‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘But I imagine I would have to look into the case closely...’ He paused, relishing the tension quivering down the phone line. ‘Very closely. In fact I would definitely have to meet with the applicant. In person.’
Addie held her breath. Her body seemed to have turned to liquid.
‘N-No!’ she stammered. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘But I do. I don’t just hand out money to anyone, you know.’
‘I’m not anyone!’ she snapped. ‘I’m your wife.’
Too late, she saw that she had fallen into his trap.
‘Which is another good reason for us to meet,’ he said slowly. ‘We can talk about our marriage.’
Her office suddenly felt airless. Her nerves were shrieking like a car alarm. Suddenly he wanted to talk about their marriage? Was he mad? Or deluded?
‘No, we can’t! I won’t. Dragging up the past isn’t going to change anything,’ she said shakily. ‘We just have to accept it was a mistake—’
‘Was it?’
Addie blinked. It had been a disaster. And Malachi knew that as well as she did.
‘Yes. It was.’ She spoke too quickly, the words keeping pace with her heartbeat. ‘I can’t imagine what I was thinking!’
‘Can’t you?’
She took a quick breath, almost like a gasp. His voice was slow and glowing with a heat that she could feel down the phone. A heat that crept under her skin and coiled around her heart so that suddenly she couldn’t seem to breathe properly.
‘That’s probably because what we shared had very little to do with thought, sweetheart.’
He paused and she felt the heat spike inside her.
‘Mostly it had to do with tearing each other’s clothes off.’
Addie swallowed. Her hand felt damp against the phone. A drumroll of fear and longing was beating so loudly that for a second she thought it was coming from outside of her body.
‘I don’t remember,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he murmured. ‘I know you remember that time in the lift.’
She shivered. She did remember. Could remember it as if she were there now, watching herself and Malachi, his hand slipping beneath her dress, her body arching against his as she tugged feverishly at his belt.
With a pure effort of will she dragged her mind back to the present.
‘Apart from being irrelevant to this discussion, it was all a long time ago. So, no, I don’t,’ she lied. ‘Unlike you, Malachi, my life, like most people’s lives, does not just revolve around sex!’
‘You think? Then you’re either excessively naive or an extremely bad liar.’
She heard the amusement in his voice.
‘Sex drives all human life. What did you think our relationship was based on? A mutual love of seafood!’
Addie felt a dull pain start to throb in her chest. No. She hadn’t thought it was based on seafood. Fool that she was, she’d actually hoped and believed that their relationship had been based on love. An ache spread through her chest, hot and dark like a summer storm. Only love required honesty and trust, not secrets and lies. And neither of them had ever told the other the truth.
‘I don’t like seafood any more,’ she snapped. ‘Nor do I want to listen to your one-dimensional views on relationships. And I especially don’t want to discuss them, or anything else for that matter, with you in person.’
‘Really?’ he said in that slow, sexy drawl that made her blood hum and her skin turn to glue. ‘That’s a shame. You see, I was hoping you’d meet me for lunch so we could discuss your funding. You do want me to renew your funding, don’t you, sweetheart?’
Addie stood up, pushing her seat back with such force that it fell backwards onto the floor. But she barely noticed, such was her panic to block out that seductive velvet-smooth voice. And the urgent response of her body to it.
‘I’m not going to meet you for lunch, Malachi!’
‘You think dinner might be better?’ he said disingenuously, completely ignoring the fury in her voice. ‘I’m happy to do either. What do you fancy? French? Or what about some ceviche? There’s a great new Peruvian place just opened up.’
Dinner! A vein was pulsing painfully in her forehead and mechanically she pressed her fingers against it. ‘I don’t want to eat French or Peruvian,’ she said shrilly. ‘And I’m not meeting you for lunch or dinner or any other kind of meal.’
‘Pity!’ His voice was dark and loaded. ‘Because that’s the only way you’re going to get your funding out of me.’
‘Fine,’ she snarled. ‘Then I’ll just have to get the money some other way.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ he murmured. ‘You always were very imaginative, as I recall.’
Her temper finally snapped. ‘You are disgusting and I never want to speak to you again.’
He laughed. ‘I’m a little unclear. Did we agree on lunch or dinner?’
With a howl of fury, she hung up.
Still laughing, Malachi switched off his phone and dropped it onto the desk. He gazed thoughtfully across the plane’s cabin, wondering what she would wear when he saw her again. For, whatever she’d said, their meeting was as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. His heart began to thump; his blood was pumping, slow and heavy. Nor was it hate that had made her hang up on him. It was fear. She was scared—scared of the connection between them and her response to it.
And so she should be.
His grey eyes flared and feeling his groin harden, he let out a long, slow breath as a trickle of anticipation ran down his spine.
She might not have been the perfect wife he’d imagined, but Addie had never been boring. On the contrary—she had been feisty and stubborn and impulsive. Which meant that lunch—or, better still, dinner—was a foregone conclusion. All that remained was for him to choose a restaurant and a tie.
And, letting out a sigh of satisfaction, he settled back into his chair to enjoy the view.
‘NO. I QUITE UNDERSTAND.’ Trying her hardest to keep the note of disappointment out of her voice, Addie picked up her pen and drew a line firmly through the last name on the list in her notepad. ‘And thank you for giving me so much of your time.’
Flipping open her laptop, she scrolled slowly through the column of figures on the screen. Finally she let out a long, slow breath. It was hopeless. Despite all her efforts she had barely enough funds to cover next month’s rent and a few utility bills. Even if she added in her meagre savings she certainly couldn’t afford to pay her staff’s salaries.
Leaning back in her chair, she bit her lip. If she told them what had happened she knew they would offer to forego their pay. But why should they? she thought angrily. Why should they suffer because she had let her arrogant, maddening ex get under her skin?
Her head was pounding. And it wasn’t just because of her precarious finances. Speaking to Malachi again had stirred up feelings she had buried deep, deep down, and now she was battling emotions she still wasn’t ready to acknowledge or resolve.
Her heart gave a lurch. It wasn’t only her feelings she couldn’t face. She’d spent the last five years more