Harlequin Romance February 2016 Box Set

by Barbara Wallace

  ‘And that should matter to me because...?’

  He flashed her a grin that set her teeth on edge. ‘Getting under your skin, aren’t I, kiddo?’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’ It had been a pet name once. Jack had drawled it in Humphrey Bogart fashion and it had always made her smile.

  Not any more.

  ‘You were only ever that rude when you were fibbing or hiding something.’

  ‘And it seems you can still try the patience of a saint.’

  God knew she wasn’t a saint. But his perception had her grabbing hold of her temper again, and her composure, and trying to twitch both into place.

  ‘You wrote everything down. You were afraid you’d forget otherwise. You were big on making lists too.’

  ‘People change. Believe it or not, in the last five years even I’ve changed.’

  ‘Not that much.’ He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. ‘You still make lists.’

  She snatched it from him, unfolded it and started to shake. ‘This... You...’

  ‘That’s a list you’re making of options in the eventuality of losing your job.’

  ‘I know what it is!’ She scrunched the sheet of paper into a ball. ‘You had no right.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it brings us back to the original question. When did you stop having fun, Caro?’

  Before she could answer, he marched her to a table for two at a nearby riverside restaurant and held a chair out for her. For a moment she was tempted to walk away. But that would reveal just how deeply he’d got under her skin, and she was pig-headed enough—just—not to want to give him that satisfaction.

  Besides—she glanced around—the sun, the river and the warmth were all glorious, and something deep inside her yearned towards it. She didn’t want to turn her back on the day—not yet. For the first time her flat suddenly seemed too small, too cramped.

  Blowing out a breath, she sat. For the briefest of moments Jack clasped her shoulders from behind in a warm caress that made her chest ache and her stomach flutter.

  He took the seat opposite. ‘Caro—’

  ‘Pot.’ She pointed to him. ‘Kettle.’ She pointed to herself. ‘When was the last time you had fun?’

  The waitress chose that moment to bustle up with menus.

  Manners, Caro.

  ‘They do a really lovely seafood linguine here.’ The Jack of five years ago had loved seafood. She figured he probably still did.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the waitress said, ‘but that’s no longer on the menu. We’ve had a change of chef.’

  Jack glanced at Caro and then leaned back in his chair. ‘When did you change chefs?’

  ‘It’d be four months ago now, sir.’

  Caro swallowed, staring at the menu without really seeing it. ‘My...how time flies.’

  Jack said nothing. He didn’t have to. Had it really been over four months since she’d been down here for a meal?

  They ordered the prawn and chorizo gnocchi that the waitress recommended, along with bottles of sparkling mineral water. When the waitress moved away, Caro hoped that Jack would drop the subject of fun. She hoped she could simply...

  What? Enjoy a pleasant lunch in the sunshine with her soon-to-be ex-husband? That didn’t seem likely, did it?

  She gestured to the river, about to make a comment about how fascinating it always was down here, watching the river traffic, but she halted at the expression on his face.

  ‘You’re not going to let the subject drop, are you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Why does it matter to you one way or another if I have fun or not?’

  ‘Because I can’t help feeling that I’m to blame for the fact you don’t have fun any more—that it’s my fault.’

  He couldn’t have shocked her more if he’d slapped her.

  She folded her arms on the table and leaned towards him. ‘Jack, I get a great deal of enjoyment out of many things—a good book, a good movie, cake, my work—but I think it’s fair to say that I’m not exactly a pleasure-seeker or a barrel of laughs. I never have been.’

  ‘You used to make me laugh. Now, though, seems to me you hardly ever laugh.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that it’s the company I’m currently keeping?’

  He didn’t flinch—not that she’d said it to hurt him—but his gaze drifted out towards the river and she couldn’t help feeling she’d hurt him anyway.

  Their food arrived, but neither one of them reached for their cutlery. She touched the back of his hand. His warmth made her fingertips tingle.

  ‘I didn’t say that to be mean, but neither one of us should pretend things are the same as they used to be between us—that things aren’t...difficult.’

  She went to move her hand, but in the blink of an eye he’d trapped it within his. ‘When was the last time your soul soared, Caro? When was the last time you felt like you were flying?’

  Her mouth dried. She wasn’t answering that.

  The last time had been on a picnic with Jack in Hyde Park. They’d packed a modest meal of sandwiches, raspberries and a bottle of wine, but everything about that day had been perfect—the weather, the world...them. They’d gone home in the evening and made love. They’d eaten chocolate biscuits and ice cream for dinner while playing Scrabble. That day had felt like perfect happiness.

  Had that day been worth the pain that followed?

  She shook her head. She didn’t think so.

  He released her hand. ‘I see.’

  Did he?

  ‘Just as I thought.’

  She forced a morsel of food into her mouth. ‘The gnocchi is very good.’

  ‘I bought a boat.’

  She lowered her cutlery with a frown. Okaaay.

  ‘I go boating and fishing. And some days when I’m standing at the wheel of my boat, when I’m whipping along the water at a great rate of knots and the breeze is in my face, sea spray is flying and the sun is shining, I feel at peace with the world. I feel alive.’

