‘I didn’t rip your personality to shreds,’ Tessa mumbled, wincing. She had now backed herself into the sitting room and she scuttled into the closest chair, curling into it.
‘No?’ Curtis intoned silkily. He was no longer advancing on her, but, almost as bad, prowling through the room like a great jungle cat exploring the limits of its cage. And he was every bit as threatening as any great jungle cat. ‘If I remember accurately, you accused me of seducing your sister in this very house, when I was still fresh from sleeping with you, of arranging to meet her with your smell still lingering in my nostrils. Now, I’m not sure what school of morality you attended, but the one I went to clearly stated that those types of accusations come into the category of personality shredding!’ Each sibilant, vicious word was like a drop of poison.
He had ceased his restless prowling and was now standing in front of her, hands shoved into his trouser pockets, his face a mask of freezing contempt.
‘You should have said something,’ Tessa flung at him. She lifted her chin and eyed him mutinously. ‘You let me jump to all the wrong conclusions and now you think you can just walk in and throw it in my face!’
Had he thought for one minute, seriously, that she would open the door, meekly and tearfully accept what he had to say, fall at his feet with hands clasped in apology, simply because she had made a mistake? Her cheeks were two burning patches of colour and the stubborn tilt of her chin spoke volumes for her determination to fight him right back.
Let her.
Yes. Yes, he had done the right thing in coming here. Every muscle in his body was pulsing and it was a damn sight healthier than that impotent, frustrated, dead feeling he had had earlier.
And he still wanted her. With all her complications, her intolerance of his basic ground rule of just have fun, her wild accusations. A sex thing. But he felt his rage ratchet up a notch and this time it was directed solely at himself.
He angrily stalked off and sat down, glowering. ‘I was going to let you walk away. Of course I knew you’d find out the truth sooner or later, but guess what? Why should I drop it? Why should I allow you to get away with defamation of my character? I notice you haven’t even had the common decency to apologise!’
‘Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I jumped to the wrong conclusions. Satisfied?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Because…?’
‘Because it’s more than just jumping to the wrong conclusions, isn’t it? It’s about trust. What kind of man do you think I am? That’s the basic question, isn’t it?’
‘What was I supposed to think?’
‘You were supposed to think that a few overheard snatches of conversation just might not add up to the worst possible conclusion. You were supposed to think that you knew me well enough to presume me innocent before condemning me to the guillotine.’ He knew how he sounded. Cold, indifferent, composed. He knew that only he would be able to discern the awful truth behind what he was saying, which was that he had been hurt. Curtis Diaz, the man who had always burnt the candle at both ends, the man who worked hard and played hard, had been hurt.
Tessa’s face was closed as she looked at him. Now this argument, she thought, was one she could really get her teeth into. He obviously hadn’t followed through with his logic. Unusual for him, since he had the most logical brain of any man she had ever met, but everyone had a blind spot and this was his. He was a charming, dangerously sexy man who nurtured a reputation for never staying with one woman for too long, whose tastes had always run to a very specialised type of female, and yet he naively thought that he should be seen as Mr Trustworthy. The ego of the man!
Tessa focused very hard on that side of him. The side that wasn’t witty and thoughtful and sharp and ironic. She concentrated on his house-sized ego. Safer.
‘Why do you think I should have done that?’ she asked, with a coldness that almost matched his but didn’t quite. ‘Why do you think I should have heard what sounded like a very compromising conversation and immediately come to the conclusion that it was innocent?’ She would have done, she knew it, if she’d thought that he loved her, because mutual love was all about trust. But she was just a passing fancy and passing fancies didn’t necessarily qualify for exclusivity. That was life.
‘Look at you!’ Tessa continued, gathering momentum as her heart protected itself by projecting a one-dimensional cardboard cut-out image of him. ‘You’re not exactly noted for your celibate nature…’
‘Meaning that I see nothing wrong in overlapping relationships?’
‘I never said that you would have gone out with Lucy while I was still trailing in the background like some inconvenient unfinished business. But you’re not exactly the solid type who places a whole lot of emphasis on cultivating long-standing relationships, are you?’
‘Why did you sleep with me if I didn’t fit into that niche?’
‘Because…’ Tessa glared back at him, carelessly lounging there in the chair as if he had a perfect right to be there.
‘You’re upset because you thought that I had lived down to my reputation. Upset enough to quit a job you loved doing. But when we went to bed together, I was still that man, so why did you decide to come to bed with me? Were you hoping that somehow I’d change? That you’d be able to turn me into a domestic dream who wanted nothing more than to slip into commitment and live happily ever after with a few kiddies running around and a dog in front of the Aga?’
CHAPTER TEN
‘I THINK it’s time you left.’ Tessa got to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster. Curtis’s question had shaken her to the core. How could she have thought for a minute that his lessons in logic might have been incomplete? With a few short observations, he had stripped her reaction down to the bone. What she didn’t want to do was give him any opportunity to go further.
