She swallowed, gripping it hard, some part of her wanting to flee, her life seeming to depend on her staying and going in. Her last memory before the accident had been of Thomson getting into the Jaguar after he'd seen Julia Herbert to her door. He hadn't wasted any time about seeing her to that door, either, but was soon back, Yancie made herself remember. What sort of behaviour was that for a supposedly engaged man?

On that thought, Yancie gathered together all of her courage, opened the door and went in. Thomson was there. He looked up from his desk, plainly not expecting anyone. He was thinner too, she saw straight away, and her heart started to ache for all his suffering. But he was staring at her as if astounded by her nerve in barging into his office unannounced as if she was the last person he expected to see. She wanted to speak, but her throat felt parched. `H-how are you?' was what she managed for openers.

'I don't recall having an appointment with you!' he barked curtly, rapidly recovering from having appeared momentarily rocked.

Appointment! He really could be a swine when he wanted, she fumed; she was angry, not to mention a bundle of nerves into the bargain. Perhaps that was why, when she had half decided not to mention his proposal if he didn't remember it, she forgot totally what she had or had not decided, and snapped back bluntly, `That's no way to speak to your fiancee!'

Her mouth fell open from the shock of the unintended words she had just hurled at him. But as Thomson, rising from his desk, stared back at her, his expression positively staggered, Yancie didn't know which of them was the more shocked. What she did know, though, was that this was the first he'd heard of it or wanted to hear of it.

It was time, she realised, for her to get out of there!

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT was obvious to Yancie from Thomson's absolutely thunderstruck look that he had not the smallest recollection of ever having proposed to her. And, bearing in mind the strong medication he must have been receiving, she realised, belatedly, that she should never have mentioned it to him.

'I'm-sorry!' she gasped before he had uttered a word-and was on her way.

Unbelievably, however, Thomson had moved, and moved fast, and was at the door before her, his hand down by the door handle, preventing her from reaching for it.

There was a sharp look in his eyes she felt suddenly wary of. `Tell me more,' he commanded.

No way! But he seemed pale. Had he just lost his colour from the shock of her claiming to be his future wife-as if that thought would make any man go pale-or had he been pale to start with?

'You haven't been well!' she exclaimed, fearful for his health.

'I was given a clean bill of health only yesterday.'

Yet, typically, he'd been at work before he'd been given the all-clear-probably been working from home before that. `I shouldn't trouble you,' she said jerkily.

'You've been trouble from the day I met you,' he replied, his eyes on hers, searching, reading.

'Well, you would say that!' she attempted an offhand note that didn't quite come offshe didn't like the shrewd, alert look of him; he was clever, discerning; she knew that much about him. `W-well, I'll be off; I just thought I'd pop in to see how you are.'

She didn't like at all, either, the speculative look that had come to his eyes. `My drivers are doing it all the time,' he answered dryly, his eyes never leaving her face.

Pig! `Well, you look all right to me!' she snapped, glad of a spurt of anger, but wishing he would come away fromm the door so she could go through it. `Well, I'll love you and leave you,' she hinted, and could have groaned aloud that she had trotted out that trite little saying. She wanted to keep a mile away from that word 'love'. She shouldn't have come; she shouldn't, she shouldn't.

'No need to rush off,' Thomson stated calmly, at ease when she was feeling hot all over. 'Stay-have a cup of coffee,' he invited.

Coffee! `This isn't a social call,' she blurted out in a rush. She needed to get out of thereand now.

'It isn't?"

'W-we were in an accident together,' she reminded him, even though she full well knew he needed no reminding.

He stood straight before her and while he continued to stare silently at her she would have given anything to know just what he was thinking, just what was going through his brain. Because she knew, too, that his waking brain was never dormant. His eyes fixed on hers, he seemed to draw a long breath, and then quietly, watchfully, he declared, `I think there's more than an accident between us, Yancie.'

Oh, grief! Did he mean he knew that she loved him? She couldn't bear it if he did. `If you'll g-get out of the way,' she endeavoured again to get out of there.

But, again, he wasn't moving. `It's not like you to be nervous,' he observed, still in that same quiet tone.

