Читать книгу The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016 - Эбби Грин, Кейт Хьюит - Страница 17
ОглавлениеLYING ON THE BED, Alexa drowsily watched Theo, sitting at the desk in the hotel bedroom, wearing only his boxers, frowning at whatever he was looking at on his computer.
Their last night in Manhattan.
She couldn’t quite believe how fast the time had flown since they had left The Hamptons. As predicted, Bob and Felicity had not been at all fazed at their early departure.
‘Completely understand!’ Felicity had carolled. ‘It’s been a while—hasn’t it, Bobby?—but I can still remember what it was like to be young and in love...!’
Alexa had had to inwardly admit that she and Theo were certainly giving the impression of two people who couldn’t keep their hands off one another, and she could understand how that might have led to the misconception that they were in love.
How ironic that now, when there were no reporters around, furiously snapping pictures, the physical contact between herself and Theo was one hundred per cent genuine.
Every time she glanced at him her imagination took over, and she remembered what it felt like to have those hands all over her body and his mouth kissing every enthusiastic inch of her.
They had checked into the penthouse suite which had originally been booked for them—the adjoining room was now redundant—but, frankly, they could have been anywhere in the world. Any hotel in the world. Just so long as there was a bed, because they spent an inordinate amount of time making love.
For a couple of hours every day Alexa had insisted on going out on her own, so that Theo could work.
‘I can work perfectly well with you around,’ he had drawled, in the sort of dark, persuasive voice that had made her almost but not quite revise her determination not to submerge herself entirely in him. ‘In fact I find I work better, because I can touch you whenever I need a break...’
This was just the sort of heady flattery that she knew could so easily go to her head. It was the stuff she loved hearing—just as she loved hearing him tell her how desirable she was, how irresistible, how he couldn’t see the bed without wanting her in it, naked and pressed up close to him.
But flattery was all it was, and Alexa knew that she had to steer clear of reading anything else behind it. Because she was getting seriously hooked on touching him, on hearing all those softly murmured words that did wonders for her self-confidence, making her feel utterly desirable...the most desirable woman on the planet.
He’d swept into her life, bringing with him all his worldly experience, and he had used that worldly experience and his unimaginable charm to captivate her.
He had found fertile ground in her, because nothing in her past had prepared her for the impact of their involvement. Had she had some experience with the opposite sex she might have had sufficient ammunition to see his charm for what it was...practised, well-used...the same charm that had turned all those other women’s heads...
But she’d lacked the necessary experience. And now...
He was completely oblivious to the fact that she was staring at him. It was still only six fifteen in the morning, but she would have bet that he’d been up for at least an hour—maybe more. He seemed to need very little sleep to function.
She gazed at the way his dark hair curled at the nape of his neck, at the muscled width of his shoulders and the tiny mole on his right shoulder, which she could just about make out in the pool of light from the desk lamp he had switched on. He hadn’t yet shaved and there was a definite shadow along his jawline. He was frowning, and she knew that in a second he would gently tap his fountain pen on the desk—a habit he had when he was utterly focused on something.
She had asked him why he had a fountain pen when all his work was done on the computer, and he had twirled it in his fingers and told her that it had been a present from his mother when he was eleven. It was his talisman.
There were so many things she felt she now knew about him, and there were so many physical details she had absorbed too, lodging them in her brain the way information was stored on a computer, lying there, ready to be accessed at the flick of a button.
She could recognise the sound of his soft breathing when he was in deep sleep...could tell from the clipped tone of his voice on the phone when he was talking to someone he wanted to get rid of as fast as possible. She had watched him shave in front of the mirror and had come to realise that, although he must surely know just how good-looking he was, he did very little to enhance his looks. No manly moisturisers. He barely looked in a mirror at all.
Her heart began a steady, anxious thud in her chest.
When exactly had she stopped seeing him as the enemy she was shackled to and started seeing him as someone who was witty, beyond intelligent, wickedly charming...?
She knew when she had owned up to her guilty fascination—when she had acknowledged the chemistry between them. But when, exactly, had that undeniable chemistry turned into something deeper for her?
