With This Fling... (3 page)

A dozen flights of stairs would have been better.

All too soon, Charlotte and Millie stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring at a large removalist box with her name and university address on it. A nervous giggle escaped Charlotte. She countered by putting one hand to her mouth and the other hand to her elbow. The Standing Thinker pose.

‘So …’ said Millie. ‘Where do you want it?’

‘I’m thinking we take it upstairs for now,’ Charlotte muttered finally. ‘I may need to send it … on.’

There was no lift in the building.

‘I’ll get a trolley,’ said Millie. ‘And Derek.’

‘Thanks,’ murmured Charlotte, still staring at the box.

They got the box upstairs and into Charlotte’s office eventually. Neither Millie nor Derek seemed of a mind to linger. They fled.

Charlotte tried ignoring the box, at first. That didn’t go well.

The compulsion to open the box and find out exactly what the good souls at the PNG Research Institute had seen fit to send her took control. A pair of office scissors later and the flaps on top of the box sprung open. Tentatively, Charlotte folded them back.

The first thing she saw was a man’s collared business shirt, the really expensive wash-n-wear kind of dress shirt that didn’t need ironing and always looked fabulous. Size: Large. Colour: Ivory. A hat came next, an honest to God, Indiana Jones-style Akubra that looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of elephants and then dragged through a river backwards. Well-worn jeans came next, the kind that had earned their faded knees and ragged hems the old-fashioned way. Then some scuffed leather walking boots and thick socks. No other smalls whatsoever. Commando Indy.

Books came next, an extensive library of
botany books and journals. Then came file upon file of research papers in haphazard order. A laptop had been tucked in between them. There was a round wall clock that still worked but told the wrong time. A handful of USB storage devices had been sealed inside an envelope. She unearthed a plastic takeaway container full of the stuff one might find in an office drawer. There were no photos.

The last thing she pulled from the box was a door tag with the name Dr G Tyler printed on it, the lettering no-nonsense black on a white background. A similar contraption graced her own door, and almost every other door in this building.

Charlotte stood back, ran unsteady hands through already wayward curls and surveyed the items strewn around her. She didn’t need to be an archaeologist to know what she had here.

Heaven help her, they’d sent her someone’s office.

The first thing to do was not panic.

So what if Dr G Tyler was going to be mighty unhappy when he discovered that his research wasn’t where he left it? That someone had packed up the contents of his office and shipped it off to … her? Belongings could be returned.
Repacked and returned to sender with a brief note of apology for the confusion. Email! His computer would have his email address on it. She could send him an email and let him know that his office was on its way back to him. Of course, said email might not be received by him given that she also had his laptop, but surely the man would be accessing his emails from another computer. He’d be doing that, surely?

Unless the man was dead.

‘I did
not
wish you dead,’ she muttered. ‘Please don’t be dead. You’ll get your stuff back, I promise. Or if you
do
happen to be dead, I’ll make sure this gets to your family.’ Only … what if he had a wife? Children! ‘I’ll explain
everything
,’ she said fervently. No way would she allow G Tyler to emerge from this mess with a reputation as a cheating, lying husband with a mistress on the side. ‘I
will
come clean.’

I promise.

Greyson Tyler wasn’t an unreasonable man. He understood what it took to get scientific research done in remote locations. He tolerated inefficiency in others, applied leeway when needed, and pressure when needed too. He took his time, worked his way calmly and methodically through the red tape associated
with such endeavours, and eventually he got his way. He always got his way, eventually, and he always got results.

He’d known he was tempting fate when he’d boxed his office effects up, ready to ship back to Australia, and hadn’t personally delivered the box into the hands of the freight carrier. He’d thought twice before leaving that task up to Mariah, the latest in a long line of temporary secretaries. Mariah had potential. She might even make a halfway decent administrative assistant one day. Presuming, of course, that she mastered the art of punctuality.

He’d left her a note with the name of the freight company he wanted to use. He’d left ‘Please Send To’ details right there on her desk. He’d set his misgivings aside and departed on his final field trip up-river without talking Mariah through the process.

