Anne Mather - Act Of Possession

Belatedly, she guessed he was used to taking it with lemon, but in any case, she didn’t have any. And besides, her tea was not Lapsang or Orange Pekoe. It was just common-or-garden quick-brew that she bought at the supermarket.

Still, he seemed to enjoy it, resting his ankle across his knee, emptying his cup and accepting a second. She should have known he would feel at ease anywhere, she thought, going to cross her legs and then thinking better of it. Like a chameleon, he adapted to his surroundings, totally indifferent to anyone’s feelings but his own. He was making her feel a stranger in her own apartment, and she resented his easy manner almost as much as his sex appeal.

‘Why don’t you like me, Miss Sheldon?’ he asked suddenly, setting his cup back on the tray while Antonia’s clattered noisily in its saucer. ‘Do I frighten you? Is that it? Are you afraid of men, perhaps? I’d be interested to know what I’ve done to provoke such a reaction.’

Antonia replaced her cup on the table with rather more care than she had picked it up. ‘I think you’re imagining things, Mr Gallagher.’

‘Am I?’ His eyes were shrewdly assessing. ‘We may not know one another very well—which I’m sure is your next line of defence—but I can sense hostility when I feel it, Miss Sheldon.’

‘It’s not— Miss Sheldon,’ she corrected him abruptly. ‘It’s Mrs I am—I was —married.’

‘Ah!’

His long-drawn sigh infuriated her, and abandoning any further attempt at politeness, she sprang to her feet. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking, Mr Gallagher,’ she declared hotly, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. ‘I’m not afraid of the opposite sex. I don’t hate all men, or anything like that. I simply—I simply don’t care for … for men of your type, that’s all!’

‘My type?’ he prompted softly, and she felt the instinctive thrill of knowing she was getting into deep water without any means of saving herself. ‘Men like your ex-husband perhaps?’

Like Simon! Antonia knew an hysterical desire to laugh. No one less like Simon could she imagine. Oh, Simon himself might have seen himself as being attractive to women, as knowing all the answers, but compared to Reed Gallagher, he had only been an amateur. And she had probably been at least partly responsible for the high opinion Simon had had of himself. Although it had meant giving up her degree at university, she had been flattered that the local heart-throb should have chosen her as his girlfriend, and she had fallen for his good looks without ever questioning what might lie beneath the surface. Until it was too late.

‘You’re nothing like my husband!’ she retorted now, suddenly losing enthusiasm for the argument. The reason she resented Reed Gallagher had nothing to do with Simon’s defection, and she felt ridiculously gauche for having lost her temper. ‘I—I shouldn’t have implied that you were.’

Aware of her discomfort, Reed got resignedly to his feet and tightened the knot of his tie once again. ‘I think I’d better go,’ he remarked, stepping sideways round the low table on which she had set the tray. ‘Thanks for the tea. It was—delicious.’

Antonia was sure it had been nothing of the kind, and her own behaviour had been unforgivable, but there was nothing she could say. Short of offering an apology, which she had no intention of doing, she could only spare him a tight smile as he walked towards the door, and with a knowing inclination of his head, he let himself out of the flat.

Conversely, as soon as he had gone, Antonia wanted to call him back. Sinking down on to the edge of her chair, she cupped her chin in her hands and stared humiliatedly at the spot on the sofa where he had been sitting. What a fiasco! she thought bitterly. What an absolute fool she had made of herself. She hadn’t wanted him to leave with that impression of her, particularly not when she thought how amusing it would seem when he related the incident to Celia—and Liz.

The disturbing dampness of a tear sliding down to touch her fingertips brought Antonia a measure of relief. It wasn’t that important, she told herself, dashing the tear away and making a concerted effort to pull herself together. Putting the teapot and her cup on to the tray, she picked it up and carried it into the kitchen. It wasn’t as if she and Celia were close friends or anything. It would teach her to be more wary of them in future. They were not like her, and she should remember that.

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