The Greek Tycoon's Secret Child (15 page)

There was a charged silence and abruptly he stood up and walked away, towards the very same window against which she had been standing when he had first entered the room.

‘I tried to tell you—'

‘When?' Mattie demanded shrilly. She swivelled the chair so that she was looking at him.

‘Yesterday. I told you we needed to talk about your job. Then things got carried away and I figured I'd tell you after the weekend.'

Yes, she did remember him saying something along those lines. And no, the last thing she wanted to think about was how they had become carried away. Getting carried away had been her big mistake from the word go.

‘I don't believe you, Dominic,' she said quietly. ‘You wanted me so you took the necessary steps to get me. You never spared a thought for my feelings because you
don't know the meaning of the word
sensitivity
.' Her voice thickened with bitterness. ‘That's what our whole relationship was about. Lust. Want. Sex. No feelings anywhere in the equation.'

‘It's what
you
wanted as well, or have you decided to conveniently forget that?'

No, she hadn't. She'd just made the simple mistake of forgetting to hang on to the original deal they had struck. Because now it felt like a deal. Two people, neither wanting involvement, just giving in to their baser instincts with the unspoken agreement that it would never progress from there. It had been a rubbish deal and she could see that now, because somewhere along the way she had made the fatal error of liking him, then falling slowly in love with him.

It was a hideous realisation. Mattie closed her eyes briefly in despair. When she opened them again, there was a new hardness there.

‘There's no point discussing this further, Dominic.' She placed one hand flat on the desk and stood up, moving to stand behind it so that it was a physical and significant barrier between them. ‘I don't like what you did. And I can't respect anyone who would behave like that. This relationship, or whatever it was, was never going anywhere and now I'm bringing it to an end.' She afforded him a view of her ramrod-straight back as she turned to face one of the windows. Her heart longed to see him one last time. Her head refused to allow her the luxury.

But she knew he hesitated. Heard it as she followed his footsteps to the door, the brief pause. Then it was all over and he was gone.

G
LORIA
had gone home. Dominic had given her the afternoon off in a fit of grudging compassion. The poor woman had been reduced to tiptoeing around him for the past fortnight as his temper had become increasingly vile. She had arrived every morning to find him already at his desk, head buried in his work, only looking up when she entered to mutter the barest of greetings. Instructions had been given to her with deadly abruptness and he knew that he had been a snarling beast on the odd occasion when his plans for the day had been unexpectedly disrupted.

Dominic liked his secretary. The last thing he wanted was to drive her to the furthest reaches of her patience.

On the other hand, he just couldn't seem to help himself. He couldn't get Mattie out of his head, or the way their affair had ended. With a dismissive little parting shot that managed to sum him up as some kind of monstrous, self-serving opportunist who had availed himself of whatever weapons he possessed in his armoury in an attempt to bed her.

He had replayed that last conversation so many times in his head that he thought he was going crazy.

But not as many times as he had stood by his office window, when his computer was going mad and his phone lines were buzzing, thinking about whether he should go and see her. Corner her in her office.

He was doing it right now. At six-thirty in the evening, when he should be taking advantage of the relative
peace to answer the growing mound of correspondence that needed seeing to. Standing by the window, scowling and cursing himself for the way she had climbed under his skin and wrapped herself round his heart. His so-called deadened heart that had supposedly learnt lessons from past experience.

With a muffled oath Dominic began pacing his office, like a panther trapped in a cage when the rest of the jungle was calling him outside.

If he went to see her, then what? Another argument, with the same result, but this time conducted in full view of her work colleagues? He certainly couldn't confront her in her apartment because she had moved out. Gone where, he had no idea. Probably back to the ex. Just the thought of that was enough to make him swear profusely to himself.

His big mistake had been to telephone Liz Harris, her boss, on the pretext of trying to locate
her
boss, and then engage himself casually on the subject of Mattie, how she was doing in the job, how she liked the apartment. Which was when he had discovered that she had moved out.

That had been five days ago. Five very bad days during which he had had ample time to realise that not seeing her was on a par with a slow, painful death and thinking of her back in the arms of Frankie was even worse. Five nightmare nights during which he had been forced to accept that what had started as a casual fling had ended up as a deadly serious relationship that he had thrown away like an idiot.

He veered wildly from cursing himself for not having been honest with her from the word go, to raging at her for having taken his involvement in the wrong light.

He had already snatched his jacket from the cabinet
in which it was stored, along with a change of suit and several shirts, and was sticking it on when the phone rang.

