The Trouble with Trent!

by Jessica Steele

  `Your brother-in-law?' He seemed puzzled.

  Alethea, for all she was still feeling extremely nervous, just had to give a small smile. 'I didn't think it had, that you—' Again she broke off, realising Trent would think she was talking in riddles. 'I wondered, though only briefly and not very seriously, if—with me not living with you now and —er —everything—if you might feel I'd broken the agreement we made with—er—regard to Keith Lawrence's non-prosecution,' she managed in something of a staccato fashion.

  `At least you trust me sufficiently not to give that matter more than brief consideration,' Trent replied drily. But he looked, she thought, to be encouraged by her remarks. What he'd got to be encouraged about, however, was a mystery to her. But, after looking at her long and levelly for some moments, he added, 'The issue of your brother-in-law, my dear Alethea, ceased to be of importance some while back.'

  Strangely, then, she gained the oddest notion that Trent seemed as tense as she was! Ridiculous! What had he got to be tense about? For goodness' sake, get your head together. Trent was sharp; she knew that. 'It—did?' she questioned edgily. She wasn't sure that she liked that `my dear Alethea' either. It hadn't sounded much like an endearment. Oh, get your head together, do. Why would it sound like an endearment?

  `It was of importance to start with,' Trent agreed, though she was a little lost by now. 'But the issue at this moment...' He paused, and then very deliberately added, `Is you, and me.'

  Terror-stricken, she almost stood up in her panic. But, by some great fortune, she managed not to, didn't give away that she was in something of a blue funk.

  `I see,' she lied. Realising that, if she was to get out of there with any small degree of pride, she must head him off from finding any confirmation that she loved him, she said, 'I was rather rude with my remark—er at my flat last Tuesday...'

  `That I'd made you look cheap?' He'd remembered! Not that she had expected him to have forgotten a thing like that.

  `I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said it,' she apologised, as she knew she ought.

  `You didn't mean it?'

  This time she wanted to be truthful. 'I think it was more that ... well, while I know the world and his wife, or maybe not his wife,' she faltered, 'lives together these days, I'd never done it before. And—um—perhaps the way I was brought up had something to do with it. I don't know, but, while it never troubled me that you and I knew I was living here, I hadn't—um—adjusted yet to telling anyone else that I was living with someone. I'm telling this very badly.'

  `That's because you're feeling a little uneasy.' `You guessed,' she answered miserably.

  `If it's any comfort, I'm not feeling so self-assured as I'm striving to sound,' Trent owned up, to her amazement.

  Alethea's violet eyes shot wide. She didn't believe that for a second. Trent was always supremely self-assured. But yet ... There was something, something indefinable in the stiffness of his back perhaps, a tautness in the way he was sitting, that suggested ... Was she crazy? `Wh-what have you got to be nervous about?' she asked.

  `This talk,' he admitted at once. 'This talk which I believed on Tuesday morning, and still believe now, we have gone too far not to have.'

  Her thoughts flashed back to Tuesday morning. Early on Tuesday morning she had been his for the taking, but he had rejected the offer. 'You're sure you wouldn't prefer I just went upstairs for my stuff, and quietly got out of here?'

  `I've never been more certain about anything,' he replied firmly—which defeated her totally. Why, in that case, should he be one whit nervous?

  Oh, Heavens. He looked so determined. She wanted to swallow, but wouldn't. That he felt they had gone too far not to have this 'talk' bothered her a great deal. And yet, there was a wayward part of her that wanted to stay and hear what he had to say. A part of her that started to feel that—provided Trent kept away from the subject of what had happened when he had come home from South America and had found her in his bed—she might just manage to weather this 'talk'.

  `Er—where would you like to start?'

  Trent eyed her without speaking for some seconds, but, as her nerves began to bite afresh, he finally answered, 'Where we met, I think.'

  `Mr and Mrs Chapman's silver wedding celebration?' That sounded fairly safe. 'You came over and introduced yourself.'

  `I'd been watching the changing expressions on your face for some while.' His gaze was fixed on her as he quietly added, 'I thought you the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.'

