Читать книгу Playing With Fire - Kat Black - Страница 8

Annabel awoke screaming, her wide-open eyes taking only a fraction of a second to register that something was wrong.

No light.

Only darkness. Shadows.

God, where was it – where was the light to stop the spectres of her dream closing in, to keep the dark shapes from looming? She yelped as the shadows above her moved … and then she screamed again when something touched her arm.

This time the nightmare was real.

She kicked and thrashed in terror and suddenly the shape recoiled.

‘Jesus! Annabel …’

She rolled onto her hands and knees, scrambled to the far side of the bed and half fell to the floor, ready to run.

‘Annabel. It’s all right.’

That voice – soft, gentle – made her pause.

‘It’s me, a mhuirnín. Aidan.’

Aidan? The mad swirl of adrenalin and fear made it impossible to pin the word to a coherent thought.

The shadowy figure moved to the bedside. With a click, light flooded the room and Annabel’s knees nearly gave out with relief. Tall and lean, his black hair mussed around his handsome face, it was Aidan. Of course – he’d brought her home after work, asked to stay the night after they’d jumped on each other like rampant rabbits.

Shaking, she reached for the bed and sat down heavily before she fell down. ‘Why the hell did you turn off the lights?’

After a short pause, she heard him move around the bed behind her. ‘You were sleeping,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they were supposed to be kept on.’

God, what must he think she sounded like? A scared child afraid of the dark. Pathetic. She leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. ‘It doesn’t matter. It was just a bad dream.’

She sensed him coming to stop beside her. ‘It was that all right,’ he said softly. ‘Get back under the covers now before you get cold.’

Raising her head from her hands, she noticed that goosebumps were already springing up on her arms and legs. She guessed running around stark naked in the middle of a February night in England would do that. Casting a glance at Aidan she found he was also naked, although he showed no signs of feeling the cold; not surprising when he always radiated such warmth.

She’d had her first real reminder of that warmth earlier, when he’d eventually pulled from her body, turned on her bedside light and undressed them both. After tucking her under the covers, he’d climbed in the opposite side of the bed and settled her against the bare skin of his chest, stroking her hair. She couldn’t recall much more after that. The enveloping heat and soothing caress must have carried her straight off to sleep.

Well, she didn’t feel warm or sleepy now. And she really didn’t like having someone in her private space, witnessing her humiliating loss of composure.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Aidan advanced, hands reaching for her. ‘Anything I can get you?’

Rather than be herded back into bed, she jumped to her feet instead. ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. And she would be, as soon as she’d had some time alone to get her shit together. ‘I, ah … need the loo.’

She detoured around him to pick up her robe and, although he said nothing further, she could feel his gaze following her. Knowing how perceptive it was, how easily it could see beneath the surface, she kept her face averted, concentrating on tying her robe as she headed for the hallway. She didn’t want to be read. Not now. ‘Don’t wait up.’

She locked herself in her tiny bathroom, sat on the toilet lid, let out a long breath and closed her eyes. She had no idea what the time was, but the grit of tiredness behind her lids told her that she hadn’t been asleep all that long. The one thing she did know about her new nocturnal pattern was that, regardless of the hour, now she was awake – that was it. No more sleep tonight.

As though in protest, her body let out a huge yawn while she wondered what to do about the situation. If she was on her own she’d hunker down on the sofa and lose the rest of the night to bad TV. But what was she supposed to do with Aidan here? Insist the light was kept on and then lie awkwardly awake beside him all night? Not that things would be that easy. Not with Aidan Flynn. He’d want to go all Spanish Inquisition on her and find out what was wrong.

But there was nothing wrong. She was fine. It wasn’t like anybody had control over what they dreamed, was it?

She almost wished she’d refused his request to stay the night. When he’d asked, she’d been senseless enough from their mad-bunny sex to let the excitement of novelty outweigh her natural resistance. She’d never had a man share her bed for the night before, had never invited one back to her place. In the past she’d always gone to them, and now she remembered why she’d lived by that rule – so that she could simply leave whenever she wanted instead of finding herself locked in her own bathroom in the middle of the night. She wondered how long it would take Aidan to fall back to sleep.

