It took her fifteen minutes of surfing the channels before she landed on one that was watchable.
It would pass the rest of the evening, she supposed. No point heading up to bed because she knew that she would be unable to sleep. It had been the same for ages. She would close her eyes, will herself to think of something mundane, like what Annie at work had done with the reports she had laboriously redone three days ago, or what would be the next stage in her programming to update the Accounts Receivables department, and then she would think of him.
He sprang into her head like sweet temptation and forbidden fruit wrapped up in one agonisingly dangerous package. And he would always be laughing at her. Mostly, he would be laughing at her while rolling around in the bed with the redhead.
She was sipping some of the green tea with lemon that she had made to drink with her carrots and dip when the doorbell rang. She consulted her watch and frowned—nearly eleven-thirty on a Saturday evening.
Much as she had ended up enjoying her evening out with Ted, she hoped it wasn’t him. She was certain that she would see him again because, as she wryly acknowledged, he enjoyed talking and in the field in which he worked so did nearly everyone else, she suspected, so a good listener was a valuable find. He had also shared a major confidence with her and that, in itself, would be a strong bond between them. All very nice, but she was looking forward to an hour or so of mindless television, drifting in and out of thoughts of Nick.
She tried to wipe the disgruntled expression from her face as she went to open the front door. She was pretty much prepared to give Ted one cup of coffee, but really nothing else. His urge to confide would have to wait for a more convenient hour.
But when she pulled open the door, it wasn’t Ted hovering on her doorstep. It was Nick. Rose was so startled that she remained speechless for a few heart-stopping seconds. It seemed that he made a habit of appearing on her doorstep and sending her into a state of paralysing confusion.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded coldly. ‘You can’t keep just turning up on my doorstep, Nick.’
‘Are you going to invite me in?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have better things to do than talk to you.’
‘Aren’t you dressed in the wrong clothes for the better things you have in mind?’ Wrong approach. This wasn’t how things were meant to develop, not that he knew quite how things were meant to develop. He had just known, when he had seen them walking out of the restaurant, wrapped around each other like a couple on the way to the altar, that he had to do something. He couldn’t just turn his back and walk away because he would be haunted by her for the rest of his life and that was a consequence he had no intention of accepting. He needed to get her out of his system and he wasn’t going to achieve that by antagonising her.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Rose informed him, her voice cooling by several degrees. ‘And I don’t like your attitude.’
‘I apologise.’
‘What?’
‘I apologise. I can see your point of view. I show up here, uninvited and unannounced, without so much as a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates…’
Rose felt the colour crawl into her skin. She didn’t know what was going on but there was a lazy warmth in his eyes that made her shiver with a horrible excitement, which she tried valiantly to slap down.
‘What’s going on, Nick? Why would you bring me flowers or chocolate?’
‘Let me in, Rose. Give me a chance to explain.’ It was an effort keeping his voice smooth and even and controlled because his only thought was that Ted the reformed producer was lurking somewhere inside her house, probably in her bedroom. True, women on the threshold of a rampant affair didn’t usually deck themselves out in track suit bottoms and what looked like an ancient tee shirt from when she was a kid, but who was he to tell? The woman was a law unto herself.
Poor, hapless Ted wouldn’t have known what he was letting himself in for when he decided to make a play for her. He would have been expecting a sexy version of the bimbos who littered the movie world. Rose must have come as a nasty surprise. Nick was tempted to smirk at the thought, but he contained himself and did his utmost to look penitent.
Rose, conversely, was looking back at him with deep, unhidden suspicion.
‘It’s late.’
‘I know and I’m sorry about that.’
‘Stop apologising, Nick. It doesn’t suit you.’
Nick shot her a winning smile. ‘You’re right. It doesn’t. Let me come in?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ She swung open the door and he walked past her into the hallway and then turned around so that he could subject her to another of those sexy smiles that made her head spin.
‘Go and sit in the lounge and I’ll bring you some coffee,’ she said, just to get rid of him while she gathered her composure in privacy somewhere.
Flowers? Chocolate? She had no idea what he was playing at, but it had sent her into a tailspin. Even as she bustled around in the small kitchen, making him his mug of coffee, she was acutely aware of him sitting in her lounge, just a matter of a few metres away. Whatever he was up to, she thought firmly, she was having none of it. She reminded herself that he had a girlfriend. A bright, sparkling, picture-perfect model with limited vocabulary. Just the kind of woman he was inevitably drawn to, never mind his brief diversion with her. And anyway, she was a free and liberated young woman now, no longer hiding behind routine and safety to protect her from the big, bad world.
She found him obediently sitting where she had told him to sit, doing nothing more offensive than flicking through one of the computer magazines she liked to read occasionally, just to make sure that she was keeping in touch with the latest technology. He closed it as soon as she entered the room and handed him the coffee.
‘Interesting reading material,’ he commented. Well, at least the rehabilitated producer was not on the premises. Either that or he didn’t mind going into hiding for an indefinite period of time.
‘Why have you come?’
‘How did your date go?’
‘As you can see, I’m sitting here in one piece so your fears about Ted were misplaced.’ And little do you know by how much, Rose thought wryly. ‘Is that why you came? Your over-developed sense of duty kicking in again? Compelled to make sure that I wasn’t cruelly taken advantage of and left sobbing somewhere on my own?’
‘No.’
Rose felt confused once again. ‘Then why?’
‘I…I’m not very good at admitting things like this, but I didn’t like seeing you with other men last week at that party.’
She held onto her common sense as tightly as she could and remembered the vital truth, which was that this man was not interested in a proper relationship with her or anyone else for that matter. Which brought her neatly to the redhead.
‘I’m surprised you even noticed me, Nick. Wasn’t your attention on your date?’
‘You know it wasn’t,’ Nick said huskily.
‘You mean you brought a woman to Lily’s party when you weren’t even interested in her?’
‘So it would appear.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I thought she might be able to make me forget that I’m still attracted to you. It didn’t work.’ Nick rested his mug on the table in front of him and strolled over to the sofa where Rose was curled at one end with her feet tucked under