The Billionaire Boss's Bride(59)

‘Look at you!’ Tessa continued, gathering momentum as her heart protected itself by projecting a one-dimensional cardboard cut-out image of him. ‘You’re not exactly noted for your celibate nature…’

‘Meaning that I see nothing wrong in overlapping relationships?’

‘I never said that you would have gone out with Lucy while I was still trailing in the background like some inconvenient unfinished business. But you’re not exactly the solid type who places a whole lot of emphasis on cultivating long-standing relationships, are you?’

‘Why did you sleep with me if I didn’t fit into that niche?’

‘Because…’ Tessa glared back at him, carelessly lounging there in the chair as if he had a perfect right to be there.

‘You’re upset because you thought that I had lived down to my reputation. Upset enough to quit a job you loved doing. But when we went to bed together, I was still that man, so why did you decide to come to bed with me? Were you hoping that somehow I’d change? That you’d be able to turn me into a domestic dream who wanted nothing more than to slip into commitment and live happily ever after with a few kiddies running around and a dog in front of the Aga?’





CHAPTER TEN




‘I THINK it’s time you left.’ Tessa got to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster. Curtis’s question had shaken her to the core. How could she have thought for a minute that his lessons in logic might have been incomplete? With a few short observations, he had stripped her reaction down to the bone. What she didn’t want to do was give him any opportunity to go further.

‘I’m not ready to leave.’ And he wasn’t. He really wasn’t. Because he was back in the driving seat, utterly and totally in control. When he left, he would have put her straight on her vast misconception of his character. He wasn’t a commitment guy. That was for his brother, who loved the routine and order of his life. He, himself, had never cared for routine. His job predicated against any sort of routine, anyway. That had been the beauty of his wife, when she was alive. She too had been full of the joy of living and pregnancy had not really interfered with that.

His only grounding now came from being a father. For Anna he would take time off work, for Anna he would postpone meetings and attend school concerts whenever he could. But that was it. Absolutely. The thought of having some wife in the background nagging about his hours and reminding him of deadly dinner parties she had arranged for the weekend was just not on his agenda.

‘Since you happen to be in my house, whether or not you’re ready to go isn’t the point. The point is I want you out. You’ve got your apology and now we have nothing left to say.’ Her breath caught in her throat at that. The house-sized ego she had been focusing so intently on vanished like a puff of smoke. All she thought was, You were such fun, you could make me laugh and make me abandon every ounce of common sense just to feel you close to me. You could make me love you.

The dangerous thoughts crept into her head like thieves, stealing her will-power.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Curtis said, not budging. ‘And you might as well sit back down. I’m not ready to leave, not yet, and I don’t see how you can force me out. I’m all for equality of the sexes, but when it comes to physical strength, we’re still poles apart.’

‘Oh, right! When in doubt, just fall back on the caveman principle, why don’t you?’

‘Answer my question and I’ll go.’

Tessa sat back down, furious and helpless at the same time. ‘I never saw you as relationship potential,’ she spat out. ‘Never.’

‘Then I expect you’ll be wanting your job back, in that case? Now that we’ve established that there’s nothing going on between me and your sister?’

‘And slide back into being your casual fling till you get bored of me? No, thanks!’ The words were out before she could take them back, and they flew through the sudden, thick silence with the efficiency of the contents from Pandora’s box. Tessa could feel the blood rush to her face and she had to stop herself from groaning out loud. Everything she had been trying so hard to deny was wrapped up in those few careless words and he knew it. She could see it on his face.

‘Because that wouldn’t be enough for you, would it?’ Curtis said softly. ‘You’re just not the type of woman who can have flings.’

Tessa hoped he wasn’t expecting an answer to that because he wasn’t going to get one. She would just have to let him spin his yarn and then he would leave. His life would carry on its own merry way and she would pick up the pieces and start again.