Читать книгу Greek Mavericks: His Christmas Conquest - Люси Монро, Люси Монро, Cathy Williams - Страница 13

WHEN Theo thought about Elena, he thought about everything that was delicate and feminine. The minute he had laid eyes on her, he had been drawn by her soft girlish beauty and her quiet charm. For the first time in his life his motives had been free of lust and the driving urge to get a woman into bed. Yes, he had been physically attracted to her, but bigger and more overwhelming than that attraction had been his urge to take care of her.

Elena, coming at a time in his life when he had been subconsciously thinking of settling down, had fulfilled every fantasy he had ever nurtured about the perfect woman.

She had been almost excessively pretty—blonde hair, blue eyes and none of the raunchy glamour associated with the mixture. Raunchy had always been fine for Theo when it came to women he slept with, but when it came to a prospective wife there was no way that that look was going to do. Despite his savvy, Theo had a very defined traditionalist streak. What was acceptable to wine and dine and eventually disengage from, was not acceptable when it came to sharing his life.

Elena, with her angelic good looks, had been eminently suitable wife material.

And she’d been deferential without being characterless. Of course, he had never been attracted to the argumentative type, but Elena had been deferential in the most charmingly attractive way. He could remember sitting across from her at the dinner table in one of those wildly expensive restaurants which he usually avoided but which seemed appropriate given his desire to impress her, could remember the way she had gazed at him with a soft smile on her lips, the way she had listened with her head cocked to one side and her eyes shining with appreciation. He had known from the very beginning that she would never criticise. She would be the soothing balm and, for Theo, that was a compelling aspect of her personality.

Throw into the mixture the fact that he would have been making a desirable match as far as both families were concerned, and the pedestal on which he had placed her became unassailable.

Theo wondered whether he would have continued mourning her disappearance from his life forever if he had remained in London. He knew now and had known for a while that he had allowed, indeed encouraged, his emotions to go into deep freeze. To start with, it had been a protective mechanism but then he had become accustomed to the freeze. In the end, it had felt good not to feel.

Lying in bed now, with a half-read business manual next to him and the prospect of a morning without the use of his computer, Theo contemplated the vagary of fate that had brought him to this pass.

He folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.

What was it about this woman that had managed to get under his skin?

She was disagreeable and prickly a lot of the time. He doubted that she had a sweetly submissive bone in her body. Theo, used to viewing all problems in life as soluble, could not for the hell of him work out why he was bothering with a woman who rattled him when, without too much effort, he could easily find one who didn’t. Considering things logically, why would he voluntarily put himself into a situation that had the potential to give him a headache? Women, he firmly believed, should never give men headaches. They were the gentle sex and their duty was to calm.

He muttered an oath under his breath, snatched up the manual and attempted to get his brain round the concepts of global business protocol.

Sophie Scott was not calming. She had also rejected his advances. Theo scowled and snapped shut the business book. The laptop computer was right there, next to him, ready and waiting for him to bring it to life, but the thought of reading through yet more urgent emails bored him.

He switched off the light and let his thoughts roam freely over selected snippets of the conversation they had had earlier, dwelling on the way she had firmly but politely warned him off making a pass at her. Obviously she had never been told that to warn a man off something was to wave a red flag under his nose. Or at least that was the way it worked with Theo.

What was the point of a challenge if you didn’t rise to it? Theo always rose to a challenge. He savoured the prospect of having her, of overwhelming her prudish concerns, of releasing the fire he knew was there inside her.

He woke up the following morning with an uncomfortable sensation of coldness and realised that there was no heating in the cottage. The fact that he slept without pyjamas didn’t help matters. His mind was racing, though, and the cold was almost a welcome spur to the well-spring of energy he could feel inside him. He had a very quick and very cold shower and by nine-thirty he was on the way to her office.

Sitting on the floor and wrapped up in various layers of thick clothing because there was no way that Sophie was going to sit around in her coat, she was barely aware of Theo pushing open the office door.

In fact, she was not at all aware of his presence until he was looming over her; then his shadow alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone.

