Purely to avoid a confrontation on Christmas Day, Tessa had allowed her sister to assume that their little outing on Boxing Day was a foregone certainty. A so-called headache accompanied by a weak smile would at least give her some warning that ill health was destined to make an appearance first thing in the morning.
‘I’ll walk you up.’ Lucy shot to her feet, all worried concern.
‘No need. You…you stay here with…your friends. I’m more than capable of making it up some stairs without hurtling down backwards!’ She gently tried to prise her arm out of her sister’s grasp. Just the feel of those treacherous fingers on her made her want to recoil in misery.
But none of this was her sister’s fault. She had told herself this over and over again. Lucy had had no idea that she and Curtis were involved. As far as she was concerned, she wasn’t treading on any toes. Curtis was up for grabs and he had clearly not seen fit to enlighten her. The blame lay fully at his door.
Still…Tessa couldn’t bring herself to look at her sister so she remained staring glassily at the assembled trio still sitting down, who stared back at her with varying degrees of intoxication.
‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ Lucy hissed, tugging her towards the door, one hand around her waist. ‘You’ve been acting very strange today.’
‘Have I?’ Tessa muttered. She wondered how Lucy would react if she started pouring out what was in her head. Of course, she wasn’t going to do that. Not now, not ever. Opening up those particular dam gates would be a very bad idea. For a start, she would end up having to confess why it hurt so much, having to admit that she had fallen head over heels in love with a man whose feelings towards her were casual at best. Her sister would be horrified. God, she would probably join the Pity Crew, of whom Curtis Diaz was a platinum-card member!
‘You know you have! You’ve barely said a word all day! And after I slaved over a hot stove cooking up Christmas lunch for us!’
‘Poor Lucy,’ Tessa said unsympathetically. ‘Awful having to take care of yourself for a change, isn’t it? Not to mention, take care of me as well!’
‘I was just joking, Tess.’
‘Well, I’m not. I’m tired and my head hurts and I want to go to bed.’ She debated whether she should just go for it and inform her sister that the headache would still be ongoing in the morning so she could squash any idea of her trudging over to the Diaz place for Boxing Day frivolities.
‘Okay,’ Lucy said hurriedly, ‘but I’ll get you some painkillers and I have something here…’ She fumbled in one of her pockets and extracted a small silver object, which she handed to her sister. ‘It’s a whistle,’ she explained sheepishly. ‘No single girl is complete without one.’
Tessa took it and turned it over in her hand. ‘I know what it is, Lucy. I’m just wondering what I’m supposed to do with it.’
‘You’re supposed to blow it every time you need me.’ They had reached the bedroom and Lucy turned so that the sisters were facing one another. ‘Just in case I’ve not got round to saying this, Tess…I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me since Mum and Dad died… and…well, all the stuff you’re still doing now. I know I’ve been hard work in the past…’
Some of the frozen ice in Tessa’s heart melted. Or maybe just got redistributed to the ice block weighted against Curtis.
‘I’m so used to seeing you up and about in control of everything that…it’s been salutary to know that you can be as helpless as anybody else…’
‘What do you mean helpless?’ Tessa feverishly scanned back to how she had behaved throughout the course of the day. Quiet, yes, but had she come across as helpless? Had she been that transparent? She felt her face blanch, which increased Lucy’s level of sibling concern, and she found herself gently propelled into the bedroom and onto the bed.
‘Well, ill, you know…’ Lucy said awkwardly, looking across from where she was rummaging in her sister’s drawer for a nightdress. ‘Not physically able to do the caring thing that you normally do so well.’ She handed the nightdress to Tessa, unable to resist commenting on the baggy nature of it.
‘I like baggy,’ Tessa said, allowing some help with the process of getting undressed and then lying back on the pillows once she was in the baggy, thigh-length nightie with its Tigger motto.
