‘With a bit of luck, your father should be out of hospital before Christmas, and then he and your mother will fly straight to my villa in Portugal and stay there until he’s fully recovered. Have you made any plans for Christmas?’ he asked her, apparently unaware of her sudden lack of appetite, as he ate his own meal with gusto.
Christmas! She had not even got as far as thinking about how she would spend it. Normally, it was a big event, with her parents’ friends descending on the house. Her mother loved it, and so had her father. But this year…
‘A few,’ she lied carelessly, not wanting him to know that, with her parents away, her Christmas would be very bleak indeed. She didn’t want him to accuse her of being selfish again, of putting her own feelings before those of her mother and father.
‘A pity. You’ll have to cancel them.’
‘Cancel?’ Heather stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve promised your parents that I’ll make sure that you spend Christmas here with me. Apparently they’re concerned about you staying in the house on your own, and I must say I can see why.’
‘For goodness’ sake, I’m twenty-three years old, and perfectly capable of taking care of myself! I’m not likely to try and commit suicide just because I’m spending Christmas alone,’ she threw at him bitterly.
‘No one suggested that you might, but that house is rather remote, and your father says the central heating’s on the blink. He’s also concerned about the van. He says it isn’t very reliable or safe. OK, so you and I know you’d be perfectly safe and certainly much happier on your own than you’re likely to be here, but for their sake can I suggest that you give in quietly?’
‘Is that what you did?’
The silence stretched for too long for her to deceive herself that she was wrong. Kyle wanted her staying with him as little as she wanted to be there.
‘All right,’ she gave in wearily. ‘And I promise I’ll do my best to keep out of your way…’
‘I’ll give you a spare key before you go. You could move your stuff in while I’m away in the States. There’s a guest suite upstairs, you can use that. When I get back I’ll show you the plans for the new shopping arcade, and you can tell me what you think.’
He tossed the comment to her as casually as an adult throwing a child a sweet, and without her being aware of it her eyes flashed dangerously.
‘All that wasted passion,’ he mocked her. ‘There’s only one way you’re ever going to get to dig those sharp claws of yours into my skin, and it’s not by losing your temper with me.’ He laughed at her flushed, shocked face. ‘Perish the thought, eh?’ he taunted softly. ‘Don’t worry. I doubt I’ll ever be that desperate.’
‘It wouldn’t matter if you were,’ Heather retaliated when she had got her breath back. ‘There’s no way I’d ever let you…’
‘Take you to bed? Don’t tempt fate,’ he advised her, and for a moment she was almost tempted to believe that he was actually contemplating what he was threatening, and then she remembered that he had always had a Machiavellian sense of humour, and decided instantly that if he thought he was going to get to exercise it now at her expense he could think again.
‘Why not?’ she retorted carelessly, giving a dazzling and very manufactured smile. ‘I doubt that even you could teach me anything I don’t already know. I’m not seventeen any more now, Kyle. A macho display of sexuality is hardly likely to send me into a flutter of confusion these days.’
‘So it seems, but just let’s get one thing clear, shall we? In private, I’m prepared to take just as many insults as you care to dish out, but in public…’
‘Your image is that fragile?’ She smiled with sweet malice.
‘No, but your father’s health is,’ he reminded her brutally. ‘And, for his sake, I suggest that you at least try to pretend you can be in my company for over five minutes without wanting to shred the skin from my back.’
Heather stood up, shrugging. ‘That’s fine by me, but I don’t like being goaded, Kyle. Kick me and I kick back.’
‘Does the same thing apply in reverse? Are you as responsive to kisses as you are to “kicks” I wonder?’
‘That’s…’ They were back where they had started, and she checked the words, holding them back. Instead, she said acidly, ‘That’s for me to know…’
‘And me to find out?’ Kyle murmured suggestively. ‘Well, well. I never thought that…’
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ Heather protested, flustered. ‘You know it wasn’t. Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she groaned, capitulating. ‘Will you please stop confusing me with all this innuendo? All right, maybe we can never be true friends, but surely we can do better than this?’
The plea came from her heart, her defences going down as she realised how ill equipped she was to deal with a man of his calibre.
‘Please, Kyle, help me,’ she pleaded despairingly. ‘You’re right, it will hurt my parents dreadfully if they see us quarrelling, but all this is new territory for me.’
She held her breath, dreading hearing him make the kind of sardonic response that would show that he was not taking her plea seriously, or, worse, that he was amused.
His reply was a long time in coming and when it did, it made her body tense with shock, and yes, pleasure, too, she recognised later, when she tried to analyse the multiplicity of sensations she had experienced.
‘I take back all the insulting things I ever said about you,’ he told her quietly. ‘You’ve grown up to become one hell of a woman, Heather: female enough to resent being verbally attacked, and yet big enough to put aside those feelings and lower your defences. I don’t know if you scare me the most when you look at me as though you’d like to see me burst into flames in front of your eyes, or when you look at me the way you’re doing right now. Friends?’ He shook his head and said softly, ‘No, maybe we’ll never be that, but for what it’s worth you have my respect.’