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Walking back into the apartment notched up the tension levels substantially higher.
The bedroom they had shared for the past few weeks was just there, to her right. She was aware of it even if she wasn’t actually looking at the bed.
Over time, most of her clothes had found their way into his room—a natural migration because it was so much easier changing there, especially when there was no longer any reason not to. She thought of the intimacy of her toothbrush next to his and felt a little sick at what she knew she had to do.
‘Drink?’ Theo asked, heading towards the kitchen while Heather trailed along behind him in anxious thoughtful silence.
It was a little after six-thirty. Too early for her to be contemplating wine. But she needed it. She nodded and sat down at the kitchen counter on one of the bar stools.
She waited until he had handed her a glass and then she blurted it out—no preparation, no thinking about how she would phrase what she wanted to say.
‘Theo, what happens next?’
Theo paused for the merest breath of a second and looked at her over the rim of his wine glass.
‘What do you want to happen?’ he asked mildly.
Heather met his gorgeous eyes and willed herself not to weaken. ‘Your mother’s gone now, Theo. There’s no need for us to…’
‘Carry on being lovers?’
Put like that, their relationship, which meant so much to her, seemed reduced to the level of two consenting adults sharing a bed for the fun of it. Force of habit and her own upbeat nature immediately kicked in, allowing her to put the most forgiving spin on his baldly enunciated statement. Words of affection did not come easily to a man like Theo. He was depressed, as well, over the whole business with his mother, even though it was something he had not shared with her.
She had to will herself to stop.
‘You do me a disservice if you imagine that the only reason I slept with you was to perpetuate a charade for the sake of my mother. You also do yourself a disservice.’
Heather smiled, relieved. ‘I’m so glad you said that, Theo. I thought that perhaps…’
‘What we have would come to a premature end?’ His sexy mouth curved into one of those devastating smiles that could knock her sideways. Heather gulped down a mouthful of wine to steady herself against the temptation to let the conversation go. It was shockingly easy to lose focus when Theo turned on the charm, just like he was doing now, as he strolled towards her, eyes locked into hers, every movement confident of his own massive sex appeal.
Trying to concentrate was like trying to remain upright in a pool of treacle.
He gently removed the wine glass from her hands and leant on the counter separating them so that he could kiss her. This wasn’t one of his hot, urgent kisses. There was something touchingly gentle about it, and Heather lost herself in his caressing mouth, distracted for a while from her ground plans.
When he finally drew back her eyes were brimming with compassion.
‘I know you were shocked by what happened to your mother, Theo. We never expect any harm to come to our parents, and even when we do we’re still never quite ready for it. But she’s going to be fine. I know it.’
Coming from anyone else, this expression of sympathy would have been unacceptable and would have immediately frozen his passion, but he looked into her huge blue eyes and was touched by what he saw there.
‘I’m so glad I have my very own fortune teller living with me,’ he murmured, but not unkindly. ‘Would you like to express your sympathy more than just verbally?’ He drew back, finished his wine in one long mouthful, and smiled at her with lazy intent.
Heather’s determination became a little fuzzy. When he headed towards the bedroom she found that she was following him, as though propelled by legs that had a mind of their own.
‘It seems odd…’ she said, looking around the bedroom that bore little traces of her everywhere. Her alarm clock, which sat on the table by her side of the bed, the vase of flowers she had put by the window to brighten up the room, the furry bedroom slippers that were tucked under the chair.
‘What seems odd?’ Theo had moved over to the window to stare outside for a few seconds, before spinning back round to face her.
‘Being here without your mother around…’
He laughed. ‘Most women might have found it odd the other way around.’
He began stripping off his shirt. Only when he was half naked did he realise that she was still hovering by the door, hands clasped behind her back, when she should have been coming to him, revealing the spectacular body once more hidden under her baggy camouflage clothing.
‘Do you want me to do a striptease for you?’ he enquired softly. Thoughts of taking her were releasing him from the coiled tension of seeing his mother off. He would never have admitted it in so many words, but he had been worried to death that she was leaving too soon, that she would have been better off recuperating in London, where he could keep an eye on her. He wanted to find sanctuary from his anxious thoughts in the arms of the woman standing in front of him—a fully clothed woman who seemed oddly hesitant.
With the superb arrogance of the utterly self-confident, Theo brushed aside all thought that Heather might actually not want to hop into bed with him. His hand hovered over the buckle of his belt, which he slowly pulled through the loops of his trousers.
Heather licked her lips nervously. She knew that if she went any closer to him she would be sucked in, like a fly getting just a bit too close to the spider’s web. Like a gifted magician, Theo had the amazing ability to banish thought from her head and turn her into his obedient puppet.
Heather struggled with the recognition that she couldn’t allow that to happen this time. She had been gifted a golden opportunity to find out what she meant to him, whether they could take what they had a stage further now that his mother had gone. She wasn’t going to pass the chance up.
‘Actually, Theo, I’d quite like just to talk…’
Theo greeted this with narrowed eyes. ‘Talk? Talk about what? You’ve already done the sympathy thing. There’s no need to go over old ground. I assure you that I am not about to collapse because I am apprehensive about my mother’s health. I will telephone the relevant people on a daily basis, and if I get the slightest whiff of concern then it would be no problem for me to fly to Greece.’
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ Heather said, maintaining her position by the door. It felt safe there. It gave her the illusion that she could do a runner if the conversation got too much for her to handle. ‘But actually I wasn’t going to talk about your mother.’
‘Ah.’ Comprehension dawned. ‘You want to pick up where we left off earlier on. Is that it? You want my reassurance that I want you, that sleeping with you wasn’t just an artificial situation generated by necessity.’ He smiled slowly and walked towards her. ‘I didn’t imagine that I would have to prove my desire to you. You have seen first hand that what you do to my body has nothing to do with make-believe. Oh, no…’
Heather was struggling to breathe. When he was standing right in front of her, she closed her eyes to steady herself. Without the benefit of one lot of senses, she might just be able to control the other four. No good. She might shut him out of her line of vision, but she could still see him in her head. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘I just want to know what happens next…you know…for us…’
Theo wasn’t thick. The significance of her words was the verbal equivalent of a very long, very cold shower, or a dip in the North Sea. All traces of passion left his body in a staggering rush, replaced by a cool appraisal of her flushed face.
‘I thought you had already asked that question,’ he said coolly.
‘I know. But you didn’t give me an answer.’ She risked a quick look at his face and her stomach churned queasily at the expression of icy withdrawal she saw there.
Theo didn’t immediately answer. Instead he walked over to where he had dropped his shirt and shrugged it back on. Very good. Half clothed, he was just too distracting. He also remained where he was, by the window, which was very good for her state of mind.
She found that she could actually breathe now.
‘Okay.’ Theo shrugged. ‘The truth is that, yes, we both owe what we have to an unforeseen combination of circumstances. Were it not for my mother arriving, finding you in situ and jumping to all the wrong conclusions, then we would never have slept together. However, now that we have, I see no need to disturb the arrangement as it stands.’
Heather was winded, and deeply hurt by his casual assumption that without the intervention of fate in the form of his ill mother he would never have looked at her twice. She had spent almost two years hovering in the background, feeding off the crumbs he had dropped for her, always imagining a day when he would finally see her for the woman that she was. Now she knew that she had been living a dream. She clasped her arms around her and looked down. She was sure the whole world, if it had listened, hard, would have heard the sound of her hammering heart.
Irritated by her continuing silence, Theo frowned. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘I might have expected something more by way of response.’
