Page 61 of Blind Date with the Boss

She sat up quickly, clutching at the bed sheets and pulling them up to her chin as she listened to footsteps on the tiles, a cupboard door squeaking on its hinge and something banging against a pot. Her heart began a frantic canter. She had been feeling much stronger this morning. She’d had a bath and washed her hair and put fresh linen on her bed, but she was still too feeble to deal with an intruder.

‘Who’s there?’ Her cry was so weak she was quite sure it wouldn’t carry all the way downstairs. Perhaps, if she remained very quiet, the burglar would help himself to whatever he wanted and leave.

No. That wasn’t going to happen. The footsteps were coming up the stairs.Oh, help!

She scanned her bedroom quickly, wondering what on earth she could use as a weapon. She’d intended to go to self defence classes when she came to Sydney, but she hadn’t got around to it yet. Memories of that night with Kyle Francis at the ball filled her head. Those vile masculine hands constraining her, that brutish, repugnant body forcing her down…

Could she escape? Hide under the bed?

‘Sally, don’t be frightened. It’s only me.’

That was Logan’s voice.

Was it really him? Her heart took off like a rocket. How could Logan be here? She felt too shocked to respond. Her hands flew to her hair. She looked terrible! Logan mustn’t see her like this.

But it was too late to get tidy – he was already in her bedroom doorway. And despite her misery over everything that had happened between them, she feasted her eyes on him and felt a rush of mad joy, swiftly followed by a cold splash of sanity. And then, an ache that settled in the hollow around her heart.

Logan was dressed for work in his usual dark business suit, but there were dusty white smudges on his jacket sleeves and his trousers. His shirt collar was undone and the knot of his tie was skewed to a rakish angle, making him look less like a businessman and more like a film star. A terribly worried film star.

‘Hi there,’ he said, smiling shyly.

‘Hello.’

What did you say to a lover you’d thrown out three nights ago?

Sally tried again. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I climbed over your back wall.’

Good heavens. That explained the smudges of whitewash on his clothes. But why on earth had he gone to so much trouble?

Uncomfortably self-conscious and confused, Sally tugged the bed sheet closer to her neck. ‘What – what are you doing here?’

It was an important question, but Logan ignored it. ‘How are you, Sally?’

‘Great.’

He frowned at her. ‘Come on, be truthful.’

‘Well, I’m alive.’

‘You look pale.’

‘You get that with the flu. Why aren’t you at work?’

‘I heard you were sick. I had to come.’

Hehadto come? She felt tears threaten and hoped she didn’t cry. ‘I suppose everyone’s talking about us after Friday night.’

‘Let them talk.’ He came into the room, crossing the floor all the way to her bed and Sally feared she might hyperventilate.

‘You’ll get my germs,’ she felt compelled to warn him.

Ignoring her again, Logan sat on the edge of her bed and frowned thoughtfully as he placed his hand on her forehead.

Sally flinched at his touch and he flushed, took his hand away quickly, frowned more deeply. ‘Have you been eating?’

‘Not much.’ Yesterday she’d crawled downstairs and found a packet of dry crackers and a two litre carton of orange juice. ‘I haven’t been very hungry.’

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