She gave a manic laugh. ‘Are you for real? You expect me to just roll over, take this news and pick up where we left off?’
‘Hell, no!’ he said, his eyes widening with what she could only read as horror. ‘I want to talk business and strategy. Where and when doesn’t matter to me. I wasn’t suggesting a date of any sort.’
‘Why?’ she sniped. ‘Does the idea suddenly seem repulsive to you?’
‘Sorry, that came out wrong.’
He actually had the decency to look sheepish, and the change made him almost boyish. God help her if she didn’t want to jump his bones as much as she wanted to kill him.
‘I just mean it’s not something I endorse. I have a rule never to mix business with pleasure.’
She stared at him incredulously. ‘I repeat—are you for real?’
‘Last night was different,’ he stressed. ‘Things had already gone way too far before I knew who you were.’
She clamped her jaw shut. What the hell could she say to that? By the time he’d discovered who she was she’d been like a dog on heat, and as for him... He’d been right there with her.
But still it didn’t make it right.
She took a slow breath, smoothing a hand over her hair as she raised her chin and straightened her spine. This was happening, whether she liked it or not. The sooner she buried the emotional wreckage, the sooner she could deal with the professional fallout.
And that was all that mattered.
It had to be.
‘Fine,’ she said, purposefully shifting her attention to rifle through the papers on her desk. ‘I’ll have Anna clear my diary for tomorrow. We can meet then.’
She didn’t look up, hoping everything in her tone and demeanour had delivered the dismissal he deserved. And yet he hesitated. She could feel his eyes still on her, the tension in the air still tight.
‘What?’ she suddenly blurted, her composure cracking as the need to goad him burst free. ‘You can’t wait until then to see me?’
Her gibe hit its mark, his eyes flaring. ‘Very funny, Jennifer.’
‘If you find this funny, I have serious concerns about your sense of humour.’
He looked as if he would say something else but stopped, his shoulders rolling on a heavy sigh. ‘Look, I know I’ve not done a great job of explaining myself, or the situation, but you must know that the sooner we get talking strategy, the sooner we can move forward and put this inconvenient start behind us.’
He studied her for a moment, probably waiting for a response, and when none came he turned and left, leaving her staring after him, the word inconvenient bouncing provokingly around her head.
Inconvenient?
Incon-bloody-venient?
The man was an arse!
She’d show him what inconvenient truly looked like.
Beneath her, her legs trembled against her bravado and her tummy turned. She was grateful she hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning, because surely it would be making a return right now.
She could handle this. She just needed to break the problem down into two parts, or rather two men, and deal with each in turn.
First up—Tony.
Collapsing back into her chair, she reached out and pressed her index finger to the phone to dial Anna. She would know where Tony had been calling from. Anna wasn’t just her PA, she was good friends with Tony’s wife. And Jennifer would be damned if she was having this conversation with him over the phone.
* * *
She rapped on the door and fought the urge to test the handle. What she really wanted to do was rip the damn thing open and confront Tony wherever he stood.