Читать книгу Be My Bride - Natalie Anderson, Jessica Steele - Страница 14

TWO

Liam tried not to hold his breath as he waited for her answer. Victoria Rutherford—the only woman he’d wanted, but had never had. The one who’d got away. It was such a cliché, but face to face with her for the first time in five years?

He still wanted.

She was even more beautiful now. Until today he wouldn’t have thought that was possible.

‘Sure.’ Her very pretty chin tilted upwards as she finally gave him an answer.

Liam had to suppress more than a sigh of satisfaction—there was a burn in his blood and in his gut as well. Last time he’d asked her something it had been a denial she’d issued. Not today. And, as crazy as it was, Liam had more to ask of her. Much more. He wanted to hear ‘yes’ from her mouth many times over.

Maybe then his mind would be freed from all those memories.

Victoria willed confidence. Of course she could drive that big black car. It might have power but it’d also have every safety feature ever invented. And no doubt it had a fancy sat-nav system and automatic clutch. It’d be a cinch. ‘I’d love to drive.’

Yeah, she just oozed faux confidence—refusing to show how flustered she was.

She carefully packed her gear into her bag. Shame she didn’t have some light leather driving gloves to don with chic aplomb. Gloves would hide the almost permanent ink stains. ‘Let’s get going. I’ve got a lot of work to do.’

But the car that an assistant brought to the front entrance of the chateau wasn’t the big black machine she’d seen from the window. It was a tiny two-seater.

Victoria eyed the sleek gleaming silver with its explicit promise of speed and seduction and turned to Liam. ‘Who do you think you are—James Bond?’

Even she, no car fiend, recognised a vintage Aston Martin when she saw it. No automatic clutch, no sat-nav, no airbags. No roof even. And no chance she was driving it.

He held open the driver’s door for her. ‘You don’t think it’s gorgeous?’

That wasn’t the point. ‘Is it yours?’

Of course he had some zippy racing thing. The guy only knew one speed—supersonic.

He shook his head. ‘It’s a rental. But I figure that’s no reason to be boring.’

As if he could ever be boring. Still, the ownership gave her an out from the nightmare. ‘Then insurance won’t cover me. I’m not taking the chance of damaging a rental car.’

‘But you wouldn’t mind damaging mine?’

Her gaze clashed with his. He didn’t look away. Nor did she. Like swords crossed to the hilt, their eyes were locked. Neither would disengage.

‘You’re driving,’ she spoke through lips that barely moved.

‘See, you are a coward,’ he answered equally softly.

‘I choose not to take unnecessary risks.’ She broke the fierce challenge by walking round to the passenger side, yanking open the door and sliding into the seat. She really couldn’t afford a bill if she pranged. And given how shaky her hands were right now, a prang seemed inevitable.

After a minute that felt like an hour, she glanced over to where he still stood by the open driver’s door. He was smiling as he stared at her.

‘If you’re not willing to drive either, please let me know so I can catch a train,’ she said impatiently. ‘I need to get home to get on with my work.’

‘Of course,’ he answered ever so politely.

Frankly, she didn’t see how a guy with legs as long as his could actually fit into a tiny roadster like this. But he did with a way-too-sensual ease, pulling sunglasses from a small compartment and putting them on. That was when she registered the next problem. The two-seater was a close fit. It wasn’t big enough for her to be able to slink into the far corner. Instead his shoulder was merely inches from hers.

Too intimate.

Swallowing, she glared out of the window. She’d focus on the external view, not the Greek-god-gorgeous guy sitting so close.

He revved the engine and cruised down the gravel driveway. Victoria breathed again, inhaling the fresh summer air. They’d be on the motorway and he’d put his foot down and they’d be back in Paris in no time and this would all be over. As they reached the end of the drive she braced herself for the acceleration. But when they hit the road, Liam didn’t quit the leisurely pace.

‘What’s with the speed, Grandpa?’ she finally asked. She wanted away from him as soon as possible. ‘Are we anywhere near the speed limit?’

‘If I drive too fast, I won’t be able to hear you.’

Hear her what? Breathe? She wasn’t about to have any kind of deep and meaningful conversation with the man. As far as she was concerned, the less they talked, the better. Her overly sensitive nerves didn’t need to hear more of the laughter that was always audible in his voice. So she sat silent, keeping her eyeballs glued to the window. After five minutes they were still going at that ridiculous pace.

