Читать книгу Seduced by the Rebel: The Big Bad Boss - Susan Stephens, Anne Oliver - Страница 17

THE food was delicious and Bronte ate ravenously. It was easy to talk about Hebers Ghyll in such a relaxed setting, though she prickled all over when Heath admitted he still couldn’t see how the inheritance would fit into his life. She could see the problem. Heath’s life was cool and cutting edge. Hebers Ghyll was a lumbering great piece of real estate with thousands of acres of land attached. But it was somewhere she called home. She couldn’t expect it to be more than another entry in Heath’s property portfolio. She had to make him see it differently. If she could only persuade him to come back.

‘Don’t let your food get cold,’ Heath advised when she started out down that route.

Heath would never be pushed. And she would not be moved. Things promised to get interesting. They already were; Heath was close enough for her body to warm at the memory of his touch—

‘Penny for them?’ he murmured.

Censored. ‘Just thinking what a really great time I’ve had tonight.’

‘I’ll call for the bill.’

She dug out her purse.

‘Put that away.’

Resolutions were easy to make, but the warmth and strength of Heath’s hand covering hers was too much. She snatched her hand away as if he’d burned it. ‘I can’t let you pay for me, Heath.’

‘Then take it as wages. I must owe you something by now?’

‘Yes, you do,’ she said frankly, ‘but this is different—separate.’

‘Then you’ll just have to repay me some other way.’ Heath curved a smile. ‘I’m sure I can find some filing for you at the office, if you’re really desperate?’

‘Temping for you?’ she said. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Heath agreed, ‘I’d get no work done by the time you’d finished tempting—’

‘Temping,’ she corrected him. ‘You mean when I’ve finished temping.’

‘You say temping—I say tempting.’ Heath’s cheek creased in a grin.

Heath was enjoying himself. The revelation made her thrill inside. ‘You’re impossible,’ she scolded him.

‘I know,’ he agreed, putting his hand up for the bill.

They went from the heat of the café into the cool of the night. Heath opened the passenger door of the Lamborghini and Bronte fed herself in.

‘You’re getting better at it,’ he observed dryly.

‘And you’re not supposed to be looking.’

‘I’ll try to remember that.’

She doubted he would. And if it was possible to enter such a low-slung car without showing everything she was born with and a whole lot more, she hadn’t got the knack of it yet.

‘So where now?’ she asked as Heath swung in beside her.

Self-doubt crowded in when Heath said nothing. Having sex with him would be spectacular—but wrong. It would be the perfect ending to the perfect night, but that didn’t make it right. It was everything she had promised herself she wouldn’t do. ‘We’ll find a hotel as we drive back to town—you can just drop me—’

‘Let you loose on the unsuspecting?’ Heath said, gunning the engine. ‘I couldn’t be so unfeeling towards my fellow man.’

‘Look,’ she said a few miles further down the road, ‘that looks like a nice bed and breakfast. You can drop me here. It says vacancies—I’ll be fine.’

More silence.

‘Heath?’ she prompted as he started to make a call. She couldn’t risk everything she’d dreamed about and worked towards, sacrificed for a night that would leave her heart in pieces. ‘Heath, what are you doing?’ She felt the prickle of apprehension creep up her spine as Heath held up his hand to silence her, and as the conversation got under way she felt sick. The bottom dropped out of her world when she realised Heath was booking a double room at some swanky hotel in Knightsbridge. She was supposed to be grateful, Bronte guessed. And why should Heath think any differently of her? She’d had sex with him and enjoyed it—they’d both enjoyed it. She would be the first to admit she wanted him more than ever. But not like this.

‘Yes,’ Heath confirmed. ‘An executive double for tonight.’ He paused and flashed a glance at Bronte as the girl on the other end of the line obviously checked her reservation system. Once the booking was confirmed, he added, ‘We’ll be with you in around a quarter of an hour.’

‘What are you doing?’ Bronte whispered the moment Heath cut the line. Had the wonderful time they had spent together been for this? Was the friendship she thought they had forged nothing more than an illusion?

‘Lucky they had a room available.’

And she was available too? Bronte thought dully, turning to stare out of the window. This would ruin everything.

Her anxiety had reached epic proportions by the time Heath pulled into the approach of one of the most famous five-star hotels in London. She had to hand it to him, when it came to seduction Heath didn’t stint.