They had strolled through Manhattan, gone to the famous Museum of Modern Art, walked along the High Line and visited the gallery district. She had forgotten that this wasn’t a real-life courtship. She had forgotten that those piercing, lazy eyes that roved over her body with rampant appreciation had no intention of lingering there indefinitely.
What had started out for both of them as a perfectly reasonable way of dealing with the inconvenient attraction between them had morphed into something else—for her.
She had...
The steady, nervous thud of her heart picked up pace as the enormity and horror of her realisation hit her with the force of a runaway train.
When had she fallen in love with him?
‘You’re up. Why are you up?’
His dark drawl made her jump, because she had been so busy being dismayed and horrified at her thoughts that she had blanked him out of her line of vision. Now she sat up and feigned a yawn.
‘The light must have woken me...’ She burrowed back down into the duvet, so that she could take up where she had left off and carry on chewing over her plight—which couldn’t have been worse as far as she was concerned.
‘In that case I’ll switch it off...’
Theo stood up and stretched, and then headed back to the bed—which was just where, for once, Alexa didn’t want him. Because she still had so much thinking to do, still had to work out how she had managed to give her heart to a guy who had no intention of looking after it—not in the long term and not, if she were to be honest with herself, in the short term either.
‘No—don’t!’ She tempered the sharpness of her reply with a little laugh. ‘I know you’ve had a pretty distracted time when it comes to work, and that you get a lot done early in the morning. I’m still very sleepy anyway.’ She yawned on cue. ‘So I shall try and grab a couple more hours...’
‘Sex is very good for guaranteeing restful sleep...’ He slid into the bed alongside her and eased her to face him, so that they were both on their sides, looking at one another, perfectly level.
‘In which case you should get back to work,’ Alexa told him crisply, although her firmness was somewhat undermined by the hand that was now lying between her legs, cupping her down there and moving ever so gently. ‘You don’t want to fall asleep on the job, do you?’
Theo sighed and reluctantly removed his hand. ‘Unfortunately that’s the last thing I can afford to do,’ he conceded. ‘Several million pounds rests on my making sure I stay awake on the job—at least for the next couple of hours...’
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and strolled back towards the desk and the blinking of his computer. When he glanced over his shoulder it was to see that she was on her side, turned away from him, her long hair hiding her face, doubtless on her way back to sleep.
It seemed peculiar that he was going to be marrying a woman who, in the normal scheme of things, would not have excited his interest—and even more peculiar that she had not only excited his interest, but that his interest was showing no signs of petering out just yet.
He wondered what the chances were of a continuing sexual relationship for the duration of their imposed marriage, but dismissed the idea before it had taken root.
He just didn’t have it in him to ride the crest of physical attraction for longer than a couple of months, and he knew without the shadow of a doubt, that to sleep with her for any continued period of time would be a big mistake.
He had always been able to deal with broken hearts, but this was a special case. When he and Alexa parted company they would still see one another, because he would have shares in her family company and would, on occasion, be working alongside her father. Her father was a sociable man. There would be instances when he would be invited over for a meal—special occasions, some family do—and there would be instances when she would be there too.
The last thing he wanted was to find himself in the firing line for recriminations should she get more involved with him than necessary. The last thing he wanted was her broken heart. Because she wasn’t a tough, sexually experienced woman of the world and her broken heart might not mend quite so easily.
He heard her soft, even breathing and frowned, because thinking of her suffering did something to him.
Which, he concluded, was all the more reason to make sure what they had ended before it could become a problem. No big deal for him, but he might have to gently guide her in the same direction, just to make sure...
Alexa, her thoughts all over the place, actually fell asleep, and woke to the sound of her mobile buzzing next to her on the bedside table.
She could hear the sound of the shower in the bathroom. Predictably, the bathroom door was wide open, because Theo was anything but a shrinking violet when it came to flaunting his nudity.
It was her father, and their conversation was brief and puzzling. She waited until Theo was back in the bedroom, his hair damp and tousled and a towel hooked precariously around his waist.
