‘Because you were in one before she decided to lock off and go to sleep?’ Tessa prompted, sticking the last of the dried-up dishes into cupboards and moving to stand behind one of the chairs.
‘It’s not every day a man gets attacked by his daughter because he happens to want to bring a woman along with him on a date.’
Tessa gave him a long, dry look and he returned it with one of innocent bewilderment.
‘I really don’t think she was objecting to you wanting to bring a woman along with you,’ Tessa informed him succinctly. ‘I think it was the type of woman you wanted to bring along.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He looked upwards, calculating how long Anna would be having a bath. Not long, from the sound of footsteps just above him. ‘Look,’ he said urgently, ‘I really need to have a chat with you about this whole sorry situation. You seem to have built up some kind of rapport with my daughter and—’
‘Forget it.’ Yes, he was her boss, and, yes, there were limits. She could get a whiff of where he was heading with this one and she didn’t like what she smelled. It had the fishy odour of trying to entice her into influencing a fourteen-year-old girl.
‘Forget what? You haven’t even let me finish!’
‘I think I hear your daughter descending,’ Tessa said with heartfelt relief as the footsteps heralded a rush into the kitchen, where Anna immediately skidded to a halt.
‘Sorry, Dad!’ It was an apology without being apologetic and she eyed him warily, trying to gauge his mood from a safe distance. But her feathers were still ruffled. Not ruffled with the normal adolescent truculence and hostility. After a lifetime of absolute adherence to her father’s wishes and adoration from afar, truculence and hostility would not be within her range of emotion. But Tessa could see all the signs of teenage rebellion, nevertheless.
‘If you’d said you were tired, I would never have suggested we go out,’ Curtis responded, shoving his hands in his pockets.
‘It wasn’t about whether I was tired or not.’
Tessa sighed.
In an hour’s time they would both have forgotten their argument, but in an hour’s time she would still be dealing with the fallout of having been dragged into involvement.
‘Perhaps it’s time both of you…sorted out your differences at home? By which I mean your own home?’
Two pairs of eyes swivelled towards her, neither displaying any wild enthusiasm for her suggestion for them to leave.
Tessa groaned inwardly.
‘It’s getting late,’ she tried again, ‘and Anna must be starving. She hasn’t eaten, after all.’ She turned to Curtis, appealing to his paternal side.
‘I really don’t want to go to a restaurant in this…’ Anna said, flicking her head and staying her ground.
Tessa was puzzled. ‘In what?’
‘This.’ One hand indicated her outfit in a smooth sweep.
‘Oh, right.’
‘You look beautiful, Anna. I told you that earlier!’
‘Dad, you’ve been telling me that since I was a baby!’
‘You’ve been beautiful since you were a baby!’
This was going nowhere fast. Having survived dinner, Tessa now recognised it seemed as though imminent departure was becoming tangled up in a quagmire of two people who, probably for the first time ever, had hit a rough patch. And they had hit it in her house.
‘Would you like me to fix you something to eat, Anna?’ she interrupted their exchange of words reluctantly.
‘Have you got any pizza?’ Anna asked hopefully and Tessa shook her head. ‘Well, could you perhaps send out for some?’
‘There’s a pizza place just a few minutes’ drive away,’ Tessa said, brightening up. ‘Why don’t the two of you…? Well, it’s not as though it’s anything fancy…you needn’t worry about your outfit there…’
‘It’s Saturday night. It’s a pizzeria.’
‘Right.’ Tessa nodded in comprehension. She remembered the syndrome well. When she was fourteen and still enjoying her youth, she too would never have ventured into a casual, adolescent-ridden setting in anything but her most screamingly casual clothes. And when Lucy was fourteen and heading anywhere where she might possibly be seen by other teenagers, her outfits had involved whatever jeans had happened to be in fashion, the least practical of her tops and shoes that most normal people would have found it difficult to walk in.
‘Explain, please,’ Curtis interrupted from the sidelines of what looked like a female conspiracy, and Tessa turned to him.
‘Pizzerias on a Saturday are usually home to teenagers wearing less…well, formal clothes. Anna thinks she might stand out a bit…’
‘Stand out!’ Curtis exploded incredulously. ‘Stand out? Yes, sure you’ll stand out but only because you’re a cut above the rest!’
Anna greeted this by turning on her heel and stomping out of the kitchen, leaving her father with a look of stunned amazement on his face. This quickly changed to glowering accusation as he looked at Tessa.
‘This is all your fault,’ he informed her. ‘We never had these ridiculous problems until you decided to take her on a shopping trip. She was always fine with the clothes she had.’
‘I think you need to go and talk to her,’ Tessa returned with as much calm as she could muster given the unfairness of his accusation.
With a curt nod, he disappeared only to return minutes later. ‘Where’s your phone book?’ he asked, pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘It seems that eating out anywhere tonight isn’t an option with my daughter. She’s decided that she wants to sit in front of your television and eat some pizza so I’ve told her that I’ll order some in.’
‘Sit in front of my television? Why can’t you both go home and she can sit in front of your television and eat the pizza?’