Letting out a sigh, she figured she might as well make use of the facilities to pass some time. She relieved herself and gave her hands a good wash, trying out the comprehensive, NHS-approved technique she’d seen promoted on posters at the hospital. During the rigorous cleansing, she noticed that her nails were getting a bit long. After she’d dried, she gave them a trim and file, and, as she was putting the clippers back in the cabinet, decided she might as well brush her teeth while she was at it. Teeth clean and flossed, she closed the cabinet and caught sight of her tangled hair in the mirrored door. She combed it through carefully, put it up in a loose twist and inspected the results in the mirror. Much better … except for the mascara smudged under her eyes. As she fixed that up, she was aware of the skin on her hands beginning to pull unpleasantly tight from all the soap she’d used, so she moved on to applying hand cream. Once that was thoroughly rubbed in, she decided that enough was enough. She couldn’t, wouldn’t spend the night held hostage in her own bathroom.

She turned the lock and switched off the light before very slowly and very quietly opening the door. She hadn’t a clue how much time she’d wasted, but hopefully enough that Aidan would have drifted off again. Putting her eye to the crack, she saw a soft glow spilling from the bedroom, indicating that the bedside lamp was still on. Trying to keep her breathing as quiet as possible, she strained to hear the smallest noise. After a long minute of silence, she decided it was safe to venture out.

Heading in the opposite direction from the bedroom, she crept along to the sitting room. Entering, she pushed the door carefully to behind her and used the ambient light coming in through the window to pick her way across the room to switch on a lamp. Mindful of making too much noise, she started looking for the remote before turning on the TV so she could mute the sound.

Could she find the damn thing in the half-light? Could she hell. It wasn’t on the coffee table. Or the sofa. Nowhere on either of the armchairs. Or the TV stand.

Muttering to it to show itself, she conducted a quick search of the bookcase. No luck there either. Straightening, she turned towards the sofa again, only to stop short at the sight of the door, now wide open and showing Aidan – very much awake and dressed in jeans and jersey – leaning against the jamb.

Arms crossed over his chest, he watched her. ‘How long have these nightmares been going on?’

Flustered, she deflected the question with one of her own. ‘What do you think you’re doing, sneaking around in the dark?’

Calmly, he unfolded one arm and reached to flick on the overhead light so that the room was suddenly as bright as day, leaving her squinting. ‘How long, Annabel?’ he persisted softly.

Shrugging, she muttered something non-committal and turned to continue her search for the remote, making it clear she didn’t want to talk about it.

From the corner of her eye she saw him straighten from the doorway and come into the room. ‘Are they always that bad?’

That bad? Mostly they were worse. ‘They’re just dreams,’ she sighed.

‘Dreams about the attack, that much was obvious from your shouts. I remember you had a couple when you came to stay with me from the hospital.’

Admitting defeat in her hunt for the remote, she flopped down on the sofa. If Aidan wasn’t going to take her hints, she’d have to state the obvious for him. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

He came to sit beside her, reached out and tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. She was relieved to see him nod. ‘As long as you’re talking to someone.’

Aware of something hard sticking into her behind, Annabel shifted. Reaching under the cushion she found the remote. Typical.

Aiming it at the TV, she was ready to hit the on button when Aidan said, ‘Annabel?’

She glanced at him to find he was looking at her expectantly.

‘Are you?’ he prompted.

She blinked at him. ‘Am I what?’

He let out a slow, audible breath. ‘Are you talking about the dreams with your counsellor, or therapist, or whoever it is you’ve been seeing?’

She gave a short laugh. Therapist? Counsellor? What was he on about? Was he sleep-talking? ‘I’m not seeing a counsellor.’

His brow furrowed as though that troubled him somehow. ‘Maybe you should think about going again?’

‘Again?’ She felt her own brows join the party. ‘I’ve never seen anyone like that in my life.’

Now he gave her an incredulous stare. ‘You didn’t take up the offer of Victim Support?’

‘What?’

‘What do you mean, “What?”?’ Those pale-grey eyes continued to stare. ‘The support service the police spoke about referring you to. At the hospital. After the attack.’

Oh, that. She recalled someone getting in contact after she’d agreed to follow it up as a means to get Aidan to stop harping on it. To say the man could be single-minded about things was an understatement. ‘They did? I don’t really re–’

‘Don’t tell me you don’t remember. Because I do. Very clearly,’ he said stubbornly, proving her point about him not being able to leave things alone. ‘I was there with you.’

That was true. For all his annoying ways, he’d been the one by her bedside almost constantly, the one who’d taken her in and cared for her when she’d had nobody else. But did that give him the right to be as overbearing as hell now? ‘I didn’t follow it up because I don’t need that sort of help.’

