MacAllister's Baby (4 page)

If she had to think about an order like that, it was because it wasn’t what she really wanted.

‘Luciano,’ Angus called to the old man behind the bar, ‘
un cappuccino, per favore.
So,’ he said, sitting down across from Elisabeth, ‘I didn’t bring MacNugget with me today. What do you think we should talk about?’

Her forehead creased more. ‘Thank you, but I didn’t want a cappuccino.’

‘Coming to Luciano’s and ordering filter coffee is like going to the Louvre and asking for a comic book,’ Angus said. ‘A comic book is fine, but you’re missing the Mona Lisa. Trust me. You want a cappuccino.’

She stood. ‘I’ll just change my order. Excuse me.’

As she passed him Angus stood and touched her arm. This time, he heard her sharp intake of breath and knew that she was as affected as he was by the contact.

‘Elisabeth,’ he said, keeping his voice low, feeling how close she was, ‘Luciano makes espresso that tastes like velvet and feels like a freight train. For a cappuccino, he adds hot frothy milk and tops it with chocolate that tastes like a sweet, gentle kiss.’

She was frozen to the spot, her eyes as dark and rich as the espresso he’d been talking of. Their pupils were wide.

She smelled of caramel and oranges. Her lips would taste better than any cappuccino. It was only the two of them in the crowded café. Her body was graceful and still, mere inches from his, her face tilted up towards him.

Angus couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. Just the feeling of her arm, the scent and warmth of her and the word ‘kiss’ in his mouth, and his blood was pounding, his groin tightening. It wasn’t difficult to turn Angus on. But so quickly, with barely a touch…

Absolutely brilliant.

‘Come on, Elisabeth,’ he murmured. ‘Trust me.’

And just like that the spell was broken. She blinked and pulled her arm out of his grasp. ‘Excuse me,’ she said again, her voice a tiny bit breathy, so slight he would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it.

Angus watched her walk to the counter. Her posture was straight, her hips swaying slightly as she moved.

The woman was stubborn and she had wonderful self-control. Her will was probably as iron-strong as his.

He liked her a lot.

Of course, she didn’t seem to like him.

But Angus wasn’t worried about that. He was good at making people like him. It was a skill you picked up fast when you were abandoned at boarding-school at six years old.

He’d perfected the skill in every wretched expensive boarding-school he’d been sent to for the next ten years, every busy exciting kitchen he’d worked in after that. Work hard at what you’re good at, and make people like you. It was the only way to survive.

She came back with a filter coffee and a cappuccino, which she set down in front of him. ‘Since you ordered it I thought you’d probably like it,’ she said, sitting again.

Angus threw back his head and laughed. ‘Well done, Miss Read. I like it when a woman can put me in my place.’ He raised the frothy cappuccino in a toast to her. ‘Here’s to skim milk.’

At that, she cracked a smile. Not much of one, but to Angus it was a prize, the first and smallest of victories.

‘You’re Canadian?’ he said, thinking it was about time he risked a personal question.

‘My parents are naturalised Canadians. I was brought up in Canada. I’m British now.’ It was said with a firmness that declared the subject closed. ‘And please don’t make the comment about a person from Canada teaching English.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Elisabeth Read’s defences were well rehearsed. He wondered why she’d chosen to work with him.

He took a sip of his cappuccino. It was as good as he’d said it was. As he licked off the foam that clung to his lip he saw her eyes dip to his mouth. Then her own lovely mouth compressed and she looked back at her own coffee. She was attracted to him, and she was determined not to be. He had a feeling she wanted the cappuccino, too. Intriguing.

‘So we’re going to be working together,’ he said. ‘Are you interested in cooking?’

‘No, I’m interested in children. Joanna Graham asked me to help with this competition because we want Jennifer and Danny to benefit from it just as much as you do.’

He smiled and settled back in his chair. ‘I see. You don’t trust me with the children.’

‘I’m sure you’re a consummate professional, Mr MacAllister. But these children have particular needs that must be addressed, and I’m not sure that your publicity campaign will take those into account.’

