His face turned dark, and he set his mug down with a thump. “Very well,” he snapped, getting to his feet and hauling her up with a strong grip on her arm. “You’re determined not to give an inch, not even to listen to my side of it. Be safe, behind those walls of yours, and if you ever think of what you might be missing, think of this!”
His mouth was hot and strong. His arms crushed her against him, as if he couldn’t get her close enough. His tongue went deep, reminding her.
Claire whimpered, tears burning her eyes as the wanting curled in her again, as hot and alive as it had ever been.
Max pushed her away, breathing hard. “If you think that has anything to do with business, you’re a damned fool!” he said harshly and slammed out of the apartment as if he couldn’t trust himself to stay a minute longer.
CHAPTER 10
To her surprise, Claire was too busy during the following two weeks to feel much anxiety over her move to Dallas. Finding an apartment wasn’t easy—she spent hours inspecting and rejecting, getting lost time and again in the unfamiliar city but somehow having fun doing it. Alma, once she’d gotten over the shock of one of her daughters moving out of her immediate reach, threw herself into the apartment search with all her typical zest and spent days touring Dallas with Claire, ruthlessly hunting out any potential trouble spots in an apartment. Claire let her mother go on, amused by that overflow of energy. It was odd that the older she became, the closer Claire grew to her family. At some point, their beauty and self-confidence had ceased to intimidate her. She loved them and was proud of their accomplishments.
Even Martine was dragged into the apartment hunting, and together they made a list of the most suitable locations then began narrowing the choices. Claire didn’t like the ultramodern condos, despite their conveniences, and though she hadn’t really considered a house, in the end it was a tiny, neat house that won over the apartments. The rent was remarkably reasonable because of its size. Getting it ready for Claire to move in became a major family project. Claire and her father repainted the rooms in white to make them seem larger, while Alma and Martine bought mate
rial and sewed curtains to fit the odd-size windows. Steve put new dead-bolt locks on the doors and locking screens on the windows, then sanded and polished the old-fashioned wooden floors. Brad and Cassie, the children, romped in the postage-stamp yard and appeared periodically with demands for sandwiches and Kool-Aid.
On the day she moved in the entire house was in chaos, with the movers carting furniture and boxes in, while she and Alma and Martine tried to put everything in some sort of order. Harmon and Steve kept out of the decision-making, simply standing by to provide muscle if needed. Claire was headfirst in a box of books when a cool voice said from the door, “Would another pair of hands be welcome?”
Claire straightened abruptly, her face still as she tried to deal with the way the sound of his voice affected her. For two weeks Max had been as polite as a stranger, and she had been tormented by a lingering sense of loss. The tumult of moving, with its mingled moments of hilarity and frustration, and her pure physical exhaustion from so much work, had buffered her somewhat from her thoughts, but there were still far too many moments when she wished she had never found out the truth about him, that the hurt and anger would all just go away. The distance between them the past two weeks had hurt, too, though she had tried to ignore it. Why had he shown up now, strolling into the middle of the overflowing mess with that indefinable grace of his?
Harmon groaned, straightening from his task. “Another strong back is just what we need! Take the other end of this table—it weighs a ton.”
Max picked his way over the cluttered floor to help Harmon lift the table and put it where Claire had directed. Alma sailed out of the kitchen, and a glowing smile broke over her face when she saw Max. “Oh, hello! Did you volunteer, or were you kidnapped?” she asked, going over to hug him.
“I volunteered. You know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen,” he said, smiling as he returned Alma’s hug.
Claire turned back to the box of books she’d been unpacking, a tiny frown darkening her eyes. She hadn’t told Alma all the circumstances behind her move to Dallas, but neither had she thought that her family would be having any further contact with Max. Perhaps Martine had revealed some things, but Claire didn’t know and didn’t want to ask. Would Alma have been so friendly to Max if she had known the truth? This could be a little awkward—they knew Max as Max Benedict, but he was really Max Conroy. Should she let them continue thinking that was his name or reintroduce him? What could she say? “Conroy is Max’s real last name; he just uses Benedict as an alias occasionally.” She thought that Miss Manners probably hadn’t ruled on this particular situation, so she decided to say nothing.
