‘Are you speaking from experience?’ He glanced over at Scott questioningly.
‘I don’t prowl around for women,’ Scott said mildly, placing one arm affectionately over Heather’s shoulders. ‘I’m way too discriminating for that.’ He laughed. ‘In fact, my friends say I’m too discriminating for my own good. I only settle for…the best…’
Heather flashed him a grateful smile and sank down into her chair, followed by Scott, leaving Theo towering over them both.
Instead of taking the hint and going, though, he leaned forward and planted his hands squarely on the table.
‘I myself prefer variety,’ he said with a wolfish smile. ‘But each to their own. Now, Heather and I haven’t seen each other in a while, so would you mind if I stole her away from you for a dance? I promise to return her to you in one piece.’
‘I think we’ll let Heather decide whether she wants to dance with you,’ Scott said, turning to her.
Theo obviously had a less gentlemanly option in mind, because he didn’t give her a chance to voice an opinion. He reached out and clasped her hand in his, and before Heather could protest she was on her feet and being led towards the dance floor, one solicitous hand firmly placed at her elbow.
‘How dare you?’ Heather whispered, feeling her body react with unwelcome heat to the big, masculine body now pressing uncomfortably close to hers. ‘I don’t want to dance with you! My date’s sitting on his own at the table and it’s very rude to abandon him!’
‘He didn’t seem to mind,’ Theo replied dismissively.
He pulled her a little closer. Through the thin little number she was wearing he could feel everything. The thrust of her generous breasts, the small curve of her spine. It enraged him to consider how much he had missed her body. Missed her. Although he reasoned that that was just a case of missing a habit. Yes, he had hurled himself back into work, had even made the effort to take Michelle out—a woman he had spoken to for half an hour at a cocktail party the week before and who had emitted all the right signals of being interested. This was his second date with her and she left him cold.
Unlike the small, curvaceous woman now reluctantly dancing with him. He could feel her desire to get away in palpable waves, and wondered whether she was sleeping with the date wilting on his own at her table.
The thought made his teeth snap together in fury.
‘So…how are you?’ he asked, lowering his voice, perversely desperate to know that she still wanted him.
‘You asked me that already.’
‘I’m asking you again,’ he said irritably.
‘Fine. I told you. I’m fine.’
‘What have you been up to?’ The question emerged in an aggressive, demanding undertone that made her even more tense. He felt it in the way she stiffened in his arms. ‘Am I making you nervous?’ he asked softly.
Just the sort of sexy voice that had had her head spinning in the past. Did he even know that he was doing that? Heather thought of his new conquest, probably seething at the sight of him parading on the dance floor in close proximity with another woman, and a self-protective layer of cold settled over her. She’d never thought that she had it in her to be frosty, but she was fast discovering that she had.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why should you be?’
‘You’ve changed,’ Theo said grimly.
‘People do.’ She shrugged as he spun her around to the melodic tunes of some stupid love song.
‘You never used to be so hard,’ he said accusingly.
‘If by hard you mean that I no longer turn to mush whenever you’re around, then I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘You used to turn to mush whenever I was around?’ Theo mused with considerable interest. ‘I never knew that. For how long?’
‘I meant that I actually used to…used to…’
‘Yes? Carry on. Were you turning to mush before we had a sexual relationship?’
‘I’d prefer to forget that!’
‘Why would you want to forget something you so obviously enjoyed?’
‘This is a ridiculous conversation and I’m not going to carry on with it any more.’
Theo swung her round into a dip that had a few of the other people on the dance floor chuckling with delight, and their eyes locked for a few heart-stopping seconds.
‘Why not?’ he murmured lazily into her ear, swinging her back into an upright position with an easy flourish. His ego felt gloriously boosted at the thought of the effect he had had on her…for a satisfyingly long time, from the sounds of it. The evening, which had been plodding along, had taken on a wonderful shine.
When the music stopped and she tried to wriggle her way out of his arms he held her tighter.
‘I’m sure Stephen—’
‘His name’s Scott!’
‘Whatever. I’m sure he won’t mind if we have another dance. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of fellow to kick up a fuss over something as innocuous as that. Of course he might if he knew our history…’
Heather recognised when she was being played with. She struggled to maintain her composure, and to remember how he had discarded her without a backward glance. He hadn’t even bothered to try and get in touch, although he could have. She had told him about the flat opportunity Beth had offered, and he was clever enough to have put two and two together and worked out that she would now be living there. But he hadn’t got in touch because he hadn’t wanted to. He had picked up the threads of his normal hectic life and hadn’t given her a second thought. So much for the sincerity of his well-meaning questions about what she had been up to and how she was! She could be lying under a slab of granite for all he cared!
‘We don’t have a history,’ Heather retorted, gaining strength from her thoughts. ‘We had a make-believe relationship that lasted a few weeks!’ With a little flush of guilt she carried on gently, ‘How is your mother anyway? I’m sorry I haven’t asked earlier…’
‘Getting better and stronger by the day.’
‘Have you told her about us?’
‘No need to.’
‘I did think of her a lot after…after I left, and wondered how she was getting on. She’s an amazing woman…so full of enthusiasm and so sharp…sharper than lots of people half her age…’
Theo had no interest in discussing his mother.
‘Of course we have a history.’ He sidestepped the issue smoothly. ‘We didn’t just sleep together. We shared a house for well over a year…and I just want to say right now that I apologise for accusing you of targeting me willfully. Like I said, a rich man looks for the hidden agenda when it comes to the fair sex. I had no idea that you wanted me long before we actually ended up in bed together.’
Heather ducked her head. She could feel herself burning up—every part of her. If Scott glanced across at them now he would have to be blind not to realise that this was the man who had made her cautious about the dating scene. Awareness and confusion would be written in blazing symbols on her crimson face.
‘Well?’ Theo prompted.
‘Isn’t your girlfriend going to be angry with you for dancing with me?’
‘And jealous,’ he confirmed, leaning into her so that his mouth was brushing her ear. ‘Especially if she knew what thoughts were going through my head right at this instant. You know, don’t you? You can feel what I’m thinking…literally.’
Heather had been so wrapped up in the disastrous twists and turns of their conversation that she had been oblivious to what was now magnificently evident. Theo was in a state of unashamed arousal. She felt immediately faint at the pressure of his hard manhood stirring against her. Her mind, which she had successfully managed to keep under control, sprinted off at a pace and presented her with a graphic, uninvited parade of memories of them in bed together, making love, his big body thrashing above hers. She closed her eyes and had a sickening sense of falling.
‘Are you jealous?’ he whispered into her ear.
‘No, of course I’m not,’ Heather lied. ‘Why should I be? We haven’t seen each other for weeks. It’s over between us and I’m getting on with life. I have a new flat, a new job and a new boyfriend.’ Two out of three wasn’t bad—and anyway, technically Scott was a boyfriend, if you categorised the term as a friend who happened to be of the male sex.
‘How long have you been seeing this Stephen guy?’
‘Scott.’
‘All of three weeks?’
‘That’s none of your business, Theo.’ Having spent so long sharing her thoughts with him, Heather heard the words leave her mouth and felt a little sense of victory and empowerment.
He might be rampantly turned on by her, but that made him no less of a commitment-phobe than he had been when he had told her to leave. Did he think that he could say whatever he wanted because he thought that she was still the silly fool who had been enraptured by him? Did he think that she hadn’t moved on at all?
‘I don’t think so,’ he mused to himself. ‘It’s not like you to go out hunting for my replacement the day after you leave my apartment.’