AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You’re disgusting!’ she spat back.
‘Maybe I am.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Or maybe I’m just speaking the truth and you can’t bear to hear it. Unless you’re denying that he wanted you?’
Again, Roxy hesitated. When those steely eyes were boring into her like that, it was difficult to look away—and she got the terrifying impression that he knew exactly what the set-up had been. Besides, she wasn’t trying to impress him, was she? Who cared what Titus Alexander thought of her? It was what she thought of herself that mattered. ‘Yes, he wanted me,’ she admitted baldly.
‘Of course he did. Let me guess,’ he mused silkily. ‘You didn’t actually go to bed with him, but you left him dangling with the hope that one day you might?’
Roxy flushed as his words hit home with an accuracy which made her feel uncomfortable. She had told the accountant very firmly that she didn’t date married men and that much was true. But most men had uncrushable egos, didn’t they? Perhaps he had thought that persistence might wear away her resistance and perhaps it had suited her to let him think that.
‘I can’t control what goes on in people’s minds,’ she retorted.
And neither could he, thought Titus reluctantly. He couldn’t even control what was going on in his own mind. Because why the hell was he looking at her calculating little face and wishing he could wipe away her defiance with a hard and punishing kiss? What was it about bad girls like Roxanne Carmichael, which always made men hunger for them? Angrily, he swallowed down the lump which seemed to have lodged in his throat—wishing it were as easy to rid himself of the hard aching in his groin.
‘So what are you going to do now?’ he questioned unsteadily, wishing he could just wave a wand and magic her out of his life.
His words brought with them an element of reality and feeling a bit wobbly again, Roxy quickly sat down on the sofa. ‘I haven’t decided,’ she said, aware of how ridiculous she must sound. As if she had a million choices ahead of her instead of none at all. ‘But first I need to get my phone working.’
‘Superior communication skills suddenly failing you, Roxanne?’ he mocked. ‘Here, give me the charger.’
With shaky fingers she fumbled around in her handbag and handed it over to him, watching as he plugged it into the socket. She realised how shockingly easy it was to defer to him and wondered if people always did. Or did his natural dominance come as much from the power of his personality as from the title he had inherited?
He straightened up to meet her gaze. ‘You can use my phone,’ he said.
Realising that she had no choice, she took it—even though she hated the idea of him listening into her conversation. She punched out the number but could tell instantly from the tone of the woman who answered that things weren’t good. In fact, that was the understatement of the year. Pressing the phone tightly to her ear, she hoped that Titus wouldn’t hear the tirade of complaints which were now being launched against her. That she had let down several of their biggest clients by not bothering to show up for work.
‘I’ve been ill,’ she told the woman at the agency, praying that some small amount of sympathy would come floating her way. She glanced up to his grey eyes fixed on her and she felt a disconcerting shiver whispering its way up her spine. She cleared her throat and looked away from him. ‘I’ve had … pneumonia.’
‘Well, that’s not our responsibility, I’m afraid. You should start looking after yourself properly. Stop burning the candle at both ends,’ said the woman haughtily. ‘Decide whether you want to be a cleaner or a singer—because clearly you can’t do both. I’m sorry, Roxanne—but I can’t take the risk of employing unreliable workers. Not with the calibre of clients we have here.’
> Perhaps if Titus hadn’t been standing there, then Roxy might have pleaded her case. Told the agency that she’d be available for any kind of work they cared to throw at her and she’d never let them down again.
But she recognised that she might not be able to stick to such a promise because at that moment she felt so weak that she wasn’t sure she’d even be able to get up from the wretched sofa. She had no alternative but to say goodbye and terminate the connection, silently handing the phone back to Titus, who was still watching her in that curiously unsettling way. As if she were a member of some alien species who had decided to inhabit the body of a woman for the day.
‘That didn’t sound like a very fruitful conversation,’ he observed.
‘How very astute of you.’
‘Who was it?’ he demanded.
She reflected that accepting help and hospitality didn’t really allow you to tell someone to mind their own business. And that it might do him good to realise how the other half lived. But there was a stupid streak of pride which made her reluctant to dispel her image of sultry songstress and confess to him the mundane truth of her existence. ‘The cleaning agency, where I work. Worked,’ she corrected hollowly.
His dark brows arrowed together. ‘You’re a cleaner?’
‘A domestic facilitator, they call it nowadays. But the terminology is irrelevant, since they’ve just given me the sack.’
‘But you’ve just been ill,’ he objected.
‘Apparently, I’ve just let down two of their biggest clients.’
‘And can they do that—just let you go?’
‘Who knows? But I’m hardly in a position to be able to take Maid In Heaven to court on grounds of unfair dismissal, am I, Titus?’ She met his eyes and wondered if he could appreciate the exquisite sense of irony. ‘I’m afraid that when you’re the economic underdog, then people can behave pretty much how they please towards you.’
Titus narrowed his eyes at the barb behind her words. Yet he could hardly chastise her agency for their cold-heartedness, when he’d behaved in a similarly ruthless manner, could he? If he hadn’t kicked her out on the street, then maybe none of this would have happened. He felt an unwilling twist of guilt. ‘Have you got relatives you can go to?’ he questioned.
‘No.’
‘What about your parents?’