He fit in easily with her family, joking and conversing as effortlessly as he had before. They didn’t know that this congeniality was a disguise for the driving power of his true personality. She watched him, but didn’t talk to him except to answer direct questions and she sensed that he was watching her, too. She’d thought that he’d given up, but now she remembered telling Martine that he wasn’t even familiar with the term. He hadn’t given up—he’d simply been waiting. He calmly wrote down her unlisted telephone number, copying it off the telephone, and when he looked up to find her watching him, he lifted an eyebrow in silent invitation for her to make an issue of it. Claire simply turned away to continue her chores. Attacking him now over a telephone number would make her look like an ungrateful wretch after he’d worked tirelessly most of the day, helping her get settled.
It was late when everything was put in its place, and everyone was yawning widely. Rather than attempt the long drive back to Houston that night, her family had elected to stay in a motel and drive back the next morning. Somehow Claire found herself waving goodbye to them from her new porch, with Max standing beside her as if he belonged there.
“Why did you come here?” she asked quietly, watching the taillights disappear down the street. The warm night sounds of chirping insects and the rustle of leaves in the trees from a slight breeze surrounded them, where only a moment ago there had been laughter and noisy yawns and enthusiastic cries of “Bye! Take care now. I’ll call you tomorrow!”
“To help you with your things,” he said, holding the screen door open for her as she reentered the house. She didn’t trust his bland tone for a minute. “And to make certain that you’re comfortable. Nothing more sinister than that.”
“Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome. Is there any coffee left in the pot?”
“I think so, but it is probably undrinkable by now. You drink too much coffee, anyway,” she said without thinking, going into the kitchen to pour out the stale coffee. He stopped her as she was beginning to make a fresh pot.
“You’re right. I don’t need any more coffee,” he said, taking the pot out of her hand and placing it in the sink. Grasping her elbow, he pulled her around to face him. “What I need is this.”
His other arm went around her waist, bringing her up against him, and he bent his head. His mouth closed over hers, and the hot, heady taste of him filled her. He kissed her with deep, greedy hunger, until a painful hunger of her own began to coil in her body. Both angered and alarmed by the desire he could arouse so effortlessly, she jerked her mouth from his and pushed against his shoulders, feeling the heavy muscles beneath her palms.
To her surprise he let her go easily, releasing her and stepping back. Satisfaction was plain in his eyes, as if he’d just proved something to himself. He must have felt her response; for a brief moment she hadn’t been able to prevent herself from melting against him, her body seeking his.
“I wish you hadn’t come,” she whispered, her dark eyes locked on him. “Why involve yourself with my family? How do I tell them that you aren’t Max Benedict, after all?”
“You don’t have to tell them anything—they already know. I’ve explained it to your mother.”
Shocked, Claire stared at him. “What?” she stammered. “Why? When did you tell her? What did you tell her?”
He answered readily enough. “I told her that the takeover of Bronson Alloys by my company has complicated our relationship, but that I transferred you to Dallas so we would still be together and could work out the problems.”
He made it all sound so simple, as if he hadn’t abandoned her as soon as he’d gotten the information he wanted! It was true that he hadn’t been expecting the phone call that had forced him to return to Dallas, but it was also true that he hadn’t made any attempt to contact her after that until the actual mechanics of the takeover had put him back in Houston. Now, in his typical high-handed fashion, he believed that all he had to do was move her to Dallas and the “complications” would be settled.
Her expression was so troubled, for once so easily read, with all her doubts and hurt there for him to see, that he had to fight the urge to pull her against him and shelter her in his arms. Max had never known failure with a woman he wanted; they came easily into his arms and his bed, and they had always been so easy to read. It was ironic that Claire, the one woman he couldn’t easily understand, should be the woman he wanted more intensely than he’d ever dreamed he would want a woman. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking—her defenses were too strong, her personality too complex. Yet every glimpse he had of the inner woman only made him hungrier to find out more about her, to get deeper into her mind. Looking at her now, with her clothes grimy from the day’s labors, her hair straggling down from its topknot, her face free of makeup and her velvety dark eyes full of pain and uncertainty, Max felt something jolt in his chest.