behind the Grant family’s interference, about which Libby sometimes complained with such bitterness.
‘If you say so,’ he drawled sceptically.
‘I do say so,’ snapped Ginny, his tone dissipating much of her discomfiting compassion. ‘Ours would have been a pretty depressing friendship if the two of us had spent our time exchanging the details of our mutual woes!’
‘Oh, so you’re also a bundle of woes, are you, Ginny?’ he enquired, his tone sarcastic rather than sympathetic.
‘You said you wanted to talk to me,’ snapped Ginny, any sympathy she had felt now entirely dissipated.
‘I did—and that’s what I was under the impression I was doing,’ he muttered, stretching, then dragging his fingers absent-mindedly through his hair. ‘Perhaps I’m just kidding myself, hoping that Libby and I can spend time together, and wondering if I could make a start on answering some of those questions she asked all those years ago.’
‘I thought you’d decided it was too late,’ retorted Ginny, still rattled and on edge.
‘You’re the one who insists she’s turned over a new leaf,’ he snapped.
‘And she has,’ protested Ginny, feeling more and more trapped. Her only alternative to arousing his anger and suspicion was to trot out words that lent credence to the lie that Libby was going to show up, but now her own innate sense of fairness was getting in the way of such words.
‘But not enough for her to want to mend her bridges with her family,’ he stated grimly.
‘No—that isn’t true!’ blurted out Ginny. Even if there hadn’t been Libby’s oft-proclaimed intention to make her peace with the Grants once she and Jean-Claude were married, there was the undeniable affection Libby still felt for Michael—there had been no mistaking it in her voice this morning.
‘Well, I dare say I’ll be able to judge that for myself soon enough,’ he muttered, rising and going over to pour himself more coffee. ‘Would you like more?’
Ginny shook her head, searching frantically for something non-contentious to say. ‘I’m sure Libby probably would be interested in learning more about the family business,’ she eventually managed.
‘Probably,’ he agreed, an edge of sarcasm in his tone. ‘Especially the financial side of it, which is what I deal with. Given that her trust benefits considerably from it annually, it could be/said she has quite an interest in it already.’ He returned to his seat, his expression oddly diffident as he glanced across at her. ‘I don’t have any idea how much you really know about the sort of things Libby got up to,’ he muttered. ‘But no matter how we tried to answer what all the psychologists kept saying were her cries for help—and I admit they were sometimes answered very clumsily—we couldn’t get through to her. I was just a kid when her mother died…but I loved my big sister—and Libby’s all I, and the rest of my family, have left of her.’
It was the terrible reminder of the contrasting lack of love in her aunt that brought the sudden sting of tears to Ginny’s eyes and made her even more inclined to believe that, high-handed though their dealings with Libby had always been, the Grants truly had been motivated by love.
‘I promise you…Libby has really changed,’ she said in a slightly muffled voice.
‘I look forward to seeing that for myself,’ he muttered.
Ginny took another sip of her now cold coffee, trying desperately to harden herself against the guilt niggling inside her by reminding herself of how he had landed himself in Libby’s bad books in the first place.
‘And I look forward to getting to know you, Ginny,’ he added after a pause, his intensely blue eyes rising to hers, scattering her thoughts and re-igniting those disturbing memories that only a while ago she had so blithely dismissed as mental aberration. ‘It’s not often I get the chance to meet with Libby’s friends.’
Perhaps not, thought Ginny, anger stirring once more in her, but from what Libby had said, he had made a point of getting to know one in particular most intimately.
She rose and, without a word, poured herself more coffee, most of the anger in her directed at herself. All right, so she had found him attractive before Libby had warned her what he was like, but that wasn’t an excuse for the way she was behaving now—in fact, there was something bordering on the unhealthy in the way that she could be actively disliking him one moment and feeling violently attracted to him the next.
‘You’re unusually silent, Ginny,’ he murmured, his words coming from right behind her and making her start with fright. ‘Does that mean you don’t want me to get to know you?’
‘I…No,’ she stammered, striving to get a grip on herself. ‘You frightened the life out of me, creeping up on me like that!’
‘I’m sorry. The last thing I meant to do was frighten you,’ he said, placing an apparently concerned arm around her shoulder. ‘And isn’t that a good reason for us getting to know one another…to ensure neither of us feels afraid of the other?’
‘Oh, yes—I’m sure you’re terrified out of your wits by me,’ retorted Ginny, stepping back against the counter as she shrugged his arm from her shoulder. His arm slid down and repositioned itself against her back.
‘Have I reason to be?’ he asked softly, his arm tightening against her back and drawing her towards him.
‘Don’t!’ she warned through clenched teeth, her hands rising and pressing against his chest.
‘Don’t what, Ginny?’ he laughed softly. ‘I honestly haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you yet.’
‘Well, don’t try seducing me the way you did that other friend of Libby’s because it’s not going to work on me!’
The softness of laughter was stripped from his face, leaving instead a harsh mask of coldness.
‘So Libby warned you about me, did she?’ he enquired icily.
‘Yes, she did. And if you——’
‘I wonder what it is she’s so frightened I’m going to get out of you?’ he asked in that same frigid tone.
‘She’s not frightened you’ll get anything out of me,’ exclaimed Ginny, panic swamping her as she realised just what she had said.
‘So why did she feel it necessary to warn you?’ he demanded, his hands now fiercely gripping the tops of her arms and making any thought of escape a waste of time.
‘I…Because…You’re hurting me!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, releasing her, but leaving her trapped against the counter. ‘Now answer my question.’
‘She warned me because of me—not because of you,’ replied Ginny hoarsely, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her.
‘Am I supposed to make sense of that?’ he snapped, his tall body tensing with anger.
‘Libby was afraid I’d find you attractive,’ ground out Ginny, her cheeks flaming with mortification. ‘I… She thinks I’m—that I tend to be attracted to the wrong sort of men.’
‘So she obviously thought I’d find your neo-Huckleberry Finn appeal irresistible,’ he drawled, ‘otherwise she wouldn’t have felt obliged to warn you.’
‘No!’ protested Ginny, her entire being awash with humiliation. ‘I…She said there was a lot about me that was like that other friend of hers…She just felt she should warn me.’
‘You’re nothing like that poor, unfortunate creature I’m rumoured to have used so abominably,’ he stated callously. ‘If I remember right, she didn’t slop around the place in dungarees all the time and I didn’t have any problem working out whether she was male or female the first time I set eyes on her. And she——’