Читать книгу Valentine's Day - Nicola Marsh, Allison Leigh - Страница 32
ОглавлениеThey never made it to the bed, as it turned out. And the hot bath came quite a bit later. They got about as far as the sumptuous pillow-filled conversation niche off to the side of the room before passion got the better of them and, there, Zander made the kind of love to her that she’d never experienced before. And would never forget.
Worship.
There was no other word for it. He took the sort of care of her body—with it—that she’d only ever dreamed might happen. Measured and thorough and poignantly careful. Not tentative—she had enough aches and stretched muscles to know that he’d challenged and pushed her to be the Georgia she’d never let herself be, never needed to be, before. To roam far, far out of her comfort zone. Safe in his embrace.
She lay on her back on the daybed in the balcony niche, her head hanging back over the edge, and stared at the dark sky. Only it wasn’t quite the deep black it had been when they’d first come out here, wrapped in traditionally woven blankets, wrapped in each other. It was a deep blue now, with hints of regular blue at the edges.
‘Remind me to get more sleep before having sex with a marathon runner,’ she murmured. Stamina? Oh, my God... ‘It’s nearly dawn.’
Across her legs, the heavy heat of him stirred. ‘Don’t we have somewhere to be at dawn?’
The balloon.
They’d come all this way to do the Cappadocian balloon experience. Could she really justify skipping it to stay here in heaven with Zander?
She sighed. Almost.
‘Come on... You don’t want to miss it.’ He slapped her thigh gently and pushed himself into a sitting position. Dark or not, there was nothing but sky to look in on them high up on the mountain face, but within the hour the sun would be up and hot-air balloons would be rising over Göreme filled with curious, binocular-holding tourists.
And they were supposed to be in one of them.
That was the only thing that got her moving. They. The fact that Zander would be with her. If he wasn’t booked she’d have blown the whole thing off—dream or no dream.
She padded in silence into the room with him.
What exactly did one say after a night of no-holds-barred sensual exploration?
‘Let’s get ready,’ he said, ‘and we’ll get moving.’
Huh. As good as anything, she supposed.
But he tempered the banality of the words by swooping down behind her and latching onto her throat with his lips. For a bare heartbeat. Then he was gone again, gathering up his scattered clothes and rummaging in his suitcase.
She thought about running back to her room to change but, really, when you’d been awake the whole time it qualified as the same day, so slipping back into her day clothes felt acceptable.
Plenty of time to change later.
Though her eyes roamed back to Zander’s big beckoning bath. She really hadn’t had much chance to get clean while they were in there. Quite the opposite, in fact. She did her best to wrestle her secret, satisfied smile into submission.
It wasn’t dignified to gloat.
The rush and bustle of getting out to Göreme’s airfield in the still-dark of morning did a fine job of distracting her from thought, just as Zander’s talented lips had done all night. Whether kissing her or murmuring conversation. It hadn’t all been lascivious. They’d lain, tangled together and curled in blankets, and talked about anything that came to mind until one or other of them—or the conversation—had turned sensual again and then there was no talking for quite some time.
On arrival at the open balloon fields, four enormous bulbs glowed in the dim morning light. They lay, powerless, on their sides, and the roaring gas fires slowly filled them upright. The palest of the four lit up like its own sunrise.
‘That’s ours,’ Zander said, coming back to her side, his digital recorder in hand.
They crossed to the enormous basket that was tethered to the ground and Georgia said a quick whisper of thanks for its size. They might look tiny in the sky but on the ground they were enormous.
She was entirely distracted and romanced by the lumbering bulbs taking shape along the roadway. Looked as if their dawn flight would be a balloon convoy. But while groups of ten and more waited for the other baskets theirs was just the two of them and their pilot.
Nice work, Casey.
‘Are you my private?’ A uniformed American woman stepped forward.
‘EROS radio station,’ Zander confirmed.
‘That’s you. Come on aboard and I’ll give you the pre-flight information.’
By agreement, Zander recorded the whole safety presentation and the pilot put on an extra-thorough show for the media. But by the end of it Georgia certainly felt very sure about what to do if the balloon failed, and absolutely certain that it would not. The whole thing was far more regimented and controlled than she’d expected.
‘I get motion-sick,’ she volunteered out of nowhere and Zander looked up, surprised.
‘We have bags,’ the unfazed pilot said ‘but you won’t need them. You’ll see. It’s as though the planet is moving and we’ll be standing still.’
Zander threaded his fingers through hers and the gentle gesture filled her with the same golden glow that kept their balloon aloft. She tightened her fingers around his as the pilot closed the door.
