Miranda sucked in her breath, irritated anew by the undercurrent of laughter in his voice. ‘I wasn’t being serious,’ she snapped. Cautiously, she reached back into the innards of the copier. ‘If I could just…’ She grunted with effort, grimacing as her fingers felt for the catch once more. ‘Oh, come on, stop being so difficult!’

Rafe observed her with amusement as she sat back on her heels with a sigh of frustration. ‘Do you always talk to photocopiers?’

‘I’ve got this theory they’re like horses,’ Miranda told him. ‘When you’re a temp, you spend a lot of time wrestling with photocopiers. They’re always skittish at first, and they play up the moment they sense you don’t know what you’re doing. You have to get to know them every time, and let them know who’s boss.’

‘You mean you’re a sort of office equipment whisperer?’

‘Not a very effective one at the moment.’

Miranda sighed and gave up on the catch, but as she pulled her hand out, she caught her finger again. Same metal, same finger. ‘Ow!’ she said, shaking it. ‘Maybe I am serious about you buying a new one!’ she added to Rafe. ‘I could take a hammer to this one first, and then you’d have to replace it.’

‘Let me have a go.’

Rafe hitched up the trousers of his perfect Italian suit and crouched down beside her.

At close quarters, he was overwhelmingly male. Miranda scuttled crab-wise away from him as far as she could go, but there was very little room to manoeuvre between the table and the photocopier, and in the end she scrambled to her feet instead. At least that way she could breathe.

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘You’re too well dressed,’ she told him bluntly, trying to ignore the way every cell in her body still seemed to be humming with awareness of the leashed power beneath the suave exterior. ‘Changing the toner cartridge can be a very messy business.’