What on earth had got into her?
She knew, of course. Love had got into her. It had roared into her life and she had been knocked off her feet without even realising it because it had come in a format she hadn’t recognised.
She’d expected someone like Freddy. She’d expected cuddles, kisses and, face it, polite, enjoyable sex.
She hadn’t expected sex of the bodice-ripping variety, so she had written it off as lust until, of course, it had all been far too late for her adequately to protect herself.
Love had turned her into a puppet that had walked back into his arms, even though she had known that it was never going to be reciprocated. Love had effectively switched off all the burglar alarms that should have been up and running, protecting her.
And, disastrously, love had made her begin to hope.
She’d begun to think that he might just feel more for her than he had anticipated. People said one thing, but life had a way of getting in the way of all their well-grounded intentions.
Look at her!
Had it been the same for him? It surely wasn’t just about the sex...? There’d been many times when they hadn’t been rolling around on a bed, when they’d talked, when he’d given her advice on setting up a practice—brilliant, sensible advice from a guy who had done his own thing and come out on top.
It hadn’t been the same for him. He’d had an agenda from the word go and, oh, how she had wanted to scream and shout when she had found out. Instead, she had absented herself and taken off to France for a week to be with her family, who had been overjoyed to see her.
For a while, she had almost been distracted enough to see a way forward. She had revelled in her sister’s pregnancy and obvious happiness. She had allowed herself to be congratulated on her ambitions to move on and set up a practice while she had skirted around the precise explanation as to how, exactly, she was managing to do that. She had waffled a lot about excellent references, possible bank loans and the possibility of someone willing to invest for a share of the partnership...
Now she was back, though...
She peered through the window in the hall by the front door.
For the first time in ten days, ever since she had found out from his mother details of his past which he had conveniently kept from her, she would be seeing him.
She had no idea what was going through his head but she hadn’t wanted him to know what had been going through hers. At least not then, not when she had been so boiling mad, so humiliated and mortified, that her emotions would have done the shouting and that would have made her incoherent and vulnerable.
And, when she confronted him, she wanted to be cool and detached.
She also wasn’t even certain that she would mention anything at all. Perhaps she would just tell him that she felt that what they had had run its course. Maybe he had got the hint, because she hadn’t been returning his calls, and on the couple of occasions when he had managed to get through to her she had been vague and distant, practically ending the conversation before it had begun.
She ducked away from the window the second she heard the throaty purr of his car and the crunch of gravel as it swerved into the little courtyard in front of the house.
Nerves gripped her. The doorbell sounded and she wiped her perspiring palms on her jeans and took a deep breath.
Experience told her that, when she pulled open the door, his impact on her would be as strong as it always was. Absence and time apart were two things that never seemed to diminish it. Unless he had gained two stone in the space of ten days and lost all his hair and teeth, his devastating good looks would still make the breath hitch in her throat and the flood of emotion she felt for him would still make her feel weak and powerless.
Not wanting to appear over-keen, she allowed him to stand pressing the doorbell for a few seconds before she opened the door.
And there he was.
The weather had changed from those heady few days when he had last been in the Cotswolds. Spring had long since arrived, and with it pale blue skies and wispy clouds were scurrying across the washed blue backdrop as though hurrying on urgent errands. The trees were in full bloom and the flowers were poking out wherever they could, eager to feel the first rays of sun on them, blues and violets and reds and pinks clambering out of the bushes and hedgerows and tumbling across fences and yellow stone walls.
It was Saturday. No work, hence his arrival at four in the afternoon, just a few hours after she herself had arrived back from France. He was long and lean in faded black jeans and a black polo shirt, casual jacket hooked over one shoulder. He’d propped his shades up and he looked every inch a drop-dead-sexy movie star.
And she felt all those predictable responses she always did whenever she clapped eyes on him.
‘Theo,’ she managed, stepping aside and then slightly back as he brushed past her.
His clean, woody scent filled her nostrils and made her feel faint.
‘So...’ Theo turned to look at her. His face was impassive. His body language was cool and controlled. Neither bore any resemblance to what was going on inside him because she’d spent the past ten days playing an avoidance game that had got on his nerves. She’d vanished off to France on a whim. She’d contrived to view possible practices up for grabs without him, even though he was going to be funding whatever purchase transpired.
‘What’s going on, Becky?’
They hadn’t made it out of the narrow hall and already it was clear there were going to be no pleasantries to paper over the awkwardness of what she was going to say. Ending something was always tough but she was going to be ending this with an edge of bitterness that would live with her for ever, and that made it all the tougher.
‘I thought I would show you the practice I’m thinking would be suitable. The head vet who runs it is retiring and he’s looking for someone to take over. It’ll be a similar sort of size to the one here and, if anything, the work will be less demanding and probably a lot more profitable because it’s in a town.’ She began edging towards the sitting room.
Two weeks ago, she would have flown into his arms and they wouldn’t have made it to the bedroom.
