beside an open window.
It was romantic and glamorous beyond belief. Heady stuff, with Caleb across the small table, long legs stretched out alongside hers. When she realised that, she tucked hers primly under her chair. He noted her movement with a mocking lift of one brow. She ignored it.
He handed her a menu. The waiter came back and they gave their order, Caleb asking for some sparkling water. When the waiter left the water and had gone again, Caleb lifted his glass. ‘In the absence of wine…can we drink to a truce, Maggie?’
A fluttery feeling hit her belly. She couldn’t avoid his eyes, the blue hypnotising her. She lifted her glass too, dampening the feeling ruthlessly. He was doing this just to make things easier for himself. No one wanted a reluctant mistress. And she had to stop her wayward thoughts…‘To a truce, then…’
He smiled. She took a sip and the rogue fluttery feeling came back a thousandfold. When he trained that smile on her…she couldn’t think straight. Danger.
He’s turning on the charm, just to get what he wants—you… a little sing-song voice warned. Maggie ignored it. She knew exactly what he was doing.
‘Let’s not forget why we’re here though…’
‘Enlighten me, Maggie, please.’ A hard glitter entered his eyes.
‘The house, of course.’
‘Ah, yes. The house. I was attempting, however hopelessly, to give us the chance to perhaps ignore the ugly reality. You don’t need to remind me of how you’re bartering yourself for a house worth millions. The fact is you are. And I’m the fool who thinks you’re worth it.’ His words rang with bitterness and she could see a pulse beat at his temple. He obviously regretted saying too much.
She flushed a dull red. Well, she’d asked for it. And why did she feel in the wrong? Just because he was the one who had held out the tentative olive branch?
She took a gulp of water.
He leant forward. ‘But Maggie, there’s no reason why we can’t come to some mutual accord.’
She had to be careful; she was letting her vulnerable emotions run away with her. The type of woman he was used to wouldn’t bat an eyelid at what they were doing. She strove for that cool insouciance. Albeit slightly after the fact.
‘Yes. You’re right. Let’s drink to that truce again.’ She held up her glass. With narrowed, calculating eyes he clinked hers again. She smiled brilliantly, hiding the hurt. She willed the awkward feeling away and, with more aplomb and skill than she’d thought she could possibly possess, she managed to steer them into a light conversation.
As Caleb seemed to disregard her little outburst, as they talked of inconsequential matters, like a bittersweet pain, she remembered all too well how much they’d had in common, or so she had thought. How much she’d loved talking to him once. Without knowing how it happened, somehow they’d gravitated to more personal matters.
‘Do you go back to Rio much?’ The plates had been cleared and Maggie was cradling her coffee cup in one hand, feeling deliciously full. Even though they hadn’t had wine, she felt a mellow feeling snake through her bones, relaxing her. And it surprised her, how easily she’d let herself become this relaxed.
Caleb looked away for a second and something flashed over his face. ‘Not that much. Although my mother is still there, she’s busy with her new husband…’
‘You mentioned him before, didn’t you? Isn’t he—’
‘The same age as me.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Yes. And he has lots of money for her to be kept in the style to which she’s accustomed.’
Maggie tried desperately to keep things light. ‘Well, you have to admit, for feminists out there, it’s a nice reversal. Usually it’s the other way around, an old man with a woman no older than his own daughter.’
There was tension for a second and then Caleb smiled. ‘You’re right. You’d probably like her, you know. She’s very forthright, very outspoken.’
She felt suddenly shy at the thought of meeting his mother, but knew he hadn’t meant it like that, literally. If anything, it was more likely to be a cloaked insult.
‘Is…is your father still in England?’
He nodded as he took a sip of coffee, ‘Yes. He’s in Brighton, so I get down there whenever I can.’ There was none of the tension in his voice when talking about his father. Maggie guessed he had a very fraught relationship with his mother and remembered him telling her before about how his parents had fought over him as a boy, having divorced when he’d been only three or four. He’d been shunted back and forth between Brazil and the UK for years.
‘But you’re living in London? Or you were…’ She couldn’t say the words, six months ago.
He nodded briefly. ‘I have an apartment there and one in Rio, New York, Paris…but I’m never in one place long enough to call it home…’
At that moment he caught her eyes and they were clouded with some indefinable emotion; it reached out across the table and made him suddenly feel the need for something he’d never felt before. Maggie cut into his disturbing thoughts, echoing them.
‘I can’t imagine that. All the years we lived in London, Ireland was always our home. Somewhere to come back to…’
A refuge from terror. Dublin had always been too boring for Tom. He’d never stayed long and her happiest times had been during her Irish boarding school years whenever he’d let her mother stay…which had usually been when he was off on a holiday with one of his many mistresses.
‘Is that where you’ll stay now?’
She dragged her attention back and nodded. ‘I’d like to. We’ve been home for six months—’
‘Six months?’ He was sharp. Maggie coloured guiltily and wondered frantically if she’d let her guard down too much. But what could that possibly tell him?
She picked her words carefully. ‘Mum wanted to come home, so I came back with her to settle her in…’
His eyes were narrowed on her face. Intense. ‘So you left London six months ago?’
Maggie nodded.
Caleb studied her. There was a kernel of something there; he was sure of it. But he couldn’t figure what it was. Tom must have sent her away, fearing that Caleb might somehow come after her. Protection. The thought made him feel that impotent rage again. At her betrayal, at his own weakness for her. He made a huge effort to put it out of his mind. They’d agreed to a truce. ‘You’re close to your mother?’
Maggie, relieved that he’d let the London focus go, nodded emphatically. She was unaware of the protective gleam that lit her eyes, making them almost luminous. Caleb’s breath stopped; she looked radiant. The sun had already given her pale skin a warm glow, freckles that made him want to reach out and touch. Her top hinted at the valley between her breasts. A tendril of red-gold hair had drifted over one shoulder and curled tantalisingly close to her breast. This was crazy; he felt jealous…of some hair? He shifted on his seat, his body throbbing. Tonight, he vowed, a steady pulse of anticipation and desire beating through his blood…