‘You’ll get pulled over for holding up the traffic,’ she finally muttered.

‘There aren’t any cars behind me and, if there were, there’s a lane for them to overtake me.’

See, there it was. That latent lazy humour. As if everything was warm and easy with him. Well, if he was going to insist on the snail’s pace—and he clearly was—then she might as well quench some of the curiosity burning out her brain. ‘Why are you at the chateau so far ahead of the wedding? Isn’t your life so busy you could only fly in the day before?’

‘I’m on holiday. Thought I’d help her out with some arrangements.’

As he’d helped prepare for that Christmas years ago? He’d worked alongside her—helping out in all kinds of ways. As if he, like she, couldn’t cope with sitting around idly all day. She’d always wanted to feel needed. But she didn’t think he craved other people’s approval in the same way she did. ‘You don’t want to laze on the beach?’

He shook his head. ‘I’d want to be on the water.’

‘You’re not good at having a holiday.’ He’d always sought out something to do.

‘I prefer to keep busy.’

‘Why’s that? You can’t relax?’

She glanced at him. His eyes were hidden by the sunglasses, but his mouth curved into that wicked grin.

‘I can relax,’ he said softly.

‘By ‘getting busy’, right?’ she asked sarcastically, knowing that was exactly what he was thinking of. ‘But you can’t cope with quiet? You scared of being alone with your thoughts?

‘I’m a professional sportsman, right? Therefore I don’t have thoughts.’

Oh, he was no brainless jock type. He was smart, successful—you didn’t need to note the expensive watch and discreet-but-mega-expensive clothing labels to know that.

‘So what have you been keeping busy with these last five years?’ Once more she gave into her urges and asked.

‘You don’t know?’

She sent him a cool look. ‘No. You left on Christmas Day and that was that.’

His brows waggled above his sunglasses. ‘You mean you didn’t Google me?’

‘No.’ Laughter bubbled out at his irrepressible arrogance. ‘I’m sorry to deflate your ego, but I haven’t spent the last few years cyber-stalking you.’ Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t ever thought about him. But she’d resisted curiosity then and pushed him from her mind. Now his answer made her wonder. ‘Did you ever Google me?’

He smiled at the road ahead, his fingers rhythmically tapping the steering wheel.

Oh, my. ‘You did.’ She twisted in her seat and stared at him. ‘When did you Google me?’ It would have been easy to find her. She hadn’t changed her name—something that had really bothered Oliver. She had a website—it even had her picture on it. And she was on Facebook like anyone. She frowned, drew her lip between her teeth. What had Liam found out about her online? What info was out there that she didn’t know about?

‘When I heard you and Oliver had broken up,’ he said.

All that time later? A lone butterfly fluttered in her stomach. ‘How did you hear about that?’

‘I’m still in touch with some people in London.’

But not Oliver? ‘You know he’s gone to Canada.’

He nodded.

So he probably also knew Oliver hadn’t gone to Canada alone. What else did he know?

Suddenly cold, Victoria didn’t want to find out. She didn’t want to think what some of her old acquaintances might have said about how it all fell apart.

‘How do you know Aurelie?’ She turned back to stare out of the windscreen, folding her arms across her tummy.

There was a pause. ‘I’m one of her ex-boyfriends.’ Victoria clenched her fingers into fists, glad they were hidden under her arms. She kept her eyes firmly on the window. So he had wanted Aurelie. He’d had Aurelie. Then she remembered the expression that had briefly flared in his eyes when she’d interrupted him hugging Aurelie. Was he hurt because his former love was marrying someone else?

Victoria released the breath she’d held too long. ‘You’re still friends?’

‘We’re close.’ He inclined his head and briefly glanced at her. ‘Is that hard to believe?’

Frankly yes. What woman could be ‘just friends’ with Liam Wilson? He was too intensely attractive.

And what surprised her more was that he chose to remain in touch with Aurelie. He’d been the burning bridges type a few years ago.

‘Is she the one who got away?’ She tried to joke but it sounded flat to her. ‘Do you still hold a torch?’

‘I care very much about Aurelie, but—’

‘You care about yourself more?’ She couldn’t help interrupting rudely—she regretted asking anything now. She didn’t want to know.

He chuckled. ‘What is it about me that threatens you so much?’

‘Nothing. You don’t. I’m not bothered by you.’ Lord, could she sound any more flustered?

She tilted her head back and hoped the breeze would cool her cheeks.