What about your needs, Elisabeth?
‘Please call me Angus.’

‘Angus, then. May I speak confidentially, with the understanding that this won’t be picked up by your publicist or the press?’

‘Of course.’

She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward towards him. Her arms were long and slender, and he could see the delicate knobs of her wrists. He loved that part of a woman, so fragile and flexible, near where the pulse beat, as erotic as the soft hollow underneath her ears, or the curve of her belly.

He had the feeling Elisabeth had erotic places he’d never even imagined before.

‘Jennifer and Danny are both vulnerable children who are having trouble in school. We want them to participate in this contest to build their self-esteem and to give them some hope that they can succeed in something after they’ve finished their exams next year. But they’re both going to be difficult to help, for different reasons. Jennifer is withdrawn, and Danny reacts to authority with aggression. When they’re confronted with anything difficult, Jennifer is likely to give up trying right away and Danny usually resorts to destructive attention-seeking.’

And just like that, talking about her students, Elisabeth Read had transformed from the controlled, cold woman she’d been a moment ago. Her movements were looser, earnest, her hands punctuating her points. She met his eye, and kept it.

She really did care about these kids, passionately.

‘All the tests show that Jennifer is an intelligent girl,’ she continued, ‘but she’s so afraid of social contact that she finds it impossible to succeed at schoolwork. I’ve taught her for two years and have hardly heard more than two sentences out of her. She doesn’t appear to have any friends.

‘Danny, on the other hand, has a lot of friends, and all of them are troublemakers. He has some learning difficulties and this made him the target of bullies when he first came to the school. So he joined them. He’s failing all of his subjects.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘They’re both going to need careful handling if we’re going to succeed with them. But Joanna Graham and I both believe that this contest could make a big difference in their lives.’

Angus forgot about his coffee. He understood now why he had the hots for this teacher. It wasn’t only her beauty, her will, her straight-backed grace. It was this passion bubbling under her controlled surface. Passion that, right now, was directed at her students’ welfare.

He knew a lot of people who were passionate about food, or about fame. It had been a long time since he had met somebody who was passionate about people. He wasn’t sure if he ever had.

And having learned this about Elisabeth, he could imagine her passion directed at other things. Him, for example.

Angus MacAllister was staring at her.

He’d been looking at her before; he’d been flirting with her. But now he was downright staring.

All of the ease she’d rediscovered while she was talking about her pupils left her, and Elisabeth felt like she had fifteen minutes ago, when he’d touched her. Powerless in the face of her yearning. Barely able to breathe.

She fought to regain the thread of what she’d been saying. She’d been talking about the kids. Why would he stare at her like that when she was talking about students he didn’t even know? It wasn’t as if what she was saying could matter to him.

‘Excuse me, but aren’t you Angus MacAllister?’

The interruption broke the spell she was under, and Elisabeth looked up to see a middle-aged woman standing next to their table. She was smiling nervously at Angus.

‘Yes, hello,’ Angus said, rising and offering his hand to the woman.

‘I’m such a big fan of yours,’ said the woman, blushing as she shook his hand. ‘I had to come over and say hello.’

‘Thank you.’ He was beaming at her, and Elisabeth noticed that he appeared to be one-hundred-per-cent sincere, despite the fact that a second ago he’d been giving Elisabeth all of his attention. ‘That’s kind of you. I appreciate it. What’s your name?’

‘Helen.’ The woman was clearly delighted at his attention.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Helen. Are you enjoying Luciano’s coffee as much as I am?’

Elisabeth watched him charm the woman, chat with her, ask her questions about herself, accept her compliments with cheerful grace. So this was what it was like to be famous. You had to suffer interruptions, invasions of privacy, and appear to love it.

Then again, he probably did love it, she thought as Angus asked Luciano for a pen to sign the paper napkin the woman asked him to autograph. Personally, she couldn’t imagine anything worse. Growing up surrounded by people, in shared houses and hippy communes across the breadth of Canada, she’d learned to guard her privacy, hoard every inch of personal space, treasure the times she could choose whom to share her thoughts with.

