her patio to disturb the peace, and perhaps she’d begin to unwind from a day which had never quite recovered from the encounter with Grant.
Stupid, she knew, to let him get under her skin like that, but the way he’d behaved at the meeting had floored her. Though always something of a maverick, the young intern she’d once known and fallen in love with had been the least pretentious man she’d ever met, and had borne no resemblance at all to this morning’s arrogant nitpicker.
But the memory of his remarks, the scornful tone of his voice, his patronizing smile and confident assumption that she’d jump on command if he ordered her to, continued to mock her, even after she’d swum several lengths of the pool and collapsed on a chaise in the shade of a large sun umbrella.
You’re scarcely qualified to determine priorities…you’re clearly unable to view the matter with any kind of objectivity…you need to consult an expert….
“The nerve of him, condescending to me like that, as if I were still the wet-behind-the-ears girl he married!” she muttered indignantly, taking a swig of her wine.
A second later, the glass all but slipped from her fingers as a familiar voice inquired, “Do you often get plastered and start talking to yourself, sweet face? Because if you do, you should be aware that it’s a very dangerous habit to adopt which can and usually does lead to serious and long-lasting consequences.”
CHAPTER THREE
LOOKING supremely at ease, and for all the world as if he had every right to be there, he lounged against the frame of the French doors leading from her living room, his shabby attempt to look grave sadly undermined by the supercilious little smirk on his face.
“How did you get in here, Grant?” she spat, doing her best to sound both dignified and affronted—no easy task given that she was sprawled out practically naked before him and he was making no secret of the fact that he’d noticed.
“I let myself in,” he said, staring his fill at great leisure. “The butler doesn’t seem to be on duty. I thought perhaps you’d given him the night off.”
“I don’t have a butler.”
His smirk grew. “What, and no maid, either? Gee, it must be tough, having to do for yourself!”
“It is. But somehow I manage.” Aware that her strapless bikini top was precariously close to letting all it was supposed to contain fall out before his amused inspection, she tried rather unsuccessfully to cover herself with a towel.
Of course, if he’d had a grain of decency in his make-up, he’d have averted his eyes and let her fumble in private, but he’d never been long on chivalry. “You don’t seem to be managing that too well,” he drawled, shoving himself away from the door frame and ambling toward her. “Need any help?”
“Not from you,” she fumed, slapping the towel in his direction to keep him at a distance.
“No need to get all exercised, Olivia,” he said mildly. “I didn’t come here with seduction in mind.”
“What did you come for, then?” To her horror, the question emerged loaded with unintentional petulance, a fact he was also quick to pick up on.
“You sound almost disappointed, sweet face, as if it’s been a long time since a man reminded you how it feels to respond like a woman. Am I to take it that Hank from the Bank is no great shakes between the sheets?”
“His name is Henry,” she exclaimed, almost choking with anger, “and I thought I made it plain on Saturday that we are not lovers! This might come as a surprise to you, Grant, but there are men for whom sex is not the be-all and end-all of existence.”
“Only if they’ve been neutered.” Uninvited, Grant took a turn around the patio, peering into the various jardinieres as if he suspected Henry might be lurking amid the flowers. “If you were my woman, I’d be out defending my territory, especially if her unattached ex suddenly showed up in town.”
“But I’m not your woman. I never was, although I suppose it would be expecting too much for you to understand the difference between sharing your life with someone and treating her as if she were just another possession to load in the trunk of your car.”
“I was willing to share my life with you, Olivia,” he said, the very softness in his tone a warning as lethal as a jungle cat’s low snarl. By now, the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon so that his shadow lay long and narrow on the flagstones, making it seem almost as if he were reaching out to her. “I was willing to share everything—all my dreams and ambitions and, most assuredly, my heart. You just weren’t interested in coming along for the ride.”
His accusation brought the resentment she’d thought she’d buried years before rising up to engulf her, along with a smattering of remembered agony and a wealth of bitterness. “You’re the one who walked out, Grant Madison, not I, so don’t try rewriting history now, because I’m not about to buy it! I might not have been bright enough to have the letters ‘M.D.’ after my name, but I was far from the simpleton you took me to be. I knew exactly what you were doing, the day you presented me with an ultimatum no sane person would have found acceptable. You wanted an excuse to back out of our marriage and you found one.”
“I offered you adventure and freedom,” he said, the sudden edge in his voice sharp as a scalpel, “but you didn’t have the guts to seize opportunity when it came knocking. Instead you chose to remain in your father’s shadow and to hell with me!”
“As if you even cared! Your only passion was medicine.”
“Not just medicine, Olivia. At one time, I was passionate about you, too.”
“You didn’t let that stop you from abandoning me at a time when I was most vulnerable, though, did you?”
He swore at that, a profanity so explosively obscene that she cringed. “Save it, Olivia! I didn’t come here to be raked over the coals yet again for something over which I had absolutely no control!”
She shrugged contemptuously. “So, leave! I don’t see anyone keeping you here against your will.”
“Not until I’ve said my piece, which is simply this: it seems that you’ve carved quite a niche for yourself in hospital affairs, which means we’re bound to cross paths frequently in the next month or two. I suggest that, unless you want to set every tongue in town wagging, you learn to leave your personal antipathies at home, because the job site is no place to air them and I won’t put up with being made to look like a fool in front of my colleagues. Your little performance this morning will not be repeated, Olivia. Do I make myself clear?”
“Don’t you condescend to me, Grant Madison! I’m no longer the insecure little twit you once knew. I haven’t just grown older, I’ve grown up, as well. Meet the new me: Olivia Whitfield, B.Comm., fully accredited fundraising executive. It takes determination and guts to go out into the big world of business and hustle for bucks. But you wouldn’t know about anything like that, would you, locked away in your pure, anti-bacterial ivory tower?”
“Holy cow!” he murmured. “I’m impressed!”
But he didn’t sound impressed; he sounded highly amused.
“Listen to me,” she hissed. “I won’t put up with being treated like some feather-brained socialite
