Her heart contracted with apprehension. Every instinct she had was screeching at her like a banshee not to let him into her apartment, but what if he met one of her neighbours and they mentioned her son?
Maybe there were other options, but right now she was too tired and strung out to work them out—and besides, she wanted him out of the hallway and her life.
Quickly she did an inventory of the apartment—thankfully she had tidied George’s toys away, and the only photos of him were in her bedroom. Her skin felt suddenly hot and tight, but of course there was no way Aristo would be going within a mile of that particular room.
‘Fine. You can come in,’ she said briskly. ‘But you can’t stay long.’
Mentally crossing her fingers, she hoped that tonight wouldn’t be the one occasion when Elliot was on time. She had, of course, given him an abridged version of her ill-starred marriage, only she had carefully edited out all mention of the tangle of unresolved feelings she still carried around with her.
But Elliot would only have to walk through her front door to know that she was upset, and right now she had enough going on with Aristo. She certainly didn’t want to have to deal with Elliot as well.
‘Ten minutes, Aristo, that’s all. And you’ll have to be quiet. I have elderly neighbours,’ she lied, ‘and I don’t want to disturb them.’
His dark, unwavering gaze fixed on hers and she felt a sudden rush of panic, for it seemed as though he could not only sense her lies, but also the reason behind them—as if the T-shirt she was wearing was printed with the truth.
‘I can do quiet, Theodora. Or have you forgotten?’
Her pulse fluttered, cheeks suddenly burning. No, she hadn’t forgotten. They had often been caught out by the strength of their desire, and on one particularly memorable occasion in a park they had satisfied their passion beneath the shade of a tree, hidden from passers-by. Quickly she pushed the thought away, wishing her brain hadn’t chosen to save that particular memory for posterity, but not even divorce proceedings had weakened the devastating pull of desire between them.
Ignoring the quivering tension of her body, she lifted her chin and smiled at him coolly. ‘It must have slipped my memory.’
Turning, she let the door fall back on his foot, his grunt of pain giving her a momentary but sharp satisfaction.
Stopping what she considered a safe distance away from him, she watched as he strolled into her living room, his assessing gaze travelling over the modest interior and no doubt contrasting it with the luxury of the apartment they’d once shared. But who cared what he thought? He was only here under sufferance, and she needed to make that clear to him.
‘I gave you my lawyer’s number for a reason. So why are you here?’ she asked stiffly.
She didn’t much care, but now that he was standing in her living room she realised there was no such thing as safe for her where Aristo was concerned. He was still wearing his suit, but he’d unbuttoned his shirt and lost the tie. Only, instead of making him less intimidating, his more relaxed appearance only seemed to emphasise his natural authority.
Add to that the fact that they were completely alone, it was no surprise that her head was starting to swim.
But it wasn’t just the tantalising temptation of his nearness that was making her hold her breath. Earlier she’d been so concerned about inadvertently revealing something about George that she’d been able to ignore her guilt at not doing so. In the unfamiliar surroundings of the Kildare Hotel it had felt almost like someone else’s life.
Now, though, it felt real, personal, and she could feel herself wavering. Could she really go through with this? Could she really cheat him out of knowing his son? Shouldn’t she at least give him the chance? And what about George? He’d already asked her why he didn’t have a daddy.
So far he was too young to really focus on the issue, but that would change…
‘I didn’t speak to her.’
It took her a moment to realise that he was replying to her question about her lawyer.
He was standing with his back to her, studying the books on her shelves, and she stared tensely at him, remembering how he’d loved to lie with that same head on her lap and how she’d loved to run her fingers through the thick, black hair…
She jumped slightly as he turned, her cheeks flushing with colour as his all-seeing dark eyes fixed on hers.
‘There was no point,’ he said blithely. ‘Why pay legal fees when we can talk for free?’
Her skin felt suddenly too tight. There was a long, steady silence as she stared at him incredulously. If she hadn’t been so stunned, she might have laughed. ‘Are you giving me advice?’
There was another long silence, and then he shrugged. ‘Somebody has to. Clearly whoever has been doing so up until now can’t have had your best interests at heart.’
He watched her green eyes widen, feeling childishly but intensely gratified that his words had clearly scored a direct hit. And then he caught sight of the two glasses and abruptly his mood changed, for clearly she hadn’t been planning on spending the evening alone.
Ever since she’d more or less fled from him, he’d been questioning her motives for doing so. Although he knew their relationship was purely professional, Edward Claiborne and Teddie had looked good together, and it had got to him—for, just like his mother, Teddie was not the kind of women to be alone. Despite her denial, he had no doubt that somewhere in the city there was a nameless, faceless man who had stepped into his shoes.
In fact that was why he’d found himself standing on her doorstep. Even just imagining it made a knot of rage form in his stomach, and that enraged him further—the fact that she still had the power to affect him after all these years.
His shoulders tensed. ‘Or perhaps they have their own agenda.’
Teddie felt a rush of anger spread over her skin like a heat rash. ‘Nobody has been giving me advice. I make my own decisions—although I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.’ Heart thumping, she lifted her gaze to his. ‘It was always a difficult concept for you, wasn’t it, Aristo? My being an independent woman?’
His eyes flickered, and she could almost see the fuse inside of him catch light.
‘If by “independent” you mean self-absorbed and unsupportive, then, yes, I suppose it was.’
She caught her breath. The room felt suddenly cramped and airless, as though it had shrunk in the face of his anger—an anger which fed the outrage that had been simmering inside her since meeting him earlier.
‘You’re calling me self-absorbed and unsupportive?’ She glared at him, the sheer injustice of his statement blowing her away. She could feel her grip on her temper starting to slip. How dare he turn up here, in her home, and start throwing accusations at her?
But even as she choked on her anger, she wasn’t really surprised. Back when she’d loved him, she’d known that he had a single-minded vision of the world—a world in which he was always in the right and always had the last word. Her refusing to talk to him now simply didn’t fit with that expectation.
Her
