not see it for himself? A man more open to the possibility of letting someone into his life? A suitable woman.
People gave out vibes without even realising it. Had he projected some sort of availability-to-the-right-woman vibe?
Tense with anxiety, she stood back and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was nothing special, however much he might wax lyrical about her sexiness.
She was tall and rangy and her looks, such as they were, were unconventional.
Was his private call with a woman with more to offer in the looks department? Was he returning to his comfort zone after his brush with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks?
She found him in the kitchen and he was no longer on the phone. He was also no longer buck naked but had a towel slung around his lean hips. He must have nabbed it from the spare bathroom while he had been strolling to the kitchen.
Coffee was on the go.
He was so drop-dead gorgeous. So sinfully sexy. So horribly addictive. She remembered that she had fallen for him within five minutes of meeting him. So much for her much-prized defence system when it came to the opposite sex!
‘What was that about?’
Art stilled. He’d been reaching for a couple of mugs and he paused for a fraction of a second.
‘Coffee?’
‘You’re not going to answer?’
Rose was dismayed at the shrill, demanding tone of her voice. She had aimed for banter mingled with amused curiosity. She had ended up with shrewish nag but she couldn’t claw her way back from the question and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. If he was going to break it off with her because of some other woman then he should have the decency to come right out and tell her.
She shouldn’t have to second-guess.
‘I didn’t think that sharing my private phone calls was part and parcel of what we had.’
Rose flushed. ‘Who was it?’ she was horrified to hear herself ask.
‘I think this is a conversation best put on hold,’ Art said coolly.
‘And I happen to think that I deserve an answer. If it was a personal call with another woman, then I deserve to know. I realise this isn’t anything serious but I’m not interested in sleeping with anyone who’s seeing someone else on the side.’
‘Is that what you think?’ he asked quietly.
Rose hesitated but, like someone who had crossed a certain line, she was now doomed to carry on walking that road. And besides, she roused herself to a place of self-righteous justification, she did deserve to know if he was thinking about ditching her for someone else!
‘How do I know what to think if you won’t tell me what’s going on?’ she muttered.
‘I’m going to get changed.’
‘You’re walking away from an uncomfortable conversation,’ she challenged but he was already heading back to the bedroom and after a while she tripped along behind him.
Art stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her, eyes flint-hard. ‘I don’t do this,’ he said calmly.
Rose returned that gaze with one that was equally cool. ‘Do what, Art?’ She folded her arms, determined to brave out what she knew was going to be their final conversation. ‘Discuss anything you might find a little awkward? I know this isn’t about love and commitment, but it should be about respect and if you respected me you wouldn’t baulk at having this conversation.’
Rose hoped that he would read nothing in her eyes that gave the lie to that statement because when it came to love she was drowning under the weight of it. Pride would never allow her to admit that, however. She was going to leave but she would leave without him ever having cause to think that he had had a narrow escape from yet another needy woman who had foolishly disobeyed his Do Not Trespass signs and developed unacceptable feelings towards him.
He had let slip in conversation the headaches he had had with a couple of previous girlfriends who had wanted him to meet the parents, who had mentioned the possibility of making plans further ahead than the next couple of hours.
Rose had absorbed those passing comments and was not going to be bracketed in the same category, to become yet another irritating ex to be produced during some future conversation with some future woman.
Art’s eyebrows shot up but something made him hesitate before heading back to the bedroom.
‘I’m not going to have this conversation,’ he said abruptly. ‘If you feel that I am the sort of man who disrespects women, who has somehow disrespected you, then it’s clear that we should not be together.’
‘Art...’
‘I’ll be back but don’t wait up.’
‘Is that your way of saying that you’d like me to be gone by the time you return? Because if it is then why don’t you have the guts to come right out and say so?’
‘No one speaks to me like that!’
Rose folded her arms and stared at him mutinously. On the inside she was breaking up into pieces. On the outside she refused to show him just how much she was hurting. ‘Then you’re right,’ she said gruffly. ‘It’s clear that we shouldn’t be together if I’m only allowed to speak to you in a certain way!’
The tense silence between them stretched on and on and on...stretched until she could feel all her wretchedness washing over her in a painful tidal wave.
‘Like I said,’ Art drawled, ‘don’t wait up.’
Rose watched in silence as he threw aside the towel to get dressed. She found that she couldn’t look at him. Even at the height of this toxic argument, she could still be moved by his sheer animal beauty. She didn’t want to be moved.
He left the room without a backward glance and for a while she actually hoped that he would have second thoughts and return.
He didn’t.
She had no idea where he’d gone and her feverish imagination provided her with all sorts of unwelcome scenarios. Had he disappeared into the waiting arms of some other woman? Had he somehow manoeuvred a situation in which she would react in a way that would give him an out?
She wasn’t going to hang around to find out and there was nothing more to be said.
She gathered her things in record time. She hadn’t brought much with her and what little she had brought took ten minutes to toss into her case.
She paused to look at the wonderful dress she had worn for the charity event that had been so memorable for so many reasons.
No way was she taking it with her.
It took her half an hour and then she was out of the mansion block and casting one last look behind her from the back of a black cab.
* * *
Art