Dominic let it ring, debating whether his mood could carry him through yet another meaningless call with a client, and eventually decided that he really couldn't let work suffer at the expense of what he was going through.

Not that Mattie was in the slightest bit aware of the argument going on in his head as she waited tensely on the other end of the line. The only thing she was aware of was the frantic beating of her heart and the acute nervousness that was making her perspire just at the thought of hearing his voice.

She almost dropped the mobile phone when she finally did hear that voice snap shortly down the line, which made her wonder whether she had caught him on the way out, which in turn made her head spin with the possibilities of where exactly he was on his way out
to.

Don't even go there,
she told herself feverishly, as if she hadn't been there a thousand times and back over the past fortnight.

‘Hello, Dominic, it's me. Mattie.' Her voice was as controlled as her feelings were not.

He heard the coolness in her voice and all thoughts of his part in the dissolution of their relationship vanished like a puff of smoke. Back came the irrational anger that he had been ditched,
ditched,
by someone whom he had done the biggest favour possible, sorted out her career.

He should inform her in a few pithy phrases that he wanted nothing further to do with her. His pride demanded it.

Dominic moved over to his desk, sat down and swivelled around so that he was facing the window.

‘Yes?' His voice was equally cold.

‘Have I caught you on your way out?' Mattie asked and when he told her that, as a matter of fact she had, she immediately and again wildly wondered where he had been planning on going. Bad move. She needed her wits about her to get through this call, not scattered to the four winds because jealousy was eating away at her like a poison.

‘What do you want?' Dominic asked flatly.

‘We need to talk.'

‘Really?' He stared out into the nothingness that sprawled outside his window and felt a surge of heady excitement made all the more powerful by the fact that he hadn't been the one to initiate the contact. But hell, her voice sounded good. ‘What about? More of the same? Or have you come to your senses and realised that I might actually have had a valid point of view, after all?'

‘Where were you going tonight? Somewhere important? Anything you could cancel? I really would like to see you sooner rather than later.' Her words came out in a rush and she found that she was still holding her breath while the seconds ticked by.

‘I suppose I could cancel my…appointment.' What appointment? The only appointment he had was a date with the bottle of whisky back in his apartment and the television with the sound turned down. ‘I could come over to the apartment, I guess…'

‘I've moved out.'

Dominic simulated astonishment. She would have a field-day if she knew that he had phoned her boss to enquire about her and sheer pride refused to allow her
that option. ‘Moved out? Where to? No, let me guess. Back to that loser of a boyfriend of yours, I expect. Running back to what you know even if it's bad for your health.'

Mattie couldn't help herself. ‘And do you think that
you
were good for my health, Dominic? Lying and cheating your way into my…into my bed.'
Into my heart,
she nearly said, only biting back the dangerous words at the last minute.

‘Is that why we need to talk, Mattie? So that you can throw a few more accusations my way? Because if it is…' If it was, well, he still wanted to see her, Dominic thought with disgust.

‘No.' Mattie spoke quickly, already regretting her outburst. There was no place for that and she didn't want to be distracted down that road.

She had had long enough to dwell on what he had done and yes, she was still furious with him, but under the fury was a niggling admission that he had really helped her. It was help that she would have rejected out of hand had he told her his intentions from the start.

The job suited her perfectly. It was challenging and well-paid and she enjoyed the people she worked with. She would never have landed on her feet like that without him. And like it or not, he had had a point when he had told her that had he really wanted to manipulate her, he would have dangled that particular carrot in his hand.

‘So…you still haven't said.' It irked him to flog this particular horse but, dammit, he had to know.

‘Haven't said what?'

‘Where you're living now, if you've left the apartment.'

‘I haven't gone back to Frankie's,' Mattie said reluctantly. ‘Actually, I've found somewhere near
Wimbledon. It's small and not in the best of areas, but it does, and the rent's a lot cheaper than I would be paying in central London.'

Dominic felt himself literally shudder in relief. ‘Where are you now?' he asked, prepared to be magnanimous now that that particular nightmare scenario, the one where she was back with her ex and loving every minute of it, had been dispelled.

‘In that bistro two blocks away from where your office is, as a matter of fact.'

That came as a surprise. Dominic turned away from the window and slowly drew his chair up to the desk. ‘You mean you went to that bistro on the off-chance that I would be able to meet you there when you called?'

