‘You’re making a big mistake!’ he carolled out to her departing back. She was smiling as she left the house because every word that left her father’s mouth showed her how much he cared, and that filled her up like nothing else could.
He had made all sorts of crazy assumptions about her and Andreas. She could see that he might have put two and two together when they had been working, sharing jokes, maybe even giving off that intangible intimacy that lovers could give off without even being aware of it. She had thought they had been very discreet at the time, but James had laser vision when it came to reading people. Well, all the more reason to prove to him once and for all that wherever his suspicions lay, they would have to continue to lie there. If not Tom, then she would bring some other chap home at some point. Someone nice. Someone James would quite probably dismiss with a wave of his hand and a disgruntled insult. Someone the complete opposite of Andreas, because she wanted to hang on to her sanity.
Tom was waiting for her in the restaurant, and Elizabeth plastered a warm smile on her face, because he really did look like the kind of guy she should be showing a keen interest in. Tallish, blondish, with brown, kind eyes and an ever so slightly receding hairline. He wasn’t the sort of guy who had heads turning in his wake, but then neither was she the sort of girl who had that effect on the opposite sex. It would do her the world of good to get back down to planet Earth, where people didn’t have expectations about guys who were way out of their league.
From across the restaurant, Andreas watched with mounting outrage as Elizabeth settled into her chair and leant across the table, smiling at her date. It was filling out nicely, considering it was lunchtime; shouldn’t people be at work, for God’s sake? Elizabeth’s hands were primly on her lap at the moment, but how long before they reached across and invited contact?
His godfather had obviously not been lying when he had hot-footed it to the phone to tell him that she was seeing someone and it might be serious.
‘And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with that information?’ Andreas had duly queried.
‘Do what you like with it,’ James had said petulantly. ‘But I think I ought to tell you that I’ve done a few background checks and the guy’s not kosher. Put it this way—I wouldn’t want my daughter to become a target for gold-diggers and money grabbers.’
‘The man’s a gold-digger?’
‘Very well might be!’
‘You know that for a fact?’
‘Nothing in life is certain, but tongues wag, lad…if you know what I mean. Call me crazy, but I’d like you to check him out. Wouldn’t want the lass to come to any harm. I’m an old man, son…don’t think the ticker could take it. You want to put my mind at rest, don’t you? Here’s the name of the restaurant…just have a look. Must go now, Andreas, this whole thing has quite put me out of sorts. Think I need a lie down…’
Andreas knew his godfather like the back of his hand and he had been deeply suspicious of that wheedling, honeyed tone of voice, but he had shelved all thoughts of pressing for further explanation. Instead, he had leaned back in his leather chair and allowed his mind full rein to run wherever it wanted.
And for the second time in as many weeks he had abandoned the pretence of playing it cool and headed back down to Somerset. He was beginning to know the route like the back of his hand, whether by car, train or helicopter. This time, however, he would not be arriving with any illusions. He was obeying the demands of his gut instincts, and his godfather’s insubstantial, waffling concerns about gold-diggers and money grabbers had provided him with a thinly veiled excuse to do precisely what he wanted to do.
Andreas had no intention of walking away from the fortuitous opportunity that had presented itself to him. He was nobody’s fool, and indeed matters had resolved themselves in a very handy manner as far as he was concerned.
All meetings for the day had been cancelled within minutes.
He stood up now from where he had asked to be seated, at the back of the room, half-hidden by a pot plant that seemed to be aspiring for a part in Jack and The Beanstalk. He tossed his serviette on the table along with more than sufficient money to cover the cost of the salad he had half-eaten, and the two glasses of wine he had drunk with considerably more enthusiasm.
He noticed that no wine had been brought to their table. Mineral water all round. Normally, that would have been enough for him to make some healthy and instant character-assassination—because what kind of man took a woman out to lunch and indulged her with water? But a sudden, disconcerting feeling of uncertainty swept through his body like a virus.
