You made a very unkind supposition as to my motives for asking you out which I think I corrected in such a way as to clear the air,’ he returned pleasantly. ‘That being the case, I can see no reason why we can’t have an enjoyable evening in each other’s company.’
It sounded so reasonable. She frowned. So there had to be a catch somewhere. ‘I’m afraid I’m working hard at the moment,’ she said carefully, ‘so I’m not dating.’
‘With the normal, run of the mill man, maybe. But I’m different.’ It was supremely arrogant, and even when he qualified the outrageous statement with, ‘I’m different because you owe me, Liberty. You did cause the accident, remember? I might have been badly hurt,’ imperiousness was still paramount.
‘You weren’t.’ She suspected a ten ton truck would make no impact on Carter Blake, let alone her little car.
‘I said I might have been. Think what a shock it was to have a car suddenly leap out in front of me like that. A lesser man might have had a heart attack on the spot.’
Involuntarily she smiled, and then was thankful he couldn’t see his charm was working. No doubt he always had women falling down like ninepins with one lift of his eyebrows! She schooled her voice to hide any amusement as she said, ‘You didn’t have a heart attack and the only thing that was hurt was my car—with a few scratches on yours which I’ve already said I’ll pay for,’ she added quickly.
‘I don’t want you to pay. I want you to have dinner with me.’
She put a hand to her brow. If she related this conversation to anyone else they would think she was stark staring mad not to snap his hand off. Repairs to a Mercedes’ paintwork wouldn’t be cheap, she hadn’t fooled herself about that, but…She swallowed hard. He clearly wasn’t going to take no for an answer; that was the bottom line. She might just as well agree to see him once and then that would be that. ‘All right, I’ll have dinner with you,’ she said a touch ungraciously.
He didn’t comment on her churlishness. ‘Good.’ There was a wealth of satisfaction in his voice. ‘Tomorrow being Saturday you’ll have all day to get ready.’
‘Hang on, I didn’t say I was free tomorrow,’ she protested immediately. How dared he assume she was at his beck and call?
‘Are you?’ he enquired pleasantly.
‘Yes, as it happens, but I might not have been,’ she said, knowing she sounded unnecessarily belligerent.
‘You said you weren’t dating at the moment.’ His voice was insultingly patient, as though he was talking to a recalcitrant child. ‘That being the case, I assumed the most important thing you might have on was washing your hair.’
‘I also said I was working hard,’ she pointed out tartly. ‘I might have had a schedule I couldn’t change.’
‘You’d still have to eat some time,’ he said reasonably.
She gave up. She had the feeling that Carter Blake always won an argument and maybe it was better to get it over and done with.
He’d assumed victory because he carried on with barely a pause. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven, okay? And you needn’t dress up too much. The restaurant I’m taking you to is smart casual with the emphasis on excellent food.’
‘Right.’ She’d assumed they would be dining at the Phoenix but he’d obviously got something else in mind. She hesitated a moment before saying, ‘Thank you.’ It was grudging.
‘My pleasure,’ Carter replied, his voice holding only the faintest trace of amusement. ‘Goodnight, Liberty.’
‘Goodnight.’ She put down the telephone in something of a daze and sat staring at it for a full minute before she could persuade herself to move. And not for the world would she have admitted to herself that she’d known all along that Carter would get his way and that, moreover, she had wanted him to.
Her mind had still been buzzing when she went to bed, but contrary to what she’d expected Liberty awoke the next morning after a deep, satisfying sleep. She lay for some minutes in the warmth of her double bed, gazing across the room at the picture she had bought when she’d first moved into the house. She had seen it in a little art gallery round the corner from the office and had fallen in love with it immediately, knowing she had to have it even though it had been wildly expensive at a time when she was watching every penny.
The snowy garden depicted was beautifully painted, the setting sun turning the snow rosy pink in parts, but it was the two figures to the forefront of the picture which always brought an aching warmth into her chest. The mother was kneeling in the snow with her arms wide open to receive the laughing little girl running to meet her, the snowman the child had been working on watching with a benevolent smile on his white face.
She didn’t know why she loved it so much because it always made her want to cry, but maybe it was the love shining out of the woman’s face that gripped her heart each time she looked at the picture. Whatever, she’d known she had to have it, and when she had shown it to her father the first night she had cooked him dinner in her new home and he’d said, ‘Laying a few ghosts, eh, sweetheart?’ it had bothered her for days.
She would never have children. She continued to stare at the picture as her eyes clouded. Much as she longed to be a mother one day, she would never trust herself or any children to one man. Marriage, commitment, faithfulness, they just didn’t work in the real world, and all children should have two parents who were devoted to them and who loved each other too. A couple of her friends who were disillusioned with men had made the decision to become single mothers, but that wasn’t for her either. She had been brought up by a single parent—her father—and she knew he would be the first to say it was not ideal.
But she would make a good life for herself—she was making a good life for herself. She twisted in the bed, suddenly irritated with the way her thoughts had gone. She had her home and a great job, and she intended to develop her career and take it as far as she could. In a few years junior partner, and eventually rising right up the ladder. The declaration didn’t hold the same thrill it usually did.
‘Coffee.’ She spoke out loud, flinging back the covers and leaping out of bed. ‘Coffee and toast and a long read of the paper.’ A leisurely start to the day was her weekend treat to herself after the mad scramble of Monday to Friday.
She was on her second cup of coffee, curled up on one of the sofas in the sitting room, when the telephone rang at her elbow. She lifted the receiver automatically, still reading.
‘Liberty?’ The deep, rich voice brought her jerking upwards with dire consequences. It was fortunate the coffee had had a chance to cool down a little because most of it ended up in her lap. ‘It’s Carter.’
He’d reconsidered. He was going to cancel their date and she really couldn’t blame him, she thought feverishly, mopping at her silk pyjamas with a handkerchief she’d had in her pocket. It was a moment or two before she managed a breathless, ‘Yes?’
There followed a longish pause. ‘Are you alone?’ he asked abruptly, his voice a shade cooler.
‘What?’ She stared at the phone in surprise.
‘I said, are you alone?’ he repeated impatiently.
‘It’s nine o’clock in the morning,’ she said bewilderedly.