‘Ten minutes before sun-up,’ the pilot announced. ‘Let’s get you guys in the air.’
Zander curled Georgia into his body and stood behind her against the basket edge in the centre of the basket. She felt both sheltered and protected.
The balloon didn’t rise straight up as she imagined it would when the ground crew dropped their tethers—then again her entire experience of hot-air balloons was from The Wizard of Oz. Instead, it skirted along, centimetres above the ground, and slowly those centimetres became meters and then Georgia got a sense of what the pilot had promised. As soon as they had some height, it suddenly felt as if the earth had started to treadmill below them and they were stationary, just hanging there in space.
The pilot gave the gas its voice and the entire balloon inhaled the burst of flame, long and steady. It rose again. Then she killed the flame and silence resumed; the only sounds were the clinking of guy ropes and the distant squeals of the passengers in the balloon ascending behind them.
Theirs breathed enormous gulps between long silent stretches and climbed and climbed in pace with the sunrise.
‘Do you want to describe what you see?’ Zander murmured against her neck, crossing his strong arms around her and holding the running digital recorder below her chin.
Golden light fingered out from the horizon and the deep blonde colour of the earth began to glow with a vibrancy and a gentle kind of fire. Georgia described the stunning scene, punctuated by the occasional breath of the balloon, and full of words like God and heaven and other-worldly. And whole and healing and soul-breath.
Zander and the pilot remained silent, letting her speak.
They flew over Göreme and then left it far behind as they floated over the lunar-like deserts. A distant mesa grew bigger and bigger as they approached but the pilot kept the balloon level though the others in their convoy all lifted. Georgia’s adrenaline spiked and Zander’s arms tightened around her, but at the last moment the pilot fired the lungs hard and their balloon soared up and over the lip of the mesa and the vast plains of Anatolia were revealed before them.
Tears filled Georgia’s eyes.
Zander recorded the balloon’s respiration as they drifted over great clefts in the earth and the rolling, twisting, ancient tortures of the granite and sandstone crust. He interviewed the pilot and got some close-up sounds of the clanking guy ropes and a passing flotilla of geese, generally capturing the atmosphere of this amazing experience for his listeners.
Though of course that was completely impossible to do.
This was as close to angel flight as she was going to get.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he murmured, back by her side and pocketing the recorder.
She spoke before she thought. ‘Dying.’
He twisted around to look at her face. She laughed. ‘I mean what it might be like after you die. Ascension. I’m thinking it would be like this. So...gentle and supported. No fear.’
‘I didn’t know you were so religious,’ he murmured.
‘I’m not, generally. But it’s tough to be up here and not wonder...’
They fell to silence, but Zander eventually broke it.
‘I remember wondering... I thought when I was young with so many people queuing up for communion there must be something in it.’
She tipped her head half back and contacted the strength of his chest. ‘You’re Catholic?’
‘Sufficiently Catholic to have had mass at my wedding, but not to get up early every Sunday for one.’
He was close enough and smart enough to interpret the total stillness of her body—as still as the balloon felt in space—correctly.
‘You’re married?’ she whispered.
The pilot shifted away to the far corner of the basket. If she could have climbed out to check the rigging at the crest of the balloon Georgia thought she would have.
Zander was as stiff as she was now. ‘No.’
Part of her sagged with relief, but she didn’t let it show. ‘But you were married?’
That was a hell of a thing to be finding out now.
‘Actually no.’
She turned her back on the spectacular view and looked up at him. ‘But you had a wedding mass?’
His face tightened. ‘We had one scheduled.’
‘It didn’t go ahead?’ This was too important a moment to be playing word games.
‘No. It was... The wedding was cancelled.’
Oh. ‘You broke it off?’
His brows dropped. ‘Why would you assume it was me?’
Because no woman in their right mind would jilt a demigod? ‘I don’t know. Only that you’re not very pro wedding.’
Though suddenly that particular prejudice made perfect sense if he’d had a broken engagement in his past.
The gas flame belched and they rose slightly.
She tried again. ‘Was it mutual?’
Zander looked out to the now blazing dawn horizon. ‘No.’
Empathy washed through her. If anyone could understand the awfulness of being rejected, she could. Though she knew now that she’d never loved Dan. And Zander had clearly loved his fiancée. So how much more would that have hurt. ‘I’m sorry.’
What else could she say? Better to know now than find out later? Just because she considered Dan’s rejection of her proposal a dodged bullet didn’t mean that was how Zander felt. And judging by the tightness of his expression and his general close-mouthedness on the subject of marriage...
