He had run into an immovable object, but he hadn’t got hurt. Not Blaize Callagan. He had sidestepped it, waiting for all the cards to fall, until there was only one possible play left. The ultimate finesse was in bluffing his opposite number into laying down the losing card for Blaize Callagan to win.
Tessa had known he was the top gun, but now she knew why. She had known he was out of her league, and that knowledge was now confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt. She might amuse him, surprise him on a very minor level and even stamp a pleasant memory into some tiny corner of his mind, but that was as far as it could ever go.
For a permanent relationship, Blaize Callagan would naturally choose a complementary top gun... like Candice. A secretary was just a secretary. But Tessa was glad she had had this encounter with him. A man like Blaize Callagan would certainly never come her way again. In a way, she felt privileged to have been given the opportunity to share a little drop of life with him.
And it wasn’t over yet.
Maybe tonight...
Then again, maybe not.
He wasn’t feeling tense any more. He had won.
He shared his victory with his colleagues, several of whom accompanied them to the cottage for further discussion on the new development. Tessa was not required to take notes. She fulfilled the role of hostess, seeing that drinks were refilled when required.
Dinner was a very relaxed affair, bonhomie flowing as freely as the wine. Blaize Callagan was riding a high. Tessa suspected that no woman—however close— could give him the charge he got from pulling off the kind of deal he had stage-managed today. It surprised her that he did not prolong their time at the dinner table beyond the serving of coffee. Nor did he invite anyone to the cottage with them. They set off alone.
He looked at the sky as though making an exhaustive study of it. “It’s a fine night, Stockton,” he remarked. “The stars shine more brightly here in this country than anywhere else in the world.”
“Yes, sir. And congratulations on your success today, sir,” she said with complete sincerity. “Your star is really in the ascendant at the present moment.”
“Ah, there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip, Stockton. It’s not all tied up with pretty bows yet.”
“You’re well on your way, sir. And you do have some bows to tie.”
“We got lucky, Stockton. That was all. We got lucky.”
She slid him a mocking look. “Like being up half the night working on your strategy and ideas so you could get lucky?”
“It helps, Stockton. No more than that. Though as a general rule, I’ve found that the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Silence. It felt like a companionable silence. The dim lights from the grounds, the moon above... It would be very easy to dream hopeless dreams, Tessa thought. A hand brushing hers, taking it, holding it firmly. It kicked her pulse into overtime and gave her the courage to ask what curiosity prompted.
“What does it feel like...” She hesitated, searching for the right words.
“Well?” he prompted.
“When you bring off a coup like you did today, how do you feel?”
The pressure on her hand increased violently. He gave a derisive snort. His mouth curled with a savage irony she didn’t understand. No answer was immediately forthcoming. He looked at the stars again, and his profile was sharply etched. Tessa had the impression of a man in angry defiance of the universe that beamed down on him. The silence went on. Tessa wished she hadn’t asked. It had seemed a simple question, yet clearly he was having some difficulty in answering it.
When he did speak, his voice was low and husky. Tessa had to listen carefully to hear the words. “At first there is the elation and the triumph...”
“I can understand that,” she encouraged.
“Which is quickly followed by a kind of flat feeling, hard to describe...perhaps emptiness.”
That surprised Tessa. “Why?”
“I guess it’s the journey that’s important, not achieving the goal.” His sigh held a weary disillusionment. “I’ve been to that particular well and drunk its waters so many times. Now it seems to be such a charade. What else is there left to do? Make deals bigger and bigger?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “People think it important that I do it, but sometimes I wonder. I wonder if there isn’t something more, something that I’ve left behind.”
Tessa pondered that. Had she been too hasty with Grant Durham? If the journey was more important than the goal, maybe she should consider forgiveness. Maybe what had happened was an expression of something gone wrong that needed to be put right. Perhaps it was all part of the learning curve between two people. They had come so far...
Then the image of that overblown floozy with her big melons billowed across Tessa’s mind. No, that wasn’t part of the learning curve, she decided savagely. No forgiveness. The end. Finis!
“What’s wrong, Stockton?”
“Sir?”
“You’re nearly twisting my fingers off.”
“Sorry, sir.”
She instantly relaxed her grip and would have pulled her hand away except that he held on. His fingers began stroking over hers in a soothing motion that didn’t really soothe. It reminded her how sensual his fingers could be. However wicked and wanton it was, she couldn’t help hoping that he would feel a need for her tonight.
“What’s on your mind, Stockton?”
She couldn’t tell him that. It was tantamount to asking. Definitely against the rules, Tessa decided. An encounter should just happen. One didn’t ask for it.
“I was thinking about what you said.” Which was certainly true.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” She had never really felt this kind of desire before. It was very distracting.
He slid her a sardonic look. “What’s a man supposed to do with his life, Stockton? Give me the benefit of your wisdom and insight.”
His voice was mocking and sarcastic. Tessa didn’t like that. She might be a lightweight compared to Blaize Callagan, but her life was just as important to her as his was to him. “I doubt that you’re ready for the answer yet, sir,” she said loftily. “A few more years of preparation perhaps...”
“Don’t be patronising, Stockton,” he said irritably. “It doesn’t become you.”
It didn’t become him, either, she thought with a jab of resentment. He might be godlike in a lot of respects, but that didn’t mean other people shouldn’t be given their share of worth and respect.