know you don’t want me anymore, Justin,” she said gently. “I even understand why. You don’t need to feel responsible for me. I’ll be all right. I can take care of myself.”
He breathed slowly, trying to keep himself under control. The feel of her silky skin was giving him some problems. Unwillingly, his thumbs began to caress her wrists.
“I know that,” he said. “But you don’t belong here.”
“I can’t afford a better apartment just yet,” she said. “But I’ll get a raise when I’ve been working for two months, and then maybe I can get the room that Abby had at Mrs. Simpson’s.”
“You can get it now,” he said tersely. “I’ll loan you the money.”
She lowered her eyes. “No. It wouldn’t look right.”
“Only you and I would know.”
She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t tell him that she hated the thought of being in this place, so near Barry Holman, who was a nice boss but a hopeless womanizer. She hesitated.
Before she could say yes or no, there was a knock on the door. Justin let her go reluctantly and watched her move toward the door.
Barry Holman stood there, in jeans and a sweatshirt, blond and blue-eyed and hopeful. “Hi, Shelby,” he said pleasantly. “I thought you might need some help moving…in.” His voice trailed away and he saw Justin standing behind her.
“Not really,” Justin said with a cold smile. “She’s on her way over to Mrs. Simpson’s to take on Abby’s old room. I’m helping her move, although I knew she appreciated the offer of this—” he looked around distastefully “—apartment.”
Barry Holman swallowed. He’d known Justin for a long time, and he was just about convinced that the rumors he’d heard were true. Justin might not want Shelby himself, but he was damned visible if anybody else made a pass at her.
“Well,” he said, still smiling, “I’d better get back downstairs then. I had some calls to make. Good to see you again, Justin. See you early Monday morning, Shelby.”
“Thanks anyway, Mr. Holman,” she said. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but Mrs. Simpson offers meals as well, and it’s peaceful there.” She smiled. “I’m not used to town living, and Mrs. Simpson has the room free right now…”
“No hard feelings, you go right ahead.” Barry grinned. “So long.”
Justin glared after him. “Lover boy,” he muttered. “Just what you need.”
She turned, her eyes soft on his face. “I’m twenty-seven,” she said. “I want to marry and have children eventually. Mr. Holman is very nice, and he doesn’t have any bad habits.”
“Except that he’ll sleep with anything that wears skirts,” he replied tersely. He didn’t like thinking about Shelby having another man’s children. His black eyes searched over her body. Yes, she was getting older, not that she looked it. In eight or ten years, children might be a risk for her. His expression hardened.
“He’s never said anything improper to me.” She faltered, confused by the way he was looking at her.
“Give him time.” He drew in a slow breath. “I said I’ll loan you enough to get the room at Mrs. Simpson’s. If you’re hell-bent on independence, you can pay me back at your convenience.”
She had to swallow her pride, and it hurt to let him help her when she knew how bitter he was about the past. But he was a caring man, and she was a stray person in the world. Justin’s heart was too big to allow him to turn his back on her, even after what he thought she’d done to him. Quick, hot tears sprang to her green eyes as she remembered what she’d been forced to say to him, the way she’d hurt him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said unexpectedly, biting her lip as she turned away.
The words, and the emotion behind them, surprised him. Surely she didn’t have any regrets this late. Or was she just putting on an act to get his sympathy? He couldn’t trust her.
She got herself back together and brushed at the loose hair at her neck as she poured the tea into two glasses filled with ice. “I’ll let you lend me the money, if you really don’t mind,” she said, handing him his glass without looking up. “I don’t like the idea of living alone.”
“Neither do I, Shelby, but it’s something you get used to after a while,” he said quietly. He sipped his tea, but he couldn’t pry his eyes away from her soft oval face. “What is it like, having to work for a living?”
She didn’t react to the mockery in the words. She smiled. “I like it,” she said surprisingly, and lifted her eyes to his. “I had things to do, you know, when we had money. I belonged to a lot of volunteer groups and charities. But law offices cater to unhappy people. When I can help them feel a little better, it makes me forget my own problems.”
His black brows drew together as he sipped the cool, sweet amber liquid. The glass was cold under his lean fingers.
She searched his black eyes. “You don’t believe me, do you, Justin?” she asked perceptively. “You saw me as a socialite, a reasonably attractive woman with money and a cultured background. But that was an illusion. You never really knew me.”
“I wanted you, though,” he replied, watching her. “But you never wanted me, honey. Not physically, at any rate.”
“You rushed me!” she burst out, coloring as she remembered that night.
“Rushed you! Up until that night, I hadn’t even kissed you intimately, for God’s sake!” His black eyes glittered at her as he remembered her rejection and his own sick certainty that she didn’t love him. “I’d kept you on a pedestal until then. And all the time, you were sleeping with that boy millionaire!”
She threw up her hands. “I never slept with Tom Wheelor!”
“You said you did,” he reminded her with a cold smile. “You swore it, in fact.”
She closed her eyes on a wave of bitter regret. “Yes, I said it,” she agreed wearily, and turned away. “I’d almost forgotten.”
“And all the postmortems accomplish nothing, do they?” he asked. He put down the glass and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it without removing his eyes from her stiff expression. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s go. I’ll run over to Mrs. Simpson’s and you can see about the room.”
Shelby knew that he’d never give an inch. He hadn’t forgotten anything and he still despised her. She felt as if the world was sitting on her thin shoulders as she got her purse and followed him to the door. She didn’t look at him as they left.
Justin tucked a wad of bills into Shelby’s purse when he stopped the Thunderbird on the side of the road near Mrs. Simpson’s house. She tried to protest, but he simply smoked his cigarette and ignored her.
“I told you earlier that the money was between you and me,” he said quietly, his dark eyes challenging as he cut the engine. He turned in the bucket seat, his long legs stretched out as he touched the power-window switch on the console panel. It was a rural road, and sparsely traveled. He had stopped under a spreading oak tree. He hooked his elbow on the open window to study Shelby narrowly. “I meant it. If you want to look on it as a loan, that’s up to you.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “I’ll be able to pay you back one day,” she said doggedly, even though she knew better. With what she made, it was going to be a struggle to eat and pay the rent. New clothes might become impossible.
“I’m not worried about it.”
“Yes, but I am.” She looked up, all her misgivings in her green eyes. “Oh, Justin, what am I going to do?”