‘I’m fine, I promise you,’ she said feebly.
‘Nearly there,’ Max soothed, shouldering open his office door, settling her on the leather couch against the wall, crouching beside her. ‘All right, now just lie there.’
Catherine would have preferred one of the matching chairs where she normally sat. A couch was so...intimate. It reminded her of an Alex-Jennifer scene—Jennifer reclining on a chaise-longue, hair tumbling over her shoulders; Alex staring down at her with burning eyes...
Max smoothed a hand across the top of her head and Catherine groaned again.
‘See?’ Max said accusingly. ‘You are hurt!’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Catherine grumbled and, using her hands for leverage, tried to sit up.
‘Look,’ Max demanded, grasping the hands pushing against the leather of the couch and lowering her again. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf.’
It was true. And Catherine was very glad to have the fall as an excuse—because her body’s trembling reaction had nothing to do with that fall and everything to do with Max’s proximity to her.
‘All right, a headache and a teensy bit of shock,’ she lied. ‘Now, can I get up?’
Max squashed himself onto the edge of the couch beside her and put his hand to her forehead—feeling her temperature, of all things. Well, he was an engineer, not a doctor.
‘I guess that’s a no,’ Catherine said dryly. ‘Although I think you should consider doing a first-aid course.’
‘I thought I was managing pretty well.’
‘Hmph. It’s a good thing I didn’t injure my back, the way you dragged me off the floor.’
‘What—was I supposed to leave you there?’
‘And I don’t have a fever, so you can move your hand.’ Next thing he’d be asking her to stick out her tongue—and there was no saying what she’d do with it once it was out of her mouth!
Max removed his hand. ‘How am I supposed to know if I don’t check?’
‘Because you don’t get a fever from—’ Catherine broke off in exasperation. ‘Oh, never mind! Just tell me when you’re free for that first-aid course.’
‘Why didn’t you answer when I called?’
‘I was flat-out at the time.’
The bone-melting smile. ‘A double entendre—so your brain’s working at least. Are you sure you didn’t break anything? Perhaps I’d better check—’
‘If you do, I’ll walk out of this office and never come back.’ Just to think of those hands wandering over her bones was enough to heat her blood to boiling point.
‘All right, all right.’ Short laugh. ‘God, you’re such a firebrand, Cathy. I love it.’
Firebrand. Catherine’s breath jammed. Jennifer was the firebrand. Catherine wrote her that way because she couldn’t be like that herself any more, not since RJ... Uh-oh. Not a good idea to be thinking about RJ. Or Passion Flower. Or tongues. Or fires in the blood.
‘Stay there,’ Max commanded, standing in one smooth, decisive movement. ‘Five minutes.’
But it was less than three minutes later when Max returned, a glass of water in one hand and two tablets in the other.
‘For your headache,’ he explained, and watched as Catherine downed them. ‘Now,’ he said when she’d finished her last swallow of water. ‘Explain.’
Catherine looked at him blankly. ‘Explain what?’
‘What the hell you were doing.’ He passed a hand that was none too steady over his eyes.
Whaaaat?
‘I was doing the filing. As requested by my boss.’
‘I didn’t mean for you to kill yourself!’
‘And I didn’t.’
‘Couldn’t you get someone else to get the files for you if they were too high?’ He started pacing in front of her. ‘In fact, why are they so high?’
‘I have no idea. I guess your last assistant was taller.’
‘Elise,’ Max said, matter-of-fact. ‘Yes, I guess she was.’ He looked at Catherine’s feet, her hideous flat shoes. ‘She wore high heels, too.’
‘Well, it seems your various Elises—’ oozed Catherine, dripping poisoned honey ‘—never threw out a piece of paper in their lives! I’ve found files so old they should be given a gold watch!’
‘Do you need help going through them?’ Max asked, ignoring her sarcasm to cut straight to the point.
Instantly Catherine’s back was up. No way was she going to get landed with a leggy blonde ‘Elise’ to help her. ‘I’m nearly finished. I can handle it.’
Max looked at her sceptically.
‘I can,’ she insisted.
Max was silent, studying her for a long moment. Then he got to his feet and walked over to look out of the window. ‘So...how’s the book going?’
Catherine pokered up. ‘If you think that’s the reason I haven’t finished—’
‘That’s not what I—’ Max broke off, spinning around. ‘I just...had an idea. You know...for a scene. I thought of it while I was in Queensland.’
Catherine opened her mouth to tell him to mind his own damned business—but for some reason out came, ‘A scene?’ instead. Because—arrggghhh!—she was interested. Intrigued, even. And clearly insane.
In. Sane.
‘Yeah. A cocktail function where Alex is trying to woo investors,’ he said. ‘Jennifer has planned the event. And something goes wrong. She...she twists her ankle or...or hits her head, maybe...? And Alex has to rescue her, and he calls the doctor and...and stuff.’
‘What kind of party? I mean, black tie?’ Catherine frowned, thoughtful. ‘Because Jennifer doesn’t dress up.’
He hurried over to her, sat on the edge of the couch again. ‘This could be the first time she does though, couldn’t it? And he’s thinking, Wow, who knew?’
She stared at him, her brain ticking over. ‘Hmm... Maybe I could try that.’
His eyes were so warm, so serious. For a heart-stopping moment Catherine thought he was going to touch her. She flinched backwards and Max jumped to his feet.
‘I just wondered, that’s all,’ he said, and paced to the other side of the room, jamming his hands under his armpits. ‘That’s how he’d treat her, right? Alex? How he’d be with Jennifer if she needed help?’
Okay, maybe she had a concussion and Max had some bizarre kind of interstate-travel version of jet lag. Because there was no rational explanation for this conversation.
‘I think I should get back to work.’
Max unjammed his hands, shoving them into his hair instead. ‘Not until the doctor has a look at you,’ he said, and all but ripped the phone off his desk. ‘I’ll call him, then go and bring Damian up to speed. Give you some privacy while the doc’s here.’
Alex...calling the doctor. Max...calling the doctor. This was weird. Too weird.
Catherine was so fidgety she could barely respond to the doctor’s questions. And when she was pronounced fit and well and was back at her desk with the filing she couldn’t concentrate. Because whenever she saw Max’s bold handwriting on a document she’d remember how it