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Authors: Michelle Reid

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BOOK: A Question of Pride
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'Can I come?'

Clea stared blankly at the phone. Never—never had she heard him sound like this! Never had he called her up to invite himself around like this.

'What is this, Max?' she enquired suspiciously. 'Aren't you supposed to be hosting a business dinner?

It's only—' she glanced at the gold carriage clock sitting on the mantel '—nine-thirty. You can't possibly have wrapped things up this early.'

She could almost see him shifting uncomfortably where he stood. It was certainly novel, Max feeling uncertain.

'It—it didn't work out,' she heard him mutter.

'What—what didn't work out?'

'The dinner. Look, for God's sake, Clea—I need you!' he bit out, rushing through the words.

Angry—with himself, she guessed. If what he was saying was the truth, then he wouldn't be enjoying the feeling. 'I—I've needed you all damned day! I'm coming around now. I want to—'

'No.' She cut in on him tersely, and felt his surprise ricochet down the line. 'I'm tired,' she elaborated coldly. 'And I planned on a early night... I'll see you tomorrow.'

The receiver went down with a crash—before Max had a chance to argue with her. She couldn't cope—not tonight. She just couldn't.

CHAPTER THREE

Someonewas leaning on the doorbell. Clea swam up from a heavy sleep to register the familiar but unwanted sound. She groped blindly for the bedside-lamp switch, drenching the room in painful light, peering at her alarm clock. Ten o'clock—the earliness of the hour surprised her. She must have fallen into heavy sleep the moment her head had hit the pillow.

The shrill noise continued throughout her struggles out of her warm bed and into her dressing-gown.

Whoever it was, there was a grim determination about the way they kept the bell ringing! She padded into the hall, wincing a protest at the din. The safety chain was on. She opened the door the few inches the chain allowed, and peered, sleepy-eyed, through the gap.

Max stood there, leaning against the doorframe, his hands pushed into the trouser pockets of his black evening suit. His bow-tie had been discarded, and the top few buttons of his dress-shirt had been tugged open to reveal some of the dark, taut skin beneath. His face was grim. There was a tense pause while they stared silently at each other, then, still without a word, Clea closed the door to remove the chain and stepped back to let him enter, her gaze lowered from his.

He came in slowly, slouching past her to take the door from her hand and close it quietly behind him.

'I w-was asleep.' She ran an unsteady hand through her tumbled hair.

Silence.

Clea swallowed thickly to remove the uncomfortable lump from her throat. She was feeling a trifle woozy, which didn't help the situation, and she knew her eyes must look red and puffy because they
felt
that way. She felt a wreck—and in no way fit to deal with an angry Max.

He, on the other hand, looked magnificent, his hard, handsome face unfairly alluring. Her heart gave a painful squeeze. Would he always have this kind of effect on her? she wondered. This heady kind of excitement, tinged with the desolation of self-inadequacy?

'What's the matter, Clea?' he enquired softly, when it seemed like the silence would shatter into a million screams of pain around her.

She lifted her unhappy gaze to his, to find him studying her with those long, thick lashes of his shrouding his eyes. He wasn't angry, as she'd thought him to be. He actually looked concerned, and for some reason that made her feel more depressed. She had no answer to give him, and her head simply dipped again so that she didn't have to look at him.

'You look pale and miserable,' he observed gently, when no reply was forthcoming. 'You were strange this morning when I left here, you were the same at work ... and quiet. I know I'm a self-centered swine most of the time,' he added on a heavy sigh, when she still made no sound, 'but I'm not so bad that I couldn't sense a difference in you ... Can't you tell me what's wrong?'

Clea quivered on an inward sob. He sounded so gentle, and infinitely caring, and she so wanted to throw her arms around him, lose herself in the warm strength of him—take the comfort she knew he was offering her ... She so wanted him to love her!

Tears stung at her eyes, and she was glad of the long fall of her hair that hid her face from his probing gaze. It was dark in the small hallway; only the spill of light from her bedroom lit their two grim forms.

'Is it me?' he asked huskily. 'Have I done or said something to upset you? Clea—what
is
it?' Impatience tinged his voice. He hadn't attempted to touch her. He just stood there—two feet away from her, with those sharp eyes of his pinned on her downturned face, waiting for some explanation for her odd behaviour.