‘I’m not ready to leave.’ And he wasn’t. He really wasn’t. Because he was back in the driving seat, utterly and totally in control. When he left, he would have put her straight on her vast misconception of his character. He wasn’t a commitment guy. That was for his brother, who loved the routine and order of his life. He, himself, had never cared for routine. His job predicated against any sort of routine, anyway. That had been the beauty of his wife, when she was alive. She too had been full of the joy of living and pregnancy had not really interfered with that.
His only grounding now came from being a father. For Anna he would take time off work, for Anna he would postpone meetings and attend school concerts whenever he could. But that was it. Absolutely. The thought of having some wife in the background nagging about his hours and reminding him of deadly dinner parties she had arranged for the weekend was just not on his agenda.
‘Since you happen to be in my house, whether or not you’re ready to go isn’t the point. The point is I want you out. You’ve got your apology and now we have nothing left to say.’ Her breath caught in her throat at that. The house-sized ego she had been focusing so intently on vanished like a puff of smoke. All she thought was, You were such fun, you could make me laugh and make me abandon every ounce of common sense just to feel you close to me. You could make me love you.
The dangerous thoughts crept into her head like thieves, stealing her will-power.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Curtis said, not budging. ‘And you might as well sit back down. I’m not ready to leave, not yet, and I don’t see how you can force me out. I’m all for equality of the sexes, but when it comes to physical strength, we’re still poles apart.’
‘Oh, right! When in doubt, just fall back on the caveman principle, why don’t you?’
‘Answer my question and I’ll go.’
Tessa sat back down, furious and helpless at the same time. ‘I never saw you as relationship potential,’ she spat out. ‘Never.’
‘Then I expect you’ll be wanting your job back, in that case? Now that we’ve established that there’s nothing going on between me and your sister?’
‘And slide back into being your casual fling till you get bored of me? No, thanks!’ The words were out before she could take them back, and they flew through the sudden, thick silence with the efficiency of the contents from Pandora’s box. Tessa could feel the blood rush to her face and she had to stop herself from groaning out loud. Everything she had been trying so hard to deny was wrapped up in those few careless words and he knew it. She could see it on his face.
‘Because that wouldn’t be enough for you, would it?’ Curtis said softly. ‘You’re just not the type of woman who can have flings.’
Tessa hoped he wasn’t expecting an answer to that because he wasn’t going to get one. She would just have to let him spin his yarn and then he would leave. His life would carry on its own merry way and she would pick up the pieces and start again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Horribly, he sounded as if he meant it. Tessa cringed inwardly and wished she could somehow magic herself out of the room, out of the house, maybe even out of the country. Anywhere she could escape to where those piercing blue eyes couldn’t bore into her soul and read what was written there.
‘I don’t want commitment. Not yet. Maybe not ever.’ He stood up slowly. ‘I don’t get turned on by the prospect of shopping for rings or by the thought of coming back home to the smell of home-cooked food.’
He had an image of her, waiting for him at the end of the day, smiling when he walked through the door, asking him how his day had been.
‘I don’t need anyone asking me how my day went,’ he ground out more forcefully than he had intended. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ he snapped, angry with her because somehow she had made him think thoughts he had no business thinking.
‘What’s there to say?’ Tessa asked wearily. ‘You’re right. I’m not a casual kind of girl and I never could be. I was stupid to ever have gone to bed with you, but we all make mistakes.’
Curtis didn’t much care for being called a mistake. Why, he didn’t know.
‘I thought I could just have fun, but I was wrong. I knew that when Lucy appeared on the scene and I thought you were interested in her.’
‘You were jealous, in other words.’ That was much better. He really rather liked the idea of Tessa being jealous. More than liked it. It made his heart sing crazily. What man’s heart wouldn’t? he thought to himself. Perfectly normal human reaction.
‘I was realistic,’ Tessa corrected coldly. ‘You’ve chosen the road you want to go down, and good luck to you. It’s not the road I want and I don’t intend wasting time indulging in something that’s going nowhere.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Curtis moved towards the door, waiting for her to stand up to see him out, which he soon realised she had no intention of doing, although she wanted him out. That was pretty clear from the shuttered, cool expression on her face. ‘I don’t personally see it as wasting time, but there you go. Different strokes for different folks.’
‘That’s right.’
He hesitated, wanting to ask her about her foot but knowing that that was stupid when they had just waged World War III, bar the shooting. ‘Tell Lucy to get in touch with me so that we can formally discuss details of this job. And tell her to make sure that her passport’s up to date. She might need to fly out to one or two proposed sites at short notice.’
‘Sure.’ Tessa looked at him, taking him in for the last time.
‘You can come in with her and collect your pay-cheque,’ Curtis heard himself say. His face darkened at the sudden crack in his armour but if she noticed anything, she didn’t show it.
‘I’d rather you posted it to me.’
‘Look, we’re adults. There’s no need for you to avoid me like the plague. Chances are that we’ll even bump into one another in the course of things, if Lucy takes on the commission and things go according to plan…’
The thought of bumping into him was enough to make her feel sick. Since when did convalescents expose themselves witlessly to the cause of their illness?
‘I don’t see any reason why we should meet again. And I’d really rather Personnel posted the cheque to me. I’m going to be out and about looking for a job. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to pop in at the drop of a hat.’
