January gave a decisive shake of her head. ‘I just have to do something first—but thanks.’
If Max thought he was going to get away with this without protest from her, then he was in for a surprise—because she had every intention of going up to his suite right now and telling him exactly what she thought of him, and his machinations.
Concern for her safety, indeed!
In other circumstances, Max might have felt pleased to find January standing outside his hotel suite at one-thirty in the morning knocking to come in—but one glance at her obviously furious expression, grey eyes blazing, two angry spots of colour on her cheeks in an otherwise white face, was enough to tell him this was not a social call!
‘Would you like to come—? Ah, you would,’ he murmured derisively as she pushed past him into the suite, closing the door softly behind her before following her back into the room, glad now that he had stopped to check his e-mails rather than going straight to bed; something was obviously seriously wrong. Which meant something must have happened since they’d parted fifteen minutes ago; January hadn’t been too enamoured of him then, but she was furiously angry now!
‘Drink?’ he offered hopefully.
‘No,’ she refused tautly. ‘But you go ahead—with any luck it might choke you!’
‘Hmm, in that case, I think I’ll pass, too,’ he drawled warily.
What could have happened in the fifteen minutes since they’d parted? The last he had seen of January she had been on her way out the door, John at her side.
‘Pity!’ January snapped, giving him a scathing glance. ‘I’ve just been having a cosy chat with Peter Meridew—’
‘What?’ Max’s wariness turned to shock.
January hadn’t left with John, after all?
Damn it, he should have waited until she was safely out to her car, Max remonstrated with himself, should have—
‘You heard,’ January bit out accusingly. ‘You’ll be pleased to know, he just sacked me!’
‘He what?’ To say it was the last thing Max had been expecting to hear would be an understatement!
‘Max, as I really don’t think there is anything wrong with your hearing,’ January began scathingly, ‘I have no intention of repeating everything I say! I’m allowed to stay on until the end of the week, but after that my services have been dispensed with. For the moment,’ she added harshly. ‘And we both know why, don’t we?’ She glared at him.
Max looked across at her frowningly, totally nonplussed. Peter Meridew had just told January that he didn’t want her coming to the hotel after the weekend? In the circumstances, that didn’t make any sense to Max whatsoever.
‘Do we?’ he delayed warily, his thoughts racing.
The anger deepened in those beautiful grey eyes—although Max wisely decided that now wasn’t the time to tell January how beautiful she looked when she was angry!
He remembered Jude telling him he had once said that to one of the women in his life—and the next morning he had sported a bruise on his jaw to prove it!
‘You won’t succeed in getting us out of the farm like this, Max,’ January told him scornfully. ‘I’ll just get myself another job—and then you’ll be back where you started!’
She thought he had deliberately—!
His mouth tightened as his own anger started to rise. ‘Now, listen here—’
‘No—you listen,’ she cut in forcefully. ‘You may have managed to lose me my job, but all that’s done is make me all the more determined that you won’t succeed.’
‘January—’
‘Can you deny it was you who made the complaint to the police about my leaving here alone late at night?’ she challenged, that small pointed chin raised defiantly. ‘A complaint, because of these random attacks late at night, they took straight to Peter Meridew.’
Max winced at the accusation. He hadn’t exactly complained to the police, more suggested, in the course of his conversation with them, that it probably wasn’t a good idea for a woman to be travelling alone at that time of night. How could he possibly have known that idiot of a manager would turn round and sack January on the basis of that?
Added to which, if his suspicions were correct, the manager’s subsequent actions made absolutely no sense to him…!
If they were correct…
And it certainly looked as if they might not be in the light of Peter Meridew’s decision concerning January continuing to work here.