With a little yelp of shock, she stumbled to her feet, sending various sheets of paper shooting off her lap on to the ground.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, dusting herself down and glaring at him.

‘Where’s the rest of your motley crew?’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’ She had pretty much given up trying to remember that she was his landlady and obliged to display good manners, even though she might not feel like it. She had been sitting on that wretched floor for the best part of an hour, simply because it had seemed easier to get down to the level of the boxes rather than continually drag them up to her level. Her jeans were dusty, her hands were dusty, her hair was probably dusty too and her clothes were a shambolic assortment of things that should really have been binned years ago but had somehow managed to slip through the net. She felt a mess and she looked a mess and there he stood, outrageously sexy in a pair of cords, a thick cream sweater and a battered leather jacket that screamed casual style.

‘I thought I would drop in, maybe give you a hand with some of this paperwork, seeing that I can’t do any work myself because of the power cut.’

‘You can still write without a computer,’ Sophie felt constrained to point out. She hoped that it wasn’t part of his game plan to spend the morning under her feet just because his computer was out of action for a few hours. ‘I mean, aren’t you writers supposed to be inventive?’

‘I think you’re thinking of people like your father.’

‘I said inventive not inventors.’

‘Show me what you’ve done already and how your filing system works.’

‘You don’t have to sit and help me with this.’

‘In other words, you’d rather I didn’t.’

‘I’d work a lot faster if I don’t have to stop to explain stuff to you.’

‘I’m a very quick learner. You would be surprised.’

‘You should use this opportunity to see something around here,’ Sophie suggested desperately. ‘I mean, if you really think that you can’t write a chapter or two of your book without a computer.’

‘Why don’t you just accept my offer of help in the manner in which it was intended?’ Theo said with mounting impatience. ‘Especially as there is no one around at the moment to help out anyway. Where is the gang of three? Christmas shopping?’

Sophie guiltily thought of Robert. True to his word, he had not shown up but she had spent the morning half expecting him to telephone her and was relieved that he hadn’t. His proposal, coming out of nowhere as it had, had shaken her to the core. He had been a friend and a helping hand to her when she had needed one but was that any reason to consider developing a relationship with him? On the other hand, she wasn’t getting any younger and they did get along, at least on a superficial level, which was the only level they had previously enjoyed.

What was the harm in just seeing whether there was something there that could be developed further?

‘Don’t tell me the boyfriend has deserted the sinking ship?’ Theo slid open the drawer of one of the metal filing cabinets and began looking at the files.

‘You need a computer,’ he said, as the level of paperwork became ever clearer. ‘It’s the only way you’ll be able to keep track of everything here and, aside from that, it’s a bloody fire hazard.’

‘I’ve got a computer,’ Sophie told him airily.

‘Where is it?’

‘Upstairs. I just haven’t got around to…logging some of this stuff in…It takes time, you know…All that computer work, et cetera…I mean, it’s all right for you. You just have to sit there telling stories and typing away.’

It occurred to Theo that the whole figment of his occupation was becoming a burden, but he quickly reminded himself how much more satisfying it was to be incognito, at least for a short while. Hadn’t he lived his entire life with the weight of expectation on his shoulders? Without any siblings to share the responsibility, he had had little option but to fulfil his duty as son and heir to a shipping empire. Just as well he had found it to his liking. All the same, it was good to be suddenly in this make-believe role, with only himself to please and absolutely no one else.

‘I know a thing or two about computers. I could have a look at what you’ve done so far, see whether it mightn’t require some updating.’

‘You know about computers? How do you know about computers? No! Let me guess! The way you seem to know about everything. Information just wafts into you, through osmosis! Lucky you.’

‘You haven’t logged any of this on to a computer, have you?’

Sophie wanted to ask him how he had the nerve to waltz into her office and begin making assumptions about her approach to the workload. Did he think that it was a walk in the park trying to come to terms with your father’s death and sort out the chaos he had left behind without you ever suspecting a thing at the same time? However, there he was, sitting there and looking as though he knew what he was doing, which, of course, he didn’t, and she just wanted to dump the lot on to him and ask him to deal with it while she went to her bed and slept for a few weeks till it was all cleared up.

