“There’s not a problem, is there? I didn’t see any conflict on your calendar,” she said. The latter was meant as a subtle dig about his habit of scheduling things without telling her.
“No, there’s no problem.” No matter how it got scheduled, at least a ten o’clock meeting would break up the morning’s endless tedium.
Jason wasn’t surprised to find that he was the first to arrive. His grandfather, a stickler for most things, thought meetings were generally a waste of time. Harriet usually had to track him down in the mill and remind him that he was late. Then he breezed in, ran through whatever was on the agenda and raced back to his beloved fabrics.
Jason paced the boardroom anticipating John Lansing’s arrival. He was anxious to see what the agency had come up with based on the suggestions he’d given them. He turned when the door opened. With any luck perhaps he and his grandfather would agree for once.
“Sir, Dana Roberts is here,” Harriet said.
The faint note of disapproval in her voice intrigued him. “Does she have an appointment?”
“She’s the designer the Lansing people used. Should I send her in or have her wait for the others?”
“By all means, send her in.”
The door opened bit by bit. At his first glimpse of the woman framed in the doorway, Jason felt his stomach knot. It couldn’t be! Surely fate couldn’t be that unkind. Though she’d chosen a more sedate attire—a pencil-slim skirt in disgracefully cheap black wool and a rose-colored sweater that was equally ordinary—there was no mistaking the hellion who’d attacked him on Saturday. For one thing, her hair had been worried into spikes again. For another, his blood was already racing just a little faster. Anger? Sex appeal? He wasn’t sure he could tell the difference where she was concerned. From the start she had aroused all sorts of contradictory feelings in him.
He scowled at her. “You work for the Lansing Agency?” he queried, not bothering to keep the note of incredulity from his voice.
“Not yet,” she said, looking almost as desperate as he felt. She swallowed nervously. “Where is everyone?”
“You’re the first.”
She slid into the room, careful to keep her distance. She put her portfolio on the floor, then on a chair, then on the table, then back on the floor again. By the time she was done, Jason was tempted to take it and toss it through a window.
“Am I making you nervous?” he asked instead, taking a certain amount of grim satisfaction in the thought.
“Yes,” she said, perching on the edge of a chair as if she were prepared to run at the first sign of trouble.
He nodded and took a seat opposite her, training an unflinching gaze on her. If he’d hoped to further disconcert her, however, the attempt failed miserably. She drew in a deep breath and returned his gaze evenly, then said, “Maybe we should talk about it.”
“Oh, no,” he said softly, a warning note in his voice. “Believe me, I am in no mood to hear anything you have to say unless it has to do with those designs you brought.”
The silence that fell after that was nerve-racking. After another ten minutes of strained quiet, he jumped to his feet, opened the door and shouted down the hall. “Harriet, what the hell is keeping my grandfather?”
At his shout Harriet came running, an expression of alarm on her normally passive face. “He just called, sir. He had an emergency, out of the building. He said you should go ahead without him.”
“Out of the building?” His voice again rose to a level he would never have considered using before Saturday. Just being around this Roberts woman seemed to shatter every bit of self-control he had. He lowered his voice. “What kind of emergency would take him away from here?”
“I don’t know, sir. He didn’t say.”
“How about Lansing?”
“Actually his office called, too. He said you and Ms. Roberts should be able to reach a decision without him.”
Desperation curled inside him. He did not want to go back into that room with Dana Roberts. He might very well strangle her.
He reminded himself that he was a civilized, sophisticated man. Surely he could contain his anger long enough to look at her designs objectively, then get her out of here. He would never have to see her again, especially if the designs were awful. The prospect of turning them down cheered him considerably.
“Shall I reschedule?” Harriet asked.
“No. As long as Ms. Roberts is here with the designs, we’ll go ahead. Tell my grandfather I want him to join us the minute he gets back.”
“Of course.”
When he walked back into the room, wide blue eyes met his. “If this isn’t a good time…” she began.
“No,” he said impatiently. “Let’s get this over with. Show me what you’ve brought.”
“But your grandfather…”
“Isn’t coming.”
“But he…” Her voice trailed off in confusion. She cast a panicked glance in the direction of the door and looked as if she’d like to make a run for it.
Jason regarded her oddly. “He what?”
“Nothing.” With an expression of grim determination in her eyes, she opened her portfolio. She looked at the stretch of table between them and inched closer. She seemed to be assessing her odds for survival.
Finally she drew in a deep breath. “I can’t get into this without at least apologizing first. What I said on Saturday, it was a terrible mistake.”
“Yes,” he said curtly, “it was.” He gestured toward the designs. “Get on with it.”
For a minute she looked as if she wanted to say more, but finally she shrugged and began describing her work.
She had just started when Jason interrupted, “You enjoyed slugging me, didn’t you?” The words popped out before he could stop them.
Pink stole into her cheeks. “No, really. I mean, if you’d been a
