He heard her swift intake of breath as her brain caught up with her admission and he couldn’t help himself. He half smiled and then raised both his hands to tangle into her hair and frame her face.
‘And I never believed for one moment that you were a gold-digger…’
‘You tricked me.’ Mattie pulled herself out of his grasp and realised that, rather than feeling angry at his verbal cleverness, she felt a certain reluctant admiration. The man had technique, that much had to be conceded. No wonder he was top of his tree.
She sat back down to look at him.
‘So tell me why you’re here.’
‘Because…because I can’t afford to be anywhere else. No. That’s not why. At least, that’s not the whole reason.’ She threw him that wary, narrowed glance that he was getting used to, the one that crawled under his skin and made him have unholy thoughts of possessing her, peeling away that defensiveness like the outer skin of an onion to reveal all the complex layers underneath.
‘Then what is? Tell me.’
Mattie looked down at her fingers resting lightly on the top of the table and then stole a glance at him.
‘We sort of grew up together, then when we were teenagers we went out. Frankie was always the one the girls fancied. Good-looking, athletic…’ She smiled to herself and Dominic felt a tight sensation of rage that even in retrospect this man could command a smile like that.
‘He was going to be a footballer. That was all he’d ever wanted. He’d play for a team in the premier league, earn a fortune, fulfil his dream. Then when he was nineteen his mum died and he sort of collapsed.’ She was still staring at her fingers and half talking to herself, but she could feel those dark, shrewd eyes on her face, watching her.
‘By then, I was thinking of leaving him. I think I’d outgrown him. I still liked him but…’ Now, that was something she had never really admitted, not even to herself, but talking was putting everything into perspective.
‘But you wanted to get on with your own dreams?’ Dominic inserted the question without disturbing the atmosphere, and he saw her nod slowly.
‘’Course, I couldn’t then. Couldn’t walk away from him when he needed my support, so I kind of postponed the course I’d applied for and carried on in my job. His mum and dad had bought this house from the council, oh, years ago. We moved in.’ Mattie released one long, expressive sigh. ‘I think I could do with a drink,’ she said abruptly. ‘Want one?’
Dominic shook his head and watched her open the fridge door, frown, pull out a can of lager.
‘I don’t normally drink this stuff,’ she said, sitting back down and tugging the tab open. ‘But…’ She shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of lager straight from the can, watching him over the rim so that he wondered whether she was doing that just for his benefit. Another little ruse to elucidate that she was not the kind of woman who daintily sipped her lager from a chilled glass or, rather, that she was the kind of woman who drank lager at all.
He had to take his hat off to her. This woman was like none other he had ever met.
‘You moved in…?’ he prompted delicately.
‘We moved in. For a while it worked. Then he went out drinking one night and was involved in an accident. He was the passenger. Nothing serious, no one else involved…’
‘What happened?’
‘Car veered off the road and swung into a tree at the side. Trouble was…one of his legs was damaged.’ She had only taken one mouthful, didn’t really want any more than that. She had just needed the boost the touch of alcohol would afford her. Besides, she loathed drinking straight from the can. Now she cradled the cold can between her hands and looked at it.
‘Not massively. But sufficient to ensure that he couldn’t hope to become a professional footballer.’
‘A tough blow.’ He barely needed her to tell him what had followed, although she did, in the same low, thoughtful voice. The inevitable slide downhill, the anger, the frustration, the pity she had felt that had kept her tied to him.
‘So, you see, I’m here for lots more reasons than simply the fact that I don’t have to pay any rent.’
‘You could transfer the money you spend on keeping him into paying for something of your own…’
‘And how would Frankie cope?’
It was all Dominic could do not to shake her. ‘Quite ably, I imagine,’ he said instead, his voice silky, ‘because he would have to. The need to survive without your help might go a long way to killing off the need to drown his self-pity in drink.’
Mattie stood up and he could see that her shutters were back in place. He was the millionaire and she was the streetwise kid. He had no doubt that she had come across boys from the other side of the tracks when she had been growing up. Had probably been targeted by one or two of them, with her amazing looks, and had developed a good line in switching off.
‘I’ll see you to the door, shall I?’ She waited for him to stand up and then preceded him to the front door, where she waited patiently for him to finish his lazy stroll through the house.
‘So there you have it. Now you can go away, safe in the knowledge that you weren’t in any danger of being lured into parting with your precious millions by the likes of me.’
‘By the likes of you…’ Dominic murmured, leaning against the door and looking down at her. ‘I can see why your boyfriend ended up taking refuge in the bottle…and whatever or whoever else he takes refuge in…but why the chip on your shoulder?’
‘I don’t have a chip on my shoulder.’
‘Of course you do. A chip the size of a house.’
‘Because I haven’t leapt joyfully into bed with you?’
‘Because you keep trying to make me see that the lines between us are inviolable.’
‘They are.’ Underneath the insistence in her voice she could also hear panic and she hoped that he couldn’t as well.
‘Well, your affair with this Frankie character you grew up with didn’t work out, did it?’
The question, along with its obvious implications, hung in the air like an accusing finger. Mattie shrugged.
