Читать книгу The Complete Red-Hot And Historical Collection - Ким Лоренс, Kelly Hunter - Страница 31

KATE COULDN’T DRUM UP any enthusiasm for the sailing lesson, but she was waiting at the jetty on the dot of eight o’clock, with a fake smile worthy of Scott himself pasted on.

Because it wouldn’t do for Brodie to report back to Scott that she was looking wan and miserable.

She climbed aboard and darted a look around the deck. Half expecting… Maybe hoping just a little…?

‘He’s not here, Kate,’ Brodie said.

She looked at him as the hope died. ‘You know?’ Short, unhappy laugh. ‘Of course you do. Best friends, right? You don’t have to badger confidences out of him.’

‘Are we going to talk about it?’ Brodie asked.

‘No,’ Kate said, and heard the dangerous wobble in her voice.

‘Okay, then.’ He took her bag, stowed it. ‘Remember I said we were sailing down the coast and going swimming when we got there?’ He gestured to her long cotton pants, her long-sleeved T-shirt. ‘You got your swimmers on under there?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Then we’re off.’

Kate tried to recapture some of the joy of her first sailing lesson, but that sense of freedom, of escape, was elusive. She was just so…so heartbroken.

Nevertheless, she threw herself into it—and if Brodie was a little less didactic this time around she wasn’t going to complain about getting special treatment. He was that kind of guy—the kind who read anguish and allowed for it. Not the kind to tell a girl she was a piece of tail…even if she was.

Hours passed, and Kate started to wonder if they were going to turn around any time soon—because at this rate they wouldn’t make it back to Sydney before Sunday morning. But they finally stopped at a calm, protected inlet for lunch.

Slowly Kate started to relax. But with relaxation came those horrible, useless, helpless tears. She hurried over to the bow of the boat, away from the others, trying to stem the flow. But it was no use. They welled in her eyes, clogged the back of her nose. Thank heaven she was wearing sunglasses, so Brodie wouldn’t see.

But almost before the thought had formed Brodie was there, standing just behind her. She knew it, but she couldn’t turn. Just couldn’t move. Because the tears were flowing freely.

‘He’s not good with words,’ he said. ‘Not the important words.’

Kate covered her face with her hands, dislodging her sunglasses.

Brodie turned her, took off her sunglasses, hugged her. ‘At least he didn’t punch you. That’s what he did to me the first time I told him I loved him.’

Kate started laughing then—and it was the weirdest thing, mixing laughter with tears.

Brodie tilted her face up. ‘You going to give him another chance?’

‘No. That doesn’t happen in my family.’

‘Well, at least you gave him one chance, I guess,’ Brodie said. ‘It’s more than his own family gave him.’

‘Oh, God. Don’t say that.’

‘It’s true. He needs a family, Kate. A new one. A real one.’

She was crying again.

‘And he’s over there on the shore, waiting for you to be it.’

Kate, stunned, turned to look.

And there he was. Tall and bulky, in jeans and T-shirt and aviator sunglasses, hands jammed into his pockets. Waiting for her.

Waiting…for her…

But waiting for what?

Kate didn’t even notice when Brodie took his arms from around her. Barely heard him call to one of the guys on the boat. Dinghy… Something about a dinghy…

Next thing she knew she and her bag were in the dinghy, heading towards the shore. Scott took off his sunglasses as she got closer, flinging them away as if he didn’t care what happened to them.

And then she was there, and he was reaching for her, helping her out of the dinghy, holding out his hand for her bag, wrapping her in his arms, holding on to her, holding tight. It felt electric—like a massive, hungry jolt—so different from the calm comfort of Brodie’s embrace.

And she knew it would always be like that with Scott. Because he was it. The only one for her. It was a thought that scared her so much she almost couldn’t breathe. Because it meant that without him she would be alone—forever. And she didn’t want to be alone any more.

But being alone was better than loving a man who didn’t love her back.

She took a deep breath, pulled out of his arms. ‘Scott, I meant what I said.’

‘Kate, please—just bear with me, okay? You’ll see.’

Without waiting for her to respond, he took her hand, led her away from the water, up to the road.

He opened the door of a nondescript car—where was his Mini?—and helped her in.

