LITMIR.BIZ

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First he seemed vaguely familiar, and secondly he found her amusing. She hadn’t been prepared for the latter, nor the way his eyes began a slow inspection of her person. They didn’t miss much on the way down, and any lapse was accounted for on the way up. He noted the well worn boots on her feet, the shapeless khaki cords cinched in at her waist with a wide leather belt. His eyes lingered on the red plaid shirt, then followed the crimson tide up over an elfin face entirely devoid of make-up, large green eyes flashing angrily, full lips pulled into a tight line, until finally they skipped over the close-cropped black hair crammed beneath a dusty bush hat.

      Crossing his arms, he shook his head. ‘What the hell are you supposed to be, a female Indiana Jones?’ he queried tauntingly.

      Even Mickey, who rarely went to the cinema, had heard of the character he named, and she knew the reference was meant as no compliment, spoken the way it was. He found her lacking. Amusing in a pitiful way. To her surprise, considering the view was hardly novel, from this man she found she didn’t like it, not one little bit.

      ‘I didn’t dress to please you, Mr Douglas!’

      That enticing mouth curved. ‘Nor any man, I shouldn’t imagine. What’s the matter? Don’t you like being a woman, or are you just scared of being one?’ he mocked back immediately.

      To her everlasting dismay, her reaction was disgustingly feminine. ‘How dare you? You’re the rudest man I’ve ever met!’ she exclaimed furiously.

      Mickey had never received such open scorn before. She was intelligent enough to realise her style of dress was considered odd, but she didn’t care. Her clothes were asexual, and that was exactly the way she wanted it. How typical of a man to assume that because she didn’t wear clothes which advertised her as ‘available’ she had to be scared! Well, she wasn’t advertising because she had nothing for sale. She had opted out. No doubt he would see that as unnatural, whereas she had merely taken control of her life, refusing to be at the mercy of her own hormones. She was not a body, but a person, and as a person she did not need to advertise her sex.

      Far from being repentant, Ryan Douglas merely made himself more comfortable, crossing his long legs at the ankles. ‘Is that so? Well, you’re sure the strangest woman I’ve ever met,’ he said conversationally.

      Entirely forgetting that it was bad business to alienate a paying customer, especially one so desperately needed, she felt acid fly to her tongue. ‘And you’ve known so many, I suppose?’

      Ryan Douglas grinned. ‘Only my fair share. How about you?’

      Mickey’s eyes narrowed as she detected the way the conversation was turning. How like a man to see her only as a sex object! And not a very alluring one at that! Her chin lifted belligerently. ‘How about me, what?’

      If her direct challenge was meant to halt him, it failed signally. ‘How many men have you known?’ he enlarged obligingly, making her wish she’d kept her mouth shut.

      ‘One too many,’ she retorted snappily, and experienced an odd sensation in her stomach when his lips parted in a broad smile as he laughed.

      ‘Ouch! The...lady...has got claws all right! You’ve got looks too. Have you always done your best to play them down, or did something happen to send you into hiding?’

      His choice of words was staggering, and without warning she was plunged into the black pit of remembrance, seeing Jean-Luc’s face as he laughed at her and told her she was a fool. Sexy, but a fool. The vision disappeared as she shivered and found herself back in the present. For a moment she could only stare at Ryan Douglas in a kind of shock, thinking, How on earth could he know? The answer came quickly: he couldn’t. It had been a lucky taunt, and only her reaction was in danger of revealing what she had kept so carefully hidden.

      In an instant, shock turned to an icy hauteur she hadn’t used in years. ‘Mr Douglas, I suggest you mind your own business,’ she told him coldly. ‘And while you’re about it, you might as well turn around and go back where you came from.’ Hang the consequences; there was no way—absolutely no way—she would do business with this man!

      He didn’t like her tone, or her suggestion; that was certain. The relaxation left him. ‘Lady, I don’t know who you are, but if you’re supposed to be some outlandish excuse for a secretary why don’t you do your job and get Hanlon for me?’ Looking around the sparsely furnished room, his eyes narrowed sharply, before shooting back to her. ‘I was told he was in here. Where is he? Hiding?’

      There was something less than casual in the tone of that one word, but Mickey was too wrathful to pick it up. It gave her intense pleasure to cross her arms and raise her own eyebrows mockingly. ‘You’re looking right at him, Mr Douglas.’ An outlandish excuse for a secretary? He had some nerve!

      Ryan Douglas froze, a deep frown cutting into his forehead as he swiftly shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. Sorry, sweetheart, but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m talking about Michael Hanlon, the owner of this business, and he’s very much a man.’

      Again there was an undercurrent which she only registered peripherally. Her thoughts were on what a joy it was to put his charming nose out of joint. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid it’s you who are mistaken, Mr Douglas,’ she countered with a sweet smile.

      Blue eyes hardened with a suspicion of anger. ‘There’s no way on earth you can be Michael Hanlon.’

      ‘Not Michael, Mr Douglas, Michaela, but my friends call me Mickey. Would you care to see my passport?’ she returned smoothly, once more in control, and enjoying his discomfiture. She suspected it wasn’t very often that anyone got the better of this man.

      Ryan Douglas swore, violently. ‘The hell you say! All your company details, right down to your letterheading, refer to Michael Hanlon as the owner. How do you explain that, or can I do it myself? Is that the way you usually get work, by hiding the fact that you’re a woman and cheating your way into a job?’

      The unjust allegation made her blood boil. The truth was she had used the last of the correctly headed stationery some time ago, and as there hadn’t been the spare cash to order more she had latched on to the idea of using her father’s, as the difference was only one letter. It was her custom to ink in an ‘a’, but this time she must have forgotten to do so. She was left on the defensive, which she hated. ‘A printing error,’ she lied blithely, before getting on to the nitty-gritty. ‘For your information I didn’t hide the fact that I’m a woman, and I’ve certainly never lied my way into a job!’

      An icy gaze gave her the once-over again. ‘From where I’m standing you’re doing your best to make yourself sexless!’

      Clearly he meant the words to sting, but Mickey only felt vindicated in her choice. She had no desire to be the focus of anyone’s attention, and especially not a man’s. No, she had lived in the spotlight, experienced its notoriety, and now all she wanted to do was fade into the background with the rest of humanity. That wasn’t too much to ask, surely? Not the crime he made it out to be!

      ‘However,’ he went on tersely, ‘it makes no difference, honey, because it’s a well known fact that I never work with women.’

      She just bet he didn’t! Women had other uses! As the scornful thoughts whipped through her brain, she suddenly recalled why he had seemed so familiar. She’d read an article at the dentist’s about a man they’d labelled a ‘connoisseur of women’. Disgusted, she hadn’t bothered to notice the man’s name, but now she realised the picture had been of Ryan Douglas. And connoisseur was just the word, because, although he didn’t photograph them, he certainly appreciated their beauty. He always had them around him, and working was far from his mind!

      She didn’t know whom she despised most, the women who let themselves be used, or the man who did the using!

      Her lips pursed, angered by his cutting remarks and his blatant chauvinism. If there was one thing Mickey knew implicitly, it was her ability to do her job. ‘My sex doesn’t come into it, only my competence. If you’d bothered to ask, anyone could have told you I was

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