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She had kept this painting, hadn’t she? Kept it, hung it on her wall long after she’d shown the artist the door.
“I’ve no breakfast meats up here,” Darcy said as she came out. “So I’ll have to go down and pilfer from Shawn. Would you like bacon or sausage, or have you room for both?”
“Did you sleep with him?” It was out, stinging the air, before he could stop it.
“What?”
“The artist, the one who painted this.” Trevor turned, faced his own senseless outrage. “Did you sleep with him?”
She took a moment to try to think over the wild beat of blood in her head. “You’re trying my patience, Trevor, and I’m not known for it to begin with. So I’ll only say that’s none of your concern.”
Of course it wasn’t. “The hell it isn’t. Was he in love with you? Did you enjoy that, being that fantasy for him, before you sent him on his way?”
She wouldn’t let it hurt. It wouldn’t be permitted. So she concentrated on the bright fury in Trevor’s eyes and let her own rise to meet it. “That’s a fine opinion you have of me, and not so far from the mark. I’ve had men, and make no excuses for it. I’ve taken what suited me, and so what?”
He jabbed his hands into his pockets. “And what suits you, Darcy?”
“You did, for a time. But we seem to be at the end of that. Take yourself off, Trevor, before each of us says something that makes it impossible for us to deal with one another again.”
“Deal?” She was a cool one, wasn’t she? Cool and composed while he wanted to rage. “There’s always the deal, isn’t there? Contracts and payments and benefits. You keep your eyes on the prize.”
She went white, her eyes a blazing blue in contrast. “Get out. Get out of my house. I don’t take a man to my bed who looks at me and sees a whore.”
Her words slapped him back, to sense and to shame. “I never meant that. I never thought that.”
“Didn’t you? Get out, you bastard.” She began to shake. “And before you go I’ll tell you this: Jude painted that for me, for my birthday.”
She whirled around, strode into the bedroom.
“Darcy, wait!” He managed to block the door before it slammed in his face. “I’m sorry. Listen—” That was as far as he got before whatever she threw shattered against the door an inch from his face. “Jesus!”
“I said get out of my house.”
She wasn’t pale now. She was flushed with rage and already grabbing for a pretty china trinket box. He had an instant to decide—advance or retreat. An instant too long, as the box bounced smartly off his shoulder before he could reach her.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, gripping her arms before she could select the next missile. “I was out of line, completely wrong. No excuse. Please, listen to me.”
“Let go of me, Trevor.”
“Throw anything you want. But then listen to me. Please.”
She was vibrating like a bow sharply plucked. “Why should I?”
“No reason. Listen anyway.”
“All right, but let me go, and step back. I don’t want you touching me now.”
His hands flexed on her arms, a jerk of reaction. Then he nodded, released her. He’d deserved that, he told himself. That and worse. Because he was afraid she intended to give him worse, to turn him out of her life, he was prepared to beg.
“I’ve never been jealous before. Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do. It’s contemptible.”
“You’ve had women before me. Do I throw them in your face and cheapen you that way?”
“No.” He’d cut deep, he realized, and they were both bleeding. “I had no right, and no reason. I wasn’t thinking about the painting, really. My feelings for you are out of control. So I’m out of control.” Her eyes, shocked, stared back at his when he stroked her hair. “They make me stupid.”
Her heart began to thud. “I’ve thought of no man but you since we met. Is that enough for you?”
“It should be.” He dropped his hand. “But it’s not.” He paced away, back, away. Plans and schedules were out of the picture now, he decided. It was time to act. “I need something more than that from you, and I’m willing to give you whatever you want.”
The rapid beating of her heart skipped in a quick stab of pain. “What do you mean?”
“I want, let’s say, exclusive rights. For that, for you,” he added, turning back to her. “You can name it. I’ve got an apartment in New York. If it doesn’t suit you, we’ll find another. Personally, and through the company, I have several homes in a number of countries. If you like, I can buy property here, build a house to your specifications. Whatever traveling’s required between us, I assume you’d want a base here.”
“I see.” Her voice was quiet, her eyes lowered. “That’s considerate of you. And would I also have access to bank accounts, credit cards, that sort of thing?”