‘Where are we going, Scott?’ she asked tiredly as he got behind the wheel, started the car.

‘Don’t ask, Kate. I’ll stuff it up if I talk.’

So Kate simply sat as Scott drove—a total mess, almost ill from the way her heart was hammering.

He parked, got out of the car and came around to her side to help her out. He took her in his arms again and she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She felt him shaking. Like a leaf.

‘Scared, that’s all,’ he said with an embarrassed shrug as she looked up at him.

‘Why?’

Short half-laugh. ‘You’ll see,’ he said again, and led her off the road towards a patch of scrub.

Her eyes widened. ‘In there?’

Scott winced. ‘Yep. In there. God help us.’

He led the way in until the thick scrub morphed into sparsely vegetated dunes. She could hear the roar and rush of surf, and then it was there. A tiny jewel of a beach, waves breaking in a constant sucking stream.

‘A surf beach?’ she said, poised on top of a dune.

‘Yeah, a surf beach,’ he said, grimacing, and trudged with her down onto the sand.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Kate said, trying to understand the grimace—trying to understand something. Anything. ‘And not a soul here except for that one surfer. Amazing.’

‘It’s a local secret,’ he said. ‘And apparently a little dangerous for swimming.’

‘So why are we here?’

Scott screwed his eyes shut and blushed. ‘From Here to Eternity,’ he said.

Kate’s mouth dropped open. It took her a moment to find her voice, but at least by the time she did Scott had opened his eyes.

‘Is this a joke?’ she asked icily.

‘No.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Brodie.’

She sucked in a tortured breath—felt the heat rush along her cheekbones. ‘And who told him?’

‘He figured it out. Something Jessica said that night at Fox.’

‘Jessica?’ she said ominously.

But Scott wasn’t listening. He looked a heartbeat away from a nervous breakdown.

‘Well, Kate, we’re here,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’

He stripped down to a pair of well-worn board shorts—in which he looked mouthwateringly good. And then he came to her, took her face in his hands. Licked slowly along one cheekbone, then along the other.

‘I’ve wanted to do that for the longest time,’ he said. ‘You are so absolutely beautiful when you blush.’

‘Scott, this is not going to work,’ she said a little desperately, hanging on to her resolve by a thread. ‘I told you. No rollover. I’m done.’

‘It’s not about the rollover and we’re not leaving until we do it—so get your gear off.’

‘That surfer—’

‘I can handle one surfer.’

‘But anyone could come past.’

‘Yeah—I know. It’s a bit like the night Officer Cleary frisked me in Ellington Lane.’

‘That was different.’

‘How so? Did you know we wouldn’t be caught?’

‘No, I didn’t know. But it was dark and I…’ She huffed out a breath, aggravated. ‘Really, I just didn’t care.’

‘And there I was, thinking you were law-abiding!’

‘I am. But I’m not conservative. And you are, Scott.’

He touched her hair. ‘And yet here I am, trying to get you out of your clothes on a beach in broad daylight,’ he said, and smiled—and his whole face lit up with it.

Her heart lurched. That smile. Devastating.

‘Scott, don’t do this to me,’ she said shakily. ‘Stop doing this to me.’

‘I have to do it. Kate, please. You’ve got to let me. Just this one thing. For you. Please, Kate. Please let me.’

Kate looked into Scott’s eyes—they were warm and serious and…and desperate. Looked at the waves. Back into Scott’s eyes.

Why was she fighting it? The man she was in love with was offering to make her a gift of her ultimate fantasy. She’d be like Willa and Chantal—her most romantic moment would be real. And she could pretend, couldn’t she, that it was love?

‘All right,’ she said, and wondered if he’d finally driven her mad as she stripped down to her one-piece black swimsuit.

Scott took her hand. Gave her a look redolent of bravery. ‘Shall we?’

She nodded, but wondered if this memory—precious though it would be—was going to be worth it, given that every time it surfaced in the future her heart would break all over again.

Scott led her into the surf, just far enough for them to duck under the water and get wet.

‘No further,’ he said. ‘I can feel the water tugging, and this is going to lose all its romance value if we get swept out to sea and either drown or get eaten by a shark.’