She was trembling inside; in a moment, she would be trembling on the outside, too. His coming here at this time of night and without her expecting him to, had not given her time to gather herself, but she did so now, heaving in a deep breath and lifting her face to show him a reassuring expression.

'I'm just very tired, Max,' she told him quietly. 'You've done nothing—nothing at all.' Her voice sounded strange to her own ears: dead—was she dead? No, she was hurting too much inside to be dead. Life didn't give one such easy ways out.

Max looked grave, his stance full of tension. He was puzzled by her behaviour and feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Max didn't like to feel uncomfortable, he liked everything in his life to run on well oiled wheels.

'W-we females get like this sometimes, you know,' she offered wryly, her smile deliberately self-mocking. 'It's all in the hormones.'

'Ah!' He liked that. It was something he could understand. It removed the puzzlement—the discomfort.

Bitterly, she watched the tension leave him; his expression became easy, relaxing again into its usual lazy arrogance. When he reached out to draw her to him, Clea went willingly. She needed this. He might be offering her comfort for the wrong reasons, but she was feeling weak enough to accept whatever crumbs he wanted to throw her way. She loved him, and she was having his baby, and she was frightened of what the future held for her—a future without Max, without the small amount of affection he deigned to give her.

'I'm an insensitive cad!' He rebuked himself with enough humour in his tone to make her laugh which, she guessed, was what he intended her to do. His cheek came down to rub gently against hers. He smelled of
Dior
—that delicious elusive
Max
smell she associated only with him, because it was the only form of male cologne he ever used. Her arms crept around his lean waist, slender fingers stroking the heated skin beneath his silk shirt. 'I call you up and place you in the damnedest position—then drive around here in a rage, thinking
I'm
the wounded party because you send me off with a flea in my ear. I don't know how you put up with me.'

Because I love you, she said silently. Because I want so desperately for you to love me, too!

She moved to bury her face in his warm throat, drowning on a wave of desperate emotion. Her lips grazed his skin, eyes closing so she could absorb the pleasure in being close to him. Max trembled, and his arms tightened around her, his lips moved urgently to seek out hers, and they kissed—a long, clinging kiss, that spoke of desperation on both sides.

They were both a little breathless when they broke apart. Max looked down at her pale face, and spent a long time searching the unhappiness in her lavender-blue eyes. Sometimes—sometimes he could show such beautiful passion that she could almost convince herself that he cared for her more than he liked to admit.

It was this thought that made her reach up to place another gentle kiss on his mouth, and her smile came quite naturally as she combed the fingertips of one hand through his silky hair. Something strange passed over his expression. He caught the trailing hand and pressed a warm kiss to her palm, then their eyes locked in silent but obscure communication. Then he was turning her within his arm and leading her back to her bedroom, while Clea leaned weakly against him—self-pityingly, almost.

He sat her down on the bed and came down on his haunches, his ministrations indulgent as he helped her off with her robe and slipped her into bed, pulling the covers over her.

'Poor Clea,' he murmured, a hand stroking the side of her face. 'I don't remember these—women's problems —ever affecting you like this before.'

Her expression turned wary, instant defence stiffening her body. 'Damned hormones!' she mocked, smiling up at him as he leaned over her.

'Mmm.' His eyes twinkled their appreciation of her tease. 'Damned hormones.' He was squatting by her bed, one long, slender hand lost in her hair, the other covering both of hers. 'Shall we give tomorrow night a miss—hmm?' he suggested gently.

She pulled her hands from beneath his, understanding him exactly. 'Yes,' she said dully. 'We'll give it a miss.'

Clea supposed that she had asked for that. She had used the only excuse she could think of for her odd behaviour and, in doing so, she had ruined her last weekend with him. It shouldn't hurt that Max didn't want to see her just because he couldn't ... but it did.

'How did your business dinner go awry?' She quickly changed the subject before the pain began to show. Max only wanted her for her body. She'd known that all along, so why should it hurt to hear him confirm it? Her chin came up proudly. Let it always be said of her that she bowed out graciously!