If he hadn’t got the message already that things were over between them, then he’d have to be blind not to be receiving the message loud and clear now. And he wasn’t blind. Far from it.
‘I know buying the practice was all...er...part of the deal that we had...’
Theo stayed her with one hand and spun her round to face him. ‘This is how you greet me after nearly two weeks of absence, Becky?’ He stepped closer towards her, a forbidding, towering presence that filled her with apprehension, nerves and that tingling excitement that was now taboo. ‘With polite conversation about business deals?’
She whipped her arm away and stepped back, anger rising like a tide of bile at the back of her throat.
‘Okay,’ she snapped, reaching boiling point at the speed of light. ‘How else would you like me to greet you? You must have guessed that...that...’ She faltered, and he stepped into the sudden leaden silence like a predator sensing weakness.
‘That...? Why don’t you spell it out for me, Becky?’
‘It’s over. I... I’m moving on now and it’s time for this to end.’ She looked away because she just couldn’t look at him. She could feel his grey eyes boring into her, trying to pull thoughts out of her head.
He knew. How could he not? One minute she had been full on and the next minute she had left the building. He’d tried to get in touch with her, and, sure, she’d picked up a few times, but conversation between them had been brief and stilted. He would have called a lot more because her silence had driven him crazy but pride, again, had intervened.
He felt sick. What was it they said about pride being a person’s downfall? Except it had always been so much part and parcel of his personality. He wanted nothing more now than to shrug his shoulders and walk away. Let his lawyers deal with whatever had to be done in connection with the practic
e, sort out whatever paperwork needed sorting out.
He couldn’t and he was afflicted by something alien to him. A wave of desperation.
He needed to move so he headed for the kitchen, barely glancing at the renovations his money had paid for. She was saying something from behind him, something about paying back whatever money he lent her. He spun around and cut her short with a slice of his hand,
‘Why?’ he grated savagely. ‘And you can drop the “time to move on” act. The last time we saw one another you were wriggling like an eel under me and begging me to take you.’
Becky went bright red. Trust him to bring sex into it—trust him to use it as a lever in his line of reasoning—yet why should she be surprised when it was the only thing that motivated him? That and the cool detachment that could allow him to see manipulation as something acceptable.
She moved to stand by the sink, pressed up against it with her hands behind her back because she was too restless to sit at the kitchen table.
‘Maybe,’ she burst out on a wave of uncontrolled anger that was heavily laced with fury at herself for ever, ever having thought that he might actually have proper feelings for her, ‘it’s because I’ve finally decided that having a bastard in my life is something I can do without!’
Theo went completely still. For once, his clever mind that could be relied upon to deal with any situation had stalled and was no longer functioning.
Their eyes met and she was the first to look away. Even in the grip of anger, he still exerted the sort of power over her that made her fearful because she knew how out of character it could make her behave.
‘Explain.’ He felt cold inside because he knew what she was going to say and, in retrospect, marvelled that he had ever thought that she wouldn’t find out, marvelled that he had ever felt he could carry on having this relationship and then walk away from it with her none the wiser.
‘You didn’t just happen to come here while you were out taking your car for a little spin in the middle of nowhere, did you, Theo?’ She had regained some of her self-control and her voice was low, but steady.
‘You weren’t just the poor marooned billionaire unfortunate enough to wash up on the doorstep of a country bumpkin with a house falling down around her ears, were you? You came here because you wanted to buy the place. Your mother told me. She told me how much she’d been hankering to return to the house where she and your father had lived as a young couple. She told me how she’d left in a hurry after he’d been killed in a road accident. She said that she’d never wanted to return but that lately she’d been wanting to make peace with her past and especially now that you seemed to be so happy and settled.’ She laughed scornfully but her cheeks were bright red and her hands were shaking. ‘When did you decide that it made more sense to check out the place and see for yourself how much it was worth? When did you decide that you would sleep with me so that it would be easier to talk me into selling it for the lowest possible price? The power of pillow talk and all that? Did you decide to put your little plan on hold temporarily because using me as a fake girlfriend was more important than yanking the house out from under my feet?
‘After all, you’d already slept with me—why not keep it up for a few more weeks until your mother was over her little turn? Then a clean break-up and a speedy purchase! You’d already done the groundwork to get the place up to your standards. Were you ever going to tell me that you were behind the purchase? Or were you going to string me along for a while longer, until you got me to the point where you could convince me to sell it for a song before regrettably letting me go, like all those women you dated before me?’
Theo raked his fingers through his hair.
Consequences he had put on hold were ramming into him with the force of a runaway steam engine and fact was so intricately weaved with conjecture that he was well and truly on the back foot.
But that didn’t bother him. What bothered him was that he had blown it.
He’d blown the only good thing to have happened in his life with his arrogance, his misplaced pride and his driving need to exert control over everything.
‘Let me explain,’ he said roughly, which provoked another bitter laugh, and he couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t have sounded more guilty of the accusations hurled at him if he’d tried.