Already sensitive to the unfolding nightmare between Lucy and Curtis, she mentally added a postscript to this statement. She liked baggy but men didn’t. Men liked women like Lucy, sexy women who wore sexy lingerie. Not that her sister favoured the kind of lacy jobs that were touted as sexy. More little strappy cotton vests and very brief briefs, which were perfect at tantalisingly showing up every inch of skin.
‘So what did you think of Curtis?’ Tessa asked, not meaning to but unable to help herself. She noticed the brightness in her sister’s eyes when the name was mentioned, as though someone had lit a lightbulb inside her. Just the way she had felt whenever he was around, Tessa thought painfully.
‘Very dishy.’ Lucy pretended to sigh but her eyes were still bright and excited when she glanced at her sister. ‘Don’t you think?’
Tessa shrugged. ‘He’s all right, I suppose, if you go for that kind of thing.’
Her heart clenched painfully even though her voice was perfectly modulated, even dismissive. If Lucy ever found out about the two of them, she would be appalled, but Tessa was quite sure that Curtis wouldn’t breathe a word. Even a fool would know that to spill those particular beans would be the death knoll of any burgeoning relationship and Curtis was no fool. Not by a long shot.
‘It’s not just the way he looks.’ Lucy looked seriously at her sister. ‘I mean, he’s good looking enough, but…he’s…well, I just get the feeling that he’s one of the good guys…’
Which shows how savvy you are when it comes to members of the opposite sex, Tessa thought. She closed her eyes, feigning exhaustion, and was pleased when her sister immediately took the hint.
The headache she had pretended now really did feel as though it was coming on. Her temples throbbed and her eyes were hurting from unshed tears. She finally drifted off to sleep with snatches of overheard conversation providing a rich foundation for a series of disturbing, disjointed dreams in which she pursued a faceless couple who disappeared out of reach whenever they came within touching distance.
She woke up at a little before nine, feeling as though she hadn’t slept at all. The same snatches of conversation that she had gone to bed contemplating resumed their relentless torture and not even the laborious process of having a bath and thinking about what to wear could push them to one side.
She emerged from the bathroom to find Lucy waiting for her, along with an immaculately prepared breakfast tray, complete with a flower in a vase.
‘You should have blown the whistle,’ Lucy said, frowning. ‘That’s why I gave it to you. You blow and I come. Still. Never mind. Look, I’ve made you breakfast. Am I or am I not the perfect sister? Toast, scrambled eggs, juice, coffee…’ She hovered like a sergeant major, watching as Tessa made her way over to the chair by the window, then she deposited the nicely arranged tray on her lap.
‘Course, you’ll have to gulp it down.’ She folded her arms and waited in expectation that her sister would obey orders. ‘I told Curtis that we’d be over by eleven, in time for some pre-lunch drinks, which leaves…’ she looked at her watch and did some mental arithmetic ‘…a little over an hour and you know how long it takes me to get going.’
‘My headache…’ Tessa made a wincing gesture and tucked into the breakfast, head downturned just in case Lucy spotted the little white lie. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it. My head…and my foot…I’d be better off resting up… But you go!’ The false brightness in her voice threatened to overspill into tears. She would have to watch that.
‘I can’t go on my own!’ Lucy’s voice was horrified. ‘You have to come, Tess!’
‘Have to? I don’t think so.’ When she glanced up at her sister, sh
e saw that Lucy was stricken. Stricken! One hour in the man’s company and she was already distraught at the thought of not seeing him! ‘You’ll be fine without me,’ she said coolly. ‘Face it, Luce, you’ve never needed me around to hold your hand when it came to dealing with the opposite sex.’
‘You don’t understand. Anyway, staying here will be horrible and grim and depressing. What will you do? Hang around watching television in your Tigger nightie?’
Sounded fine to Tess.
‘He might think that you’re annoyed with him for some reason,’ Lucy continued with a shrewdness that Tessa would never have expected.
It did make her think, though.
Lucy had a point. If she chickened out, Curtis would immediately come to the conclusion that he had offended her, and, since she was determined to emerge from her ill-conceived race into bed with him with dignity, showing any sign of offence was number one on the forbidden list.
