Tempestuous Affair

Lindsay looked up with a start, having been lost in thought. ‘Sorry?’

‘Am I stepping on some lucky man’s toes by making the dinner invitation?’ he explained.

‘No!’ She blushed as she realised how sharply her denial had come out, almost guiltily. ‘No, it isn’t that,’ she said more calmly. ‘It’s just——’

‘It’s okay, Lindsay,’ he chuckled as he stood up. ‘I Can take no for an answer without putting you on the rack. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t making an absolute idiot of myself if I kept asking. And I will keep asking, Lindsay,’ he added seriously. ‘You’ll find I’m not a man who gives up easily.’

‘That’s okay,’ her own voice was light, ‘because I don’t give in easily either.’

He smiled his appreciation of her show of independence, little knowing that she was all the more determined not to be charmed by him because she had so recently been hurt by a man with even less charm than him. ‘Good girl,’ he straightened. ‘But I’ll be seeing you soon.’

It was a promise, not a threat, and Lindsay was left with the feeling that Malcolm Reader was a man with as much strength of will as Joel, that he wouldn’t give up easily either, although perhaps his method of getting his own way would be more subtle than Joel’s. But Cally had been right about one thing—Malcolm Reader certainly didn’t have a problem!

‘Planning to replace me already?’ Joel rasped harshly.

Lindsay looked up at him coolly, although her heart rate accelerated considerably, having been unaware of the model leaving and Joel watching her. ‘Hardly,’ she drawled. ‘Although Mr Reader seems a very charming man,’ she added challengingly.

‘Oh, he is,’ Joel scorned. ‘Maybe he could even charm you into living with him. But if you think I’m a bastard you should—God, I’m sorry,’ he groaned as he saw her pale. ‘I didn’t mean it that way. Lindsay? Lindsay——!’ he questioned sharply as she suddenly stood up to collect her jacket and handbag.

‘I’m going to lunch,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I know it’s a little earlier than my usual time, but I—I feel as if I need the break now. I’ll be back in an hour,’ she added firmly as she heard her voice begin to quiver with emotion.

‘Lindsay——’

‘An hour, Joel.’ She couldn’t even look at him as she rushed from the office and out of the building, not looking back once as she hurried down the street, not even sure where she was going, just needing to get away, away from Joel and his power to hurt her with every word he spoke.

Never before had Joel chosen to hurt her the way he was doing at the moment, seeming to hit out at her on purpose, something he had never done before today. Oh, he had a temper, a whiplash tongue at times, but his remarks had never been personal before; never designed to hurt and go on hurting.

She didn’t stop walking for the next hour, although she never afterwards knew where she went, only that she walked and walked, sightlessly pushing Joel to the back of her mind.

But finally she had to think of him, of facing him again, and if he was still in that cruelly hurtful mood when she did, when he could taunt the way she had loved him enough to move in with him, she didn’t know what she would do.

He was sitting at her desk when she got back, watching her warily as she woodenly hung up her jacket and smoothed her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he finally spoke, his voice husky. ‘I didn’t mean that remark about Reader.’ His eyes were a stormy tawny gold as he looked at her searchingly. ‘Do you believe me?’ he prompted at her continued silence.

‘Of course,’ she acknowledged flatly.

He stood up, coming round to the front of her desk, the warmth of his body reaching out to her in the confines of the room. ‘He did ask you out, though, didn’t he?’ his eyes narrowed.

She looked at him unflinchingly. ‘And if he did?’

Joel’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘I could tell he was attracted to you,’ he ground out.

‘If I didn’t know you better, Joel,’ she taunted, ‘and luckily I do,’ she added hardly, ‘I would think you cared.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I care that because of the way we’ve parted you might find yourself involved when you don’t really want to be.’

Lindsay looked at him with dislike. ‘And since when did you become an expert on what I want?’ She knew it was the wrong thing to say even as she said it, the soft colour flooding her cheeks. Joel knew exactly what she wanted, what she needed, when it came to making love! His eyes mocked her with that knowledge now. ‘I meant emotionally,’ she snapped.

He ignored the jibe. ‘Are you going out with Reader?’ he persisted in the subject of the other man.

Lindsay shrugged. ‘I might. But I doubt it,’ she added as his eyes darkened stormily. ‘I’ve learnt the hard way that mixing business and pleasure just doesn’t work out.’

His mouth tightened. ‘Which part of that applies to your relationship with me the last six months?’

She swallowed hard. ‘I’m beginning to think neither!’

Joel gave a deep sigh, closing his eyes momentarily. ‘God, I can’t seem to stop hitting out at you. Maybe you’re right to want to leave, after all,’ he shook his head. ‘I’m only hurting you.’

‘You have to care to be hurt,’ she sat down behind her desk, paler than ever, ‘and we’ve agreed that neither of us does that.’

‘Yes,’ he bit out. ‘I think I’ll go to lunch now,’ he added suddenly, leaving abruptly.

Lindsay’s shattered nerves relaxed slowly once he had left. This was so much more traumatic than even she had imagined, Joel reacting much more strongly than she had thought he would. She had seen the women come and go in his life for so long, and he had never been so bitter about it before. But then it had never been the woman’s decision to end things before. Joel seemed to have an inborn radar that warned him when a woman was becoming too emotionally involved with him, and at the first sign of that he would end things between them, usually with a bouquet of flowers and a carefully worded note. Maybe if she didn’t love him so much she would have sent him flowers and a carefully worded note!

The uneasy truce that existed between them over the next few days made the studio hell to go to, but Lindsay was determined not to show any sign of weakness by not going in. Joel had shown her all too clearly when she had almost admitted her love for him how much he deplored such human frailties.

But the strain showed on her as the week progressed, her days fraught with tension as Joel remained likely to explode at the slightest provocation, her nights no easier as she ached for his arms about her, his body filling her as they cried out their enjoyment of each other.

The tension between them wasn’t helped by the fact that Malcolm Reader was likely to call in or telephone her without warning. As promised, he hadn’t given up asking her to go out with him, and he was proving to be as persistent as Joel had once been. Malcolm’s frequent presence in his secretary’s office was viewed with anger by Joel, and she felt sure it was only that he was working for Malcolm that kept him from asking the other man to leave.

Joel returned the file of the models he had used during the last five years on Thursday lunchtime, his sigh one of dissatisfaction.

‘No luck?’ She looked up at him with a frown, knowing there were some really beautiful women in there.

‘No,’ he rasped.

‘But surely one of them is suitable?’

‘Suitable, yes,’ he bit out. ‘But I happen to want someone who’s perfect.’

If the strain of the last four days showed on her then Joel hadn’t escaped unscathed either. Of course he was going out every night, usually with a different woman, and apparently not getting in until the early hours of the morning, when undoubtedly he didn’t sleep alone. He certainly looked tired, with lines beside his eyes, the sharp sense of humour he had once possessed no longer in evidence. Even if he were now making up for lost time with an abundance of different women he certainly didn’t look happy about it.

But Lindsay felt no satisfaction from knowing that, knew such deep unhappiness herself that if Joel felt even one tenth of the misery she did then she pitied him.

‘Perhaps you’re being too critical, Joel,’ she reasoned. ‘After all, the make-up is surely meant for a number of different women, not just one type.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s an exclusive line, meant only for brunettes.’