‘I don’t want you to explain!’
‘Why did you let me drive here if you didn’t want to hear what I had to say?’ he countered in a driven voice. He badly wanted to get closer to her, to close the distance between them, but it would be a big mistake. For once, words were going to have to be his allies. For once, he was going to have to say how he felt, and that scared him. He’d never done it before and now...
She hated him. It was written all over her face. But she hadn’t, not before. No, she might have protested that he wasn’t her type, but they’d clicked in a way he’d never clicked with a woman before.
He should have told her the truth when he’d had the chance in Portofino. He’d started but had allowed himself to be side-tracked. Now, he was paying a price he didn’t want to pay.
‘You’re right. I did come here with the sole intention of buying this place. My mother had been making noises about wanting to return here. I had the money and I saw no reason not to take back what, I felt, had been taken from her at a knockdown price.’ He held up his hand because he could see her bursting to jump in and, if nothing else, he would have his say. He had to. He had no choice.
‘You used me.’
‘I exploited a situation and at the time it felt like the right thing to do.’ He looked at her with searing honesty and she squashed all pangs of empathy. ‘I don’t like having this conversation with you standing there. Won’t you come here?’
‘I don’t like thinking that you used me. So that makes both of us not liking things that aren’t about to change.’
Come nearer? Did anyone ever take up an invitation to jump into a snake pit?
And still her body keened for him in a way that was positively terrifying.
‘Sleeping with me was all just part of your plan, wasn’t it?’
‘I would never have slept with you if I didn’t fancy you, Becky. And fancy you more than I’ve ever fancied any woman in my life before. Okay, so you might think that what I did was unethical, but—’
‘But?’ She tilted her head to one side in a polite enquiry. At least he’d fancied her. He wasn’t lying. That, in itself, was a comfort. Small comfort, she quickly reminded herself.
‘But it was the only way I knew how to be,’ he said in such a low, husky voice that she had to strain to hear him.
Unsettled, she felt herself relax a little, although she remained where she was, pressed against the counter, careful not to get too close. And she wasn’t going to ask him what he meant either!
But her keen eyes noted the way he angled his big body so that he was leaning towards her, head lowered, arms resting on his thighs and his hands clasped loosely together. That looked like defeat in his posture, although she was probably wildly off the mark with that one. She seemed to have turned being wildly off the mark into a habit as far as this man was concerned.
Theo dealt her a hesitant glance.
He had such beautiful eyes, she thought, shaken by that hesitancy, such wildly extravagant eyelashes, and when he looked like that, as though he was searching in fog to find a way forward, was it any wonder that something inside her wasn’t quite as steely as it should be?
‘I’ve always been tough,’ he admitted in the same low, barely audible voice and she took a couple of tentative steps towards him, then sat at the table, but at the opposite end. Theo glanced across and wondered if he dared let his hopes rise, considering she was no longer pressed against the counter like a cornered rat preparing to attack. ‘I’ve had to be. Life wasn’t easy when I was growing up, but I think I told you that.’
‘Whilst omitting to tell me other things,’ Becky pointed out with asperity, although her voice wasn’t as b
elligerent as it had previously been.
‘Granted.’ He hung his head for a few seconds, then held her eyes once again. ‘My mother was always unhappy. Not that she wasn’t a good mother—she was a great mother—but she’d never recovered from my father’s death. Love cut short in its prime will always occupy top position on the pedestal.’ He shot her a crooked smile. ‘She got very little for the cottage in the end. She sold low and, by the time the mortgage was paid off, she barely had enough to buy something else. She had to work her fingers to the bone to make sure we had food in the larder and heating during winter. That was what I saw and that was what, I guess, made me realise that love and emotion were weaknesses to be avoided at all costs. What mattered was security and only money could give you that. I locked my heart away and threw away the key. I was invincible. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have to find the key to open it because someone else would do that for me.’
Becky felt prickles of something speckle her skin. She took a deep breath and held it.
‘It made financial sense to buy the cottage cheap. My plan was to go there, fling money on the table and take what should have been my mother’s as far as I was concerned. But then you opened the door and things changed—and then we slept together and after that everything kept changing. I kept telling myself that nothing had, that I was still going to buy the cottage, but I was in freefall without even realising it. Becky, I wanted to tell you why I’d shown up on your doorstep, but I’d boxed myself in and I couldn’t get a grip to manoeuvre myself out.’
He shook his head ruefully. She was so still and for once he couldn’t read what she was thinking. It didn’t matter. He had to plough on anyway.
‘In the end, I wasn’t going to buy it,’ he confessed heavily. ‘I’d made that decision before we returned to this country. The only problem was that I never followed through with the reasoning because, if I had, I would have realised that the reason I dumped the plan to buy your house for my mother was because I’d fallen in love with you, and to do anything as underhand as try and buy you out, even if you agreed to sell, would have felt...somehow wrong.’
Snowbound With His Innocent Temptation Page 16