Ellie Darkins – Frozen Heart, Melting Kiss (страница 2)

This wasn’t going to get any better, she realised then. She just had to find a way to get through this. To protect herself from the barbs of his coldness until she could get out of there. She relaxed her hold on her anger, bringing it to the fore, letting it protect her from his cold indifference.

‘Dessert?’ she asked, dreading the response, dreading the rejection, but wanting to get it over with.

‘I’m sure you’ve got that under control.’

‘Blackberry fool?’ Why not show him how his dismissal hurt? she thought. It wasn’t as if he would even care or notice. And it might make her feel a little better.

His eyes held hers and she felt the heat in her face sink to her belly when he continued to stare at her. She shifted under his scrutiny, trying not to wonder what he was thinking, why he was studying her irises. It seemed that her anger could reach him where her food hadn’t.

Will raised an eyebrow. ‘It sounds like you’ve got the measure of things, Miss...’

‘Maya’s fine,’ she said, her words still terse.

‘Maya,’ he repeated, his voice a little less steady than it had been.

He took a deep breath and she saw a blank mask descend over his face, shutting out whatever it was that had flashed between them in the past few seconds. It was a pattern, she realised. A few seconds when his features flickered with emotion, some pleasure or enjoyment. And then he chased it away, locked his face down hard. His voice too, when he spoke next, was the model of professionalism, his words hard and steady.

‘Thank you for coming, Maya. Leave your quote with my assistant and someone will be in touch.’

Anger fought for room with sorrow and the pain that had haunted her since her childhood. Will had shut her out in a fraction of a second. It had taken him the space of a blink to forget whatever it was that had made him pause and consider her the moment before. And she couldn’t help but remember how her parents had so easily done the same.

He’d reduced everything that she’d created to a string of numbers on a spreadsheet. A simple calculation that took no account of love and passion. She couldn’t meet his eye—didn’t know if he was even trying to as she shook his hand. As he walked out she let her frustration loose as she tossed cutlery and crockery back into bags and boxes and then packed away the barely touched food.

She tried rationalising what had happened to make herself feel a little better. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in her food, it was just that he only cared about the numbers. Perhaps she should have guessed the moment he’d walked into the room that this was just another business meeting for him.

She’d never been so infuriated by anyone in her life, she thought as she headed out to her car. It wasn’t just his lack of enthusiasm for her food, it was the way that he’d seemed completely unwilling to let himself enjoy it, his determination to see life in columns and cells. He’d only tried one course out of three: her food had never stood a chance of impressing him because he had never been prepared to let it.

That thought drained her anger, sapped the tension from her muscles, as she remembered the last time her passion been faced with pure indifference.

Even if she was offered the job she knew she wouldn’t be seeing him again. She knew that to cook, and cook well, for that man after today’s disaster would be impossible—a complete waste of good food and time, and too close to too many bad memories. She couldn’t do it.

* * *

Will glanced at his watch and then back over his shoulder as he waited for Maya to come to the door. He shouldn’t be here. He’d tried to convince Rachel to do it for him, but she had told him that going against Sir Cuthbert Appleby was more than her job was worth, that he’d have to suck it up and do it himself. So he’d spent his evening crawling through Cotswold villages—time away from the office that he really couldn’t afford—in order to ask for something he desperately didn’t want.

He looked up at the front of the cottage as he waited and cringed. Just like Maya, the house was a riot of colour. Roses crept up the warm sandstone, over the door and up towards the thatch, and window boxes overflowed with bright-coloured flowers.

When she’d walked out of his office two days ago he’d thought—hoped—that he would never have to see her again. Even the thought of it had made his skin prickle. There was something about her that disturbed him, something that he couldn’t ignore no matter how much he might want to. In those moments when he’d dared to look her straight in the eye he’d seen her every emotion flash across her face. She’d worn her love for her food openly and extravagantly. He’d flinched away from it, intimidated in the face of such an outpouring of emotion, fearful of its effect on his iron self-control.

