Page 18 of Prognosis Temporary

Shoving her hand on her hip, Callie glared at him. ‘You damn well know like what.’

‘Sorry.’ He held his hands up in a surrender motion. ‘I’d forgotten how...great you look.’

She took a deep breath, flicking her eyes around the room, checking they were still alone. ‘Don’t, okay? Just don’t. Don’t look at me like that and don’t think about the other night. You and I are going to pretend it never happened. Okay?’

Sebastian shouldn’t have been surprised by her hushed outburst. She’d obviously had some time to over-think things and this professional boundaries front was her attempt to claw back control. He regarded her quietly for a moment. ‘You do know that what happened, the things we did and said, are private between us, right? I would never break your confidence.’

She didn’t seem overly relieved by the assurance.

‘But if you think I’m going to forget about that night — the things we did, the things we talked about — you’re wrong. I know how hard that was for you, Callie, and I understand that at work you need to be able to put that side of you away and be the bolshie professional. And I also understand that it’s not going to happen again. But I’m not into denial and I will not pretend it didn’t happen.’

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His tone held an unmistakableair of command and he was looking at Callie with calm authority — like he had when she’d mistaken him for a cop, all brooding and serious in his flak jacket. Like he did in his author photo on the back of his book, which Callie had looked at obsessively the last few days.

His quiet words hit her in the chest with an impact that belied their volume. She should have known after their altercation on the bridge that Sebastian wouldn’t be pushed around easily.

She wasn’t worried about him breaking her confidence, sharing her pillow talk. That wasn’t her concern.

The point was he knew.

‘Fine,’ she huffed. ‘I’ll pretend for both of us.’ She brushed her hands together briskly. At least they both knew where they stood now. ‘Let’s just get on with our jobs, shall we?’

Callie didn’t wait for his response, opening the door to an office and striding inside but she was excruciatingly aware he was following. ‘This is Donna’s office. Your office now.’

She walked to the desk, and tapped the keyboard belonging to the government issue desktop computer bringing up an electronic diary. ‘When Rodney gets in he’ll fix you up with a computer password and familiarise you with the system, but for now,’ she said, ‘you have a couple of clients this morning.’

Callie scanned the desk locating a neat stack of charts and handing them over. ‘After lunch you have a group therapy session. I go out on my home visits at two.’ She straightened as he took them. ‘I’ll leave you to it and send Rodney in when he arrives.’

‘Callie.’ He placed the charts back on his desk as he causally rolled up his shirt sleeves. ‘There’s no need to be so jumpy. I do know how to be professional, too.’

She watched the motion, mesmerised by his strong forearms and those long fingers, remembering how they had looked against her skin, where they has touched her and a fuse sputtered to life in her belly.

His hands stilled and Callie lifted her eyes to his as their gazes locked and for a moment there was a flare of heat between them that was the sexual equivalent of a mushroom cloud.

Sebastian’s Adam’s Apple bobbed and a slow, thick pulse took up residence between her legs.

‘Callie...if you want me to stop thinking about you and forget everything that we did and said and act like nothing happened between us, you really have to stop looking at me like that. You can’t have it both ways.’

His voice was soft but held an unmistakable edge. His face was grim and serious, the planes and angles uncompromising. He was giving her no quarter. Letting her know that he would hold her to the same standards she was holding him to.

Sebastian Walker was definitely no pushover.

She gave an awkward nod. ‘Rodney should be in soon,’ she said and backed out of the room.

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‘So you go out mostdays, into people’s homes for community visits?’ Sebastian asked.

Anything to distract him from her alluring profile. He’d been yearning for a distraction since leaving the Middle East. Something very different to do to fill his days and take his mind off the work he’d been doing there, the things he’d heard and seen. But Jambalyn was supposed to be the distraction.

Not a woman. This woman.

He’d been sitting in the car with her on and off for the last two hours and her perfume was driving him nuts. It was the same one that permeated his sheets.

‘Most days, yes.’

‘By yourself?’

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