He pulled her into his arms.

‘And in any case…’ he said, backing her towards the shore. Backing her, backing her, backing her, and then dragging her to her knees, where the waves were breaking. ‘This is the money shot, right?’

And with that, he eased her flat onto the sand, and then he was on top of her, kissing her as if he’d happily drown as long as his mouth was on hers.

The water surged over them. Receded, surged, receded. For the longest time they stayed there, waves breaking over them, Scott’s mouth on hers, tongue thrusting, mirroring the breaking of the waves over their bodies. Over, over, over. Way longer than the scene in the movie.

Eventually he pulled back, just a fraction, smoothed her hair off her face, gazed down at her. And something was shining in his eyes that made her long to have him inside her. She wasn’t supposed to want it any more—she was supposed to have ripped him from her heart—and yet she did want it…did want him. She ached with need.

A sudden strong wave took Kate unawares and she choked on sea water. Scott grabbed her hand, dragged her out of the wash and up the beach to dry land, where she dropped to the sand and rolled onto her back, spluttering, laughing, coughing, eyes streaming.

And despite the fact that she was half drowned, deranged, probably a little snotty, Scott dropped to his knees beside her and looked at her as though she were the most wondrous thing he’d ever seen.

He was smiling, and there were tears—tears!—in his eyes as he rolled with her on the sand until she was on top of him.

She snaked her fingers into his wet hair, wanting him so much she thought she might seriously burst with it.

He looked up at her, so serious. ‘So, Kate, what’s the Latin for And so endeth the contract?’

She froze. And so endeth…?

Oh. Ohhh. Her breath caught as the pain hit.

It all made sense. Today was the twenty-eighth of February. The last day of their contract. She’d given herself to him at his house on Tuesday, fulfilled the contract to the letter, but he had to wring that little bit extra out of her—even after breaking her heart. Probably thinking she’d let him get away with this latest manipulation because he was using her secret fantasy to do it. And who wouldn’t want their ultimate Play Time, right?

Hating herself for letting him do this to her—hating him—Kate shoved herself off him, got to her feet, started pulling on clothes over the dampness and sand.

Scott had felt the change in Kate that split second before she’d rolled off him.

‘Did I stuff it up?’ he asked, getting to his feet. ‘Because I thought… I mean I watched the movie… I… I thought that was…’

The words tapered off as Kate skewered him with a glare.

Was this the part where she told him he was too late? That she didn’t love him any more? No, he couldn’t face that. Didn’t—wouldn’t—believe it.

Scott started dressing, just to keep his hands occupied while he waited for her to speak, to give him a clue about where he’d messed up. But she didn’t speak and he couldn’t take the silence.

‘Are you going to tell me what I did wrong, Kate?’

‘You know.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘The twenty-eighth of February,’ she said coldly.

Scott looked at her blankly.

‘February twenty-eighth!’ she snapped. ‘You couldn’t resist having the last word, could you, Scott? One last Play Time—and using my deepest, most secret fantasy to do it. Good job. For someone who said he would never hurt me, you sure wield a sharp knife.’

What the hell—?

She picked up her bag. ‘So when is Brodie coming back for me?’

‘Brodie’s on his way to Sydney,’ Scott said. ‘I’m taking you back.’

The blood drained out of Kate’s face.

‘What?’ he asked urgently. ‘What did I do?’

She laughed—and it wasn’t the joyful laughter they’d shared in the waves. ‘Today. Last day of the contract, right?’

‘Yes…’ Still bewildered.

‘I’ve spent three days tearing you out of my heart, and thanks to your little stunt today all that work is lost. I’ll have to start over.’

Scott’s mouth went dry—a dryness that had nothing to do with the ton of salt that had swirled in and out of his mouth with all that sea water. ‘I thought you wanted the contract to be over?’

‘I did. But not like— Oh, just forget it.’

He grabbed her arm. ‘No, tell me, Kate. If you don’t tell me, how can I explain?’

She wrenched free. ‘Under the terms of our contract you don’t have to explain.’

‘Dammit, Kate, I’ve had a gutful of the contract. It’s over! Over!’

