‘Being here without your mother around…’
He laughed. ‘Most women might have found it odd the other way around.’
He began stripping off his shirt. Only when he was half naked did he realise that she was still hovering by the door, hands clasped behind her back, when she should have been coming to him, revealing the spectacular body once more hidden under her baggy camouflage clothing.
‘Do you want me to do a striptease for you?’ he enquired softly. Thoughts of taking her were releasing him from the coiled tension of seeing his mother off. He would never have admitted it in so many words, but he had been worried to death that she was leaving too soon, that she would have been better off recuperating in London, where he could keep an eye on her. He wanted to find sanctuary from his anxious thoughts in the arms of the woman standing in front of him—a fully clothed woman who seemed oddly hesitant.
With the superb arrogance of the utterly self-confident, Theo brushed aside all thought that Heather might actually not want to hop into bed with him. His hand hovered over the buckle of his belt, which he slowly pulled through the loops of his trousers.
Heather licked her lips nervously. She knew that if she went any closer to him she would be sucked in, like a fly getting just a bit too close to the spider’s web. Like a gifted magician, Theo had the amazing ability to banish thought from her head and turn her into his obedient puppet.
Heather struggled with the recognition that she couldn’t allow that to happen this time. She had been gifted a golden opportunity to find out what she meant to him, whether they could take what they had a stage further now that his mother had gone. She wasn’t going to pass the chance up.
‘Actually, Theo, I’d quite like just to talk…’
Theo greeted this with narrowed eyes. ‘Talk? Talk about what? You’ve already done the sympathy thing. There’s no need to go over old ground. I assure you that I am not about to collapse because I am apprehensive about my mother’s health. I will telephone the relevant people on a daily basis, and if I get the slightest whiff of concern then it would be no problem for me to fly to Greece.’
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ Heather said, maintaining her position by the door. It felt safe there. It gave her the illusion that she could do a runner if the conversation got too much for her to handle. ‘But actually I wasn’t going to talk about your mother.’
‘Ah.’ Comprehension dawned. ‘You want to pick up where we left off earlier on. Is that it? You want my reassurance that I want you, that sleeping with you wasn’t just an artificial situation generated by necessity.’ He smiled slowly and walked towards her. ‘I didn’t imagine that I would have to prove my desire to you. You have seen first hand that what you do to my body has nothing to do with make-believe. Oh, no…’
Heather was struggling to breathe. When he was standing right in front of her, she closed her eyes to steady herself. Without the benefit of one lot of senses, she might just be able to control the other four. No good. She might shut him out of her line of vision, but she could still see him in her head. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘I just want to know what happens next…you know…for us…’
Theo wasn’t thick. The significance of her words was the verbal equivalent of a very long, very cold shower, or a dip in the North Sea. All traces of passion left his body in a staggering rush, replaced by a cool appraisal of her flushed face.
‘I thought you had already asked that question,’ he said coolly.
‘I know. But you didn’t give me an answer.’ She risked a quick look at his face and her stomach churned queasily at the expression of icy withdrawal she saw there.
Theo didn’t immediately answer. Instead he walked over to where he had dropped his shirt and shrugged it back on. Very good. Half clothed, he was just too distracting. He also remained where he was, by the window, which was very good for her state of mind.
She found that she could actually breathe now.
‘Okay.’ Theo shrugged. ‘The truth is that, yes, we both owe what we have to an unforeseen combination of circumstances. Were it not for my mother arriving, finding you in situ and jumping to all the wrong conclusions, then we would never have slept together. However, now that we have, I see no need to disturb the arrangement as it stands.’
Heather was winded, and deeply hurt by his casual assumption that without the intervention of fate in the form of his ill mother he would never have looked at her twice. She had spent almost two years hovering in the background, feeding off the crumbs he had dropped for her, always imagining a day when he would finally see her for the woman that she was. Now she knew that she had been living a dream. She clasped her arms around her and looked down. She was sure the whole world, if it had listened, hard, would have heard the sound of her hammering heart.
Irritated by her continuing silence, Theo frowned. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘I might have expected something more by way of response.’
‘Something like what, Theo?’ All the nebulous feelings she had had since her afternoon with Beth crystallised into a hard knot of miserable realization—the sort of miserable realisation that no amount of self-justifying internal clap-trap could cure.
She had waddled around him for years, invisible underneath her camouflage clothing, and then she had somehow landed up naked in his bed. He had happened to like what he had seen, and therefore had made full use of it.
Moreover, she could hardly blame him when she had been an eager and willing pupil.
‘This conversation is beginning to bore me,’ Theo announced, strolling out of the room.
Heather, who actually just wanted to find somewhere dark and hide away, knew that she couldn’t leave things where they lay. Much as she didn’t want to follow him, she did—to find him helping himself to something stronger than wine.
‘I’m sorry if I’m boring you, Theo. I know you like to keep things superficial with women…’
‘There’s nothing superficial about sex!’ he thundered, banging his glass on the counter with such force that some of its contents splashed and formed a little puddle. He swore silently and grabbed a teatowel, which he proceeded to dump on the spreading patch.
