Deliberately, she chose to direct her anger at the way he'd coerced her up here. As for the other things he'd said, she was still so shaken by them, she didn't trust herself to voice anything yet. In any case, any protestations she made would no doubt be futile. He'd made it quite clear this morning that he'd already made up his mind about her.
"And why can't you understand I'm not the ogre you think I am?" He sounded more frustrated than angry. "Like a fool, I thought it might be nice for us to spend a day together, discuss a little business, instead of being holed up in that tiny office of yours and then avoiding each other like the plague the rest of the time because of what happened last night. But with the mood you were in this morning, I knew you wouldn't come unless I was persuasive enough."
"Persuasive!" Laura snorted. "Is that what you call blackmail nowadays?"
"It was never intended that way." Daniel seemed thoroughly exasperated. He waved at the bustling square in front of them. "Tell me honestly you're not glad you're here now, instead of hiding away from me in your room."
"That's not the point," she muttered, resenting him for guessing exactly how she would have spent the day. They sat for a moment in stalemate.
"Laura, I'm sorry," Daniel said again, but this time the gruffness and stubbornness were gone from his voice, and a hint of tenderness was back.
"You already said that."
When she wouldn't meet his gaze, he shifted his chair until it was directly opposite hers.
"Not properly. I wasn't sure which of my misdemeanours we were discussing."
Laura rolled her eyes. "Neither was I."
"I've explained the heavy-handedness in my invitation, so I can only assume you're still upset over what I said about last night?"
When she didn't answer, he went on. "Laura, what I said about your motives was unforgiveable. It was just that . . ." He sighed. "You were so bad-tempered this morning, and I was tired. I only wanted a day out together, to discuss what I needed to discuss somewhere nice. But you were being so unreasonable about it."
She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand to stop her. "And then that phone call from my brother . . . it was bad timing. I know I jumped to all the wrong conclusions. But in my defence, I would like to say you've had me pretty confused. Whenever we get close, you back away and you never want to tell me why. One minute you're swearing blind you're not interested, and the next . . . well, that dance and that kiss were prime examples. I guess I was looking for a reason, and Ben conveniently provided me with one."
"The wrong one!" Laura bit out.
"I know. If I'd let myself think straight, I never would have said those things. Last night . . . I know you don't want to discuss it, but I need to tell you I know you weren't acting. Neither of us was," he added.
His heartfelt apology was more than Laura had expected, but it resolved nothing. She had no idea what he wanted from her—if anything. And she wanted more from him than she thought she should. He was right about her blowing hot and cold with him, and she could see how it would frustrate him. It was no excuse for the way he'd spoken to her, but she did feel she owed him an honest explanation.
"You were right about one thing," she said quietly.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Thank the stars for that! What might that be?"
Laura took a deep breath. "I've not been honest with you, and since I think you know that already, I might as well come clean. I denied there was any . . . chemistry, as you like to put it . . . between us, because you were pushing me too hard. The fact is . . ." She bit her lip before ploughing on. "The fact is, I am attracted to you. And I'm only human—hence last night. But when my head's in charge, it tells me to stay well away from you." Her lips twitched at his bemused expression. "I would have thought you have enough complications with Miss Hartman," she went on. "And you're only here for a short while. I'm not the kind of person who has holiday flings. I'm sorry if that's caused problems for you."
Daniel was quiet for a long moment. "Thank you for being so honest," he finally said. He looked into her eyes, melting the last of any anger she still held. "Will you forgive me for what I said this morning?"
"Hmph. You already said yourself that it was unforgiveable," she pointed out as she picked up her bag, ready to go.
Daniel rolled his eyes as he paid a passing waiter and rose from the table. "Has anyone ever told you that being so pedantic is one of your less admirable qualities?"
With a delicate truce between them, they strolled through the narrow cobbled streets, pausing to look in the shops at the pottery and linens on display. Laura bought gifts for her mother and brother, Daniel for his nephews. Their wanderings led them into one of the main squares where the restaurants were already almost full.
Laura checked her watch. "I think we ought to think about lunch, or we might not be able to get a table," she said, staring doubtfully at the crowds.
"And I think that's about the only sensible thing you've said all day."
Daniel strode towards a restaurant with a couple of empty tables before she could hit him. As she caught up with him, there was a shout behind them.
"Daniel! Fancy seeing you here!"
Her heart sinking, Laura turned to see Natalie Hartman waving at them from another table.
Chapter Fifteen
Feeling decidedly older and wearier right now than he should for his thirty-five years, Daniel walked over to her, Laura trailing in his wake. Despite the young Portuguese man seated at her table, Natalie stood to kiss Daniel—not on the cheek as he might have expected, but full on the mouth.
Embarrassed, he extricated himself as politely as he could. He knew Natalie's kiss was calculating, designed to annoy Laura, and he felt for the male companion. Besides, after his kiss with Laura last night, he had no desire to feel Natalie's lips on his. Thrown by that realisation, he was momentarily lost for words.
"So, what are you two doing up here? Quite a coincidence, isn't it?" Natalie broke the awkward silence.
