by Helen Brooks
'It seemed as though we shared a few kisses,' Reece said softly. 'How did it seem to you?'
'You know what I mean.' How could she want to run and fling herself into his arms, she asked herself incredulously, after all that he had said that night? But she did. Achingly so. The traitorous weakness made her voice even stronger when next she spoke. 'And it was more than just a few kisses anyway. You were very explicit about how you view woman, Reece—I had no excuse—but I'm not into casual affairs.' Unlike Sharon, she added silently.
'You want me, Miriam,' he said expressionlessly. 'You might not want to hear that but we both know it's the truth. Maybe you don't even like me, but your body knows exactly what it wants. And I know you aren't into affairs, casual or otherwise, but surely you don't intend to remain chaste for the rest of your life?'
'What I do or don't intend is nothing to do with you, Reece.' She had to be strong now, she told herself as a fierce pain at his apparently unemotional stating of the facts pierced her through. 'You were frank with me and now I'm being frank with you. I don't like the way you live, the way those women live. I couldn't be like that, and what's more I don't want to be. I find it… unacceptable and distasteful.'
'I wouldn't have thought you were the sort of person to sit in judgement of others so harshly,' he said coolly, still in that remote, cold voice that had no warmth or emotion in its depths.
'Neither would I,' she answered honestly, 'so it looks like I've surprised both of us.' Can't you see how much I love you? she asked him silently as she made her face as blank as his. Can't you see why the thought of you in another woman's arms makes me feel sick to my bones? How can you want Sharon and me at the same time?
'You know I'm attracted to you?' he asked flatly.
'Physically? Yes.' She nodded. 'As you've just said so succinctly we seem to strike some sort of spark off each other, but I'm sure that isn't a first with you.' She eyed him calmly as her heart pounded so hard that she was sure he could hear it. 'You think there's nothing wrong in wanting someone and fulfilling that need—'
'Hang on a minute,' he said roughly as his eyes darkened ominously. 'I don't know what that imagination of yours has been brewing but I don't go in for casual sex, if that's what you're insinuating. I won't deny I've been involved with a few women in my time, but at thirty-five you'd hardly expect to find me having lived the life of a monk, would you? I'm a normal man, Miriam, and a life of chastity is only for the very noble or those minus the baser urges, and I make no apology for fitting into neither category. That doesn't mean I've been running around like some sort of deranged debauchee since puberty. Each relationship I've had has meant something and lasted some time—'
'But you've never loved them,' she said tightly as a mixture of painful jealousy and sudden anger at his remoteness had her fighting to stay calm.
'No.' He was quite still, watching her. 'Would it have been better if I'd pretended I had? If I'd lied to you?'
'And you wouldn't love me,' she continued, as though he hadn't spoken. 'You've made that perfectly clear.'
'Does that matter?' he asked softly. 'You've also made it perfectly clear that I'm not exactly your ideal man. Couldn't we just take it a day at a time and see how we get to know each other?'
'In bed,' she said flatly. Not her ideal man? This had to be the ultimate irony.
'Not necessarily.' He smiled slowly. 'I can think of other places if you'd prefer.'
'I don't.' She didn't respond to his attempt to lighten the situation by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. 'You just don't see, do you, Reece? You're trying to seduce me at the same time as warning me that I'll never mean anything to you. You might call that being honest but I call it being cowardly.'
His face straightened now, his skin flushing a deep dark red as his eyes glittered hotly.
'You'll probably laugh your head off at this, but when I give myself to a man I want to at least be able to hope it will last for ever, be able to see myself with him for more than a few weeks or months. And I make no apology for that!' She took a deep breath and lowered her voice, which had begun to rise. 'I want my partner to think I'm the most precious thing on this earth, that there is no one like me,' she continued more quietly. 'I want a home and children and—'
'Slippers by the fire?' he asked with cutting coldness.
'Exactly.' She faced him without flinching at the mockery. 'Just that. I don't want to have to wonder who the nest lady in his life will be, to watch each new face that comes on his horizon and wonder if this will be the one who replaces me.'