  Her eyes widened, her mouth went dry. She wanted to say something in reply, but what did she say when the man she loved with her whole heart had just stated that he'd thought her most beautiful? 'We danced,' was what she did say.

  `Oh, we did,' he murmured. 'And I shall never forget holding you, warm, alive, exquisite in my arms.' Her eyes widened even further, and she wasn't sure her jaw hadn't dropped. She would never forget Trent holding her close, nor that breathless, tingling feeling that had come over her.

  `I—er —think you must have left shortly afterwards,' Alethea commented, feeling a need to say something,

  but fighting to keep her brain clear. Trent was still a master at confusing her.

  He looked pleased. 'You noticed?' Oh, grief—she was going to have to watch her every word!

  `Now and then,' she trotted out in light, off-hand fashion. She saw the corners of his mouth twitch, and was ready to get up and leave.

  Only she stayed. And she was glad she was still there when Trent very nearly electrified her. He went on, 'I couldn't stay, Alethea. I'm a hard-headed man of science, a logical thinker, I'd always believed. Yet there I was: one sight of you, one dance with you, and I was immediately soft in the head and totally incapable of thinking logically.'

  She stared at him dumbstruck. Large-eyed, solemn expressioned, she was incapable of looking away. 'You—confused me, a lot,' she commented chokily, and, confused again, was barely aware that she had spoken. But, sorely needing cover as she started to remember that Trent had wanted her to live with him because he desired her, she—and she accepted that she wasn't too well educated in such matters—realised that male desire must have a tremendous impact if it had rendered Trent incapable of thinking logically.

  He leaned forward. Instinctively, she pulled back. 'I won't harm you,' he assured her quickly.

  He was too late with that assurance. She was harmed, and hurting. But her thoughts were private, her own, and she didn't want him locking on to her hurt. In an attempt to deflect him, she said in a rush, 'You rang me. A couple of days later, you rang me.' She slowed down, but still felt a need to deflect him as she tacked on, 'You rang and asked me out to dinner.'

  `Not giving you chance to say no.'

  He was deflected. She started to breathe more easily. `I intended to ring you the next day to say I couldn't make it,' she admitted. 'Only I didn't know where you worked. I didn't know then that you had your own firm. Anyhow, the day got away from me rather, and—' She broke off, aware that she was gabbling again. 'And you called for me,' she ended lamely.

  `And found out so much about you, and your family, that evening,' he inserted quietly.

  She hadn't thought he'd found out all that much about her. 'I'm not going to apologise for my family,' she stated, perhaps a touch sharply.

  `I shouldn't want you to,' he disarmed her immediately.

  She instantly softened. 'Well, perhaps for my brother-in-law,' she reconsidered.

  `Whatever you do, don't apologise for him,' Trent quickly instructed. 'Without him, I'd have had a much tougher time than I'm having in what I set out to achieve.'

  `You'll be sending him a thank-you note next!' Alethea erupted waspishly. So, all right, she accepted that her nerves were jumpy, but, if she remembered it correctly, what Trent had set out to achieve was to get her in his bed. Well, she'd been in his bed, and he'd turned her down!

  `Oh, my word,' Trent interrupted her unhappy thoughts. 'Mine aren't the only raw nerves around here.'

  `Hmm
ph!' she scorned. But curiosity was starting to get the better of her. 'The way I heard it,' she started, `if I didn't give my answer to your—er —proposition in a very short time, your legal department were going to

  have Keith Lawrence's blood, so...' Her voice tailed off and her heart started to pound. `What—?' She broke off again, and felt utterly lost. It seemed Trent was pleased that her brother-in-law had robbed him. 'I'm confused again,' she owned.

  `It's my fault.' To her amazement Trent at once took the blame. 'I'm trying, with what clear thinking you've left me...' she blinked at that but he was going on ...to clear everything up, take out the dead wood so that ...' He looked from her as if searching for the right words—only her brain was still trying to cope with his statement: `what clear thinking you've left me ...'!

