He fell into step with her. ‘Now I’m hurt,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘I thought you cared…’
The mildly flirtatious teasing had been conspicuous by its absence and now it made her already heated skin begin to prickle with all the dangerous awareness she had successfully slapped down over the past few weeks.
‘Well, you were wrong. Why are you following me?’
‘Because I’m trying to persuade you to come and have a drink with me considering you never managed to make it to our little lunchtime party earlier.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’
‘Because you need to get that important stocking filler.’
‘That’s right.’ The underground was now within sight, visible between the hordes of people who were also apparently on the search for last-minute Christmas gifts. The sight of that many people made her feel a little ill but now that she had told him she needed to shop, she had little choice but to honour the white lie, with him walking next to her like an unwanted shadow.
‘In which case, I think I need to get a few things myself. We could go and have that drink afterwards.’
‘No, we cannot!’ Tessa refused vehemently, stopping to glare at him and irritating the flow of people who were forced to break their hurried stride around them.
‘Scared, Tessa?’ he taunted softly. ‘You didn’t manage to make it to the company do a couple of weeks ago either. A sudden cold, if I remember correctly?’
‘I have to go, Curtis.’ She spun around, blinded by rage at what she could only assume was mockery in his voice. Never mind how clever and good looking and incisive and witty he was, she thought furiously, he was still the Man with the Oversized Ego.
She hurtled away from him, struggling against the sea of people, caught up in them as they began to cross the road as one on the go ahead of the little green man from the traffic lights.
Her thoughts were spinning off on a tangent, paying scant attention to the pavement, when her leg buckled under her. The crowd that had virtually carried her along in its surge from one pavement to the middle island had failed to be so accommodating as they’d hurried towards the far pavement.
Tessa gave a groan of pain, tried to maintain an upright position, but, with no one to hold on to, she slid inelegantly onto cold, hard tarmac and, had it not been for a couple of steel arms lifting her out of her embarrassed misery, she was convinced that people would simply have stepped over her in their haste to finish the rest of their Christmas shopping.
The owner of the steel arms spoke in an all-too-familiar voice and Tessa groaned again, this time with heartfelt dismay mixed in with the shooting pain in her ankle.
‘You could have been trampled,’ Curtis said and Tessa opened one eye to look at him. For once, there was no smile on his face as he fought his way across the road, belligerently ordering people to stand aside so that he could get through and cursing under his breath.
He briefly allowed her to stand on one foot for the ten seconds it took him to hail a taxi.
There was no point telling him that she was fine and would be able to make it back to her house without help. She wasn’t fine. Her foot was killing her. She doubted she would have been able to call a taxi for herself, never mind anything else.
Once in the back of the cab, she managed to wriggle herself into a fairly upright and dignified position and turned to him stiffly.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. How does it feel?’
‘Awful.’ She experimentally tried to move it and winced. It was already beginning to swell and she didn’t protest when he gingerly eased it onto his lap so that he could remove her shoe.
‘We need to get you to a hospital. Get this properly seen to.’
‘No!’
Curtis ignored her, leaning forward to tell the driver to get them to the Kensington and Chelsea Hospital as quickly as he could without killing anyone, then he sat back and reached his hand along her thighs.
‘What are you doing?’ Tessa yelped, trying to tug her leg away from him but greatly hampered by the pain in her foot every time she moved it. ‘Get your hands off me!’
‘Shh!’
‘I will not shut up!’ Her uncooperative leg refused to sprint off his lap.
‘Look,’ he said bluntly, ‘There will be some gravel, probably, embedded in your ankle and knees where you took the brunt of the fall. With your leg swelling up at the rate it is, the gravel is going to become glued to your tights and it’ll be a hell of a job removing them later on. If I could guarantee that we’d be at the hospital quickly, fine, but look at the traffic. It’s Christmas and a half-hour drive could end up taking a lot longer.’
