One Husband Required!. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ there isn’t a boyfriend,’ she told him, hoping she didn’t sound too defensive. ‘I’m quite busy enough with my line-dancing and my French Appreciation lessons. And I read a lot. I don’t need a man to justify my existence, you know!’ She frowned at him suspiciously. ‘And why have you suddenly started taking an interest in my personal life?’

      ‘No reason,’ said Ross innocently. He absently took a bite from his biscuit and then looked at it in surprise before finishing it, like someone who hadn’t realised how hungry they were before they started eating. He popped the rest of it in his mouth and crunched it.

      ‘Miss breakfast this morning, by any chance?’ queried Ursula.

      ‘How did you guess?’

      ‘The way you practically bit your fingers off? That gave me just a tiny clue!’

      He smiled as he licked a stray crumb off his finger with the tip of his tongue. ‘You know, you’re bright, funny and extremely tolerant, Ursula.’ There was a pause as he looked across his desk at her. ‘Do you ever think about changing your job?’

      Ursula might have felt insecure about her looks and lack of attraction to the opposite sex, but she was supremely confident about her work, and it didn’t occur to her that Ross might be hinting at her to leave. She assumed an expression of mock shock. ‘You really want me to answer that? On a Monday morning, when you’ve got a headache? What’s up, Ross—worried that I’ll walk out and leave you in the lurch?’

      ‘I’m serious, Ursula.’

      ‘Well, so am I.’ She blinked at him, dark, feathery lashes shading her unusually deep blue eyes. Her best feature, or so her mother always used to say. ‘I presume that wasn’t a prelude to “letting me go”, or whatever horrible euphemism it is they use these days when someone wants to sack you! Was it?’

      ‘Sack you?’ He gave a gritty smile. ‘I can’t imagine the place without you, if you must know.’

      Which sounded like a compliment, but left her with a rather disturbing thought. ‘Do you think I’m stuck in a rut, then, Ross?’

      ‘The question rather implies that other people do,’ he observed. ‘Anyone in particular?’

      ‘My sister,’ Ursula admitted.

      Ross knitted his dark brows together. ‘Amber? The model?’

      ‘She doesn’t really model very much these days—not since she got herself involved with Finn Fitzgerald—’

      ‘But she doesn’t approve of you working here?’

      Ursula bit her lip, wishing that they’d never started this wretched conversation. Life was so much easier if you just drifted along without asking too many questions along the way. ‘She thinks six years in one place is a long time.’

      ‘And she’s right,’ he said slowly.

      Ursula looked up in alarm. Maybe she had misjudged things. Him. Maybe subconsciously he did want her out.

      Ross saw the wide-eyed look of fear on her face and shook his head. ‘Now what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?’

      ‘Don’t you patronise me!’ she snapped. ‘Or tell a lie!’

      ‘And how am I telling a lie?’

      ‘I am not pretty!’

      ‘Well, that’s purely subjective, and I happen to think you are—exceedingly.’ He saw her blush, and smiled. ‘In fact, if I go so far as to be objective—then I’d describe those enormous eyes as sapphires set in a complexion as dewy and as fresh as creamy-pink roses left out in the rain—’

      ‘Now you’re letting your copywriting skills run away with you!’ she interrupted drily. ‘Just what are you trying to say to me, Ross? That our working partnership has grown stale? That there’s some hungry new female champing at the bit to replace me, and you do want me to go?’

      Ross sighed. ‘No, I don’t want you to go. Right now, all I want is to resist the temptation to make any comments about female logic. Or the lack of it,’ he added in a dark undertone. ‘But I am interested in hearing your sister’s objections to you working for me. Particularly since I’ve met her on very few occasions. She hardly knows me!’ he finished indignantly.

      ‘Oh,’ she said, with an evasive shrug of her shoulders. ‘You know.’

      ‘No, Ursula, I don’t.’ He looked at her.

      ‘She...she...’

      ‘She...?’ he put in helpfully.

      She didn’t dare tell him her sister’s real reason for urging her to leave Sheridan-Blackman. That Amber thought Ursula was being unrealistic. Wasting her life by pining for a man who could never be hers. Except that I’m not pining! Ursula thought defiantly. Or being unrealistic.

      Just because she happened to like Ross as a man, and enjoyed working with him—it didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to start ripping his clothes off! ‘She thinks that a change of scene would do me good.’

      ‘It’s worth thinking about,’ Ross said unexpectedly.

      ‘It is? Then that does mean—’

      ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he put in impatiently. ‘Other than that it might be an idea to consider any other offers which may come your way.’

      Other offers? Ursula stared at him in confusion. ‘But they’re not likely to, are they? Not if I’m not actively seeking employment. I’m a personal assistant, not an account executive, and I’m hardly a prime target for head-hunters!’

      ‘I guess not,’ he answered tersely. ‘Do you have a lot of work to do, Ursula?’

      ‘Not particularly.’ She tried to answer lightly, but it wasn’t easy now that he had sown seeds of doubt in her mind. Somehow she had gone from complacency to insecurity in the space of about half an hour. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting swopping idle chit-chat with you.’

      ‘Then maybe you could pop down to the market and buy me some oranges?’

      She didn’t miss a beat—but then she was used to bizarre requests by now. ‘How many?’

      ‘A dozen.’

      ‘And these oranges—are they for eating, or looking at?’

      ‘For looking at. I need inspiration! There’s a new juice campaign coming up—and Oliver’s pitching for the account. So we need to compose the perfect catchphrase which will have people ransacking their supermarkets for Jerry’s Juice. So. Any brilliant ideas?’

      Ursula knitted her brows together in concentration. What did she like best about orange juice? ‘Everyone always emphasises how sweet it is...’

      ‘Yeah. And?’

      ‘Well, why not do the opposite—emphasise how sharp it is?’

      ‘Any ideas?’

      Ursula СКАЧАТЬ