and absolutely. Nevertheless it was there.
‘I’ll see you to your door,’ Nick said, and this time she didn’t object. He told the taxi driver to wait and then escorted her across the pavement, following her inside the house after she had opened the front door.
When they were finally standing outside her own door, she looked up at him. How had he managed to become such a part of her life in two days? It was scary. So, so scary.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said roughly.
‘Like what?’ she asked, genuinely hurt by the thread of anger.
‘Like you expect me to treat you badly, manhandle you, hurt you.’
She supposed she did expect him to hurt her if she got involved with him, but not in the physical sense he was talking about.
‘Hell, Cory.’ He was suddenly furious and it showed. ‘Give me a break, won’t you. I don’t know how this William guy behaved but I’m not him. OK? It might be stating the obvious but I need to say it.’
‘I know you’re not him,’ she said shakily.
‘Do you? I don’t think you do, not yet.’ And then he echoed her earlier thought when he said, ‘It’s been two days and yet it feels like much, much longer. Do you feel that?’
She wanted to make some clever, witty comment and then send him on his way, or even just shake her head. She nodded instead.
‘Do you see the age gap as a problem?’
‘What?’ It had been the last thing she’d expected him to say.
‘I’m ten years older than you. Does that bother you?’ he asked softly.
She didn’t know what to say. Something was happening here and she seemed to have no control over it. She shook her head because she couldn’t have spoken to save her life.
‘You’re going to tell me we inhabit different worlds, aren’t you?’ he went on.
She hadn’t been but now he’d mentioned it it was absolutely true.
‘And you’re right,’ he said quietly. ‘For the last thirteen years I’ve worked like a dog and loved every minute, and any woman I’ve got involved with has known the score. At first I was so cut up about Joanna it was easier to keep relationships from developing into anything but physical ones. There are plenty of career women out there who aren’t looking to settle down until way on in their timescale of things, and they suited me as I did them. Fun, friendship, someone warm in bed but no emotional commitment. Then, as time went on, I found I was becoming autonomous because I liked it that way, not because of any lingering loyalty to Joanna. The freedom of being self-determining and independent was heady.’
She stared at him, her eyes wide. Was he being brutally honest at last? Was he going to say that any relationship with him would be purely physical and only last as long as he wanted it to? His other women had obviously been happy with that.
And then he disabused her of that idea. ‘You might be a career woman but you aren’t like them, are you.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘You think differently.’
This was all because of what she had inadvertently told him before dessert. That she was a virgin. A twenty-five-year-old virgin. Was this his way of telling her he wasn’t going to see her again because she wasn’t like the other women, wasn’t what he wanted?
Her chin rose a notch. ‘Nick,’ she began, but he put a finger to her lips.
‘We come from different ends of the pole, Cory, but you know as well as I do that there’s a spark there. It’s there when I touch you and it’s there when I don’t. And I like that. It makes me feel alive,’ he added wryly. ‘I didn’t realise till I met you that I was growing stale. So, how about we see each other once in a while, take it nice and easy and see how things go? Sure there’ll be hurdles, but we’ll take them one at a time and see what happens. What do you say?’
Every single brain cell was telling her to say no. It was the sensible, the safe thing to do. She had been this way once before with William and it had ended in disaster. This would too. She knew it at heart. Nick would grow bored with her; it was inevitable with a man like him. No was the only answer to give.
But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him to walk away from her. Not yet.
Cory was unaware of the play of emotions across her face, but when he pulled her to him she realised he’d guessed something of what she was feeling. ‘So, do we start doing the dreaded ‘‘d’’ word?’ he asked drily.
She looked into the blue eyes. From somewhere she found the strength to be as cool and laid-back as him. ‘I guess we’d better give it a shot for a while,’ she said airily. ‘If only to stop you growing stale.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘OH, DARLING, that’s absolutely wonderful. I’m so pleased. Haven’t I said you need another boyfriend, if only to spite William?’
Cory smiled at her aunt. For someone who had lived most of her adult life in the crazy and often promiscuous world of fashion, Joan could be terribly ingenuous. ‘For one thing, Nick’s not my boyfriend,’ she said gently, not wanting to disappoint the older woman. ‘We’re just going to date sometimes, that’s all. And, considering I haven’t seen William for three years, I doubt very much if anything I do would affect him in the slightest. He didn’t care when we were together as he proved only too well. He’d hardly take any interest now.’
‘What do you mean, he’s not your boyfriend?’ said Joan, ignoring the rest. ‘You said Nick wants to see you. It’s not one of these modern open sort of things, is it? Where he can do what he likes and so can you?’
‘Not exactly.’ To be truthful, she wasn’t sure what it was, but she couldn’t very well say that.
‘I’d like to meet him,’ stated Joan definitely.
Cory’s nerves jangled. Joan had only met William once and it had been such an unmitigated disaster that they hadn’t repeated it. ‘I’ve only seen him twice myself,’ she objected. ‘I can hardly ask him round for an inspection by you.’
‘Not an inspection.’ Joan fixed her with a look that said she wasn’t about to be deflected. ‘Just to dinner.’
‘Not yet,’ Cory said firmly. Maybe not at all. She was due to go out to the theatre with him in the middle of the week and she was preparing herself already for the possibility that things might have changed between them. The weekend they had just shared had been…good—she wouldn’t allow herself a more enthusiastic summing up—but they might meet again and there would be nothing there. For him at least. And that would be fine, it would. She was expecting nothing from this relationship that wasn’t really a relationship at all. She was ordinary, for crying out loud.
She had spent most of the day in the house of a family who hadn’t a clue about personal hygiene or the most elementary social graces, trying to ascertain if the children were neglected out of intent or simply because their young parents didn’t have a clue.
She had returned home exhausted and stinking
