“Let me go!” she cried, pushing herself free of his embrace as he loosened it.
“Rowena…”
The gruff appeal fell on closed ears. Her eyes flared a fierce and frightened rejection as she backed away from his trailing touch. “Adriana’s right. Sex is all that matters with men.”
“No,” he denied strongly.
But Rowena took refuge in walking over to the glass wall beyond the table, putting a cold, safe distance between them, wrapping her arms around herself, hugging in the pain of hopeless disillusionment.
She was a married woman. It was wrong of Keir to pretend to offer brotherly comfort and then use the opportunity to change it to something else. Even though Phil…But that didn’t excuse it. Keir must realise she had come to save her marriage if she could. For him to take advantage of her weakness at such a time placed him on the same moral level as Adriana Leigh.
“She would have had you.” The words burst from her, the bitter irony of his behaviour being similar to Adriana’s striking her hard. “Why didn’t you take her on, Keir? She was handy, available…”
“Rowena, I care about you. I always have.”
The soft answer stirred more turmoil. She clutched wildly at the first reason she could think of to disbelieve him. “Then why didn’t you stop what was happening between Adriana and Phil?”
No answer.
She swung around to probe further. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know she fancied you, Keir. Even I saw the signals when she walked into this room.”
His face tightened as though she had hit him, yet there was no backward step in the dark blaze of his eyes. “You want a husband that needs to be rescued from another woman?” he challenged, a sting of contempt in his voice. “Face it, Rowena. Phil isn’t worthy of your love. If he really cared for you, Adriana wouldn’t have had a chance with him.”
Phil had cared for her. Rowena was not about to forget he had cared when Keir’s so-called caring wasn’t anywhere in touching distance. “Who are you to judge that? Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t give him enough…enough—”
“Sex?”
Heat flooded up her neck and scorched her cheeks. It was too shaming to concede she must have left Phil dissatisfied in that area, yet it had to be true. She bit her lips, wishing she hadn’t started this tasteless argument. Even Keir’s mouth was curling in disgust.
“Sex isn’t the glue that keeps a man and woman together, Rowena. It helps, but if other things are missing…” He paused, compelling her full attention. “You have so many desirable qualities, any man should consider himself fortunate to have you in his life.”
Desirable. Is that how Keir saw her? Still? But he had no right. And she mustn’t let herself get confused and distracted.
“The evidence is against it,” she reminded him. “Phil wants to be with Adriana. Everything we’ve shared means nothing against what she gives him.”
“She strokes his ego, Rowena,” he said flatly. “Phil likes to be stroked. He can’t have enough of it. He never will have enough of it. Surely you’ve recognised that weakness over the years.”
“Then why did you hire him?” she demanded, trying to reject his clear-sightedness about Phil’s vulnerability to flattery. It went against her ingrained sense of loyalty to accept it.
“He’s good at his job.”
“Why did you hire her?”
“I didn’t. Phil did. He’s entitled to choose the staff that work with him. Usually it makes for a more effective team.”
All perfectly reasonable. Rowena was left floundering in a quagmire of emotions with no outlet for them. A knock on the office door provided a welcome distraction.
A woman entered, pushing a traymobile. Either the silence or the palpable tension got to her. She paused, her eyes darting from Keir’s rigid back to Rowena’s face, obviously gauging the weather in the room and finding it dangerously volatile. She winced apologetically and started to retreat.
“It’s all right, Fay. Bring it in,” Keir commanded quietly. He turned to wave encouragement. “This is my secretary, Fay Pendleton. Mrs. Goodman, Fay.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Goodman.” The quick greeting was accompanied by a tentative smile.
“Yes. Thank you,” Rowena returned jerkily, surprised by Keir’s choice of secretary. Far from being a slickly sophisticated front person for him, this woman looked more like a homely pudding. Except for her hair. The rich burgundy colour with wide blonde bands had a definite touch of eccentricity.
The traymobile was swiftly wheeled to the table, and cups, saucers and plates were set out with deft efficiency. Black coffee was poured, milk and sugar placed handily, and a plate of artistically arranged sandwiches completed the service.
“Smoked salmon, turkey and avocado, ham and—”
“Thank you, Fay.” Keir cut her off.
She gave Rowena a motherly look, her lively brown eyes kind. “Do try to eat.”
“Fay…” Keir warned.
Rowena watched her leave, instinctively liking the woman and oddly comforted by the fact that she didn’t emanate competitive sexiness. Not that it should matter what kind of woman Keir had close to him at work. It didn’t, Rowena told herself. The contrast to Adriana Leigh was simply a relief.
The click of the door shutting behind Fay Pendleton jolted Rowena into realising she should have left, too. This brief hiatus didn’t change anything. Coffee and sandwiches did not fix anything. In fact, they lent an absurd cloak of normality to a highly charged situation, one she should get out of right now before it developed into something worse.
She steeled herself to look at Keir again, thank him for the use of his office and escape from being alone with him any longer. With slow deliberation, she shifted her gaze from the door and met his squarely, determined to put an end to whatever he had in mind.
No matter what Phil had done, she was still married to him, and Keir had no right to be stirring feelings that should have been buried long ago. Buried along with her brother, Brett, because that had been the end of what they had shared together.
Whether he read her intention or not, Keir instantly forestalled any speech from her. “To answer your earlier question,” he said in a tone of relentless pursuit, “I had no interest in Adriana because I don’t care for manipulative people. I don’t want to be with a woman whose responses aren’t genuinely felt. It’s a complete turn-off, regardless of how physically attractive and available she is.”
“And I’m suddenly a turn-on?”
The tense words hung between them, loaded with too much to back away from. Rowena was appalled at having been goaded into such a provocative retort. Somehow Keir’s supreme confidence in who and what he was diminished Phil as a man, and she resented it. She resented even more the idea that Keir might think he could just step in and take advantage of her vulnerable state, letting her know he found her desirable even if her husband no longer did.
“No. Not suddenly,” he answered quietly. “I doubt that many people forget their first love.”
The yearning for that simpler time was in his eyes, and it hurt. It hurt because if he hadn’t forgotten, he should have done something positive about it when it had really mattered. It hurt because it reminded her how naive and trusting she had been, the faith she’d had that he would come back to her and they’d make a life together.
It was he who had broken that faith, he who had dismissed his first love and put it behind him, and he had no right to call on it now. It was Phil