if she didn’t already know that his mind was as sharp as a sword. She fled into the bathroom so she wouldn’t have to watch him dress and, when she emerged, she could hear him whistling merrily in the kitchen. As if he didn’t have a care in the world. She envied him his cool ability to ride roughshod over people’s lives and ignored the traitorous tingle in her body and the voice that whispered to her how much she enjoyed certain aspects of being with him.
On the way out of the city she asked him to stop by a newsagents so she could get some papers. He looked at her with a strange expression.
‘What?’
‘Nothing…’ He lifted his brows innocently.
‘I can read, you know. And I do like to keep up with current affairs. I’m sorry if your usual…’ The word stuck in her craw.
‘Girlfriends?’ he supplied with a quirk on his lips.
‘Mistresses…are more intellectually challenged.’
He lifted a hand and ticked off on his fingers. ‘Actually, the last one was a human rights lawyer; the one before that was a hedge fund manager; the one before that—’
‘Okay, okay, I get the point. So I’m your dumbest mistress—’
He’d parked the car and leant over suddenly, thinking of how dry and sterile and boring those women had been. ‘Dumb? That’s not a word I’d use to describe you, Maggie.’ And he was suddenly surprised to know that he really meant it. In the last few days he’d had more stimulating conversations with her than he’d had with anyone in a long time. And he was uncomfortably aware of how much he’d come to look forward to walking in that door every day…as much as he might deny it to himself.
When he looked at her the way he was now, with that heated expression in his eyes, Maggie just wanted to drown in the blue depths. She willed herself back to sanity and felt for the door handle, not even able to break away, much as she wanted to. Finally she found it and practically fell out of the car, fled into the shop…and then came back.
‘Sorry, I should have asked, did you want anything?’
Caleb just shook his head and watched her leave. That something was niggling him again. Like a constant barely-there buzzing in his head, he couldn’t put his finger on it, it was so elusive. And he had to acknowledge the dark part of him that didn’t want to investigate what it was.
By the time they reached the house he’d put it from his mind. Maggie turned around to face him in the car when they pulled in, something urgent in her movements.
‘My mother thinks I’m working for you as an assistant, so please don’t disabuse her of that, and Caleb…’
He faced her properly, momentarily stunned by the serious expression on her face, the unmistakable protective light in her eyes. He’d seen it before, in Monte Carlo.
‘If you do or say anything to upset her…the deal will be off—we’ll cope somehow, but I will walk away and you can have the house.’
‘How on earth could I upset your mother, Maggie?’
‘She had nothing to do with anything, Caleb, nothing. Just remember it’s me you’re punishing, not her.’
And she got out of the car.
For a second Caleb sat there. Punishing her? As he watched her walk to the door, the soft folds of the dress she wore flowing round her hips and legs, as he felt the familiar surge of desire that wasn’t abating one tiny bit, the thought that she felt he was punishing her was not a comfortable one. And he didn’t know why. Because that was what he’d set out to do all along, wasn’t it?
He stepped out, meeting Maggie at the door just as it opened. He almost didn’t recognise the woman who stood there. She certainly looked different from how he remembered her—as almost grey, fading into the background. This woman looked…vibrant. Although he could see something in her eyes, some light that had been diminished, and there was a distinct wariness, a jumpiness there. He could see traces of the beauty she’d once been. A different beauty from Maggie’s, but there all the same. Maggie was hugging her and re-introducing them, as they’d met in London. He could feel the waves of warning emanate from her tightly held body and suddenly wanted to reassure her. He fought down the urge, telling himself he must be getting soft.
Maggie’s mother showed them into the front room, the same one that he’d been in before, where he’d seen Maggie again for the first time since they met in London. When they had drinks in their hands, she sat nervously on the edge of a chair.
‘Mr Cameron—’
He smiled urbanely. ‘Caleb, please.’
She smiled. ‘Very well, Caleb. I just wanted to say…thank you so much for being so generous. I don’t know how we can ever repay you. You have no idea how much this house meant, means to us…me and Maggie.’ She took Maggie’s hand beside her. ‘After my beloved Brendan died, it was all I had to remind me of him…’
‘Mrs Holland, I had no intention of making you suffer. Once Maggie explained the situation to me, I couldn’t have taken your house too…’
‘But…I know what this house is worth, Mr Cameron—’
Caleb could see tears come into her eyes. Then, he just knew. Maggie had told him the truth. This woman had had nothing to do with Tom’s plans.
‘Mrs Holland, I’m making full use of Maggie while I’m here in Dublin. When I leave, I’ll be more than satisfied to leave the house to you. Believe me, it’s enough.’
He looked at Maggie. She was burning up and he could see the pulse thumping erratically against her neck. She finally managed to get out a strangled, ‘Mum…shouldn’t we check the lunch?’
BY THE time they were eating their desserts, Maggie was relatively relaxed. Caleb had been charm personified, her mother suitably impressed and Maggie had kept quiet. She had just made coffee and was bringing it on a tray into the dining room.
‘And how on earth did you manage to persuade her to get rid of that car? Believe me, I’ve been trying for years; you would have thought it was like some kind of family pet. The only reason she didn’t drive it over to London was because she knew it’d never survive the journey…’
Maggie stood, stunned into immobility by her mother’s chatter, and then spoke quickly, putting down the tray, giving out the cups, trying not to slop the coffee everywhere with her shaking hands.
‘Mum…I’m sure Mr Cameron doesn’t want to hear about my banger. He did me a favour. I grew out of that long ago.’
‘But Maggie, only a few weeks ago you told me—’
‘More dessert, Mum? More coffee?’
‘We haven’t drunk it yet, Maggie,’ Caleb said dryly, an assessing gleam in his eyes as he took in Maggie’s all too obvious discomfiture.
She managed to distract her mother with something