He stared at her for a moment. ‘Are you sure about that?’

What was that supposed to mean? ‘Of course I am. That type of thing isn’t meant for someone like me.’ She was affronted by the mere suggestion.

‘Someone like you?’ he pursued, his expression a mixture of confusion and doggedness.

‘It’s for, you know … real victims.’ She sprang up from the sofa, eager to get away from his irritating questions. ‘Do you want a coffee? I’m going to make one.’

Of course her escape attempt was thwarted. ‘Annabel, you were a real victim,’ Aidan insisted, right on her tail. ‘Of a serious physical assault.’

‘Physical being the operative word.’ She turned on the light as she entered her small galley kitchen. She went straight to the kettle and flicked the switch with one hand as she waved her injured arm in his direction. ‘And I’m having the treatment for that that I need. I start physio next week.’

As she opened the cupboard in front of her to take out mugs, she heard him let out another breath. This one shorter, less patient than the one a minute ago.

What was his problem? If anyone had the right to be getting shirty with this midnight interrogation, surely it was her.

‘You know you’re dealing with issues here that run deeper than merely physical,’ he said. ‘Stop pretending otherwise.’

She put the mugs down on the worktop and closed the cupboard. ‘I’m not pretending anything. I’m getting on with my life just fine.’ She opened the cutlery drawer and took out a teaspoon before pushing it shut again. ‘That psychobabble stuff is for victim-y victims – people who can’t cope.’

‘Is that right? So tell me, Ms I-Don’t-Need-Help, have you always had to sleep with the lights on, or is that a recent thing?’

Oh – she froze as she picked up the jar of coffee – she didn’t like that tone at all.

She turned to face him. ‘I don’t know, Mr Stick-My-Nose-In-Where-It’s-Not-Wanted, do you always invite yourself to stay places and then go fiddling with things that aren’t yours?’

He looked at her with the strangest expression, as though he couldn’t quite make sense of what he was seeing. And then he shook his head. ‘I’ve never met anyone so intent on making life as hard as possible for themselves!’ he said, the exasperation in his tone stabbing into a raw nerve.

She slammed the coffee jar back down. ‘You know what?’ She pointed the spoon in his face. ‘This is such shit. You don’t get to walk back into my life and judge me.’

His hand closed around hers and, with gentle but firm pressure, lowered it between them. ‘This isn’t judgement, Annabel,’ he said, his voice striving to convey patience that was at odds with the frustration in his gaze. ‘It’s concern.’

She knew that was probably supposed to make her feel better, but in reality it made things worse. It brought home how little experience she had of handling somebody else’s emotions. She was used to thinking and acting only for herself. That was why trying to get involved with him was a mistake. She didn’t have the first clue how to do relationships.

Both his gaze and his voice softened. ‘If we’re to make this work, you’re going to have to allow me to care about you, a mhuirnín.’

The Gaelic endearment rolled off his tongue like a verbal caress. Sweetheart, he’d told her it meant. But it was the rest of the sentence that thrilled and terrified her in equal measure. She had the feeling this man could turn her inside out if she let him, leaving exposed the hidden parts she’d been keeping safe and secure from harm since childhood. Parts that, if broken, couldn’t simply be reset and healed like her bones. While Tony Maplin wasn’t able to hurt her any more except in her dreams, she suspected that Aidan Flynn could inflict a different kind of suffering. Deeper and more damaging. How was she supposed to let him close and safeguard herself all at the same time?

Maybe she shouldn’t even be trying. ‘You’re the one who insisted on barging back into my life,’ she grumbled, pulling her hand from his. ‘If you don’t like what you’ve found, you know what you can do.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t like it. And I won’t let you push me away. I’ve only just got you back. I’m not going anywhere.’

He sounded as sure and confident as ever, and that really grated because she knew it wasn’t the truth. He was going somewhere; that’s what had scared her off him in the first place. She called bullshit on the barefaced lie. ‘That’s not true, is it? You’re going back to Ireland.’

* * *

The accusation – which, from the tone of Annabel’s delivery, was undeniably what it was – caught Aidan by surprise. In the context of their current discussion, the reference to Ireland had been the last thing he’d expected.

