His contempt was visible. It hurt her, and it also made her furiously angry, that he should misjudge her so.
She pulled herself up to her full height. “Think what you like,” she said coldly. “Your opinion and fifty cents will buy you a cup of coffee at any café in town!”
He made a rough sound and put his hands into his pockets. “How was he in bed?”
Her face went scarlet. She slapped him. It wasn’t premeditated, but it felt good afterward. She turned on her heel and stalked away to her Mercedes convertible. Several people had seen what she did, but she didn’t care. She knew that she was gossiped about—most wealthy people were. She didn’t care anymore. She’d send her daughter away to a private school where she wouldn’t have to suffer the speculation and contempt of the neighbors. As for herself, people could think whatever they liked. And that included Tom Walker!
Tom, nursing a stinging cheek, stalked back into his own office, foregoing the sweet roll he’d gone out to get for his breakfast. He’d never been slapped by a woman in his life. It was an experience he didn’t relish.
He walked past his curious middle-aged secretary and closed his office door. Elysia had never seemed spirited in the old days. Perhaps her marriage had made her bitter.
As he recalled what he’d said to her, he had to admit that he’d provoked her into the action. He hadn’t meant to say the things he had, but the thought of her with that Frenchman—a man who had probably been to bed with hundreds of women from the look of him—made him sick with jealousy. He hadn’t known that he still felt so strongly for Elysia in the first place. Apparently his feelings for her were buried so far inside him that they couldn’t be removed.
Was this how Kate had felt about Jacob Cade? His sister had been enamored with the man most of her adult life. She’d kept photos of him in the damnedest places. It wasn’t until her job as a reporter had sent her into a terrorist standoff and she’d been shot that Jacob had revealed his own violent feelings for her. Theirs had been a rocky, volatile romance that eventually ended in a happy and lasting marriage. Kate had adjusted to it with joy.
But except for Elysia, Tom had never felt a rush of joy at just the sight of a woman. He’d often wondered as he grew older what it would be like to share his life and his heart as well as his bed with a woman. He’d always been sure that no woman would accept him with his hangups and his chaste status. Elysia had, but then, she hadn’t known that she was the first. He’d been too proud to admit that he was innocent. Now, he was glad he hadn’t shared that knowledge with her. She obviously wanted no part of him in her life.
He leaned forward and began to deal with the stack of mail on his desk, his sore cheek forgotten. Elysia was in the past. He might as well keep her there.
If only it had been that easy. Jacobsville was small enough that the monied class congregated everywhere. There was an endless social round that included chamber of commerce meetings and various charity and business gatherings of all sorts. Tom, as the town’s only investment counselor, was included in all of these. So, unfortunately, was Elysia.
Their stiff courtesy with each other didn’t go unnoticed. People remembered that Elysia had worked for Tom in New York before she’d come home to marry Fred Nash. They began to wonder about these two people because of their obvious hostility toward each other.
The gossip was unavoidable.
Tom found himself seated next to Elysia at the monthly meeting of businessmen. It was a lunch affair, served in the private dining room of the largest local restaurant. Tom, in a dark suit, and Elysia, in a neat gray pantsuit, her hair in a chignon, was secretary of the group. She couldn’t avoid him at this function, or the gossip would have been even worse.
But it was obvious to the most unobservant of guests that they barely tolerated each other. When Elysia passed around the neat copies she’d made of the financial report, she made sure that her hand didn’t touch Tom’s. When she passed the cream and sugar holders to him, again, she kept her fingers from making contact.
Tom was keenly aware of her bitter avoidance of him. He understood it, but that didn’t make it any easier. He was astonished that such a mercenary woman still had feelings to hurt.
After the meeting, she went straight to her car.
Tom followed right behind her, keenly aware of eyes following his progress to his own somber Lincoln, which was parked beside her Mercedes convertible.
Elysia fumbled with her keys and dropped them in her haste to get away before he came to his car. She muttered curses, hating the door because it wouldn’t cooperate.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured coolly from across the top of her car, “whatever I seem to have probably isn’t contagious a car length away.”
She glared at him, flushed. “That works both ways, Mr. Walker!”
“Listen, if you want to sleep your way up in the fashion world, it’s none of my business,” he said with icy venom.
She bit back a curse as the president of the chamber of commerce passed them with a curious glance.
“Nice meeting, Mr. James,” she said through her teeth with a smile.
“Yes, it was. Nice to have you aboard, too, Mr. Walker,” he said, pausing to shake Tom’s hand. “You be good to him, Mrs. Nash, we need new blood in the community!” he added with a wave of his hand as he went along to his own car.
“Oh, how I’d love to show him some of yours,” Elysia said fervently, glaring at Tom.
“You need to work on that attitude problem,” he replied somberly. “You seem to have lost your knack for diplomacy.”
“Only with you,” she shot right back. “I get along fine with everyone else.”
“Especially French buyers, hmmm?”
“Damn you!”
His eyebrows arched as she pulled off a high heel shoe and threw it at him.
“Wouldn’t you know I’d miss?” she demanded of the parking lot. “Give me back my shoe.”
“Come over here and get it,” he challenged.
“You’re not my type,” she purred. “You can’t speak French!”
His eyes went cold. He threw the shoe onto the top of her car, got into his own, backed out and drove away without even looking in her direction.
“I love you, too, you sweet man!” she called after him.
“Can I print that?” the local newspaper editor whispered in her ear.
She shrieked. “John, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
He grinned wickedly. “Can’t you see the headlines? Boutique Owner Shouts Love For Financial Advisor At Top Of Lungs…”
“Do you need a shoe?” she asked, holding it over her head in a threatening manner.
He cleared his throat. “Not my size. Thanks, anyway.”
He beat a hasty retreat. She glared after him. This was getting totally out of hand.
Tom was kept busy for the rest of the week, and Elysia took a back seat in his mind as he dealt with one financial crisis after another. By Saturday, he was ready for some rest and recreation. He decided that fishing might be a nice way to relax, and a local man had a stocked private pond where he rented poles and bait for a small all-day fee.
He put on jeans and went on his way. Fortunately the fish were biting, since he did love a nice fried bass. It brought back memories of his youth in South Dakota, when he and Kate had gone fishing with Jacob Cade on the older man’s sprawling ranch.
His boots were worn, but serviceable, like the old beige Stetson he’d had for years. Dressed like that, he looked every