‘That was my dad...’ She looked at him anxiously.
‘What did he want?’
‘He said that he has something to tell me but I’m not to worry.’ She sat up, heels tucked beneath her rear, and she chewed at her lip.
Being told not to worry was the fastest way to make sure that someone got worried—especially when it came to her father, who was the master of understatement.
Had her mother’s health scare not been quite as severe as it had been, Alexa was sure that her father would have not deemed it necessary to contact her and ask her to return to Italy sixteen months ago. She’d been protected and sheltered as a child and that was the way it remained.
‘What if something’s wrong with Mum?’ she asked in a quiet, wobbly voice.
Theo crossed over to the bed and looked at her uncertainly for a few seconds. The Alexa he had first met had changed over the brief but intense time they had spent together. Having expected a frumpy little doormat, he had been presented with a firebrand...
A feisty, outspoken, mutinous firebrand, who was also a ridiculous romantic...
Who had been a virgin...
He could sense her making a big effort not to cry, and he fought against his instinct to bracingly tell her to pull herself together.
‘He’d tell you,’ Theo informed her calmly. ‘When it comes to health, people tend to avoid beating around the bush.’
‘You don’t know my father,’ Alexa said ruefully. She suddenly realised that she wasn’t wearing anything, and she hurriedly dragged the duvet over her and slumped back against the pillows.
‘Fill me in.’
Alexa paused. This was what it meant to be in love, she thought. She could no more fight the urge to confide in him than a starving man could have fought the urge to feast at the banquet. Her head was telling her one thing—telling her to protect herself and back away—but she was drawn to him like a moth to the flame that threatened to kill it.
Being in love meant waving goodbye to common sense—to everything that had been her compass through her life.
‘He’s always hated the thought of worrying me,’ she confessed. ‘They wanted more kids, you know, but Mum had a terrible time when she was pregnant with me and was told that to risk having another would be endangering her life.’ Alexa sighed. ‘You could say that I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life. Not that I wasn’t allowed out of their sight, but I was always protected from what they considered too much information. I only found out just how bad Mum’s stroke was by cornering the consultant and demanding the details. Left to Dad, he would just have tutted and told me that everything was going to be fine. Which is why for him to call me here and say that he’s got something to tell me... Well...’
Theo sat down on the bed, and she toppled a little towards him before steadying herself. For once he was with a woman, in a bed, and sex was not uppermost in his mind.
‘I can only think that he’s readying me for something big—that it’s serious. And the only serious thing I can think of is that Mum... Well...’
Unaccustomed to soothing crying women, Theo pulled her towards him and smoothed her hair clumsily with his hand. She was crying against his chest but trying hard to stifle it, and that more than anything else touched him.
He hadn’t had to dig too deep to find the soft-as-mush girl beneath the tough, outspoken exterior. And that was something he felt he should have sensed from the very beginning.
‘So chewing over it and coming up with lots of worst-case scenarios...is that going to alter the reality?’
‘Well, no...’
‘If your mother was seriously ill your father would tell you—however much he didn’t want to worry you—and if he wouldn’t, then my father would call me and say something. You forget—they’re back in touch now. And my father, I assure you, has never been backward when it comes to being brutally honest...’
‘What do you mean?’
She was feeling better already. She liked the way he was holding her—as if she were a piece of fragile porcelain china. It felt good to be held like this, without sex being their final destination. It scared her how much she liked it...
‘That art teacher might have been a bit forthright with Daniel,’ Theo joked lightly, ‘and I may have passed the litmus test with her by painting nonsense and talking my way into an explanation, but I remember my father taking one look at one of my productions and bursting out laughing. He said that it was the biggest load of rubbish he had ever seen, and then he patted me on the shoulder and told me that if he couldn’t give me a few home truths then who could? So rest assured that he wouldn’t shy away from phoning me if there was a crisis over there...’
‘And has he?’
Theo looked at her with a frown. ‘Has he what? Phoned me? To tell me about a crisis with your family? No.’