Tessa looked out of the window. The traffic was moving like treacle.
‘Now I’m not too sure what you think I might get up to in the back of this taxi, but if you want to try and remove your tights yourself, then go ahead. I’ll do the gentlemanly thing and look away, shall I?’ There was a sharp, bitter edge in his voice that made her wonder whether he had now added the adjective ridiculous to the dull one he had already attached the minute he had first clapped eyes on her. Maybe he thought it frankly pathetic that she might overestimate her desirability to the extent that he would make a pass for her again. Again and especially in the back seat of a public transport vehicle.
Tessa still made a go of trying to do it herself, but manoeuvring her foot was next to impossible.
‘Done trying?’ Curtis asked, watching her with detached, cool interest.
By way of answer, Tessa sighed and leant back, closing her eyes so that she didn’t have to witness the spectacle of him disrobing her.
Which didn’t stop her feeling the slide of his cool fingers along her legs, up past her thighs to her waist, where he gently eased the tights down, pausing and taking extra care when he came to the swollen ankle.
‘Mission accomplished,’ he said, holding the tights up in one hand. ‘You can open your eyes now.’ His voice was still edged with suppressed impatience, as was his face when Tessa did open her eyes to look at him. She snatched the tights and stuffed them into her handbag.
‘Thanks.’ Her legs were still tingling from where he had touched them, even though there had been nothing personal in the touch. ‘I’m sorry to be keeping you from…from whatever it was you had planned… There’s no need for you to stay with me once we get to the hospital. I know Casualty can be busy at these places, and I’m more than capable of sitting quietly on my own till I get seen to.’
Curtis didn’t answer. He had replaced her feet on his lap and he looked at them. Perfect, narrow feet with delicately painted pink toenails. Hardly the sort of feet to be cooped up in tight court shoes, which was what she had been wearing. But then, didn’t this woman wear her clothes like a suit of armour? Stiff little suits that stifled every scrap of femininity? Except he knew, didn’t he, that take the clothes away and she was highly feminine?
They spent the next twenty minutes in silence, while the cab driver did his best to beat the traffic.
By the time they reached the hospital, Tessa’s nerves were fraying badly at the edges. She had never known Curtis to be quite as silent as he had been in the taxi. He wasn’t garrulous in the manner of some people who talked even when they had nothing of interest to say. He talked because he was interested. It was all part and parcel of his charm, of that bigger-than-average personality that grabbed people and had them hooked and hanging onto every word he uttered.
She let him help her in, stifling the temptation to insist on paying for the taxi herself, considering she was the one who had needed it. As soon as they were through the door, though, she turned to him with a bright smile, trying to ignore the pounding in her ankle.
‘Thanks again. I can take it from here.’
‘I’m going to help you to that chair over there and then you’re to sit down. I’ll be ten minutes.’
‘Look,’ Tessa said, politeness giving way to irritation because she just didn’t want him ar
ound her, ‘there’s no need.’
He ushered her to the one free spot, still protesting under her breath, and sat her down, then he leaned over her, supporting himself on the metal arms of the chair.
‘Don’t even think of staging a protest by doing anything. I’ll only be a few minutes.’
‘This is ridiculous. It’s my fault I’m here and I don’t feel very happy about…’
Any further protest was stifled as he placed his mouth very firmly over hers, administering one hard, swift kiss that succeeded in removing all power of speech.
‘Well, at least there’s something that can shut you up,’ he murmured.
She was still struggling with a mixture of shock, outrage and stupid, uninvited pleasure when he returned, in less time than he had said.
‘Right. Come on.’
‘Come on where?’
‘I’m getting you in for a quick look at that foot. Should take a few minutes unless they feel you need an X-ray.’
‘But…but we’re queue jumping!’ She squeaked as he lifted her up in one smooth movement and began striding down the corridor, pushing open the double doors at the end with one foot.