Also, Curtis was unpredictable. He didn’t obey conventions. She wouldn’t put it past him to come to the house and confront her. If there was one thing Tessa knew she couldn’t handle, it was that. She shuddered over the remainder of her toast and egg and hurriedly gulped down a mouthful of coffee.
‘He probably wouldn’t even notice my absence,’ she said lamely, and Lucy made a stern tut-tutting noise under her breath.
‘False modesty and you know it!’ She removed the tray from her sister’s lap. ‘You just have to come. Now, what are you going to wear?’
‘Why is it so important for us to go, Luce?’ The question was innocent enough but Tessa’s eyes narrowed speculatively on her sister’s face, which reddened. The most conclusive sign of guilt Tessa could imagine. Her heart hardened. It was a good job Curtis Diaz wasn’t around, she thought bitterly. Her famed composure might have undergone some serious fracturing. Along with his head.
‘I thought I might take along some of my work,’ Lucy said, her colour deepening. ‘Curtis seemed very interested in the sort of stuff I’m doing at the moment.’
‘Oh, did Curtis?’
The inveterate charmer, she thought, her heart clenching. Always showed interest in other people and not just mild curiosity, but real interest. Or so it seemed. Poor Lucy. If she could have warned her, she would have, but she could hardly admit to speaking from experience and, besides, when it came to men, Lucy was a law unto herself.
But there were other ways of warning…
She stood up. Her foot, after that initial day of pain, was already strong enough to take some of her weight, though not comfortably. She still allowed herself to be helped to the bathroom and while she was doing her usual morning routine, even allowed Lucy to rifle through her wardrobe and choose some clothes for her to wear.
The choice was a pair of sand-coloured cord trousers, a similarly coloured roll-necked jumper and Lucy had completed the ensemble with a Burberry scarf of her own and a tan jacket, also hers, which fashionably came to mid-thigh. In terms of combating winter cold, it wasn’t very practical but it did look very fetching. Besides, Tessa didn’t have the energy to complain. Her energy was all being used up by the tide of emotions running amok inside her. There was just none left to distribute anywhere else.
They arrived at the Diaz house promptly at eleven, a minor miracle considering Lucy never arrived anywhere on time.
An intimate family gathering was Tessa’s greatest fear, and her fear was misplaced because they arrived to find a throng of guests. Family members, of which there were many, mixed alongside old family friends and various members of their family. And, of course, Anna was there, ready to usher them in.
In one corner of the enormous room stood the most impressive Christmas tree Tessa had ever seen. It stretched from floor to ceiling and glittered with tiny white lights and what looked like an entire Harrods department’s worth of stunning baubles, all in various shades of cream and ivory.
And lounging by the tree in a group was Curtis, dressed in his usual unique way. Faded jeans and a jumper with an off-puttingly elaborate pattern of reindeer. He saw her as soon as she walked through the door and Tessa felt that electric feeling of primitive awareness, as though her body had suddenly become alive. She smiled stiffly and then turned her attention back to Anna, asking her a thousand questions about her work at school and how she was getting on, whether her brief stint at filing was proving useful.
‘Very!’ Anna said, grinning. ‘Now I just file away anything I don’t like the look of, straight into the bin by my dressing table.’
‘Well, something useful did come out of your working stint,’ Tessa said teasingly, ‘aside from that valuable filing art. Look at you! Very trendy. I recognise the top. Isn’t that the one we got in that little boutique by the shoe shop?’
‘Yes. The one Dad thought was a little too tight and a little too colourful and a little too…unwearable for his precious daughter!’ Anna laughed. ‘Mr Pot decides to call Miss Kettle black. I mean, look at him…’ Her voice was soft with affection. ‘He’s the only one who would dare come to a do like this dressed in a pair of his oldest jeans and that jumper! A present from one of his ex-girlfriends, apparently.’
