Escape Me Never. Sara Craven

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СКАЧАТЬ rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_fffe1859-6855-5f00-bd95-71d3e27b8ea6">CHAPTER THREE

      CASS was still shaking two hours later, but from rage, she assured herself over and over again, not any other emotion.

      She turned and punched savagely at an inoffensive sofa cushion. The sheer sexual arrogance of the creature. He clearly hadn’t listened to one word she’d said, so securely armoured in his own conceit that it made him deaf to any point of view but his own.

      And when she got back to work, gallingly, she would have to maintain a surface civility towards him at least. Or she could go to Barney, and ask to be taken off the account, she thought frowningly, only that would involve her in all kinds of explanations, she would much prefer to avoid.

      But there had to be some way to convince the Rohan Grants of this world that she was not just—there for the taking, the frustrated widow of joke and insinuation.

      She hated milky drinks, but she made one for herself before she went to bed, in the hope that it would help her sleep, then lay tossing and turning until far into the night.

      But contrary to all expectations, she felt fine when she woke the next morning. Perhaps temper had helped burn out the few remaining germs, she thought drily.

      After breakfast, she went downstairs to collect Jodie.

      ‘I see your visitor was back,’ Mrs Barrett commented archly as she let Cass in.

      Cass smiled coolly. ‘A little problem at work.’ And that was putting it mildly, she added silently.

      ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Mrs Barrett said, vexed. ‘You’d think they’d leave you alone when you’re poorly.’

      ‘There’s no justice, Mrs B.,’ Cass said cheerfully. ‘But I’ll take care it doesn’t happen again.’ And how.

      Her reunion with her daughter was everything she could have desired. Until they got back to their own flat, that is.

      ‘Mrs Barrett’s nice,’ Jodie remarked. ‘She lets me watch unsuitable things on television. She calls it “the box”.’

      Cass’s lip quivered. ‘How do you know they’re unsuitable, madam?’

      ‘Because you always change channels when they come on. You think I don’t notice, but I do,’ Jodie said serenely. ‘Is that man coming back?’

      Cass’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What—man?’ She tried to sound casual.

      ‘The one who came to see you. Mrs Barrett said he came again yesterday.’ Jodie’s face was angelic. ‘Is he going to be my Daddy?’

      ‘No, he is not,’ Cass said forcibly.

      Jodie gave a heavy sigh. ‘I liked him.’

      Cass gave her a long look. ‘Jodie—you didn’t say anything to him, did you?’

      ‘What about?’ Jodie didn’t meet her gaze—a bad sign.

      ‘About being your Daddy,’ Cass said desperately.

      The answer was too long in coming. ‘No-o-o,’ Jodie said, slowly and evasively.

      ‘Jodie,’ Cass threatened.

      Her daughter’s mouth trembled. ‘He didn’t mind, Mummy. He wasn’t cross.’ She ventured an appealing look. ‘He laughed.’

      ‘I bet he’s never stopped,’ Cass said savagely. ‘What on earth possessed you?’ She sighed, running a distracted irritable hand through her hair. ‘Never—ever say such a thing to a visitor again.’

      ‘Mrs Barrett said he was your boyfriend.’

      ‘Well, Mrs Barrett was wrong,’ Cass said with unwonted sharpness. She saw Jodie flinch, and gentled her tone. ‘Sweetheart, he’s a client—a very important man at my work. Not Daddy material at all,’ she added, trying to make a belated joke of it all.

      ‘He said he’d be honoured,’ Jodie said mournfully.

      Cass could have screamed.

      She supposed reluctantly, thinking it over later, that it was to his credit that he’d been kind to the child—let her down lightly. But it didn’t make her like him any better, or add relish to the prospect of having to face him again.

      She was quite well enough to return to work on Monday morning. Roger was also back, delighted at the acquisition of the Eve account, but far more interested, Cass thought amusedly, in the lingering symptoms of ‘flu which he was convinced still afflicted him.

      And when he’d disposed regretfully of his various aches and pains, he then wanted to discuss Rohan Grant. Compared with whom, even Roger’s health was a more acceptable topic, Cass thought crossly.

      She steeled herself to answer his questions coolly and concisely trying not to give any of her personal feelings away.

      ‘And you don’t like him,’ Roger said when she’d finished, proving that she was no actress.

      ‘Do I have to?’ Cass asked rather sourly. ‘I wasn’t too keen on Randy Sid, King of the Stainless Steel Sink either, but it made no difference to the campaign.’

      ‘So you’d put the high-flying Mr Grant in the same category, would you?’ Roger gave her a thoughtful glance. ‘What happened Cass? Don’t tell me he made a pass at you,’ he added grinning.

      ‘All right, I won’t.’ She made a business of searching in her desk drawer for something.

      ‘You mean he did?’ He sounded almost awed. ‘Dear God.’ He whistled. ‘The guy’s supposed to have an eye for women, but he must have laser vision if he could penetrate that battle dress top, and all the other ethnic layers you’re usually cocooned in. How do you turn him on, Cassie? With the dance of the seven Greenham Common ponchos?’

      ‘Very amusing.’ Cass slammed the drawer, narrowly missing removing her own finger in the process. ‘I had no idea that my love life, or lack of it, was of such consuming interest to everyone here.’

      Roger said quietly, ‘Actually, I was joking, but if I’ve offended you, Cass, then I’m truly sorry.’ He paused. ‘Has it happened at last? Has someone—some man really got to you?’

      ‘No,’ she said controlledly. ‘Why do you ask?’

      He shrugged. ‘Because it has to happen sometime.’ He frowned swiftly. ‘Yet not, I’d have thought, with Rohan Grant.’ He gave her a troubled look. ‘He’s the big league, Cass. His reputation says he likes to love them and leave them. Any relationship with him would be high on passion and good times, but lacking in anything else, including longevity.’

      She smiled coolly. ‘My sentiments entirely, so I’m in no danger.’ She picked up some of the papers on her desk. ‘This fireplace company. It seems to me the designs they want to feature in their ads are the really ugly ones. How can we explain that tactfully?’

      She was passing Accounts on her way out to lunch later when a man came out. She recognised him СКАЧАТЬ