‘Well, no…not when it’s part of a meaningful relationship…’
He met her eyes steadily. ‘Not when it’s part of an enjoyable relationship. There’s the nub, Heather. Relationships can be enjoyable without necessarily being meaningful.’
They were both tiptoeing around the central issue. She could either agree with him and back off, take the little he was offering which was a whole lot more than she had ever had in the past, or she could stick to her guns and probably get blown apart in the process.
‘I just need to know where we’re going, Theo. I mean, is there any kind of future for us?’
Theo, swirling what was left of his drink, could barely believe his ears. He had just offered her something he had never offered another woman before—the chance to have a live-in relationship with him—and what was her response to that? Questions about longevity, musings about that woolly thing called a future, which seemed to occupy women’s minds with disproportionate significance.
‘I think you’ve been a little too influenced by my mother.’ He poured some of his drink down his throat and then refilled the glass. ‘Somewhere along the line you have allowed the myth to become reality. Let me clarify the situation for you, Heather…’
Heather did not want him to clarify the situation for her. Nor did she want to see him looking at her with the cold eyes of a stranger. She wanted him back, the man she loved and knew. But in the space of a second it became perfectly clear that she would never have that man back, because the nature of their relationship had been altered. Like someone trapped on a dizzying, nightmarish rollercoaster ride, Heather felt herself being catapulted towards an inevitable conclusion. There was no getting off the ride now that it had taken off.
Like a rabbit caught in the dazzling headlights of an oncoming car, she stood there, eye
s wide, looking at him, half praying that he wouldn’t say any more. Her legs felt weak and she sat on a stool, resting her arms on the counter and staring through him and past him.
‘Any notion of permanence between us was something created for my mother’s benefit. She was weak, and I didn’t feel that launching into an explanation of what you were doing living under my roof would have helped her along the road to recovery. She has wanted to see me settled for a long time—too long—and she saw you and flew to the conclusions she wanted to…She still comes from a time when two people living together constituted a relationship…’
‘We have got a relationship, Theo…’ Heather wondered whether he could hear the note of pleading in her voice as clearly as she could.
‘We have,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘But one of a purely sexual nature. It’s something I hadn’t expected, and I’m quite willing for it to continue, but that is all it will ever be.’
‘And when will you tell your mother the truth?’ Neediness had jumped on her from behind and grabbed her by the throat, and she hated it. Somehow she had waltzed through life without ever really being under the control of anyone or anything. Yes, she had needed to work, but no job had ever meant so much that the thought of losing it had lost her sleep. And, yes, she had friends, and she enjoyed them, but need…? No. Now, as she was trampled under the remorseless march of Theo’s cool, dispassionate summary of what they had, she could feel her need rising up and making her say things she knew she shouldn’t.
‘That is something that need not concern you,’ Theo answered indifferently. ‘When my mother has fully recovered, then I shall tell her that you are no longer a part of my life…that things simply did not work out…we were incompatible…’
Heather nodded dully, fighting back the insane desire to argue her stand, to tell him that they were compatible. Hadn’t she lived with him for months and months? Hadn’t she seen him in his worst lights and his best? Thankfully good sense prevailed and she remained silent.
‘She will be disappointed, but she will recover,’ Theo continued, with sweeping confidence.
‘And will you ever settle down, Theo? Or are there just too many women in the world left to explore?’
Theo didn’t care for that at all. Just because he was not ready for commitment it did not mean that he was shallow in his dealings with women. He looked at her through narrowed eyes and told himself that, yes, what was happening was for the best. It had been foolhardy to extend his invitation for them to continue sleeping with one another. Already she was beginning to tap her feet to the invisible sound of wedding bells, and that would never do.
‘My life’s ambition,’ he drawled, with every semblance of boredom, ‘is not to sleep with as many women as I can before I die, believe it or not…’
‘No, you’ll only sleep with them if they can give you a cast-iron guarantee of non-involvement. Not many of those around, Theo.’
Theo was flabbergasted. When had it all changed? If he could have staked money on the one woman who would have been immune to thoughts of marriage, it would have been her. Hadn’t she worked for him for nearly two years? Hadn’t she seen first hand his views on commitment?
‘I cannot believe that you, of all people, can be sitting here and telling me this.’
Since Heather couldn’t quite believe it either, she didn’t say anything.
‘I am not looking for a life partner because at this point in time I need the freedom to pursue my career. I would not be unfair enough to any woman to marry her with the illusion that she would be anything but second place in my life, and what woman would want that?’
Heather almost laughed out loud at that piece of verbal dexterity. So now she was meant to believe that poor Theo was only thinking of the woman—doing her a favour, in fact, by never promising more than what he could deliver that day. And in return all he asked was not to be plagued by anyone being so thoughtless as to suggest that she might be concerned with what happened beyond a twenty-four-hour period!
She wasn’t going to have a great long debate with him about that, though. He was as skilful with his words as he was with everything else, and she knew that whatever argument she put forward he would proceed to knock it down, because he wanted to remain in an ivory tower and that was, quite simply, that.
