Читать книгу The British Bachelors Collection - Сара Крейвен, Kate Hardy - Страница 15

BEFORE they went home Drake took Layla to an exclusive boutique in Mayfair to buy her a new blouse. From the moment he selected the shop to the minute they walked through the door he could sense her growing uneasiness with the project. He couldn’t understand why she seemed so reticent. There wasn’t one single woman he was acquainted with who didn’t like shopping. But then he already knew that Layla was unique. She was constantly surprising him.

The wafer-thin blonde assistant in her short-skirted dogtooth suit lit up like a hundred-watt lightbulb when they entered. Whether or not that was because she scented that Drake had money, he didn’t particularly care, so long as Layla was satisfied she’d acquired a blouse she was pleased with and would wear.

When, at his urging, she reluctantly started to examine the exquisite silk blouses on the very selective display rails and picked practically the first item she looked at, as if she couldn’t wait to get out of the shop, Drake shook his head with a teasing smile.

‘Do you really want that one?’ he asked doubtfully, privately thinking how prim and proper the elegant white garment appeared, even if it was made from the finest French silk crêpe.

‘I don’t want you to buy me one at all, if I’m honest.’ Layla sighed, self-consciously brushing her hair back with her hand. ‘I’m quite happy to wear your shirt until I get home.’

‘But you’re not going home until tomorrow, remember?’

‘Then you can lend me another shirt tomorrow. I’m sure you must own more than one.’

Her caramel-brown eyes sparkled with a mixture of defiance and merriment, and for a long moment Drake was transfixed by the heated longing that gripped him. It struck him like a thunderbolt right then that he was quite simply crazy about her, and almost couldn’t bear the thought of having her out of his sight. Excepting the mother who had deserted him, he’d never needed anyone that much before. The feeling was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time …

He levelled his glance. ‘As great as my shirt looks on you, I’d really like to buy something exclusively for you … something pretty and sexy that will make you think of me every time you wear it next to your skin.’

He was rewarded with the most bewitching and pretty blush.

‘You choose something for me then,’ she suggested softly.

He didn’t miss the slight catch in her voice that told him she’d definitely been aroused by what he’d said. With an undeniable sense of satisfying male pride, and only too happy to oblige, Drake selected a couple of much more delicate specimens, made from what was labelled ‘silk Charmeuse’ and handed them to her.

‘They’re far too flimsy,’ she protested, dark eyes widening. ‘They look more like lingerie.’

‘Then they’re just what we’re looking for,’ he taunted gently.

‘They are?’

‘Trust me—you’re going to have the most appreciative audience you can imagine when you wear them.’

The smooth skin between Layla’s elegant dark brows creased a little. ‘I only need one blouse, Drake, not two.’ Leaning towards him, she lowered her voice to a near whisper. ‘Have you seen the prices on these?’ Turning the labels that were so prettily attached to the garments with slim pink and blue ribbons towards him, she seemed intent on his noting them.

He didn’t even trouble to spare them a glance. Instead he chuckled, then tenderly cupped her delicate jaw in the palm of his hand. ‘That’s the last thing you need to worry about, angel … And I’m not about to apologise for having money just because it makes you uncomfortable either.’

Her lips curved in a conciliatory smile. ‘Okay, I’ll go and try them on. Seeing as you’ve picked them out, it would be rude not to. Besides, it’s very hard to refuse you anything when you look at me like that,’ she breathed.

‘How am I looking at you? Tell me.’

‘Like I’m the gourmet meal you’ve been anticipating enjoying all day.’

With a provocative grin that sent the blood in Drake’s veins plunging helplessly south, she spun round on her heel and politely asked the assistant to show her to the changing room.

As Drake returned to the living room and placed the two cups of coffee he’d made down on the carved Regency table positioned in front of the sofa, Layla smiled up at him, commenting, ‘Mmm … just what the doctor ordered after that great spaghetti you rustled up for dinner.’ Curling her hair round her ear, her expression pensive, she added, ‘Come and sit down.’

‘I was intending on doing exactly that.’

‘We’ve had a wonderful day together, haven’t we?’

‘We have indeed.’

She fell silent for a few moments, then said, ‘Drake?’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Do you think we could have that talk of ours now?’