Tessa thought that she would rather not look at him, but she did anyway. The magnetic pull of his personality from across the room was just too much to bear. And besides, she and Anna were now being descended upon by various other people, Curtis’s brother, Mark, his wife, and a delicate, elderly lady who seemed to be a godmother to one of the boys. Tessa smiled and went onto autopilot when they asked her about her foot, which was in an endearing bedroom slipper, but her eyes strayed over to Curtis. Now, the little group that had surrounded him had disbanded. In their place was an animated Lucy, cheeks flushed, glass of champagne jiggling precariously as she talked and gesticulated. Like someone who had known him for years instead of the perfect stranger that she was. The portfolio that she had lugged over was nowhere in evidence and Tessa assumed that it had been dumped somewhere, that it had been no more than a plausible excuse for Lucy’s real reason for wanting to make it over here.
Jovial conversation continued to swim around her as she looked furtively at the chatting couple by the Christmas tree. Now Lucy must have said something about the tree, because she leant forward and gently touched one of the baubles, twirling it in her fingers.
She was dressed perfectly for the occasion. A deep burgundy skirt reaching to mid-calf and a small, long-sleeved top in a matching colour with a neckline designed to discreetly attract attention to what God had so generously given her up top. She had pinned up her long fair hair in an untidy pony-tail and a few artful strands danced around her cheeks as she leant forward to admire the bauble on the tree.
‘Great tree,’ Tessa said, looking away. ‘Must have taken for ever to decorate.’ She took time out to look at Curtis’s brother, who was clearly older and far more traditional than his younger sibling. He was also fairer, without the dramatic looks that Curtis possessed. An affable, charming man married to an elegant woman with two very good-looking children, both under the age of five. Tessa drank her first glass of champagne, decided that it was doing wonders for her spirits and accepted another from the tray that was being passed around by a young girl in uniform.
She had almost convinced herself that she had forgotten about Curtis’s presence in the room, when she felt a soft tap on her shoulder and looked around to find him smiling down at her, telling her that her foot would be the size of a beach ball if she continued standing on it for much longer.
‘Don’t worry.’ He grinned at his brother. ‘I’ll make sure she doesn’t want for drinks, nibbles or amusing company.’
They were friends, Tessa thought, not merely two men who happened to share the same gene pool. The look that passed between them was full of mutual affection. A bit like she and Lucy. She automatically glanced around and saw that Lucy was being Lucy with two elderly gentlemen.
‘There’s no need to treat me like an invalid,’ Tessa said in a prickly voice. ‘My foo
t’s actually a lot better. It must have been a very minor twist.’ She was acutely aware of his long fingers curled around her forearm as he led her towards one of the deep chairs in the corner of the room. ‘How was your day yesterday? It must have been marvellous sitting under that tree opening presents!’ Her voice was high and light and stunningly polite.
‘Oh, marvellous.’ He pulled up a footstool and perched on it, one arm resting lightly on the arm of her chair. ‘I was up at three in the morning, of course, all excited at what Santa might have brought for me.’ He grinned, inviting her to share his amusement, and Tessa looked back at him blankly.
When she thought of his little tête à tête with her sister, when she imagined the sizzling lust that must have sprung into life the minute he’d clapped eyes on Lucy, just the thought of sharing any kind of joke with him made her feel physically sick. But she still held onto her smile.
‘And what did you get?’ she asked politely. He had positioned his body in such a way that he effectively blocked out the rest of the circulating party. Most of the older people had found chairs for themselves and were catching up on a year’s worth of anecdotes. Mark and Emily’s two children were whizzing round the room, with Anna in attendance, and Lucy had moved on to another group with the effortless ease of the born mixer.
‘This magnificent jumper from an ex-girlfriend of long ago who’s now happily married with a child and apparently thinks I need taking care of in the way of clothing. I like it.’ He plucked at it and made a show of trying to make sense of the gaudy pattern.
‘It’s very cheerful.’
‘Which is more than can be said about you,’ Curtis said, with his usual lack of preamble. His blue eyes took on a wicked glint and Tessa quickly looked away.
The Billionaire Boss's Bride Page 13