Tall, Dark... Collection

‘Again!’ she came back tartly, stung by his mockery.

‘Again,’ he acknowledged tauntingly, keeping a firm hold of her arm as he walked her over to the door. ‘You’re dizzy from not having eaten any lunch, and I have food upstairs in my apartment; the logical thing to do is take you up there and feed you,’ he explained dryly.

Logic? When had logic had anything to do with their relationship so far?

‘If you’re happy to let me go for the day, I can easily go home and get myself something to eat.’ She firmly stood her ground.

She did not want to go upstairs to his apartment. Today had been humiliating enough without returning to the scene of her naïve stupidity in thinking this man seriously liked her!

Nick’s mouth tightened. ‘No, I’m not happy to do that, Hebe. For one thing, you don’t look as if you could make it downstairs, let alone home,’ he derided. ‘And, for another, I haven’t finished talking to you yet.’

That sounded ominous…

‘I’ve told you—I don’t know anything about Andrew Southern,’ she insisted stubbornly. ‘Not where he is or how you might get to meet him. I wish I did!’

Nick eyed her frowningly. Did she seriously expect him to believe that?

Yes, he acknowledged impatiently after a glance at her guileless expression, that was exactly what she expected.

It was up to him to ensure that she knew she hadn’t succeeded in convincing him of anything. Not for a moment!

‘We’ll talk again after you’ve eaten,’ he told her firmly, taking her with him out into the carpeted hallway.

Hebe glared at him. ‘Do you never take no for an answer?’

Nick gave a wolfish grin. ‘You, of all people, should know that I don’t!’

That had certainly silenced her, he noted with satisfaction. That poutingly kissable mouth was set firmly as the two of them got into the private lift to go up one floor to his apartment.

Meaning that Hebe would enter his completely private domain for a second time!

‘Is an omelette okay with you?’ he rasped tersely, releasing her arm to stride through to the open-plan kitchen with its white and chrome fixtures.

Hebe took her time following him, obviously no more comfortable being back here than he was to have her here.

He would feed her the omelette, get some straight answers out of her, and then she could leave—

Where the hell was she?

He strode back out into the sitting room, coming to an abrupt halt as he saw her holding and looking at one of the photographs that usually stood on the coffee table in front of the window. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he bit out coldly, his face devoid of all expression.

Hebe almost dropped the photograph she had picked up to have a better look at, grasping it with both hands against her chest, knowing from the furious look on Nick’s face that his question didn’t require an answer—that he knew exactly what she had been doing.

The photograph was of a little boy about three or four years old. A gorgeous little boy grinning happily into the camera lens. A little boy, with Nick’s dark hair and blue eyes…

Nick moved forcefully across the room to snatch the photograph out of her hands, those blue eyes glacially cold as he glared at her through narrowed lids.

She swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry. I—he’s very beautiful.’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Yes, he was,’ he ground out harshly.

Was. It was his son, then.

Hebe felt a tightening of her chest at the thought of all that life and boyish happiness no longer existing.

How much worse was that realisation for Nick…!

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

Nick put the photograph carefully back on the table before giving her a sharp glance. ‘You know who he is?’

‘I—yes,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘One of the other girls told me that you had a son.’

‘Luke,’ he bit out harshly. ‘His name was Luke.’

Luke…Four years old. His death simply too much for his parents to deal with together, driving them irrevocably apart.

‘I really am sorry,’ Hebe repeated huskily. ‘I shouldn’t have—Please believe me when I tell you I never meant to—’

‘To what?’ he challenged with a lift of that arrogant jaw. ‘Pry? Stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong?’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head, his face set in grim lines.

Hebe flinched at his obvious fury. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested softly. ‘I just saw his photograph, and—’And what? Hadn’t she been prying, after all? Well…yes. But not with any intention of annoying or upsetting Nick. She had just been curious, that was all.

And in being so she had turned Nick’s undoubted anger on her once again.

So what was new?

But surely he knew she hadn’t deliberately set out to cause him pain in this way? Even though it seemed that was exactly what she had done.

‘I really am sorry,’ she said again firmly, before moving past him to walk into the kitchen, feeling it best to give him a few minutes’ privacy.

It seemed to be an afternoon for upsets. Nick where his son was concerned and her own puzzlement and curiosity about the woman in the portrait and the man who had painted it.

But she would possibly be able to find answers to her own questions, whereas Nick would probably never understand why his son, a little boy of four, had had to die.

It probably all came down to a matter of faith. And the death of a four year old child certainly tested that to the limits!

She looked up nervously a few minutes later as Nick came back into the kitchen, thankfully with some of the colour back in his cheeks, his expression less grim.

‘I got eggs and milk out of the fridge.’ She shrugged, pointing to where she had placed them on the worktop. ‘I wasn’t sure what else you needed.’

Nick slipped off the jacket of his suit and hung it on the back of one of the bar stools before taking down one of the frying pans from a display of them hanging from a rack above the work table in the middle of the kitchen. ‘Cheese or mushrooms?’ he bit out economically as he cracked the eggs into a bowl.

Hebe had to swallow down the nausea at the thought of either filling. ‘Plain, if that’s okay?’ It still felt decidedly strange to be up here in Nick’s apartment again, let alone having him cook for her.

Kate, having witnessed their departure, was going to be more than a little curious when Hebe finally returned downstairs to the gallery!

Nick’s impatience was all inward as he warmed the oil in the pan while beating the eggs, before adding the milk. He was regretting now that he had made the offer to cook for Hebe in the first place.