  `We—er —seemed to be getting a bit bogged down,' she offered, because she wanted to help him out while, at the same time, she was still determined that he must not see anything of her love for him; she was still hoping that he hadn't guessed at her feelings. 'Look, our—erum—talk doesn't seem ... I mean, if you'd like to cancel it, I'll g—'

  `No way!' he cut in bluntly. 'I'm sorry,' he apologised, but she was unsure what he was apologising for—his bluntness or the fact that the talk they were having didn't seem to be getting off the ground. 'Forgive me, my dear,' he requested, and while she was still recovering after this man, whom she knew to hold endearments in short supply, had twice in the space of fifteen minutes called her 'my dear', he was explaining, 'I've rehearsed this over and over and it still isn't coming out right.'

  Her violet eyes were huge in her face. He really did sound as though he was under a great deal of strain! She had no clue as to what he had rehearsed, but, again because of the love she bore for him, she had to try to

  ease matters for him 'Would it help if you forgot what you've rehearsed and just said straight out what it is that —er—troubles you?' she suggested.

  Trent's dark eyes scrutinised her sensitive expression, then he smiled, a gentle kind of smile. 'You trouble me, Alethea Pemberton,' he said. 'You have from the beginning.'

  `Oh,' she mumbled, her heart racing.

  `And, to tell it straight out ...' He hesitated. 'Already I'm losing my nerve.'

  `I don't believe it! You're always so—so confident about everything.'

  `I wish I had your belief about that,' he commented. And, taking what seemed to be a long and steadying breath, he confessed, `To tell it like it is, I'll have to confess that I found reason to be grateful to your brother-in-law.'

  `But—he robbed you!'

  `He was also instrumental in bringing you to my door. Had it not been because of him you would never have taken up my invitation to a non-existent gathering that Saturday night.'

  `Non-existent?' she queried. 'Your friends were stranded in Paris. You said ...'

  `I lied.'

  `You lied?' she gasped. 'You ...'

  `I had to,' he confirmed. 'Alethea, my dear Alethea.' Oh, help her! Her heart was going to leap straight out of her body if he didn't pack this up! That look, that tone! 'I'd been in Italy on business for a couple of days. I got back on the Friday and ...' he paused, but his eyes were steady on hers when he resumed, 'And felt such a longing to see you that I phoned you, intending to ask

  you out that night. But it was plain, before I could so

  much as ask, that you already had a date that evening.'

  `I didn't,' she answered without thinking, her thoughts still with those magical words: Trent had been longing to see her. Was that what pure physical desire did for you? Or dared she begin to hope ...? Oh, don't be ridiculous, of course it was pure physical desire, and only...

  `You lied?'

  `D-did I?' She was too churned up inside to be able to remember.

  `You—intimated,' he corrected, 'that you'd got a date. And, to put it mildly, I found that very upsetting.' `Upsetting?'

  Trent stared at her for long, long seconds. 'Oh, sweet, dear Alethea, you've no idea, have you?'

  `None at all,' she murmured. Sweet? Dear? What was happening? She felt dizzy trying to work it out. `I—er wouldn't mind if you—um—told me a bit more,' she added huskily, her heart somersaulting away inside her body when Trent left the arm of his sofa and came over to the sofa where she was sitting.

  With everything she had, she strove to appear normal as, sitting beside her, he turned to face her, studying her unsmiling expression for several moments before taking up her invitation to tell her more.

  `You were going out that Friday—or so I believed,' he began. 'You, Alethea, not to put too fine a point on it, were getting between me and my every other thought.'

  `Me?' she gasped.

  `You,' he nodded. 'Which is why, since I acknowledged that for once in my life I clearly wasn't thinking straight, I saw a need for caution.'

  `Yes,' she encouraged, none of this making sense so far. She put that down to the fact that Trent had the ability to scramble her brain like no one else she knew.

  `I didn't think you were dating anyone seriously or, from what I thought I knew of you, you wouldn't have gone out with me the previous Tuesday.' He smiled. 'You were good enough to confirm it for me on Saturday. Anyhow, with you busy that Friday and me feeling a need for caution—yet at the same time needing like crazy to see you—I invented having a few people round the next night.'

  But—you hadn't invited anyone?'