Momentarily distracted by the very feminine ivory-silk blouse she now wore in place of his white shirt, noting as he’d done at dinner that the sheer material meant he could see right through it to the pretty lace bra she had on underneath, Drake didn’t immediately register her question. When the words finally sank in his stomach plunged to his boots. Clearly there weren’t going to be any preliminaries to this little discussion of theirs, and it was becoming worryingly clear that he wasn’t going to be able to hide the truth of his past from her any longer.

His skin prickled hotly, and for one sickeningly uncomfortable moment he felt akin to a cornered animal. Raking his fingers through his hair, he dropped down onto the pinstriped armchair at the other side of the table, resting his forearms on his jeans-clad thighs with a heavy sigh.

‘So what do you want to talk about? My favourite music? Or maybe you’d like to hear what my top ten favourite movies are?’ He was hedging for time, using humour as a shield to divert any immediately awkward or difficult questions. But when he saw the concerned frown on Layla’s beautiful face Drake felt oddly guilty for taking such a cowardly tack.

‘Whilst I’d love to know what music you like, also what your favourite movies are, right now I’d like you to tell me a bit more about yourself. Then, as I said before … you can ask me things too.’

Linking his hands, he locked his glance with hers in a deliberately challenging stare. ‘Then why don’t you ask me a direct question and I’ll endeavour to answer it?’

‘All right, then.’ She nervously licked her lips and curled her hair round her ear again. ‘I’d like you to tell me a bit about your childhood.’

‘What would you like to know, exactly?’

‘Was it hard for you, being an only child?’

‘Compared to what? Being one of a large brood? How would I know, since that wasn’t my experience?’

‘Okay, then, perhaps you’ll tell me instead what it was like for you growing up in the area?’

It was the question Drake had feared the most, but he resolved himself to answer it because he didn’t want Layla to believe even for a second that he lacked the courage to tell her.

‘What was it like? In two words … miserable and lonely.’ Moving his head from side to side, he clasped and unclasped his hands. ‘I had a mother whose mind was always on leaving, and a father who was a bully and a drunk. After she left his bullying moved up to a whole new level. You can’t imagine how creative he could be when it came to devising punishments for me. Consequently I was always dreaming of ways to escape. When my art teacher at school took a serious interest in my ability for drawing and design, and suggested I might try to become an architect, I latched onto the possibility as though it was a lifeline—which indeed it was. From that moment on I didn’t care what my father did to me, because I knew that one day I’d get away … I’d carve a whole new life for myself and escape from both him and our drab little town for good.’

‘So how did you do that? Did you get the grades to go to university?’

‘Yes. I worked damned hard and fortunately I did.’ ‘Did you see your father at all after you went?’ As she took a sip of her coffee, then carefully set the blue and white cup back in its elegant saucer, Layla’s dark-eyed glance was thoughtful.

‘No.’ In return, Drake’s smile was helplessly bitter. ‘I only returned once after I left, and that was to go to his funeral. Needless to say I was the only mourner. Let’s put it this way: he wasn’t the most popular guy in the world.’

‘So how did he die? What happened to him?’

‘The silly fool smashed into a central reservation on the motorway whilst driving under the influence of alcohol. He was killed outright.’ Drake agitatedly tunnelled his fingers back and forth through his hair. ‘It wasn’t even his car. He’d borrowed it from some drinking crony who stupidly believed he’d return it in one piece. When I talked to the man he told me that my father was planning on driving up to the university to visit me. That’s why he’d borrowed the car. Unless he’d had some profound religious conversion and wanted to atone for his past ill-treatment of me, I very much doubt that it was true.’

‘My God, Drake!’

Layla’s expression was almost distraught, he saw. Knowing her kind heart, it wouldn’t have surprised him to learn that she was feeling compassion for his loser of a father.

‘I’m so sorry you had to face such a horrendous and sad ordeal on your own,’ she murmured, twisting her hands together in her lap. ‘It must have been hard enough for you not to have someone back at home, sending you love and support while you were away studying, but then to hear that your father had died … and possibly on his way to visit you as well …?’

‘You think it was hard for me, do you?’ he challenged, his temper rising. The old, painful wounds that he privately nursed, encrusted with bitterness and resentment, were still apt to make him feel murderous. ‘The only thing I felt when I heard the bastard had died was relief like you can’t possibly imagine!’

‘You said he was cruel. Was his cruelty the reason you don’t like sleeping without the light on?’

