now his voice was colder. ‘It matters because you are not the sort of woman a man takes to bed for one night and then forgets about, neither would you be content to be a number in a little black book. You are Jackie’s friend, for crying out loud, a family friend; you are living with my parents, working for them.’ He stopped abruptly, straightening his shoulders, but still not turning to look at her as he added, ‘It was madness to bring you here tonight.’
The thrill that he wanted her, that he was actually finding it hard to keep his hands off her, was completely negated by the way he was talking. However attracted he was to her, his autonomy mattered more. That was what he was saying. Maisie slid off the bed, smoothing down her dress and running her fingers through her tousled hair to tidy it. She wanted to burst into tears but she knew that would just make a bad situation a hundred times worse. She had to salvage something out of this awful mess, a mess she had brought about by forcing his hand. They were going to come into contact with each other over the next weeks while she was staying at his parents’ house; she didn’t want him to stay away once his father was home because of her or anything like that.
She took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ she said steadily. ‘I see where you’re coming from. We’ll put this down to experience, shall we, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t be friends. Just friends. And if you’re ready, I’d like that drink now.’ She would like a whole bottle actually; she’d need that much to get through the rest of the evening.
He turned, surveying her with a narrowed stare. She could see the intelligent mind whirring away, computing what she had just said. She waited, looking back at him without giving anything away.
‘You think that is possible?’ he said grimly. ‘After what we have just shared? With all that is between us?’
It had to be. If she had thought some of the things she had gone through in the past were difficult, they were nothing compared to what she was having to do now. She forced herself to shrug nonchalantly. ‘A few kisses, a little lovemaking,’ she said evenly. ‘That’s all we shared and we are both mature adults after all.’ Pride was coming to the rescue now—a little belatedly, admittedly, she thought bitterly, but better late than never. She was not going to grovel or beg for what he refused to give. Never in a million years. ‘Perhaps we needed to do that to get it out of our system. Anyway, we’ve tried it and that’s that. Friendship from now on. Agreed?’
He rubbed his hand across his mouth, clearly at a loss.
‘And, like I said, I’m ready for that drink now. And dinner. Preferably before midnight.’ She smiled and he would never know how much it cost. She turned from him, from the look in his eyes, and left the room, walking carefully down the winding staircase right down to the dining room and then out of the door into the fragrant courtyard. She sat down at the table, staring at the crystalline blue water in the distance and deliberately emptying her mind of all thought.
A few moments later he joined her, two glasses of deep red wine in his hands. She looked up, holding out her hand for a glass as she said, ‘Thanks. What are we having for dinner?’
He grimaced. ‘It will not be as exciting as if I had had time to plan for the occasion, but I thought perhaps ginger and chilli tiger prawns followed by tortelloni filled with ricotta and parsley, served with fresh lobster?’
‘Wow.’ She tried not to notice how the blue of the sky was reflected in his eyes. It wouldn’t help. If he could do this, so could she. ‘The mind boggles at what you would do if you did have time to plan.’ She took a sip of the wine. It was smooth and soft, bursting with blackcurrant, cherry and violet aromas. ‘Do you want me to do anything in the kitchen while you shower and change?’ she asked, matching her voice to a tone she’d use if she was asking Jackie the same question.
He had swallowed half of his glass of wine. Now he set it down on the table. ‘The only thing I want you to do is to refill your glass when you’re ready,’ he said, walking back into the dining room as he spoke and then exiting again with the bottle in his hand.
‘Suits me.’ She kicked off her sandals and wriggled her toes. If they were going to do this friendship thing then she might as well be comfortable. The extra couple of inches the sandals had given her didn’t matter now, nor the way they’d made her ankles look tiny. She was done with trying to seduce him. And she was utterly, utterly fed up with men in general. The urge to cry was there again and she hoped he was going to clear off for his shower before she spoilt everything she’d achieved in the last few minutes.
Once he had disappeared, however, a feeling of recklessness took over and, draining her glass, she poured herself another. The evening had mellowed to one of satisfying warmth after the heat of the day, a thousand summers in the light breeze perfumed with sun-warmed vegetation and flowers. She didn’t want to think any more, she found. She just wanted to be. Thinking was too painful, too unsettling.
When Blaine joined her a little while later she absolutely refused to dwell on the fact that he looked doubly sexy with his hair still damp from the shower. He had shaved and there was the tiniest of nicks on his chin. Why that should make her quiver inside she didn’t know, but it did. Right down to her toes.
He had brought another bottle of the heavenly wine out with him and after refilling his own glass he raised his eyebrows as she put a hand over her own half full one. ‘No more yet,’ she said smilingly, telling herself she had to pretend he was Sue or Jackie or another of her friends and be as relaxed as she would be with them. ‘I feel a bit tiddly, to tell you the truth.’
‘After one and a half glasses?’ He grinned back at her and she felt a rush of pure resentment that he could do this friendly thing so much easier than she could. ‘Something tells me you are not a seasoned drinker.’
Unlike some of these sophisticated career women he had spoken about, no doubt. She supposed they could down a bottle without blinking. They could probably do a lot of things without blinking. Frequently. With him. ‘I don’t drink much,’ she said airily, ‘if that’s what you mean.’ On her salary she hadn’t been able to afford to. And quite often when she and Jeff had gone out to dinner or eaten a meal at his very nice flat in central London, he’d been on call, so they’d shared nothing more exciting than a bottle of fizzy water. She briefly wondered how the perfect Camellia would react to his disappearing at the drop of a hat in the middle of a date. Badly, she hoped. She was completely over him but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t like him to get a bit of grief.
‘The prawns will take about ten minutes so I’ll get cooking.’
‘Can I come and watch?’ This sitting in splendid isolation was all very well and the view was undoubtedly stupendous, but compared to observing Blaine under the guise of watching him cook it couldn’t even begin to compare. Sad. Maisie mentally nodded. She was turning into one sad female.
‘Of course.’ he nodded to her glass. ‘Bring your wine.’
Once in the kitchen, she had to admit she was more than a little impressed by how organised and efficient he was. When she cooked anything other than a casserole, where she could sling everything in together and bung it in the oven, it tended to be something of a hit and miss affair, and she knew she was a messy cook. Blaine, on the other hand, was definitely a pro. She said as much once he had finished browning the sesame seeds and put them to one side, using the same pan with new oil to start cooking the prawns, garlic, chilli and green pepper.
‘I am Italian,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It is in the genes, you know? Whenever Liliana visits her sister in Tuscany my father always cooks at home. My mother is not particularly domesticated.’
There you see, they would be absolutely
