The Bedroom Assignment

Zoe pulled herself together. ‘Broody? Me? Nonsense. I’m a party girl.’

He laughed, clearly convinced. And delighted about it.

His next words told her why. ‘Yes, Suze told me your men don’t last long. Never felt the urge to pair-bond?’

Zoe did not allow herself to wince. She said carefully, ‘I just like to keep my options open.’

‘You’re a girl after my own heart.’

‘So I hear,’ she said acidly.

He might have turned down Barbara Lessiter. He might outlaw inter-office relationships. But everyone knew that he was a serial flirt. Even if the battling blondes hadn’t been willing to pour out all the gossip Zoe would have worked it out from his press cuttings.

Every time he gave a speech he got his photograph in the paper. In every photograph, as far as she could see, he was escorting a different woman. All beautiful, all elegant. And all different.

According to Isabel of Human Resources, he had just dumped the latest girlfriend, too. Apparently she was a television gardening expert who was unusually gorgeous and had been getting stacks of fan mail ever since she’d walked into a hosepipe spray by mistake.

Poppy, bristling with secretarial discretion, had said that she did not know anything about that, implying the reverse.

Isabel had ignored her. ‘She asked him for a commitment and he walked. She’s absolutely broken-hearted,’ she’d told the ladies’ rest room.

Poppy had sniffed. ‘Probably just had her head turned by the publicity. They never lived together, you know.’

Then she’d looked annoyed with herself for having betrayed so much.

‘No, he never lets a woman get that close,’ Isabel had agreed, restraining her triumph, but only just. ‘Doesn’t even stay the whole night, they say.’

Silence had fallen. They’d all shivered. The sheer aridity of it had chilled them all. Poppy and Isabel had exchanged half-ashamed glances, their rivalry momentarily overtaken.

Every woman there was thinking the same thing, thought Zoe. Every single one of them was thinking, There but for the grace of God go I.

So now she looked at Jay with unflattering steadiness.

‘Hey,’ he said mock alarmed. ‘I’m no Bluebeard. I just don’t make promises I can’t keep.’

Zoe recognised that. She nodded. ‘Nor do I,’ she said fairly.

‘There you are, then. We’re the same, you and I.’

She bit back self-mocking laughter. If only he knew! ‘I doubt it.’

‘Oh, but we are. And the world envies us. It’s the twenty- first century metropolitan dream.’

‘Life as one long party?’ she said sceptically.

He said coolly, ‘Recreational sex and no responsibilities. That’s what everyone wants really. The pair-bonders—’ he nodded at Molly, now rubbing her cheek against her George’s shoulder ‘—are the oddballs.’

Zoe looked across at them almost angrily. ‘Is it being an oddball to be honest about your feelings?’

Jay studied her curiously. ‘I don’t tell lies about feelings. I—’

She snapped her attention back to him. She was shaking with an odd sort of grieving anger. ‘Set the rules?’ she supplied sweetly. ‘No sex in the office. No commitments outside it. You’re the sort of man who thinks that if he doesn’t stay the night he’s made the terms of the contract clear.’

His eyebrows twitched together.

‘You’ve been listening to gossip,’ he said, perfectly pleasantly. But suddenly he wasn’t laughing any more.

Zoe could have kicked herself. But she was not a liar. Well, not about that sort of thing. And she was not a coward, either. She lifted her chin.

‘Is gossip wrong, then?’

There was a pause. The party noises screeched on all around them. But Zoe had the distinct impression Jay was not hearing them. His high cheek-boned face looked suddenly pinched, as if he were cold. Or in pain.

‘No,’ he said at last, curtly.

She spread her hands. Case proved, they said, as clearly as words.

That was when Banana Lessiter staggered out of the gyrating crowd and made an unsteady beeline for Jay.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Jay under his breath.