'Dammit, it wouldn't be like that,' he ground out through clenched teeth, his eyes furious. 'You're making it sound as though all the odds are loaded on my side—'
'They would be.' She prayed that she could say what she had to say without giving herself away. 'With someone like me they would be. Perhaps not the other women that you've had affairs with—you'd be the best judge of that—but with me it wouldn't be the same. I couldn't give myself to you without loving you,' she added quietly, knowing that it was the one thing that would send him away. 'And we both know that that is impossible.' Because you wouldn't allow yourself to love me back, she added silently as his face whitened. 'Even if you wanted to, which you don't.'
'Impossible. Yes, I see.' The withdrawal in his face and body was a physical thing although he didn't move an inch. 'Then I think we've taken this discussion as far as it can go,' he said coldly. 'Thank you for your frankness.'
She had to force the flood of love and passion and tenderness that rushed in unawares at the sight of his white, still face back into the deep recesses of her mind as he turned and walked over to the doorway. She was angry with him for hurting her like this, furious that he wasn't even prepared to try and understand how she felt, but overall the main emotion was one of terrible sadness at the inevitability of it all. She hated him and loved him all in the same breath, and the hopelessness of it all was too painful to bear.
'I gather by the state of this kitchen and your general air of weariness that things haven't gone too well,' he said frostily as he turned and surveyed her from the doorway with chillingly neutral eyes.
'No, everything's fine, but today we got a bit behind,' she answered mechanically as she lowered her head and busied herself wiping the big work surfaces as she spoke. 'I shall stay here an hour or so more and catch up, and then—'
'The temporary staff are arriving tomorrow?' he interrupted flatly.
'Yes.' She bit back the urge to fly at him for his rudeness. 'Mrs Goode is going to oversee them and explain everything that is needed. I understand Craig's relations are coming to stay on Friday?' He nodded without speaking as she darted a glance at him. 'Mrs Goode and Jinny have prepared the guest rooms, so everything is under control.'
'Hardly.' The hard gaze flickered round the chaos in the kitchen. 'I would suggest you bring a case with you tomorrow and plan on being here for the next three or four days. You did assure me at the time of accepting the job that that would be no problem,' he added icily as she began to shake her head at the suggestion.
'But…' Her voice faltered as she glanced round the room. There was nothing else for it; she would have to move into the flat for a couple of days. That way she would be right on hand for any emergencies that might arise, and at the very least it would give her another two or three hours of working time a day. And she needed every minute.
'Fine,' she agreed stiffly. 'Mitch and the others have been working here through the day since Monday, and in spite of how things may appear tonight I can assure you there are no problems.'
'Good.' There was no vestige of the ardent lover in the shuttered face that looked at her so coldly. 'Keep it that way, please.' And then he was gone and she leant shakily against the edge of the cupboards as her legs turned liquid.
The swine—the cold-blooded, callous swine… She found her mind listing a number of expletives as she struggled for composure. How dared he come back and proposition her like that anyway—she shook h
er head blindly as she fought back acid tears—and then virtually accuse her of not doing her job properly when she didn't fall into his arms? She loathed him—she did.
The fury began to take over and quell the trembling, bringing her bolt upright as she vented her wrath on the hapless kitchen, clearing up in half the time it normally took her. And to think that she had thought she loved him! She must have been crazy—
'Miriam?' Barbara's dark head appeared round the door a second after her knock. 'Reece said you might still be here. I'm glad we haven't missed you. I wanted you to meet Craig.'
'Barbara.' She had quite forgotten that Reece's sister and her fiancé were due to arrive that evening, but now, as a massive giant of a man followed Barbara into the room, she just caught a glimpse of Reece scowling darkly in the doorway before her gaze switched to Craig's smiling face.