‘No? I bothered you once. I made you want something you thought you shouldn’t.’ His smile was still there but all sense of joking was dead.

‘As arrogant as ever, I see.’ And a game player. He’d considered her sport. He’d done it because he couldn’t help himself—consumed by that driving need to win. Even over his best friend. Oliver had told her about the new sailor who’d come into the team—that he was driven like no one else.

He was driven to win in everything.

But even though she knew that to be the truth, her heart puckered. Surely it hadn’t entirely been a game? That attraction had been intensely fierce. Surely there was no way it had only been her feeling it for real?

And the night they’d first met, Liam hadn’t known she was Oliver’s girlfriend. Not until that heated look and those soft, searing words had already been exchanged.

‘You’d be disappointed if I wasn’t.’

She rolled her eyes but she couldn’t help those urges again. ‘So you and Aurelie?’

The wry smile on his lips told her he was amused by her curiosity. She lifted her chin and ploughed on anyway. Because, damn it, they’d shared something. They weren’t mere acquaintances. A moment of connection had forged a thread between them. Incredibly, she almost felt a right to know. He’d once interfered in her personal life—didn’t that give her certain leeway in return? ‘How long were you together?’

‘On and off, almost three years.’

She snapped her mouth shut, almost as shocked as when she’d first seen him walk into that room at the chateau. He’d been with Aurelie longer than she’d been married to Oliver? He must have loved her.

Liam chuckled. ‘I’ve surprised you.’

‘Yes.’ She drew a breath and nodded. ‘You have. But in a good way.’

‘Why good?’

‘You committed that long.’

‘You didn’t think I could commit?’ His brows shot high, an odd note sounding in his voice.

‘It doesn’t fit with your image.’

There was a pause. ‘What’s my image?’

Victoria swivelled in her seat again to look directly at him, determined to play it up and ease them back into that slightly wary, almost joking mood. ‘Untamable. Challenging. Arrogant.’

There were so many more adjectives she could add to his definition. But she wasn’t going to feed his ego any more.

‘And that makes me seem like I wouldn’t commit?’

‘Well, you’re such a flirt,’ she said bluntly.

He laughed and his hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Only with you.’

‘Yeah, right.’ That was a prime example of his flirt talk just there. And it totally wasn’t true. He’d had them all eating out of his hand all those years ago. She’d seen how the other girls there had watched him. They’d looked at him the same way Victoria had covertly looked at him. With dazzled hunger.

She couldn’t believe he’d been with Aurelie three years. What had happened to break them up? Why was she marrying someone else? Victoria thought she already knew. Liam wasn’t the marrying kind. Not even to a total dream-girl like Aurelie. He’d never be pinned down by any woman—not for life. No doubt there were too many other challenges—races, trophies, women.

‘Are you in a new relationship now?’ That curiosity got her once more.

‘No,’ he answered with a soft drawl. ‘I have commitment issues.’

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. Even though she knew it was the truest thing he’d said all day.

‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Are you with someone new?’

She shook her head. ‘I have commitment issues too.’

Now his laughter rolled.

‘Well, you can’t blame me for being wary now.’ She smiled wryly.

He stopped laughing immediately. ‘No.’ He turned his attention to the road ahead. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

‘I thought you were all ‘I told you so’?’

He shook his head. ‘He was an idiot.’ There was a silence. ‘We were all idiots.’

Victoria shrank in her seat. She’d been the biggest idiot. She’d been unable to stand up for herself and say what she’d really wanted. And in some ways, what she’d really wanted had been neither of them. She’d needed freedom and independence and she’d been too afraid to reach for it. But she had it now and she wasn’t giving it up.

‘The calligraphy’s going well for you?’ He changed the subject.

‘Yes,’ she said proudly. It mightn’t be world famous but it was doing okay.

‘It’s an interesting way to make a living. Doing the purely decorative.’

‘It’s nice to make things beautiful for people. Life shouldn’t just be functional,’ she declared, knowing he was deliberately provoking her and responding regardless. ‘Anyway, it’s no less meaningless than sailing from point A to point B as fast as possible. You’re hardly securing world peace with that career.’ She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear with an affected gesture. ‘At least what I do makes a difference to a few people—it makes them smile.

‘I make people smile too, you know,’ he said slyly. ‘I make people cheer. And scream.’

She bet he made many women scream. ‘Is that why you do it?’ She couldn’t resist a little provoking either—asking him in terribly polite tones, ‘You need the adulation?’