Max was straightening up, his expression suddenly dark, as though the memory of his wasted evening put a bad taste in his mouth. 'They—they didn't seem to know what they wanted,' he replied stiffly. Then his smile was back— to mask the other expression. 'You look like a child lying there,' he mocked. 'A rather forlorn, if charming, child.' He bent to give her a brief kiss. 'Sleep the weekend away if you want to. Maybe we both could do with a couple of quiet days,' he added with a touch of wryness. 'I'm expected home for a few days next week—can't turn up at my mother's looking half done to death! She'll nag me all the time I'm there if I do.' He was teasing her, urging her to look less the lost waif and more the self-contained Clea he had moulded her into.

'What about the theatre-tickets?' she reminded him.

He shrugged, moving away towards the door. 'I'll be sure to find someone who can use them.' He dismissed them as unimportant. 'Sleep well, Clea. Goodnight.'

Then he had gone, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him after one of his brief but brilliant farewell smiles, and Clea was left alone to listen to his closing the door of her flat with a finality he didn't know was there.

Monday morning found Max in a board meeting when the telephone rang on Clea's desk and a wispy voice asked to speak to him.

'I'm afraid Mr Latham is in a meeting and can't be disturbed,' Clea coolly informed the caller. 'Can I take a message, or get him to call you back?'

A breathy sigh. 'If you could just tell him it's Dianne,' the voice said. 'Then I think he would spare me a moment now.'

Clea frowned; she couldn't recall a Dianne from anywhere. 'I could buzz through and ask him, but he won't like it...' Some strange instinct made her treat the caller with wary respect.

Another breathy sigh, that played on Clea's nerve-ends. 'Oh ... ' sighed the voice. 'Perhaps it isn't
that
important...' Then the woman giggled at something that eluded Clea. 'He
can
be rather forceful, can't he?

And he
did
tell me not to call him at the office ... but I ... I didn't know ... Saturday night, when I saw him, that ... ' Clea's stomach knotted, while the breathy Dianne trailed into silence. 'You see, we should be having dinner again tonight, but I can't make it... ' Clea sat like a statue, the air around her suddenly too thick to inhale. 'I'm a fashion model, you see, and I've been called urgently to Paris ...'

Among the cries of shock that exploded in her head, Clea registered the other girl's hesitation as an uncertainty of her role in Max's life, and, even as she fielded the numbing shock of finding out that there was a 'Dianne' on the scene, she could sympathise with her. Uncertainty was a way of life where Max was concerned.

'Will he be
really
cross at me for calling him, do you think?'

Incensed, I would say, Clea thought bitterly. Max didn't like ugly scenes, and Dianne's call was liable to cause a humdinger of one if he found out about it. 'I tell you what ... ' She had to swallow to make herself heard clearly, for the whole of her system seemed to have gone into self-destruct. 'Why don't you call his apartment—and leave a message with his housekeeper? He'll receive it the moment he gets home, then, and you won't need to worry about him becoming angry at you calling here.'

'Oh—what a good idea!' The breathiness was beginning to grate. 'He really doesn't like his girlfriends disturbing him at work, does he? I can tell by your voice.'

Clea recited Max's home telephone number, uncaring that he would be furious at her giving it out so carelessly.

'You've been very understanding—thank you,' said the breathless Dianne.

Oh, I'm full of understanding! scorned Clea as she replaced the receiver. Little did the breathless Dianne know that the last thing she wanted to do was pass a message on to Max like that one!

Damn him! Damn, damn, damn him!

She'd known, just
known
it was coming to an end. Even without the baby to complicate things. She'd sensed it in him—seen the signs. But did he have to do it this way—find himself a replacement before he let her go?

Oh—Max!

He had come to her on Friday because the lovely Dianne hadn't come up with the goods. Heat rose in a prickly wave from her stomach to her head, and Clea made a lurching grab for her handbag and ran.

She made it to the Ladies just in time. With the toilet door locked behind her, she knelt weakly against the bowl and retched on the small amount of food she'd managed to keep down that morning. Limp and sickly hot, she stayed where she was for a while, breathing carefully when she wanted to gulp for air, and waited for her racing pulses to settle down. She felt like crying, but refused to allow herself the luxury.

BOOK: A Question of Pride
4.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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