‘Darius...’
He didn’t wait for her mumbled apology. She hadn’t trusted him and that was a deal-breaker. He picked up the receiver of the landline beside the bed, punched in a fast-dial number.
‘Ramsey? Darius Hadley.’ He didn’t bother with the courtesies. ‘My agent has organised a clean-up of the house. Please inform the security people that they will be resident on site from...’ He looked across at Natasha, hovering in the doorway of the wet room, a towel clutched to her breast.
‘Today,’ she said on a gasp. ‘I’m going down there today to turn on the water, clean up the—’
‘From today,’ he said, despite everything, unable to take his eyes off her as Ramsey droned on about the inadvisability of letting a group of strangers into the house. The damp strands of hair clinging to pink cheeks, creamy shoulders and it was all he could do to stop himself from going to her. Begging forgiveness...
This was the madness. The same madness that had seized his father. Wanting a woman beyond sense, beyond reason.
‘Your objections are noted but, to tell you the truth, Ramsey,’ he said, cutting him off, ‘I don’t actually care what you think. The only reason I don’t just sign the whole lot over to the Treasury is because someone has to protect the tenants and I know that won’t be you.’ He cut off Ramsey’s protest. ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked, returning the receiver to the cradle, but leaving his hand on it, anchoring him to the spot.
Tash swallowed. His face was shuttered and the apology bubbling up in her throat died unspoken.
Shouting at him when he’d behaved like a jerk had been a momentary bump in the road, no more than a shake-up. Doubting his honour was, apparently, a damned great rock. She’d crossed some invisible line and the damage was terminal.
‘There’s just one more thing,’ she said, clutching the towel to her breast. Being naked had, in an eye blink, gone from the most natural, most perfect thing in the world to the most awkward.
This definitely came under the ‘never mix business with pleasure’ rule but, despite the lack of encouragement to continue, there was still business to be done.
‘Unlike Morgan and Black, I can’t afford to put on a three-course lunch at the Hadley Arms, so I’m holding an open day on Saturday week,’ she said. ‘I’ll be serving afternoon tea. On the lawn if the weather holds, in the ballroom if it doesn’t.’ There was still no response. Not even a sarcastic comment about cake. He just kept his hand on the phone as if waiting for her to go so that he could make another call. ‘While I have no doubt that potential buyers and the property press would like to meet you, it’s not essential.’ Not one word. ‘That’s all.’
She gathered her clothes, made it downstairs on rubber legs, pulling them on over still damp skin as she headed for the door, banging it hard shut behind her. So that he’d know she’d gone. So that she couldn’t go back.
Damn, damn, damn... How could she have got it so wrong? How could she have got herself so involved?
Involved was for the future, when she was established, with a man who was ready to settle down, raise a family. It wasn’t for now and it certainly wasn’t with a man who had heartbreak stamped all over him. She’d known from the first moment she’d set eyes on him that he wasn’t a man made for happy ever after. This was supposed to be a fling. Hot, fast, furious and, like the bronze of an anonymous nude figure, something to rub your fingers over in passing when you were old and remember with a smile.