‘I’ve been meaning to…’ Sophie admitted sulkily and Theo tut-tutted under his breath.

‘Well, we can’t do anything at the moment but, as soon as the power is back, I suggest we install a simple program so that we can collate all the information scattered in these boxes.’

‘We…?’ Sophie felt obliged to reveal the extent of her ignorance of all things technical. ‘Computers and I have never had much of a friendship.’

‘That being the case, I’m surprised what’s-his-name couldn’t have helped you out there.’

‘I think we were just so busy trying to get the stuff together that…that…’

‘That it never occurred to you that there might be a far quicker way to do it…?’ He grabbed a stack of files and strolled over to her desk, where he proceeded to drag the nearest chair to hers so that he could position himself next to her. ‘Okay. Look at these.’ He pointed to some symbols and picked out various key words, which meant frankly nothing to Sophie’s untrained eyes. ‘We could install a program that would automatically collate information that belongs under the same banner. So, for example, experiments based on certain solutions, where your father was in contact with the same person at roughly the same time, could automatically reach the same file at the click of a button.’

‘You could do that?’ Sophie asked, seriously impressed. She desperately wished that she had paid a bit more attention in IT at school. ‘How?’ she demanded. ‘Did you do a computer course at college?’

Computer course? College?

‘I dabbled in it at university,’ Theo conceded.

‘Oh, right.’

‘Surprised?’ He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs.

‘Oh, no. Not at all. Well, not that you went to university…I’m just surprised that you took an interest in something like computing. Was it part of your creative writing course?’

‘Whoever said anything about creative writing?’ That little white lie by Gloria, delivered for all the right reasons, to protect him because as a high profile name in business he might have attracted unwanted attention, was now beginning to haunt Theo. He refused to enlarge upon it by fabricating a mystery past.

Sophie frowned. ‘Well, what did you do at university?’ she asked.

‘Economics and law.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Why should I be kidding?’ Theo asked dryly.

‘Because…’ Sophie spluttered, predicting that this would lead right back to his conviction that she had stereotyped him. ‘So…yes, I can see that you might be interested in computers if you liked law and economics…’

Theo grinned. ‘Does that make me a boring person, do you think?’

‘You’re the least boring person I’ve ever met!’ The words were out before Sophie had a chance to think about how they sounded. She cringed back, mortified, into the chair and tried to think how she could explain that what she had meant was that he was too arrogant, too opinionated and too clever by half to ever be considered boring. Which didn’t mean that he was fun or exciting or stimulating!

‘Is that a fact?’ Theo drawled lazily.

‘I mean…’ What did she mean? He was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her answer. Didn’t he realise that that was just plain conceited—to enjoy hearing himself discussed?

‘My computer isn’t very up-to-date,’ Sophie said, changing the subject. ‘I couldn’t afford to buy a new one when I started my teacher training course and I only realised afterwards that there’s a reason why people get rid of their computers after a couple of years. They just become obsolete. So I hope this amazing program you have in mind won’t be too much for it to handle.’

Theo leaned back in his chair and looked at her. Just when he felt as though he was close to working her out, she skittered away and he was left trying to figure out her complexities. She didn’t find him boring—she had just said so even though he had had the sneaking suspicion that she might have wished she hadn’t. She was attracted to him, although she was determined not to act upon it. He wondered whether there was something going on with the Robert character, although she had been at pains to deny it. Where was the man, anyway? She hadn’t actually answered his question when he had asked earlier.

‘I’ll check and see,’ Theo said indifferently. ‘We could always get a new one.’

‘Get a new one?’ Sophie looked at him as though he had taken leave of his senses.

‘Computers have come down in price substantially over the years…’

‘And getting one would still cost too much, never mind how substantially they’ve come down in price over the years! Why do you think I’ve had to rent out the cottage? I need the money!’ She cast a despairing look around her. ‘I’ve only been through half of this. There’s more stuff upstairs and more yet in the cottage, buried in boxes in the attic. And I’ve unearthed more bills than I can shake a stick at. You have no idea! Your rent has already been eaten up paying off creditors. So when it comes to flinging another few hundred pounds in the direction of a new computer, then you can think again.’