Would it ever have come up if not for his slip up?
‘Did she tell you why?’
‘No. She and her bridesmaids fled England while the ushers were doing the friend-of-the-bride/friend-of-the-groom thing.’
Georgia’s jaw dropped. ‘She left you at the altar?’ Didn’t that only happen in movies?
He nodded. ‘Even her parents weren’t aware.’
Oh, my God. ‘Zander, I don’t know what to say.’ Not about how awful that must have been for him. Not about the raging anger towards a woman she’d never met for hurting him so badly. Or the raging jealousy that was suddenly surging through her for some stranger he’d loved enough to marry.
‘There’s nothing to say.’ He shrugged, but it was the least casual thing she could imagine. ‘It’s ancient history.’
‘When was this?’
‘Right out of uni.’
Fifteen years wasn’t ancient. ‘You were young.’
‘And stupid as it turns out.’
She slid over to stand beside him so they could both look out at the beautiful, healing landscape below. ‘It’s not stupid to want to spend your life with someone. It’s brave.’
And that was an odd word to have chosen.
He digested that for a moment. ‘I wasn’t brave. I think I did it because it was the right thing to do.’
‘How long were you together?’
‘Four years. Since final year at school. We both enrolled at Lincoln.’
Excellent. High-school sweetheart, too. ‘You must have loved her a lot.’ Maybe he still did? It would explain a lot.
He thought about that. ‘I think it was one of those break-up-or-get-married moments. So I proposed.’
‘And she broke up.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘In the worst imaginable way.’
He slid his eyes down to her. ‘Strength of character wasn’t one of her strong suits. She had very dominant parents.’
That wasn’t a woman she could imagine him admiring. ‘Hurting you was easier than facing them?’
Dark brows folded. ‘Seems so.’
Cappadocia whizzed by beneath them.
‘Well, I guess now I understand your cynicism about marriage. And your reaction after the promo went so wrong.’
He looked at her for the first time in minutes. ‘I had to face two hundred of our family, friends, and neighbours, and tell them Lara wasn’t coming. The idea that I’d set someone else up for the same public humiliation...’ He shook his head.
That stole her breath every bit as much as the moment the balloon had played chicken with the sharp slope of the mesa. Her stomach lurched the same, too. In crystal-clear replay she saw the moment in the elevator all those months ago that he’d seen her distress, turned and shielded her from prying eyes with his body, and then helped her slink, unseen, from the parking garage. That was a foundation moment for her. And for him it had all been about sympathy.
‘Is that what the whole Year of Georgia thing is about?’
Pity?
‘If I could have started my life over, back then, I would have. Gladly. So I was happy to be able to give you the chance.’
She stepped away, just slightly, and pretended to admire the view. But she was as taut inside as the ropes holding the two parts of their aircraft together. ‘So this is your restitution?’
His voice dropped low. ‘Somewhat. Making sure you got something out of it.’
Right.
Then he stepped up behind her. ‘But not all of it. I can see where you’re going, Georgia. Working your way to assuming I slept with you out of guilt.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘No. I slept with you because it was inevitable. I’ve been wanting to since we met.’
She slanted a look back up at him. ‘It’s not some twisted Year of Georgia loyalty-programme bonus class?’
His smile rivalled the sunrise. And his chuckle warmed her from the inside out. Even as she fought it. ‘No. Though that suggests you learned a thing or two.’
She blew at the curl that hung over her eyes. ‘You have no idea.’
He nodded slowly. She felt it against her back. ‘Me, too.’
Well...this was awkward.
‘So, the fifty grand was about guilt, but the sex is about...sex?’
It was stupid to hope for more. But it wouldn’t be the first time her heart and her head had operated in opposition. The secret, foolish desire that she would be the one woman who he wanted more from.
His eyes shadowed over briefly. ‘The fifty grand was about keeping us both out of court for breach of contract.’
And the nine hours of intensive loving...?
He lowered his voice, given the proximity of the pilot. ‘Last night was about you and me and this amazing place,’ he went on. ‘And the attraction that’s been distracting me so much for the better part of half a year.’
That sounded a lot like... ‘Scratching an itch?’ It sounded as awful as it felt.
He sighed heavy and hard behind her. ‘Medicating a burn.’
If she needed any clue that they’d be going back to their London lives—separately—on Monday morning, that was it. You only medicated something you wanted healed over.
Zander hadn’t promised her more. She’d made her decision last night despite knowing that. So she had no grounds for complaint.