‘I know the staff here,’ he explained as a uniformed valet approached the car and took his keys through the open window.

Of course he did. Where wouldn’t Heath be known? Bronte wondered.

‘They’ll make you welcome, and you’ll be safe here.’

Safe with Heath?

He was at her side of the car opening the door before the porter even had chance to react. ‘Come on.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’ll cover for you.’

He could still joke about this? She held back. Heath was waiting. The porter was staring. ‘I don’t have any luggage. What will people think?’

‘Since when have you cared?’ Heath lifted her out and deposited her on the pavement in front of him, holding her shoulders so he could stare into her eyes. ‘I don’t care what people think and neither should you. Where are you going now?’ he said, catching hold of her wrist.

‘I’ll take a cab.’

‘A cab where? Don’t be ridiculous, Bronte.’

A well dressed couple made a point of skirting round them.

‘It’s only a bed for the night.’

‘I don’t know how you can say that.’

Heath thumbed his chin, and then he started to laugh.

‘Did I say something funny?’ Bronte snapped.

‘What kind of man do you think I am, Bronte? Did you really think I’d let you take pot luck where you slept tonight?’

‘I thought—’

‘I know what you thought,’ Heath said, losing the smile. ‘I’m getting your signals loud and clear. Perhaps now is a good time to tell you that I’ve never had to engineer an opportunity for sex, and I’m sure as hell not starting now.’

‘But you booked a double room,’ Bronte challenged heatedly.

‘Single rooms are too small—usually by the elevator, and always my last choice. I got you an executive double, the cost of which,’ he assured her, ‘I will knock off your wages. But as for sleeping with you, Bronte?’ Turning, Heath pointed across the road. ‘My house is right over there. Why would I want to stay with you?’

For no reason she could think of.

‘You thought I’d booked a double room so we could have sex?’ Heath’s face was a mask of exasperation and disappointment.

‘Well, excuse me for getting the wrong end of the stick,’ Bronte fired back.

They were standing toe to toe when Heath shook his head and said icily, ‘See you back at Hebers Ghyll?’

His meaning was clear. ‘So for a misunderstanding I lose the job?’ She was so far down the road she couldn’t find her way back and was half out of her mind with panic and frustration.

‘No,’ Heath countered. ‘For always thinking the worst of me you lose the job. How could you work for a boss you don’t trust, Bronte? Well, could you?’ And when she didn’t answer, Heath raged, ‘Do you know what?’ His hair was sticking up in angry spikes where he’d raked it. ‘I used to think I was the one stuck in the past, but now I see it’s you, Bronte. You just can’t let go of who I used to be. You’ve kept those thoughts alive for all these years—thinking tough is good and hard is sexy. Well, here’s some news for you. I don’t want to be that man—and I especially don’t want to be that man with you.’

She looked at Heath open-mouthed. If only half what he said was true then she was bitterly ashamed. They changed each other, Bronte realised as she sucked in a shuddering breath. They brought out the best and the worst in each other. ‘Heath—’ she reached out to him ‘—please, I—’

Heath pulled away as if she had the plague. ‘Stay or don’t stay—I really don’t care what you do. The room’s paid for,’ he rapped. ‘Have it on me.’ And with that he spun on his heel and strode away.

Wound up like a spring, she watched him, and stood rooted to that same spot until she heard the engine roar and saw the Lamborghini speed away.

It was a much subdued Bronte who followed the housekeeper to her room. In her current bewildered state it was much better to stay put, she had concluded. After all, she had nowhere else to go. Her guilt doubled and doubled again when she was shown into the most sumptuous double room—well away from the elevators. Sumptuously decorated in shades of aquamarine, ivory and coral, with ornate plasterwork on the ceiling playing host to a glittering chandelier, it was a mocking reminder that she wasn’t always right, and that sometimes she was horribly wrong. She stood in the centre of the room when the housekeeper left her, inhaling the scent of fresh flowers from the market, beautifully arranged in a crystal bowl on the dressing table. If she had taken that bowl and smashed it she couldn’t have done more harm tonight. She had taken something beautiful and twisted it with her suspicion. She had killed any hope of Heath being a friend, and a friend was something more than a lover—something less than both, but something precious all the same.