The sympathy on his face was too much. Sophie stood up, stretched and tried to gather herself by walking over to the kettle to make a cup of coffee for them. Belatedly she remembered that no power meant no functioning kettle, and she turned to look at him with an apologetic smile.

‘Sorry. You haven’t come here to take time out so that you can be bored by my problems.’

‘Is there no one who can guarantee you a loan until such time as you can pay them back?’

Sophie thought of Robert and hesitated. ‘Not really…’

‘What does not really mean?’

‘Robert has said that he would be willing to bail me out. I mean, obviously that would depend on how much I end up owing…’

‘Where is he now?’ Theo frowned in frank dismissal. ‘Anyway, tell me, what’s the catch?’

‘Oh, no catch!’ Sophie waved a little too airily. ‘I’d make you some coffee but no electricity for the kettle. Are you all right with the heating off? It’s just a localised power cut. A few miles down the road and you can easily do some shopping, find somewhere warm to sit and have some tea…’

Theo wondered why she was suddenly so desperate to change the subject. ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch, Sophie, and I can tell from the look on your face that whatever offer your friend came up with has some strings attached to it. So what are they? Hefty interest rate? The cottage as collateral? I’d be very careful about taking money from a loan shark.’ He felt himself getting hot under the collar at the thought of an opportunist taking her for every penny she had. And he would because Sophie, for all those forthright mannerisms that would send any normal man’s blood pressure soaring in irritation, was an innocent in the world of finance. It would have been no problem for him to give her the money but he knew that she would never accept it, not even if she knew the full extent of his massive personal fortune.

‘Robert’s no loan shark! Anyway, either he’s dull and insecure or he’s a clever opportunist. He can’t be both!’ Sophie objected hotly, already regretting her slip-up.

‘I never said dull…You just did. Interesting. Well, what repayment scheme does he have in mind?’ Theo asked, raising his eyebrows in a mixture of curiosity and cynicism.

‘Stop twisting my words. All I’m saying is that I’ve been offered a life belt if I think I need one. And if I mentioned the word dull it’s because that’s the picture you insist on conjuring up every time his name is mentioned! Never mind that you’ve met him for five seconds!’

She was waffling, he noticed, without actually enlightening him, which sharpened his curiosity still further.

‘Well?’ he pressed. ‘I’m very experienced in all matters relating to money so I’m immune to surprises in that particular quarter.’

‘You do blow your own trumpet, don’t you?’ Sophie said tartly. ‘Is there any area you would admit to not being good at?’

Writing, Theo considered, except of the most prosaic kind. ‘I’ve been clever at picking things up along the way.’ He spread his hands expansively, with an expression of don’t blame me if I’m good at everything.

That, of course, was what did it. Sophie, never one to see the benefit of taking someone down a few notches just to watch the expression on their face, could not resist the temptation to wipe that smirk off Theo’s face. The devil inside her made her nod in a knowing way, totally understanding the hideous disadvantages of just being brilliant at everything, with the possible exception of mending central heating devices in old cottages. Yes, being that sharp would make him immune to surprises.

‘Well, I’ll confess what the catch is, although I don’t think anyone would really call it a catch. As such.’ She paused for a few dramatic seconds. ‘Robert has proposed to me.’

‘Proposed what?’

‘Proposed that we get married!’ Sophie said through gritted teeth. Was the possibility of someone asking for her hand in marriage such a difficult concept to take on board?

‘You’re joking!’

‘No. No, I am not joking. You might think you know everything because you’re so clever at picking things up along the way, but you obviously don’t know women that well or you would know that they never joke about marriage proposals.’

For some reason, Theo was finding it hard to take in what Sophie had just said. Why, he had no idea. When he approached her revelation logically, he could see that, as solutions went, it didn’t get better. A man wanting to help his woman out of her financial mess because he loved her.

