He stared at her for a moment, just long enough for her cheeks to begin to turn a definite pink, and then he shrugged, straightening in the chair and picking up the briefcase he had placed at the side of him when he had sat down. ‘Ward Enterprises acquired just over a hundred acres of land situated between Oxford and London a few weeks ago,’ he said curtly as he opened the briefcase and extracted some paperwork. ‘I want to build a hotel and country club, with an eighteen-hole golf course, landscaped gardens, helicopter landing pad and so on, similar to the ones I own in the States. Here is the architect’s plan and the full brief. Interested?’ He pushed the papers over the desk before settling back in his chair again.
Interested? Suddenly becoming aware that her mouth had fallen open in a small gape, Rosalie shut it with a little snap, her cheeks brilliant now. She had been so rude to him—so rude—and all the time there had been the possibility of this fabulous project for Carr and Partners. Why hadn’t anyone at Jamie’s told her that he was an entrepreneur—and a pretty wealthy one if this was anything to go by? But she had been looking after David for most of the evening, she reminded herself feverishly; that was when she hadn’t been ignoring Kingsley Ward, of course.
‘May I examine these for a moment?’ Her voice sounded remarkably normal considering she felt about an inch tall.
‘Sure, take all the time you want.’
Concentrate, Lee, concentrate. As she spread out the plan and attempted to look at it it danced before her eyes for a second or two before she took a deep breath and willed her racing heart to behave. It didn’t help that Kingsley Ward was straight in front of her with his gaze fixed on her face—she might not be looking at him now but she could feel those twin lasers on her skin.
After a little while professionalism took over and she became engrossed in the plan and brief, excitement growing like an expanding ball in her stomach. This was a terrific job and a fantastic opportunity, but she had to admit one of the other partners—any of the other partners—was more qualified for such a massive undertaking than she.
Mike, Peter and Ron were all well over forty. Mike was approaching fifty-five, with a wealth of experience to draw on, and she was very much the junior partner. She would have to make it clear to Kingsley Ward that if Carr and Partners were given the job, one of the other partners would almost certainly insist he took over.
She raised her head. He was sitting in the same pose as before, leaning back against the seat, breathtakingly relaxed and sure of himself, but this time the almost tangible authority brought no irritation, all her senses tied up with how best to put what she was going to say. ‘Mr Ward—’
‘Kingsley,’ he interrupted, very softly.
She nodded, her cheeks—which had just cooled—firing up again. She had always loathed the way she blushed so easily but it went hand in hand with the red lights in her chestnut hair and there was nothing she could do about it. ‘Kingsley,’ she began again, ‘this is a wonderful job and I know Carr and Partners would be thrilled to take it on if you saw fit to put it our way—’
‘But?’
She had always taken exception to being interrupted, she considered it the height of rudeness, and now she breathed out just once before she continued, ‘But I’m afraid you are talking to the wrong person. My partners are all older and more experienced, and they would be able to tackle this project far better than me, much as I would love to do it.’
He shifted slightly in the chair, lean male thighs outlined for a moment or two under the Armani suit, and Rosalie’s nerves jerked. ‘You would love to do it?’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, of course, but you would need someone who—’
‘Then do it.’ It was as though he hadn’t heard her. She stared at him, and he said softly, ‘Let me put it another way. I am not a fool, Rosalie, and I would not offer you the job if I did not think you were capable of doing it. I have been assured from various quarters that to date you have handled your work competently, ethically and thoroughly, and more than one person has told me that you are particularly skilful in detecting problems with builders before they occur. Am I right
?’
She was pinned by the blue eyes and could do no more than nod her head.
‘Good.’ He spoke as if the matter was settled and Rosalie had a moment of panic.
She cleared her throat. ‘The thing is, the decision is not up to me,’ she said carefully.
‘No, it is up to me,’ he agreed shortly, standing. Rosalie rose quickly, her head spinning. Was he leaving already? It appeared so. ‘Discuss the job with your partners, by all means, but make it clear I am engaging you, please. If they need to speak to me you have my number in England and in the States on the information I have given you.’
He was already walking to the door as he spoke and then he paused, turning to look at her. ‘Do you feel you could do the work, given the chance?’ he asked quietly. ‘You said you would love to do it but that isn’t necessarily the same thing. The time angle is not so much of a problem, I can be flexible to a degree.’
She was still reeling with the suddenness of it all but there was no hesitation in her voice when she said, ‘Yes, I can do it. I’ve not tackled anything on this scale before, I have to admit, but, yes. The job I’m working on at the moment will be finished within a week or so, and after that there is nothing planned which I can’t pass on to one of the others.’
‘Good.’ It was silky soft. ‘My secretary will liaise with you as necessary, but I am a hands-on kind of guy, Rosalie, so we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other over the next months.’
Rosalie blinked. The words sounded innocent enough but there had been a smoky flavour to them that had set her antennae waving. And then she told herself not to be so silly. This was work, business, that was all. Kingsley Ward was obviously an enormously successful and wealthy mogul, and with his looks, not to mention his money and male charisma, he must have the women lining up in droves. It had been one of the things that had set her teeth on edge at Jamie’s wretched dinner party—the way every woman present had been all but dribbling with lust. And of course he’d lapped up the attention; what man wouldn’t?
He was waiting for a response. She pulled herself together as the realisation hit, stitching a polite smile on her face with some effort. ‘We’ve still got a way to go before you give Carr and Partners the work, surely?’ she said evenly. ‘You haven’t asked the fee for my services.’
She realised too late she could have put that better when the blue eyes flickered, just once, and he said, very dryly, ‘What exactly do you charge, Rosalie?’
With anyone else she could have turned it into a joke or frozen the individual out with one of the icy looks she had perfected years ago, but Kingsley Ward wasn’t anyone else. And she was burning up with enough heat to spontaneously combust.
Rosalie took the coward’s way out and acted dumb. ‘For a job of this kind we tend to estimate a cost,’ she said tightly. ‘It isn’t always possible to be specific when one is dealing with contractors and subcontractors, and things don’t always go according to plan. Materials might not be available when they ought to be, for example, or there may be a technical hitch which makes the job more difficult and therefore more time-consuming. Of course, this is not usually the case,’ she added quickly.
‘Quite,’ he said soothingly, making her aware she was gabbling.
‘The first thing I would need to do is to draw up a bill of quantities, which is a list of all the materials needed to complete the project right down to the smallest detail. This would extend to several hundred pages for a job of this nature.’