This was getting ridiculous. From a quiet night in, enjoying the peace of having the house to herself, she now found herself entertaining two people at loggerheads with one another, one of whom evoked all the wrong reactions in her. Worse, she could cope with him when he was at work, could cope with him when he was teasing her even though it made her insides squirm. Could even cope with him, just, when he was flirting with those dark eyes and that sexy smile. Flirting came naturally to him and meant nothing. In that context, it was possible to distance herself from some of the devastating effects of the odd wayward smile, the occasional crinkling of his eyes when he looked at her.
However, coping with him when he was like this, baffled and seemingly at a loss as to how to deal with a situation, was proving a nightmare. She wanted to plunge right in and stroke all his troubles away. Just the thought of that made her gulp with a hysterical swelling of pure alarm.
This was the essence of the charmer, she reminded herself. And the man was charm personified. It was a quality that couldn’t be pulled out of a hat and then shoved back in; it was something that was there, always, enticing and beckoning. It was the quality that made women want to be near him, made them want to continue contact long after any relationship might have gone pear-shaped.
‘Phone book?’ he reminded her, bringing her thoughts to a skidding halt.
‘I’m really very tired.’ One last stab, she thought, one last attempt to propel him and Anna out of the door, leaving her in peace.
Curtis looked at his watch and then looked at her. ‘It’s not even nine-thirty as yet.’
‘Yes, well, not everyone keeps late nights.’ A deafening silence greeted this and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out what was going through his head. Either he had reached the right conclusion, namely that she didn’t want him around, in which case his active mind would already be jumping ahead to reasons and maybe, just maybe, coming up with the right one. Or else, she would be confirming his sweeping assumptions that she was as dreary as he thought she was, someone who retired to bed before ten with a cup of cocoa when all the world was out having a good time on a Saturday night.
Tessa fetched the phone book from the little boo
kshelf behind her and handed it to him.
‘What did you say the name of that pizzeria was…?’
She gave it to him and watched in despairing silence as he rapidly phoned and placed his order before clicking off his mobile and sticking it back into his pocket.
‘Forty minutes,’ he informed her. ‘I guess the place is so busy with hordes of appropriately dressed teenagers that the food orders are moving a little slowly.’
Tessa hesitated, torn between ignoring the light-hearted remark, made at her expense, and diving into a serious debate on his short-sightedness in not listening to what his daughter was trying to tell him. In the intervening silence, he solved the dilemma for her.
‘Not funny? I suppose you think I’m making fun of a serious situation?’
‘What I think doesn’t matter and what you do doesn’t concern me.’
‘Very lofty sentiments,’ Curtis mused, eyes narrowing on her. ‘Must be easy getting through life when you can detach yourself from annoying situations with such ease.’
‘I’m not detaching myself from anything,’ she responded hotly. ‘I’m just telling you that you have to sort out these temporary problems with Anna yourself. I can’t be of any help.’
‘You were a great deal of help when it came to rampaging the shops with her in hot pursuit of skimpy clothes.’
Tessa nearly laughed. Did he really see what those women he entertained wore? Had he really noticed Susie’s outfit, which just about managed to cover her? If he thought Anna’s new wardrobe was comprised of skimpy clothes, then how would he describe his girlfriends’ choice of garments?
Silly assumption, she thought. What was good enough for his girlfriends was certainly not good enough for his daughter. Beneath the sharp, unconventional exterior, there beat the heart of a pure traditionalist.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Tessa asked, resigning herself to yet more emotional involvement in his life. ‘Tea?’
‘Coffee would be good.’ He shoved himself away from the counter and sat at the kitchen table, watching in silence as she made them both a mug of coffee.
It was as clear as daylight that she wanted to get rid of them, or rather of him, he suspected. The decent thing would have been to leave her in peace, to enjoy the uneventful evening she had planned, but he decided that he really did want to talk to her about Anna, whose behaviour was as mysterious as it was unexpected. He also realised that he was rather enjoying himself here, watching her pad around preparing a meal, listening to her voice her opinions with absolutely no regard for whether she trod on his toes or not.
It was refreshing, he decided.
Refreshing to be in the company of a woman without the inevitability of sex.
He looked at her lazily from under his lashes, noting the slenderness of her body, the perfect jut of her rear, which was always so cunningly camouflaged at work underneath those asexual suits she insisted on wearing. There was nothing obvious about her, he thought. She didn’t announce her sexuality, but look just a little deeper and there it was, as subtle but as fragrant as a summer breeze.
‘Hello?’ Tessa couldn’t resist tossing his sarcastic mantra back at him. ‘Is anybody there?’
‘Hilarious,’ Curtis responded, his mouth twitching at the corners. ‘Sit down. You’re making me nervous hovering over me like that.’
Tessa laughed, not one of those cultivated tinkling laughs, but a proper laugh. ‘I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to make you nervous.’
‘Because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m one hundred per cent man?’
‘Because you’re self-assured and arrogant.’
Curtis eyed her narrowly, trying to work out whether she was joking or being serious and realising that he didn’t like it in the least that she thought he was arrogant. Coming from another woman, it wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest, but coming from her…
‘Self-assured, yes. Arrogant, no.’
