Too Scared To Love

She had never been confronted by a more alarming sight. The sheer height and power of the man startled her, and it wasn’t helped by the expression of aggression on his face as his eyes raked over her mercilessly.

He slammed the door behind him without taking his eyes off her and slipped off his coat to reveal a superbly tailored grey suit, which somehow did nothing to lessen the impression of savage power that had initially struck her.

Roberta remained standing where she was, glued to the spot, too terrified and fascinated by the vision in front of her to move a muscle.

Then he spoke, and it struck her that his voice somehow matched the rest of him. Deep but hard, with a hint of menace behind it.

‘Is this some kind of joke?’ he asked grimly, striding towards her.

Roberta cringed back, her eyes wide, her self-control for once deserting her. Alarm had replaced reason and her mouth was half parted in fear.

Her brain had somehow started functioning again, though, enough for her to recognise after the initial shock that this must be Emily’s father. The same dark, almost black, hair, the same peculiar shade of green eyes, but his features were harsh and arrogant. It was a striking face, one that forced you to look at it, and which, once seen, was never forgotten.

‘I asked you a question,’ he bit out. He was close to her now, towering above her. With a swift movement, he reached out and grasped her by her arm, shaking her out of her immobility. ‘Who the hell are you? Some friend of Emily’s? Is this my daughter’s idea of a sick joke?’

Anger suddenly replaced fear and Roberta’s lips compressed tightly. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said icily, but, instead of that having the desired effect, he shook her again, sending her hair flying around her face.

He’s mad, she thought with a jolt of panic. I’ve managed to land myself a job looking after a wayward teenager with an insane father. Why else would he be behaving in such a bizarre fashion?

‘If you don’t let me go at once, I’m going to scream,’ she said unsteadily, staring up into his ferocious green eyes.

‘Is that a threat? Because if it is, you seem to have forgotten whose house this is.’

His voice now was quite calm, but all the more disturbing for that.

‘Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on here, or do I have to shake it out of you?’ His voice left her in no doubt that he was prepared to do precisely that and she shivered.

Common sense told her to hang on to her self-control, but something about this man, quite apart from his behaviour, unsettled her. Everything about him was overpowering.

‘I’m Roberta Greene,’ she replied as calmly as she could, feeling like someone who had suddenly found themselves in a lion’s den and was trying to find the right placatory tone of voice to enable them to leave in one piece. ‘I’m here to look after your daughter.’

There was a long silence while he surveyed her at leisure and with the same glint of ruthless hostility in his eyes.

‘Well, Miss Roberta Greene, I don’t know how you managed to land this job, but you can forget about unpacking, because you’re going to be on the next flight out of here.’

‘What?’ Roberta looked at him, confused. ‘Why? What are you talking about?’

He gave her a scathing look and then proceeded to half pull, half drag her towards the massive left-hand wing of the house, into which she had not ventured.

Roberta wriggled against him, desperately trying to free herself from his iron grip, but it was useless. She was no match for his strength, and in the end she abandoned the effort, her mind whirling in confusion.

What was going on here? I should never have accepted this job after all, she thought, I should have known that it was too good to be true. Doesn’t fate make a habit of tripping you up?

Something was terribly wrong here. There was no way that this man’s behaviour could be classified as normal.

She was suddenly aware of the silent spaciousness around her.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, her voice uneven from the exertion of keeping pace with him.

‘Don’t you know? I’m sure you can suspect.’

He pushed open a door on the right and switched on the light, which threw the room into instant clarity. It was a large den. In one corner there was an old-fashioned desk with a computer terminal perched incongruously on top of it and the walls were lined with bookcases which groaned under the weight of books of every description.

‘Well, Miss Roberta Greene,’ he addressed her tightly, swinging her around, ‘tell me that this is a shock to you.’

Roberta stared in front of her at a large portrait which had not been visible from the door. It was of a woman of a similar age to her, wearing a forced smile on her lips.

‘Who is it?’ she asked, curiosity overcoming her confusion.

‘My wife, as you well know,’ he said derisively.

‘Why should I know?’

‘Don’t tell me that it was sheer coincidence that you applied for this job. Look at the portrait. Can’t you see the resemblance?’

Roberta focused on it and she reluctantly saw what he meant. They both had red hair, pure natural red, unadulterated by any shade of brown or auburn and, from what she could see, the same grey, widely spaced eyes.

But there any resemblance stopped. Roberta’s hair was cut in a neat bob that hung to her shoulders, and far from being neat and plain, which was how she considered herself, there was something untamed about this woman in the portrait. Her hair was a mass of curls, her eyes wild and knowing.

Was this what lay behind his accusations?

‘What are you trying to imply?’ she asked coldly, turning to face him. Her colour had returned to normal, and that alarming, addled feeling she had had a moment ago had subsided.

‘Put it this way,’ he said in an unyielding voice. ‘It isn’t the first time that someone has tried to wheedle her way into my affections, or should I say my money, by playing on a resemblance to my late wife.’

Roberta stared at him, taking in the hard contours of his face. Was there any woman brave enough to try and wheedle her way into this man’s affections? she wondered. He didn’t strike her as the sort who could be wheedled into anything. In fact, he looked the sort who played situations to suit himself, and to hell with the rest of the world.

‘Late wife?’

‘Yes, late,’ he snapped impatiently. ‘She died some years ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I. Sorry that you turned up here.’

‘I’m afraid you’re quite wrong about me,’ Roberta informed him calmly.

‘Oh, are you really? Afraid that I’m quite wrong about you?’ He stared back at her until she flushed, and then the harshness in his face softened slightly into amusement.

Roberta felt a surge of anger which she quickly stifled. She could see what he was thinking clearly enough because he couldn’t be bothered to hide it. He saw her as a prim little English woman, with nothing of that tigerish grace of his late wife, and he found it laughable.

She didn’t care, but on the other hand she didn’t see why she should have to put up with being the butt of his humour merely because he happened to be her employer.

‘Quite frankly, and I’m sorry to dent your ego, I had never heard of you until I applied for this job.’

‘I may be Canadian,’ he drawled, ‘but my face is well-known in the business circles in your country. As was my wife’s.’

She detected a certain inflexion in his voice at the mention of his wife and she put it to the back of her mind.