  He lived near water? ‘What made you get a boat?’

  ‘A couple of friends, tired of my...grumpiness, dragged me out on their boat.’

  Her jaw dropped. ‘Grumpiness?’ Caro felt like an idiot the minute the word left her. She tried to cover up her surprise by adding, ‘You obviously enjoyed it enough to buy your own boat.’

  ‘When I left you and returned to Australia I threw myself into work.’

  He’d made such a success of his firm that only an idiot could accuse him of wasting his time.

  ‘But I didn’t do anything else—just worked. I didn’t want to be around people. I just wanted to be left alone.’

  She could relate to that.

  ‘Apparently, though, being a bear of a boss isn’t the ideal scenario.’

  Ah...

  ‘A couple of friends dragged me out on their boat, where I was quite literally a captive audience, and proceeded to tell me a few home truths.’

  She winced. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘They pointed out that I had no balance in my life.’

  ‘So you bought a boat?’

  He shrugged. ‘It helped.’

  ‘I’m glad, Jack, I really am. But...’ She leaned back, her stomach churning. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I want to help you find your boat.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE WANTED TO help her rediscover her passion, but she was suddenly and terribly afraid that they’d simply discover—rediscover—that he was her passion. What would they do then?

  You could offer to have a family with him.

  No! She didn’t want to live with a man who placed conditions on his love. She’d had enough of that growing up with her father. Why couldn’t she be enough?

  Oh, stop whining!

  Jack stared at her, as if waiting for her to say something, but she was saved from having to answer when a little girl moved close to their table, her face crumpling up as is she were about to cry.

  Caro reached
out and touched the little girl’s shoulder. ‘Hello, sweetie, have you lost your mummy?’

  The little girl nodded, her eyes swelling with tears.

  ‘Well, I’ll admit that’s frightfully easy to do,’ Caro continued in her usual voice—she hated the way adults put on fake voices where children were concerned, ‘but shall I let you into a secret?’

  The child nodded.

  ‘Mummies are very good at finding their little girls.’

  ‘You think Mummy will find me?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know she will.’

  Caro was aware of Jack’s gaze—the heaviness in it, the heat...his shock.

  ‘The trick, though, is to just stay put and wait.’ She glanced at the food on the table. ‘Would you like a piece of garlic bread while you wait? My friend here—’ she gestured to Jack ‘—thought I was hungry and ordered a lot of food, but...’ She started to laugh. ‘I had cake for breakfast, so I’m not really hungry at all.’

  The little girl’s eyes went wide. ‘You ate cake for breakfast?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Is it your birthday?’

  ‘Nope—it’s just one of the good things about being a grown-up.’

  In no time at all the little girl—Amy—was perched on Caro’s lap, munching a piece of garlic bread. Caro didn’t want to meet Jack’s eyes, so she looked to the left of him, and then to his right.

  ‘You might want to keep an eye out for a frantic-looking woman.’

  ‘Right.’

  She turned her attention back to the little girl. It was easier to look at her than at the yearning she knew would be stretching through Jack’s eyes.

  * * *

  The sight of Caro holding that little girl, her absolute ease with the child, burned through Jack. A dark throb pulsed through him. They could have had this—him and Caro. They could have had a little girl to love and care for. If only Caro hadn’t been afraid.

  If only I’d been patient.

  The thought slid into him, making his heart pound. She’d asked him for time but he’d thought she was putting him off, making excuses. So he hadn’t given her time. In hindsight he hadn’t given her much of anything.

  Unable to deal with his thoughts, he stood and scanned the crowd, doing as Caro had suggested and trying to locate a worried mother in the crowd. It took less than a minute for a likely candidate to appear. He waved to get the woman’s attention, and in no time flat—with a multitude of grateful thank-yous—the pair were reunited.

  He sat.

  Caro reached for her mineral water. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Just because I don’t know if I want children of my own it doesn’t mean I don’t like them.’

  ‘Right...’

  She glared at him then, before skewering a prawn on the end of her fork. For some reason, though, he was the one who felt skewered.

  ‘Why on earth did you—do you,’ she amended, ‘want children so much?’

  He shrugged, but his chest tightened, clenching in a cramp, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

  Eventually he leant back. ‘I’ve always wanted children...for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Well, now, there’s a strong argument to convince a woman to change her entire life to fit children into it.’

  With that sally, she popped the prawn into her mouth and set to picking through what was left of her pasta, obviously in search of more prawns.

  A scowl built through him. ‘Can’t a person just want kids?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe. My next question, though, would be... Do you want children because you believe you can give them a good life and help them to grow up to be useful members of society? Or...?’

  ‘Or...?’

  ‘Or do you want children because you’ve never had a proper family of your own, have always felt lonely, and feel that children will fill that lack in your life?’

  He stared at her, breathing hard. ‘That’s a mean-spirited thing to do, Caro—to use my background against me.’

  Her forehead crinkled. ‘I’m not trying to use it against you. I’m truly sorry you had such a difficult childhood. I sincerely wish that hadn’t been the case. But at the same time I don’t believe children should be used to fill gaps in people’s lives. That’s not what children are meant for.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me any of this five years ago?’

