‘So am I.’ Gideon began to pace the room. ‘Unfortunately Newman hasn’t been able to find another job, either, since being so suddenly “let go” from his last one.’
Considering that Newman had been involved in an affair with his boss’s wife, that ‘letting go’ wasn’t so surprising!
‘I hope you aren’t expecting me to feel sorry for the man,’ Joey snorted. If it hadn’t been for Gideon’s involvement, Stephanie might have been damaged professionally as well as personally by being wrongly accused as ‘the other woman’ in the divorce. ‘As far as I’m concerned, hanging, drawing and quartering wouldn’t be enough retribution for the extent of his deceit!’ Joey announced forcefully.
‘Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you,’ Gideon murmured.
She smiled. ‘Too late!’
Gideon found himself returning the easiness of that smile. ‘I’m afraid if you want to eat this evening we’ll have to send out for something. I rarely eat at home,’ he explained, ‘so there’s nothing in the kitchen apart from—oh…a loaf of bread, some butter, milk to put in tea and coffee, and maybe a few eggs. And a packet of smoked salmon,’ he remembered belatedly. ‘My mother brought it down for me from Scotland last week.’
Joey looked amused. ‘Must be nice to have smoked salmon brought down from Scotland, or to be wealthy enough to order a takeaway or eat out every night.’
It could be a little tedious, as it happened, Gideon recognised with a frown. He hadn’t realised the limitations of his chosen lifestyle before Joey had breezed into his life almost a week ago. He’d ceased to notice the cold sterility of his apartment, the impersonality of eating out at the usual restaurants four or five nights a week. Unless he was actually seeing someone, it hadn’t even bothered him that he often dined alone; the management and staff of all those restaurants recognised and spoke to him, so what did it matter if he ate alone?
But bringing Joey here, seeing his apartment through her eyes, made Gideon all too aware that the lack of any personal items or photographs, and the monochrome decor, gave it all the warmth and appearance of a hotel rather than a home.
But it had been deliberate, he reminded himself impatiently. As a child, he’d had years of shunting backwards and forward between his mother’s home in Edinburgh, his father’s estate in Gloucestershire and the boarding school he’d attended in Shrewsbury, and then he’d had several temporary digs in London during his student years. All of which had resulted in him keeping his personal possessions to a minimum, on the basis that it was easier that way when he needed to transport them to wherever he lived next.
Gideon just hadn’t realised until now that those personal possessions were almost non-existent.
‘Did it ever occur to you that I can’t cook, either?’ he rasped.
‘Surely I didn’t hear you correctly?’ Joey taunted. ‘I’m sure I couldn’t have heard the self-sufficient Gideon St Claire admit that there’s something he can’t do proficiently, if not better than the next man? ‘
Gideon frowned. ‘I have no idea where you gained this impression that I’m somehow all-powerful, Joey, but I can assure you that there are a lot of things I can’t do—proficiently or otherwise.’
She gave him a searching look, recognising from his closed expression that, although it had been his decision that they come back to his apartment, he was far from comfortable with allowing her this window into his private life.
‘I’m feeling better now, so maybe I should just go.’
Gideon scowled darkly. ‘Go where? ‘
Her brows rose. ‘Home, of course.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
Joey blinked. ‘Sorry? ‘
‘I’m sure you noticed the doorman downstairs when we arrived, to screen non-residents? The security code to enter the lift? The cameras inside the lift and on individual floors?’
Joey’s stomach did a lurching somersault as she began to have a dreadful inkling of exactly what Gideon was about to say. ‘Yes …’
‘I think, until the Newman situation has been sorted out, that it would be better if you stayed here with me.’
‘No way!’ Joey surged to her feet even as she frantically shook her head in protest. ‘I’ve already had to put up with you following me about all day—’
‘It works in reverse as well, you know—I’ve had to put up with following you about all day!’ he retorted.
Her cheeks warmed at the rebuke. ‘That was your choice, not mine.’