‘Well, you seem to make a pretty good job of assuming you know exactly what’s right for Anna without even considering that you might just be wrong.’ Tessa sat down, rested her elbows on the table and sipped some of the coffee.
She hadn’t been making an observation on him, he realised. She had been making an observation on one aspect of his behaviour. He shifted irritably in his chair, reluctant to engage in practical conversation, wanting to prod deeper into her and the workings of her mind. Insofar as they related to him.
‘Why would I be wrong? I know my daughter.’
‘You shouldn’t have told her anything about the clothes she’d bought. I assume you did?’
‘I mentioned that they seemed a little unsuitable.’
‘Well, far be it from me to offer an opinion on how you bring your own child up…’
‘But…?’
Tessa shrugged to lessen the impression that she might be voicing unwanted views. Also that his affairs might impact on her much harder than she wanted them to. ‘But you should let her wear what she wants to wear, within reason, and please believe me when I tell you that Anna wouldn’t push the boat out. She barely glanced at any of the ridiculously hipster trousers kids these days wear or any of the super-tight Lycra tops that leave nothing to the imagination.’
Curtis, head tilted to one side, half heard the gist of her remark. He just heard the telling way she referred to kids, as if she were a woman in her fifties instead of someone in their twenties.
“‘Kids these days?”’ he teased softly, holding her startled look and enjoying the sudden stillness hanging in the air between them. ‘You’re not exactly an old lady, Tessa.’
‘No. I know that. I know I’m…’ A highly qualified and competent secretary, fully computer literate and with the references to show for it.
‘Yes…?’ He cocked his head to one side.
‘I’m pretty responsible for my age,’ she conceded. The doorbell rang. In the nick of time, she felt, because she had uneasily been aware of ground shifting under her feet. She sprang to her feet, only to see that he had similarly stood up and was fishing into his trouser pocket for his wallet.
‘You stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I’ll pay for the pizza.’
Stay in the kitchen? Waiting for him to return so that he could resume their conversation, which was slowly sending her into a state of frantic panic? No way.
As soon as he had exited she went to the cupboard and quickly prepared a tray with plate, cutlery, a stack of paper napkins and a glass of orange squash. They coincided in the sitting room, where Anna was engrossed in an inane program featuring two muscle-bound women who seemed to be competing with one another in a series of frankly ridiculous tasks. She made a few appreciative noises when the pizza was put in front of her, barely aware of the pair of them looming to one side.
Curtis opened his mouth to ask what level of nonsense she was watching, thought better of it and signalled to Tessa that they leave.
When she stood her ground, he tugged her gently but firmly out of the sitting room, keeping his hand on her arm until they were back in the kitchen.
‘I get the feeling we might cramp her style if we stay in there with her,’ he said, pushing the kitchen door behind him and killing the last vestige of noise wafting in from the television.
‘Which is something you would never dream of doing.’
‘Touché.’ He was still holding onto her, enjoying it, and as though she had suddenly realised that she shrugged him off and sat back down.
‘Okay. I get your point.’ He reluctantly sat back down. ‘Maybe I’m a bit overprotective and now’s the time to start cutting the apron strings a bit.’
‘That might be a good idea,’ Tessa agreed, relieved that the conversation seemed to be back on an even keel. Discussing Anna was bad enough when it came to blurring the boundaries between Curtis and herself, but drifting into the unknown territory of discussing each other was off the scale altogether.
‘I mean, lay down too many laws and you can sometimes find t
hat a teenager will attempt to break them all.’
‘Is that what you had to cope with when it came to your sister? You must have been pretty green round the gills when you found yourself having to deal with a teenager.’
‘I coped,’ Tessa informed him briefly.
‘Ah, but I’m intrigued. How did you? Cope, I mean?’ He smiled encouragingly. The urge to find out more about this woman was becoming irrational. His mind, which frequently drifted off in the direction of work whenever he was in the company of a woman, seemed to have developed extraordinary focusing ability.
His eyes wandered to her mouth, to the slender column of her neck. In his head he began to remove her top, bit by very slow bit.
‘Lucy was a headache, but essentially a pretty good kid. No drugs, no alcohol, or at least not much, no staying out all night. I loosened some of her boundaries and she respected that. I think she knew that we’d both been thrown into a new situation and we had to help each other along the best we could if we were to survive. I gave her freedom within limits and she gave me her obedience within limits.’
The little speech fizzled out into the silence, which stretched unbroken until she became aware of the low hum of the fridge, just vague background noise suitable for magnifying the stillness.
‘I suppose we’ve just…just got ourselves into a pattern…’ she tripped on, losing the thread of what she was saying with each murmured word. ‘She’s the frivolous one and I…I indulge her…’
‘And who indulges you?’
Tessa was aware of colour invading her face, a hot, burning flush that seemed to originate from within the deepest part of her. She had rested both her hands on the table and was now aware of exactly how small the table was. Certainly not big enough for the two of them when he was staring at her like that and she was responding in classic overwhelmed female tradition.
Then he did something so shockingly intimate that the breath literally caught in her throat, almost as if her brain had shut down and could no longer give the message to her lungs that she should inhale.
The Billionaire Boss's Bride Page 8