  She set her fork to the side. ‘I doubt I could’ve verbalised it five years ago. Your craving for children made me uneasy, but I could never pinpoint why.’

  Jack wanted to get up and walk away—which, it appeared, was his default position where this woman was concerned.

  ‘And, you see,’ she continued, staring down at her plate rather than at him, ‘back then it played into all of my insecurities.’

  Her what?

  ‘And that made me withdraw into myself. I realise now I should’ve tried to talk to you about this more, but I felt that in your eyes I wasn’t measuring up.’

  Her words punched through him. ‘Just as you feel you never measured up in your father’s eyes?’ He let out a breath, seeing it a little more clearly now. ‘If I’d had a little more wisdom... But your withdrawal fed into all of my insecurities.’

  Her forehead crinkled in that adorable way again. Don’t notice.

  ‘Insecurities? You, Jack? Back then I thought you the most confident man I’d ever met.’

  When he’d been sure of her love he’d felt like the most invincible man on earth.

  ‘I saw your refusal to have children with me as a sign that I...’ He pulled in a breath and then forced the words out. ‘That I wasn’t good enough for you to have children with.’ He dragged a hand back through his hair. ‘I thought that as a brash colonial from the wrong side of the tracks I was only good enough to marry so you could thumb your nose at Daddy...’

  She straightened. ‘I’ll have you know that I’ve never thumbed my nose at anyone in my life!’

  ‘I thought I wasn’t the right pedigree for you.’

  Her shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, Jack, I was never a snob.’

  He nodded. ‘I can see that now.’

  Her shoulders slumped further. ‘I’m sorry you felt that way. If I’d known...’

  ‘If you’d known you’d have set me straight. Just like I’d have set you straight if I’d known I was making you feel like you weren’t measuring up.’

  She pulled in a breath and lifted her chin. ‘It’s pointless wallowing in regrets. We live and learn. We’ll know better than to make the same mistakes in the future...with the people who come into our lives.’

  He understood what she was telling him. That there was no future for them regardless of whatever acknowledgments and apologies they made for the past now.

  Beneath the collar of his shirt his skin prickled. Of course the two of them had no future. She didn’t need to remind him!

  She pushed away from the table a little. ‘It’s been a lovely lunch, Jack, but—’

  ‘We were talking about boats.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t need a boat. I don’t want a boat.’

  ‘When did you become so risk-averse? Everyone needs a boat, Caro—a figurative one—even you. You had passions once.’

  Her cheeks flushed a warm pink. His skin tightened. He hadn’t been referring to that kind of passion, but he couldn’t deny that as lovers they’d had that kind of passion in spades. The one place where they hadn’t had any problems had been in the bedroom. She’d been everything he’d ever dreamed of...and everything he hadn’t known to dream of.

  He wanted her now with the same fierceness and intensity with which he’d wanted her five years ago. The way her eyes glittered told him she wanted him too. They could go back to her flat and spend the afternoon making wild, passionate love. That would help her rediscover her passion for life.

  For how long, though? Until he left and returned to Australia?

  A knot tightened in his stomach. The
y couldn’t do it. It would only make matters worse.

  Caro glanced away and he knew that regardless of how much he might want it to, she’d never let it happen.

  Which was just as well. His hands clenched. This time when he left he wanted to leave her better off than when he’d found her. They might still want different things out of life, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help her rediscover her joy again.

  He set his shoulders. ‘You said you’d give me to the end of the week.’

  ‘To find my snuffbox!’

  ‘We need people to believe we’re reuniting...we don’t want them suspecting that I’m working for you.’

  That was a lowdown dirty trick, but he could see that it had worked.

  She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘To the end of the week,’ she growled.

  He had to hook his right ankle around his chair-leg in order to remain seated rather than shoot to his feet, reach across the table and kiss her.

  The fingers of her right hand drummed against her left arm. ‘What I’d like to know, though, is what precisely does this entail?’

  ‘That you be ready when I come to collect you at six o’clock this evening.’

  He shot to his feet. He needed to breathe in air that didn’t smell of Caro. He needed to clear his head before he did something stupid.

  She blinked. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘What should I wear?’

  He’d started to turn away. Gritting his teeth, he turned back and tried to give her a cursory once-over. But his hormones said To hell with cursory and he found himself taking his time. Her heightened colour told him she wasn’t as averse to his gaze as she no doubt wished she were.

  ‘What you’re wearing now will do nicely.’

  With a half-muttered expletive, he bent down and pressed his lips to hers, refusing to resist temptation a moment longer. The kiss lasted no longer than two beats of his heart—a brief press and a slight parting of his lips to shape his mouth to hers, a silent silky slide—and then he stepped away.

  Stunned caramel eyes stared back at him.

  ‘Please excuse me if I don’t walk you home.’

  Walking her home would be asking for trouble.

  He turned and left before he could say another word—before he did something dangerous like drag her to her feet and kiss her properly. One touch of his lips to hers hadn’t eased the need inside him. It had turned it into a raging, roaring monster. Her scent and her softness had made him hungrier than he’d ever been in his life before. He needed to get himself back under control before their date tonight.