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‘Well, if that was the case—then I’ll decide when I leave. I don’t need your permission, Titus.’
His face darkened with frustration. He was not given to voicing his emotions, nor to analysing them. Over the years he had learnt to observe other people’s behaviour but never to react to it. But suddenly he found himself breaking one of his own rules. ‘I thought that your timing was particularly bad, in view of what had just happened.’
‘You mean, because we’d just had sex?’
‘Do you have to put it quite so crudely?’
She shook her head, determined not to be sucked into any more fantasising, but it wasn’t easy—not when it was your heart’s dearest desire. ‘But why wouldn’t I be crude, Titus—when I’m nothing but a nobody?’ She saw him flinch. Saw the growing comprehension in his eyes as he made the connection a
nd she geared herself up for the showdown she’d been hoping to avoid. ‘Beginning to get the picture now? Because I heard you! I heard you telling that man that I was nobody! ’
He frowned as he recalled his throwaway comment to his old schoolfriend and his mouth hardened. ‘I did it because—’
‘No!’ she flared back, seeing his dark expression as she cut through his protestation. ‘I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses! There’s no possible explanation which would make that ever seem all right!’
‘You don’t think so?’ he questioned, a slow anger beginning to simmer away inside him. ‘Then forgive me if I fail to be impressed at your lack of perception. I actually did it to protect you.’
She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘To protect me?’
‘That’s right. Because I didn’t want you having to contend with any speculation—or questions. The kind of questions you once told me you hated. I thought that exposure as my lover would open you up to all that picking over of your past.’
‘Or future?’ she said quietly, because she didn’t believe him. She didn’t want to believe him—because if she thought that he’d acted out of kindness, then wouldn’t it make walking away impossible? ‘Your future.’
‘My future?’
‘Yes, of course. You were protecting yourself, Titus—and maybe I don’t blame you. Because if the world found out that the Duke of Torchester had been sleeping with his cleaner—then wouldn’t that prompt the kind of questions which you wouldn’t want to answer?’
His voice was silky. ‘Questions such as what, Roxanne?’
‘A story like this would be a gift for the tabloids,’ she said. ‘Put two high-profile people together and suddenly the world starts speculating about marriage.’
He gave a bitter laugh as his gaze raked over her, because now he was on very familiar territory indeed. ‘I think that you’re forgetting that you are no longer high profile. And it sounds to me like you’re the one who’s been speculating about marriage, sweetheart.’
His words rang out with cruel aristocratic clarity and something inside Roxanne seemed to shrink and die as she saw the imperious look on his face. He was doing it again, she realised. He was pulling rank—telling her that he was important and she wasn’t. He just couldn’t help himself—that was his default mechanism. No matter what she said or did, she was just some little woman who couldn’t wait to get her hooks into him. Well, he was wrong if he thought she could ever tolerate life with such an arrogant tyrant as him.
‘I think you flatter yourself, Titus—if you really think I’ve been plotting how to get you up the aisle.’ She paused, wondering just how big she could make the lie. Whether she could bring herself to say something so fabricated that it would bring the whole affair to a conclusive end. ‘As far as I was concerned, it meant nothing at all to me. It was just a fling, that’s all.’
‘Nothing?’ he repeated incredulously, because women didn’t do this to him. He was the one who did the leaving.
‘That’s right. And a very enjoyable fling, I must say. We’ve both had them before and we both know when they’ve run their course—which this one most definitely has. So I’m going. Vanessa’s got my bank details—if you could make sure that the money I’m owed goes in my account, I’d appreciate it.’ She sucked in an unsteady breath. ‘I’m not sure whether you count what happened between us last night as overtime, but—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Roxanne!’ he bit out furiously. ‘Will you stop this?’
‘I’ve stopped.’ She held up her hand for silence, the way she’d done at the party just a few short hours ago—only this time she had an audience of just one. ‘There’s nothing more to say and I’d like to go back to London as quickly as possible.’
His heart was pounding heavily in his chest, as if he’d just been running a race. ‘If you walk out of that door—then it really is over,’ he said harshly. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Titus.’ Meeting his eyes with a defiance she wasn’t sure she could hold onto for much longer, she gave a short laugh. ‘I understand perfectly.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE London house seemed unusually quiet—and unusually cold—as Titus let himself in. Maybe the heat of the Kenyan sun was responsible for the chill he felt on his skin as he put his passport and bags down in the hallway. Or maybe it was something to do with the fact that last time he’d been here, it had been with Roxanne. When he’d been in control and felt in control as he’d fed her antibiotics and glasses of water. When he’d thought he was doing her a favour by taking her up to Norfolk and offering her a damned job.
What he hadn’t anticipated—nor ever could have anticipated—was that she would leave behind a memory which was proving infuriatingly difficult to shift. Even a complete break in the baking African heat didn’t seem to have made a dent in it. He marched into the drawing room, poured himself three fingers of whisky and took a large mouthful.
Damn her!
The day after his party—when she had followed through with her dramatic threat to leave—he had booked himself on an impromptu safari trip to Kenya. He had figured that some winter sun was just what he needed to forget her. That and the undeniable thrill of watching nature from a close but safe distance. It had been a while since he’d visited Africa and the country was as beautiful as he remembered. He’d thrown himself into an exhausting round of activity. He’d ridden horses—and camels. He’d fished, he’d walked and he’d eaten beneath the stars. And, politely but very firmly, he had rebuffed the advances of a beautiful American heiress who was staying in the same camp.
