Would one weekend away hurt? Walking away from him whenever they spent a night

together was struggle enough. Where was the crime in allowing herself the luxury of some time out? She had had barely any rest to speak of between all the work to get her qualification and yet more work to prove to herself and Liz Harris, who had employed her, that she could do whatever was required of her.

„It‟s about your job…‟

„I know it‟s demanding but I like it, I enjoy the pace. OK,‟ Mattie smiled slowly, „I‟ll come with you. Give me an hour and a half, say, to do what I have to do and then you can come and pick me up.‟

Which still left what he had to tell her unsaid. Dominic smiled back. He‟d spill the beans once the weekend was over. She would be relaxed, they‟d both be relaxed.

„Satisfied?‟ Mattie smiled slowly and seductively at him. She felt expansive all of a sudden and radiantly happy at the prospect of spending a whole lazy weekend with him.

She almost wished, the following morning, that she hadn‟t promised to put in a couple of hours of work. She packed her bag, threw in some underwear, one change of clothes and nightwear, which would probably be redundant.

If the office wasn‟t, as she had told him, literally a short walk across the building, she might even have been tempted to abandon her generous offer made to Liz two days before, but she would get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

After all, this career, which was still sparkling new and full of promise, was the one constant in her life. Dominic would go and she would need her work to fill the void.

She let herself into the room soundlessly, enjoying the silence, made herself a cup of coffee and went into the sectioned room that Liz used.

Dominic Drecos, not a million miles away, couldn‟t concentrate on the figures blinking at him on the computer that was neatly tucked away in the small office he had created from one of the bedrooms in his apartment.

He found his attention drifting from his chief accountant‟s earnest reports about profit margins to the woman who would be waiting for him at her apartment in precisely forty-five minutes‟ time.

Eventually he abandoned his attempts to work and resorted to stalking through his apartment, pausing to peer impatiently out of the windows and consult his watch.

He felt like a kid on his first date. When it came to her, he always felt like a kid on his first date. Naturally, the novelty wouldn‟t last. When did things like that ever last? But he was more than happy to go along for the ride and see how far it took him.

He raked long fingers through his dark hair and looked absently down at the street below, propping himself up on the broad window ledge.

It would have done wonders for his conscience if he hadn‟t known what she was doing right now. Working. Putting in the hard graft that he had instinctively known from the very beginning she would have been capable of. Unfortunately, her putting in hard graft just made him uncomfortably aware that the little talk he had been meaning to have with her for some time now was well behind its due date.

It was a relief to get away from that uncomfortable line of thinking when he glanced at his watch for the eighth time and realised that he could set off to collect her. He would be sure to get held up in traffic and if he didn‟t, well, he would only be a little early.

On the way, he visualised her reaction to his country house when they got there. It really was very charming. Nothing big and ostentatious. She‟d have no reason to round on him in that bull-terrier way of hers, hands on her hips, colour in her cheeks, in full flow about their different backgrounds.

Although… He grinned and the sticky business of talking to her about the job faded into the background. Although lately her pithy little remarks were beginning to seem quite endearing.

Maybe he would show her the outdoor Jacuzzi, which would be guaranteed to really get her going. Then, when she was hot under the collar, he could introduce her to the joys of lazing in bubbling warm water with a bottle of chilled wine between them…

Which meant that he was ever so slightly irritated to arrive promptly at her flat, only to discover after ringing the doorbell repeatedly that she wasn‟t in.

Obviously, the prospect of spending the weekend with him had not filled her with quite the same level of anticipation.

Nor did he know precisely where she was in the building. Nor was there anyone around handy to ask.

His process of elimination took him twenty minutes, during which his irritation levels rose steadily. Head in some damned accounts, he thought impatiently, convevently forgetting how often in the past he had lost track of time to work.

The door to the office was ajar and Dominic pushed it open and strode in in one fluid movement, only to find that she wasn‟t sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen, oblivious to the passage of time and, coincidentally, him.

She was by one of the banks of graceful windows that overlooked the inner courtyard, perching on the window sill, and she looked very much as though she had been waiting for him.

Which didn‟t do much to soothe his temper.

„I told you what time I was going to be here, Mattie. What the hell are you still doing in this damned office?‟ Dominic strode into the room and proceeded to sit, glaring, on one of the polished desks. „Are you being paid for this volunteered overtime, by the way? I know you want to make a good impression, but believe me some employers can be very cunning when it comes to taking advantage of over-enthusiastic staff.‟

„Like you?‟

„What?‟ He had been so caught up in his own irritation that he noticed the expression on her face for the first time, and his dark eyebrows knitted into an impatient frown.

„Like you.‟ Mattie pushed herself away from the window ledge and walked very steadily, admirably steadily in fact, towards her own desk, taking up position on the black swivel chair so that she could face him. „Because if it‟s one thing you are, it‟s cunning. Am I right or wrong?‟

She clasped her fingers together and willed him not to come too close to her. She didn‟t want her body playing its usual pathetic games with her head.

„What are you talking about, Mattie?‟ He raked his fingers through his hair, although caution was setting in. „You certainly plan your attacks with lousy timing. We‟re about to spend a weekend together and neither of us needs to kick off with an argument. So to nip this in the bud, I don’t happen to be the sort of employer who takes advantage of his employees.‟ That didn‟t seem to have nipped anything in the bud. She was still looking at him as if he was something that had crawled out from under a rock.

„Finished here?‟ Dominic tried to sound reasonably jovial, although it was a struggle. „Or still got one or two stray accounts you want to wrap up some time today?‟ That little bit of sarcasm slipped out. It didn‟t meet with the amused smile that usually greeted his frequent bouts of sarcasm, the one he had become accustomed to. In fact, it met with a wall of reinforced steel.