"I've been here all weekend." He glared at her as if it were her fault.
"Those fools in my Scotland office have nearly lost us the biggest order we've ever had through sheer incompetence. Can you be ready to leave in a couple of hours?"
"Leave?" She stared at him as though he were mad. "For Scotland." He gestured irritably as though she _were being deliberately obtuse.
"If I don't salvage this thing now, in the next twenty-four hours, I can kiss over five million pounds goodbye."
It was an unfortunate choice of words, but even as she felt her cheeks burn she saw the import of the phrase hadn't registered with him at all. He was in business mode, all his energies concentrated on the job in hand and it was unlikely that he even remembered Friday evening. And for this she had been devastated all weekend? She glared back at him now as her thoughts brought sparks to her eyes.
"What time do you want to go?"
"Lunchtime."
"Right."
He hadn't even noticed her abruptness, she thought painfully as he strode back into his office, growling instructions about the pile of papers on her desk as he went. He was impossible: Absolutely impossible.
She phoned her mother, who assured her she would love to take care of Hannah for a few days, phoned the nursery to say she would be dropping in a little later to explain things to Hannah and say goodbye, and then worked frantically on the more urgent correspondence before taking it, and a cup of black coffee, in to him mid-morning. He was sitting at his desk as she entered the room, and looked tired to death.
"Coffee?" She indicated the cup as she placed the papers in front of him.
"You look as if you need it."
"I don't know if I can pull this one round, Lydia."
No. As she stared at his face, uncharacteristically doubtful and faintly boyish, she felt her heart thud painfully. Don't do this to me. Not now.
Fury, temper, irritability she could cope with, but not this weariness that was putting a grey tinge of exhaustion on the handsome face and made her want to gather him up in her arms _and kiss all the anxiety away. Against that her heart had no defence at all.
"You're tired," she said as matter-of-factly as she could, considering she was aching to give more than verbal reassurance.
"How much sleep have you had in the last forty-eight hours, anyway?" she added reprovingly.
"Sleep?" He looked up at her as though she were talking a foreign language.
"I've cat-napped once or twice, I think."
"And food?" She stared down at him severely.
"Have you eaten?"
"Some sandwiches some time yesterday." He had been sipping the coffee as they talked and already a tinge of the old mordant note was back in his voice.
"And don't fuss, woman. I can't stand fussing." He eyed her sardonically.
"Nevertheless, you need someone to keep an eye on you." She smiled in what she hoped was a cool, secretarial way, but he didn't smile back as he looked up at her, the piercing eyes suddenly very clear and blue.
"No, I don't." They both knew he was answering the light comment with more seriousness than it had warranted.
"Some people aren't meant to form bonds, Lydia, not even in the mildest sense. They walk through life alone because they are a danger to themselves and other people if they don't."
"Do you think so?" She didn't know how to reply, what to say, and was floundering badly.
"I know so." He looked at her for one more long moment and then lowered his head to the papers.
"Believe me, I do know so."
"Oh." As she stood looking down at his bent head an almost irrepressible urge to ask more, to delve deeper, _brought her lips firmly clamping shut.