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.’
‘No. I know that. I know I’m…’ A highly qualified and competent secretary, fully computer literate and with the references to show for it.
‘Yes…?’ He cocked his head to one side.
‘I’m pretty responsible for my age,’ she conceded. The doorbell rang. In the nick of time, she felt, because she had uneasily been aware of ground shifting under her feet. She sprang to her feet, only to see that he had similarly stood up and was fishing into his trouser pocket for his wallet.
‘You stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I’ll pay for the pizza.’
Stay in the kitchen? Waiting for him to return so that he could resume their conversation, which was slowly sending her into a state of frantic panic? No way.
As soon as he had exited she went to the cupboard and quickly prepared a tray with plate, cutlery, a stack of paper napkins and a glass of orange squash. They coincided in the sitting room, where Anna was engrossed in an inane program featuring two muscle-bound women who seemed to be competing with one another in a series of frankly ridiculous tasks. She made a few appreciative noises when the pizza was put in front of her, barely aware of the pair of them looming to one side.
Curtis opened his mouth to ask what level of nonsense she was watching, thought better of it and signalled to Tessa that they leave.
When she stood her ground, he tugged her gently but firmly out of the sitting room, keeping his hand on her arm until they were back in the kitchen.
‘I get the feeling we might cramp her style if we stay in there with her,’ he said, pushing the kitchen door behind him and killing the last vestige of noise wafting in from the television.
‘Which is something you would never dream of doing.’
‘Touché.’ He was still holding onto her, enjoying it, and as though she had suddenly realised that she shrugged him off and sat back down.
‘Okay. I get your point.’ He reluctantly sat back down. ‘Maybe I’m a bit overprotective and now’s the time to start cutting the apron strings a bit.’
‘That might be a good idea,’ Tessa agreed, relieved that the conversation seemed to be back on an even keel. Discussing Anna was bad enough when it came to blurring the boundaries between Curtis and herself, but drifting into the unknown territory of discussing each other was off the scale altogether.
‘I mean, lay down too many laws and you can sometimes find that a teenager will attempt to break them all.’
‘Is that what you had to cope with when it came to your sister? You must have been pretty green round the gills when you found yourself having to deal with a teenager.’
‘I coped,’ Tessa informed him briefly.
‘Ah, but I’m intrigued. How did you? Cope, I mean?’ He smiled encouragingly. The urge to find out more about this woman was becoming irrational. His mind, which frequently drifted off in the direction of work whenever he was in the company of a woman, seemed to have developed extraordinary focusing ability.
His eyes wandered to her mouth, to the slender column of her neck. In his head he began to remove her top, bit by very slow bit.
‘Lucy was a headache, but essentially a pretty good kid. No drugs, no alcohol, or at least not much, no staying out all night. I loosened some of her boundaries and she respected that. I think she knew that we’d both been thrown into a new situation and we had to help each other along the best we could if we were to survive. I gave her freedom within limits and she gave me her obedience within limits.’