Back in the Headlines

It made an incongruous image to see the powerful aristocrat doing something so domesticated as cooking and for a moment Roxy stood watching him, her feeling of trespassing growing by the minute. And not just of trespass... She found her eyes straying to the dark, beaten copper of his ruffled hair and the broad back which tapered down to a perfect bottom and once again she felt a powerful rush of lust. Did he have a lover? she wondered. And if so, wouldn’t she have minded him giving some complete stranger house-room for nearly a week?

He must have heard her—or sensed her presence—because he turned round, his expression shuttered as he surveyed her.

‘Sit down. I’m fixing you some eggs.’

She noticed he didn’t bother asking her whether she liked eggs. ‘Where’s my phone?’ she questioned as she sat down at the table.

‘Eat first,’ he said, walking over and sliding a plate of scrambled eggs towards her.

She didn’t like his autocratic attitude one bit, but the sight of the food he’d placed in front of her stopped Roxy from saying so. She must have been hungrier than she’d thought because she gave a little moan of greed and ate every scrap, followed by two slices of toast and jam and a large cup of strong black coffee. When she’d finished, she looked up to find Titus leaning against the range, watching her—still with that shuttered expression on his face.

Suddenly the false intimacy of the scene made her feel a stupid pang of wistfulness and she wondered where that had come from. But the thoughts carried on coming, no matter how hard she tried to stop them. Was this what he did for his girlfriends? she found herself wondering. Cook them breakfast after spending the night making love to them? And would he make love as superbly as he scrambled eggs?

You bet he would.

‘Better?’ he questioned laconically.

‘Much. Thank you. You cook a mean egg.’ She forced a smile. ‘Now, can I have my phone please?’

‘Of course. Your handbag’s over there, by the sofa.’

Slowly, Roxy got up from the table, her mind racing as she tried to work out what she was going to do. Could she throw herself on the mercy of one of her old band-mates? Tell them she’d reached rock-bottom and could they please give her a bit of respite while she sorted her life out? But Justina might still be involved with that tyrant of an Italian, mightn’t she? Roxy doubted whether he’d welcome a semi-permanent house-guest which might cramp their sexual Olympics. And she hadn’t heard from Lexi in ages.

Acutely aware of Titus Alexander’s searing gaze, she withdrew her phone from her bag with trembling fingers, but she could see instantly that the screen was completely blank. Turning her back on him, she stared unseeingly out at the wintry garden as she went through the pantomime of punching out some numbers.

Closing her eyes, she clamped the phone to her ear, waiting for a moment or two before she started exclaiming in a bright voice, ‘Justina, hi! It’s Roxy. Yeah, yeah—I’m great. Great. Well, actually not so—’

But at that moment the phone was plucked from her hand and when she whirled round, it was to see Titus standing holding it, a grim expression on his face as his grey eyes bored into her.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

‘Why are you pretending to have a conversation?’

‘I’m not pretending to have a conversation!’

‘Really? Then you must have communication skills beyond the reach of most mortals, Roxanne—since the phone battery happens to be dead!”

Roxy had been in enough tight corners in her life to know that you couldn’t go wrong with the old truism of attack being the best form of defence. ‘And how do you know that?’ she raged. ‘Have you been rifling through my handbag while I’ve been ill?’

‘Believe me, sweetheart, I’ve got better things to do than go through your damned handbag,’ he swore. ‘I happen to know because just before it died, it kept ringing and ringing. I thought it might be something important—but it was just your lover trying to get hold of you.’

‘My...lover?’ questioned Roxy faintly.

‘Murray.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ she grated. ‘That he is not and never has been my lover.’

‘No? So how come he let you pay peanuts for your rent?’

Roxy hesitated as she met the accusatory glitter of his eyes. ‘Because...because he was being kind to me, I suppose.’

At this, Titus gave a cynical laugh. ‘Oh, come on, Roxanne, you’re not that naive,’ he said as he looked into her amazing blue eyes and thought how they could blind a man with their beauty. ‘Ruthless businessmen like Murray aren’t “kind” for no reason. The guy had the hots for you. And maybe you decided that humping him wasn’t too high a price to pay to live in one of the smartest areas in London—even if he did have a wife at home. You wouldn’t be the first woman to do it and you certainly won’t be the last.’

‘You’re disgusting!’ she spat back.

‘Maybe I am.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Or maybe I’m just speaking the truth and you can’t bear to hear it. Unless you’re denying that he wanted you?’

Again, Roxy hesitated. When those steely eyes were boring into her like that, it was difficult to look away—and she got the terrifying impression that he knew exactly what the set-up had been. Besides, she wasn’t trying to impress him, was she? Who cared what Titus Alexander thought of her? It was what she thought of herself that mattered. ‘Yes, he wanted me,’ she admitted baldly.

‘Of course he did. Let me guess,’ he mused silkily. ‘You didn’t actually go to bed with him, but you left him dangling with the hope that one day you might?’

Roxy flushed as his words hit home with an accuracy which made her feel uncomfortable. She had told the accountant very firmly that she didn’t date married men and that much was true. But most men had uncrushable egos, didn’t they? Perhaps he had thought that persistence might wear away her resistance and perhaps it had suited her to let him think that.

‘I can’t control what goes on in people’s minds,’ she retorted.

And neither could he, thought Titus reluctantly. He couldn’t even control what was going on in his own mind. Because why the hell was he looking at her calculating little face and wishing he could wipe away her defiance with a hard and punishing kiss? What was it about bad girls like Roxanne Carmichael, which always made men hunger for them? Angrily, he swallowed down the lump which seemed to have lodged in his throat—wishing it were as easy to rid himself of the hard aching in his groin.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ he questioned unsteadily, wishing he could just wave a wand and magic her out of his life.

His words brought with them an element of reality and feeling a bit wobbly again, Roxy quickly sat down on the sofa. ‘I haven’t decided,’ she said, aware of how ridiculous she must sound. As if she had a million choices ahead of her instead of none at all. ‘But first I need to get my phone working.’

‘Superior communication skills suddenly failing you, Roxanne?’ he mocked. ‘Here, give me the charger.’

With shaky fingers she fumbled around in her handbag and handed it over to him, watching as he plugged it into the socket. She realised how shockingly easy it was to defer to him and wondered if people always did. Or did his natural dominance come as much from the power of his personality as from the title he had inherited?

He straightened up to meet her gaze. ‘You can use my phone,’ he said.

Realising that she had no choice, she took it—even though she hated the idea of him listening into her conversation. She punched out the number but could tell instantly from the tone of the woman who answered that things weren’t good. In fact, that was the understatement of the year. Pressing the phone tightly to her ear, she hoped that Titus wouldn’t hear the tirade of complaints which were now being launched against her. That she had let down several of their biggest clients by not bothering to show up for work.