'Hiya…' She found herself enfolded in a pair of giant arms that would have done credit to any Mr Universe and felt her ribs creak in protest. 'I understand we have a lot to thank you for, Miriam,' Barbara's fiancé said cheerfully as he moved back a pace and surveyed her with a pair of the bluest eyes she had ever seen. 'It can't have been easy to take over like this,'
'It's what she gets paid for.' Reece's voice was liquid ice as he moved to their side, and his grey eyes were splintered points of light in his dark face as he glared at Craig.
'Well, yeh…' Craig was clearly out of his depth, and Miriam couldn't blame him. She had never seen such coldness in another human being's face, and all the poor man had done was thank her for helping them out with the wedding. She glared at Reece in her turn, quite forgetting Craig and Barbara for a moment, and they looked on with mounting interest at the little scene being enacted in front of them.
'Nevertheless, it is nice to know someone round here appreciates all the hard work,' she said pointedly, before turning to Craig with the most gracious smile she could summon in the circumstances. 'And it's really nice to meet you at last.'
'Likewise.' Craig grinned warmly, his wide smile showing white in the tanned darkness of his face.
He really was a prime specimen of manhood, Miriam thought detachedly as she gazed up into the boyishly attractive face that was topped by a mass of sun-bleached, overlong hair, but although she could appreciate what Barbara found so appealing she had to admit that he left her cold. And when he turned to Barbara, putting his arm about her waist as he pulled her into him, she could see that the handsome Australian had eyes for no one but his bride to be.
'This little lady has been extolling your virtues all the way down here, haven't you, angel?'
'We are grateful, Miriam.' Barbara obviously recognised the impending storm as she glanced at her brother's face again before ushering Craig out of the room quieter than they had come in. 'I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'm just going to fix Craig something to eat.'
'No way.' They heard him laughing as the door began to close. 'I intend to walk down the aisle on my wedding day, angel, not be wheeled down in a chair, suffering from acute food poisoning. Lead me to the kitchen and I'll organise the food.'
'Well?' Reece stared at her for a good few seconds and she willed herself to return the glare without wilting. 'Do they look like the ideal couple to you?'
'Do they have to?' she answered tightly. 'It's what's inside that counts—'
'Don't start that dewy-eyed nonsense on me again,' Reece warned frostily, 'especially after the little display you and the incredible hulk there put on for the rest of us.'
'What?' She stared at him in amazement. 'What on earth are you suggesting?'
'I'm not suggesting anything,' he countered grimly. 'I'm stating in plain English—which is something else Craig isn't too good at—that he was flirting outrageously and you were encouraging him.'
'I was not,' she shouted indignantly, her voice rising in line with her temper. 'And he was not flirting with me, for goodness' sake; can't you see how much he loves Barbara? He's just friendly, that's all—'
'Oh, he's friendly all right,' Reece answered coldly. 'In fact he's got that particular attribute down to a fine art, and always with the opposite sex from what I can make out.'
'But you don't know him,' she answered incredulously. 'How can you make snap judgements—?'
'I never make snap judgements, but I do have the sort of mind that can sort out the wheat from the chaff instantly,' he said coolly. It was said with such magnificent arrogance, such total disregard for normal, acceptable behaviour, that she didn't know whether to laugh or hit him, but in the end she did the former.
'You really are some sort of megalomaniac.' She smiled scornfully. 'I can't believe you're for real.'
'Believe it, Miriam,' he said darkly, and his mouth moved over hers for a moment, hot and sweet, before he walked briskly out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The first thing Miriam noticed as she surfaced from a heavy, troubled sleep the next morning was that her small bedsit was bathed in a quiet, pale glow and the normal morning noise from outside the window was strangely muted.
She lay for some moments in the soft warmth of the bed before steeling herself to move from the comfortable haven into the icy world beyond the covers. The old house was full of draughts and it wasn't at all unusual for the residents to have Jack Frost daub the inside of the windows as well as painting a scene outside.
She padded across to the window and as she pulled back the heavy old velvet curtains, which were more a protection against the sly air currents that permeated the old house than aesthetically attractive, a world of white met her eyes. It had obviously been snowing all night if the thick blanket already covering everything from rooftops to pavements was anything to go by, and still fat white feathery flakes were falling from a laden sky.
