Avoiding Mr Right. Sophie Weston
you some money to cover tonight’s lodging.’
Christina looked at him levelly. ‘Lend? You mean give, don’t you, if we’re not going to meet again?’
Luc stared at her, his brows twitching together. He said something explosive under his breath. It did not sound polite. ‘I can afford it.’
‘Ah, but can I?’ she retorted.
His look was quizzical suddenly. ‘No strings.’
Christina’s heart missed a beat. She shook her head decisively. ‘Thank you, no. I should be able to crash on someone’s floor tonight. It won’t take long to get a job. I’ll ask around the waterfront cafés tonight.’
He said quickly, ‘Think of me as a brother. I would hope someone would do as much for my sister—or my niece when she’s older.’
Christina looked at him levelly. ‘I don’t feel like your sister. Or your nice.’
A little flame leaped into his eyes. She saw that she had made a mistake. She pushed her coffee-cup away from her and stood up quickly.
‘I’m grateful for the offer, truly I am. But when I set out on my own I promised myself I’d pay my bills as I went. I always do. So, thank you, but no.’ She held out her hand. ‘It’s been interesting meeting you. Have a nice life.’
He stood up as well. His face was thunderous suddenly. If she had been his employee she would have quailed at that expression, she thought. She was grateful that she did not work for him.
Luc’s face darkened. He flicked open his wallet and pulled out a thick sandwich of notes.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said curtly. ‘Take the money.’
The man at the next table did not know where to look. Out of the corner of her eye Christina caught his expression—half wretchedly embarrassed, half fascinated. She found that she sympathised with him. Luc Henri clearly was sublimely unaware of the scene he was making, or did not care what people thought of him. In contrast, the poor man at the next table was acutely aware of both. It made her all the more furious with Luc Henri.
She leaned forward across the table, glaring. ‘Try listening. I am not your sister,’ she hissed.
‘If you were I would have drilled some sense into you by now,’ Luc Henri flung back between his teeth. He was clearly in a right royal rage and saw no reason to curb his temper.
‘You don’t surprise me in the least,’ Christina said with poisonous sweetness. ‘“sense” being anything that agrees with you, I take it?’
He drew an angry breath. Then, even as she watched him, she saw him catch hold of his retort and wrestle it down like a man struggling with a wild animal. He closed his lips tight on whatever it was he had been going to say.
‘You are an education, Miss Howard. My powers of argument seem to be deserting me,’ he said thinly at last. ‘Please be sensible...’
Christina stood her ground. ‘Don’t patronise me,’ she said quietly.
They stood sizing each other up over the table like duellists. Then he smiled. It was not one of his dazzling smiles. It was more like an insult.
‘You needn’t worry that I’d expect payment in kind,’ Luc Henri drawled. ‘Women come to me of their own free will.’
The man at the next table gasped. So did Christina. She felt her face flame. It did not sweeten her temper one iota. But it made her forget briefly that they were in a public place and that, unlike her arrogant opponent, she minded making a spectacle of herself. The anger coursed through her like a forest fire, but she wiped the expression off her face and gave him her most demure smile.
Leaning forward, she twitched the notes out of his hand. The man at the next table shuddered and backed his chair away with a scream of steel-tipped legs across the concrete.
Luc Henri’s eyes had narrowed to slits.
‘Not me,’ Christina said gently.
The narrowed eyes dared her, blatantly. Christina smiled. She stepped back and, with a quick little movement, tossed the notes high, high up into the air.
They were still falling on the startled patrons as she threaded her way between the tables and left.
CHAPTER TWO
CHRISTINA plunged along the street, her heart beating furiously. How dared he? Oh, how dared he? Interfering! Ordering her around! Lecturing her as if he were the head of the family and she a tiresome teenager! Pressing his money on her as if she were some scatterbrain who did not know where she was going to sleep tonight! As if he had the right!
Here her outraged musings brought her up short. The interfering Mr Luc Henri might not have any right to lecture her but there was no doubt that in one way he was right. She had not got anywhere to stay tonight. Christina grinned suddenly. She would end up on a bench in the bus station if she did not start making some calls right now.
In spite of Luc Henri’s patent scepticism, it was not difficult. Christina was a girl who took friendship seriously and people responded in kind.
Sue Stanley was waiting, the door already open by the time Christina arrived at the top of the steep stairs to her studio. They hugged. She yawned widely.
‘Oh, hell,’ said Christina in quick comprehension. ‘Night shift last night?’
She was a nurse. She nodded and led the way inside.
‘I’m sorry.’ Christina was remorseful. ‘I didn’t mean to get you out of bed.’
Sue chuckled. ‘Somebody has to. Mr Right still hasn’t put in an appearance.’ She hefted Christina’s bag squashily onto a rough wooden chair and led the way to the small kitchen. ‘What about you?’
Christina made a face. Her mother had spent half her life waiting for Mr Right to come and rescue her from the problems of everyday life. Meanwhile it had been her young daughter who had tried to manage their disorganised life, until her mother had died. The experience had given Christina a strong distaste even for joking about that mythical beast.
Sue knew her very well. She grinned. ‘No guy made a dint in the armour yet?’
‘And not likely to.’
Sue shook her head. ‘You’ll find out one day,’ she prophesied.
For no reason at all that she could think of, Luc Henri’s imperious face slipped into Christina’s mind. She remembered that odd, intent look in his eyes. Involuntarily she shivered a little. It was not an unpleasurable shiver.
That startled her. Luc Henri had nothing to do with her, she reminded herself. She would never see him again. She did not even want to see him again. Did she?
She said with less than her usual calm, ‘That’s nonsense and you know it.’
The balcony was a blaze of coral and scarlet geraniums in terracotta tubs. Sue led the way outside. Christina sank down onto the top step of the fire escape and looked round with pleasure.
She found Sue was looking at her measuringly. ‘Who is he?’
Christina stiffened faintly. ‘Who is who?’
She had first worked with Christina three years before on a boat attached to an archaeological expedition. All through the summer they had shared their confidences, their crises and their nail scissors. As a result they knew each other very well.
Now Sue was looking at her shrewdly. ‘Whoever kicked you out this morning.’
Christina relaxed again. ‘You’re on the wrong track, Sue. I came off a boat, that’s all. Then I found the bank wouldn’t let me have any cash until the weekend.’
She stared. ‘You? But you’re always so