The Beautiful Widow - By Helen Brooks Page 0,59

remained perfectly still, a flesh and blood statue.

‘When we first met you told me you didn’t want a man around because of the twins. You didn’t want them “let down” again, remember? But that was an excuse, whether you admit it or not. Deep down it was yourself you were protecting, not them.’

‘How dare you!’ She reared up like an enraged tigress, all pretence of calm gone. ‘You know nothing about it.’

‘Oh, I dare, Toni. This is our future, yours and mine, I’m fighting for. The gloves are off. You’ve just called me a womaniser and a no-hoper, the sort of guy who will take everything on offer and enjoy the ride.’

‘I did not,’ she protested furiously. ‘I never said any such thing.’

‘Virtually.’ His eyes had turned an icy mother-of-pearl.

‘No. I said women will always throw themselves at you and there’s not a man alive who won’t respond to that eventually.’

‘Wrong. You’re looking at him.’

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I don’t want that sort of pressure when I’m with someone, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe ninety-nine per cent of women could cope with it, but I’m me and—and I don’t want to.’

‘One bouquet and I’m hung, drawn and quartered?’

Under the anger there was a bewilderment that wrenched at her heart but she couldn’t weaken now. This relationship had already gone too far. He had permeated her life like the steady drip-drip of water in a cavern, innocuous in itself but with the power to form mighty stalactites and stalagmites. The more she had got to know him, the more she had liked what she’d discovered, which made him a very dangerous man, and if she slept with him, if she opened up her body as well as her heart, she would be lost. She would never be able to walk away from him. And say what he might, she was thinking of the twins too. They’d had one male role model in their young lives who, if he had lived, could have given them a distorted view of family life and love that might have affected them for ever. Fate had saved them from that and she had a duty not to put them in harm’s way again.

‘You’re wrong about me,’ Steel said quietly after a full minute had ticked by in screaming silence. ‘I’m like the guy in one of the Sunday school stories we were told as kids, the one who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price.’

Toni couldn’t argue any more. He’d never understand and they had no meeting point. She lowered her head, hating the fact her hands were trembling and hoping Steel hadn’t noticed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, all anger and indignation gone. ‘I’m not as strong as I thought I was. You’re right, it only took one bouquet. But there would be other bouquets, other women through the months and years looking for a way to get your attention. I don’t have a thick skin, Steel, and I wouldn’t be able to laugh such incidents off, regardless of how you might react. I—I’m not made that way.’

She expected him to say more, to fight his corner. Instead, after a long tense moment he started the engine, saying quietly, ‘I would like you to complete the new project before you leave. Is that acceptable?’

She forced her numb lips to move. ‘Of course.’

‘Thank you.’

It was over.

CHAPTER TEN

‘I’M SORRY, TONI, BUT I think you’re stark staring mad.’ Poppy stared at her with something approaching horror. ‘He’s the most gorgeous man on the planet and absolutely loaded, and by your own admission he was great with the twins and they adored him, and you give him the old heave-ho. And not because you’ve caught him cheating or anything, but simply because other women find him attractive. Don’t you think that’s a teensy bit unreasonable?’

Toni shook her head. She’d been hoping Poppy would be sympathetic, but she might have known she’d get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from her friend. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘Excuse me, but I think it is.’ Poppy was standing hands on hips. ‘And you like him, don’t you? I mean, really like him?’

Toni nodded. Understatement of the year.

‘Oh, Toni. What have you done?’ Poppy said sadly.

‘Don’t.’ Toni’s voice wobbled. ‘I’ve cried enough already and I don’t want the twins to see me upset.’

‘They’re fine, hark at them.’ Amelia and Daisy and Poppy’s two boys were playing in the boys’ bedroom and,