‘There’s no time like the present,’ she muttered as she opted to take the stairs, cross to feel the squadron of butterflies that suddenly took off in spectacular formation inside her stomach.
What was there to be nervous about? He’d either agree, or disagree. And with the suggestion coming from her, the odds were…
‘Can I have a word, please?’ she asked when his deep voice bade her to enter, his secretary’s desk still empty at this time of the morning.
‘More lights to report?’ One dark eyebrow shot up towards his ruthlessly neat hair.
‘What?’ She blinked, wondering for a moment what he was talking about. ‘Oh, no. Not as far as I know. It’s actually—’
‘Someone had apparently been using the lights for target practice,’ he announced grimly. ‘Several had been smashed in the space of a single day.’
‘Simple vandalism, then.’ She sighed, completely sidetracked. ‘As if the hospital didn’t have enough calls on its budget, we now have to waste money on replacing safety lights on a daily basis.’
‘It’s nice to know someone appreciates that my balancing act isn’t as easy as the media makes out,’ he muttered, then threw her an unexpected grin. ‘So, if it wasn’t the lights, what did bring you into the dragon’s lair?’
The startling change that single smile made to his face—the glint of amusement in those smoky grey eyes and the hint that the crinkles around them might have been put there partly by humour—took her breath away for a second. He really was an attractive man when you took away the weight of his responsibilities.
To cover up her momentary lack of attention Lauren cast a quick glance round the strictly functional room.
‘Is that what this is? The dragon’s lair?’ she challenged lightly.
‘You’d think so, from the fear and trepidation some people exhibit when they have to come here.’ He leant back in his chair, the steel barrel of the pen he’d been using clasped between both hands as he rested his elbows on the arms.
His eyes only left hers for a second to drop in a swift sweep down her body and when a wash of heat followed it she felt almost as though she’d been just one pace too close to the fiery breath of the dragon.
‘You, on the other hand, don’t seem in the least bit intimidated,’ he added thoughtfully, and she was relieved that he apparently hadn’t recognised her reaction to him.
It was completely crazy. She had no more interest in him than he had in her. They were both hospital employees who, apart from his unofficial supervision, would have little cause to meet.
Even if her department were to need to requisition replacements for expensive equipment, the submission would be made on paper rather than in person. Yet, here she was, her eyes defensively fixed on the slender length of his fingers as he slid them back and forth on his pen, only too aware of the fact that his eyes were fixed on her face.
‘Actually,’ she said hurriedly, her face heating when she realised that he was still waiting for an answer, ‘I wanted to ask how to go about arranging a series of self-defence classes.’
He gave a snort of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you needed any classes, seeing how you took care of two people all by yourself.’ He pointedly rubbed one elbow with a grimace.
She laughed a little uncomfortably. ‘Yes. Well, I’m sorry about that, but I wasn’t asking about taking classes. I was actually proposing to teach them.’
‘You’d teach them?’ He seemed startled by the idea and her pride was stung. It wasn’t only big burly men who could teach such things. Sometimes the fact that she was a slender female and well able to defend herself made her point to other women far more effectively.
‘I’ve done them before, as I said on my CV,’ she reminded him. ‘At my last post, we were having increasing problems with hospital staff being attacked, especially in A and E. The first class started with a small group of female staff just from the accident department, and the word spread.’
He had a frown on his face and she was certain that he was going to turn the idea down. Whether that was because he disapproved of the proposal in principle or because of his continuing wariness about her, she didn’t know.
Well, he might pour cold water on the suggestion this time, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to bring it up again. She knew at first hand the benefits of learning self-defence and she would keep trying until he finally agreed to let her…
‘I’ll see what I can do about scheduling time in the physiotherapy department,’ he announced, completely taking the wind out of her sails with his unexpected agreement.
‘Oh, that’s…great,’ she managed, completely wrong-footed. She’d been so certain that she was going to have a fight on her hands.
‘Unless I’ve got a meeting, I can usually manage to be free by six. Do you want me to organise it for after you’ve finished a shift, or would you rather I made it on one of your off-duty days?’
‘Oh, but you don’t have to be there,’ she said hurriedly, suddenly nervous at the idea of having to put on a performance in front of eyes as keen as lasers.
‘You’ll need a body to use for your demonstrations,’ he pointed out calmly, and her pulse tripped into overdrive.
He expected her to be able to concentrate while he grabbed her and held her close to that lean, muscular body? There might be a constant prickly animosity between the two of them but that didn’t mean that her hormones couldn’t recognise the fact that he was a good-looking man. In spite of the solemn expression he usually wore, he was so gorgeous that few women would want to fight him off.
Then her innate level-headedness kicked in and she brought her whirling emotions under control.
‘You mean you’re volunteering to get thrown around again? Wasn’t one set of bruises enough for you?’ she challenged.
He chuckled wryly and, much to her annoyance, her pulse kicked up another notch.
‘At least this time I can make sure I won’t be landing on concrete. In fact, I’ll make sure the physiotherapy department has taken delivery of the new mats they ordered before I schedule the first class.’
Over the strident summons of one of the three telephones on his desk he promised to call her as soon as he had some dates for her, and suggested she have a think about how she wanted to publicise the classes.
On her way down to the ward to start her shift Lauren should have been thinking about the tasks awaiting her attention, or she should have set her concentration to deciding whether word of mouth would be a better advertisement than putting up posters. But all she could think about was Marc Fletcher’s grin.
Well, it wasn’t just his grin. It was the effect that smiling had on his whole face, from the sparkle it added to the smoky grey of his eyes to the lifting and lightening of the angle of his jaw and the gleam of strong teeth in a surprisingly sensual-looking mouth.
‘Oh, good grief!’ she muttered when she realised she was fixating on the man’s teeth, for heaven’s sake. ‘He’s the hospital manager, remember? He’s got something against you that makes him turn up all the time to keep an eye on you, remember?’
In fact, now she thought about it, that was probably the reason why he’d suggested coming along to the classes, too. It wasn’t that he wanted to offer his services as the willing victim so much as he wanted to see what she was getting up to.
Well, he wouldn’t find anything amiss in one of her self-defence classes. She knew only too well how vital the information she would pass on could be—the difference between life and death, in some cases. There was no way she would do anything less than her best, no matter who was standing there supervising her.
In