‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Piers had cut her off in a clipped voice.
As he’d leant across the table Georgia had been able to see where the sunlight left a soft gold trail on his bare forearm, and she’d had the most ridiculous urge to reach out and touch him there.
Speedily she had looked away from him, uncomfortably aware of how fast her heart was beating.
Nothing further had been said about the incident in her bedroom by either of them, and Georgia had told herself that she was glad. And certainly she was equally glad that Piers had neither said nor done anything that in any way remotely suggested it was an experience he wished to repeat.
Since then, though, she had taken great care to keep away from the kitchen when she knew that Piers was using it, and she suspected that he was doing the same thing. This morning, however, she had woken up earlier and had taken Ben for a short walk before returning to make her breakfast, only to find that Piers was in the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee, wearing only a towelling robe, his face unshaven and his hair ruffled. For some odd reason the knowledge that he had only just got out of bed had had a dangerous emotional effect on her.
She hadn’t realised how much her expression was giving away until she’d heard him saying ruefully as he stroked his hand across his unshaven jaw, ‘Yes, I do need a shave, but I was up half the night working.’
‘Mmm...I suppose if you were married you’d have to shave at night,’ she began absently, and then stopped as she realised the direction her thoughts were taking. But it was too late because Piers had already picked up on what she was thinking.
‘At night—and in the morning,’ he told her meaningfully, his gaze sliding from her eyes to her mouth and then back to her eyes again, so that he could enjoy the confusion he could see so clearly registered there. What was it about her, he wondered, that made it so impossible for him not to give in to the temptation to underline his male sexuality to her and to watch her own female reaction to his provocation?
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ Georgia was unable to stop herself from begging him huskily.
‘Like what?’ Piers teased, his gaze deliberately dropping from her mouth to her body.
‘Like...like that!’ Georgia protested, immediately refocusing Piers’s attention on her softly parted lips.
What would she do, he wondered, if he went to her now and took her in his arms? If he kissed her? She’d probably complain that his unshaven beard was scratching her tender skin, Piers told himself grittily, deliberately turning away from the temptation she represented and heading for the hallway.
That had been when Georgia had heard him call out angrily for Ben.
‘What’s wrong?’ she enquired now, following Piers into the hall and then stopping as she saw the shredded copy of his morning paper.
‘Oh!’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Piers agreed grimly.
‘It’s only a newspaper.’ Georgia defended the dog. ‘It won’t take two minutes for me to go out and get you another one.’
‘That’s not the point,’ Piers told her sharply. ‘Don’t think I don’t know why you’re so determined to keep him here,’ he told Georgia grimly. ‘After all, you were the one who pressurised my godmother into having him in the first place.’
‘I did no such thing,’ Georgia immediately retorted indignantly.
‘No? That’s not the way my godmother tells it,’ Piers contradicted her flatly. ‘According to her, it’s you she has to thank for having Ben.’
‘Oh, but that’s...’ Georgia began, intending to tell him that it was because of her absence from the waiting room that his previous owner had managed to persuade his godmother into becoming Ben’s new owner.
But Piers was in no mood to listen, overruling her before she had any chance to finish what she was saying, telling her curtly, ‘I should have thought that your professionalism alone would have made you think twice about putting emotional pressure on my godmother to take Ben on. Suggesting that he might have to be put to sleep if she didn’t have him was, in my view, a serious breach of professional conduct, and—’
‘I never told Mrs Latham any such thing,’ Georgia gasped.
‘Perhaps not in so many words,’ Piers allowed. ‘But you certainly gave her the impression that that’s what would have happened to him.’
As the sound of their raised voices reached Ben through the half-open kitchen door he put his nose on his paws and listened anxiously to them. Human beings! They could be so hard to understand at times.
* * *
Piers frowned as he pulled up in front of the house he had come to view. From the details he had received on it he had decided that it sounded ideal for his purposes. Modern, architect-designed, spacious, with a good-sized garden to ensure his privacy—it even had a room specifically designed to house computer equipment.