But wasn’t that an arrogant thing for him to think? Was it really so inconceivable that for the first time in his life he had met a woman who didn’t consider herself lucky to be on his arm? A woman who had decided that he had behaved unfairly towards her during their liaison? Maybe she’d met a man who wasn’t keeping her hidden away because of the vast social gulf which existed between them. Maybe it had been his own behaviour towards her which had made her decide to exploit him.
He felt a twisting sensation in his gut. He wanted to say sorry but something stopped him and he couldn’t quite decide whether that was because it was too late, or because saying sorry had never come easily. So instead, he nodded. Shrugged his shoulders as if to acknowledge that the best man had probably won. It was the most exemplary display of cool good manners he’d ever exhibited and, wryly, he thought that his mother would be proud of him.
‘Then I must wish you every success in your future, Roxanne,’ he said, before turning on his heel and walking out without a backward glance.
He barely registered his journey down in the lift and realised he was shaking by the time he reached the car. A fine mist of rain clung to his tanned skin but he didn’t bother wiping it off. It was almost as if he wanted the wet chill of the winter day to sink deep into every cell of his body. He debated whether to drive home, or to his club—but a restlessness and inability to focus made him change his mind and walk instead into the main foyer of the Granchester and then into the Piano Bar.
He guessed he could get very drunk and order a taxi home later on, but instead he sat in the shadows at the back of the bar, staring morosely at his untouched glass of whisky. He hadn’t been here in a long while, not since Ciro D’Angelo had owned it—and thrown some of the best parties in the city. Sometimes Titus used to fly over from Paris to join the great and the good who used to congregate here.
The room was dominated by a rather starry white piano and the deep blue of the velvet wall hangings gave the illusion that the room was high up in the night sky. A middle-aged man in a dark dinner suit had come into the bar and sat down at the piano, his fingers breaking into a medley of songs from popular musicals. And wasn’t life full of irony at times? thought Titus bitterly. Because the third tune he played was the poignantly familiar ‘Thanks for the Memory’. It was a song which a beautiful but doomed actress had once sung to her equally doomed President. A song which Roxanne Carmichael had sung to him.
And he had thrown it back in her face.
He lifted his glass to take a first sip of whisky, when it suddenly hit him like a punch to the solar plexus—and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. Putting his glass down, he lifted his hand to his forehead and rubbed it, as if doing that would make him see clearly. But he wasn’t seeing clearly at all. His thoughts were so dazzled by the foxy woman he’d just left that somehow he had overlooked the fatal flaw in his logic.
Because if Roxanne had used him to publicise herself and her band—if she was planning to resurrect her career on the back of it—then why the hell was she working as a chambermaid?
Suddenly, none of it made sense and all of it made sense. Did she look like a woman who was poised on the edge of a musical comeback? Did she?
Had he been, at best, stupid? Or at worst—cruel?
A shaft of pain shot through him as he saw how quick he had been to judge. How quick to wield the knife and to send accusations hurtling her way.
His hands were shaking as he pulled out his wallet and, peeling off a note, he put it down on the table next to his drink. He felt as unsteady as if he’d drunk a bottle, instead of a single sip and he wanted to go straight across the rainy car park to that anonymous block. To ride up in the lift and tell her … tell her …
He walked out of the bar, impervious to the smile of the brunette who was sitting at the bar and who raised her glass of champagne at him in a hopeful toast.
Tell her what? What could he possibly say which would ever make Roxanne forgive him for what he had said, and done?
CHAPTER TWELVE
ROXY stifled a huge yawn as she brought the trolley to a halt outside the heavily embossed double doors leading into the Maraban suite. She was tired. No. Scrub that. She was exhausted. Worn down by lack of sleep and by the unfamiliarity of starting to read textbooks again. And, of course, she was worn down by the overwhelming heartbreak of missing Titus.
She felt a renewed wave of misery wash over her. That was easily the most debilitating cause of her fatigue. Unsociable hours she could cope with and hopefully the art of studying would soon return. But the pain which twisted so relentlessly inside her—would that ever leave her?
Swallowing down another yawn, she pulled the master key from the pocket of her apron. Already that evening she had serviced twenty rooms, carefully turning the sheets back and plumping up the pillows so that they were as soft as clouds. Being a chambermaid had been a new direction for her and had certainly given her a few insights into human nature. People often left their rooms looking like pigsties, she had discovered. Or maybe they were just proud of their sexual activities. It didn’t matter how classy the hotel—and the Granchester was certainly classy—some guests seemed to have no qualms about leaving discarded bits of underwear scrunched up in among the rumpled sheets. One morning she’d even found a used condom!
Still, she only had one more bed to turn down and then she could escape to the peace of her little room and try to do some reading. Try to do anything, really—as long as it didn’t involve lying on the bed, nursing her heart and thinking about the man who had broken it.
She thought back to yesterday evening when Titus had turned up out of the blue—looking all tanned and vibrant and making her feel insubstantial just by being close to him again. She thought about the rage which had contorted his face as he’d hurled those bitter accusations at her—and the way she had just stood there and let him. Why had she done that? Swallowed her pride and been so passive in front of him? Because that was the best thing to do, she told herself fiercely. The only way you could guarantee he would leave you alone.
Picking up two chocolates from the trolley, she gave a polite rap on the door of the suite. She’d left this one until last, mainly because it was her favourite, named after the homeland of one of the hotel’s most famous guests—an exotic sheikh who had once stayed there.
She had just stepped into the gold-and-rose coloured interior when she saw a figure sitting at the desk in one of the windows with his back to her—and her heart gave a jolt. Her fingers curled nervously around the foil-covered chocolates she was holding. ‘I’m so sorry, sir. I thought the room was empty. I did knock, but …’
But the words died on her lips. The blood began to roar in her ears because the figure was getting to his feet and turning round. A figure with a powerful physique and hair the colour of burnt copper. The blood drained from her face as she met the pewter gleam of his eyes. For this was the stuff that dreams were made of. Or nightmares.
‘What … what are you doing here?’ she questioned shakily.
Titus stood completely still as he surveyed the pallor of her face and the haunted expression on it. She looked so vulnerable, he thought. There was a terrible sadness in her blue eyes, which were very bright, as if she’d been crying. Had he made her cry? Had he?
‘I’m staying here,’ he said.
Roxy shook her head, angry with him now. ‘I gathered that. But why? You’ve got a house in London.’
For a moment he was overcome by a wave of remorse so bleak that he felt it wash over him like a dark and bitter tide. ‘Because I wanted to speak to you on neutral territory.’
‘Why? I don’t think we’ve got anything left to say to each other, Titus.’