  `I could easily have done so, had you said yes. I had to think on my feet when I answered my door on Saturday—and there you were.'

  `There probably wasn't any fog in Paris,' she commented weakly.

  `There probably wasn't, but you were there—here in my home. I was ready to lie my head off if I had to. I'd been so certain you wouldn't come—I'd been planning to maybe stroll by your office on Monday.'

  Alethea stared at him in amazement, having extreme difficulty taking in the fact that he had so wanted to see her he would have found a reason to call on her boss on the Monday when, casually, no doubt, he would have wandered into her office first. But—but you didn't have to—um—stroll by,' she recalled chokily. 'Not only did I come to your "party" —I also rang you Monday morning.'

  `Oh, you did. Sweet love, you did.' He did nothing to decelerate her heart-rate. 'And I saw you twice that day. Once for me to hear what your difficulty was, and the

  second time for you to hear what I was going to do about it.'

  `And did I hear about it!' she exclaimed, a shade sharply, she had to admit.

  `You've every right to be angry,' Trent agreed. He startled her by taking her hands in a firm hold, as if fearful she might get up and rush away. 'But since I still feel that there was every need to do what I did, I can't ask you to forgive me.'

  Alethea's emotions had been swinging first one way and then another. She felt hot, bothered and very much all over the place. And yet, at the same time, when her every instinct was to run, something was making her stay. Even though she was defeated by her knowledge that Trent's only reason for having her to live with him was from desire for her—which he had turned from when he'd had the opportunity—she had to stay.

  `Still feel the need to do what you did?' she questioned, the fact that he had not taken her when he could have seeming to her to make a nonsense of that statement. 'This —er — desire business is —er —peculiar stuff!'

  `Hell—it wasn't just desire!' he declared vehemently. She stared at him dumbfounded. 'Wasn't it?' Confusion reigned supreme again.

  Trent looked at her startled expression. 'Oh, love, have I been so successful in covering ...? Have you no idea—?' Again he broke off. Then, his hands gripping hers, he seemed more resolute than ever. 'My dear Alethea,' he began determinedly, 'I wanted you to live with me, of course I did. And I desire you, of course I do. That is beyond doubt. But it's more than that.'

  She was afraid to utter a word. It was more than desire? What was? 'Oh?' She mumbled a kind of question.

  `I needed you to trust me
,' he went on. 'Above all, I needed you to put your trust in me.'

  `Trust?' She was no clearer.

  `Perhaps I went the wrong way about it. Maybe I did. But I'd met your family, remember. And you'd already spoken—a couple of times—about finding somewhere else to live.' He paused, and then quietly revealed, 'It was important to me, Alethea, that we got to know each other better—without outside influences getting to you.'

  It was important to him! Her heart started clamouring again. She swallowed hard, and knew that he had seen her nervousness, for he smiled, a gentle smile. `Outside influences?' she picked out, and felt her backbone turn to water when Trent took one hand away from hers and stroked the backs of his fingers tenderly down one side of her face.

  `By then I was aware of your upbringing, aware of the rancorous environment you'd grown up in.'

  `My mother—' Alethea began defensively.

  `She's your mother, and you love her,' he soothed. `But I couldn't have her knocking down everything I was trying to achieve—which I was convinced, given half a chance, she would. You'd trusted me a little in that you'd dined with me, in that you'd come to my home, but that was light years away from the sort of trust, the commitment I needed.'

  `You thought you'd get it by making me come and live with you?' Commitment?

  `Poor love, I didn't give you much of a choice, did I?'

  Her heart went wobbly again at his tenderly spoken `poor love'. 'Trent,' she said helplessly, 'I just don't understand. Why did you want my trust. Why—?' She broke off. Both his hands were now holding her firmly by her upper arms.

  `Why?' he answered, and left her staring in total disbelief when he quietly added, 'Because—I love you.'

  She pulled back in shock. He held her firmly. 'You—love me!' she gasped.

  `Had you no idea?' He seemed surprised.

  She shook her head. 'None!' she answered. Trent loved her! Trent loved her!

  It—upsets you—worries you that I love you?' he asked, his voice, his look, tense and strained.