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with such painful intensity she thought her bones would break.
    ‘You’re pregnant,’ he accused, his eyes glaring down at her as though she had done him a personal injury.
    ‘I’m not!’ She tried to inject a light laugh into her voice, anything to ease the tenseness of the situation. But the laugh didn’t come off, as the fear his blazing look sent through her, cancelled every other emotion, ‘I’m not,’ she said again, when his hands continued to grip her in their punishing hold. ‘Y-you’re hurting me,’ she stammered, while wondering what on earth had got into him. It couldn’t matter a hoot to him whether she was pregnant or not other than that he’d have to find another P.A. to work for his cousin when he came to Layton.
    Crawford Arrowsmith let go the brutal hold he had on her, and she would dearly love to rub her bruised shoulders, but something—she didn’t know what—stopped her. Perhaps it was because he was looking at her as though only then realising the pain he had inflicted on her —and for no reason she could think of she didn't want to make more of it than he knew it to be.
    ‘I’m ... forgive me, I ’ He didn’t finish what he was saying, but returned to being the overpowering, arrogant man she knew him to be as this time he went to the other side of the desk and took the seat facing her, as if only by having the desk between them would he be able to keep his hands off her. This disturbed Gerry more than if he’d gone to lean against the desk in front of her again. Although she couldn’t say with any truth that she was very close to anyone—other than Teddy and the twins of course —she hadn’t thought she aroused such feelings of dislike in anyone that they had to make a special effort to keep themselves from committing a physical violence on her. And it was so obvious that Crawford Arrowsmith didn’t like her that she felt almost like fainting as the impact of the effect she had on him hit her.
    Before she had time to think further why it should bother her that he couldn’t stand the sight of her, she saw his blazing look had vanished, and he was now giving her the benefit of the coldest scrutiny she had ever encountered—which did nothing to detract from the very clear impression he had given her that he would rather have her room than her company.
    ‘So you’re telling me there’s no need to send you along to our medical centre,’ he stated coldly, confirming her thought that he had that idea in mind.
    ‘No need at all,’ she confirmed quietly.
    ‘Good.’ It seemed he was all set to dismiss the subject, he changed the conversation so quickly, Gerry had to race her mind to catch up with him. ‘You found your hotel without any difficulty?’
    ‘I ...’ She stopped. Suddenly she sensed she was walking into a trap—why, she didn’t know. But without even having to think about it, she knew he was aware she hadn’t stayed in the hotel accommodation that had been reserved for her. ‘Er ... actually, I—er—didn’t stay at the hotel.’ She watched as his eyes narrowed, and wished he wouldn’t look at her like that because it had the power to freeze her brain and she needed to think up some excuse and fast.
    ‘Oh?’ His air was deliberately casual now, endorsing her feeling that he had somehow discovered she hadn’t spent the night in the hotel.
    ‘I have—er—an aunt living in London,’ Gerry told him, knowing she didn’t have an aunt to her name, and must be the world’s worst liar. She had a feeling he knew she was lying, but decided he couldn’t very well challenge her on the subject of her relatives. ‘I’m staying with her while I’m here.’
    ‘And where in London does this aunt live?’
    Oh lord, she didn’t know London from Timbukru. ‘Finchley,’ she said, forcing confidence into her voice as the name dropped into her head—she was sure it was somewhere near London, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she seen it on the tube sticker?
    Her relief