‘He needs me.’
I need you too, was the first thought that rushed to Dominic’s head and it left him shaken. Need? Need never entered his relationships with the opposite sex. Lust, yes. Want. Affection. But never need and certainly never love, as he had discovered to his own cost.
‘You’re his caretaker.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘Of course it is. Clucking around him, overlooking his shortcomings and doing yourself out of a life in the process.’
The accusing finger was doing more than hover now. It was jabbing at her conscience like a knife.
‘I am not doing myself out of a life! I’ve just completed my course!’
‘For which, I presume, your beloved Frankie gave you all the unstinting help and support you wanted?’ The answer to that one was written in the delicate blush that invaded her cheeks.
‘He…he has his own personal demons to sort out,’ Mattie mumbled, lowering her eyes so that she didn’t have to meet the cool comprehension in his. She wished he would move from the door, so that she could pull it open and put an end to this hideous unravelling of her private thoughts, but he obviously was intent on staying put.
Until what? she wondered.
‘And you’re going to stay with him until he sorts them out?’ Dominic enquired coolly. ‘However long it takes? Make sure he’s all right before you give yourself the opportunity to live your life the way you want to? You’d better pray that no further mishap befalls him or else you might find yourself growing old in the company of a man you’ve forgotten how to love. Pity is no basis for a relationship.’
Mattie looked up at him, ready for a fight. Fighting might take the edge out of the truth that he was forcing her to swallow, as though he had every right.
‘Oh? And what is? If you’re so clever when it comes to relationships, I’d love to know how come you’re not in one.�
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Touché, Dominic thought wryly. He looked at her standing there, and wondered what she would do if he reached out and enveloped her in his arms. Which was what he wanted. That and a great deal more.
‘Is this a case of I told you my life story, now you tell me yours?’
‘It’s only fair, considering you’ve spent the past hour preaching to me on what I’m doing wrong in my personal life.’
‘What’s my incentive for telling you my life story?’ Of course, he had no intention of doing any such thing, but the alternative was to walk out of the front door he was currently managing to barricade, and he had no intention of doing that either.
‘Fair play?’
‘Interesting concept.’
This wasn’t the fight she had been hoping for. This was flirting and all the more dangerous because it was subtle. Every nerve-ending in her body was standing to attention. The aggressive I-can-take-care-of-myself-thanks-very-much girl she had been at pains to display had taken a distinct back seat to someone she didn’t recognise, to a kiss-me-senseless creature that made her giddy.
‘I don’t confide in people as a rule.’ Dominic crashed through her jittery thoughts and his mocking smile made her feel even hotter and more bothered than she was already feeling.
‘No?’ Mattie asked faintly.
‘No. People have a nasty habit of storing up confidences and then using them against you at some future date.’
‘There won’t be any future date between us, so your secrets will be safe with me.’
‘You need to tempt me just a little bit more.’
‘Yes? And how would you suggest I do that?’ Stupid question. He had led her with her eyes wide open straight into the little trap he had set. What he wanted her to do was obvious in the dark, slumberous expression in his eyes. And what was even worse was that it matched the hot thread of desire that was surging through her like a toxin.
‘No way. I’ve told you, I’m not up—’
The sentence was unfinished as his mouth claimed hers and hell, it felt good. She was aware of her half-hearted attempt to push him away, just a formality, then with a muted groan she was returning his kiss with shocking enthusiasm.
Her hands wound upwards, around his neck, and then her fingers were in his hair, pressing him towards her as her mouth responded to his probing tongue.
Their positions altered, with Dominic shifting away from the door, his mouth never leaving hers as he propelled her against the wall by the door, captured her there with his mouth and his hands, which wanted to touch everything even though he knew the wisdom of reining in that particular instinct at this point in time.
He contented himself with just feeling her melt beneath him and hearing her soft little moans that were driving him crazy with desire.
When they finally drew apart, their expressions were equally ragged.
‘Tell me that again,’ Dominic demanded, but in a voice that could melt ice. He played with her hair, tucking some behind her ears, twirling strands around his finger.
‘Tell you what?’
‘That you’re not up for…grabs? Was that what you were going to say?’
‘You’re no good for me,’ Mattie murmured. ‘I know you say that lines between people aren’t inviolable and maybe they’re not. But the way I feel, I would be the waitress to your tycoon and just feeling like that would make anything we had a farce.’
Dominic repressed the urge to thunder some sense into her. They wanted one another. The language of their bodies said it all. Wasn’t that enough? he wanted to demand.
‘You can’t stay here,’ he said instead. His voice was rough with suppressed emotion.
‘I can’t leave. Not yet.’
‘And, in the meantime, I walk away from what we have…’
‘We don’t have anything.’
‘What we could have, correction.’
‘You’ve learned never to confide and I’ve learned never to speculate.’ She was finally getting herself back into some semblance of control but his proximity was still suffocating her. She wriggled and he immediately stepped back.
His face was dark and scowling, and she couldn’t stop herself from feeling just the slightest kick at the sight. Then the reality of her situation closed over her again. Frankie. No job. Waitressing in skimpy clothes to make ends meet. And this man who could take her in a minute, whose eyes made her burn, who was so totally unsuitable. In every respect.