His resulting chuckle made her smile inside. ‘I just like to win.’

He hadn’t won with her. He still wouldn’t.

She looked at him. ‘Not everyone can win all of the time. Not even you.’

‘That’s not going to stop me trying.’

No. Hadn’t he made a play for her even when he knew she was with someone else—someone who was supposed to be his best friend?

But once more her conscience niggled because he could argue he hadn’t made a play. He’d not said or done anything out of line once he knew who she was. Then again the man was so devastating he hadn’t needed to do or say. He’d only needed to look. And when he had finally spoken? In front of everyone? She sighed. He was the one who’d got away.

‘This the street you meant?’

Despite his determined effort to fly well under the speed limit for the entire journey, they were indeed finally in her neighbourhood.

‘Yes.’ She directed him to her apartment and he pulled up outside.

Her heart thundered. Her silly hands were actually sweating as she unclipped her seat belt. She was going to say goodbye to him again. For ever. Good, right?

He turned in his seat and faced her. She should get out of the car. She should open the door and walk away. But she couldn’t; somehow she needed to see him—see his eyes. See if that look was there.

And he knew it. He took off his sunglasses, meeting her eyes. His were serious, but there was that glint of laughter and of something else.

Determination. Desire. Challenge.

She recognised them all. But she couldn’t let this happen. Even if she was dying of curiosity inside. She’d resisted him once, she could again, right? She had a new man-free plan and she was sticking to it.

‘Victoria—’

‘No.’ She pre-empted him. She was not inviting him in. She was not touching him. She was not letting him—

He smiled. Reaching out, he touched her burning cheek with just the tips of his fingers.

She clamped her jaw together.

‘Even now you want to resist it?’ he murmured.

‘You can’t just pick up with five years in between when we last saw each other.’ Did she have to sound so breathy?

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’ So much had gone down between then and now.

‘I’m single.’ He glanced at her hands in her lap. ‘You’re no longer attached.’

‘And you’re pleased about that,’ she said tartly.

He clamped his hand over hers, a quick frown pulling his brows. ‘Of course I’m not. Believe it or not I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you both to be happy.’

She swallowed, conscious of the strength of his hand pushing on hers. The heat of it. ‘We were,’ she said hoarsely, but honestly. ‘For a while.’

‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out. But it not working out was nothing to do with me.’

‘I never said it was.’ And she wouldn’t. But the edges of her heart shrivelled because, while Oliver had been the one who’d cheated, she’d been the one who’d withheld part of herself. She’d not been honest with him. Or herself. Or anyone.

Liam leaned closer. ‘Don’t make me pay the price of him hurting you.’

‘I’m sorry?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What is it you want to do?’

‘What I’ve always wanted to do.’ His shoulders lifted. ‘From the second I first saw you in nothing but a towel and steam. At least I’m honest enough to admit it.’

She felt the steam now as heat surged through her body.

‘This thing between us?’ He shook his head. ‘Still the same, even after all this time. You can’t deny it.’

Of course she’d deny it. Self-preservation was a basic instinct. ‘I can.’ Because she knew all that was important to know about Liam, yet he knew nothing of what was important about her. Like the fact she wasn’t about to let herself get distracted. ‘You don’t know me now, Liam. You don’t know what I want.’

‘So you’re going to take the easy option and avoid it? You’re good at that.’

She shook her head. ‘You thought you were so clever. That you saw it all. But you saw nothing of what was really going on with me. You didn’t know me.’

‘I knew enough,’ he argued. ‘I still do.’

‘And what do you think you know? That I was sexually attracted to you?’ She kept her head high despite another flare of heat in her cheeks. ‘You intrigued me then, yes, I admit it. But I’m not interested now.’

‘Then prove it.’ His gaze locked on hers. ‘Come closer without blushing.’

‘Oh, please.’ She covered up with a laugh. ‘I don’t need to prove anything to you.’

‘What about to yourself?’ he challenged right back, his expression wicked and tempting. ‘Isn’t that part of what you’re doing now? Isn’t your move to Paris all about proving things to yourself?’

‘You still think you’re so smart.’

‘No, but I know when I’m right.’ He brushed that strand of hair behind her ear for her. ‘You’re out here on your own. Proving you can do it. You can handle it.’

‘And I can,’ she whispered.

He smiled. ‘Yet you won’t even try to handle me.’