Turning the Good Girl Bad

Catherine didn’t plan on enlightening her—because she couldn’t explain, even to herself, the unformed sense of panic that had been racing through her veins ever since she’d left the office. Telling herself that everything was fine and she was merely suffering from a guilty conscience and an over-active imagination didn’t seem to be working. And the panic just kept growing.

Catherine bade Nell a preoccupied farewell at level eight and, the moment she was alone in the elevator, jabbed irritably at the button for level ten. Although she knew the elevator wouldn’t ascend any faster just because she hit the button a thousand times.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the doors opened at her floor—only to choke on it as she rounded the corner from the lift lobby.

Max was sitting in her chair, eyes glued to her computer screen.

Ohhhhhhhh.

Not much of a thought, but all she could manage initially.

She reminded herself that she’d turned everything off, that the flash drive was in her drawer, the printed pages shoved in her briefcase, and there was no way he could be looking at Passion Flower. He was probably looking for the Queensland report to make some changes.

So breathe. Breathe and be normal.

‘Is there something you wanted urgently?’ she asked, forcing herself not to run to her desk but to walk slowly, calmly.

Max raised his head and looked at her—slack-jawed, marvelling, astounded.

And Catherine knew.

Max’s voice, when it finally came, was unbelievably husky. ‘You wrote this?’

THREE (#uef51d82f-7933-53f4-a90c-f539a7873f00)

Catherine’s brain was limping around the edges of semi-formed words, refusing to fasten on to any of them long enough for her to string a response together.

Max shook his head, as if he’d sustained a blow and was reeling. ‘You wrote this.’ This time it wasn’t a question.

Automatically Catherine’s hand moved to where her top button should have been primly done up.

Max’s stunned eyes followed her hand—could he see her pulse throbbing there?—moved lower, lower. Until every inch of her had been examined.

Catherine was lost—no button, no earrings. Coping the next best way, she whipped off her glasses and started polishing them ineffectually.

Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

‘“His fingers slid through the heavy chestnut silk as he looked down at her, his vivid blue gaze on Jennifer’s hazel eyes through the round tortoiseshell rims of her spectacles...”’ Max recited, watching her as though spellbound.

He knew it by heart! Catherine put her glasses back on and took the only route open to her: she threw herself on her sword with an unvarnished ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘For bringing it here—doing it at work. I’ve just...just had a lot of time on my hands lately, while you’ve been travelling.’ Catherine braced herself for the inevitable: she was going to get the sack. She deserved it. She stiffened her spine and said again, ‘I’m sorry.’

But apparently Max was too stunned to respond. All he could do was stare.

And it was unbearable. Yes, she was three hundred per cent in the wrong—crush on her boss—groan—turning him into Alex—ugh—bringing the book to work and using Max’s equipment, supplies and the time he was paying for—cringe. But come on! Do the humane thing and drop the axe, get it over with—sack her, tell her to—

‘Why?’ Max asked suddenly.

Oh. A word at last. But not what she was expecting.

‘Because,’ Catherine said.

Clearly she wasn’t going to win any prizes for writing snappy dialogue with a comeback like that—but what the hell was that? Why? Why what? Why was she sorry? Why was she writing it? Why was it in the office?

She had a vision of that meteorite she’d wished for earlier, plummeting towards the earth, targeting the Sydney Central Business District.

Max stood slowly, like a man in a dream. His eyes did another slow rove along her body before he walked around her desk and stopped beside her.

‘And you...’ he breathed, still visibly stunned. ‘She’s you. Jennifer Andrews is you. The chestnut hair, the glasses, the hazel eyes—you’re Jennifer.’

Catherine wasn’t going to bother denying it. But she wasn’t going to confirm it either. And, in any case, she was too busy trying to form a reply to what she just knew his next question—the important question—would be.

‘So who’s the tall, black-haired, blue-eyed man? Who’s Alex?’

Yep. Next question—right on cue. Because Max wasn’t an idiot.

‘I made him up,’ Catherine said, too quickly, backing away a step.

‘You didn’t draw on a flesh-and-blood model?’

Catherine fingered one naked earlobe. ‘N-not too...too heavily. Not really.’

‘You seem a little flustered, Cathy,’ Max said, softly, closing the distance again.

Catherine wondered if the air between them, impregnated with his scent, had some mysterious connection to her insides. Because she sure felt strange, breathing it in.

‘I just don’t want you to think I’m—’

Catherine heard the pathetic squeak that had replaced her voice and stopped herself. Enough. Catherine North did not do pathetic squeaks—not old Catherine, not new Catherine, not any Catherine.

She took a deep breath, settled herself. ‘I know I shouldn’t be working on personal matters in the office,’ she said, and was pleased with that businesslike steering of the conversation into more appropriate waters. Because, really, it was her less than professional behaviour that should be the topic under discussion here—not the colour of her eyes or the model for her hero! ‘So I’m sorry.’

For the third time, and now can you just sack me?

‘You described the gardens perfectly,’ Max said, uncooperatively. ‘I’ve often wondered what you look at when you gaze out of my office window. You do it a lot, you know.’

‘I do? Ah... Well, I...I do draw on real life for descriptions of...of places. Now, could we—’

‘And my leather chairs?’

‘The setting is...is incidental. It has no bearing on anything. I just...just like those chairs. And they seemed...’ Catherine’s words dried up as Max continued to look at her with that slightly dazed and wholly speculative expression.

‘So. Black hair, blue eyes, six-two.’ He repeated the description slowly. ‘What does he do for a living, I wonder? Engineer, by any chance?’

The flare of horror in Catherine’s eyes must have confirmed that nicely for him, because he grinned.