By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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       CHAPTER TWO

      SHE stood there, one hand on the door handle, one thought to the pattering rain growing louder on the tin lean-to roof, and yet Eve made no move towards the clothesline as the phone rang the requisite number of times before the machine cut in, inviting the caller to leave a message.

      ‘Evelyn, it’s Leo.’

      Redundant really. The flush of heat under her skin told her who it was, and she was forced to admit that even when he sounded half-annoyed, he still had the most amazing voice. She could almost feel the stroke of it across her heated skin, almost feel it cup her elbow, as his hand once had.

      ‘I’ve sent you an email,’ Leo continued, ‘or half of one, but this is urgent and I really need to speak with you. If you’re home, can you pick up?’

      Annoyance slid down her spine. Of course it was urgent. Or it no doubt seemed urgent to Leo Zamos. A night without a woman to entertain him? It was probably unthinkable. It was also hardly her concern. And still the barbed wire prickling her skin and her psyche tangled tighter around her, squeezing her lungs, and she wished he’d just hang up so she could breathe again.

      ‘Damn it, Evelyn!’ he growled, his voice a velvet glove over an iron fist that would wake up the dead, let alone Sam if he kept this up. ‘It’s eleven a.m. on a Friday. Where the hell are you?’

      And she realised that praying for the machine to cut him off was going to do no good at all if he was just going to call back, angrier next time. She snatched the receiver up. ‘I didn’t realise I was required to keep office hours.’

      ‘Evelyn, thank God.’ He blew out, long and hard and irritated, and she could almost imagine his free hand raking through his thick wavy hair in frustration. ‘Where the hell have you been? I tried to call earlier.’

      ‘I know. I heard.’

      ‘You heard? Then why didn’t you pick up? Or at least call me back?’

      ‘Because I figured you were quite capable of searching the Yellow Pages yourself.’

      There was a weighted pause and she heard the roar of diesel engines and hum of traffic, and she guessed he was still on the way to the hotel. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘I mean, I’ll do all manner of work for you as contracted. I’ll do your correspondence and manage your diary, without issue. I’ll set up appointments, do your word processing and I’ll even flick off your latest girlfriend with some expensive but ultimately meaningless bauble, but don’t expect me to act like some kind of pimp. As far as I recall, that wasn’t one of the services I agreed to provide.’

      This time the pause stretched so long she imagined the line would snap. ‘Is something wrong?’

      God, everything was wrong! She had appliances to replace that would suck money out of her building fund, she had a gut that was churning so hard she couldn’t think straight, and now she was expected to find this man a sleeping partner. ‘You’re the one who left the message on my machine, remember, asking me to fix you up with a woman for the night.’

      She heard a muttered curse. ‘And you think I wanted you to find me someone to go to bed with.’

      ‘What else was I supposed to think?’

      ‘You don’t think me perfectly capable of finding my own bedtime companions?’

      ‘I would have expected so, given…’ She dropped her forehead in one hand and bit down on her wayward tongue. Oh, God, what was she thinking, sparring with a client, especially when that client was almost single-handedly funding her life and the future she was working towards? But what else could she do? It was hard to think logically with this churning gut and this tangle of barbs biting into her.

      ‘Given what, exactly?’ he prompted. ‘Given the number of “expensive but ultimately meaningless baubles” I’ve had you send? Why, Evelyn, anyone would think you were jealous.’

      I am not jealous, she wanted to argue. I don’t care who you sleep with. But even in her own mind the words rang hollow and she could swear that the barbed wire actually laughed as it pulled tighter and pressed its pointed spines deeper into her flesh.

      So, okay, maybe she had felt just a tiny bit cheated that nothing had happened that night and she hadn’t ended up in his bed, but it was hardly wrong to wonder, surely? It was curiosity, more than anything. Naturally she’d had plenty of time since then to count herself lucky she had escaped that fate, after seeing how efficiently and ruthlessly he dispensed with his women, but it didn’t stop her wondering what it would have been like…

      She took a deep, calming breath, blew it out slowly and cursed whatever masochistic tendencies had made her pick up the phone in the first place when it would have been far more productive to rescue her washing than risk losing the best client she was ever likely to have. ‘I’m sorry. Clearly I misunderstood your message. What is it that I СКАЧАТЬ