No doubt his eagerness had something to do with the silk nightgown!
She could see someone standing on the other side of her frosted-glass front door now, someone tall, dressed in dark clothing, but other than that his form was indistinguishable.
Tazzy moved quietly down the hallway, ducking into her sitting-room—almost like a fugitive in her own home, for goodness’ sake! But she intended trying to get a look at the man from behind the drawn curtains in her sitting-room before she actually confronted him on the doorstep—knowing who he was would be of some help!
She drew back with a gasp as she saw it was Ross standing there.
He hadn’t telephoned earlier to see how she was, as he had said he would; instead he seemed to have come over personally to make sure she was okay, and, from the dinner suit and snowy white shirt he was wearing, he was going out himself this evening.
He couldn’t have arrived at a worse moment!
With her mystery admirer due to arrive any minute, she would have to get rid of Ross as quickly as possible; after reassuring him all day that there really wasn’t a man in her life, all she needed was for him to be here when her secret admirer actually arrived!
‘Ross!’ she greeted him brightly as she opened the door. ‘How kind of you to call in this way. As you can see, I’m feeling much better,’ she assured him with a smile, at the same time admiring how handsome he looked in his black evening wear—infinitely more distinguished than the young man who had sung her the love-o-gram earlier today!
‘As I can see,’ he repeated with a perplexed frown.
Tazzy waited for him to say something else—preferably along the lines of ‘I’ll be on my way, then’—feeling perplexed herself when he didn’t.
‘You’re obviously on your way out somewhere, so don’t let me keep you,’ she added with casual dismissal, desperately trying not to appear too obvious in her anxious glances past him in anticipation of the other man’s arrival.
Ross gave her a quizzical look. ‘I’m in no hurry,’ he said slowly.
Pity. Or…perhaps not. Perhaps it would be better if Ross was here when this her secret admirer arrived; after all, going on the man’s behaviour today, he was slightly deranged, if showering gifts and words of love on a complete stranger was anything to go by!
‘Come in and have a coffee, then. Or perhaps you would prefer a glass of white wine?’ she offered as he closed the front door behind him before following her down the hallway to the warmth of the kitchen.
‘Er—white wine would be fine. Thanks,’ he added. ‘You certainly seem to have made a full recovery.’ He looked across at her, frowning slightly as he sat down at the kitchen table.
‘I think it must have been the champagne, after all,’ she dismissed laughingly, opening the bottle of wine to place a poured glass down on the table in front of him before going back for her own. ‘A hair of the dog,’ she explained ruefully.
More like Dutch courage in order to get through the confrontation that was undoubtedly ahead of her!
She glanced across at Ross, but he seemed rather preoccupied as he stared down into his wineglass. ‘Are you going anywhere nice?’ she prompted politely, inwardly doing an inventory of the choice of women he could be taking out to dinner this evening. She thoroughly disliked the thought of his spending the evening with any of them!
‘I’m not sure yet,’ he answered. ‘Tazzy—’ He broke off abruptly, staring at the array of presents she had placed on the table earlier.
‘Impressive, aren’t they?’ Tazzy nodded in their direction. ‘Oh, I forgot, you haven’t seen the last one I received.’ She moved to pick up the box. ‘It is, without doubt, the most insulting thing I have ever been given!’ She took the lid off the box.
‘Insulting?’ Ross repeated with another frown. ‘But—’
‘There!’ Tazzy shook the white nightgown out so that Ross could see it. ‘The message with this one read, “Eight o’clock this evening?” Can you believe the nerve of the man?’ Her eyes sparkled angrily as she dropped the silk and lace back into the box. ‘I think he expects me to be wearing that when he arrives!’ she added disgustedly.