‘Up ahead,’ the pilot said with the best timing.
They both forced their eyes onto something other than each other and Georgia gasped as they descended amongst a field of giant, jagged pillars that stretched skywards, strong and masculine and potent.
Just like the man behind her.
‘This is extraordinary,’ Zander breathed, his eyes fixated on the ancient geology as their balloon bobbed amongst others over the natural wonder.
This whole weekend had been extraordinary. Living her dream just being here in Turkey, then, overnight, immersed in heaven with Zander.
But extraordinary in a bad way, too. Unravelling the origin of his anti-marriage sentiment and discovering firsthand how that was going to impact on her. No wonder he wasn’t interested in risking himself again.
Zander Rush liked to take holidays from reality. But they were only mini-breaks.
First Hadrian’s Wall and now Göreme. Every time they got away from London he was like a different man; he let himself indulge the attraction between them and be someone totally different from everyday Zander. Someone who communicated. Someone who laughed. Someone who loved.
Except it wasn’t love. It was medication.
As though his connection to her was something he needed to be cured of. A temporary ailment.
Back in the real world, Zander took care to pack himself carefully away—in his big empty house, on his epic, solo marathons, in his expansive plush office. He kept everyone at arm’s length. Absolutely by design.
Georgia stared out, letting the verbal spiel of the pilot wash over her: about the people of Cappadocia, about the heritage. She could hear it later on Zander’s recorder. It was hard to be in this prehistoric place that had seen war and famine and death and entire civilisations come and go and worry about one man’s feelings for one woman.
It seemed so trivial.
But she was that woman. This was her life. And so it wasn’t trivial at all. The Year of Georgia was supposed to have taught her who she was. It was supposed to have given her a taste of what was possible and highlighted the deficiencies in her life. And it had worked.
She was Georgia Stone. For better or for worse.
Weirdly obsessed with plants, content to walk alone amongst Roman ruins, uninterested in cooking or wine appreciation or shoes, but a crack shot with a blank-pistol and the fastest code-cracker the spy school had ever seen. Terrible at the contrived sexy steps of salsa but a natural at the private undulations of belly dancing. A decent rower but a terrible swimmer. She was a lab rat and a loyal and ethical employee.
And she had a heart as protected and hidden as any of the seeds she X-rayed. But at least now she knew, without a doubt, that it was competent. That she was competent.
She was Georgia Stone. She would find her way.
And though she’d enjoyed the detour of the past few months, it dawned on her in realisation as blazing as Cappadocia’s sunrise that her way just wouldn’t include Zander Rush. He’d come into her life bearing the gifts she needed to find herself again. Perhaps his cosmic role was now complete and the last twenty-four hours were just the most amazing swansong.
This conversation, this day, was her marker. He wasn’t sorry about what they’d done but he wasn’t interested in more and he certainly wasn’t interested in for ever.
And she was.
It hit her every bit as dramatically as the Cappadocian landscape had. She wanted a for ever someone. Dan hadn’t just been about keeping up with her friends. He’d been about trying to build something lasting for herself.
She wanted someone to share her life with. To explore with. To commiserate with. She was tired of being alone.
But just anyone would not do. She’d had a taste of something spectacular—someone spectacular. That was going to be very hard to go back from. And holding out for someone worthy didn’t seem as scary after the six months she’d just had.
Her heart buoyed just like the envelope bobbing above their heads.
He was out there. She would find him.
But then, with the same sinking feeling that came with shutting off the gas, she accepted another hard truth.
She just wouldn’t find him in this balloon.
* * *
Stalling the inevitable was easy to start with.
First, there was the business of getting the balloon back down to earth, onto the back of the pickup truck, the air out of the envelope, and the glossy fabric rolled up and stowed in the gondola. Then, there were too many ears in the bus that drove them back to Göreme to do more than smile politely at each other. Once back in the hotel, the exhaustion of twenty-four sleepless hours had claimed them both and it wasn’t too hard to convince Zander that she wanted the comfort of her own room and shower for a very necessary few hours of shut-eye.
When all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep in the circle of his arms.
But now it was late afternoon and Zander stood at her door, an optimistic bottle of wine in his hand.
‘Right now?’ He gaped.
‘My flight leaves in three hours. A car’s coming for me soon.’
The wine sagged towards the stone floor. ‘Why?’
‘Emergency at work,’ she lied.
He lifted one brow. ‘A seed emergency?’
Defensiveness made her rash. ‘I don’t remember signing anything that gave you say over what I do with my private time.’