He just wished that he could see Elizabeth’s face. Even when she was in the middle of pushing him away, he could always tell exactly what was going through her mind by her eyes. However, she was seated with her back to him, and it was only when he drew up at the table that her date eventually broke off his conversation to look up at him with a puzzled frown.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘I think so,’ Andreas drawled, circling the table and positioning himself directly in front of Elizabeth, who looked at him with wide, startled eyes, her mouth half-open as though suddenly bereft of the power of speech. Which was precisely how Andreas had wanted to find her, hence the element of surprise. ‘I need to talk to your companion, so if you don’t mind…?’
Elizabeth recovered quickly, but her heart was thumping because Andreas was the last person in the world she had expected to see. James must have mentioned her lunch date to his godson, maybe implied that she was throwing herself into a mistake. Naturally that would have been manna from heaven for Andreas, who had already proved that he was willing to scare off the competition until he got what he wanted. No marriage, no commitment, but why should that halt him in his tracks? Was he so convinced that he could break down her defences? Had it become some kind of personal challenge to him, because she had been the one to turn him down? He had expected her to take him up on his generous offer to share his bed the second time around—did that mean that, in his eyes, the challenge had been doubled?
Anger spread like a red mist across her eyes and she swallowed hard, fighting it down, because there was no way that she was going to succumb to a screaming fit in public. Not only would it demean her but it would send poor Tom running for cover. Andreas, she imagined, would have a field day if that happened.
‘I mind.’ She rescued Tom from having to stumble his way through to an appropriate response. She gave Tom a reassuring smile. ‘Tom, this is Andreas, my father’s godson. I kind of inherited him along with my dad.’
Andreas didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he pulled out one of the spare chairs at the table and proceeded to sit down. He even called the waiter across and ordered them a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. ‘Teetotal?’
‘I never drink at lunchtime,’ Tom explained with a look of mild horror. ‘Gives me a terrible headache.’
‘What do you want, Andreas?’ Elizabeth interceded before the conversation could go totally off the rails. She didn’t want to, but her eyes were surreptitiously drawn to the impressive figure he cut in a pair of casual, olive-green trousers and hand-made loafers, and a cashmere jumper that screamed elegance. He would have looked amazing in anything, but he looked even more breathtaking than usual. Wasn’t this always going to be the problem? The minute she began to try and put her life back on track, he would show up, and suddenly there would be no space in her world for anyone but him. If she wasn’t careful, she would be caught in a never-ending stopstart cycle that would be the equivalent of a ball and chain round her ankles. She was suddenly overcome with a feeling of hopelessness.
‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m here with a friend,’ she said with a bit more renewed vigour. ‘I can’t think of anything you might want to talk to me about, but if there is something then it can wait until I’m available. And I’m not available at the moment.’
‘Tom.’ Andreas poured himself a glass of wine. ‘It’s Tom, isn’t it? I really need to talk to
Elizabeth in private.’ He shot her a look of brooding intensity, and then said something that halted her outburst in its tracks. ‘Please.’
Elizabeth picked up the shadow of hesitation in his voice, and it was almost shocking, because for Andreas hesitancy was an alien concept.
‘What is it?’ she asked urgently, when Tom had obediently taken his leave. ‘What’s the matter? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’ she continued as her mind frantically tried to contrive scenarios. ‘It’s not like you to…’
‘To what?’
‘To sound so uncertain. As though there’s something you need to say but you don’t want to say it.’ And that could only mean James, because he would always be the enduring link between them. He was the one person alive who could reduce Andreas to uncertainty. Spontaneously, Elizabeth reached out and threaded her fingers through his, barely aware of her gesture. But Andreas, feeling the warmth of her hand against his own, was rocked by the sensation of being a drowning man who’d been flung a life belt. He held her fingers in his hand with the fierceness of someone needing to hold on tightly.