‘That’s a very English response. Don’t worry. This doctor is a personal friend of mine and doesn’t work on Casualty. You’re taking him away from nothing but his regulatory break.’
‘Which he probably needs!’
She was relegated to sidelines when, minutes later, she found herself sitting in a room while Curtis and a young, bespectacled doctor discussed her foot, as though she were only rudimentarily attached to it.
The pronouncement was as Curtis had expected. Sprained but not broken. It was bandaged, a prescription for painkillers was given to be taken only as necessary, two on the spot to ease some of the immediate discomfort, and then the two men chatted briefly before she was established in a wheelchair, feeling an absolute fraud.
‘I suppose some time today I might be able to stop thanking you.’ Tessa forced gratitude into her voice. Of course, he would not allow her to return home on her own. Even though he must have gleaned by now that she didn’t actually want him around her, he was still insisting on playing the knight in shining armour.
‘Why do I get the feeling that it sticks in your throat?’ No ready smile in return to her remark. If she was putting him out that much, she thought nastily, then he had been given more than ample opportunity to shed his duties.
‘No one likes to think they’ve made a burden of themselves.’
‘And no one likes to think that they’re encouraging resentment simply by being humane.’
‘No one asked you to be humane!’
‘Would you have preferred me to have left you lying in the street? To get on with it?’ Curtis snarled.
Tessa offered him a silent profile. She expected him to direct a few more verbal missiles at her, but when the silence lengthened she couldn’t resist peeking, just a little. He was staring out of the window and even though she couldn’t actually see his face, she could pretty much guess the expression on it. Sheer anger. He had been kind enough to try and break her dull routine by inviting her out for a drink, had been humane enough to rescue her when she needed help, had in fact pulled a few strings so that she had avoided a five-hour wait in Casualty on a bleak winter’s night, and what, he must be thinking, did he get in return? Certainly not the flowery, dewy-eyed declarations of gratitude he had expected.
Tessa could almost feel sorry for him. Except the fact that he was so busy feeling sorry for her stuck in her throat and she had to bite back the temptation to hit him right over his egotistic, masculine head. With her perfectly good right arm.
They reached her house and she politely allowed him to help her to the door, even take her inside.
However, extending the gentlemanly routine to making her a cup of coffee and fetching her something to eat while she rested her leg was beyond the bounds. And she didn’t want him in her house. Leaving his mark in yet more places for her to have to deal with at a later date.
‘That’s very kind,’ she said from her disadvantaged position on the sofa where he had laid her, ‘but I can manage from here. And besides, you don’t want to let that taxi driver go. It’ll be hell trying to get hold of another one at this time of year.’
He gave her a brief nod and disappeared, leaving her on the sofa to nurse a certain amount of disappointment. Well, he would have better things to do than sit around taking care of his secretary because she had been foolish enough to sprain her ankle. Susie’s mystery replacement waiting in the wings wouldn’t be too overjoyed to find herself sidelined by some woman to whom he felt obligated because she happened to work with him!
‘He’ll be back in a couple of hours.’ Curtis reappeared, a dark, brooding presence by the sitting-room door. ‘And there’s no point wasting your breath telling me what I should and shouldn’t have done.’
‘How did you manage to get him to agree to come back for you?’ Tessa asked in a small voice.
‘Money. Now, I’m going to make you some egg on toast and some tea.’ He handed her the remote for the television. ‘Watch some TV. It’ll take your mind off your foot.’
But not off him. Unfortunately. Despite raising the volume on the television, she was still acutely aware of him in the kitchen, rustling something up, handling her cooking utensils. He would have dumped his coat and jacket in the hall, and would have shoved up the sleeves of his faded denim shirt, exposing his strong, muscular forearms. He always had to loosen his clothing when he worked, undo a couple of buttons on his shirt, push up the sleeves, as though being buttoned up stifled his creative genius.
