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You did, she was tempted to retort, but she refused to allow him any insight into how much she was still affected by what had happened. Anyway, concentrating was proving difficult just at the moment.
‘So that must mean that he’s fresh on the scene. Am I right?’ Theo liked the idea of that, because it meant that she wouldn’t have slept with the man. Heather just wasn’t the type. Heather was…He glanced down at the tight black dress and frowned. Not the sort to wear a dress that managed to cover up all the bits and yet still look provocative at the same time. And not the sort to be coldly giving him the brush-off.
‘Have you slept with him?’ he asked huskily, and she laughed. Laughed! Laughed and refused to answer! ‘Answer me!’ he growled.
‘Why should I answer you? You’re no longer a part of my life.’ Heather didn’t quite know where her strength was coming from. She still loved him, and always would, but those times of mindlessly allowing him to dictate her behaviour were over—because they had to be. They had slept together and he had still walked away the minute he felt threatened by the possibility of having to give more of himself than he wanted. He hadn’t even bothered to try, and she had taken her cue from him.
The jazz number came to a mournful end and they separated. Heather breathed a sigh of relief, because being strong took a lot of energy even if she believed in herself, and Theo breathed hard, disturbed by the gut-wrenching premonition of something slipping away.
‘Thanks for the dance,’ she said coolly, turning around in mid-sentence to check on Scott, who gave her a little wave which she returned. ‘I think you ought to go back to your date now. I can just about see her from here, and she doesn’t look very happy.’
Nor did he, come to that. She felt a spurt of female satisfaction. Had he thought that he would run into her accidentally and turn her on with his charm just because he could? Did he get turned on by the fact that he felt he could still have her if he wanted, even though there was another woman waiting in the wings? That poor, besotted Heather, who had run around behind him in her dowdy clothes, with her open and trusting nature, was still the same gullible woman he had been forced to turn away because he could smell her becoming a tad too demanding for her own good?
‘And yours looks fine,’ Theo muttered savagely. ‘Wonder what that says?’
‘Do you?’ She smiled politely at the man who could still make her heart flip, before turning around and walking away, leaving him with her indifference.
Theo quietly seethed for the remainder of the evening. His date was everything a red-blooded male could wish for. Drop-dead gorgeous, attentive, showing green light signals and intellectually unchallenging. No chance of being distracted by serious conversation. Yet he was hugely irritated by her and more irritated by himself as he found his eyes wandering over to where Heather and her bland, blond-haired date seemed to be having a whale of a time. Lots of laughter and body language was speaking volumes.
The minute he saw them rise to leave, he turned to Michelle, cutting her off in mid-sentence.
‘We’re going.’
She recovered quickly and gave a throaty laugh. ‘My place or yours?’
‘Yours.’ He must really be losing it if he couldn’t get worked up about sleeping with this very beddable woman batting her eyelashes at him. ‘But sorry, darling. No sex tonight.’
He needed to get back to his apartment and clear his head. Having never suffered the power of jealousy, Theo did not recognise it for what it was. Instead, he directed its force towards himself, ferociously regretting the time he had wasted with that damned woman on his mind. He had had the generosity of nature to actually give her a moment’s thought, to wonder what she was up to, when in fact she had being doing very well, thank you very much.
He half heard Michelle’s protests as he drove swiftly through the deserted streets of London to drop her off. With his vast experience of women behind him he had no difficulty in recognising the variations in her tone, from understanding to plaintive and finally to apologizing, in case she had done anything to upset the apple cart.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ was all he said when he finally pulled up outside her townhouse. He reached past her to open her door and gritted his teeth when her long fingers gently stroked his forearm.
He was behaving like a cad. That much he knew. He had barely spoken to her for the entire evening, and when he had it had been with a blatant lack of interest.
‘I’m sorry, Michelle,’ he said, tempering his voice guiltily. ‘I haven’t been myself tonight. Work, you know.’ He let that sweeping generalisation cover over all the cracks and watched her disappointment become tinged with a glimmer of hope. ‘And a ton of it to come over the next few weeks,’ he added, squashing any temptation she might have to arrange a further meeting. What he needed was a break from the opposite sex. They were trouble.