‘This isn’t where I would have chosen to have this conversation.’
‘Just tell me—is it my father? What’s wrong?’
‘It’s not James. Although he did send me…’ A man needed an excuse to traipse halfway round the country in pursuit of a woman. ‘He thought you might be in danger of becoming victim to a gold-digger.’
Relief was almost instantly overcome by the resurgence of her anger. She wriggled to get her hand free and his grip grew ever so slightly more vice-like.
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Just what I told him.’
‘I thought something was wrong! I don’t want you doing this,’ she stated baldly.
‘Doing what?’
‘Trying to ambush my efforts to settle down here. Tom’s not a gold-digger.’
‘Okay, maybe he’s not a gold-digger, but that doesn’t mean that he’s suitable. Being bored to death wouldn’t be a healthy alternative to me.’
‘That does it. That really does it!’ She snatched her hand away, cursing to herself; no matter how obnoxious he was, he could still bring her common sense crashing down around her like a fragile house of cards. She rummaged in her bag, fishing out some money for the bottle of water she and Tom had shared. They hadn’t even had the chance to glance at a menu! Suddenly he assumed the mantle of a lost opportunity. Her eyes flashed as she stood up, pushed her chair back and headed for the door, face burning with embarrassment as she felt the eyes of the other diners pinned with curiosity to the unfolding spectacle.
With one lithe, supple movement, Andreas was on his feet and in her wake, dimly aware that this wasn’t going as planned. He had lost his cool and was in danger of losing it further.
‘Who was that guy anyway?’ he heard himself demand as she left the restaurant at flying speed and took off down the street towards the car park.
‘Why?’ Elizabeth demanded, not bothering to look at him, because one look always seemed to be enough to make her whirl off-course. ‘Have you rushed down here to give me another health warning about other men? Or do you really still think you can get me into bed by scaring off everyone else because you just can’t let go of the challenge?’
‘What kind of cheapskate takes a woman out and buys her water?’
‘Maybe,’ she answered grittily, spinning round to look at him with her hands on her hips, ‘the kind of cheapskate who isn’t terrified at the thought of a relationship that might actually go somewhere!’ As if there had been any chance of that! Why kid herself? Andreas had infiltrated every pore in her body, and shaking him off was going to be nigh-on impossible. Wild horses, however, wouldn’t have dragged that out of her.
Andreas was suddenly struck by the blinding possibility that he might have blown it, that a couple of seconds in the company of a complete wimp might have been his undoing. Complete wimps weren’t scared of talking about a future, even if it was only the occasional throwaway remark about a holiday down the line, or plans for the next weekend. Elizabeth didn’t want hot sex, no strings attached; maybe it was too late to start compromising on the strings.
‘Anyway! What do you care?’
‘I’m jealous as hell.’
That brought Elizabeth to a complete standstill. Andreas was most definitely not the jealous type.
‘You’re jealous?’
‘So why don’t you just go ahead and laugh?’ He gazed at her with silent, aggressively masculine defiance. ‘I am not ashamed of that,’ he added in a challenging voice.
‘Why would you be jealous?’
‘I don’t want to have this conversation with you here.’ His car was just within sight, and without waiting for input from her he strode towards it. Elizabeth tripped along behind him, angry that her curiosity was definitely in overdrive.
‘Why would you be jealous?’ she repeated the second they were sitting in his car, where at least there was the advantage of warmth. Unfortunately, there was also the danger of intimacy in their confined surroundings.
Andreas felt like a man with one foot dangling over the edge of the precipice. Worse, he was a man who no longer had a choice. Even worse than that was the grim reality that he was a man who didn’t want a choice. ‘I don’t like thinking of you with other men,’ he stated baldly, firing up the engine because it gave him something to do. He eased his car out of its parking space and began driving towards the house.