‘It was over on Tuesday, but that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? Because I decided that. I decided it out of love. But you had to control the ending—out of…of…pique! And so here you are, controlling it—like you’ve controlled everything since the moment we met.’

‘That’s crap, Kate. I’ve never been in control. Not from the first moment I saw you. I don’t— I don’t want to be in control with you. And that—’ He shoved irritably at his hair. ‘That is not an easy thing for me to admit.’

‘Oh, you’ve been in the driver’s seat all the way along. Running rings around me. Flouting the rules. Turning up any time you wanted. All those calculated kisses to get me to shut up when I asked you a personal question—when I told you kissing was dangerous.’

‘You never told me that!’

‘It was implied! Because it’s obvious! To everyone except you. Kissing—no problem for Scott Knight, because Scott Knight doesn’t care and Scott Knight doesn’t feel.’

‘But I did—I mean I do—’

‘Shut up, Scott. Just shut up. Because I do feel. And every time you kissed me I felt more—and more and more. Wanted you more and more. But all you wanted was Play Time! So I gave that to you too, because I figured I could sex you into loving me. I would have done anything. Anything! But you wouldn’t even let me protect myself by sticking to a few simple rules.’

‘Kate, stop. I—’

‘You know what’s the stupidest thing of all? I started to think that maybe you were breaking all those rules because you didn’t want the contract.’

‘I didn’t. I wanted—’

‘I thought you just wanted to kiss me, see me, be with me—take it however it came. The more you broke the rules, the more I hoped. But you were breaking them because it was a game to you. I was a game.’

‘No, that isn’t—’

‘And that last night—what you said to me. Tail. A piece of tail. That’s what I was. All I was. All the way along. And you, with more tail than you know what to do with, could have anyone—so why me? Why did you still take and take from me that night? When you knew how…how painful it was for me to love you like I did? You knew I wanted to leave and you wouldn’t let me go.’

‘Okay, that’s enough, Kate!’ He grabbed her then, dragged her in. ‘I didn’t let you go because I couldn’t. I can’t, Kate. I can’t.’

‘But you will—because tomorrow is the first of March and we are done.’ She jerked out of his arms. ‘Done! Do you get it? A mensa et thoro—legal separation without divorce.’

‘Don’t talk Latin to me now.’

‘Res judicata—the final adjudication. No further appeals. Goodbye.’

Scott blanched. His shoulders were tight enough to snap his spine. Head drumming. Heart hammering. Hands clenching and unclenching.

‘Except for one thing, Kate,’ he said. ‘You love me.’

‘Well, you see, I’m going to let Phillip the barrister help me get over that. Tomorrow—the first of March—when there will be no possible suggestion that I am still under contract to you. Time for a new contract. This time I might even get the friend part of “friends with benefits”. Someone who w-won’t h-hurt me.’

‘I won’t hurt you.’

She turned away, breath hitching. ‘You already have, Scott.’

‘Then I’ll make it up to you.’

‘You can’t. You wouldn’t know how. Because you’ve never been hurt and you’ve never been in love.’

‘I have been hurt. When you left me. When you wouldn’t speak to me. More hurt than I thought was even possible. And you’re hurting me now. And I’m letting you because I deserve it. Hurt me all you want. Any way you want. But just don’t leave me, Kate.’

He came up behind her.

‘Because I am in love. Right now. With you. First love. Last love. All in one. I’m here with my heart bleeding, aching for you, so in love I can’t even find the words to tell you how much.’

She turned slowly. ‘No…’ she breathed. ‘You don’t love me.’

‘Kate, if you think anyone else, in their wildest dreams, could have got me to watch a damned chick flick, let alone re-enact a scene from one… Well, you’re insane—that’s all I’m saying.’

‘That was Play Time.’

He glared at her. Shouted. ‘Newsflash, Kate. I. Hate. Play. Time. Hate it. Got it?’

‘Then why—’

‘And if you think rolling around in the surf like a lunatic is my idea of a sexual fantasy, you are wide of the mark, my girl. I’ve got sand in every nook and cranny of my body and it’s bloody uncomfortable. A piece of seaweed is sticking somewhere I don’t even want to think about—it may require medical intervention to get it extricated. And it’s driving me nuts. But you know what? I will go back and roll around in that surf until we shrivel into prunes—with salt water pouring out of my ears, and snot streaming out of my nose, and that surfer out there laughing himself into convulsions, if it’s what you want. Hell, I’ll take you to Hawaii and we’ll try it on the original beach!’