She understood the need to have a public persona—that was what you did in the classroom, after all. But if you had to be in public all the time, how on earth could you tell who you really were? How could you feel secure over your own life if you let other people have access to it whenever they wanted?

Maybe you became your public persona, your famous self. She wouldn’t have been surprised if that was what Robin was like all the time these days, for example.

Angus shook the woman’s hand again, and she went back to her table as he took his seat. ‘Sorry about that.’ He grinned at Elisabeth. ‘Hazard of the profession.’

And he’d dealt with it as if it were as easy and natural as breathing.

‘This is one of the things I wanted to talk with you about,’ she said. ‘Jennifer and Danny are vulnerable enough without being made the focus of national press attention. We will not allow their names or images to be used for publicity without the permission of their parents and the school. This permission may never be granted. If you talk about what you’re doing with the press, you’ll have to respect their need for anonymity.’

Angus frowned.

‘Of course.’ For the first time since she’d met him, his voice betrayed some other emotion than cheerful self-confidence. He almost sounded angry. She supposed it must be a shock for him to hear her laying down the law, after Helen’s adoration.

‘I’ve agreed to the school’s conditions, and I’ll respect them,’ he said.

‘Good.’ Elisabeth finished her coffee and stood, putting her cup back on its saucer. ‘I know you’re a busy man, Mr MacAllister, so I’ll let you get back to your work. I’m glad we had this chance to talk and that we understand each other.’

Though as she said it, she knew she was being as insincere as he must have been when he’d talked with his fan. She and Angus MacAllister came from two different worlds. They didn’t understand each other, and they never would.

CHAPTER THREE

H
ER
palms were sweating, her knees felt shaky, and her stomach was doing rapid rollovers.

It was silly. Elisabeth didn’t know why she was feeling so nervous. She’d made it through most of the pivotal moments of her life without getting all knock-kneed: her valedictorian speech at high school, her interview for her scholarship to Cambridge, moving to England by herself at age eighteen, standing in front of a classroom for the first time. She was usually level-headed and clear-thinking and her stomach did not usually try to climb out of her throat.

As she walked from her classroom towards Reception, where she was going to meet Angus and sign him into school for his first lesson with Jennifer and Danny, a tiny traitorous voice spoke in her head.

You have felt this way before, you know. This is exactly the way you felt before your first date with Robin, nearly three years ago.

Elisabeth pushed the voice aside and wiped her hands on her skirt, which was slim-fitting and which she
hadn’t
chosen because she was going to see Angus today.

Just as she hadn’t been thinking about seeing him again ever since their meeting in the café yesterday. Just as late last night she hadn’t lain in bed alone and thought about what she would do if Angus walked in, miraculously, like an answer to a dream, and climbed in with her. His long, hard body beside hers; his voice, low and throaty, as it had been in the café when he’d told her to trust him about the coffee. And his hands.

Yeah. She hadn’t thought about it at all.

Had she been this obsessive about Robin? Since the awful ending to their affair, she’d done her best not to think about it. But the scary truth was that, actually, she suspected she probably hadn’t even thought about Robin this much.

She rounded the corner to the reception area and there he was, chatting with the receptionist. Harjeet was clearly starstruck; she gazed up at Angus adoringly as he said something.

Nothing new for Angus MacAllister. The way he acted, he expected every woman to worship him. She wiped her hands on her skirt one more time and stepped forward.

‘Elisabeth.’ She was no sooner in the room than Angus stood in front of her, his hand around hers, his grey eyes and his scent and his warmth and tallness overwhelming her again.

‘Nice to see you, Angus,’ she said, although it wasn’t nice to see him. It was wonderful and terrible.

‘It’s brilliant to see you, Elisabeth.’ Her name on his tongue was like a caress. ‘Where are the kids? I’m eager to meet them.’

Uh-huh. And she was the Faerie Queene. He was eager to start his publicity push, more like it.

‘They’ll be in the food technology room in a few minutes,’ she said, keeping her tone friendly while she went through the sign-in formalities and got him a visitor’s badge. Harjeet, she noticed, never once took her eyes off the chef.