'N-nervous? Me! Pfff!' she denied swiftly, and made another attempt to get out of there before this all too perceptive man sifted out what she was nervous about. `I must go-I'm sure you never have a minute to spare for unexpected callers.'

Her hint fell on stony ground. `I've just made an exception.'

'Too kind!' Oh, don't be snappy-you may never see him again. That thought was so unbearable, Yancie burst into speech. `You're thinner!' she said hurriedly, feeling more agitated than ever suddenly.

She wished at once she hadn't said it, because her remark brought his eyes from her face to skim over her shape, a much too speculative look in his grey eyes as he fixed them on her blue eyes once more, and quietly remarked, `You don't appear to have put on a whole lot of weight, either.' And, acute as sessment not in it, he said, `Why is that, I wonder?"

'We've both b-been-er-unwell,' she supplied in an endeavour to put him off the scent-love had walked in; her appetite had walked out.

'How are you feeling now?' he enquired pleasantly.

Pretty desperate, actually. But his pleasant tone, plus the fact that he had accepted her answer without further question, caused her to drop her guard in her relief, and it was chattily that she answered, You mean how long have I been having these hallucinations?' The moment the question was out, she wanted it back. She had now gone from merely nervous and agitated to panic-stricken. She had been hoping that Thomson had forgotten her claim to be his fiancee but, with those words `That's no way to speak to your fiancee!' clanging stridently away in her head all the while, she had just reminded him.

In all probability he had never forgotten it, she realised, but-was it too much to hope that those words were not clanging so loudly in his head; that he might not have a clue what she was meaning with her talk of hallucinations?

It was too much to hope for, she was very soon made aware. Because, whatever trauma Thomson had suffered from the accident, it had not impaired the quickness of his thinking, Yancie found. And he was right there with her when he questioned, `To claim to be engaged to me, do I take it that I proposed?' He paused, and then very quickly added, `And that you accepted?'

For all he seemed tense as he waited for her answer. Yancie knew that he was playing with her-and she didn't thank him for it. `Oh, you proposed all right-but you're not engaged to me!' she answered snappily.

His eyes narrowed slightly. `I make it my life's work to go around proposing to women?"

'According to your mother, you've been engaged to Julia Herbert for months!'

'Julia H…' Thomson stared at her disbelievingly. `My mother told you I was engaged to Julia Herbert?' he questioned, seeming stunned. But, collecting himself, he caught a hold of Yancie's arm. `I should have known that nothing is ever straightforward when it involves you, Yancie Dawkins,' he said at length. `Come and take a seat, and you can tell me all about it.'

'You're busy,' she tried, but it seemed he'd got his determined hat on.

'Business can wait!' he said firmly. `Things have been going on here of which I know nothing!' And with that he led her over to the comfortable-looking sofa.

Yancie, by this time, was a trembling wreck. She had a feeling that what Thomson didn't know which he felt he should he resolutely found out. She wanted to flee, wanted to stay, wanted more time with him, even if it was just a mutual `It's been nice working with you' kind of time. But he was urging her to be seated, and, truth to tell, she was feeling rather feeble in the leg department.

She saw a hint of a smile cross his features when she gave in and took a seat on the sofa, but noticed that he didn't turn his back on her, didn't take his eyes off her or give her a chance to dash for the door when he went to the intercom and told his PA, `I'm with someone, Veronica. See to it I'm not disturbed, will you?'

Yancie stared at him. He needn't worry; she didn't feel capable just then of getting up and making a dive for the door. More so when Thomson came over and drew one of the easy chairs close up to her-and looked steadily into her nervous blue eyes.

'I didn't know you were so friendly with my mother,' he commented.

'I'm not!'

'And yet you say you know her well enough for her to impart details of my personal life.'

'I don't know her at all,' Yancie insisted. `She was just there one of the times I came to see you in the hospital.'

'You came more than once?' he questioned sharply, that alert look in his eyes again.

Had he remembered her coming to see him that day? She couldn't ask. Yancie was all at once feeling on very shaky ground. She needed to get out of there, and with her pride intact. And yet she couldn't go. And, she discovered, when she had been able to lie to him in the past, now, with his eyes steady on hers, to lie to him was totally beyond her.