His hands went back in his pockets, balled into fists. “Of course.”
“And for all this.” She traced a finger over the bracelet she’d worn since he’d first clasped it on her wrist. That she’d loved first for its beauty, and then simply because he’d given it to her. “I would, in turn, keep myself only for you.”
“That’s one way of putting it. But I—”
He never saw it coming. The little Belleek vase smacked dead between his eyes. Through the stars wheeling in front of him, he saw her face. Pale again, rigid with outrage.
“You low-lying son-of-a-toad! What’s the difference between a whore and a mistress but the type of payment?”
“Mistress?” With shock, he touched his forehead, stared at the blood on his fingers. Then he was dodging crockery. “Who said—cut it out!”
“You miserable worm. You badger!” She sent all the pretty things she’d collected over the years crashing. “I wouldn’t have you on the silver platter you were born on. So take all your fancy houses and your bank drafts and your credit line and stuff them. Choke on them!”
Tears spoiled her aim, but the ricochets and flying debris were awesome. Trevor blocked the lamp she’
d yanked out of the wall, stepped on glass, swore. “I don’t want a mistress.”
“Go to hell.” It was the best she had left, and knowing it, she snatched up a small carved box and ran out with it.
“For God’s sake.” He had to sit down on the bed to pick the glass out of his feet. He had the hideous notion she might be getting a knife or some other sharp implement, then his head snapped up when he heard the door slam.
“Darcy! Damn it.” Leaping up, leaving blood smeared on the floor, he rushed after her.
He supposed he could have handled it all with less finesse. If he’d been a gibbering ape. He streaked down the stairs, swore again when he heard the boom of the pub door crashing shut. For Christ’s sake, here they were, neither of them dressed, and where does she take the crisis but outside? A sensible man would run in the opposite direction.
Trevor bolted through the kitchen after her.
She let the box fly as she ran, and closed her fist tight on the stone she’d kept inside it. Wishes be damned, she thought in fury. Love be damned. Trevor be damned. She was throwing it and all it meant into the sea.
She’d have no part of it now, no part of hopes and dreams and promises. If loving meant burying everything she was for a man who had such contempt for her, she would have no part of that either.
Hair flying, she raced along the seawall under a sky softening toward dawn. She didn’t hear her own sobbing over the pulse and pump of the sea, nor Trevor’s call and the sudden, frantic plea in it.
She stumbled onto the beach, would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
“Darcy, wait. Don’t.” His arms shook as they wrapped around her. He’d thought she’d meant to plunge into the water.
She turned on him like a wildcat, kicking, scratching, biting. In shock as much as defense, he pulled her down to the sand where he could lie on top of her and hold her still.
A hangover, he discovered, was nothing compared to the pain inflicted by Darcy Gallagher in a temper. “Easy.” He panted it out. “Just take it easy.”
“I’ll kill you, first chance.”
“I believe it.” He looked down at her. Her face was streaked with tears, and they continued to fall though her eyes were burning with fury. Here, he thought, was the first time he’d seen her weep for herself. And he’d caused it.
“I deserve it for fumbling this so badly. Darcy, I wasn’t asking you to be my mistress—which is a ridiculous term and completely unsuitable when applied to you. I was trying to ask you to marry me.”
He knocked the breath out of her as surely as if he’d rammed his elbow into her belly. “What?”
“I was asking you to marry me.”
“Marry, as in husband and wife, rings on our fingers, till death do us part?”
“That’s the one.” He risked a smile. “Darcy, I—”
“Will you get off me? You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.” He rolled aside, helped her up. “If I could just start over.”
“Oh, no, let’s pick up where you left off. When you were offering me houses and bank accounts. That’s how you chose to propose to the likes of me?”
Her voice was like sugar, with each crystal honed like a razor. “Ah . . .”
“You think I’d marry you for what you have, for what you can give me?” She shoved him back two full steps. “You think you can buy me like one of your companies?”
“But you’ve said—”
“I don’t care what I’ve said. Any moron would see it was just talk if they took the time to listen, to look. I’ll tell you what you can do with your fine houses and your big accounts, Magee. You can burn them to the ground for all I care. I’ll buy the fucking torch and light it.”
“You made it clear—”
