The Girl he Never Noticed by Lindsay Armstrong Read Free Book Online

anyone at this late stage.’
    ‘So be it,’ he said, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the lunch he was going to miss.
    She hesitated, but decided she might as well cement her stance on the matter—in a manner of speaking… ‘You don’t have to take me to lunch, Mr Hillier. I’d quite understand.’
    ‘Not at all, Ms Montrose,’ he drawled. ‘For one thing, I’m starving. And, since Roger and I often have lunchwhen we’re on the road together, you don’t need to view it with any suspicion.’
    ‘Suspicion?’
    This time he looked at her with satirical amusement glinting in his blue eyes. ‘Suspicion that I might try to chat you up or—break down your icy ramparts.’
    Liz knew—she could feel what was happening to her—and this time nothing in the world could have stopped her from blushing brightly. She took refuge from the embarrassment of it by contacting the Bromwich lunch venue.
    The restaurant he took her to had an open area on a boardwalk above the beach. They found a table shaded by a canvas umbrella, ordered, and looked out over the sparkling waters of Sydney Harbour. They could see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
    And he was as good as his word. He didn’t try to chat her up or break her down, but somehow made it possible for them to be companionable as they ate their fish and chips.
    He was so different, Liz thought, from how he could be at other times. Not only had he left the arrogant multi-millionaire of the office behind, but also the moody persona he’d been in the car. He even looked younger, and she found herself catching her breath once or twice—once when an errant breeze lifted his dark hair, and once when he played absently with the salt cellar in his long fingers.
    ‘Well…’ He consulted his watch finally. ‘Let’s get back to work.’
    ‘Thanks for that.’ She stood up.
    He followed suit, and for one brief moment they looked into each other’s eyes—a searching, perfectly sober exchange—before they both looked away again, and started to walk to the car.
    Liz knew she was to suffer the consequences of that pleasant lunch in the form of a yet another restless night.
    Not so Scout, though. She was still bubbling with excitement at what she’d seen at the zoo, and she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
    Liz dropped a kiss on her curls and tiptoed out. But when she went to bed she tossed and turned for ages as flashes of what had been an extraordinary day came back to haunt her.
    Such as when that light breeze had ruffled his hair and it had affected her so curiously—given her goosebumps, to be precise. Such as when he’d played absently with the salt cellar and she’d suffered a mental flash of having his hands on her naked body.
    I’ve got to deal with this, she told herself, going hot and cold again. I don’t think I can get out of this job without affecting my rating with the agency, and without having to take less money—which would play havoc with my budget. I’ve got to think of Scout and what’s best for her. A brief affair with a man who, if you go on his present track record, doesn’t appear to be able to commit? Not to Portia Pengelly, anyway, and that means he was using her—he more or less admitted that.
    I’ve got to remember what it felt like to find outI’d been used, and to be told an abortion was the only course of action in the circumstances…
    She stared into the darkness, then closed her eyes on the tears that came.
    She resumed her monologue when her tears subsided. So, Liz, even if you are no longer the Ice Queen you were, you’ve got to get through this. Don’t let another man bring you down.
    She was helped by the fact that Cam Hillier was away for the next couple of days, but when he came back she still had two weeks left to work for him.
    He seemed to be in a different mood, though. Less abrasive—with her, anyway—and there were no
double entendres,
no signs that they’d ever stood in a lift