Alexa breathed a sigh of relief—because she believed him. It was as simple as that. She would wait and see what the problem was when she returned. Hopefully it would be something to do with the wedding or the engagement party.
Which brought her back to the thoughts that had momentarily taken a back seat.
She edged away from him and shuffled out of bed. Just now, knowing what she knew about her feelings for him, she felt that a bit of distance between them would be a good idea.
‘So...’ she said, gathering herself. ‘It’s our last day...’ She was well and truly up and awake now, and the thought of trying to pretend to go back to sleep wasn’t going to work.
What happened next? she wondered.
The longer she carried on having sex with him, the more hurt she would be building up for herself. But how on earth was she going to last a year of wanting him and having to hide that want? How was she going to survive when he looked at her with polite indifference because what had started as lust for him had dwindled and disappeared?
The stakes were never going to be even between them, and just thinking about that made her head ache.
More than anything else she wished she could run away and take cover until this crazy love had blown over—except she knew that it never would.
She might no longer be able to keep her heart intact, but she felt she could try and keep her dignity intact—and to do so she would have to guard her expression and never allow him to see just how much he had finally ended up getting to her.
She wondered if this was the fate that had befallen all those women he had dated in the past. Having heard him give them his warning speech about not getting involved, had they, like her, found themselves being sucked into something that was bigger than them?
Had that been the fate of the striking blonde who had confronted him in that restaurant?
Alexa could only hope that, however hard she had fallen for him, she wouldn’t be one of those women who kept trying to grab his attention whenever they happened to bump into him—who let him think that what he had once taken from them was still on offer should he decide to pay them another visit.
She had seen the way he had looked at that blonde, with veiled contempt in his eyes—the same contempt that had been in his voice when he had talked about her.
There was no way Alexa would allow herself to become someone like that.
‘I think we should do some sightseeing,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll just grab a shower and then we can think about heading out...maybe have breakfast at one of those bagel places by the hotel... Or we could go to Central Park... There’s still so much to see... The earlier we leave, the better, don’t you think?’
Theo inclined his head to one side, his antennae picking up invisible signals and trying to decipher them. ‘Don’t rush,’ he told her with a little shrug, ‘I’ll have to wrap up these documents. It’ll take at least half an hour...’
Alexa took longer than that, and emerged fully dressed an hour later. Theo, likewise, was in a pair of black jeans and a cream polo shirt that did amazing things for his athletic, muscular body.
She licked her lips and tried not to stare. Staring had been permissible when it had been about lust. Now that it was about love, staring was a weakness she could not afford.
Her heart was still beating fast and she frantically wondered how she could carry on sounding normal when everything inside her felt so abnormal.
She need not have worried. Theo’s charm and the breadth of his knowledge proved irresistible.
She had, of course, travelled—but not nearly as extensively as he had, and he didn’t allow her to be introspective as they had breakfast in a noisy bagel café before jumping on the subway—something she had to persuade him into doing—so that they could explore Williamsburg.
At one point he grabbed her hand and continued holding it. She knew that it was just one of those throwaway gestures of his, but also knew that would be one more thing she would store in her memory bank, to be extracted for examination at a later date.
She couldn’t resist.
And she couldn’t resist when he pulled her towards him and casually dropped a kiss on her parted lips.
She couldn’t resist the way he took it for granted that her body belonged to him. Every passing touch was like the heavy brand of possession, but if he’d known the effect he had on her he would have been quailing at the thought of their year-long pretend union.
She hoped she’d kept everything on a light level, and by the time they’d headed back to the hotel and begun packing for their trip back to Italy she even managed to ask the question that had been uppermost in her mind for the past few hours.
‘Should we discuss how we...er...move forward now...?’
About to fling the last of his clothing into his suitcase, Theo paused and stared at her. Something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
‘Come again?’
‘Well, the week is up,’ Alexa pointed out nervously. ‘And I know that was the time limit we both agreed for us to...er...get this thing between us out of our system...’
‘I don’t recall agreeing to any such thing,’ Theo pointed out.
