know the first thing about her. Mainly because she kept her private life just that. Utterly private.
If they’d known the truth about her would they still have hired her? Would she have been good enough for them? Or even enough?
A jolt of something that felt altogether too much like insecurity bolted through Effie before she could stop it. Before she could shove it back into the distant shadows of her brain where it belonged.
The only person who had never made her feel she had something to prove was Eleanor. The one woman who had seen through Effie’s tough, angry exterior to the frightened, lonely kid beneath. The woman who had loved her so much that she’d been willing to fight Effie’s sorry excuse for a mum and to adopt her. The woman who had seen Effie’s potential and encouraged her to really do something with her life—starting by going to university. And not just any university, either.
But Eleanor had been gone from her life for so many years now that it was getting harder and harder for Effie to remember how it had felt to have someone to lean on.
It would hardly have been surprising if her bosses and colleagues had panicked about hiring a single mum with a young daughter. If Nell was ill she couldn’t just call in sick herself, like other parents. There was no one to cover her. Her team depended on her being there every single time she was supposed to be. On never being distracted.
Including right now.
Effie jutted out her chin and met his gaze. ‘And so you stepped up to save me from myself? How chivalrous.’
Her tone was a little tighter, a little sharper than she might have preferred, but that was better than giving in to this absurd heat trapped low in her belly. The kind which threatened to melt a girl from the inside out.
Surely she was past all that nonsense? Hadn’t having a baby at eighteen taught her that much, at least?
‘You could call it chivalrous. Or you could call it selfish. I’d prefer the term mutually beneficial.’
‘Really?’ Even as she asked, she knew it was a bad sign that it made a difference to her. Made her a little bit too eager for an excuse to break her usual no dating code. ‘So what do I gain from it?’
‘Hetti mentioned you were too career-focussed to have time to date, and that your move here has invited attention. Fresh blood and all that. We both know that attending this function alone would be tantamount to inviting people to hit on you all night. Going with me should make anyone else leave you alone.’
She could point out that it sounded arrogant for him to say that other men would naturally back away if Tak was her date. The problem was she could imagine that was exactly what would happen.
‘Fine. So what about you? Is this your way of ensuring no-strings sex for the night? Because I have to say it’s a pretty pathetic way of—’
‘No sex,’ he cut in definitively.
‘Sorry?’
‘If I want sex I can get sex. The point is that I don’t.’
‘A single man in his thirties who doesn’t want sex?’ Incredibly she found herself raising an eyebrow at him as though she was actually...flirting?
‘I don’t want sex with you,’ he corrected.
How was it possible to feel suddenly deflated when she didn’t want complications herself?
‘Oh. Right.’ She sounded so stiff, so wooden. ‘Well, good. Glad that’s cleared up.’
He raked his hand through his hair and she found the unexpectedly boyish gesture all the more disarming.
‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’ Clearly this was as close as she was going to get to an apology. ‘My point is that I want a date as a buffer. I don’t want complications from it. My extended family have it in their collective heads that if I’m not going to find a wife for myself then they need to find one for me. A date will buy me some time.’
There was no reason for her chest to constrict the way it did at that moment. No reason at all.
‘Couldn’t you just tell them no?’
‘I could...’ He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter to him one way or another. ‘I have. Many times. But that doesn’t stop them from trying and pushing. I was just about to offend every single one of them by making it unequivocally clear that I’m not interested. However, it’s been pointed out to me that there is another way to handle it. A softer way.’
‘By Hetti, by chance?’
‘Indeed.’ Tak flashed another of those wicked smiles which seemed to liquefy her insides within seconds. ‘She also pointed out that if I do that they’ll turn their focus on her. And no doubt redouble their efforts in revenge.’
Curious.
Hetti had alluded to the fact that her big brother was always looking out for her but, given Tak’s formidable reputation, Effie hadn’t really bought it.
‘And so you’re trying to project a softer Tak Basu? Now, there’s a curious notion.’
The words were out before she could swallow them. Revealing far more than she might have wanted him to know. Effie could have kicked herself.
‘Is it, indeed?’
His eyebrows lifted, his incorrigible expression stealing her breath from her lungs. God, he was magnificent. It should be illegal.
She forced herself to straighten her spine, make her tone just that bit choppier. ‘Although conning your extended family is one thing, but conning your mother rather than simply telling her the truth—’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ His low, deep voice, every word uttered with a razor-sharp edge, cut her instantly. ‘Consequently, I suggest you don’t even try.’
Despite the words he’d used, it would clearly be a mistake to actually believe it had been merely a suggestion.
Effie swallowed. Hard.
Silence enveloped them, and she found herself unable to move. Awkward in her own skin.
His expression softened. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way,’ he said, and abruptly Effie realised this was Tak apologising to her. ‘I’m just...a little protective of my family.’
It was such a familiar pain that it shouldn’t hurt her as much as it did. Her throat felt too tight, but somehow she managed to reply. ‘That’s...admirable.’
What would she have given, growing up, to have had a family who were protective of each other. Even one of her foster families. But instead...
She shuddered at the memories. An endless merry-go-round of girls’ homes and foster families, all of whom had either looked at her as though she should be grateful to them for even knowing her name, or else had resented the fact that she wasn’t an adorable baby they could cuddle. Or worse. But she didn’t like to remember the nights she’d spent sleeping rough on park benches because it had been safer than any given foster home.
There had been a couple of nice families. She could remember both of them with such clarity. They had wanted to adopt her and she’d prayed that they would, even though she’d long since had any sense of faith knocked out of her. But on both occasions her biological mother had somehow—shockingly—managed to convince the authorities that she had gone clean, and they had been compelled to return Effie to her.
Of course it had never lasted.
‘I suppose you might call it admirable...’ Tak’s voice mercifully broke into her thoughts. ‘Either way, it seems we both have our reasons for wanting a buffer.’
‘I can handle myself.’ She narrowed her eyes at him, irked to concede that he might actually have a point.
‘I’m