Ross’s eyes widened. ‘No—’
‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ Tazzy continued furiously. ‘Needless to say, he’s going to be out of luck! How dare he?’ She warmed to her subject now, giving vent to the outrage she had been feeling since receiving this last gift. ‘He’s obviously the sort of man who sends a woman expensive presents but expects something back in return!’ She stood up impatiently. ‘But he’s picked on the wrong woman this time.’ Her cheeks were hot with anger. ‘And the sooner I tell him that I have absolutely no intention—’
‘Tazzy, it was me,’ Ross cut in softly.
‘—of being seduced by expensive presents—What did you just say?’ She stopped dead, staring down at Ross in disbelief.
He couldn’t really have just said—!
Ross drew in a sharp breath, his eyes dark as he looked up at her. ‘I said, it was me, Tazzy. I sent the roses and all the other gifts,’ he expanded heavily, obviously determined there should be no further confusion.
Tazzy stared at him.
And stared at him.
And stared at him…
CHAPTER NINE
‘IT WAS you?’ Tazzy finally managed to blurt out accusingly, still staring at him disbelievingly.
Ross winced at her obvious incredulity. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I’m a little early, that’s all. So if you’re waiting for someone else to arrive at eight o’clock, you’re going to be disappointed!’ He stood up to move restlessly about the room, his face slightly pale.
Disappointed? Disappointed! At this precise moment, disappointment was the least of her emotions!
She was shocked, confused, but most of all hurt. To think that Ross thought so little of her that he had believed she would be seduced by expensive gifts and meaningless words…
‘But—but why?’ she finally managed to gasp. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’
‘I—You—Why do you think I did it?’ he asked finally.
Tazzy gave a pained wince. ‘You don’t want to hear what I think!’ she assured him forcefully, something else having occurred to her. ‘Ross, if this was your idea of a joke, then—’
‘It isn’t a joke, Tazzy,’ he cut in protestingly. ‘I—’ He swallowed hard, shaking his head. ‘I’m sure it’s not supposed to be like this!’
Like what? The two of them had worked together for a year and a half now, and, although they had always got on well together, not once during that time had Ross so much as attempted to step over the line of their working relationship. His behaviour today—she still found it hard to believe he was the one who had sent her all those presents and messages!—said he not only wanted to step over it, he actually wanted to obliterate it by making her his mistress, to claim that one ‘comfort of a married man’ that was so far missing from their relationship!
It certainly made a complete mockery of the love she felt towards him.
‘How was it supposed to be, then, Ross?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Was I supposed to be so overwhelmed by the roses, the chocolates, the teddy bear—? You said that earlier today!’ The phrase that had been eluding her all evening had suddenly come to her, leaving her more stunned than ever.
Ross had been the one to tease her about the Valentine gift she had received at home this morning. He’d asked her whether the gift had been red roses, a cuddly teddy bear, a box of chocolates, or sexy underwear…!
He had said that because he had known he would be sending her all of those things before the day was over!
As he had delivered the kitten to her doorstep first thing this morning…
‘What if Shadow had wandered off this morning before I came out of the house?’ She rounded on him furiously, relieved to have something else to vent her anger on; she was still so bitterly hurt that she didn’t even want to think about Ross’s calculated motivation behind all of this anymore.
‘What if he had been run over? What if he—’
‘I was parked round the corner the whole time, Tazzy,’ Ross assured her wearily. ‘I didn’t leave until you had taken her safely into the house. It is a her, by the way,’ he added ruefully.
He had been there when she’d found the kitten, when she’d looked up and down the street for the person who could have left it, when she’d picked the basket up and carried it into her house…!
She looked at him stonily. ‘I want you to leave, Ross.’
‘I—’
‘Now!’ she insisted forcefully, feeling as if her whole world were falling in on top of her. ‘And take all your presents with you,’ she snapped.
He gave a pained wince at her vehemence. ‘Tazzy, if you would just let me explain—’
‘But not Shadow. I’m keeping her,’ she told him defensively. ‘She, at least, is an innocent in all of this.’
‘Tazzy, you’ve misunderstood—’
‘I don’t think so, Ross,’ she said scathingly. ‘You certainly aren’t the man I thought you were.’