She had come to him a virgin and yet now it seemed that she was keen to draw her experiences with him to a close. He clenched his jaw as it was brought home to him how little they had in common, aside from the obvious bond of their similar backgrounds, and how much, fundamentally, she still disapproved of him. He had the feeling that he’d been used, and it wasn’t a feeling that he liked.
His cell phone buzzed and a text message popped up, saying that their limo had arrived to take them to the airport.
She had certainly started a tricky conversation at the right point in time, he thought drily. Did she think that he would be too embarrassed to continue in the back of a taxi?
‘Taxi’s here,’ he said curtly.
He phoned through to Reception to ask for their bags to be taken down to the limo and then waited until they were inside the spacious car before he picked up their conversation.
‘Well...I know we didn’t exactly set a time and a date,’ Alexa said, when he lazily asked her to finish what she had started saying. ‘I mean, I do understand that it’s hard...impossible...’
‘To set a time and a date when it comes to lust?’ he interrupted smoothly. ‘You’re right. It is.’
‘But,’ she persisted valiantly, ‘I do think we need some kind of clarification here...’
‘Why?’
They did. He knew that. However, for some reason he had a perverse desire to dig his heels in. He wasn’t ready to give up what they had, and there was nothing worse than unfinished business, as far as he was concerned.
True, when it came to women that was pure conjecture, but he couldn’t see the point of self-denial and that was precisely the road she was trying to head down right now.
‘Because this marriage of ours isn’t going to be real,’ Alexa mumbled. ‘And if it’s a business arrangement—’
‘You can try.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You can try to fight this thing between us, but you won’t be getting any help from me.’
‘What—what do you mean?’ Alexa stammered.
‘I mean that I’m not ready for this to end yet. And don’t forget—we may have had a little respite from the cameras but we’re heading back into the lions’ den, and with our engagement those pesky reporters are going to be snapping away to capture the happy couple. I just want you to know that when I kiss you it won’t be for the cameras...’
‘I’d forgotten about them,’ Alexa said in dismay.
He grinned wolfishly at her. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll soon come flooding back...’
‘So in other words,’ Alexa said tightly, ‘you want this to carry on until you get tired of it?’
‘In other words, I have no intention of fighting what’s between us.’
The taxi ride was completed in silence. Typically, Alexa thought, he had said what he had to say and then, rather than continue driving his point home, had dismissed the topic by spending the ride to the airport with his laptop open, sifting through dozens of emails and ignoring her completely.
He was just so damned sure of himself—just so convinced of his own monumental appeal that he didn’t envisage her standing a chance of saying no to him.
She despaired.
Would she be able to withstand an onslaught? Even though she knew that he was not in it for more than just sex? Even though she knew that she would end up being desperately hurt? That she would turn into one of those clingy, needy women he had no time for? The sort who never forgot him and staged scenes whenever their paths chanced to cross?
All her resentment and anger, her conviction that she could never in a thousand years fall for a guy like him, now seemed like naïve stupidity. She had been able to hate the one-dimensional cardboard cut-out, but the minute the three-dimensional man had emerged she had not been able to resist.
She’d turned into just another one of his conquests, and she shivered at the prospect of those lips touching hers and her knowing that she wanted more. She was terrified of being betrayed—not just by her own weak body, but by her emotions.
Her head buzzed with so many scenarios that she was barely aware of the flight. He left her to stew. In fact she was certain that he wasn’t even aware of her presence next to him. He was utterly absorbed in his work, and sex, however compelling, played second fiddle.
Only as they were taxiing on landing, and after having fitfully dozed for part of the trip, did she find other concerns settling—and the main one was whatever it might be that her father had to say to her.
All over again she felt anxiety begin to claw at her insides. Theo had calmed her fears by telling her that if her mother’s health was involved he would have known about it. Now, Alexa could see all the flaws in that argument. Why would her father advertise something like that to his dad? It was a personal problem and he would surely want to keep it to himself. The fact that his instincts had always been to protect her from anything unpleasant meant that whatever he wanted to say must be of grave concern. It must be something he couldn’t keep from her.
