The Billionaire Boss's Bride(22)

‘I did not throw a tantrum, Dad! You just won’t listen to me!’ Tears thickened her voice and Tessa wanted to groan in dismay. ‘You said that the two of us would be going out!’

So that was it. Poor Susie, the innocent participant in this small family drama. The girl looked close to tears herself and, having resolved to get rid of her guests as quickly as possible, Tessa now heard herself asking whether they wanted anything to drink. She could only offer wine in terms of alcohol.

‘I’ll come with you!’ Anna sprang to her feet and disappeared out of the sitting room before her father could protest, and protest he most certainly was about to, judging from the expression on his face.

‘I’m tired of it!’ was the first thing Anna said as soon as Tessa was in the kitchen. She plonked herself down on a chair and glumly propped her chin in her hand. ‘He promised we’d go out for a night, just the two of us, and then, lo and behold, the next thing I hear is the doorbell and there’s Barbie-doll Susie on the doorstep!’

Tessa rested three wineglasses on the counter and turned round to face Anna. She, uncharitably, thought that the description was very accurate. In her head she had idly wondered what sort of women Curtis was attracted to. In the flesh, she realised that she hadn’t been very far from the predictable truth. Glossy packaging without much of an intellect inside. She wondered whether his daily life was so full of creativity and challenge that beautiful bimbos were restful, a panacea at the end of a long working day.

She reminded herself sternly that, one way or another, speculation like that went nowhere because his private life was no concern of hers.

‘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!’

‘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?’