„OK! Well, anybody who flashes an impressive business card and makes vague promises about being able to help him financially at some point in the future! You know what I mean! You have to leave. Now. Frankie could get back at any minute…‟

„I‟m beginning to think that you‟re scared of this boyfriend of yours.‟ She certainly wasn‟t in love with him. Not if she had responded to him the way she had. He had spent the past week at the mercy of a thousand thoughts about her, angry with himself for being taken in, furious because he still couldn‟t seem to get her out of his head and finally harshly reasoning that he was completely justified in doing his utmost to seduce her, considering she had strung him along.

„Does he hit you?‟ Dominic asked without taking his eyes off her face.

„Don‟t be ridiculous! Of course he doesn‟t hit me! Do you think I would ever stay put with a man who raised his hand to me?‟

„Then what are you doing with him, because you sure as hell don‟t love him?‟

„And you just know that, do you? After a couple of conversations with me, you‟re suddenly qualified to make conclusions about my personal life, are you?‟

The brooding intensity of his stare was shattering her composure as utterly as he had managed to shatter it a week ago when he had touched her.

He began walking towards her very slowly and Mattie backed away, then remembered that he was in her territory now, and uninvited, and stood her ground until he was standing right in front of her with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.

„Got it in one. So tell me what you‟re doing here with a man you don‟t love when you‟d much rather be with me.‟

„You‟re an arrogant swine! You know that, don‟t you?‟

„Yes, but I still like to hear you say it.‟ His expression didn‟t change but there was a sudden ironic humour in his voice that had the ground beneath her feet shifting once again.

She sighed dramatically and gave up.

„I‟ll make you your coffee and then you go. Deal?‟

„No. But I accept the offer of the coffee anyway…‟

He followed her back into the tiny hallway and out through it into the kitchen. Mattie could feel him just there behind her, a dark, overpowering presence that was sending her nervous system into fierce overdrive.

She had grown quite accustomed to the house. Now, though, she was seeing it through his eyes. He‟d probably never been inside a place as small and unkempt as this one. A lifetime of wealth would have protected him from ever getting too close up and personal with this particular vision of reality.

And the kitchen wouldn‟t improve his ideas either.

At first, when she and Frankie had moved in, she had felt some enthusiasm to do something with the place. After all, it wasn‟t as though they were renting. The house had belonged to his parents, an ex-council house that had suffered from lack of essential home improvements. But life just seemed to get in the way of her good intentions. First there was Frankie, slumped in depression after his mother faded away in a hospital from lung cancer, leaving him the house and the memories but unfortunately no siblings with which to share the burden of her passing away. Then his own accident and his sharp spiral downwards. Not to mention her own time spent juggling jobs and study.

Who had time for stripping walls and plastering over cracks?

She held her head up high as she walked into the kitchen, switching on the kettle and reaching for a couple of mugs before finally turning to look at him.

„I can see what you‟re thinking. There‟s no need to make it so obvious.‟ Mattie folded her arms protectively and tried to insinuate a bit of distance between them, which was nigh on impossible because of the dimensions of the room.

„What am I thinking?‟ Dominic perched against one of the counters and gave her a long, measured look.

„You‟re thinking what a dump I live in.‟ The kettle was boiling. She spun around and began making the coffee, but her hands were trembling.

„Why don‟t you move out?‟ Big question and, if she but knew it, she might have guessed that he wasn‟t just referring to the house but to the man she shared it with.

Thinking about him was enough to make Dominic clench his fists in jealousy. Primitive, green-eyed, monstrous jealousy. An emotion he had never succumbed to in his entire life and one which left him shaken and confused. As emotions went, confusion didn‟t do it for him.

„Take one guess, why don‟t you? Here‟s your coffee.‟ She moved to sit on one of the pine chairs at the small kitchen table. „You can sit if you want.‟

„The money? Is that why you stay here?‟

„We don‟t pay rent for this. It was Frankie‟s parents‟. His father died when he was twelve and his mother left it to him when she died a few years ago.‟

Dominic sat down facing her. He wanted her to tell him everything, why she was here, why she had stayed here and not cleared off. What her relationship was with the boy. It sure as hell wasn‟t love because this house did not speak of love. No homely touches. No pictures of the two of them cluttering the surfaces. Nothing that seemed to have been bought with joint effort and affection.

Or so he told himself.

The alternative was that he had chased a woman who had a boyfriend, saw him as a nuisance and wanted him out of her life without further ado.

Pride fought against something else…whatever emotion it was that had driven him to come here tonight.

„When did you hand in your final paper?‟ he asked abruptly, surprising her with the change of subject, and Mattie allowed herself to relax a little bit.

„On Friday.‟

„I‟m surprised you‟re not out celebrating.‟

„On a Sunday?‟ No celebration. She had gone out to work as usual. Come home to an empty house and Frankie had not returned home until lunchtime the following day.

„You never told me where the boyfriend is.‟

„He‟s…he‟s out with some of his mates. At the local, I expect.‟ She looked away with a telltale flush.

„Spends a lot of time there, does he?‟

Mattie was horrified to find that tears had sprung up behind her eyes, and she tightened her jaw in an attempt to bite them back. She wouldn‟t cry. She had stopped crying a long time ago and she wasn‟t going to let this man get to her like this.

„You don‟t understand.‟ She took a few deep breaths and managed to get control of herself once again. Enough for her to raise her eyes to his although the unexpected gentleness of his expression was almost her undoing. „It‟s all right for you. You‟ve never known what it‟s like to open your eyes and know that each day is going to be a struggle. Sometimes it‟s easy just to give up and take the simplest road to dealing with things, which is usually the road leading to the nearest pub.‟