‘You’re right,’ she agreed wearily. ‘No woman.’
Theo felt a surge of anger tear through him and fought it down, surprised by his irrational response. He was just doing what he usually did when a woman started fantasising about the impossible. He willed himself to get back in control of his scattered thoughts, and a lifetime of self-discipline came to his rescue.
‘Don’t you ever get tired, Theo?’ Heather asked curiously.
‘Tired? Tired of what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know…tired of the different faces, of playing the field…new dates, new women, new conversation…’
‘I thrive on variety.’ Theo stood up abruptly and headed towards the sofa. He liked this line of conversation almost as little as he had liked her implication that he was somehow superficial in his dealings with the opposite sex.
That seemed to be a closing statement, and Heather remained on the stool, blinking back her tears. Eventually she stood up and started walking towards the bedroom.
‘Reconsidering my offer?’ Theo asked casually, and she rounded on him, fury replacing the misery of a few seconds earlier.
‘No, I am not!’ After everything he had said, his arrogance to think that she would even consider some short-lived vacancy as his mistress was just too much. ‘I wouldn’t dream of sleeping in your bed, knowing that at any minute I might be chucked out because you’d got bored and decided it was moving-on time!’
‘Then why did you sleep with me in the first place?’
‘Your mother assumed…’
‘My mother assumed that we were in a relationship, which doesn’t answer my question…Ah…I see…’
‘What do you see…?’ Heather blinked in confusion. She had been led into a trap and now he knew what she was all about—knew that she had fallen in love with him. Well, there could be nothing more terrifying for him. Love would have him running that mile even faster than he already was! She had hoped to leave with at least her dignity intact, but now she could see that had been a wild hope.
‘I see someone who spotted an opportunity and seized it with both hands.’ There was a tone to his voice that Heather had never heard before. It was as flat and as hard as a slab of steel, and she stared at him in speechless bewilderment.
Into the silence, Theo moved onwards, his voice growing colder by the second as he contemplated the full spectre of her deceit. ‘I asked myself earlier how things could have changed so drastically between us. For months you were as reliable as the day was long. You took care of the house, you helped me with my work when I needed it, and most of all you never complained. Now here you are, demanding promises of a future…’
‘I wasn’t demanding…I was—’
‘Shut up!’ His voice was like a whip, subduing her into sudden shocked silence once more. In the past, when she had witnessed his anger over something to do with work, he had shown it by stalking round the room, dictating something to her in staccato bursts, his movements restless and fuelled. Now he was perfectly still, and all the more intimidating for that.
‘Was it when you supposedly allowed yourself to be tempted into bed with me that you started thinking what a good catch I might be? Started thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you played your cards right, you would be in with a chance?’
All colour leached from Heather’s face, and her eyes widened in horror at his massive misinterpretation of events.
‘Wh-what…?’ she stuttered.
‘Did you think that if you buttered up my mother you would somehow get one foot over the winning line? After all, you knew that no other woman had ever been in a position to meet any member of my family. Maybe you imagined that circumstances had played right into your
hands…You once told me that you believed in fate. Well, what better display of fate than to closet you with my mother for weeks on end?’
‘No! None of what you’re saying is true!’ Heather said, appalled.
Theo, a runaway train gathering momentum, ignored the interruption.
‘Sleeping with me, knowing that I lusted after you, must have seemed the icing on the cake!’ He thought of the way he had looked forward to stepping through the door, craved the nights when he could make love to her, feel every curve of her body, and he hated himself for the weakness. ‘You must have known that I am like any red-blooded male. Throw a naked desirable woman at me and I find it hard to resist.’
With every word he trampled over her fragile hopes, and he was right. She had seen his mother’s sudden appearance on the scene as a sign of fate. Hadn’t she been in the process of really thinking about moving out? And, yes, she had hoped that she would come to mean something to him after they had slept together, that he might see her really and truly for the first time. Naïve expectations had found fertile ground in her romantic heart, and time had done the rest.
‘When did you first begin to think that I might be worth hunting down? Was it when you first stepped into this place and saw it for the first time?’ He remembered her awestruck, wide-eyed pleasure and could have kicked himself for never once thinking that his money might have inspired gold-digging ambitions. At the time he had been amused!
‘I don’t know how you can sit there and say those things, Theo.’
‘Because I am a very practical man. I am also an extremely rich one. And rich, practical men have suspicious minds. You should have taken that into account.’
‘This is like a bad dream,’ Heather whispered. She felt as though she had been cheerfully living in a house, thinking the walls secure, only to find that the house was made of straw and susceptible to a puff of wind.
‘People wake up from bad dreams, Heather. This is no dream. This is reality.’
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ And she’d brought it on herself. She blindly turned away, scrambled away from those cold, distant eyes into the bedroom, where she frantically began pulling all her possessions out of drawers, out of cupboards, throwing them on the bed in a heap.
At the Greek Tycoon's Bidding Page 10
