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He looked unperturbed. 'Thanks.'
'Thanks!' she echoed, moving angrily away from him. 'You come in here throwing out accusations as if I'm some sort of idiot, treating me like a fool just because you're too damned obstinate to have asked anyone for help before now. Don't start on me just because you've allowed things to get on top of you!'
Rafe swung her round, his eyes a very deep blue. 'Things haven't got on top of me!' he denied harshly. 'Do you know how many days' mail there is there? Do you?'
Hazel shrugged. 'A couple of weeks, maybe more.' His hand was burning her through the thin material of her shirt, but she couldn't shake off his grasp.
He gave that lopsided smile of his. 'There's three days there, Hazel. Just three days.'
She looked at the clutter on his desk with horror. 'Three days! But it's a full-time job if that's the case.'
'Exactly,' he said dryly. 'Now you realise how badly I need a secretary.'
She looked up at him appealingly, nervous of his closeness. 'But that's what I was doing when you came in.'
He thrust her roughly away from him. 'I don't want you in here alone.'
Her brown eyes darkened with pain. 'You don't trust me, is that it?'
'Not at all,' he replied calmly. 'I simply think it would be more sensible for us to go through the mail together in the evenings and then you can type any replies the next day. And perhaps take telephone messages pertaining to the estate.'
Only one part of that conversation seemed important. 'You want us to work in the evenings?' She couldn't hide her dismay; she didn't want to spend hours closeted alone in here with him in the evenings.
He gave her a contemptuous look, watching her through narrowed blue eyes. 'Only for an hour or so before dinner, nothing that will interfere too much with any social engagements you may have. I just don't have the time to spare in the day.'
Hazel decided that perhaps now was the time to try out Sara's advice and get him to slow down a little. 'Oh, and I was hoping you would- come down to the club with me sometimes and perhaps take me to a few of our old haunts.'
His face was a shuttered mask. 'As far as I am aware we don't have any old haunts. And I'm not a taxi service. If you want to go anywhere ask James, he's the chauffeur around here.'
'But I wanted you to take me,' she persisted. 'I haven't seen you in such a long time, Rafe,' she added softly. 'We have such a lot to talk------'
'We have nothing to talk about. Hazel,' he cut in ruthlessly. 'We didn't three years ago and we have even less now. You're a big girl now, I think you should find people of your own age to entertain you.’
'But I------'
'No, Hazel,' he said firmly.
'You don't have the time for me, is that it?' she demanded in a choked voice.
'Something like that,' he nodded.
'Something like that!' she scoffed. 'Why don't you just come right out and say it and get it over with. Oh, I wish to heaven I'd never come back here! I wish I'd stayed in America. I had a life there, I had friends. And I had Josh.'
'Josh Richardson?' Rafe asked sharply.
Her head flicked back defiantly and she gave a triumphant smile. 'That's right.'
'So you did meet him,' he said softly.
'Oh yes, we met.' She deliberately implied more than had actually been between them. Compared to Rafe, Josh meant nothing to her.
'I see. So you lied when you said no one was upset by your return here.'
Hazel glared at him with dislike, angry with him for picking her up on her taunt. ‘I didn't lie at all. Oh, stop it, Rafe, stop trying to pick an argument with me!'
'I'm not arguing with you, Hazel. And if you want to leave, then leave. I was surprised you came back here at all. There was no letter to say why you were coming home, just that telegram informing us of your arrival time. It came as something of a surprise. I expected you to be pregnant at least, the haste with which you arrived.' His eyes flickered scathingly over her slender body. 'But I can see it isn't that.’
Damn Celia and her deviousness in getting her to come here seemingly uninvited! But that didn't give Rafe the right to be so insulting. 'How do you know that? It doesn't usually show until well into the third or fourth month.'
'Well, are you?'
She faced him haughtily. 'I could be,' she lied. Permissiveness had never been a part of her life, although most men seemed to expect a physical relationship nowadays.
'And would it be Josh's baby?'
'It could be.'
'But you couldn't be sure. Would he marry you if you were?'
He was actually taking her seriously! Just what sort of girl did he think she had become in the last three years? 'Going on past record I would say no.'
'He does this sort of thing often, then?' he asked sneeringly.
Hazel frowned. 'What sort of thing?'
'Gets girls pregnant and then refuses to take responsibility for it.'