He returned with the promised egg on toast and a pot of tea, all on a tray that he placed on her lap, having first made sure she was comfortable by puffing up the cushions behind her and dragging over a pouffe on which she could rest her legs.
Tessa thanked him and ate, feigning deep concentration on the Christmas programme on the TV, and he let her get away with it, allowing her to think that she might, just might, be able to ignore his presence for the next hour and a half.
She realised how much she had misread his obliging silence when, as soon as she had finished eating, he removed the tray to ask her what time her sister was expected back.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Tessa said dryly. ‘She’s out with a crowd of her college friends and I told her to stay with one of her friends who lives in central London rather than risk trying to find a taxi late at night to bring her back here. I’ve booked her one for the morning.’
‘In which case—’ he held out one hand, which Tessa looked at dubiously ‘—you need to have a bath and I intend to help you.’
‘You must be mad!’
‘I think I must be…’ Curtis muttered under his breath. He leant down and, before she could launch into her routine of shoving him away, he picked her up, ignoring her shrieks and flailing limbs.
The bathroom was very easy to locate, sandwiched next to the airing cupboard and between the main bedroom and the guest room which, judging from the art on the walls, would belong to Lucy.
‘Now,’ he said in a steely voice, ‘are you going to carry on kicking and screaming, in which case I’ll just continue holding you till you tire yourself out, or are you going to be a nice little girl and do what you’re told?’
‘Put me down!’ she snapped.
‘Sure. In a minute.’ Still carrying her, he clicked the key to the bathroom door, locking them both in, and pocketed it. Tessa let out a howl of outrage.
‘How dare you?’
Curtis placed her on the wooden linen basket and stood up, arms folded. ‘Don’t get into a state, Tessa. I said I would help you have a bath, not get in it with you!’
‘I don’t need a bath and I don’t need your help!’
‘I’m going to run the bath. You can get out of your clothes. You should be able to do that just fine but you’ll need me to help you in, especially as this Victorian bath is so high-sided.’
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He began running the bath, tipping bath foam in and testing the temperature with his hand. ‘Okay. I take it from the lack of tell-tale rustling that you haven’t removed a stick of clothing. If, when the bath is run, you’re still glaring at me and trying to pretend that you’re comfortable with being grubby, then you’ll leave me no choice but to abandon my gentlemanly approach and undress you. On the other hand, you have my word that I’ll look away if you undress yourself and leave the bathroom as soon as you’re in the water. Deal?’
‘Deal? Deal? You’ve got a nerve, Curtis Diaz! You know that, don’t you?’ Under the simmering anger, she could feel her heart hammering inside her and her heightened state of awareness was making her limbs go weak, and it had nothing to do with her sprain. In fact, the tablets had reduced the sharp pain to a bearable discomfort.
‘I reckon you’ve got roughly two minutes,’ he answered, with his back still to her.
He meant it! The arrogance of the man left her speechless, but that didn’t take away the fact that he meant every word. If she didn’t clamber out of her clothes, he would do it for himself. Tessa hurriedly removed her blouse, leaving her bra in place, then, standing on one leg, she shuffled her skirt down, leaving her underwear similarly in place.
He switched off the bath.
‘The bra and pants stay on,’ Tessa said, folding her arms. ‘If they get wet, they get wet. I’ll get them off myself once I’m in the water.’
‘Fair enough.’ He lifted her up, breathing in, catching the mutinous set of her mouth out of the corner of his eye. Also catching the way the bra gaped as he held her, the way he could see the curve of her breast, the hint of her nipple just partially hidden by the lacy fabric. His breathing thickened and he had to tear his eyes forward as he placed her gently in the water and her body was hidden from view by the layer of bubbles.
‘Right,’ he said roughly, turning away and not looking over his shoulder as he slotted the key back into the door and opened it, ‘I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Okay?’
He cleared out of the bathroom as quickly as he could. One more minute in there and he would be in need of a bath himself, an ice-cold one.
The Billionaire Boss's Bride Page 10