‘I’m sorry.’ Her smile was tentative as she turned to him. ‘Of course you’re a very welcome guest here.’
‘Am I?’ His dark gaze searched her face. ‘Am I really?’
‘Yes.’ Her reply was breathless, her own gaze caught up in those chocolate-brown depths. ‘I—you didn’t finish telling me your life story earlier,’ she prompted briskly to escape his spell.
He shrugged. ‘When I left college I borrowed some money from my father and played about with stocks and shares. I was one of the lucky ones, I was successful at it.’
She had the feeling he would be successful at whatever he set out to do. That was what worried her!
‘I paid my father back his money from my profits,’ Adam continued dismissively. ‘And after that I began to invest directly into businesses I thought showed potential—and a reasonable profit for me! Once I’d mastered that, I decided to go into the ownership business myself. End of story.’
She knew that wasn’t the end at all, that the years since he had left college had been hard and sometimes difficult; the mark of those years was in the hardness of his face and the cool, enigmatic mask he sometimes wore. But he obviously wasn’t in a mood to discuss that.
‘I own and live in an apartment in Manhattan,’ he continued softly. ‘But I can run my business organisation from anywhere in the world I choose.’ Even here, in this house, he seemed to say without actually voicing the words.
‘You obviously enjoy the challenge of what you do.’ Eve chose to ignore the unspoken statement.
‘It has its excitements,’ he conceded with a casual shrug.
‘We live very quietly here,’ she told him abruptly.
‘I’m sure I’ll survive,’ he drawled at her effort to put him off staying here.
She moved her shoulders dismissively. ‘I hope you won’t be too bored.’
‘Excitement can take many forms, Eve,’ he said softly, his gaze holding hers. ‘I haven’t been bored for a single moment in your company so far. And I don’t expect that to change. When will you realise that I’m not some callow youth who doesn’t know what he really wants out of life?’ He sounded irritated.
She didn’t for a moment doubt his maturity—or his determination!
‘As for staying here,’ Adam looked around them appreciatively, ‘it could be our own paradise,’ he told her mischievously, grinning as she gave a pained frown at the pun. ‘Do you think your grandmother will let us rename the house Garden of Eden after we’re married? I know,’ he held up silencing hands as she went to make a cutting reply, ‘you don’t believe that will ever happen. But if you take away a man’s dreams, Eve,’ he sobered, ‘you take away his reason for living.’
What about a woman’s dreams? She had dreamt of marrying Paul for the majority of her life, and now that dream had come within her reach she had chosen not to take it.
Maybe you should never try to make dreams fit into reality.
* * *
‘I don’t understand the young people of today.’ Her grandmother shook her head with feeling. ‘Marina has invited Adam to stay on here, which is perfectly all right with me; he’s such a nice young man. But now Marina tells me that she intends leaving tonight herself!’ she said exasperatedly.
This was news to Eve, although she couldn’t say she was altogether surprised. Sophy and Marina seemed to have put their heads together over this—despite Patrick’s protestations, Eve felt sure—and come up with the idea of leaving Eve and Adam to their own devices.
‘How can Marina think of just going off like that and leaving her own guest?’ their grandmother still frowned. ‘Oh, never mind that for now,’ she dismissed with impatience. ‘I’m sure Marina has her reasons.’ Although she obviously had no idea what they could be! ‘Tell me, how are you, darling?’ she prompted concernedly.
It was the first opportunity the two of them had had to talk privately, Sophy and Patrick leaving after tea, Marina staying for dinner before she too left. Adam had discreetly disappeared at the same time as Marina had gone upstairs to do her packing, leaving Eve and her grandmother alone in the lounge.
How was she? She wasn’t really sure. Yesterday she had been going to marry Paul, today she felt as if she were adrift in a tumultuous ocean. Her life was suddenly all loose ends with nothing to tie on to. And it made her feel very vulnerable.
‘As you can imagine,’ she sighed, ‘Paul isn’t very pleased——’
‘I didn’t ask how Paul was,’ her grandmother cut in firmly. ‘I want to know how you are.’
‘Feeling exposed. Vulnerable,’ she admitted. ‘Weak,’ she added tautly.
Her grandmother gave her a puzzled look. ‘Weak?’ she repeated gently. ‘I think what you’ve done is very brave. A lot of women would have felt compelled to go on with the wedding at this late stage, no matter what their feelings of uncertainty. Divorce may be easy nowadays if the marriage doesn’t work out, after all, but I’ve always believed that prevention is so much easier than cure. So you mustn’t feel in the least weak, darling.’ She patted Eve’s hand reassuringly.
Much as she loved her grandmother, Eve didn’t feel she could explain to her just yet that the weakness she was experiencing was an attraction to a man other than Paul. If it had all seemed to happen so suddenly to her, how much more confusing her grandmother would find it all!
‘It will work out, darling,’ she told Eve with certainty. ‘In whatever way is for the best, I’m sure.’