‘He must have just forgotten about the theatre tickets, Anna,’ she said gently, ‘and I’m sure he didn’t think you’d react the way you have. Surely you’ve been…well, out with him in the company of one of his girlfriends?’
‘Of course I have.’ She sighed laboriously. ‘But when I was younger, I never minded, and anyway, he never made a habit of it. I know I’m behaving like a kid, but…’
‘You are just a kid.’
‘A teenager! And that’s another thing.’ She stuck her chin out belligerently, daring Tessa to side with her father. ‘He said that the clothes we bought together don’t suit me, that I look better in less gaudy stuff, but yet he has the nerve to go out with women who dress like…like teenagers!’ The unfairness of it caused the threat of tears to become reality, and, try as she might, Tessa could find no easy comforting words to that adolescent protest because she basically agreed with his daughter.
She sighed inwardly and marvelled at how a man as clever and as worldly-wise as Curtis Diaz could be so hideously inept when it came to reading his own daughter and understanding what made her tick.
‘You know what fathers are like,’ Tessa said, playing down the situation. ‘They can be a bit overprotective.’
‘Was yours? I mean, when you were my age?’
‘Different philosophy,’ she hedged, thinking of her parents, who had quite rightly suspected that too many stringent guidelines ended up gestating bigger problems than allowing their girls a little leeway here and there, just enough never to make them feel as though they were being imprisoned against their will.
‘I hate arguing with Dad.’ Anna looked at her with such misery that Tessa’s heart constricted. ‘I don’t see all that much of him. I mean, I’m at boarding-school and he does his best to see me whenever I’m on holiday or half-term, but, really, it’s not an everyday thing. I just want us to go back to being how we were, but he can be such a tyrant!’#p#分页标题#e#
‘Not always.’ She poured wine into the glasses and offered Anna a glass of something light, which she refused, as she did the offer to come back into the sitting room, preferring to remain in the kitchen.
‘We’ve ruined your evening, haven’t we?’ she asked in a small voice and Tessa laughed.
‘I’d only planned on some pasta on a tray in front of the television. The most relaxing thing I can do when Lucy’s not around.’ She fished a circular tray out of a cupboard and carried the wine into the sitting room where active conversation was under way between Curtis and his Barbie doll, as Tessa now found herself thinking of the other woman.
‘I’m dropping Susie back to her place,’ Curtis announced, standing up and ignoring the wine. ‘There’s no point even thinking of going to any theatre now. The play will already have started anyway. Is there a chance you can hang on to Anna for about forty minutes?’
Tessa did not want to get caught up in this. She didn’t want his private life to begin infiltrating into hers and she didn’t want to find herself reluctant referee in a disagreement between him and his daughter. On the other hand, what choice did she have? She remembered Anna’s forlorn face and felt sorry for her, so she just nodded.
Susie had her hand resting on his, and her face, raised to his, was disappointed. She looked, in fact, as though she had just been put through a wringer, as though, suddenly, from being the woman who was all dressed up, she had become the woman who was all dressed up with nowhere to go. And on top of that she couldn’t even command her date’s attention, which was very firmly focused on a sullen fourteen-year-old tucked away in the kitchen.
Curtis was back almost to the minute but the trip had done his tension no good. He was still unusually brooding when he stepped into the hall, glancing towards the small kitchen at the back.
‘Thanks for that. Where is she? I’ll take her home and let you enjoy the remainder of your evening in peace.’
‘Bed.’
‘Bed? You were going to enjoy your Saturday evening in bed?’ Hard on the heels of that came a crazy thought, And who’s the lucky man? He wasn’t looking down at his efficient secretary who always had her hair pinned back and always, but always, wore neat little suits and blouses carefully buttoned all the way up. He was looking at someone with calm eyes but a stubborn chin, someone with glossy hair and a figure that managed to be boyish but very, very feminine.
He felt a dangerous stirring in his loins. Never had he felt this sudden, uncomfortable prickling under his skin when in the company of a woman. For a man who was highly complex underneath the easy charm and self-assurance, Curtis had never been drawn to his female counterpart. He liked his women to be easy on the eye and easy on the intellect.