‘I have a responsibility,’ he came back icily.
‘Because of Stephanie,’ she acknowledged heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Gideon, but there is no way—absolutely no way—that I’m going to. Look, I realise that I—that we— behaved less than discreetly this morning, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to just move in here with you.’
Gideon recoiled as if a snake had lashed out and sunk its fangs into him, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Having you move in with me was the last thing I was suggesting.’
Obviously. He looked so horrified at the mere thought of it! ‘Then what did you have in mind?’ Joey challenged. ‘That I just share your bed for the night?’
Blond brows lowered over glittering brown eyes. ‘I don’t think I care for the accusation in your tone.’
‘Tough!’ Joey snapped, and she was the one to now pace the room. ‘I have no idea what you think I am, Gideon, but I’m definitely not easy.’
‘Oh, I can vouch for that,’ he muttered harshly.
Joey glared. ‘You know exactly what I meant—’
‘And you,’ Gideon cut in coldly, ‘are deliberately choosing to misunderstand what I meant!’ He sighed. ‘I’m not intending the two of us to share a bed. You can have the bedroom, and I’ll sleep out here on the couch.’ And very uncomfortable it was likely to be, too, considering it was only a two-seater sofa and he was six foot three inches tall!
But did he get any thanks for having his life disrupted in this way? Any appreciation for inviting Joey into his home when he never invited anyone here? Any consideration of his own discomfort?
No, all he received for his trouble was her suspicion and distrust. Which was damned insulting, to say the least!
‘I’m not staying here with you,’ Joey insisted.
Gideon drew in a frustrated breath. ‘Then I guess I’ll just have to come back to your apartment with you.’
‘Any more than I intend inviting you to spend the night at my apartment with me!’ Joey finished determinedly.
‘I’ll be sleeping on the sofa—’
‘I don’t care if you’re sleeping outside in the hallway—the answer is still no!’ she said, her voice rising in her agitation.
‘And if Newman chooses tonight to decide he isn’t satisfied with just damaging our property and decides to make it more personal?’
Joey looked frightened. ‘You think he might become violent towards you or I?’
Gideon’s mouth thinned. ‘I think he’s already violent—it just hasn’t manifested itself yet into outright physical assault.’
Joey felt her face go pale and an icy shiver run down the length of her spine as she once again recalled Richard Newman standing close behind her in the queue at the coffee shop on Monday morning—the way he had deliberately stopped and spoken to her. As if he didn’t care if she recognised him, or had perhaps even wanted her to.
Gideon regretted being quite so blunt when he saw the way her eyes now looked dark and haunted against the pallor of her cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Well, you succeeded!’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Let’s just calm this down a little, hmm?’ he encouraged.
‘And how do you propose we do that?’ Joey asked.
‘We would probably both feel better—less agitated—if we had something to eat.’
‘You mean I would, don’t you?’ she challenged. ‘I’ve yet to see you act as anything other than Mr Calm!’
Gideon refused to be distracted by her obvious determination to have another argument with him. ‘If you don’t feel like ordering food in then we could make scrambled eggs to go with the smoked salmon, with maybe some toast on the side?’
‘Neither of us can cook, remember? ‘
‘I believe, if you can handle putting some bread in the toaster, that my culinary skills might stretch to making scrambled eggs and opening a packet of smoked salmon,’ Gideon said dryly; he had lived on eggs at one point during his student days, when his monthly allowance had run out before the next one was due. He preferred more sophisticated fare nowadays.
She raised auburn brows. ‘Really?’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘Perhaps you should go and change out of your work clothes before you start cooking?’
Gideon was still wearing his white shirt and the dark trousers of his suit. ‘Into what? I don’t even own a pair of jeans, Joey,’ he explained as he saw her frown.
‘Why on earth not? ‘
Gideon shrugged. ‘I’m simply not a jeans sort of person.’