She was sickened by this conversation, sickened and disheartened too. If Rafe could talk so disinterestedly about her being made pregnant by another man he couldn't give a damn about her himself. 'I'm not pregnant, Rafe,' she said with a sigh. How could she be when no man had ever attracted her enough for her to give herself to him freely? Except one man, a man who was cold and indifferent to her!
His look was scathing. 'Are you sure?'
'Yes, I damn------'
Sara put her head around the door. 'Lunch is ready when you are.'
'I'm not hungry,' Hazel choked, brushing past the housekeeper as she ran out of the room. 'I'm sorry, Sara. Excuse me.'
Her bedroom door was thrust open angrily just as she
had closed it. She stared at Rafe with apprehensive eyes. He must have followed her immediately she left I the room and she could only imagine Sara's surprise at their behaviour.
'What did you do that for?' he demanded arrogantly.
'You know why,' she replied moodily.
'No, I don't.'
'Because you accused me—you accused me of being —permissive.'
'I did no such thing. I just asked your reason for coming back here—a question you haven't answered, incidentally. You were the one who persisted in the pregnancy idea,' he reminded her infuriatingly.
Out of a childish desire to see if such a thing would anger or annoy him. But it hadn't done either of those things, if anything she was the one to feel those emotions. 'Well, let's just forget it, it isn't even a possibility. As for my coming back, you told me I only had three years and then you wanted me home.'
'You still had three months left to go,' he said shortly.
'I'm so sorry I came back three months early!' she snapped. 'I'll leave again if that's what you want.'
Rafe slowly looked her up and down, making her fidget uncomfortably under the intensity of that look. 'There's no point to that now. And I think I've more than proved that I need a secretary.'
'Is that all I am to you, a secretary?'
He raised dark eyebrows at her unmistakable aggression. 'What do you think?'
'I think I could leave here right now and you wouldn't give a damn.'
His face was bleak, his half-closed lids shielding the expression in his eyes. 'You can have no conception of how I feel.'
Hazel's eyes darkened at the loneliness expressed in those few words. 'Then tell me, Rafe. Talk to me,' she pleaded.
'We said all we had to say three years ago. Your lunch is waiting for you.' He opened the door. 'Don't keep Sara waiting.'
She turned away. 'I said I'm not hungry.'
'Then go without. You're only punishing yourself by sulking up here in your room. I couldn't give a damn if you eat or not.'
She walked out on to the balcony, not bothering to witness his exit. She had to get away from here for a few hours, away from Rafe. The obvious choice was the cabin, her own private sanctuary. Yes, that was what she would do.
A new excitement entered her as she quietly left the house, a feeling of being able to do something without fear of being reprimanded. The cabin was hers, no one could dispute that, and she could do what she wanted in there.
Although in good condition the cabin could still do with a spring-clean and the mattress brought outside in the sunshine to air. The whole place needed fresh air, and opening all the windows and throwing open the door Hazel began to sweep the whole place out. The work was soothing to her nerves, just the kind of therapy she needed after the last couple of days. Life had never been easy at Savage House, but it could never be called dull either, she had to admit that But she didn't need this living on a knife's edge any more. She had stood it for eight years and didn't have to put up with it any longer.
But she didn't want to leave; it had been a wrench the last time and she didn't think she could do it again. She shook her head. She wouldn't even think about leaving, not until Rafe ordered her to go.
Within a couple of hours the cabin was clean and liveable in. Hazel was also starving hungry, the grumblings of her stomach told her so. So much for her obstinacy earlier on! She sneaked back to the kitchen at the house, smiling beguilingly at Sara.
'So you've calmed down now, have you?' Sara sniffed disapprovingly. 'Running out of the study like that! You put Mr Rafe in a rare old temper.'
Hazel picked up one of the still warm cakes that stood on one of the worktops. 'I did?' She opened innocent eyes.
Sara tapped her hand as she made to pick up another cake. 'Stop picking, I'll get you something more substantial to eat. You should have had your lunch when it was ready for you. Mr Rafe hardly spoke a word throughout the meal.'
Hazel made herself comfortable on one of the kitchen stools. 'Well, he could hardly talk to himself, Sara.'
'He wasn't alone. Miss Celia was there.'
She was really glad now that she hadn't stayed in for lunch. She ate the meal Sara prepared for her in thoughtful silence. She had no idea what she was going to wear for her date with Carl this evening. She wasn't even sure she wanted to go now, but she couldn't let Trisha down. After all, they were double-dating.
