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

pursue that. ‘Well, I
am
here to work, so—’ She broke off when she noticed an ironic little glint in his eye as he crossed his arms and simply watched her.
    And it all came flooding back—what had been said in the car before her enchantment with his gardens and his nephew’s menagerie had claimed her.
    She closed her eyes as she felt the colour that flooded her cheeks. As her lashes fluttered up, she said with effort, ‘Let’s not go there, Mr Hillier. In fact I refuse to discuss it.’
    He lay back in his chair, dangling a silver pen in his long fingers. ‘Why? It
did
happen.’
    ‘It was an aberration,’ Liz said coolly, reverting to her Ice Queen role.
    He grinned—a full version of that crooked but utterly charismatic smile this time. ‘Just a bit of naughtiness between two people for reasons unknown?’
    ‘Well,’ Liz said, thinking fast, ‘you
had
been stood up out of the blue. Could that have been at the back of your mind?’
    ‘Portia couldn’t have been further from my mind.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk and shrugged. ‘That may sound—’
    ‘It sounds pretty cold-blooded,’ she broke in.
    He looked at her. ‘Portia thought that in exchange for her—charms—she could persuade me to back a clothing range. Swimsuits, in fact. She had her heart set on designing and no doubt modelling them,’ he said dryly. ‘When I looked into it I found it was an overcrowded market and a poor investment. Despite the fact that I’d never made any promises of any kind, she took the view that I had—uh—two-timed her.’
    Liz blinked. ‘Oh?’
    He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You sound surprised.’
    ‘I am,’ Liz confessed.
    ‘You assumed it was all over another woman?’he suggested, with a glint of wicked amusement in his eyes.
    Liz bit her lip and looked annoyed, because she knew she was being mocked. All the same it
was
what she’d automatically assumed. ‘Well…yes. But did you honestly expect her still to want to go out with you?’ she added. ‘I would have thought not.’
    Cam Hillier dragged his hand through his hair with a rueful look. ‘Yep—got that bit wrong,’ he confessed. ‘I thought she’d at least trust my judgement.’ He shrugged. ‘Where money’s concerned anyway.’
    ‘I see,’ Liz said—quite inadequately, she felt. But what else could she say?
    He sat back with a faint smile. ‘And it is over between us.’
    ‘But only yesterday it didn’t sound as if it was over for her!’ Liz protested.
    ‘Look, it is now,’ he said dryly. ‘Believe me.’
    Liz shivered suddenly as she watched his mouth set, and knew she couldn’t disbelieve him.
    ‘But don’t for one minute imagine that Portia won’t find someone else.’ He paused and looked at her penetratingly. ‘Probably a lot sooner than I will, since you’re so hell-bent on being the Ice Queen.’
    Liz’s lips parted in sheer shock. ‘How did you…?’
    He shrugged. ‘We’ve known each other for nearly a month now. Quite long enough for me to detect when you’re in chilly mode.’
    Liz blinked helplessly several times and opened her mouth—but he spoke first. ‘Never mind, we’ll leave all that aside. How are you with horses?’
    She opened her mouth again—to repeat bewilderedly
Horses?
—but just stopped herself in time. ‘I have no idea why you want to know,’ she said, ‘but I like horses. I rode as a kid. If, though, you’re going to ask me about trawlers, I’ve never been on one and have no desire to do so!’
    His eyebrows shot up. ‘Why would I?’
    Liz gestured to the walls. ‘They seem to go together for you. Horses and trawlers. And, probably because I don’t understand any of this, in a fog of bewilderment I thought they might come next.’
    He looked quizzical. ‘No, but I suppose they
do
go together for me. I inherited a trawler fleet from my father, which eventually made the horses possible.’
    Liz gazed at him. ‘Why Shakespeare, though?’
    He looked surprised.