‘Really.’ He half smiled. ‘Most people know that getting on the wrong side of me isn’t always the best way forward.’
‘Well, thank you. It certainly helped with my sleeping last night.’ She paused, and then continued in an awkward rush, ‘I just want to thank you for making things easier for me. All of this...it’s neither your fault nor mine. It’s just something unexpected that happened, but you really have made dealing with the consequences...um...easier. You know—letting me have a week off work while you deal with the fallout there.’
‘You’re not accustomed to asking for help, are you?’ he enquired softly and Ellie blushed, not looking at him, but staring straight ahead as he threaded through the narrow streets towards the motorway.
That was the sort of personal question he would never have asked her before they’d become involved, and it was just another reason why she knew she would have to quit her job just as soon as she could.
From passionate lover, he was now making his way to that awful place known asgood friend...except he wasn’t, was he? She didn’t want him to adopt the role of being a shoulder she could cry on simply because he’d managed to get under her skin, just because they’d slept together, but she knew he would. He already was!
Thatwould be the added dimension he had referred to, the one that would exist between them once their affair had run its course.
She projected to a point in the future when she would have to watch him hop back into the dating scene, returning to his normal luxury diet of catwalk models, as far as he was concerned, knowing she had returned to her quiet spot in the corner of the office—dutiful, efficient and once again background.
‘Are you?’ She threw the question back at him and he burst out laughing.
‘Touché,’ he said drily. ‘Although, in fairness, why would I ever ask for help when I can handle pretty much everything myself?’
‘You’re so arrogant,’ Ellie heard herself say, and then could have kicked herself for falling into the same trap he had...for going back to that place where they were intimate and where intimate things could be said without raising an eyebrow.
‘So you’ve told me before. You wouldn’t want me any other way.’
Ellie fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable in the tight confines of his sports car.
Casting about for something inoffensive to say, he was the first to break the silence. ‘So, tell me about your mother.’
‘My mother?’
‘What should I expect?’
‘Does it matter? I mean, we’re going there so that we can tell her face to face that this is all a storm in a teacup. I don’t think you need to know what she’s like, do you?’
‘What’s the point of my presence in that case? You want to smooth over anxieties your mother might have about this whole messy situation? Then I suggest you tell me about her so that I can emerge a sympathetic character as opposed to a serial womaniser who’s used you for his own nefarious purposes and can barely show an interest in your only living relative. In which case, she might question my presence in her house in the first place.’
James could feel her tension. She was wired. Poor sleep, nervous tension. A strong person suddenly catapulted into uncertain, stormy seas without a lifebelt. It was pleasing to think that he was able to throw her that vital lifebelt. Having never seen himself in the role of knight in shining armour, primed to save damsels in distress, he was quietly pleased with himself now.
So much so that it overrode what he knew he should be feeling, namely intense rage that Naomi had dumped him from a very great height into the one situation she knew he would deeply resent. For the inveterate bachelor, widespread and incorrect rumours about getting married constituted a nightmare. On a personal level, it was a huge nuisance, and when the woman in question was someone like Ellie then it took on a whole new dimension.
Of course, Naomi was shrewd enough to have clocked that immediately. He would see that he returned the favour in due course, but for the moment he couldn’t say that he was unhappy to find himself at the wheel of his Porsche, driving to Devon in the early hours of a grey autumn morning with his PA next to him. Nor did he harbour any regret about doing what he was doing for the sake of her mother, a woman he had never met and didn’t know from Adam. He knew that her mother was mentally fragile and to help remove that one worry from her shoulders was the least he could do.
He slid a sideways glance at the small figure hunched in the deep leather seat, face averted as she stared through the window at nothing in particular. She was chewing her lower lip and he didn’t have to see her face to know exactly what expression she would be wearing—the one of someone suddenly carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
A wave of protectiveness washed over him and he determined that when she returned to work it would be to find all her colleagues suitably silent on the matter of their publicised affair. Anyone who dared make her life uncomfortable would face his wrath. It was the least he could do.
He could handle a situation like this. Rumour...gossip...malice. He could handle them because he had become emotionally untouchable. But for the first time that was something that failed to soothe. Was it that laudable to make a habit of avoiding anything that smacked ofinvolvement? It was a question that had never bothered him before but for some reason it bothered him now. He brushed his unease aside.
‘So you were telling me about your mother...?’
Ellie sighed and gave up. What was the point in being tight-lipped on the subject anyway?
When she looked back at herself as she’d used to be—working for him, aloof, professional, utterly private—it was like looking at a stranger from a distance. He had managed to invade every nook and cranny of her life and this trip to Devon would be the final battering down of everything she had kept so closely guarded, whether through habit or design.
‘My mum’s not old. In her mid-sixties. My parents had me when they were quite old, which is probably why they were always so protective. They’d tried and had just about given up when I came along. When I think about it, they were a unit for such a long time, just the pair of them, that they were both very dependent on one another. And my mum’s always been quite gentle, with Dad the one taking the lead.’
‘So when he died...’
‘It was so unexpected. Barely any time to adjust. Yes, when my dad died, my mum’s frailty really came to the fore. Since then, she’s found a niche where she lives. She has her book club, and she gardens and bakes cakes for the local Women’s Institute. But what worries me is that it’s almost as if she’s been waiting all this time for something like this to happen—for me to find a guy and get married and settle down. I mean, Iknewshe hankered after grandchildren. She always makes a point of faithfully reporting each and every friend whose son or daughter had a baby...’
James burst out laughing. ‘Not very subtle, in other words!’