Bad move.

She
had
used the freight company he’d recommended, that was something.

But she swore blue that she’d never seen the mailing address Grey had left for her, so when the email from his fiancée had come in—asking for a photo of him—and said fiancée had also been agreeable to Mariah sending the rest of his things her way, well … Problem solved.

A chain of events that showed initiative and
even sounded halfway reasonable, except for one small anomaly.

He didn’t have a fiancée.

He did, however, have a shipping address, and a phone call to the University of Sydney’s information line gave him a work phone number for his beloved intended.

Charlotte Greenstone was her name, and she was an Associate Professor of Archaeology, no less.

He’d never heard of her.

He was prepared to be considerate, given that there had clearly been a mistake, and that she presumably did have a fiancé in these parts with a similar name to his. He was prepared to give her some leeway when it came to the return of his possessions. And if she
didn’t
have his office effects already in her possession, he could warn her that they’d be arriving soon and that he’d be by to collect them.

He’d just completed his final set of measurements. Three years’ worth of research all done, which meant he could be out of here.

Not a moment too soon in the opinion of some.

He could be back in Sydney by tomorrow. He could collect his office contents, head for his catamaran moored on the Hawkesbury River just north of Sydney, find a suitably secluded
cove to anchor in, and analyse his data from there. His cat was ocean-going and had all the amenities he would need. He’d lived on her before.

He could kiss goodbye lawlessness and brutality and live for a time in a place where one’s possessions had a halfway chance of staying
in
one’s possession.

Tempting.

He put a call through to Charlotte Greenstone’s number and got her answering machine. A warm and surprisingly youthful voice told him to leave a message and she’d get back to him.

It was six-thirty on a Friday afternoon, Sydney time. Chances were that Associate Professor Charlotte had skipped for the weekend already, which meant the soonest he could reasonably expect a call back was Monday morning, her time. By which time he could be
at
her office collecting
his
office. He could be on the catamaran, set up and working, by Monday afternoon.

Aspro Charlotte had left a mobile phone number on her answering machine for urgent requests. Probably a good idea to check with her before he left PNG that she hadn’t turned his belongings around already.

This time when he called he got her in person. Same smooth velvety voice. The kind of voice
that slid down a man’s spine and reminded him that he hadn’t had a woman in a while. He cleared his throat, nonplussed by the notion that he’d responded to the voice of a woman his mother’s age. Associate professorship took time.

‘Hello?’ she said again, and damned if his body didn’t respond again and to hell with her advancing years.

‘Professor Greenstone, my name’s Grey Tyler,’ he said hurriedly.
‘Dr
Grey Tyler, botanist. I’m calling from PNG.’

Silence at that.

‘We’re not acquainted but I’m hoping you can help me.’ There. He was politeness itself. His mother would be proud. Charlotte Greenstone would be impressed. ‘I’m based in Port Moresby, although I spend a lot of time travelling between research sites in the country’s interior. I’ve just returned from such a trip to find that the contents of my office have been shipped to you by mistake.’

‘Yes,’ she said faintly. ‘Yes, Dr Tyler, your belongings arrived today. Did you get my email?’

‘Email?’ he echoed.

‘The one I sent you from your computer in the hope that you were still accessing your emails,’ she said. ‘Although judging by the several
hundred emails that subsequently popped
in
to your inbox, I wasn’t all that hopeful.’

‘You accessed my
computer
?’ What about his password protection? The supposedly unassailable drive he kept his research files on?
‘How?’

‘Actually, it was the IT guy who did the accessing,’ she confessed. ‘He’s very good. And we only accessed your emails and we only did that to get your contact details. I tried calling the number in your signature line but you no longer seem to have a functioning phone.’

‘Forget the phone, you accessed my
computer
?’

‘Dr Tyler, why don’t you just tell me where you want your box sent?’ Not so mellow now, that gorgeous voice. Impatience had crept in, firing up his own.

‘Nowhere. Don’t send it anywhere. I’ll pick it up on Monday.’

