work would continue.
Was this true?
What was he thinking now? Gemma wondered.
Had she made a fool of herself talking about the centre the way she had?
Been too emotional?
Gemma watched the man across the table, his gaze fixed on some point beyond her shoulder, obviously thinking but about what she had no clue for his face was totally impassive now.
‘Would you leave tomorrow?’ he asked.
Chapter Two
THE question was so totally unexpected, Gemma could only stare at him, and before she could formulate a reply, he spoke again.
‘And your second house, would you be equally confident leaving it?’
She could feel the frown deepening on her forehead but still couldn’t answer, although she knew she had to—knew there was something important going on here, even if she didn’t understand it.
Think, brain, think!
‘None of your money has gone into the second house,’ she said, then realised she’d sounded far too defensive and tried to laugh it off. ‘Sorry, but I wasn’t sure you knew about it.’
He had a stillness about him, this man who had virtually saved their service, and perhaps because he’d let emotion show earlier and had regretted it, his face was now impossible to read.
‘I know of its existence,’ her visitor said, ‘but not of how it came to be. It seems to me you had enough—is the expression “on your plate”?—without taking on more waifs and strays.’
Was it his stillness that made her fidget with the sugar basin on the table? She wasn’t usually a fidget, but pushing it around and rearranging the salt and pepper grinders seemed to ease her tension as she tried to explain. Actually, anything was preferable to looking at him as she answered, because looking at him was causing really weird sensations in her body.
She was finding him attractive?
Surely not, although he was undeniably attractive…
She moved the pepper grinder back to where it had been and concentrated on business.
‘The sign on our front door, although fairly discreet, does say Women’s Centre, and with our inner-city position, I suppose it was inevitable that some women who were not immigrants would turn up here. Not often, in the beginning, but one in particular, an insulin-dependent diabetic, began to come regularly, and sometimes bring a friend, or recommend us to another woman.’
‘These are women of the streets you talk of?’
The pepper grinder was in the wrong place again and Gemma shifted it, then looked up at her questioner.
‘I don’t know about your country—or even what country you call home—but here a lot of people with mental health problems or addictions end up living on the streets. The government, church and charity organisations all do what they can, and homeless people have the same access to free hospital care at public hospitals, but…’
What did she not want to say? Yusef watched her restless hands, moving things on the table, the tiny golden freckles on her long slim fingers fascinating him. Everything about this woman was fascinating him, which in itself should be a warning to find someone else. The last complication he needed in his life right now was to be attracted to a woman, particularly one he was intending to employ.
Yet his eyes kept straying to her vivid hair, her freckled skin, the way her pale lips moved as she spoke—which she was doing now so he should concentrate.
‘Sometimes there is an element of judgement in the treatment of these women, or if not judgement then a genuine desire to help them, but to help them by changing their way of life.’
She tucked her hands onto her lap where they couldn’t fiddle—and he could no longer see them—and looked directly at him.
‘I am not saying this is a bad thing. I am not saying that organisations dedicated to helping these people shouldn’t exist, it is just that sometimes all they want is a diagnosis of some small problem and, where necessary, a prescription. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped in other ways, or cured of an addiction, or to change their lives.’
Was she so naïve? Could she not see that a lot of the organisations set up for these people were funded on the basis that they did attempt to change lives? It was their duty to at least try!
‘But surely a drug addict should be helped to fight his or her addiction?’ he asked, and watched her closely, trying to fathom where her totally non-judgemental attitude had come from. Trying to focus on the discussion they were having, not on the effect she was having on his body.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘and as I said there are plenty of places willing to help in that way. If someone asks for that kind of help we refer them on, but our—our charter, I suppose you could say, is purely medical. We are a medical centre for people who are intimidated by the public health system, or for some other reason do not wish to use it.’
‘And for that you bought a house?’
Defiance flashed in the pale eyes. Would desire heat them in the same way?
Yusef groaned, but inwardly. It had to be because he’d been so busy these last six months, too busy for anything but the briefest social encounters with women, that his body was behaving the way it was. Not only his body, but his mind, it seemed.
‘I live in that house,’ she said, the words carrying an icy edge. ‘It is my home. And if I choose to turn the upstairs into a flat and the downstairs into a surgery, then that is my business.’
Ah, so she had the fire that supposedly accompanied the colour of her hair—fire and ice…
‘I am not criticising. I think it is admirable, and that brings me back to my original question. Could you walk away from these services you have set up?’
Gemma studied him, suspicion coiling in her stomach, keeping company with the other stuff that was happening there every time she looked at this man. It couldn’t be attraction, for all that he was the best looking man she’d ever seen. She didn’t do attraction any more. Attraction led to such chaos it was easier to avoid it.
‘Why are you asking that?’ she demanded, probably too demandingly but he had her rattled. ‘Are you implying that if I left, the staff I’ve trained, the staff who work here because they hold the same beliefs I do, would turn the services into something else? And if so, would you withdraw your funding? Is that where your questions are leading?’
Fire! It was sparking from her now, but he had to concentrate—had to think whether now was the time to talk of the new venture. Probably not. She was too suspicious of him.
‘You may be sure of my contributions to your service continuing, even increasing,’ he said. ‘Though perhaps now would be a good time for me to look at more of the facilities than the treatment room you used for Aisha. Perhaps you can tell me what else is needed.’ He stood up, relieved to get off the uncomfortable and not totally, he suspected,
