So, she was dull and boring and unfeminine, was she? Well, she might not wear three-inch heels, and she certainly didn’t flutter her eyelashes, but she was still a woman...very much a woman...more than woman enough to ache with longing for Ran. Oh, yes, she was more than woman enough for that!
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU’VE been a long time. What happened?’
Guiltily Sylvie spun round, dropping her Armani carrier bag as she did so. She had arrived back at the Rectory five minutes ago and had decided to go straight to her room, but she had just reached the top of the stairs when Ran emerged from his room, his curt comment coupled with her own guilt startling her.
‘You’ve been shopping,’ he said sharply in disbelief, answering his own question as he saw the bag she had just dropped and the contents spilled out from it onto the carpet.
‘What if I have?’ Sylvie retorted defensively, bending down to gather up her purchases but not fast enough to match Ran, who h
ad bent and got there before her, scooping up the soft, expensive cloth and then, pausing, shocking her by removing it completely from the carrier. He studied what she had bought and then lifted his gaze to her flushed face.
‘New clothes. Now, then, I wonder what motivated you to do that?’ he asked her softly.
‘What I choose to do with my time and my money is no business of yours,’ Sylvie snapped sharply at him.
But he ignored her, taunting her softly, ‘What exactly are you trying to do, Sylvie? Compete with Vicky? You can’t. You don’t have the right type of...assets.’
Furious with him, and with herself because his taunting remarks weren’t just making her angry, they were hurting her badly as well, Sylvie exploded into angry self-defence.
‘If by “the right type of assets” you mean I don’t use my womanhood, my sexuality, as some kind of...of cheap means of attracting men, then I’m glad to say that I don’t,’ she agreed.
‘Really? Then why go and buy this?’ Ran challenged her softly, indicating the trouser suit.
‘I bought it on impulse,’ she told him quickly. Too quickly, she realised as she saw the cynical look he was giving her. ‘Anyway,’ she added protectively, ‘it’s hardly the kind of outfit a woman would buy to...to attract a man...’
‘No?’ Ran gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Oh, come on, Sylvie, we both know better than that. There’s something powerfully alluring about the sight of a woman wearing a trouser suit, something very, very sensual and appealing—much more so than an over-tight dress on an overexposed body. You bought this outfit because you’re jealous of Vicky. Because you—’
‘Me...jealous...of her?’ Sylvie virtually spat at him as she grabbed her new purchase from him and stuffed it back into the bag. ‘No way,’ she told him, shaking her head almost violently in denial. ‘Why should I be jealous?’ she added dangerously, too upset to question the wisdom of inviting him to humiliate her still further by revealing his awareness of just how she felt about him. ‘Just because years ago I was stupid enough, adoring enough, vulnerable enough to...to care too much about you, that doesn’t mean that I’m jealous of your lover. In fact...’
‘My lover?’ Ran stopped her as they both stood up, frowning down at her as he informed her curtly, ‘I was referring to the fact that you’re jealous because you’re afraid of losing Lloyd to Vicky. He’s your lover and—’
‘My lover...? Lloyd?’ Sylvie stared at him in disbelief.
Suddenly Sylvie had had enough. There was no way that Ran could possibly, genuinely, believe that she and Lloyd were lovers; he was just playing some kind of peculiar and cruel game with her. Well, he was going to have to play it on his own. Grabbing hold of her shopping, she darted past him, almost running into her bedroom and slamming the door behind her, her heart thudding with angry pain.
As she closed her eyes and leaned against the door she had just closed, she could feel them starting to burn with the useless demeaning tears of her unwanted love.
What was Ran doing now—laughing inwardly at her because he knew that her jealousy, her pain, her love were all for him, or was he too wrapped up in what he thought to spare any time to consider her feelings? Had he accused her of being jealous out of his own feelings of jealousy against Lloyd?
This job, which she had taken on with such high hopes, such a surge of determination and conviction that through it she would finally and for ever slay the dragons of her tormented youthful love for him, had now turned into a hydra-headed monster which she could never hope to overcome. How on earth was she going to be able to concentrate on what she had to do when she was forced to work in such close proximity to Ran?
No. It was impossible, she acknowledged half an hour later as she sat at her desk trying to concentrate on the work schedule she had in front of her. No matter how hard she tried to visualise a situation where she and Ran could work together in harmony, her emotions untouched by his presence, all she could actually see was a situation that was going to get worse and worse as she became more and more helplessly trapped in her love and his lack of it. The best remedy, the only remedy she could honestly see that would work would be for her to go to Lloyd and ask him to find someone else to complete this project, she admitted unhappily.
It wasn’t a course she wanted to take. She prided herself on her professionalism and it would mean taking Lloyd into her confidence about her feelings for Ran—she knew, of course, that he would respect them, but even so...
If she stayed on the possibility was—no, the probability was, she corrected herself fiercely, that sooner or later she would make a mistake that could prejudice the progress of the work on the house. This was a project that was going to demand her total concentration and attention and how could she give it when all the time she was thinking about Ran, when her feelings for him were already dominating her mind and her emotions?
It wasn’t going to be easy. She hated letting Lloyd down; in fact, it felt as though in asking him to find someone else to take over this particular project for her she was letting herself down; but she feared that if she stayed the way in which she could potentially let herself down, damage herself and her self-esteem, her very self, could be far more traumatic.
The anger and contempt which Ran had displayed towards her this evening had shown how very little compassion he was likely to have for her. No, there was no other way.
It was with a very heavy heart that Sylvie prepared for bed. There would be other houses, other projects, and no one but her would ever know how much it would hurt knowing that it was someone else who would have the pleasure of restoring Ran’s ancestral home to what it must once have been, just as it would be another woman who would ultimately stand beside Ran and their children in love and pride as they went through their lives together.
Ran wasn’t sure just what had woken him up first—his training, his work, meant that he was always alert to any sound that heralded some unfamiliarity, his perceptions and senses so keenly attuned that he was aware of such changes even in his sleep.
Alert and wide awake, he lay in the darkness listening. The illuminated face of his alarm clock showed that it was just gone half past one in the morning. The house had no alarm system. Lucy, his gun dog who slept downstairs, might be getting on in years now but she would have been barking if someone had been trying to break into the house, and besides, the outside lights had not come on.