So what if he had been temporarily attracted to the woman? He almost laughed aloud at his crazy overreaction to her news! As if there weren’t a million other fish in the sea! True, he had imagined that the strangeness of his circumstances had been responsible for opening up a chink in his protective armour, but really, thinking about it, that wasn’t the case at all. The change of scenery had been a catalyst. He would never forget Elena—indeed there would never be another woman to match her—but his body was responding once again. It was a bitter truth he would have to swallow. He was still a man with needs that had to be met.

But this woman was not an integral part of that. He had thought that returning to London, getting back to his daily reality, would return him to the brooding workaholic that he had previously been, seeking out dangerous pursuits in an attempt to distract himself from his private pain. Now he considered the possibility of his life returning to some level of normality.

‘And…?’ he prompted. ‘Did you accept his kind offer? I suppose it would have been too much temptation to resist.’

Sophie hesitated, already regretting the impulse that had seen her confess something that should have been a private matter. ‘I’m thinking about it,’ she mumbled.

‘I had no idea your relationship with the man was so serious.’

Nor did I, Sophie thought, wondering how she could entice him away from the topic.

‘And all he wants is your hand in marriage?’ Theo quizzed, his brows knitted in a frown.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’

Theo focused on Sophie’s face and registered the smug expression—just the sort of smug expression that could well and truly get under a man’s skin and try his patience to the limits.

‘Not really, when you think about it. As I said, an insecure kind of boy—your plight is probably the one thing guaranteed to make him feel like a man…’ Okay, so it was an arrogant, incendiary statement, but for some reason Theo was finding it distasteful to think of Sophie and that wet rag having any kind of relationship.

‘Thanks for the compliment!’

‘Probably one of those men who can’t wait for the whole family deal…Well, it sure beats the hell out of playing a field they don’t feel very comfortable in…’

‘Oh, and that’s what every woman fights shy of——a family man! Because we all want a rampant womaniser!’

‘I am usually right when it comes to reading people.’ Theo shrugged.

‘Oh, right. Yet another one of those handy talents you picked up along the way.’

‘Very handy,’ Theo agreed readily, enjoying the way she bristled as he ignored the sarcasm. ‘Life’s a lot easier if you can read people accurately and the way I read it is that his proposal might have set you thinking, but is it enough to overcome the fact that you don’t actually love the man? Because if you loved the guy you certainly wouldn’t tolerate me describing him as a wimp…’

‘Your opinion doesn’t matter to me, actually. And what’s love anyway?’ she scoffed. She had been encouraged to think that it was tumultuous and wonderful. Her parents had had one of those passionate, enduring romances and had misinformed her that she, too, would one day have the same. Well, as far as Sophie was concerned, she was still waiting. So far, she hadn’t even had a broken heart. No one had come close to being that meaningful a presence in her life. Which, she told herself, was obviously good. Who wanted a broken heart? On top of everything else at the moment, that would be absolutely the last straw.

And if there was no love, then why not see marriage as a business arrangement? Robert was proposing a business arrangement. He said that he was attracted to her, which she found extraordinary given the success with which he had managed to camouflage his feelings. She didn’t think he loved her, but he liked her well enough and was it so odd that he would see the whole business of marriage from the same jaded viewpoint as she did?

‘If love was that special, then how come the divorce rate is so high?’

Theo didn’t say anything. ‘Is this your way of talking yourself into marrying someone you don’t care about?’

‘This is my way of answering your question,’ Sophie muttered. ‘Anyway, if you’re such a fan of the whole Love thing, how come you’re not married?’ She would have bet her house that he felt the same way as she was stridently pretending to. He just looked too worldly wise to have a romantic bone in his body.

‘Oh, you have a point,’ Theo said coolly. ‘Why don’t you show me where your computer is and I can start working on this program as soon as power is restored?’

‘Oh.’ Sophie felt a very brief jarring sensation of disappointment at the abrupt change in conversation; then she was hastening to assure him that there was no need for him to involve himself in her situation. In fact, she hurried on to add, she would really rather he didn’t.