It was what he continued to tell himself over the next few days as he thundered through his offices, barely aware of his employees scattering like ninepins from his path. Even his secretaries ducked low in an attempt to ride the storm, baffled as to the cause of its eruption.
Finding out Heather’s address went some way to defusing Theo’s foul temper, but only because he told himself that, whatever lifestyle she had decided to adopt, he was still concerned about her welfare.
Well, he thought, fingering the piece of paper and staring broodingly out of his office window, what reasonable human being wouldn’t be?
For all she might be pinning a semblance of sophistication on her shoulders now, Heather was essentially green round the ears—a vulnerable innocent, ripe for being preyed on by anyone with half a brain and an urge to grab what seemed to be on offer. If she had decided to chuck out all her old clothes—in accordance with the new flat, the new job and the new boyfriend—and dress with maximum provocation in mind, then God only knew what trouble she was headed for.
He thought of those lush breasts being paraded around London while every man with two eyes stared, and of what Heather, who would naturally be immune to the effect she was having, would do if one of those leering men decided that looking wasn’t going to be enough. Scare him off with her streetwise attitude? Hah!
Realising what he had to do was like the parting of dark clouds by a single shot of sunlight.
Four hours later he had pulled up outside the block of apartments. He killed the engine of his car and took a few moments to think.
For fleeting seconds he wondered what the hell he was doing here, especially as it was later than he had planned—after nine. Then he reminded himself where his duty lay. It lay with giving some sensible advice to a woman he knew—had known intimately. Any relationship they had had was now dead and buried, but as a responsible human being he still felt obliged to offer some advice. He was a man of the world—the sort of man, he reflected, proud of his ability to be truthful to himself, who would be one of those drawn to her if he saw her waltzing along the High Street swinging her hips and wearing a top that left little to the imagination.
With a sigh of self-righteousness, he slipped out of the car and bounded up to the front door, pressing the pad with her number.
The apartment block was very modern, but not unattractive. Attempts had been made to introduce some greenery around the façade, and he could glimpse shadowy clumps of shrubs and immature trees to one side.
Inside the apartment, Heather heard the buzz of the front doorbell and wondered who on earth it could be. Big advantage to apartment living. There were never any unannounced visitors. She briefly thought of the last unannounced visitor to an apartment, Theo’s mother, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut to block out the image.
‘Yes?’
‘Heather?’
The deep drawl of Theo’s voice slammed into Heather like a shock from a live wire. She still hadn’t recovered from bumping into him at that club. She felt as though the air had been sucked out of her lungs and she flopped down on the chair.
‘Yes?’ Her voice was breathless.
‘We need to talk.’
‘What about?’
‘Nothing that can be said down the end of an intercom. Buzz me in.’
She did. Her mind was awash with a thousand things. He had come to see her. She hadn’t thought he would, but he had, and it could only mean that meeting her in that club had reminded him of what he had lost. Hadn’t he spent ages dancing with her? Willing to leave his date wilting in a distant corner while he whispered into her ear that he was aroused by her?
Her fragile mantle of cool, composed self-assurance fell away in a blink.
She heard the knock on her door and her heart sang. When she opened it, she was smiling.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘HI. WHAT brings you here?’ Heather stood aside to let him in. He had come straight from work, but typically he had already loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his white shirt. It was one of his habits, as though the restraints of a suit were unbearable once he had left his office surroundings.
‘So this is the new flat,’ Theo remarked, positioning himself squarely in the middle of the room and looking around him.
‘Do you like it? It’s quite small.’
But it was in a good area, and she had worked out that she would just about be able to cover the rent. Decent places were hard to come by in London, and even though it was really more than she could reasonably afford if she were to actually want a life of any sort, Heather had been grateful to Beth for securing it for her and hanging on to it even though the landlord had had innumerable queries.
