A Dangerous Affair

Stephanie sat in the passenger seat of Tom’s car with her arms crossed, and she fumed. Just when she thought that perhaps she’d misjudged him after he took care of her the night before, he started his damn seduction techniques on her. He obviously couldn’t help himself. He just had to have every woman in sight swooning after him. Well he’d met his match with her. She’d not give into him that easily. Okay, so she’d had a small moment of weakness in the store cupboard but he’d bloody well purposely wheedled out of her what to do to make her go weak at the knees in that stupid conversation earlier with Carlton. She actually thought that she’d behaved with a fair amount of control considering that he’d teased her to distraction down her neck. God, why couldn’t she have just made something up? That he’d kissed her on the cheek or…or…somewhere that didn’t have quite the same effect. The problem was that in the back of her head, Stephanie suspected that wherever he’d kissed her the effect would have been the same. Damn it, now that kissing and Tom were in her brain, she’d not be able to get them out. He’d opened up a great huge can of worms which she’d always managed to keep shut, and now she was wondering how to get the worms back in!

“I don’t suppose that you’d like me to take you back to my place,” Tom said brazenly.

She turned to him slowly, a look of disbelief on her face. “Right, that’s it! Pull over,” she ordered furiously.

He swung his head to her. “Calm down, I was only kidding.”

“Oh really. So if I'd have said yes then you wouldn’t have gone along with it?”

He grinned. “Why don’t you try it and see?”

She growled with anger. “Pull over I said! We need to talk.”

“Only if you promise not to get out and go charging off down the street.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Just pull over will you?”

“All right, all right.”

He indicated to pull onto the side of the road. Perhaps he’d pushed her too far. Maybe she was going to batter him. He grinned to himself. He rather liked the idea of that. Stephanie and anything physical seemed like a good idea to him. He finally switched off the engine and turned to her. She moved in her seat so that she was facing him.

“I want to make some things very clear before we go any further,” she began firmly. “If you and I are going to work on this story together then you have to understand that one, you can’t pull the kind of tricks you tried out in there, two, we work together in a professional capacity only, and three there will never be any kind of sexual relationship between us. Is that clear enough for you Tom?”

He sighed and looked deeply into her eyes as if to find some indication that she hadn’t really meant all of that. He saw only the icy look that he’d seen so many times before in the office.

“Okay, now I want my say. If you want my help in this, and let’s face it you really do for your own safety, then one, you’re going to have to chill out quite a bit more. That comment was only a joke. I was flirting with you, teasing you, whatever, but you don’t need to over react every time I make a throw away comment.” She took a breath as if to defend herself but he halted her and continued. “Two, I may have a weak moment every now and then.” She frowned and he proceeded with more feeling in his voice. “I’m a human being! Unlike you who seem to have the resolve of Mother Teresa! And three,” his eyes moved over her face and he sighed again. “I like you Stephie.” He reached out and swept a lock of silvery blonde hair away from her face with one finger. “I think you’re stunning.”

She brushed his hand away. “You think the same about every other woman you meet.”

He watched her intently for a while before speaking. “I don’t know why you would think that.”

“Oh come on Tom, I’ve seen you at work with the other women in the office. Anyway it doesn’t matter, one to three still stands for me.”

He smiled. “Likewise for me.”

She tutted. “Fine, just promise me there’ll be no more games like you played in there.”

“Fine,” he said reluctantly, reaching down to start the car up again.

“Wait,” she stopped him by lightly touching his arm and he looked at her in surprise.

“There’s more?”

“Yes there is. You made a very big assumption in that cupboard tonight Tom.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, and what was that?”

She paused for a second as if unsure whether she was going to continue. “You assumed that I was single.”

He stared at her. He hadn’t expected that and it shocked him momentarily. “Are you married?” He knew that she wasn’t, or at least that she didn’t wear a ring.

“No.”

“Engaged?”

“No, but I don’t see what that had to do with anything,” she said defensively.

“So how long have you been seeing this boyfriend of yours then?” he asked.

The cheek of the man! “That’s none of your business Tom!”

He smiled as if he’d scored some sort of point. “Okay, I got it. You’re unavailable.” He didn’t seem in the least bit put off and that annoyed her. What was it going to take to get through to this man? He started the car up and pulled back into the traffic.

“So what was in that paper you found then?” he asked, changing the subject to something more neutral.

She sighed. “It’s bad news I’m afraid.”

He turned briefly to look at her. “Bad news?”

“Yes. Well we have enough to write a second-class story about a sleazy drugs dealer but it turns out that we’ve been wasting our time on the wrong Mr H Carlton.”

“What?” He looked confused.

“Brick got his information wrong. Henry Carlton isn’t the big man behind all of the trouble but Hugh Carlton is. It’s his father.”

“Fantastic!” he said sarcastically.

“The paper referred to Hugh’s political connections and that’s where the big story lies.”

“Right, so we go after Hugh then,” he shrugged.

“Yes, but we’ll have to rethink. Getting information out of him might be a lot more difficult.”

“Okay, leave it for tonight and we’ll discuss it tomorrow with Brick.”

She nodded but looked a little disappointed.

Tom finally pulled up in Stephanie’s driveway and she got out of the car, leaning down to say a final goodbye to him.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Yeah, it sure has been one hell of a weekend Steph,” he said with a cheeky smile.

“Hmm.” She wondered what exactly he was thinking about.

“At least you won’t go popping any more pills in a hurry.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks for reminding me of that Tom.”

“Oh so you do remember then?” he asked.

“What is there to remember? You got me home and stayed to make sure I was okay, right?” She had a sudden uneasy feeling.

“Right, you don’t remember what you said then?” He grinned at her raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Well I’m sure I came out with a whole load of mumbo jumbo,” she said, shrugging off his comment.

“Sure, I figured that you didn’t mean most of the insults you threw at me.”

“Oh, in that case I meant every word I said,” she came back quickly.

“Every word, hmm, that’s interesting and I quote, ‘I might have to admit to being secretly attracted to you all along.’”

She stepped back from the door then, her eyes widening in shock.

“So I’ll be waiting for my invitation to your place for steak then Stephie,” he said with a wink. “See you at the office tomorrow.” And with that he reached across, closed the door and sped off down the road.