His mouth tightened. ‘I’m not the man you think I am now, either,’ he grated. ‘You’re taking all of this the wrong way,’ he tried to cajole. ‘We’ve worked together for eighteen months now, and—’
‘Not anymore,’ she told him coldly, knowing there was no way she could go on working for him under the circumstances. ‘I don’t know how you came by the impression that I—what signs you could have possibly thought you saw, from me, to encourage today’s behaviour—but you were wrong, Ross if you thought any of those things—’ she made a dismissive gesture towards the presents on the table ‘—would impress me, would sweep me off my feet to the point where I would listen to any proposal you might care to make!’
He drew in a harsh breath, straightening his shoulders, his expression remote. ‘I was—?’
‘You most certainly were!’ Her eyes flashed angrily.
He swallowed hard. ‘In that case, I’m sorry.’
Tears stung her eyes. ‘So am I,’ she said gruffly. ‘I—I really think you had better go now, Ross.’ And give her the privacy to let her heart break into a thousand pieces, as it longed to do.
‘Yes,’ he accepted distantly. ‘I—Keep the gifts. Or throw them away. Although I would unwrap the bear before you throw that out,’ he added enigmatically before quietly letting himself out by the back door.
Tazzy dropped down heavily into one of the kitchen chairs, feeling totally numb, unable to think, unable to feel, totally lost in the black misery that threatened to engulf her.
And then she reached out an arm and swept all the gifts from the table, crashing them onto the floor, Shadow giving a nervous leap to one side as the chocolates cascaded around her.
‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ Tazzy murmured brokenly as she lifted the kitten up into her arms. ‘Oh, Shadow,’ she groaned before burying her face in the silky fur. ‘What am I going to do?’ she cried emotionally, the pain she felt inside almost too much for her to bear.
What was she going to do? As she had said, she certainly couldn’t go on working for Ross, seeing him day after day, knowing that he had thought he could buy her with expensive gifts.
Although even he had looked dismayed by the love-o-gram, she remembered with tearful satisfaction. And no wonder; he surely couldn’t have guessed how embarrassing that particular gift was going to be!
But the delivery man’s enigmatic comment and knowing wink when she had asked for the identity of the giver of the gifts now made perfect sense; he must have known all the time that it was a Ross Valentine, of the same address, who had asked for the deliveries to be made to her. He had probably thought it all extremely romantic!
What could she do? There was no way she could ever pretend today hadn’t happened. After this evening’s fiasco, she doubted that Ross would want to, either…
What had he thought he was doing? If he had asked her out in the normal fashion, if they had seen each other for a few months out of work, loving him as she did she might have been seduced into a relationship with him. But this—!
She shook her head. Had her love for Ross been so obvious to him? Was that the reason he had thought he could dispense with even the briefest of courtships? It was worse than she had initially thought if that were the case; she had lost her pride as well as Ross and her job.
‘But I still have you, don’t I?’ she told the kitten emotionally as it nestled against her.
A day-to-day reminder of Ross during the long years ahead without him…
* * *
The ringing of the telephone woke her early the next morning. Tazzy turned over with a groan to look at the clock on her bedside table, frowning as she saw it was only six-thirty.
No one telephoned at that time of morning unless it was an emergency.
Unless it was Ross, checking to see if she would be going in to work today!
Which she wasn’t. How could she, after yesterday?
She had lain awake for hours the previous evening, going over and over each embarrassing event of the day, finally falling into a fitful sleep somewhere between three and four o’clock this morning.
Only to be woken a couple of hours later by this telephone call.
But what if it was Ross? What could they possibly have left to say to each other? More to the point, what could Ross have left to say to her?
She would never know if she didn’t answer the telephone call!
‘Yes?’ She spoke warily into the mouthpiece.
‘Oh, you are there, after all,’ a female voice answered warmly. ‘I thought for a minute—I appreciate it’s still early over there, and I obviously can’t stay on the telephone for long. I didn’t wake you, did I?’ Sylvia Valentine added concernedly.