‘I didn’t ask you to roll in the surf!’ Kate shouted back.

‘You didn’t have to ask! I did it because I’m not good with words, so I had to do something. I watched that movie for you. I’m on this beach because I love you. I love you! And, so help me God, if you don’t call that weasel Phillip and tell him to back the hell away and stay the hell away, I am going to kidnap you.’

‘Kidnap me?’ she sputtered.

‘On the yacht I bought.’

‘You bought a yacht?’

‘And I bought music—so I can dance with you on it. And I’m going to teach you to sail, and take you to the Whitsundays, and…and… What’s so funny?’

‘You,’ Kate said, and laughed so hard she dropped to her knees. ‘The way you said “m-music”. Like it was p-poison.’

‘Kate,’ he said dangerously, ‘you do realise how many women would swoon to have me tell them I love them, right? But you’re the only one I’m ever, ever going to say it to.’

‘Egomaniac,’ Kate said, and kept laughing.

‘It’s not funny.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s a serious condition, egomania,’ she said, and laughed again.

Pause. He was confused. But…hopeful.

‘Is laughter…? Is it good under these circumstances?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Accedas ad curiam.’

‘Yeah, smartarse—going to need a translation,’ he said, but a smile had started to stretch his mouth and he could feel it—feel it!—in his eyes too.

‘You may approach the court,’ she said. ‘That’s all I will say for now. And, Scott—just so you know—I have sand in every nook and cranny too.’

‘Well, I think I’m going to have to take a look at your crannies, in that case,’ Scott said, and dropped to his knees beside her.

He kissed her, long and hard, until they were both breathless.

‘Are you going to take me to see your yacht?’

‘It’s not a yacht—it’s a Jeanneau 36. If you’re going to be a sailor you need to know these things.’

‘Does it have a name? Like…you know…a real name?’

‘It does,’ Scott said, and started laughing.

‘Which is?’

‘Which is…drumroll…Scottsdale.’

Kate started laughing again and it reminded Scott of that night—the awards dinner—when they’d laughed about Knightley and he’d wanted her more than he’d wanted to breathe. He should have known right then that she was meant to be his. That she would be his.

‘Wait until Hugo hears I’ve copied him for once,’ Scott said, and then he stopped. Cleared his throat. ‘Kate, just one thing… About my family…’

‘That would be me,’ she said softly. ‘Just me.’

‘Oh, God, Kate, I love you,’ he said, and pulled her down to lie with him on the sand again. ‘But you have to know that I have a bit of a conservative streak, like all the Knights.’

‘You don’t say?’

‘So…divorce parties, break-ups, custody battles… They don’t apply to us.’

‘Don’t they?’

‘Because Knights don’t divorce. And I will not let you go.’ He stopped to kiss her. ‘If you try to end it I’ll make your life hell. I will fight tooth and nail—move heaven and hell and everything, everything, in between—to keep you. Exactly the way you fight. To the death. So better not to go there. You get all freaked out when marriages end badly. We don’t want you stressing.’

‘No more stress. Got it. But… Scott? Was that a proposal? Because we’re not exactly marriage-minded in my family.’

‘But I am. And, sorry to break it to you, but I have to be married to the mother of my children—conservative, I’m telling you, I hope your mother is going to cope. And one more thing. You’re not getting any younger, so we’ll have to get cracking on the kid thing.’

With that, Kate pushed him away, got to her feet, ripped her T-shirt over her head. ‘My age? Are you seriously going there? Because if you are we’re going another round of From Here to Eternity.’

Scott didn’t argue. He simply stood up and took off his clothes. And then he turned to Kate and held out his hand. ‘Or, as we like to say in legal circles, ad infinitum,’ he said. ‘Which means—’

‘Forever.’

And then Scott grinned. ‘Okay, let’s put on a show for the surfer dude, and see how much more sand we can pack into our nooks and crannies.’