The Beautiful Widow

Steel being Steel, he cut through the prevarication. ‘Is it because Barbara sent Annie those flowers? I had no knowledge of her contact with my sister, I can promise you that, and I’ve had nothing to do with her for a long time.’

Toni nodded. ‘I believe you,’ she said flatly, looking through the windscreen rather than at him.

She was aware of his eyes searching her face. ‘Then what’s wrong, Toni? Because you’re a different woman from the one who walked in that place with me half an hour ago.’

‘I told you, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.’

‘OK.’ He settled back in his seat. ‘I can sit here all day if necessary, all night too, but we’re not leaving until you tell me.’ He locked the doors as he spoke. ‘I mean it.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She stared at him in alarm. ‘Start the car.’

He didn’t answer her, switching on the music and making himself comfortable as he shut his eyes.

‘Steel, you can’t hold me captive here.’

‘Funny, but I thought that was exactly what I’m doing.’

Helplessly, she said, ‘I don’t suppose I liked your ex sending Annie the flowers, OK? That’s it. No big deal.’

He sat up, switching off the music, and the silver eyes raked her face. ‘No, it’s more than that. You’re not peeved or irritated, this is something more serious than that, and I can’t understand if you won’t discuss it.’

‘The

re’s nothing to understand.’

‘Like I said, I can wait all day,’ he said lazily, his easy tone catching her on the raw.

Flooded by emotions as chaotic as a winter’s storm, Toni met his eyes. ‘This is a mistake—us seeing each other, I mean. If it’s too difficult to go back to how we were, I’ll leave immediately, or I’ll finish the new project first, if that’s what you would prefer.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He wasn’t shouting, but the lazy note had gone, to be replaced by a softness that was dangerous. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Yes, Steel. I am.’ Her chin came up and her mouth thinned. ‘And you can’t tell me what I can or can’t do. No one can do that any more. That ended with Richard’s death.’

‘This is to do with him, isn’t it? The louse you married? You’re frightened of being with someone again, of feeling something for a man.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m no Richard, Toni.’

Feeling something? He couldn’t have said anything more guaranteed to make her mad. She loved him, she had been struggling with her feelings for months and driving herself half mad in the process, and he talked about her being frightened of feeling something? Her fingers tightened, whitening her knuckles. ‘This is absolutely nothing to do with Richard and all to do with you,’ she said with such transparent honesty he couldn’t fail to believe her. ‘I don’t want to be absorbed into your lifestyle, Steel. To have to try and become the sort of woman you need.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, dammit,’ he bit out through clenched teeth. He had to stop for a long calming breath. ‘You don’t have to try and be anything, just yourself. Is this about Barbara, Toni? The woman means nothing to me—surely you know that?’

It was an unfortunate choice of words but he couldn’t have known that. Toni stared at him. Her voice was quiet now and infinitely sad. ‘You were with this woman, you shared each other’s lives, you slept with her, and not so very long ago either. Just a matter of months. And now you say she means nothing to you? That’s exactly what I mean, Steel. One day it will be me you’re saying that about.’

His head jerked at the accusation. His eyes blazing silver sparks, he ground out, ‘Never.’

‘And there are so many Barbaras out there, Steel. Beautiful women, available women, women who will throw themselves at you and not take no for an answer. You’re … irresistible.’

‘And you’re saying I have as little emotional maturity as a stud stallion, is that it? All these women who will supposedly throw themselves into my arms I’ll service without thinking twice about it? I’m a man, Toni. Not an animal. I don’t take a lady because she indicates she’s available. Before I met you I had my share of women, but I’ve never denied that or made a secret of it. But it wasn’t a conveyor belt, dammit. And neither was it all about sex. Surprising as it obviously is to you, I do require mental as well as physical stimulation when I’m with a woman.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. It’s just that there are so many women who will want you who are more beautiful and more intelligent than me. I wasn’t enough for—for Richard, and he was an ordinary man. You’re not an ordinary man, Steel.’

He searched her face, seeking an explanation that wasn’t there, a way to get through to her. ‘You cut me and I bleed,’ he said softly. ‘The same as the next man. And your ex was an addict always in search of his next fix. The addiction had nothing to do with you as a person, a woman. Aphrodite herself wouldn’t have been able to change the way he thought and acted. It was a sickness, Toni. A sickness that controlled and manipulated him until he danced to its tune. That’s the way all addiction works.’

She sat, straight-backed and deathly pale. ‘Like I said before, this is nothing to do with Richard.’

‘The hell it isn’t.’ A vein in his neck throbbed beneath the surface of his skin. ‘He’s made you afraid, afraid to trust your instincts, your emotions, what you feel. He’s crippled you, but in a worse way than if he’d knocked you about.’

‘Don’t talk about me as though I’m a victim.’

‘Then don’t act like one!’