Sensing all the colour drain from his face, Drake shivered hard at the haunting reminder of his appalling home-life when he was a boy. ‘Every night he’d remove the lightbulbs in my bedroom and lock me in for the night in the dark. More often than not he’d go out and leave me on my own until the early hours of the morning, and even when he returned he wouldn’t knock on my door to check and see if I was all right.’

‘Why? Why did he do that?’

Drake’s lips twisted in disgust. ‘He told me it would make me a man. Personally, I think he did it simply because he could.’

‘You should have reported him … told someone at your school what he was doing. That kind of inhuman behaviour is child abuse, Drake.’

‘You make it sound so simple—but how does a frightened child tell someone his private horror story when he feels the most sickening shame about it? When he secretly believes he must have done something bad to deserve it?’

‘You did nothing wrong. You were only a little boy, for goodness’ sake! Your father was the adult in the family. He should have taken proper care of you. You aren’t supposed to “deserve” love and care. It’s the fundamental right of human children everywhere. I wish someone could have told you that so you wouldn’t have carried such shame and fear around with you all these years.’

‘Well, they didn’t, and I managed. End of story.’

‘You may have managed to get by despite your circumstances, but that’s not the end of the story, Drake … not if you’re still afraid to sleep in the dark and are plagued with nightmares.’

‘That’s not your concern. I deal with it. Shall we change the subject?’

‘I’ve one more question. Do you mind?’

Before Layla got the chance to ask it, he interjected quickly, feeling bleak. ‘I do mind, as I’m sure you know, but ask anyway. Then it’s my turn.’

‘What about your mother, Drake?’

Her luminous dark eyes were tender and her tone was infinitely gentle, respectful of the now tense atmosphere between them … like an intrepid novice explorer negotiating the walk across a frozen river for the very first time. One false move could make the ice splinter and send her plunging into the freezing waters below.

‘Did you ever see her again after she left?’

‘No, I didn’t. She obviously just wanted to put her seven years with my father behind her—start a new life somewhere else and forget about us both.’

‘Why would she want to forget about her little son? I’m sure that can’t be true, Drake. Her heart must have been breaking in two to leave you behind with a man like your father. She must have been absolutely desperate for her to carry out such an act.’

He gulped down some of his coffee, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Desperate or not, she presumably made a better life for herself somewhere else and decided not to risk ruining it by coming back for me.’

Restlessly he pushed to his feet, absolutely hating the misery and pain that made him feel unbearably exposed and vulnerable in front of a woman he already cared too much about. A woman whose rejection of him, if it ever came, he would probably never recover from. For a few desperate moments he despised Layla for the power she unknowingly held over him. He was also furious with her for goading him into revisiting the tormented past he’d striven so hard to forget.

Before he knew it, Drake had turned on her with a fierce scowl. ‘Are you happy now? What else do you want to know about me so that you can sit there smugly making your analysis? An analysis that will no doubt help you feel so much better about your own comparatively trivial disappointments.’

Stricken, Layla rose slowly to her feet and folded her arms over the pretty diaphanous blouse Drake had taken such pleasure in seeing her wearing. ‘We’re not having a competition about who’s suffered the most, Drake. All I wanted to do … all I hoped to do was get to know you a little, so that you wouldn’t feel the need to be anyone other than yourself … your real self … around me. Yes, we’ve all had sadness and disappointment in our lives—and some of us, like you, have experienced dreadfully unhappy childhoods … But that doesn’t mean we should be ashamed of our pasts or try to hide them. Sometimes it’s our most challenging and difficult experiences that help us evolve into the compassionate and thoughtful people we are.’

‘Is that how you felt when your unscrupulous ex-boss fleeced you of your life savings … compassionate?’

Hearing the almost cruel mockery in Drake’s tone, Layla hugged her arms over her chest even more, needing to protect herself. Had she pushed him too far and too soon in getting him to talk about his past? What if her kindly meant questioning to get him to open up a little about himself so that they might forge a closer bond had done nothing but turn him against her and made him suspicious of her motives? If they didn’t have trust then they had nothing worth having at all.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t feel remotely compassionate towards him. I was too busy blaming him for cheating me and blaming myself for being an idiot for trusting him in the first place … for being so gullible in trusting my savings to his little scheme and for letting him seduce me.’