‘Go.’
‘This isn’t the end.’
Mattie gave another of her evasive shrugs. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but never got there because they both heard the key in the door at precisely the same time, and as she turned around she could feel his eyes scan her averted face urgently.
What the heck had she been thinking? That Frankie would never reappear? Had she been so caught up with Dominic Drecos that she had managed to completely forget all about reality?
This is reality, she told herself fiercely, and don’t you forget it.
Frankie staggered in, adopted the usual belligerent expression he assumed whenever he was drunk and confronted by her, then noticed Dominic standing to one side, very still, not in the least embarrassed. That changed his expression, Mattie noticed. From glowering to stupefied, all in the space of a couple of seconds.
‘Who the hell is he?’ His words were slurred but his brain was still operating.
Dominic moved forward, not bothering to extend his hand in any form of greeting. Nor did he bother to introduce himself by name.
‘Your replacement,’ was all he said. Mattie could barely look at him. How could he?
Then he was gone. No rush. Just one last contemptuous stare at an inebriated Frankie.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘WHAT’S going on, Mats?’ He looked bewildered and vulnerable and a wave of pity swelled inside her. She didn’t know who she hated more, Dominic for bringing about this situation or herself for allowing it.
‘We need to talk, Frankie. Tomorrow. When you’re…’
‘Not the worse for wear?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Might as well get it over with, I say. This little talk of ours.’ He managed to make it to the sitting room, where he promptly collapsed into a chair with his eyes closed.
Mattie wondered whether he had fallen asleep, but then he rubbed his eyes, opened them and looked at her.
‘D’you have to stand there in the doorway like a bloody sergeant major?’
‘Look, Frankie…’ She took a few steps into the room then sat on another chair and pulled her legs up so that she was hugging her knees, giving herself the moral strength she needed when her insides were feeling like jelly.
‘How long’s it been going on, Mats? A month? Two months? A year?’ He covered his face with his hands, but when he next looked at her there was no expected anger or jealousy in his eyes, just a kind of sad regret.
‘Nothing’s going on, Frankie. You have to believe me. I met him just over a week ago at the club. Well, he met me, actually. Followed me. But nothing happened between us.’ She thought of the kisses that had ravaged her and made her want to drink up all of him. They might well have slept together because the infidelity had already been committed in her head.
‘Don’t blame you, Mats.’ This time there was an edge of self-derision to his laughter that made her blood run cold. ‘Look at me. Think I don’t know what I’ve become? Not much of the man you thought I was going to be, eh, Mats? Bit of a loser, all told.’
‘No.’ She could feel tears prick the backs of her eyes and she went over to where he was slumped on the sofa and wrapped her arms around him, the way a parent might wrap her arms around a child who had been hurt. Except she couldn’t kiss the hurt and make the pain go away.
‘Me and you, we ain’t going anywhere, Mats.’
‘Don’t say that, Frankie. I… You know how much I…’
‘Loved me once? Yeah, I know all that.’ He held her arms and ran his fingers along them. It was the first
time they had had any physical contact for a very long time, and there was no charge behind this physical contact now. Just the affection born of years of knowing one another. ‘I still love you, Frankie. I’d never hurt you, not in a million years! And Dominic is no one. We never made love.’
‘And I never meant to hurt you, pet, but we bring each other down. No good us denying it. Once I was going to be somebody, then the accident and everything got lost. Me, you, us. Two kids playing at housekeeping, that’s all we were.’
‘Don’t say that.’ The errant tear turned into a silent stream.
‘I know you haven’t got anywhere to stay, Mats and I’m not going to chuck you out. I’d never do that. You can stay here for as long as you want, but…’
She’d thought of all of that, had known the truth of every word he was saying now, but she felt like a piece of glass suddenly splintered into a thousand pieces. For good and bad, Frankie had always been her certainty, even though they were bad for one another.
‘I’ve given you hell these past few months, Mattie. Hated myself for doing it but I just couldn’t seem to help it. Don’t cry, pet. Here, got a hankie somewhere. No, I haven’t sorry. Use my shirt.’
‘I shouldn’t have done that course. I should have stayed where I was. You were right.’
‘You’re talking rot and you know it.’ He sighed and wrapped his arms tighter around her. ‘I was jealous, was all. Seeing you moving on like that, and me without a job, down the boozer all the time. Us not talking like we used to. Mats, we were kids when we met and then stuff happened and we grew up but…’
‘No, don’t say it,’ Mattie whispered.
She knew what he was going to say. She had thought it herself over time, but she still wanted to shut the words out.
‘We weren’t meant for one another, Mats. Not really. Lord, we haven’t even touched one another for months. Time was when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other! Remember how it used to be? When we were young?’
‘I can’t walk away from you, Frankie. Not after everything we’ve been through.’
‘You need to, Mats. Can’t keep depending on your goodwill all my life, now, can I? Tomorrow I’m going to clear out for a while. You can have the place, move out when you’re good and ready.’
The Greek Tycoon's Secret Child Page 7