the darkness. She lacked the self-confidence with which Martine faced every morning. She was afraid to let anyone get too close to her, because she might not be all they had expected, and she didn’t know if she could bear the pain of rejection.
It was far better to be friends rather than lovers. Friends didn’t risk as much; friendship lacked the intimacy that necessarily gave lovers the sure, deadly knowledge of where and how to inflict the most hurt when the relationship went bad.
And friendship was what Max wanted, anyway. If she threw herself at him, he would probably turn away in disgust. He didn’t want passion, and she was afraid of passion. Daydreams—or nighttime fantasies—about him were a waste of time.
Chapter Three
Until she answered the telephone the next morning and heard his voice, Claire hadn’t realized just how much she had been looking forward to seeing him again. Her heart gave a little leap of joy, and her eyes closed for the briefest moment as she listened to his cool, deep voice, and his clipped, exceedingly British upper-class accent that delighted her ear. “Good morning, Claire. I’ve realized that we didn’t set a time for me to pick you up today. What would be good for you?”
“Noon, I think. Have you seen any likely prospects in the paper?”
“I’ve circled three or four. Noon it is, then.”
It disturbed her that just the sound of his voice could affect her. She didn’t want to miss him when he wasn’t there, didn’t want to look forward to seeing him again. Just friends. That was all they were going to be, all they could be.
But when she dressed, she once again found herself paying far more attention to her hair and makeup than usual. She wanted to look good for him, and the realization caused a small pain deep inside her chest. There had been times before when she’d hovered anxiously before her mirror, wondering if she would come up to par, if the Halseys would approve of her, if Jeff would look at her with desire in his eyes again.
The situations weren’t the same at all; at that time she’d been desperately trying to hold together a disintegrating marriage, and now she was simply going to spend the day with a friend, helping him look for an apartment. If Max made her heart beat faster, that was something she would have to ignore and never, never let him see.
Telling herself that was one thing, but schooling her features to reveal only a pleasant welcome when she opened the door to him was another thing entirely. She’d seen him in a formal white dinner jacket and in a severely conservative gray suit and had thought at the time that nothing could make him look any better, but in casual clothes he was almost breathtaking. His khaki pants, crisp and neat, outlined his lean hips and belly. The emerald green polo shirt he wore had a double impact: it revealed the surprising muscularity of his arms and torso, and intensified, darkened, the shades of green in his eyes until they were the color of some paradise lagoon. Those eyes smiled down at her, and deep inside her something stirred.
“I’m ready,” she said, picking up her lemon-yellow garden hat. It matched her yellow-and-white striped sundress, which Martine had persuaded her to buy more than two years ago, insisting that the sunny color suited her. Claire had to admit that Martine’s taste, as usual, was impeccable. She didn’t wear the dress often, preferring more businesslike attire, but the morning was so bright and warm that nothing else had seemed suitable.
He put his hand on her bare arm, his lean fingers gently curving around her elbow. It was only a polite gesture, but Claire felt her skin tingle under his touch. An instinct of self-protection told her to move away from him, but it was only a small voice, easily swamped by the disturbing rush of warmth generated by the light touch of his hand. Just walking beside him gave her pleasure.
He opened the car door for her, and when she was seated, he leaned down to tuck her skirt out of the way, another of his casually courteous gestures that disturbed the even rhythm of her pulse. Thank God he didn’t have any romantic interest in her! If she responded to him this strongly when he was merely being polite, what would it be like if he were making an effort to charm her? With an almost helpless fear, she realized that she wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
Lying on the seat between them was a newspaper, folded open to the ads for apartments for rent, and several of them had been circled. Max pointed to the first one. “This seems suitable. Are you familiar with the area?”
Claire picked up the newspaper and glanced at his choices. “Are you certain you want to look at these?” she asked doubtfully. “They’re terribly expensive.”
He gave her an amused glance, and Claire looked up in time to see it. She flushed suddenly; if she’d thought about it, she would have realized that he had no need to worry about money. He wasn’t flashy, but the signs were there for anyone to read. He dressed well; his clothing was tailored instead of bought off the rack. All the trappings of wealth were there, from his Italian shoes to his impossibly thin Swiss wristwatch, as well as being evident in his speech and manner. Perhaps he wasn’t rich, but he was certainly comfortable; companies would pay dearly for his services. She’d made a fool of herself by fretting about what he could afford to pay for an apartment.
“If I must travel so much, the people who pay me must be prepared to keep me in comfort,” he said with a chuckle in his voice. “I need privacy, but enough space to entertain when it’s necessary, and the apartment must be furnished, as I refuse to cart my furniture about the country.”
She gave him stilted directions to the first apartment he’d circled, her cheeks still warm. He began to tell her amusing tales of the pitfalls he’d encountered when he first came to the United States, laughing at himself, and gradually Claire began to relax. She had a horror of making social gaffes, a fear that had been born in the early days of her marriage when it had seemed as if everyone was pressuring her to “live up” to her newly acquired position as Jeff Halsey’s wife. As one of the Halseys, even by marriage, she’d been expected to be socially perfect; even the smallest mistakes had been so terribly public that every social function had become an exercise in endurance for Claire.
But Max didn’t let her retreat into her shell. He talked to her easily, without letting awkward silences fall between them. He sprinkled small questions through his conversation, compelling her to answer them and in that way contribute, until the last traces of embarrassment had faded and she was smiling naturally again. He watched her carefully, gauging her reactions. He’d be damned if he would let her draw back behind those cool, blank barriers of hers. He had to teach her to trust him, to relax in his company, or he would never be able to get any information from her. This damned takeover irritated him. He wanted it out of the way so he could concentrate on Claire and discover more about the woman behind the defenses. He was becoming obsessed with her, and that knowledge irritated him, too, but he couldn’t simply shrug it away. Her cool, distant manner attracted him even while it drove him mad with frustration. She had a habit of drifting away in her thoughts, those deep brown eyes revealing secrets that he couldn’t read and she wouldn’t share with him. His reaction to her confused him; he wanted to make love to her until all the shadows in her eyes were gone, until she burned for him, until she lay warm and helpless beneath him, her skin dewy from the heat and violence of his possession … and he wanted to protect her, from everything and everyone except himself.
She didn’t want him in either capacity, as lover or protector. She wanted him only for companionship, which was almost as exciting as warm milk.
The first address he’d marked was a group of condominiums, turning their bland identical faces to the street. They were new and expensive, but they were nothing more than brick growths on the Texas soil. Claire glanced at Max, unable to imagine him living there. He surveyed the condos; then his aristocratic brows