‘What if something’s really wrong with Mum?’ she couldn’t help asking as they disembarked.
She hated herself for appealing to Theo for reassurance, but she had had time to contemplate the worst and she needed to hear the strong conviction in his voice. It was irritating—especially considering she should be trying to erect whatever fragile defences she still had at her disposal to protect her pathetic, foolish heart—but she needed his logical explanation. Even though she had already convinced herself that it made no sense.
‘It won’t be.’
Theo had had plenty of time on the trip to try and work out why he was in the process of breaking his own self-imposed rule never to chase any woman. She was backing away, and instead of shrugging his shoulders and moving on he was intent on pursuit. Ego and pride, he presumed. Not exactly the most endearing traits in the world, but he wasn’t going to pretend that there was anything more to it than that.
‘But you don’t know...’
Theo stared down at her flushed, earnest face and his libido kicked into gear with surprising ferocity. What was it about this woman that made him want to drag her off to the nearest empty room and take her?
He actually caught himself doing a brief mental tour of what he could recall of their route towards Immigration, trying to figure out if there were any cubbyholes he could pull her into, so that he could yank down those oh, so prim and proper trousers, taking her underwear with them, and have sex with her in the most basic way possible.
Reluctantly he gave up the idea, but this, he thought, was precisely why he would carry on his pursuit... Because to back off now, when neither of them wanted to, whatever she said to the contrary, would be like having to endure an indefinite erection without the benefit of a cold shower to get rid of it.
‘Nor do you,’ he said with a hint of impatience. ‘Now, don’t forget that we’re back in the public eye. Try not to trail behind me—and it would help if you wiped that anxious expression off your face.’
With his free hand he massaged the nape of her neck, underneath her silky hair—which Alexa knew was unnecessary because there was no one with a camera around. But he had warned her that he wasn’t going to play by her rules... He was just proving to her that he had meant what he said.
And right now, in these crowds, she was powerless to do anything about it.
Even when they were in the back of his chauffer-driven car—he had called from the airport for it to come for them—she still had an insane urge to close the gap she had studiously put between them.
Like a predator, with all the time in the world to hunt its prey, he made no move to get closer to her, contenting himself with watching her through brooding, speculative eyes that gave her goosebumps.
Finally she hissed, with one eye on the driver, although the screen, as always, was up, ‘I wish you’d stop staring at me!’
‘Why?’ Theo drawled.
‘Because I don’t like it!’
‘Liar. You like it—and so do I.’
His words floated around her like a physical caress. There was lazy intent in his eyes and she looked away hurriedly, her body turned on to screaming point. Because he was one hundred per cent right... She did like him staring at her—liked the way it made her whole body tingle, as though it had been plugged into an electric socket...
She heard herself launch into nervous chatter, babbling even while her body recalled how and where it had been touched, and fought against the seductive temptation to think about how and where it would be touched again...
She was surprised that they made it to her house with her nervous system still intact. Of course he hadn’t opened his computer once, or checked his phone at all. He’d just leaned against the door, limbs loose, his fabulous green eyes pinned to her face, fully aware that he was unsettling her and amused by it.
‘I’ll come in with you,’ Theo murmured, pressing a button and talking to the driver once the partition was lowered.
‘There’s no need,’ Alexa said hastily.
He didn’t bother to answer, instead stepping out of the car and moving round to wait for her as she followed suit.
‘There’s no need to pretend now that we’re here,’ she muttered as he neatly tucked her arm into the crook of his.
‘Oh, I know that,’ Theo murmured silkily, ‘but remember what I said to you?’
Alexa’s breath caught in her throat, because she knew that she just didn’t have the weapons for a sustained assault.
‘And remember what I said to you!’ But her voice was weak.
He actually laughed under his breath. Laughed and patted her on her arm. ‘You want me. Don’t fight it, Alexa. Enjoy it while it lasts. Now...’ his tone changed from lazy to brisk as he rang the doorbell ‘...why don’t we see what all the fuss is about with your father?’
