-three or four, and the hard look to his body, he was…well…
She couldn’t find a word to describe what Nick Morgan was and so she gave up the struggle as he spoke again.
‘A new phone will be provided the moment I walk into my offices,’ he said evenly, ‘but if you really feel the need for atonement?’
‘I do.’
A thin smile curved across his mouth as though he found something amusing. The next moment Cory realised it was her reaction to his next words he had been anticipating with relish. ‘Then I need a partner for a social occasion tonight and my proposed date has had to fly out to New York at short notice.’ His eyes pierced her with laser brightness. ‘Care to oblige?’
Cory took a moment to compose herself. She had never been so taken aback in her life. Was he joking?
Her face must have reflected her thoughts because the smile widened. ‘I’m quite serious. Of course, if you have a previous engagement or a husband or boyfriend who might object…’ He let his voice trail away but his gaze never left her.
She could lie. No, no she couldn’t, she corrected herself in the next instant, because he’d know. Somehow she knew without question that he would be able to discern any fabrication a mile off. She looked at him squarely. ‘I’m not in a relationship,’ she said shortly. ‘What exactly is involved tonight?’
‘Cocktails, dinner, dancing.’
It wasn’t a proper explanation and they both knew it. Cory waited for more.
After a few seconds had stretched themselves into what was to Cory unbearable tension, he said, ‘I’ve recently taken over a particular company and this is a goodwill gesture by me for the senior management and their partners. Nothing heavy, you know? Merely a table at Templegate and us all getting to know each other on a social level.’
Cory stared at him, her mind buzzing behind the steady brown of her eyes. A table at Templegate for the evening? That was going to cost him an arm and a leg. She had never had the opportunity to see inside the most famous nightclub in London herself, but it was where the young, rich and beautiful went to see and be seen. Trendy magazines were always brimming with pictures of this or that celebrity dancing the night away there and it was common knowledge that dinner equated to a second mortgage. She swallowed