He turned back casually. ‘Everyone knows about your father. His high-handed reputation precedes him by a country mile.’
Maggie bit her lip, but she soldiered on. ‘I told you—well, no, Tim told you, but all the same—I don’t trade on my father.’
‘Your kind generally stick together in the long run,’ he observed and shrugged his wide shoulders.
‘What ‘‘kind’’, exactly, is that?’ she queried with awful forbearance.
He looked at her indifferently. ‘Old money, class, breeding—whatever you like to call it.’
‘People who make those kinds of statements generally have none of those advantages—but wish they did,’ she shot back.
He grinned. ‘You’re right about one thing, I have no breeding or class, but you’re wrong about the other—I have no desire to acquire them. Well, now that we’ve thoroughly dissected each other, not to mention insulted each other, should we get down to brass tacks?’
‘And what might they be?’
‘How to get out of here. Is anyone expecting to see you this afternoon or this evening? Does anyone know you’re here?’
Maggie pulled out a chair and sat down at the table at the same time as, with an effort, she withdrew her mind from the indignity of being tarred with the same brush as her father again or, if not that, being classed as a flighty little rich bitch.
That one really stung, she discovered. True, she could be hot-tempered, as she’d so disastrously demonstrated, but it had no connection with being spoilt or rich. How to make Jack McKinnon see it that way—she shot him a fiery little glance—was another matter. Then again, why should she even bother?
She frowned and addressed herself to his question. ‘The office knew I was going to do a property valuation, but I wasn’t planning to go back to work this afternoon so they won’t miss me until tomorrow morning, oh, damn,’ she said hollowly.
He raised an eyebrow at her.
‘I’ve just remembered. I wasn’t planning to go into the office at all tomorrow.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and I was going to spend the afternoon—’ She broke off and grimaced a shade embarrassedly.
‘Let me guess,’ he murmured. ‘Getting your hair done, a facial, a manicure, a dress fitting, perhaps a little shopping in the afternoon?’
Maggie’s cheeks started to burn because most of the things he’d suggested were on her agenda for tomorrow afternoon. But she ignored her hot cheeks and beamed him a scathing green glance.
‘Listen,’ she said tersely, ‘yes, my hours can be elastic. On the other hand sometimes they’re extremely long and I have a day off this week, two actually, because I’m working all next weekend. I do not have any more time off than anyone else in the office!’
He shrugged.
Prompting her to continue angrily, ‘And if I’m the only woman you know who gets her hair cut now and then, has a manicure occasionally and shops from time to time, you must mix with some strange types, Mr McKinnon.’
He studied her hair and her nails. ‘They look fine to me,’ he said smoothly, but with an ironic little glint. ‘Be that as it may, only your doctor and your beautician are likely to miss you tomorrow I take it?’
Maggie sat back with her expression a mixture of frustration and ire. ‘Yes!’
‘Anything serious with the doctor?’
‘No.’
‘So they’re hardly likely to mount a search and rescue mission.’
‘Hardly.’
‘You live alone?’
‘I live alone,’ she agreed. ‘How about you?’
‘Yep.’
‘What about this plane you’re supposed to catch?’
He looked thoughtful. ‘It could be a day or two before I’m missed. I’m—I was—on my way to a conference in Melbourne, but I planned to call in on my mother tomorrow in Sydney on the way.’
Maggie sat up. ‘Surely she’ll miss you?’
‘She didn’t know I was coming. It was to be a surprise.’
‘That’s asking for trouble!’ Maggie said. ‘You could have missed her.’