Conrad had talked about her getting under his skin, but he had done something much more ruthless. He had taken her heart, stolen it under the guise of familiarity and comradeship and everything else working together so closely had embodied. She hadn’t wanted to fall in love with him but it had happened nevertheless. And now she could understand what had made him the way he was, could feel compassion and tenderness and a thousand other emotions besides, it made him much more dangerous if he did but know it. She couldn’t risk any contact with him. That was it in a nutshell.
By the time the taxi drew up outside Jerry’s menswear shop the situation had clarified as coldly as the icy weather outside. Which made it all the more devastating when—the second the taxi drew away and she hurried towards the flat entrance, her head down against the stinging torrent—a deep, dark, husky voice spoke her name.
She swung round just in time to see Conrad’s big, lean body moving towards her, the Mercedes parked on the opposite side of the road, and she froze. She just froze.
‘Hello, Sephy.’ It was cool, cold even, but the sensual impact of those stunning blue eyes was undiminished. ‘I expected you home long before this,’ he said as he reached her side.
She could have said any one of a number of things to defuse—or at least steer—the conversation, all of which came to her with hindsight, but instead she found herself staring at him with huge shocked eyes as the driving sleet enveloped them in an icy blanket. And still she couldn’t speak.
‘Where have you been?’ His voice was impassive but his gaze was intent on her reaction. ‘It’s late.’
‘You know.’ And then, as his face didn’t change, ‘I’ve been to Madge’s, of course. That’s what you ordered, isn’t it?’ she said with a sudden burst of anger.
‘Right.’ He looked at her for a long moment which seemed endless and then he moved closer, to tower over her. ‘You’ve been there all day?’ he said calmly. ‘Until now?’
‘We had lunch.’ She was trying to pull herself together and sound matter-of-fact but he just looked so gorgeous. ‘And then tea. And we talked some.’
‘Lunch and tea.’ He was surprised, she knew it, and, knowing Madge’s reputation for keeping all her subordinates ruthlessly in their place, it perhaps wasn’t surprising.
‘And she’s invited me for Sunday lunch,’ Sephy couldn’t resist adding, as a little demon of pride urged, Show him, show him you aren’t like all the rest as far as his esteemed Madge is concerned at least!
‘Has she?’ He nodded slowly. ‘Well, well, well. That’s quite an honour if you did but know it. Madge is a tough old bird; she’s had to be with the sort of knocks life’s dished out in her direction.’
Sephy gazed at him uncertainly. She had to guard herself against him; she had to. If he sensed any weakness in her, any irresolution, he would pounce. The more she got to know about this man the more she realised the very words he had just said about Madge applied to him. Deep inside somewhere, hidden under layers and layers of steel cladding, was an emotionally scarred individual who was as vulnerable and scared of being rejected as the next person. But if she allowed her love to override her common sense it would be nothing short of emotional suicide.
She didn’t know what it would take for someone to break through the hurt of thirty-eight years—some sort of a miracle, probably—or even if anyone could, but she would have to be a pretty special woman, that was for sure. Caroline de Menthe and all his other beauties rolled into one and then some.
She, herself, didn’t have a clue how to reach him and wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving a relationship with him. David Bainbridge had been a spoilt, selfish brat of a boy. The person she had thought she loved had never existed except in her girlish imagination. Conrad Quentin was a man, an emotionally damaged, hard, ruthless man, and even knowing all that she loved him.
He was momentarily attracted to her because he found her different. She had stood up to him to start with, and then refused to jump into bed with him when he had expected it. She was a novelty, a curiosity; her self-confessed lack of interest in the male species had probably been something of a challenge to him to begin with. Men were like that. But he would tire of her immediately she became his.
Sephy took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘Why are you here, Conrad? I thought we had said all there was to say yesterday at the office. I don’t want to argue with you again.’
‘Can we talk inside?’ He raised his hand to her hair, which was now wringing wet. ‘We’re both getting soaked out here.’
She felt her stomach turn over but managed to say, fairly steadily, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ as she jerked away from his touch. ‘I think it’s better if you go, don’t you?’
Now his strong hands cupped her damp face and the blue eyes were relentless. ‘I want to talk to you, Sephy, and you know me well enough by now to know that I don’t take no for an answer. We can have this conversation in my car, at my house, in your flat, a pub, wherever. But have it we will, and I refuse to let you get pneumonia because of a childish determination to prove a point.’
His arrogance provided a welcome shot of adrenalin that put some force in her hands as she pushed him away, and fire in her eyes. ‘You think you’ve always got to win, don’t you? Always get your own way?’ she hissed furiously.
‘Exactly.’ And he had the nerve to smile mockingly. ‘So, that accepted, defiance is useless. Now, where is it to be?’
‘It is to be nowhere,’ she spat, with a disregard for grammar and lucidity. ‘Just leave me alone, will you?’
And it might have been all right, he might have gone, if Jerry hadn’t chosen that precise moment to call to her from the doorway of his shop. ‘Sephy? Everything all right?’
Sephy groaned inwardly even before she saw Conrad’s face stiffen and his eyes become pinpoints of blue ice as he turned slightly to face the shop. ‘What the hell is it to do with you?’ he asked with lethal control.
Considering that Conrad was considerably broader and a few inches taller than the other man, and right at this moment seemed even more so with the rage that had tightened his powerful body and darkened his features, Sephy thought Jerry was incredibly brave when he said, without a quiver, ‘I’m Sephy’s friend, so it’s everything to do with me if she’s being hassled.’
‘Hassled?’
Conrad had actually taken a step towards the figure in the doorway when Sephy grabbed his arm, her voice urgent as she looked across at Jerry and said, ‘It’s fine, really. Conrad’s come to discuss a problem at work.’ Why had Jerry had to work late tonight?
‘The hell Conrad has!’ Conrad said grimly. ‘I’ve come here to see Sephy, and the whys and wherefores are between the two of us, okay? Clear enough for you?’
‘Sephy?’