Artistic License by Elle Pierson

probably couldn’t care less. She did. She was ten times more annoyed on his behalf than she would have been by a slur to her own appearance.
     
    Did he get that kind of comment all the time?
     
    Too late, she realised that Sean was looking at her with the dawning incredulous delight of a tabloid reporter who had just stumbled over the scoop of the season in his own backyard.
     
    “Well, well,” he said, and for a moment he reminded her so much of Dale at his most irritating that she had an inappropriate desire to kick him in the shins. Seizing her arm, he pulled it gallantly through the crook of his elbow and began to tug her to where Mick stood scowling at them.
     
    “Look what I found,” Sean announced with misplaced pride. One might have thought she was an inanimate object he’d personally unearthed to add to the collection. “I understand you two already know each other?”
     
    The question was positively saturated with innuendo.
     
    Mick’s return look was glacial.
     
    “Aren’t you supposed to be in conference with London?” he asked before nodding stiffly at Sophy. “Good morning, Sophy.”
     
    How warm and sincere. She might be the most despised of his maiden aunts.
     
    “Did you come for another look at the exhibition?” he asked, keeping his attention firmly away from Sean’s growing grin.
     
    Sophy ventured eye contact and was both relieved and stomach-flutteringly nervous to see that the roiling emotions in his dark gaze entirely belied the impassivity of his voice.
     
    “Ryland shanghaied her for a meet-and-greet,” Sean answered for her cheerfully. “He wanted to play the grateful Lord-and-Master with the worthy subject.”
     
    If Sophy had ever smart-assed about her boss like that, it was ten to one that he would have been standing right behind her. She couldn’t resist an anxious peer over her shoulder. Nobody else was in hearing range of Golden Boy’s wise-cracks. Figures. He was definitely another Dale.
     
    “Where is Ryland?” Mick ignored his friend’s disrespectful comments with an air of resignation. Before Sean could reply, the pager on Mick’s belt beeped and he unsnapped it and read the message. “Never mind,” he said grimly. “I have to go. Can you hold the fort here for a few minutes?” Over the splutters of Sean’s indignation, he looked at Sophy, started to speak and then hesitated. “I’ll see you later?” he queried at last.
     
    She nodded wordlessly and watched him walk away.
     
    “And in the meantime,” Sean sounded like a large panther purring in the sun, “how about you and I get to know each other a little better?”
     
    Still holding her arm, he patted her hand, his fingertips lingering on her knuckles, his eyes also on his friend’s retreating back. Mick, just about to disappear through the door, didn’t bother to turn his head as he spoke.
     
    “How about you find some work to do and keep your hands to yourself?”
     
    The dry suggestion seemed to cap Sean’s satisfaction with the turn of events. Before he could commence an interrogation of leading questions and lascivious observations, Sophy did what she always did in awkward social situations.
     
    She excused herself to make a wholly unnecessary visit to the bathroom.
     
    She was a seasoned pro at taking interminable amounts of time to smooth her hair and reapply lipstick. She could probably string it out long enough that it would be almost time to meet Ryland for coffee. On the minus side, Sean would likely think that she had an embarrassing intestinal dilemma. She was weighing the options when she noticed there was a muddy paw print on the hem of her dress – and the paper towel dispenser was empty. Damn. Going into the end cubicle to grab a handful of toilet paper, she didn’t immediately pay attention when the bathroom door open and multiple pairs of feet clattered in. The doors of adjacent cubicles banged shut.
     
    “Is Sean bringing his one-night stands to work