It Started With... Collection - Miranda Lee

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he said, stuffing his tie into one of the pockets. ‘I didn’t mean for things to go that far. I really didn’t. But you do have an unfortunate effect on me.’

      Jessie frowned. ‘Unfortunate?’

      Kane smiled a wry smile. ‘I’m not used to losing control. I pride myself on being a planner. I rarely go off at half-cock.’

      She couldn’t help laughing, although she smothered it so as not to risk waking Emily.

      ‘Yes, well, if I had actually gone off at half-cock,’ he muttered, ‘I might be able to laugh too.’

      ‘Oh,’ she said, taken aback by this revelation. ‘I thought…’

      ‘No,’ he growled. ‘I didn’t.’

      ‘It must have been a darned close call.’

      ‘Agonisingly so.’

      ‘Could you wait till Friday night, do you think?’

      His eyes flared wide. ‘Do you mean what I think you mean?’

      ‘I would imagine so.’

      His face actually lit up. ‘Wow. That’s a turn-up for the books.’

      ‘I decided you were right. I was being ridiculous. But I want you to understand that this can’t really go anywhere. I’m not the woman you’re looking for, Kane. I have Emily for starters. And a full-time job now. At best, I could be your friend and part-time lover.’ There! She’d taken charge and it felt good.

      He didn’t say a single word for a few seconds, just let his eyes search her face. She could not tell what he hoped to find.

      ‘I can handle that,’ he said at last.

      Jessie wished she knew what he was thinking. And planning. He’d just told her he was a planner. Something in his voice and his face suggested his agenda wasn’t quite the same as hers.

      But what?

      She hoped he wasn’t underestimating her. Or thinking she was a push-over after all.

      Time for some more taking charge.

      ‘By the way, on Friday,’ she said firmly, ‘I won’t be staying anywhere with you all night, so don’t go thinking I will. You have from seven till midnight. I can’t expect Dora to mind Emily later than that. She’s an old lady.’

      ‘I could pay for a baby-sitter,’ he suggested.

      ‘Someone I don’t know? No way, José. It’s Dora, or nobody.’

      ‘Fine. I won’t argue. But I think you’re in danger of becoming an over-protective mother.’

      ‘Think what you like. It won’t change my attitude towards my daughter.’

      ‘I never thought it would. But that’s OK. I admire a woman who knows her own mind.’

      ‘And I admire a man who respects a woman’s wishes.’

      ‘I’ll remember that.’

      Yes, but for how long? Jessie wondered.

      Till Friday night, naturally. That was the aim of this game after all. Get the girl into bed. But after that, Kane might not be quite so accommodating.

      Still, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

      Till then, she was going to have a hard job thinking about anything but Friday night.

       CHAPTER TEN

      A COPY of a book called Winning at Work was sitting on Jessie’s desk when she got in the next morning.

      ‘Is this from you?’ she asked Michele, who was already there at her desk, beavering away.

      ‘Nope. It was there when I got in. I imagine Kane dropped it off for you to have a look at.’

      Jessie recalled he’d said something about a book.

      She picked it up and turned it over, blinking at the sight of Kane’s photo on the back.

      ‘Good lord!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s the author!’

      Michele glanced up with a surprised look on her attractive face. ‘You mean you didn’t know the man who drove you home yesterday was the Kane Marshall, management guru and motivator extraordinaire?’

      ‘No! I’ve never heard of the Kane Marshall.’ Other than his being the twin brother of Curtis Marshall, possible philanderer.

      ‘Something tells me that’s about to change,’ Michele muttered under her breath.

      ‘He actually wrote this?’ Jessie said, still stunned.

      ‘Sure did. I gather it’s been a runaway best-seller in the USA. It hasn’t come out here yet. We Aussies aren’t into self-help books as much as the Americans. But we’re getting there.’

      ‘Have you read it?’

      ‘Nope.’

      Jessie stared at the bio inside the front cover. Kane had a list of professional credits a mile long. Degrees in business and marketing. And a degree in psychology. This was his first book, but he was apparently well-known in the business world for his weekend seminars called ‘Solving Work Problems’. He was described as a gifted after-dinner speaker, with his services being highly sought after by companies as a consultant and an educator.

      Jessie sighed. Any secret hope she’d been harbouring that Kane Marshall might change his mind about what kind of woman he was looking to have that real relationship with just went out the window. He was a workaholic!

      ‘You sound tired,’ Michele said. ‘Late night?’

      ‘No. Just not enough sleep.’

      ‘Aah. Man trouble.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘When a mother can’t sleep it has to be man trouble. And it doesn’t take much to guess which man. Although I’m not sure what the problem is. Do you already have a boyfriend? Is that it?’

      ‘Goodness, no, I haven’t had a boyfriend since Emily’s father.’ She and Michele had chatted a bit about their backgrounds over coffee yesterday, so Michele knew about Lyall.

      ‘Aah…’ Michele nodded. ‘The once-bitten, twice-shy syndrome.’

      ‘Can you blame me? After Lyall died, I found out he wasn’t just two-timing me. He was triple-timing me.’

      ‘Not nice,’ Michele agreed. ‘But that was Lyall, not Kane.’

      ‘Maybe, but in some ways they’re alike. Both tall, dark and handsome, with great smiles and the gift of the gab. Those sort of guys are hard to trust.’

      ‘So you didn’t say yes when he asked you out?’ Michele ventured.

      Jessie sighed. ‘Yes. I did. We’re on for Friday night,’ she confessed.

      ‘Playing hard to get, I see. Smart girl.’

      ‘You call that playing hard to get?’ Jessie put Kane’s book down on her part of the work station and pulled out her chair.

      ‘Sure. That’s five whole days since you met him.’

      Jessie sank down into her chair. ‘Actually, it will be a week since I met him.’

      Michele’s eyes widened. ‘Really? You’d met him before the interview on Monday?’

      ‘Yes. In a bar in town last Friday night. But we didn’t exchange names. I—er—drank with him and danced with him, but I did a flit when he wanted more than dancing. He was as shocked as I was when I showed up here yesterday.’

      ‘Shocked,

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