Too Scared To Love

But, she now thought, didn’t every cloud have a silver lining? She thought of Grant Adams, and of that glimpse of suffocating charm that had flashed across his face. If there was one thing that Brian had done for her, it was to make her immune to men like Grant Adams.

Even before Brian, she had always been a self-contained person. Now she guarded herself and her emotions with rigid control. She might have been a fool once, but lessons were there to be learnt from. She would never be a fool again.

It was late the following morning before she woke up, after the sort of restless night that came from sleeping in different surroundings.

It was warm in the room, but as she drew back the curtains she could see the cold outside clutching at the trees and buildings.

Emily burst into the room as she was preparing to get dressed, and Roberta said automatically, ‘There’s such a thing as knocking.’

Emily’s long black hair had been dragged away from her face and was hanging down her back in a pony tail, but her face still wore that suspicious, defensive expression.

‘You work here,’ Emily replied. ‘Why do I need to knock?’

‘I wish I could follow that argument,’ Roberta replied, vanishing into the en suite bathroom to wash her face and then reappearing to apply some light make up at the dressing table.

‘Anyway, you should have been up hours ago.’

‘Should I?’ she asked drily. ‘If I had known that you were that eager for my company, I would have set my alarm clock.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Actually, I got to bed quite late last night. I met your father and we remained chatting for a while.’ Chatting, she thought with a silent laugh. What a way to describe that explosive encounter between them.

‘You mean he came home?’ Emily’s voice expressed a cynicism that sounded out of place in someone that young. ‘Before midnight? How good of him. Normally we cross each other in passing. He’s always on the way out somewhere.’

There was a wealth of bitterness in her voice and Roberta looked at her with surprise.

‘Shocked?’ Emily asked. ‘You wouldn’t be if you knew him. I suppose you fell for all that laid-on charm, did you? He seems to have a talent with women, not that I can understand why.’

‘That’s a bit unfair.’ Roberta shrugged herself into some clothes, making sure that she had enough underlayers to protect her from the weather outside. ‘And in answer to your question, no, I didn’t fall for all that laid-on charm.’ Not, she thought, that he had used any on her anyway, but she wasn’t going to say that.

Emily was staring at her suspiciously, as though ready to argue the point, but Roberta wasn’t having it. She switched the subject skilfully away from Grant Adams, and on to the infinitely safer topic of Toronto and what there was to see.

By the end of a very tiring day, they were at least on speaking terms, even though it was a case of treading carefully in order to avoid initiating one of Emily’s sulks. Roberta had discovered quite quickly that Emily was adept at them, although they would last only a short while, to be replaced usually by a battery of forthright questions which left Roberta feeling exhausted.

‘I thought I was direct,’ she said, as they relaxed later that afternoon in the kitchen in front of a cup of coffee, ‘but you’re leagues ahead of me.’

That extracted a grin from Emily, which vanished almost as soon as it had formed. ‘I can see why you didn’t go for Dad,’ she said. ‘He’s not into direct women. He likes them coy and brainless.’

‘Do I really?’

‘They both turned at the sound of his voice. Emily with surprise, and Roberta with an expression of amusement at his daughter’s reaction.

He walked into the kitchen, slinging his coat carelessly on to the counter and sitting down opposite them.

Roberta looked at him with detachment, thinking that he really was remarkably attractive. Last night she had been too caught up in her emotional reaction to his behaviour to have really examined him, but she could see now that he was the sort of man who had probably spent a lifetime turning heads. And, she thought, agreeing with Emily, spending his time playing with coy, brainless women. He had a lean, arrogant hardness about him that no doubt attracted hordes of them. She smiled, and he said in a cool voice, ‘What’s the joke?’

‘Joke?’ She threw him an unreadable look. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all.’

‘About Toronto? Or about the brainless women that I go for, according to my daughter?

Emily was looking between them.

‘What are you doing home so early, anyway?’ she asked, her mouth downturned as she stared at him, and he frowned.

‘I thought you might have been pleased to see me.’ There was impatience in his voice.

‘Why? You think showing up at a reasonable hour now and again helps to remind me what you look like?’

Grant frowned heavily. ‘I don’t think that remark is called for, young lady, and—’

‘And what?’ she muttered mutinously. ‘Are you going to pack me off to bed for punishment? Or tell me that I can’t have any pocket money?’ She sniggered, happily oblivious to the flush of anger that had darkened his cheeks.

‘We had a lovely day,’ Roberta said, suspecting that if she didn’t interrupt soon she would be witnessing an almighty clash.

Grant ignored her completely. He was staring at his daughter and she was staring back at him, her green eyes angry and defensive.

‘When are you going to realise, young lady, that being rude isn’t charming or endearing, it’s just aggravating and rubs people up the wrong way.’

Emily stood up, her face flushed. ‘You should know all about that!’ she shouted. ‘You specialise in it!’ With that she ran out of the room, and Roberta looked towards the door worriedly. She didn’t have a great deal of experience in dealing with adolescents, but she did know that Emily would probably lock herself in her bedroom and burst into tears.

She stood up to follow and Grant said tightly, ‘Sit down.’

‘But—’ she began, and he cut into her with a hard voice.

‘I said sit down! I didn’t come back here at this hour to be subjected to my daughter’s ill manners.’

Roberta sat back down and glared at him. ‘What did you expect? You hardly spend any time with her. You can’t think that the odd early return from work is going to fill her with delight.’

‘And I don’t need you to start preaching to me again,’ he muttered, pouring himself a cup of coffee. ‘She’ll calm down. What did you two do today, then?’

‘We went to the Eaton Centre and browsed around. And how do you know that she’ll calm down? I think you ought to go to her bedroom and talk to her.’

‘And I think you ought to stop playing at being an amateur shrink. When I need advice, I’ll consult a professional.’

Roberta looked at him, bristling, and he said with lazy amusement, ‘You’re wearing that school-ma’am look again.’

‘Because I don’t happen to agree with how you react with your daughter?’ she burst out.

Grant’s mouth tightened into a forbidding line. ‘I didn’t employ you to voice opinions. I employed you to make sure Emily behaves herself in my mother’s absence.’

‘The two go hand in hand.’ She gave him a conciliatory smile. ‘She’s unhappy, can’t you see that? She’s suffered not having a mother-figure. I’m sure most children do—’

He slammed his coffee-cup on to the table and the liquid spilled over the rim, leaving a wet patch. ‘She damn well doesn’t need a mother-figure!’ he ground out. ‘She’s already had a mother-figure, enough to last her a lifetime.’

Roberta’s eyes widened at his tone of voice. She had touched on a raw nerve here. Her mind flashed back to his reaction to her when he had spotted her physical resemblance to his wife. Was that why he filled his time with women? Because no one could ever live up to the woman he had married and loved?

What had she been like? She bit back the compulsive desire to ask, knowing that that would definitely cause a major explosion.