‘I had already acquired a student loan debt for that year and I didn’t want to add to that by dropping out, so I stuck with it and qualified,’ Tabby admitted. ‘But I think now that I’m working, I should’ve changed. That’s life, isn’t it? You don’t have a crystal ball to see into the future—’
‘Some day you may have your own business and you’ll be glad of it then,’ Aristide forecast.
Tabitha blinked, not quite sure she wanted to sign up for her own business as she knew her sister worked unbelievably long hours running the bakery. If that was what it would take, she wasn’t sure she was ambitious enough to make that jump to greater responsibility. In time, perhaps, but at not yet twenty-two she had ample years ahead in which to create new goals.
Aristide suggested a view of the office space prepared for him. She took him down to the next floor to the empty office right next to the finance director and bustled off to provide him with refreshments. He had no complaint to make about her attitude but she definitely hadn’t grasped who he was, he acknowledged. And in a twisty way he kind of enjoyed that ignorance and liked her for not being flirty and all over him as females generally were in his radius. It was oddly refreshing to see the way she looked at him with that warm smile in her eyes that he had never received from a woman before.
But then, he was like all men, he told himself cynically. She was beautiful and he wanted her. Naturally that had to be affecting his judgement. She was sincere and naturally friendly and Aristide was most definitely not accustomed to receiving purely friendly vibes from a woman. Of course, he had immediately wondered if she already had a man in her life, but he also reckoned, with an inner smile, that he would already have heard about such a man if he existed because Tabby didn’t keep much to herself.
She just chattered like a stream wending its difficult way through a complex labyrinth but strangely it didn’t irritate him, nor did the sudden conversational jumps. He wasn’t used to chat with the women he took to bed. He was usually gone too soon after for such frills. Had he been missing out on something? Was it because she was a few years younger than most of the women he met? What was different about her? That lack of visible vanity? That easy laughter? That soothing silence that fell when he hitched a brow and she paused to see what he wanted from her. She was being professional to a superior, not encouragingly submissive.
Out in the tiny kitchenette, Tabby was brewing coffee and her mind was all over the place as though an avalanche had recently engulfed her…Aristide.She was totally convinced that she had found the guy she would accomplish that one-night-stand challenge with. He was so beautiful that she had had to force herself to stop staring at him. Her attraction to him was off-the-scale intense and she had never met with that before. He was considerate and interested in her as a person. Perhaps, best of all, he would just be passing through and she wouldn’t see him again once his new team of auditors arrived the following day. He had to work for a very large firm because he had mentioned the accident at the airport and if that firm could muster another six employees that fast, they had to be big and important.
‘Mr Roma—’ she said, flushed from her current thoughts as she walked back into the office carrying a tray.
‘Aristide,’ he corrected, disconcerting her. ‘Will you have dinner with me tonight?’
Her lower lip parted from the upper and she felt his shrewd dark gaze welding to hers, lifting her chin to say, ‘I think I would like that—’
Me too,Aristide was tempted to say, watching the tip of her tongue steal out to moisten her full lip, suddenly rigid with sheer lust to a degree that shook him. With her that reaction was instant and he didn’t like anything that felt that uncontrolled grabbing a hold of him. It was alwaysjustsex for him, never anything more, and maybe it was the dreamy deep blue of her eyes that affected him or the softness of her highly feminine face but he still heard himself murmur the warning, ‘It will only be one night…’
And to his total surprise, she gave him a huge smile and nodded. ‘Perfect,’ she told him, while pouring his black coffee and offering him a selection of biscuits, which he ignored. If only all her sex were so practical, he reasoned, while wondering how on earth she could be wholesome one minute and coolly rational and cynical the next.Perfect?Women usually wanted and expected a whole lot more from Aristide than one night. In truth, it stung a little that she appeared so content with that likelihood.
He watched her eat three biscuits in succession while he thought about that oddity. In between times she told him about the pervy employee none of the young women would get into a lift with, the executive PA madly in love with her boss and the security guard with the sick wife at the front, who brought her fresh vegetables from his allotment. She gave no names. Even so, she was…indiscreet but warm and entertaining, he decided with a generosity that would have astounded his hospitalised team because he had never tolerated gossip and lighter moments during his working day.
At noon, having seen even the basement service level of the building, Aristide informed Tabby that he had a meeting elsewhere and took his leave of her in the foyer. ‘If you give me your address I’ll pick you up tonight at eight,’ he murmured lightly.