He didn’t bite, though he did glance around him in the dim hallway. ‘May I come in?’
‘I’m packing.’ Truth was she was already packed because, even though she desperately needed it, sleep had evaded her. But her suitcase lay conveniently open on her luxurious, plump bed. She stood back so he could enter.
‘What’s going on, Georgia?’
‘Nothing. I just have to get back.’
‘Your seed emergency. Right.’ He placed the wine on the table. ‘What’s really going on?’
He had to know. Surely.
She shrugged. ‘We’ve done Göreme. We’ve done the ballooning. We’re done.’ In more ways than one.
‘But you were so keen to see Cappadocia.’
‘And I’m already planning on coming back for a longer stay.’
‘This is about last night.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Last night was...’ What did more cosmopolitan people say at this moment. Fun? Wild? Memorable? ‘Last night was a one-off.’
The eyebrow quirked again. ‘Really? And you felt the need to fly out of the country to avoid a repeat?’
‘I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’
He snorted. ‘Right. This is much easier on my feelings.’
His sarcasm triggered hers. ‘I’m not really up on the protocols of dis-entanglement.’
He repeated the word, silently. ‘Wow.’
‘Zander—’
‘For someone inexperienced in the art of casual sex you certainly are a quick study at the kiss-off part.’
‘This isn’t a—’
‘Yeah, Georgia, it is. But what makes you so sure I was even offering a round two?’
‘I...’ That took the wind from her sails. ‘You turned up with wine.’
He held the bottle up. The text was in Turkish but the image on the label was of a big balloon flying over Cappadocia. ‘It was a keepsake. I got me one, too.’
Oh.
‘If I hadn’t knocked would you have even told me you were leaving?’
‘Of course!’ But not until the very last minute. And he seemed to know it.
‘You don’t have to leave, Georgia. If last night was a mistake for you, then fine. We can keep our distance until tomorrow. But this is your trip. You’ve wanted this for ages.’
‘I can’t—’ Be here. With you. And not be with you. ‘It’s time to go.’
‘You don’t trust me.’ Again, not a question.
‘Of course I do.’ She sighed. She didn’t know anyone she trusted more. Dan included.
‘So what’s the problem?’ Awareness blinked to light in his grey eyes. ‘Unless you don’t trust yourself.’
She just stared.
‘That’s it, isn’t it? If you stay you don’t trust yourself to stick to your own resolution.’ Triumph glossed over his anger. He stepped closer. ‘So if you want me,’ he went on, ‘why are you leaving?’
‘I don’t want you.’ I don’t want to want you.
‘Liar.’
Yeah, she was. ‘This was an aberration, remember?’
He frowned. Clearly he didn’t remember saying it.
‘Besides today, tomorrow, what does it matter when we finish it?’ she asked. ‘Or do you just like to control the use-by dates on your affairs?’
Lord. That word sounded both very grown up and very old-fashioned at the same time.
His lips thinned. ‘I just want to understand it, Georgia. To understand you.’
Something made her ask. ‘It would have finished tomorrow, wouldn’t it, Zander?’
He tensed up.
‘Because this isn’t real. You said it yourself, you and me in this fantasy place. We would have ended the moment we touched down in London.’ He didn’t contradict her. ‘So what’s a few hours between friends?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Friends?’
‘Unless I’ve misunderstood you,’ she risked. ‘If you wanted something more long-term, Zander, now’s your chance. Just say.’ Because she’d be up for it.
His lips pressed tighter together. His eyes roiled.
She held on longer than was good for her dignity, just in case. But still he stood silent. As expected.
‘So, now that we’re on the same page,’ she said, heartsore, ‘I’m exercising my right to choose. And I choose out.’
She sounded much calmer than she felt.
‘I guess I should thank you,’ he said after a long, silent age.
‘What for?’ Giving herself so wholeheartedly to him?
‘At least this time I won’t have to explain myself to two hundred people.’
Her heart sank. She hadn’t even considered the similarities to his runaway bride. But the two situations were nothing alike. Were they?
‘I’m not running out on you.’ Yeah, she was. Avoiding the whole situation. ‘I’ll see you in London.’
‘Business as usual.’
‘Is there another way?’
She longed for him to say there was. She longed for him to say, Stay and we can be a couple. She longed for him to tell her she meant enough to him to break his work-only rules for.
But he wouldn’t.
And they both knew it.
He scooped the wine up and placed it carefully in the centre of her open suitcase protected by her intimates. Then he turned back to her and spoke.
‘See you in London.’
And then he was gone.