Amusement now glittered in those jade green eyes. ‘In that case—lead on, MacDuff!’
Gideon was smiling at Joey’s return to good humour—at his expense as usual, of course!—as he led the way to his kitchen. A kitchen, he realised uneasily, that with its black, lemon and chrome decor, and uncluttered and virtually unused work surfaces, was as impersonal as the rest of his apartment.
Which was exactly the way he liked it, Gideon reminded himself firmly. He moved across the room to take eggs, milk, butter and smoked salmon out of the fridge, suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of preparing a meal with Joey. Of preparing a meal with anyone. He rarely put himself to the bother of cooking at all—let alone for some cosy twosome with a woman he had previously considered to be both annoying and irritating.
Exactly when had he ceased thinking of Joey as being either of those things?
Oh, he was still frequently annoyed and irritated in her company, but not in the same way he had been before; now that annoyance and irritation was directed more towards himself—for allowing his attraction to her to become such a big part of his life.
‘You were right. I do feel much better now that I’ve eaten.’ Joey sat back on the stool opposite Gideon’s at the black marble breakfast bar where she had insisted they had to eat—rather than in the formal dining area of that cold, impersonal sitting room.
The two rooms of the apartment she had been allowed to see were both lacking in warmth. In fact they lacked any evidence at all of the personality of the man who actually lived here.
The top of his desk at St Claire’s was kept similarly devoid of any evidence of the type of man who worked there each day. Admittedly he was working in Lucan’s office at the moment, rather than his own, but earlier in the week Joey had needed to borrow a legal book from Gideon’s office farther down the hallway. Joey had unpacked those boxes of personal items she had brought with her on Monday, and placed them about Lexie’s office to make her feel more comfortable for the month she would be working there. But Gideon’s office, where he had worked every day for years, was as lacking in any warmth, let alone comfort, as his apartment.
Who lived like this?
Well…obviously Gideon did. But why did he? Was it just another manifestation of that ‘aloneness’ that helped to keep him removed from emotional involvement of any kind?
The same aloneness that now, in his allowing Joey into his apartment at all, was in danger of being demolished?
Joey had been too distracted earlier to appreciate that fact, but.
‘Please don’t think that I’m ungrateful for your suggestion earlier that I stay here with you tonight.’
His mouth compressed. ‘A suggestion you totally misunderstood.’
‘Yes, and now I’m attempting to apologise for it,’ she said evenly.
Gideon gave her an assessing, narrow-eyed look. ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he drawled finally.
Joey chuckled huskily. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be a little more gracious about it than this? ‘
Gideon’s gaze became mocking. ‘I’m enjoying the novelty of having the outspoken Joey McKinley apologise to me far too much at the moment to even attempt to be gracious.’
She grinned across the breakfast bar at him. ‘I’m not sure, considering how rude we are to each other, how we ever came to be caught in such a compromising position earlier—’ She broke off, her cheeks warming uncomfortably. ‘What I meant to say was—’
‘It’s okay, Joey. I know exactly what you were trying to say,’ Gideon acknowledged wearily—he had been trying to make sense of it all day himself. The only explanation he could come up with was that it had to be an attraction of opposites.
Joey was the warmth of sunshine to his cool of the moon. Was openly emotional to his icy reserve. Heatedly outspoken to his calm caution. Casually feminine—when she wasn’t in work mode and presenting a much tougher look—to his stiff formality.
Opposites, indeed.
And yet their attraction to each other was most definitely still there.
He frowned. ‘This morning was—’
‘I hope you aren’t about to insult me again, Gideon?’ Joey eyed him warily. ‘Because, the way I remember it, it was a mutual ripping off of clothes.’
Total opposites, Gideon acknowledged with a wince at her frankness. And yet that honesty was also commendable. It was even amusing on occasion. In fact he had found himself laughing out loud several times during the past week at some of her more candid comments.
‘We didn’t rip each other’s clothes off—’
‘As good as,’ she insisted bluntly.
