‘I suppose some time today I might be able to stop thanking you.’ Tessa forced gratitude into her voice. Of course, he would not allow her to return home on her own. Even though he must have gleaned by now that she didn’t actually want him around her, he was still insisting on playing the knight in shining armour.
‘Why do I get the feeling that it sticks in your throat?’ No ready smile in return to her remark. If she was putting him out that much, she thought nastily, then he had been given more than ample opportunity to shed his duties.
‘No one likes to think they’ve made a burden of themselves.’
‘And no one likes to think that they’re encouraging resentment simply by being humane.’
‘No one asked you to be humane!’
‘Would you have preferred me to have left you lying in the street? To get on with it?’ Curtis snarled.
Tessa offered him a silent profile. She expected him to direct a few more verbal missiles at her, but when the silence lengthened she couldn’t resist peeking, just a little. He was staring out of the window and even though she couldn’t actually see his face, she could pretty much guess the expression on it. Sheer anger. He had been kind enough to try and break her dull routine by inviting her out for a drink, had been humane enough to rescue her when she needed help, had in fact pulled a few strings so that she had avoided a five-hour wait in Casualty on a bleak winter’s night, and what, he must be thinking, did he get in return? Certainly not the flowery, dewy-eyed declarations of gratitude he had expected.
Tessa could almost feel sorry for him. Except the fact that he was so busy feeling sorry for her stuck in her throat and she had to bite back the temptation to hit him right over his egotistic, masculine head. With her perfectly good right arm.
They reached her house and she politely allowed him to help her to the door, even take her inside.
However, extending the gentlemanly routine to making her a cup of coffee and fetching her something to eat while she rested her leg was beyond the bounds. And she didn’t want him in her house. Leaving his mark in yet more places for her to have to deal with at a later date.#p#分页标题#e#
‘That’s very kind,’ she said from her disadvantaged position on the sofa where he had laid her, ‘but I can manage from here. And besides, you don’t want to let that taxi driver go. It’ll be hell trying to get hold of another one at this time of year.’
He gave her a brief nod and disappeared, leaving her on the sofa to nurse a certain amount of disappointment. Well, he would have better things to do than sit around taking care of his secretary because she had been foolish enough to sprain her ankle. Susie’s mystery replacement waiting in the wings wouldn’t be too overjoyed to find herself sidelined by some woman to whom he felt obligated because she happened to work with him!
‘He’ll be back in a couple of hours.’ Curtis reappeared, a dark, brooding presence by the sitting-room door. ‘And there’s no point wasting your breath telling me what I should and shouldn’t have done.’
‘How did you manage to get him to agree to come back for you?’ Tessa asked in a small voice.
‘Money. Now, I’m going to make you some egg on toast and some tea.’ He handed her the remote for the television. ‘Watch some TV. It’ll take your mind off your foot.’
But not off him. Unfortunately. Despite raising the volume on the television, she was still acutely aware of him in the kitchen, rustling something up, handling her cooking utensils. He would have dumped his coat and jacket in the hall, and would have shoved up the sleeves of his faded denim shirt, exposing his strong, muscular forearms. He always had to loosen his clothing when he worked, undo a couple of buttons on his shirt, push up the sleeves, as though being buttoned up stifled his creative genius.
He returned with the promised egg on toast and a pot of tea, all on a tray that he placed on her lap, having first made sure she was comfortable by puffing up the cushions behind her and dragging over a pouffe on which she could rest her legs.
Tessa thanked him and ate, feigning deep concentration on the Christmas programme on the TV, and he let her get away with it, allowing her to think that she might, just might, be able to ignore his presence for the next hour and a half.
She realised how much she had misread his obliging silence when, as soon as she had finished eating, he removed the tray to ask her what time her sister was expected back.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Tessa said dryly. ‘She’s out with a crowd of her college friends and I told her to stay with one of her friends who lives in central London rather than risk trying to find a taxi late at night to bring her back here. I’ve booked her one for the morning.’