CATHY WILLIAMS - A Thorn In Paradise

She could feel those silver-grey eyes on her and she looked up with a polite, detached expression.

‘Not a hundred per cent impressed,’ he drawled lazily, sitting back in the chair to give her the full benefit of his attention. ‘I had forgotten that you British were the masters of understatement.’

‘We British? Aren’t you forgetting that you’re at least half British? Surely not; you made such a point of reminding me of that fact last night.’

There was a brief silence, then he unexpectedly smiled, and that smile filled his face with such devastatingly sexy charm that she felt her cheeks go pink in sudden confusion. She almost found herself preferring the angry insults to this.

‘Where’s Edna?’ she asked quickly, not caring to dwell on the impact he was making on her.

‘Gone to the village. My father may be unimpressed with my arrival, but Edna thinks it’s the return of the prodigal son. She’s gone to stock up on all my favourite foods. God knows how she remembered them. She must have the memory of an elephant.’

So, she thought sourly, the formidable Edna has turned pussycat. He probably had that reaction from every woman he came into contact with.

‘And where’s my father?’ he asked, lowering his eyes in almost precisely the same manner that Benjamin had a short while ago.

‘In his bedroom.’

‘Hiding?’

It was so near the mark that she was taken aback. ‘Trying to get over the shock of realising that you’re here,’ she said tartly. ‘I don’t think he wants to see you, at least not at the moment.’ Maybe you could try again in a few years’ time, she thought, when I’m well and truly out of here.

‘Well, he’s going to see me whether he likes it or not,’ Antonio said coolly, ‘and without you playing the little mediator. No doubt running between the two of us would give you no end of pleasure, but I intend to see him and that’s that.’

‘I can’t think of anything worse than running between the two of you,’ Corinna said tightly, already beginning to feel rattled. ‘He’s your father, you sort your troubles out yourself.’

‘And I won’t have you trying to influence him either.’

She slammed her cup down on the table and looked at him angrily. ‘I have no intention of trying to influence your father!’ she informed him.

‘So you haven’t told him what we discussed last night?’

‘No,’ she said in a more controlled voice, ‘I haven’t told him what you discussed last night. I don’t recall having discussed anything with you.’

‘And you haven’t run to him with any derogatory descriptions of me?’

Corinna opened her mouth and closed it.

‘Trying to find an appropriate lie to that one?’ he asked her, looking at her coldly.

‘He asked me what my impression was of you, and I told him the truth.’

‘Which was…?’

‘That you struck me as being arrogant and objectionable.’

She expected him to hit the roof with that one, but he didn’t, and she shifted uneasily in the chair.

‘I can’t think of too many women who have called me that before,’ he said softly, staring at her, and she thought to herself, No, I don’t suppose you have, I suppose they’ve all been too busy trying to get you to give them one of those lazy, charming smiles of yours. Well, not me, buster.

‘No?’ she asked politely. ‘They must be very short-sighted, then.’

‘Or maybe you’re the one with the misguided judgement. You are, after all, in a minority. Of course, you could be an expert on men. Is that it?’

‘I forgot one more adjective,’ she said, ignoring his question, and he raised his eyebrows in a question. ‘Egotistical.’

‘Now might I be permitted to subject you to the same character assassination as you’ve just subjected me to?’ he asked, and she reddened, not saying anything.

Her coffee had gone cold and she refilled her cup, not liking this turn in the conversation one bit. She didn’t want to get involved in any word games with this man. In fact, she would have liked to be able to ignore his presence completely.

‘Do I have a choice?’ she asked. ‘I gather you’ll force your opinions on me whether I like them or not. You did last night.’

‘Well,’ he said, folding his arms and looking at her from under his thick, black lashes, ‘you’re a relatively plain little creature, but I wouldn’t describe you as background material. No, quite fiery in fact, and with lots of that so-called honesty which some English people think is a virtue when in fact it’s only a mark of rudeness.’

‘A mark of rudeness…!’ she spluttered, furious.

‘That’s right,’ he agreed silkily. ‘Have you cultivated that in an attempt to win my father over? I remember him as being brilliant and temperamental, a man who wouldn’t be able to abide any coy simpering around him. Did you think that the quickest and surest way to win him over was to meet fire with fire?’

‘I don’t have to stay here and listen to this.’ She stood up, trembling, and turned to go.

‘Wait!’

‘Don’t order me about! You might get away with that where you come from and with the sort of women you mix with, but not me!’

They stared at each other and she felt a heated, unwelcome awareness of his masculinity. When he stood up, she had to force herself not to move, to remain where she was when every confused instinct was telling her to run. He walked across to her, not taking his eyes off her face, and she glared at him with resentment. Plain, was she? Scheming, was she? She wished that the ground would open and swallow him up. She would stand and watch him disappearing with a smile.

‘The sort of women I mix with?’

‘You heard me! From what you said they fall at your feet, but don’t expect the same sort of reaction from me!’

He looked at her speculatively, as if digesting that remark, and she wished that she hadn’t said anything. There was no reason why she had to defend herself to this man and it irked her that she was continually being forced into a position of self-defence.

‘No?’ he said, watching her mouth, then flicking his eyes along her body, then back to her face. ‘The financial reward not tempting enough?’ Her face darkened and he laughed with acid amusement. ‘Or maybe the little mouse with the fiery temper prefers to scurry into a corner and observe life from the sidelines?’

He was deliberately antagonising her. It was obvious. But the desire to wipe that cool assessing sneer off his dark face was so strong that she had to clench her fists tightly to overcome it.

‘Is there anything else you want or can I leave?’

‘Which is my father’s bedroom?’

She began telling him but he interrupted her and said, ‘Take me there. I think the time for confrontation has arrived.’

She nodded and spun round, walking briskly into the hall, then up the staircase to the right wing of the house, tensely aware of his presence behind her. Was he nervous? she wondered. He didn’t appear nervous. In fact, he gave the impression of someone who didn’t have a nervous bone in his body, but he could just be a good actor. She tried to imagine him having butterflies in his stomach and failed.

They had reached Benjamin’s bedroom and she knocked on the door, pushing it open and stepping in.

She wasn’t looking at Antonio, so she didn’t see his reaction, but Benjamin’s face mirrored his shock. She had a strange feeling of being superfluous and made to move away, but Benjamin bellowed at her, ‘Where do you think you’re going? I told you that I didn’t want to see him!’

Antonio’s mouth hardened but he didn’t say anything. He walked into the room, round to the side of the bed, and stood there looking down at his father, his face unreadable. It didn’t look as though it had the makings of a touching emotional reunion and Corinna reluctantly entered the room as well, shutting the door behind her.