And she did, stumbling a little over the syllables, far more excited by the idea of a date than she felt she ought to be. After all, no one knew better than her how untrustworthy men could be. Of course, she had met exceptions to that rule, hadn’t allowed her father’s cruelties to turn her into a man-hater. She did have occasional dates, although none had amounted to much because she had never been attracted enough to get closer to a guy or to take that risk on catching feelings that weren’t even wanted.
But the knowledge that she was to marry a stranger in six weeks and do without socialising or having sex ifshewanted sex was a restriction her pride and self-respect could not accept. This night with Aristide would beherchoice, her chance to assert her rights over her own body while she still could. There was no way she was running the risk that her stranger husband might be expecting bed privileges into the bargain and that he would then become herfirstlover. No, that little detail would be taken care of off stage and prior to that stupid marriage when nobody would even know about it.
And then, if her mother required some very expensive further treatment to continue her life, as the wife of the wealthy Tore Renzetti, she would be easily able to afford to cover the costs. Why else would she continue agreeing to the marriage after their grandfather had virtually refused to pay up for his daughter’s care? With the number of health crises their mother had suffered in recent years, Tabby knew that she had to be aware of the risk that more might lie ahead.
Tabby adored her mother, even if she hadn’t always been a mother she could respect as a woman. Lucia Blessington was a very caring, compassionate person and endlessly supportive of her twin girls. Even though her daughters had had a very unhappy childhood while their father was still around, Tabby and Violet had forgiven Lucia for giving their horrible father too many chances to reform.
Now that their parents were divorced and they had no further contact with Sam Blessington, their lives had become calm and peaceful. Now there was no man coming home in a drunken rage and lashing out with his fists or frittering away their mother’s earnings. Now Violet and Tabby between them could look forward to keeping their mother out of those low-paid jobs that had been all she was able to get while they were still children.
‘Julian’s flying back early from his break in Cuba,’ Ed informed Tabby worriedly when she returned after lunch. ‘He told me that Traxis has been taken over. We’ll just have to hope that it’s not to one of those asset-strippers, keen to throw us all out of work and sell the building!’
Tabby got back to the flat she shared with several other girls that evening and went straight to her room to trail out her wardrobe and decide what to wear. But it wasn’treallya date, she reminded herself. He had been quite clear about what it would be and she was fine with that, wasn’t she?
The stirring of unease within her warned her that she was less confident than she would have liked about her decision. After all, here she was heading for twenty-two years of age and norightmale had come along. She hadn’t fallen in love and contrived to share a bed in the more natural way. She hadn’t even been insanely attracted to a guy until that very same day. So, Aristide was simply the best available option. That was all the evening would be.
It would be like a date, Aristide was thinking with a frown while he showered. And he didn’tdodates. What was it about Tabitha Blessington that knocked him off balance? As a rule, he met women at events, in businesses or through friends. He didn’t ask them out anyplace, he just took them home, whether that be to a hotel or one of his properties. Dinner engagements didn’t enter the proceedings. But he had had the suspicion that she would say no if he framed his desire any more frankly. And he hadn’t wanted that. No, he hadn’t wanted that at all.Theemou, when had he last been this worked up about being with a woman? It was nonsensical and out of character.
By the time the door buzzer went, Tabby was dressed and ready, clad in a casual blue mini dress and a pair of high heels. She hadn’t bothered with make-up. After all, it wasn’t some romantic date, she reminded herself, opening the door to a middle-aged stranger.
‘Mr Romanos is waiting in the car for you, Miss Blessington.’
Romanos,thatwas his name. She hadn’t quite caught it when she’d first met him and then hadn’t liked to ask him to repeat it lest he think she was pretty incompetent. ‘And you are?’ she queried quietly.
‘His driver…’
Tabby followed the older man down the stairs, her brow furrowed. Hisdriver? Who had a driver in London where most travelled by public transport? Only very well-off people. Possibly he was a director in the accountancy firm, she reasoned uncertainly.
She was extremely rattled to find the door of a silver limousine falling open for her arrival. Aristide folded out to his full height and gave her a slashing smile. In that moment, he looked so heart-stoppingly handsome and charismatic that her mouth ran dry and her wits might as well have been dandelion clocks floating in the breeze.
‘You look amazing,’ he murmured huskily, ushering her into the limo while his driver hovered, openly disconcerted by his employer’s presence on the pavement.