‘What?
’ For some reason, Charlotte Greenstone didn’t sound overly enamoured of the notion.

‘Monday,’ he repeated. ‘Preferably Monday morning.’

‘No!’ she said. ‘That plan’s really not going to work for me.’

‘Then outline a course of action that will,’ he countered. ‘I need my office back, Professor. I’ve work to do.’

‘Will you be in Sydney on Sunday?’ she asked.

‘I hope to be.’ Plane ticket willing.

‘I’ll go and get your box from work tomorrow, Dr Tyler. You can pick it up from my private address on Sunday or I will drop it in to wherever you’re staying. Does that suit?’

Decisive woman. And yes, it suited him just fine. She gave him her address. They arranged a collection time.

And when he got off the phone, the memory of her voice stayed with him and refused to go away.

‘Keep it simple,’ Charlotte said to herself for the umpteenth time that morning. Sunday morning, to be exact. Sunday morning at Aurora’s, no less, for that was the pickup address she’d given Grey Tyler.

Dr Greyson Tyler was a water weed control specialist. She’d discerned this from the research papers he’d authored and co-authored. Lots of them, and he didn’t bother submitting to the smaller journals either. Quality work, all the way.

Maybe she’d read one of his papers years ago and filed his name and that larger than life persona of his somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind. Maybe that was why, when she’d
needed an absent fictional fiancé, she’d picked the name Tyler, only she’d used Gil for a first name instead of Greyson. Greyson being far too formidable a name for any fiancé, fictional or otherwise.

Not that it mattered, for within an hour his box would be gone and so would he, and after that there would be no more fictional fiancés
ever
and certainly no doing away with them. ‘This I pledge,’ she said fervently.

By the time the doorbell finally rang, a good two hours later than expected, Aurora’s house was spotless and Charlotte had taken to fretting that Dr Greyson Tyler wouldn’t come for his box at all today but would turn up at her workplace tomorrow, thus exposing the entire fictional fiancé debacle to all and sundry, thus sealing her reputation as a complete and utter nutter, and ruining her professional reputation along with it.

She opened the door hastily and found herself staring straight at a broad and muscled chest. She dragged her gaze upwards and finally came to his face. A tough, weathered face, not young and not yet old. Strong black brows framed eyes the colour of bitter coffee, easy on the milk. His hair colour hovered somewhere between that of eyebrows and eyes. He had excellent facial bone structure and an exceptionally fine
mouth. A mouth well worth staring at. She had a feeling she’d stared at it before, but where?

Eventually the edge of it tilted up a little and she remembered her manners and stepped back politely and fixed a smile to her own face.

‘I’m looking for Professor Greenstone,’ he said, his voice a perfect match for the rest of him. Rough around the edges but with a fine baritone centre. Gil had also been in possession of such a voice. A voice to make a woman swoon.

‘That would be me,’ she said. ‘Dr Tyler, I presume?’

‘Yes.’ His eyes had narrowed. His mouth twisted wryly. ‘You’re young for an associate professor.’

‘My parents were archaeologists,’ she said. ‘I was raised by my godmother, who was also an archaeologist. I grew up chasing lost cities and ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at tables covered in maps. I was working dig sites by the time I turned six. I had a head start.’

‘Sounds like quite a childhood.’

‘Worked for me,’ she murmured, although it hadn’t exactly provided her with an altogether firm grip on reality. Not when there were so many ancient and different realities to choose from. Where
had
she seen his face before? A glossy magazine ad for something sumptuously
male and decadently expensive? A magazine article? ‘World’s Sexiest Scientists’, perhaps? Oh, hell.
New Scientist.

Charlotte sped back in time to a hospital waiting room, and an old waiting room copy of
New Scientist
magazine with an article on water weeds in it. There’d been a picture of the weeds. A picture of this man. She’d skimmed the article while waiting for the specialist to finish with Aurora.

Gil Tyler—fictional fiancé extraordinaire—hadn’t been a figment of her imagination at all.

The parts of Gil that hadn’t been based on movie superheroes and a long dead father had been based on
this
man.