"More than a coincidence, I'd say," Daniel said pointedly. "Laura's acting on behalf of the hotel. We had business to discuss, and she was kind enough to agree to keep me company today."
Natalie looked Laura up and down, and Daniel silently cursed her for the contempt she displayed. Natalie’s expensive linen trouser suit fitted her slim figure perfectly . . . but Laura's flowing skirt and loose top were fine in his book.
"Well, if you've finished discussing business, would you like to join us for lunch?" Natalie waved her hand towards her table, and then as though she'd forgotten he was even there, quickly added, "This is Tony. He works at the hotel I'm staying at. We're not here on business."
Daniel was having none of it. Today had only just begun to be bearable after such a terrible start—he refused to allow it to take a turn for the worse again. The idea of sitting through lunch with Natalie fawning all over him whilst simultaneously putting Laura down and using poor Tony to try to make him jealous was more than he could stand.
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, we can't. We still have a great deal to discuss. Nice to meet you, Tony. Enjoy your lunch."
Taking Laura by the elbow, he guided her between the tables to the only free one left, held out a chair for her, passed her a menu, then pretended to study his own.
Somehow Natalie had followed them there—that much was certain—and she was using that poor young man into the bargain. Daniel just couldn't understand her. Since he'd broken off their relationship, she'd been clingy at times, annoying at times, and he'd put up with it for the sake of his brother and his business. But this past week, she'd really upped the stakes. Trying to join him here in Portugal was one thing—he could see the logic behind it even if he didn't like it—but now, he suspected she could sense his attraction to Laura and was feeling threatened by it. And what Laura thought about all this, he didn't dare imagine.
"Have you decided yet?" he asked her.
She hurriedly glanced at the menu. "I'll have the hake."
"Any
thing to drink?"
"Water would be fine, thanks."
Once they had ordered, Daniel allowed himself to relax a little. Their table benefitted from the cool shade of a huge, ancient tree in the middle of the square, and they were surrounded by young couples or extended families all enjoying a leisurely Sunday lunch. The atmosphere was open and friendly, young and old alike having a wonderful afternoon together.
He risked a glance across to where Natalie and her companion were eating without saying a word to each other, then brought his gaze back to Laura, who was frowning into the middle distance.
"What are you thinking so hard about?" he asked her.
"You and Natalie." Her hand flew to her lips as though it had popped out of her mouth before she could think whether she wanted it to.
He tilted his head to one side. "Oh?"
Laura shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Forget I said that—I'm sorry, it has nothing to do with me."
Daniel watched as she toyed with her cutlery. So far, he'd avoided discussing Natalie with her any more than necessary, but with a kiss like last night's between them, he supposed she was entitled to know where he and Natalie stood.
"It's not unreasonable for you to want to know more," he said softly. "I don't mind telling you." He waited while the waiter placed Laura's water and his orange juice on the table before continuing.
"Natalie came to work for us about three years ago. Ben had started a family and couldn't travel as much, and that meant I was away a lot. He needed help to run things at the home end. He knew Natalie from a previous company, and I was happy for him to take on someone he felt he could work with."
He took a sip of his juice. "Natalie may come across as a bit of a princess, but she's seriously good at her job. The clients love her—she's classy, she knows her stuff, and they trust her to find them what they want, leaving us to get on with what we need to do."
Daniel sighed. "About eighteen months ago, we started a relationship. It was a gradual thing, I suppose. It crept up on me. I wasn't in the office much, but when I was, she was professional, attractive. I just kind of fell in with it. There were other reasons it seemed like a good idea . . ."
Laura laid a hand on his. "You don't have to tell me, Daniel."
He saw the warmth in her eyes despite their disastrous day so far, and realised he did want to tell her—to make her understand how he'd allowed himself to end up in something so . . . unstable. But where to start? At the beginning, he supposed.
"When Ben and I set up the company, I was engaged to someone," he told her.
Laura raised her eyebrows and sat back as the waiter placed their food on the table. She picked up her fork to taste her fish, and pointed to his plate. "Eat."
Obediently, he stabbed at his salad. "Her name was Felicity. Fliss. We got on well, enjoyed the same things. Neither of us dreamed my new venture would cause us problems. I'd been in the industry all along, and I'd always had to travel as part of my job." He took a bite of tomato. "It was okay for the first year. But as time went on and Ben had his first child, well, it became clear I wasn't going to be there for her half the time. Fliss wanted more than that. And I couldn't blame her."
"So you had to choose between your fiancée and your company?"
Daniel shrugged it away. "I suppose you could put it like that. But Ben and I were committed to a business we couldn't just box up and pack away. And Ben had embarked on a marriage and a family, so his hands were tied. Nor were we in a position to take anyone else on."
"So you gave her up?"
Daniel felt a little nauseous, and took another bite of food to try to settle his stomach. What she thought of him suddenly mattered a great deal.
"Don't judge me harshly, Laura. I thought I was doing the right thing by everyone. By Fliss. By my brother."
Laura shook her head. "I'm not judging you. I'm only sorry for you—that you had to put your brother first, just because he happened to get married before you."
