‘That’s not your problem. You can leave that one to me.’
‘I’d quite like to know,’ Violet persisted. She should be grabbing at this lifeline. She knew that. ‘I’m really fond of your mother, Damien. I wouldn’t want to think...I wouldn’t want her to...’
‘Be unduly hurt? Become stressed out? Think badly of you? All of the above? Funny, but I wasn’t getting the impression that you were overly bothered. After all, five seconds ago you were accusing me of deliberately blindsiding you by not announcing on the spot that you wouldn’t be back here for weekends...’
‘I thought you would want to start bracing your mother for...you know...the inevitable...’
‘The day before she begins what could be gruelling treatment?’
‘Well...’
‘Dominic has become attached to you.’
‘Yes...’ Just something else to think about, just another link in the chain she would have to melt down when she walked away from his family.
‘When my mother begins her treatment she’ll probably be too weak to help with my brother...’
‘He doesn’t need help as such. I mean, he has his carers for the physical stuff...’
‘But has always relied on my mother for everything else. If she’s in bed, she won’t be able to provide all of that.’
‘Which could be where you step in,’ Violet urged him.
Damien flushed darkly. This conversation wasn’t meant to be about him. Her bright eyes were positively glowing with sincerity.
‘I can’t be on call twenty-four seven. I still have a business to run, even if it’s from a distance.’
‘You wouldn’t have to be on call twenty-four seven. Dominic’s perfectly happy doing his own thing. He’s really got into that website I asked him to try and design... Besides, I’ve noticed...’
‘What? What have you noticed?’
‘You didn’t like it the last time I spoke my mind.’
‘Maybe I’ve realised that it’s about time I stop trying to think of your mind as anything but a runaway train,’ Damien mused under his breath.
‘I don’t think that’s very fair.’ All signs of tipsiness had evaporated. She felt as sober as a judge. Her hands were clammy as she rested them on her knees to strain forward.
‘You speak your mind. Maybe I find that a refreshing change. So don’t spoil the habit of a lifetime now by going coy on me.’
‘Okay. Well, I’ve noticed that you’re making a bigger effort with Dominic. I mean, when we got here, you were hardly on speaking terms with him.’
Considering he had asked her to speak her mind, Damien made a concerted effort to control his reaction to that observation. ‘Go on,’ he muttered tightly, through gritted teeth.
‘You never really directly talked to him. You talked at him, then you turned your attention to someone else or something else. And yet,’ she mused thoughtfully, ‘your mother says you two used to be so close when you were growing up...’
So that was what they talked about, Damien thought tensely. They discussed him. He angrily swept aside the sudden undercurrent of guilt that had been his unwelcome companion over the past few days and rose to his feet.
‘It’s late. We should be heading up,’ he said smoothly.
‘We? Aren’t you going to work?’
‘I’ll see you up to the bedroom first. My mother would be horrified if you missed your footing on the stairs because you had a little too much to drink and I wasn’t there to do the gentlemanly thing and catch you as you fell...’
‘You’re annoyed with me because of what I’ve said...’
‘You’re entitled to have your opinions.’
‘I never wanted to.’ She rose a little clumsily to her feet and turned in the direction of the kitchen door.
‘Never wanted to what...?’
His breath fanned her cheek as he leaned down to hear what she was saying.
‘Have opinions. I never wanted to have opinions about you.’ She felt giddy and breathless as he shadowed her out of the kitchen and into the series of corridors and halls that eventually led to the staircase up to the wing of the house in which they had been placed.
‘I’m finding that so hard to believe, Violet,’ he murmured in a voice that warmed every part of her. ‘You always have opinions. When you first walked into my office, I took you for someone who had scrambled all her courage together to confront me but who, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t have said boo to a goose. My mistake.’
Violet eyed the landing ahead of her. Bedroom to the right. She thought she had recovered from that momentary tipsiness induced by a little too much wine with dinner but now she felt dizzy and flustered and wondered if she had overestimated her sobriety after all.
She glanced down and her eyes flitted over his lean brown hand on the banister just behind her.
Her heart was beating wildly as they made it to the bedroom door.
‘All teachers have opinions,’ she managed in a strangled voice. She took a step back as he reached around her to push open the bedroom door.
‘There’s a difference between having opinions and being opinionated. You’re opinionated.’ His arm brushed her and, all at once, he felt himself harden at the passing contact. That forbidden excitement coursed through him, reminding him of what she had looked like standing in front of him, naked and unaware. He hadn’t had a woman for over three months. His last relationship, short-lived though it had been, had crumbled under the combined weight of his unreliability and her need to find out where they were heading. Not even her stupendous good looks, her unwavering availability whatever the time of day or night, or the very inventive sex, could provide sufficient glue to keep them going for a little longer.
He firmly closed the door behind him and switched on a side light so that the bedroom was suddenly infused in a mellow, romantic glow.
‘You’re going downstairs to work now, aren’t you?’ Violet asked nervously and he gave her a rueful smile.
‘I’m trying to kick back a little...I think it would reassure my mother that I’m capable of involving myself in family life and leaving the emails alone now and again... You do approve, don’t you?’
Violet found herself in the unenviable position of having to agree with him, especially when she had stuck her head above the parapet to voice her positive opinions on just that point.
‘So...if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go have a shower...’ He began unbuttoning his shirt and was amused when she primly diverted her eyes. This was the very situation most women would have loved. Up close and personal with him in a bedroom. He caught the distinctly erotic aroma of inexperience and her shyness was doing amazing things for his already rampant libido.
He made sure not to lock the door but he took his time, washing his hair and emerging twenty minutes later to find her with all her accoutrements in her hands.
‘Sure you don’t need a suitcase to carry all that stuff through?’ he enquired and Violet blushed.
‘I wouldn’t want to disturb you when I come out. Just in case you’re sleeping.’
‘Very thoughtful.’
Violet backed away, eyes pinned to his face, anywhere but his muscled body, which was completely naked but for the tiny towel he had slung around his waist and which was dipping down in a very precarious fashion.
Did he sleep in pyjamas? How would she know when he had spent the past few nights retiring to bed at after one in the morning and getting up before six to start his day? She certainly hadn’t seen any lying about and she found that her mind was entirely focused on that one small technicality as she lingered in the bathroom for as long as she possibly could.
And for a while after she emerged into a pitch-black room, she actually breathed a sigh of relief that he was asleep. He was nothing more than a dark shadow on the bed. On the very big bed.
Barely daring to breathe, she slipped under the duvet and turned on her side away from him with movements that were exaggeratedly slow. Just in case.
‘You never actually told me whether you’d decided to come next weekend or not. Our conversation must have become waylaid...’
Violet gave a squeak of horror that he was not only awake but, from the sound of his voice, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She heard him adjust his position on the bed and when he next spoke she knew that he was now facing her.
‘I think we lost track of the point when you decided to congratulate me on my sterling efforts with my brother...’ He reached out to place a cool hand on her shoulder and Violet’s blood pressure soared into the stratosphere. ‘I hate talking to someone’s back.’
Violet froze. She felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. She was in this bed with this man and she either turned round to face him, thereby instantly diminishing the generous proportions of the bed, or else she remained as she was, with her back to him like a petrified object, desperately hoping that hand would go away and not do something more exploratory to urge her over onto her other side. She reluctantly shifted her position and was screamingly aware of the rustle of the duvet and the soft deflation of the pillow as her body shifted.