‘Not at all,’ Tazzy replied cautiously, wondering what on earth Ross’s mother was doing ringing her at this time of the morning; as far as she was aware, the other woman was still on a cruise in the Caribbean.
‘Good. Only I know that you get up early in order to leave for work on time, and I did so want to be the first to give you our very best wishes,’ Sylvia told her excitedly.
Tazzy was sitting up on the side of the bed now, her head thumping from lack of sleep. Maybe that was also the reason Sylvia’s conversation was making no sense…?
‘Sorry?’ she muttered.
‘Nigel and I are so very pleased,’ Sylvia continued. ‘The two of you are so perfect for each other.’
Tazzy blinked dazedly. ‘We are?’
‘But of course you are, my dear,’ the other woman assured her.
‘I knew that from the first moment I saw the two of you together. It’s just taken Ross a little longer to see what was always in front of his nose. But I have to say, once he did realize…! Tell me, did Ross get down on one knee?’ she prompted with gleeful interest.
Was it possible she was still asleep? Because if she wasn’t dreaming, then she really didn’t have a clue what Ross’s mother was talking about!
‘Er—’
‘No, that was unfair of me.’ Sylvia chuckled softly. ‘I’m going to give Ross a ring in a minute, so I’ll ask him myself. Is your ring gorgeous? Ross said he had chosen an emerald and diamonds because of your beautiful green eyes.’
Ring? What ring?
‘But here I am chattering on, when you must be in a hurry to get to work. And Ross. But I did so want to welcome you into the family, my dear,’ Sylvia added sincerely. ‘And to assure you that I will be more than willing to help with the wedding arrangements.’
No, Tazzy was still asleep. She had to be.
‘If you would like me to, of course,’ Sylvia went on quickly. ‘Nigel has told me I mustn’t interfere, that if you want my help, you’ll ask for it,’ she confided wryly. ‘I’m just so excited about it all.’
Welcome her into the family…? Wedding arrangements…?
Tazzy had missed something, she knew she had. She just wasn’t sure what it was!
‘I
have to go,’ Sylvia told her regretfully. ‘But we can talk about all of this when we get back in a couple of weeks. We really are so pleased, Tazzy,’ she repeated before ringing off.
Leaving Tazzy in a completely numbed state.
That really had to be the strangest conversation she had ever had. Conversation? It had been more like a monologue. A monologue where Sylvia Valentine seemed to be congratulating Tazzy on her engagement to her son Ross!
Someone—and she wasn’t sure who—had completely the wrong idea about Ross’s behaviour yesterday!
Could it possibly be her who was wrong about him?
But there hadn’t been any ring. And Ross certainly hadn’t asked her to marry him.
If he had, she wouldn’t be feeling so utterly miserable. What—?
She stared at the telephone as it began to ring again. It was too much of a coincidence, too soon after Sylvia’s puzzling call, for this second caller to be anyone other than Ross.
Did she want to talk to him?
CHAPTER TEN
SHE most certainly did!
‘Tazzy, it’s Ross,’ he began cautiously once she had grabbed up the receiver. ‘I understand my mother has just been on the telephone to you…?’
‘Yes,’ Tazzy replied just as guardedly.
He gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’m really sorry about that. I had no idea—I didn’t think—Please disregard anything she said to you that you may have found upsetting.’ The grimace could be heard in his voice. ‘It didn’t even occur to me that she would telephone you like that. But once I had told her how I felt about you she seemed absolutely sure—but never mind that,’ he dismissed briskly. ‘Don’t even think about coming in to work today,’ he went on. ‘I’m sure you’ve been bothered by the Valentine family enough for one day.’
‘But—’
‘I know, Tazzy, your sense of what’s right dictates that you should come in to work today,’ Ross acknowledged wearily. ‘But I really think it’s best if you don’t.’
She wasn’t so sure anymore, felt there were answers she needed to certain questions.
His Darling Valentine Page 7