‘I couldn’t give a damn what you do.’ She resumed her cross-legged position in the chair, as far away from Leon Masters as she could get.
‘I thought not.’ He sat forward. ‘You look like a little girl sitting like that,’ he remarked softly.
‘Well, you can depend on it, I’m not!’
‘Thank God for that,’ he laughed huskily. ‘Even at twenty-two you’re a little young for me, any younger and I couldn’t even consider it.’
‘Consider what?’ she asked sharply.
‘Your seduction.’
Helen stood up jerkily, moving to the back of the chair and clutching it. as if for protection. ‘Would you please leave?’ she said shakily.
He didn’t move. ‘I’ve already said no. I’m going to get you, Helen, so you might as well give in without a fight.’
‘I’d fight you to hell and back!’ she told him fiercely. ‘I’d fight any man that came near me.’
’Did you love your husband so much?’
She was suddenly calm again, her face emotionless. ‘My feelings for my husband are my own concern.’
‘That mask of yours slips away every now and then, doesn’t it?’ he mused softly. ‘My cool Helen occasionally becomes the fiery woman she must once have been. Does anyone else get to you like I do, Helen?’ he probed shrewdly. ‘Does any man get to you like I do?’
She turned away. ‘You flatter yourself, Mr Masters.’
‘Why don’t you like being touched, Helen?’ he continued his probing.
‘God, I hate you!’ she glared at him. ‘What right do you have to come here and ask me personal questions? Just who do you think you are, that you can—’
‘I’m going to be your lover, Helen,’ he cut in smoothly.
‘I—You’re what?’
‘Your lover. That’s what I’m going to be.’
‘But I—I don’t want—I don’t want a lover!’ She was white, deathly white. ‘Please, stop this. Leave me alone,’ she begged, despising herself for her weakness. ‘Oh, please, Leon, leave me alone!’ The last came out as a choked sob.
He stood up and came to stand in front of her. ‘I can’t, my cool Helen. You have me tied up in knots. If it’s time you want, you’ve got it, but you have to let me see you, be with you, talk to you.’
She looked at him with huge frightened eyes. ‘But why? Why does it have to be me? There are thousands of women—’
His hand caressing her cheek stopped the flow of words, dropping back to his side as she flinched away from him. ‘It just has to be you. I can’t explain it, so don’t ask me to. I’ve tried to be with other women, but I can’t get you out of my mind.’
‘But I don’t even like you,’ she said desperately.
‘At the moment you don’t like any man. Your emotions are dead. I’d just like to be the man who’s around when you decide to start living again. Is that too much to ask?’
She moved away from him, his proximity unnerving, shaking her head dazedly. ‘I don’t ever want to get involved with a man again.’
‘You have to get involved, have to allow yourself to feel for any relationship to work.’
‘But I don’t want a—a relationship.’ She looked at him pleadingly. ‘Don’t you understand, I don’t want that!’
‘Okay, okay,’ he soothed. ‘Forget that for the moment. Just come out with me today.’
‘I thought you said to forget it.’
‘Going out for the day together hardly constitutes a relationship,’ he taunted. ‘And I had my chef prepare a picnic luncheon for us when I found out you weren’t joining us on the boat.’