‘Sure. Well, whatever.’
‘Just slam the door behind you. It self-locks.’ With that, she turned away, dismissing him.
Suited him just fine, Curtis decided, striding out of the room and slamming the front door behind him.
It had all gone according to plan. Really. He had come to state his case and state it he had. What she had said had only confirmed his suspicions that she had been a dangerous near miss. She had wanted more and she had told him so in no uncertain terms. He was a free man. He would spend the rest of the school holidays juggling his work so he could take Anna out, maybe even buy her some new clothes in the sales, before she went back to school. He thought back to that day when his daughter and Tessa had gone shopping, the glow of achievement on her face. Well, he didn’t think he would be able to match that as far as shopping partners went, but so be it.
It would be his first step in getting his life back to normal, back where he wanted it to be, where he was in control. Leave the unpredictability for his job.
He drove to his mother’s house, having originally planned to return to the office where he would be able to submerge himself in work. In his head he played out the conversation he had just had with Tessa. He didn’t want to. What he wanted was to now wash his hands of her altogether. But his mind was refusing to co-operate.
He had done what he had set out to do. That was good. Leaving her with the impression that he had somehow, ludicrously, managed to get involved with her sister was a misconception he hadn’t been able to ignore in the end and he had sorted that out.
Frowning as his logical brain backtracked and fitted pieces together, he very nearly went into the back of someone at some traffic lights that had turned red. A minor interruption to his concentration. There was some link he should be making, he thought restlessly, some vital connection, and then as his car purred away at the traffic lights it happened and it was like being catapulted into the air at full speed.
Tessa was a commitment girl. She had said so herself. What she had failed to mention was what he was now figuring out for himself.
Commitment girls would never get involved with a man purely because it promised to be a spot of fun, no matter how powerful the attraction might be. He knew that in the depth of his bones and from the very summit of his experience. Women who seriously sought commitment wouldn’t even be attracted to a man like him. They might look, but they would never venture near.
Which meant that Tessa had become involved because… because…
The conclusion that he had been inexorably working towards now presented itself to him. She had fallen in love with him. Maybe she didn’t realise it herself, maybe she was just pretending to herself that, really, it had all been fun and she had got out before it was too late, but he thought otherwise. He thought that she had fallen in love with him even before she had slept with him and, subconsciously, her physical capitulation had just been the logical consequence of her emotional involvement.
He found that he was driving on automatic, not even realising where he was going, and was startled when his car suddenly appeared to be at his mother’s place. His head felt fuzzy, almost as though important brain connections had been subtly altered so that his responses weren’t what they should be. Everything was just a bit off kilter. And there was a pounding rush deep inside him, which he couldn’t understand or deal with. He just knew one thing. His narrow escape must have been a hell of a lot narrower than he had imagined. He felt as though he had been too close to a fire and had been singed.
Singed but not burnt. Lucky him. And tomorrow he would probably be fully healed and ready to move forward. He would have her out of his head. In a week’s time, he might even be seeing someone else, someone uncomplicated, straightforward and up f
or some fun, no strings attached…
A mere three days later, when Tessa spotted him in the gossip column of the newspaper, cavorting with a blonde, she made her mind up. She needed a break. The thought of seeing the new year in with Lucy around, puzzled and curious and waiting for the right time to launch into a detailed interrogation, just wouldn’t do. Nor would the inevitable sleepless night, heady fuzzy with thoughts of him kissing the blonde as the clock struck twelve.
She had to get away, right away. Be on her own in different surroundings. The familiarity of the house stirred up too many painful memories. The four walls were no longer her haven but her torture chamber, impregnated with his dynamic, restless personality, and she needed time out from it.
She didn’t even bother to tell her sister face to face. She couldn’t face the concern and the questions.
So she left a note on the kitchen table. She would be in Dublin. She gave the name of the hotel and the phone number in case of an emergency, but failed to mention when she would be back.
And it felt glorious to walk out of the house, with a holdall, two good books and no one asking her what she was doing.
The feeling persisted on the flight over, and even the reality of checking into the hotel wasn’t sufficient for Tessa to doubt for a single minute that she had done the right thing.
The place she had managed to find so close to New Year was small and cosy. She took a deep breath and filled her nostrils with the fragrant scent of polished wood and lavender. There were intimate touches everywhere, from the pretty furnishings to the pictures on the walls. She would shop during the day and then just read in the communal, oak-panelled sitting room with the roaring fire and clumps of deep, worn chairs. Read and forget. She could feel herself forgetting already!
It was a mantra she kept up for the remainder of the day, which was spent browsing in the shops, having lunch in a café where she watched the world hurry by under brilliant blue but freezing skies, and reading book number one in front of the fire. The couple who ran the tiny hotel were charming and showed no curiosity at her request to eat early so that she could retire to her room before midnight. By dinnertime, as she was ushered to a small table at the back of the discreetly lit dining room, now festive in preparation for celebrations later, Tessa was convinced that she was finally beginning to unwind. Maybe, she considered lazily, she would move to Dublin permanently. Start afresh. Forget everything and most of all forget Curtis Diaz.
The Billionaire Boss's Bride Page 16