‘It seemed as good a place as any.' Mattie glanced around. There was a fair amount of people filling it, all still in their work clothes. This wasn't the sort of place where people went to get drunk. They had a couple of glasses of wine, maybe, something light to eat, but no rowdiness. Just the comfortable safety of people around. ‘I've got a table at the back. Will you be able to make it?'

‘I'll be there in ten minutes.'

Oh, yes, the world suddenly seemed a glorious place, filled with light and colour and…possibilities. Dominic shrugged on his jacket and almost whistled in the elevator down to Reception. His car was in the basement, but no need to take it when the wine bar was within walking distance.

She was there.
Waiting for him!
True, she had sounded a little cold on the telephone, but that could have been the reception. Mobile phones distorted voices and she would have been using her mobile, the one thing she had accepted from him because he had insisted on
her having it. Knowing that she was safe because of that damned underground system she refused to abandon in favour of the taxi. He could remember the way she had looked at him and grinned when he had pressed it into her hand and then, over lunch, patiently showed her how to use it.

The fact was that she had called him, wanted to see him. They would talk, not in an atmosphere of anger as they had the last time, but cautiously, taking steps to iron out the misunderstandings. And he was prepared to do anything to iron out those misunderstandings because he couldn't imagine life without her.

He made it to the wine bar in record time.

And there she was, as promised, sitting primly at the table at the back, wearing a dark grey dress and a black jacket. Dominic took a few pleasurable seconds just looking at her as she stared thoughtfully at the glass in front of her, tracing the circular rim with one finger.

She looked up just at that moment and their eyes met. Only for a few seconds, but he got the impression that dashing over to him and flinging her arms around him was not going to happen. Which made him walk rather more warily towards her than he felt like doing.

‘That was quick.' Mattie gave him a tense, unrevealing smile. ‘I didn't expect you so soon.'

‘I said ten minutes.'

‘I thought you might have had to get in touch with whoever you were meeting. Cancel whatever arrangements you'd made.'

Still the same bland politeness that he hadn't wanted or, for that matter, expected. Still standing, Dominic glanced at the bar and then back to her. ‘I'm going to get myself a drink. What do you want? What are you drinking?'

‘Just mineral water, and no, I'm fine.'

‘Food? Shall I bring a couple of menus?' Talking like strangers. He didn't want this, but he would let her take her time to get where she wanted. Which had to be
them
, back together, or why else would she have made contact at all? It couldn't have been easy.

‘Sure. Why not?' Mattie shrugged and looked away. ‘Actually, you can order for me. Just some fish would be fine.'

Which he did, returning to the table a few minutes later with his drink in one hand and more confusing thoughts than he felt he could handle.

‘So, how are you?' he asked, still as polite as hell. He sat down opposite her, cradled his drink for a few seconds before tossing some of it down his throat.

‘The job's still brilliant.' Mattie looked at her glass of water, up at him, and then back to the glass. She knew that she had to be very controlled here but it was damned difficult. Seeing him was so much worse than hearing his voice, and hearing his voice had been bad enough.

‘Why did you give up the apartment?'

‘You know why.'

‘I'm surprised you didn't jack the job in as well, in that case.'

‘Look, let's get one thing straight. Whatever your motivations were, I love what I'm doing.'

‘So I'm not the monster after all?'

‘I don't want to talk about that.'

‘Then what exactly
do
you want to talk about?' His patience was beginning to wear thin under the strained formalities.

‘What have you been doing these past few weeks?' Mattie asked, diverting the subject and not very subtly. She had yearned to see him again, longed for him with
every ounce of her foolish, love-struck being. Sure, she had spent hours nursing her bitterness at what he had done, telling herself that she shouldn't be surprised because hadn't she put him down as an arrogant swine from the first moment he had swept into her life? But then she hadn't been in love with him. Which was what was really hurting now. Knowing what he was and still loving him so much that it was like a constant, pressing pain.

And she was scared as well. Scared at what he would be thinking in an hour from now, when she had told him what she had to tell him. Which was why she was more than happy to play for a little time.

‘Working hard.' Dominic finished his drink and, as their food was put in front of them, ordered another.

‘And playing hard too?'

‘Care to define what you mean by playing hard?'

‘Forget it.'

‘No, I haven't been seeing a bevy of women since you. Is that what you mean? Or would you rather shove me into the role of ruthless womaniser along with everything else? The sort of man who would open door two the minute door one closes?' This wasn't going quite the way he had thought it might and his earlier optimism that they would put their differences behind them was now beginning to bring home to him what a naïve fool he had been.