‘I’m not detaching myself from anything,’ she responded hotly. ‘I’m just telling you that you have to sort out these temporary problems with Anna yourself. I can’t be of any help.’
‘You were a great deal of help when it came to rampaging the shops with her in hot pursuit of skimpy clothes.’
Tessa nearly laughed. Did he really see what those women he entertained wore? Had he really noticed Susie’s outfit, which just about managed to cover her? If he thought Anna’s new wardrobe was comprised of skimpy clothes, then how would he describe his girlfriends’ choice of garments?
Silly assumption, she thought. What was good enough for his girlfriends was certainly not good enough for his daughter. Beneath the sharp, unconventional exterior, there beat the heart of a pure traditionalist.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Tessa asked, resigning herself to yet more emotional involvement in his life. ‘Tea?’
‘Coffee would be good.’ He shoved himself away from the counter and sat at the kitchen table, watching in silence as she made them both a mug of coffee.
It was as clear as daylight that she wanted to get rid of them, or rather of him, he suspected. The decent thing would have been to leave her in peace, to enjoy the uneventful evening she had planned, but he decided that he really did want to talk to her about Anna, whose behaviour was as mysterious as it was unexpected. He also realised that he was rather enjoying himself here, watching her pad around preparing a meal, listening to her voice her opinions with absolutely no regard for whether she trod on his toes or not.
It was refreshing, he decided.
Refreshing to be in the company of a woman without the inevitability of sex.
He looked at her lazily from under his lashes, noting the slenderness of her body, the perfect jut of her rear, which was always so cunningly camouflaged at work underneath those asexual suits she insisted on wearing. There was nothing obvious about her, he thought. She didn’t announce her sexuality, but look just a little deeper and there it was, as subtle but as fragrant as a summer breeze.#p#分页标题#e#
‘Hello?’ Tessa couldn’t resist tossing his sarcastic mantra back at him. ‘Is anybody there?’
‘Hilarious,’ Curtis responded, his mouth twitching at the corners. ‘Sit down. You’re making me nervous hovering over me like that.’
Tessa laughed, not one of those cultivated tinkling laughs, but a proper laugh. ‘I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to make you nervous.’
‘Because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m one hundred per cent man?’
‘Because you’re self-assured and arrogant.’
Curtis eyed her narrowly, trying to work out whether she was joking or being serious and realising that he didn’t like it in the least that she thought he was arrogant. Coming from another woman, it wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest, but coming from her…
‘Self-assured, yes. Arrogant, no.’
‘Well, you seem to make a pretty good job of assuming you know exactly what’s right for Anna without even considering that you might just be wrong.’ Tessa sat down, rested her elbows on the table and sipped some of the coffee.
She hadn’t been making an observation on him, he realised. She had been making an observation on one aspect of his behaviour. He shifted irritably in his chair, reluctant to engage in practical conversation, wanting to prod deeper into her and the workings of her mind. Insofar as they related to him.
‘Why would I be wrong? I know my daughter.’
‘You shouldn’t have told her anything about the clothes she’d bought. I assume you did?’
‘I mentioned that they seemed a little unsuitable.’
‘Well, far be it from me to offer an opinion on how you bring your own child up…’
‘But…?’
Tessa shrugged to lessen the impression that she might be voicing unwanted views. Also that his affairs might impact on her much harder than she wanted them to. ‘But you should let her wear what she wants to wear, within reason, and please believe me when I tell you that Anna wouldn’t push the boat out. She barely glanced at any of the ridiculously hipster trousers kids these days wear or any of the super-tight Lycra tops that leave nothing to the imagination.’
Curtis, head tilted to one side, half heard the gist of her remark. He just heard the telling way she referred to kids, as if she were a woman in her fifties instead of someone in their twenties.
“‘Kids these days?”’ he teased softly, holding her startled look and enjoying the sudden stillness hanging in the air between them. ‘You’re not exactly an old lady, Tessa.’