Daniel shrugged. "You can't have everything you want in life. The simple fact is, I wasn't in a position to settle down at the time. And Fliss is with someone else now. She's happy."
"Are you?" Her gaze was intent on him.
"I'd be happier if Natalie would leave me alone!" He was suddenly anxious to change the subject back to something he could actually make sense of. The subject of his happiness was . . . well, it was like chasing smoke. "I can't believe it's a coincidence she's up here the same day as us. She turned up a few nights ago in a restaurant, too, but it was only around the corner from her hotel, so it was certainly plausible. This isn't—but she can't have just piled Tony into her car and followed us here, surely?"
Laura frowned. "Well . . ." She toyed with her food a moment. "Actually, I bumped into her earlier in the week, too—or should I say, she bumped into me. It was after the boat trip. I was sitting at a café and she made it seem like a coincidence, but then she told me she'd seen us as the boat came in, that she'd noticed how close we were."
Daniel watched her intently, his salad forgotten. "Okay, so walking past you in the middle of Viana when she's staying nearby is one thing. But happening to watch the boat when we were on it? Highly unlikely. She may be a little obsessive, but she's not unhinged or in stalker territory. Besides, I don't see how she would have known we were on the boat unless she'd waited outside the Quinta, followed us all the way into town, seen us get on the boat, and then waited two hours for us to get back." He shook his head. "No way. Natalie loves herself too much to sink that low."
Laura was quiet a moment. "Does she have access to your schedule?"
"Back at the office, I suppose, but it was only roughly sketched out. Since I've been out here, I've just been entering stuff on my . . ." He slapped his forehead. "My electronic diary! I am such an idiot! Any one of us can log in to that thing at any time. I can't believe I didn't think of that!" He raked his hands through his hair in frustration.
Laura answered with concern. "First, you're not an idiot. You're tired and busy, and if you juggle as many things in your brain as you do, you're bound to drop something occasionally. Second, if she's daft enough to go nosing into your daily schedule to engineer a chance to run into you, she must be mad. The boat was a given, if she knew which trip we were on. But coming up here for the day . . . there are thousands of people here. How could she guarantee meeting up with you?"
"We're having lunch in a main square, aren't we? Maybe she just fancied a drive out with that poor toy boy of hers, with the possible added bonus of seeing me here." He glanced back to her table. "This is getting beyond a joke."
"Eat." Laura reached across, took his fork, stabbed food onto it, and handed it back to him.
Daniel chewed, shaking his head at the ridiculous mess he was in. "When I started going out with her, I thought it would be a good match. She worked for the company, she knew what my job was like. I thought she would understand the limitations of any relationship we had. But she's unrealistic, possessive. The whole point of employing her was to help Ben at headquarters, but she kept wanting to travel with me, turn business trips into romantic holidays." He rolled his eyes. "I tried to make it work, to get her to see there was a limit to how much I could give, but after almost a year it was getting worse, not better, so I had to end it." He ate another mouthful. "And of course the irony is that for the past six months, I've done even more travelling just to stay out of her way."
He was rewarded with a genuine smile from Laura that soothed his senses.
"And here I was thinking you had a woman in every port, when in reality you had one who couldn't stick by you and one who wanted to do nothing but!"
Glad he'd finally dispelled this bizarre notion she had fixed in her head that he had a bevy of women waiting in the wings, he gave her a rueful look. "That's about the size of it. In any case, my brother's made up for my bachelorhood by becoming ridiculously suburban and domesticated."
He waited as she finished her fish and took a sip of water. "So h
ow come no one’s managed to drag you up the aisle yet?" he asked her.
Laura spluttered. "What?"
Daniel loved the outraged expression on her face. "I don't see why all the private confessions should be limited to my side of the table," he said smoothly.
"I didn't ask you to confess!"
"I know. But I did anyway. So come on, fair's fair." He knew he was pushing her, but all of a sudden, he desperately wanted to know. His private life had been forced upon her from the minute he'd met her, but he realised now that he knew little about hers, except for what she'd said at that first dinner date about her father, and that she and her brother weren't keen on marriage as an institution.
She casually shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose I never met anyone I wanted to get that involved with."
"I get the impression you deliberately keep it that way," he said. When she glanced up sharply, he reminded her, "You told me this morning that you do your best to stay away from men."
"Well, I do date," Laura said defensively, "but I prefer to keep my distance, that's all. I enjoy my work, my friends. I don't need any . . . complications."
"You mean like your mother had when your dad left?" he asked her gently.
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. "Maybe. It didn't exactly help me believe in love ever after."
"Maybe you will if the right person comes along."
Laura curled her lip. "I doubt it. Maria's the only one with high hopes on that score."
Sensing she was trying to lighten the moment, Daniel agreed. "Looks like we're both eternal bachelors, then."
"Looks like." Laura's gaze was challenging. "In which case, we could do without a repetition of last night."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"Meaning you should keep your hands and lips to yourself from now on."
Daniel snorted. "I don't remember your hands and lips being too reticent, Laura Matheson!"
It pleased him that she blushed so furiously. "It was late. I was tired and overwrought."
Holding Back Page 13