‘Why? It would make life a lot easier for you and would also be a far more efficient method of keeping track of all these documents.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to pay you for it…’

For some reason, that objection made Theo savagely angry. ‘I don’t believe I asked for payment,’ he said coldly.

‘I wouldn’t feel happy about you taking time out from your writing to help me.’ Sophie’s chin went up. ‘I’m not a charity case.’

‘No, but you’re a fool.’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Why look a gift horse in the mouth?’ Theo said harshly. ‘I’m offering to lend you a hand. Take the offer with good grace.’

‘As you said, though, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. What will your price be?’

Theo’s eyes narrowed on her until Sophie was squirming in her chair. Wrong question, she belatedly realised, but yet again the words had popped out of her mouth before she could sift them over in her head.

‘Consider it a trade-off. Your cottage has done wonders for…my writer’s block, as it happens and one good turn deserves another.’ But he had a sudden image of her paying him back with her body, lying beneath him, writhing with passion, her eyes languorous and heavy with desire.

Not to be. He had always made a point of zero involvement with a woman who was tied up with another man.

‘Where will you…do it?’

Theo looked at her, disoriented for a few seconds by the very graphic nature of the image in his head. ‘Where will I do…what?’

‘The program,’ Sophie explained patiently. ‘You’re welcome to work here with us, but it’s very cramped compared to the cottage. But no problem, of course, if you’d prefer here…I mean, the files are all around…’ Literally. Which in no way could be construed as an advantage as far as she could see. She tried to picture him sitting here in the office with them for hours on end, or however long it took him to install the program, and her stomach did a funny little dip that left her breathless.

‘No. I’ll take it to the cottage with me. Are there any files on it you’d rather I didn’t see?’

‘Like what?’

‘Use your imagination,’ Theo said dryly.

‘No. No! Just work stuff.’

‘Right. Well, no time like the present.’ He stood up and so did Sophie. The way to the upstairs flat was through the back, and she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up on end as he followed closely behind her.

The flat was small and functional. It contained all the basic requirements to make life palatable, though only for brief periods of time. At the end of the narrow corridor was a kitchen which was really only good for essential cooking and tea and coffee and off the corridor was a bedroom, a bathroom and a spare room which her father had used for his office and which she used for her desk-cum-dressing table.

The computer was on the desk. In his head, Theo had assumed it would be a laptop computer. It wasn’t. It was as big as a television set and, with his recovering foot, he would be unable to carry it.

‘I didn’t think,’ Sophie said quietly and he spun round to look at her. ‘Your foot. This is going to be way too heavy for you to carry.’ She saw a flash of fierce pride in his eyes and felt a moment of real empathy for him. ‘How did it happen?’ she asked curiously.

Theo shrugged and sat down. He tapped his finger idly on the mouse mat, frustrated that a simple task, that he would have thought nothing of once, was now beyond his reach.

‘By me being an idiot,’ Theo told her roughly. She had pulled up a chair and was sitting by him, probably on the verge of pouring some good old-fashioned Christian sympathy all over him. He didn’t want it and he didn’t need it. He felt the inadequacy of his body like a shameful physical blow. ‘I thought I could master a black run and it turned out that nature had a little lesson in store for me. And now,’ he scorned, ‘I suppose I must expect your pity. Spare me. Please.’

‘I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to pity you, Theo,’ she said truthfully. ‘You’re too…dominant.’ She gave him a crooked smile.

‘Is that a good thing, I wonder…’ Theo murmured.

‘It has its…advantages…’ Sophie answered. ‘Ordering drinks at a crowded bar…getting rid of pesky door-to-door salesmen…showing a yapping dog who’s boss…’

Theo smiled and the blast of it nearly took her breath away. In fact, she was sure that her breathing stopped, just for a few seconds. Her heart rate also seemed to have slowed.

‘Useful, then.’

‘Useful, yes.’

‘But not particularly attractive…’

Sophie, mesmerised, could only stare at the harsh angular beauty of his face, softened by the slight smile playing on his lips. She was barely aware of leaning forward, of her eyes half closing or of the sigh that escaped before she kissed him.