Elizabeth thumped hard on the warm glow that filled her. She reminded herself that Andreas’s jealousy, glorious though it might be, didn’t amount to love. Andreas was driven by lust and a perverse need to be the one to do the breaking off. He didn’t like the thought of her with other men because he still wanted her. When he stopped wanting her, he would have no difficulty at all in thinking of her with other men because her time would be up. And she just wouldn’t allow herself to start thinking that any relationship with Andreas was better than no relationship at all. It would be far too easy to be swept along on the misconception that there was no man on the face of the earth comparable to him. Tom might just be a pleasant guy, rather than relationship material, but there were plenty of other fish in the sea. And aiming to catch one that wasn’t a Great White would be altogether better for her well being. Maybe not just yet, but in time.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Not to the house,’ Andreas said heavily. ‘I don’t need James lurking behind corners, spying on our every move.’
‘There’ll be nothing to spy on. I’ve said everything I have to say.’
‘Well, maybe I haven’t.’ He pulled into one of the lay bys and killed his engine, then he angled his long body so that he was facing her.
Elizabeth braced herself for an attack on her senses of which only he was capable. The sudden silence was hot and oppressive, as was his disturbingly steady gaze. She cleared her throat, but her thoroughly scrambled brains were failing to function.
‘I’m sorry if I screwed up your lunch date,’ he admitted, fishing for information, but she looked at him in silence. ‘Did I screw up your lunch date?’ Never at a loss for words, Andreas was finding it difficult to collate his thoughts. It didn’t make sense that she would meet some guy for ten minutes and see her future in him, but stranger things had been known to happen. Tom might seem like God’s gift to womankind if compared to some other guy who had refused to discuss a relationship and had vetoed anything permanent. As he had. Andreas broke out in a film of perspiration in the vortex of her continuing silence.
‘He’d be no good for you anyway,’ Andreas heard himself say.
‘You have no idea who would be good for me and who wouldn’t!’ Elizabeth said fiercely, swinging round to face him. ‘How dare you sit there and dictate my life?’
‘You belong to me!’
She gave a wild, disbelieving, incredulous screech of laughter. ‘I can’t believe you just said that! Who do you think you are?’
‘I
…’ Andreas ran his fingers through his hair. He wanted to pull her to him and never let her go. When he thought of her with another man, when he even considered the possibility that he had suffered in comparison to someone else—someone ridiculous who had taken her out and treated her to a glass of water—he saw red. ‘I…’
The anger seeped out of Elizabeth, replaced by genuine confusion. She didn’t know where he was going or what he was trying to say.
‘I haven’t been honest with you or with myself,’ Andreas muttered thickly. ‘Can you blame me? How was I supposed to know that falling in love was like a punch in the gut?’
‘Falling in love?’ Elizabeth asked, all at sea.
‘I’ve dated a lot of women, and I really thought I knew what I wanted from life.’
‘Which was what?’ Elizabeth didn’t want to say too much just in case she ruined the momentum, which had her pulses racing and her heart pounding, but the thirst for detail was too much to resist.
‘Work, first and foremost,’ Andreas said in a thoughtful voice, because the fact that work had been pushed into a poor second place was still astounding. ‘Like I once told you, I always knew where I came from, and always knew that what I got out of life had to be independent of what James was more than happy to provide. Women were an enjoyable sideline, a bonus that came with the accumulation of power and money.’
‘Do you really think that that’s all they would have been attracted to?’
Andreas shrugged. ‘I never questioned it. Until you came along and threw the whole neat equation into holy disarray.’
Elizabeth smiled. An ability to throw things into disarray now seemed the most wonderful ability in the world.
‘I thought that it was just the novelty of having a relationship with a real woman that was the attraction. I thought that it would pass in time, just like all the rest. But then I found myself asking you to move in with me. It was the first time I had ever asked anything like that of any woman.’ He laughed and stared broodingly off into the distance, before refocusing on her upturned face. ‘When you turned me down…’
Powerful Boss, Prim Miss Jones Page 17