If he’d had any other choice he’d have stayed as far away from Maya Hartney as he could. What did he care who they hired anyway? He wouldn’t even have been doing the tastings if Rachel hadn’t sneaked them into his calendar. But then Sir Cuthbert—the senior partner in his firm, the man who held Will’s career in his hands—had spotted Maya as she’d been on her way out of the building and Will had been forced into a corner.

Sir Cuthbert had arrived unannounced in Will’s office.

‘What have you done to Maya Hartney?’

No greetings, no small talk.

‘What have I done to her?’ Will had asked carefully. ‘Nothing. Why? What did she say?’

By the time Will had admitted he hadn’t tried even half the dishes Maya had brought with her he’d known that he was in trouble. Sir Cuthbert had had that look in his eye. The one that told Will he wouldn’t want to hear what was coming next.

‘I’m worried about you, Will.’

Not what he’d expected. And his concern wasn’t necessary in the slightest.

‘There’s no need, Sir Cuthbert,’ he’d said, relieved that he wasn’t about to lose his job. ‘I admit I was a little preoccupied in that meeting, and I’ll make amends with Maya Hartney if I need to.’ He made a mental note to have Rachel send her something.

‘It’s more than that, Will,’ Sir Cuthbert had persisted. ‘You don’t take your holiday. You’re always the last to leave the office. Some mornings I wonder whether you’ve been home at all.’ He glanced down to the smartphone in Will’s hand. ‘You can’t be parted from that thing for more than a minute. There’s more to life and to business than the numbers, Will. It’s about people too. You need to take some time off or you’re going to burn out.’

Will had suppressed a groan, impatient to get back to work, not interested in cod psychology from his boss. ‘I’m grateful for your concern, Sir Cuthbert, really. But there isn’t a problem. I don’t need time off.’

‘This isn’t a request, Will.’

The older man crossed his arms and widened his stance, and for the first time Will realised he was serious. The man had no reason to question his commitment to his job. He put in twelve-, fourteen-, eighteen-hour days. Whatever it took to get the job done. He was more at home in his office than he was...well...at home. When he was there he was focussed. He tuned the world out, saw only his projects, the numbers. And now he was being reprimanded for spending too much time here.

‘I mean it. If you don’t take some time off I’m going to have some difficult choices to make about your role here. The pro bono work you’re taking on, for example.’

‘You can’t make me drop the Julia House project, Cuthbert.’ A swift shot of panic hit Will in the belly, but he pushed it away, determined to think this through logically, rationally. He smoothed back the sharp emotion until he couldn’t feel it any longer; he didn’t want to examine it or need to understand it. He just knew that ensuring the success of Julia House was an imperative. He had to make this work, so he focussed on fixing the problem.

‘I don’t want to, Will. I know it’s a good cause, and I know it means a lot to you. But you’re stressed and you’re tired and today you took it out on Maya Hartney. Make it up to her. Fix the problem and take a few days to recharge, get some perspective. Or I’ll have no choice but to cut back your non-essential work.’

How could he tell Sir Cuthbert that he hadn’t been rude because he was stressed, or tired? He felt neither of those things. Throughout his life he’d trained himself to feel nothing. To manage his emotions—keep them at bay. He’d been rude to Maya because she had unsettled him, scared him, and putting distance between them had seemed the safest thing to do. Now he found himself standing on her doorstep, half hoping she wouldn’t answer the door, worried about what it could lead to if she did.

Will wasn’t sure what it was about her that had heated his blood and demanded his attention, but he’d had to force his eyes to his smartphone for the whole of their meeting just to keep any semblance of peace in his head. It had been years—more than a decade—since he’d last had to fight so hard to keep his cool.

He was used to meeting beautiful women. He was even used to taking beautiful women to bed. But he’d been blindsided by Maya’s bright colours, her wild hair and the vulnerable anger in her eyes. He didn’t want her in his head, and the gnawing feeling in his belly that had started when they met was disturbing. He was used to control. To taking what he wanted, giving what was desired and walking away with no one getting hurt. There was no reason to cede control here. She was just a little unusual. That was all. It was taking his brain a little longer to learn how to keep her at the same distance it did everything else.