It was the last thing she needed at the moment, but in spite of the difficulties the bad weather would undoubtedly bring she stood for a moment just drinking in the magical fairyland outside, the harsh outlines of the bare trees in the small park opposite disguised under their mantle of silvery white.
'Beautiful…' She pushed a strand of silky red hair off her cheek as she breathed her satisfaction before noticing a movement in the street below. And then she froze. Reece Vance was standing looking straight at her window, his face uplifted to the starry flakes, and here was she with just a thin nightie between herself and nakedness.
She stepped back so quickly that she almost brought the curtains with her as her foot caught in the hem of one and the old curtain track groaned protestingly before mercifully deciding to remain in place.
Reece? What on earth was he doing outside her bedsit at this time in the morning? She just had time to run a brush through her hair and fling on her dressing gown before the bell sounded stridently downstairs, and after pushing her feet into the giant monkey slippers that Mitch had bought her for her birthday that year she hurried down, her cheeks flushed and her eyes apprehensive.
'Reece?' She opened the door at once to find him frowning on the doorstep. 'What's wrong?'
'Do you always do that?' he asked testily, without making any effort to step inside.
'Do what?' She stated at him bewilderedly, quite unaware of the warm, glowing picture she made in the doorway, her hair like fire against the white towelling robe and her cheeks flushed and pink.
'Open the door without using that thing?' He gestured to the small intercom fixed to the inside of tip hall with its own little security camera enabling the residents to see who was outside when the button was pressed.
'Only sometimes.' She smiled uncertainly as he shook his head grimly. 'I'd already seen you from my window anyway.'
'Miriam, this is the twentieth century in case no one's told you,' he said tightly as he stepped inside the hall, his bulk big and solid against her slimness. 'The landlord was clearly aware of the dangers of a young girl living alone even if you haven't taken them on board.' He looked at her sternly. 'You never, ever open your door again without finding out
exactly who is out there. Got it?'
'Reece, I am not exactly a young girl.' She stared up at him as his frown deepened. 'And what are you doing here anyway? It's only seven-thirty in the morning.'
'I'm well aware of the time.' He suddenly seemed faintly embarrassed as he turned and gestured towards the stairs, his voice terse. 'I presume you are going to offer me a cup of coffee on such a filthy morning?'
'When I know why you're here.' She stood her ground so that he was forced to turn and face her again.
'The weather conditions.' He shook his head irritably towards the door. 'The roads are lethal and the rust-bucket isn't too hot at the best of times. I thought it would be a good idea if I came and gave you a lift, especially as you're going to stay for a few days. You can use Barbara's car if you have to go out, but I'd prefer you to get anything you need delivered, OK?'
He turned and began to walk up the stairs. She stared at his departing back as she forced her mind, and her legs, into gear. It didn't mean a thing, not a thing, she told herself harshly as she followed in his footsteps. He was concerned that nothing jeopardised his sister's wedding, that was all, and if there was any kind of complication with herself then things could well grind to a halt. That was all this meant.
She had left her door open in her headlong dash downstairs, which earned another frown she chose to ignore. 'Tea or coffee?' she asked brightly as she followed him into the small but cheerful little room she called home.
'Ether.' The piercing grey gaze moved swiftly round the room, noticing the bright splashes of colour in the form of a carefully placed pot here, a few gaily bound books there, and came to rest on her watchful face. 'I can see you live here,' he said with a strange element of satisfaction colouring the dark voice. 'It's…provocative to the senses.'
'Is it?' She glanced round the room herself, trying to see it as he would. The curtains were old and faded with age, the carpet threadbare in places which a couple of outrageously coloured rugs hid quite well, but overall the general effect was one of determined cheerfulness in the face of very little money, and quite at odds with the splendour of his home. 'Is that a compliment or an insult?' she asked uncertainly with a faint smile.