They’d spoken a bit about his restoration of the Tulaí estate and distillery over coffee earlier in the evening. It had been a childhood dream of his to renovate the derelict manor house that sat perched on a clifftop overlooking the little coastal village of Carriglea in County Cork where he’d grown up. A dream that had been all but forgotten when the path to adulthood had led him to a successful financial career in the City of London. It hadn’t been until he’d found himself back in his parents’ house, on the long road to recovery from the stroke caused by the pressures of that high-flying career, that he’d started to think on it again; started wondering whether the silly City money he’d made could be used to turn the dream into a reality. Rather than give in to the frustration and self-pity brought on by his painfully slow rehabilitation and restricted physical abilities, he’d begun pursuing the idea from his sickbed, giving himself something other than despair to aim for.

In the end, the process had turned out to be every bit as difficult as his recovery. With a longstanding family feud hanging over the property, the purchase negotiations had been drawn out and fragile, under constant threat of collapse. It wasn’t until after his health had recovered and he’d returned to London and met Annabel that he’d learned of his success in acquiring the estate. She’d discovered his plans before he’d had a chance to tell her himself, and that had been the catalyst that had sent her running away from him.

Earlier this evening, he’d taken care to explain to her that the project was still largely in the planning stages, that it would be a couple of years before the house was up and running as an exclusive hotel and required him to be there full-time. The fact that she was throwing it up as an issue now told him a lot about the undercurrents swirling beneath her display of bravado.

It also gave him hope. Because, if the thought of him leaving bothered her that much, it meant she cared, too – even though she was currently doing her damnedest to protect herself by pretending she didn’t.

It took a herculean effort not to grin like a madman.

Not that he didn’t have a sackful of his own concerns. He couldn’t deny that the timing was truly awful. Even at her easiest, Annabel Frost was more trouble than he’d come across before in his life, and the scale of the commitment he was already having to put into making the hotel venture work was immense. Splitting his attention successfully between two such demanding, high-intensity tasks was going to be no mean feat. Especially when, for the sake of his continuing good health, he needed to keep his life as stress-free as possible, ease back up to his pre-stroke speed. How he was going to manage that when he was already screeching away from the starting line with his foot on the floor he had no idea, but he’d find a way. He’d have to. Because choosing one or the other wasn’t an option; he wanted both things equally badly, and he intended doing whatever it took to ensure he got to have both …

Starting right now with convincing the complex and complicated Ms Frost that despite her fears she wanted him every bit as badly. And, rather than waste a moment more getting nowhere with this current war of words, he could think of a much more satisfying way for them to express their feelings.

‘Eventually,’ he said, reaching out to remove the spoon from her fingers and setting it on the worktop before retaking her hand. ‘But not tonight.’

He saw her eyes widen a fraction as they registered the new intent in his. Before she could even think about retreating, he used the hand he held to pull her to him and slid his other arm around her waist.

She was resistant, raising her free hand between them to press her palm against his chest. ‘I think you should go home.’

‘I’m not leaving you like this.’ And by that he meant he doubted he could physically force himself to do so. Not with her cries of her distress still ringing in his ears. The sounds she made in her sleep had been heart-wrenching, spine-chilling. ‘Don’t ask me to.’

‘Why not?’ she huffed. ‘I’ve managed on my own for the past six weeks.’

It was a fair comment only because she had no idea how hard it had been for him to let her go when she’d run out on him. How hard he’d had to fight himself to let her have the time and space to calm down, in the hope she’d regret her actions, come to her senses.

But now all the regret lay with him. If he’d had any idea that her nights had been hijacked by such terrible dreams, had any inkling that she’d been too stubborn to get the assistance she needed to help her heal and move on, he’d have come after her like a shot.

God, the memory of what had happened that day was still enough to turn his bowels to liquid. He’d never forget the moment he stormed in to find Annabel on the floor, bloody and barely conscious, fighting for her life while Tony Maplin, in a drunken rage, straddled her, one hand clenched around her throat, the other clutching a gin bottle aloft ready to smash it down into her face.

If Aidan had been haunted by that horrific scene replaying in his head countless times, gripped by the fear of what would have happened if he’d been even a split second later, how much worse must it be for her?

And she’d been trying to tough things out without any support? He would never have believed it, not even of the obstinate Ms Frost, but now that the knowledge sat like a sickening weight in his gut there was no way he was going to leave her to face her nightmares alone. Not tonight.

‘Six weeks neither of us wants to go through again.’ He ducked his head and pressed his lips gently to the hard line of her mouth. ‘Forget the coffee and the TV and come back to bed. Seeing as we’re both awake, I’ve got a better idea how we can pass the time.’