Gideon’s mouth quirked. ‘No clothes were actually ripped. And in my own defence I would like to state that I usually exhibit better control than I did this morning.’
‘Oh, believe me, you give a whole new meaning to the word control,’ she assured him.
‘Which is why this morning’s…lapse was regrettable,’ he finished.
Joey gave him an exasperated look. ‘Tell me, Gideon, do your relationships usually last very long?’
He looked taken aback by the question. ‘Sorry?’
‘I asked do your relationships usually last very long?’ Joey repeated unapologetically; Gideon might be as handsome as sin, and an erotically accomplished lover, but she couldn’t see too many women putting up with the need he felt to analyse and dissect every aspect—particularly the physical part—of a relationship. She certainly found it less than encouraging.
Which was, perhaps, the whole point of the exercise?
Gideon frowned his displeasure. ‘I have always found it advisable to be completely honest when it comes to what you choose to call “relationships”.’
Joey quirked auburn brows. ‘And what do you choose to call them?’ she asked curiously.
He looked irritated now. ‘An arrangement of mutual needs.’
She gave a splutter of incredulous laughter. ‘An arrangement of mutual needs?’ she howled. ‘It sounds more like you’re discussing a business deal than a relationship!’
‘Probably because that’s how I prefer to think of them.’
‘And how long does it usually take you to put your “mutual needs” card on the table?’
That irritation flickered again across his brow. ‘I can always tell after a first date whether I want to see a woman again.’
‘Go to bed with her, you mean? ‘
Gideon’s mouth firmed. ‘Yes.’
Joey stared at him in wonder. ‘No wonder you’re still single at thirty-four.’
‘I’m still single at thirty-four, as you put it, through personal choice,’ he bit out tightly.
‘Keep telling yourself that, Gideon,’ Joey teased as she stood up to begin loading the plates from their meal into the dishwasher. ‘Personally, I’m surprised any woman ever agrees to go out with you a second time after you’ve given her your “mutual needs” speech!’
Gideon had no idea how this conversation had shifted to the way he conducted his personal relationships. Although why he should be surprised he had no idea; he could never predict or anticipate what the outspoken Joey McKinley was going to do or say next.
As demonstrated by her next statement!
‘I suppose I should feel grateful that you haven’t suggested having a “mutual needs” relationship with me.’
Gideon’s expression became guarded. ‘What would your answer have been if I had? ‘
She looked across at him. ‘Guess!’
Gideon continued to look back at her for several long, searching seconds, knowing by the angry glitter of her eyes and the flush to her cheek, exactly what her answer would have been to any suggestion on his part that they satisfy their physical desire for each other within the guidelines of his usual businesslike relationships.
He gave a tight smile as he stood up. ‘I’m not sure your answer is humanly possible.’
She laughed softly. ‘Probably not.’ She straightened as she finished clearing away. ‘Now, if you could just drive me back to the gym so that I can collect my car.’
‘I can do that, yes,’ Gideon said. ‘But only if I then either follow you back to your apartment and stay the night with you there, or alternatively we both come back here.’
‘Gideon—’
‘It’s non-negotiable, Joey,’ he stated.
Joey could see and hear that in the implacability of Gideon’s expression and tone. And, much as she didn’t relish the idea of him spending the night in her apartment—her ‘mutual need’ for Gideon might just rage out of her control if she knew he was laying naked in the room next to hers!—she appreciated the offer. Even if that offer was being made to Stephanie’s sister rather than to Joey personally…
‘Fine,’ she accepted finally. ‘But don’t expect me to play the gracious hostess and offer to let you sleep in the bed while I sleep on the sofa, because it just isn’t going to happen,’ she warned caustically.
Gideon gave a derisive smile. ‘I never expected anything else.’
She gave a sweetly saccharin smile. ‘I’m so pleased I didn’t disappoint you! ‘
Taming the Last St Claire Page 12