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“And him?”
“Ah. Well, Stefan has his reasons. He’s a mixed-up man, and after you caught us, he was quite distraught at what you’d witnessed.”
“Distraught?” An expression I would not have associated with the suave Stefan.
Magda shifted forward in her seat and leaned her elbows on the table. She latched her dark eyes directly onto mine, making me flinch with their intensity.
“Callie, he’s besotted with you.”
The pounding heartbeats hit my chest once again. Not nerves this time, but excitement.
She settled back in her seat. “Which brings me to a crucial thing to tell you—he did not fuck me on Monday. You arrived at the most inopportune moment. The music drowned out the doorbell. He was trying to fire himself up, create an ambience, when he suddenly backed off. He told me he couldn’t go through with it. In fact, by the time I’d left to go home, he told me it was over between us. Not our friendship, he’s too special to lose. But the sex. It’s done. He wants to concentrate on you, just you.”
Heat surged through every vessel of my body, pumped at a fast rate by my unhindered heart. Adrenaline told me all I needed to know. I wanted him too. Tears pricked my eyes and I shuddered, bowing my head in shame at my reaction.
“Oh, my dear.” She leaped off her seat, crouched next to me and pushed a lacy handkerchief into my hand. “He’s such a foolish man sometimes. He thought you didn’t want him.”
“He did?” I sniffed. I scrunched the hankie up in my hand. Something important shot into my addled mind. “Did he call you on Monday?”
Magda sighed. “Yes. He did, but I invited myself over, not him. He wanted to talk. First about his dad—he’s worried, naturally. He gradually opened up about you, but he didn’t mention the nature of the relationship. I wrongly assumed you were like me—an arrangement.”
I grimaced at her odd wording. It made it all seem like a business agreement. “You went and somehow your clothes just fell off you?”
She rose and smiled, irritating me with her graceful poise and sureness. “No. I always take my clothes off for Stefan. It’s part of…our arrangement. But what I want to say is he went through the usual…routine. Welcoming me, putting on the music and so on, then, just as you arrived, he broke off. Your face in the window. My God, it was a shock to him. He wanted to chase after you, but I told him you’d be incensed.”
Darn right I had been, pedaling furiously.
“And upset,” she continued. “Not the best time to explain the situation. It quickly became apparent his relationship with you is quite different from mine. Please, Callie, don’t give up on him. He made a mistake, but it was just as much my fault as his. I didn’t question his reason for calling me. We normally plan in advance, not spontaneously.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I’m sorry, Callie, but I have to head off soon. Problems at one of my other locations.”
An impulsive need burst out from underneath my troubled thoughts. “Do you know where in Germany he is?”
She perched on the edge of the table. “Yes. As I said, I keep an eye on his house, so I know his father’s address.”
“He would be there?”
“Probably, while his dad is in hospital.”
“Hospital. It’s serious, then?”
“Minor heart attack. He felt ill over the weekend, then Tuesday he was rushed to the hospital. Hans, Stefan’s useless brother, has refused to look after his dad, even though he lives only a couple of hours away. Stefan’s been tearing his hair out trying to arrange adequate care for his father. A stubborn man, who wants to maintain his independence.”
I thought of all those heated conversations on Sunday. He’d been arguing with his brother.
“Do you think he would see me?”
“Oh God, yes.”
Reaching out for the doorknob, I turned back to Magda, who’d returned to her chair. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why does Stefan think of himself as a dangerous fox?”
She pursed her lips. “He called himself that?”
I nodded.
“Silly Stefan. He has these commitment issues.”