‘He got you drunk.’

Unhappily she nodded her head. ‘Yes, but I let him. I could have said no to him, but he was a charmer and I fell under his spell. Anyway, that aside, after some time had gone by I definitely felt as though I’d learned a lesson I’d never forget. For a start, I’d have loved to give the money I had to Marc, to help the business. As for my boss, I know that if he carries on cheating people like he does then inevitably life will teach him an invaluable lesson. A lesson that will hopefully make him reflect on his behaviour and stop him seeking to advance himself by exploiting anyone else.’ She chewed thoughtfully down on her lip, then smiled uncertainly. ‘At least that’s my hope.’

Drake started to pace the polished wooden floor, the expression in his fascinating grey eyes suggesting they were reaching internally for some longed-for escape route … perhaps a time warp that could transport them back to the moment when he’d first walked into the room with their coffee, when he might have told Layla he’d changed his mind about having their little discussion.

All her instincts cried out for her to go to him and hold him tight, to tell him how courageous he’d been to reveal the cruelties of his childhood, but sensing he was still tormented by his frank and painful admission she stayed where she was, not wanting to risk upsetting him further.

Coming to a sudden standstill, he swept his still restless gaze up and down her figure. ‘What made you decide to take the contraceptive in the end?’ he asked.

‘Why? Did you think I wouldn’t take it and just pretend that I did?’

‘No. I never thought you’d try and deceive me. I just …’

‘What, Drake? I’m sensing there’s something you want to ask me.’

‘When you think about the future, do you ever think about having children?’

Breathing out a relieved sigh, Layla couldn’t help smiling. ‘Of course … One day I’d love to be a mum.’

‘One day when the “right man” comes along, presumably?’

Now his voice was rough-edged and cynical and it made her heart bleed.

‘If by the right man you mean a man that I love with all my heart and want to be with for the rest of my life, then, yes … that’s when I’ll be ready to become a mum.’

Drake’s eyes bored into her like a laser. ‘My ex-girlfriend wanted children.’

‘She did?’

‘That was one of the reasons we broke up. She wanted them and I didn’t. And, more importantly, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with her, so there was no way I’d make her the mother of my children. When I explained my reasons to her as diplomatically as I could, apart from accusing me of being emotionally crippled and totally insensitive for not understanding her desire for marriage and children, she said I was the most spectacularly selfish man she’d ever met and didn’t doubt that I’d end up alone.’

Layla’s heart bumped with sorrow and dread as she waited for him to continue.

A corner of his mouth quirked painfully. ‘She was right.’

‘Sometimes it helps us to have clarity when we know what we don’t want,’ she commented softly, the dread she’d felt inside that he might have stated that he would never want marriage or children slowly and thankfully subsiding.

‘It does indeed.’

‘So how do you feel about having children if you—if you meet the right woman?’

‘It would definitely be something I’d consider.’ He gave her a sheepish look. ‘I used to think I’d never want a family. Maybe it’s my age, but now I don’t think I’d be as closed to the idea as I was before. Shall we leave it at that and get out of here for a while?’

The glimmer of some unspoken urgent idea was evident in Drake’s animated gaze, and apart from what he’d just revealed about the possibility of being open to the notion of having children it made Layla’s heart race.

‘Why? Where do you want to go?’

‘I’ve heard that it’s going to be an exceptionally clear night. I’d like to take you to my office and show you that view of the stars through the glass roof.’

Remembering how surprised and moved she’d been when he’d told her that he sometimes turned out the lights if he was working late and the stars were bright, she felt a genuine thrill of anticipation.

‘All right,’ she agreed, smiling, ‘I’ll go and get my coat.’

‘Layla?’

‘Yes?’

‘I didn’t mean it when I accused you of being smug earlier. I was just … I was just angry that you got me to talk about that stuff. But now—now I’m glad that you did.’

Walking up to him, she gently touched his unshaven cheek with the tips of her fingers and tenderly laid her lips over his mouth. Straight away she sensed the heat they stoked into flame between them—but before she let it consume her, she lifted her head and told him, ‘I think you telling me about your childhood was the bravest thing I’ve ever heard.’

His arms tightened possessively round her waist. ‘You’re good for my ego, you know that?’

Her eyes were already drifting closed, even before his lips made the fire they’d started to kindle a moment ago burst into uncontrollable flame …