Harlequin Romance February 2016 Box Set

by Barbara Wallace

  * * *

  Caro changed from her earlier outfit of jeans and a peasant-style top into a pair of white linen trousers, and then flipped through her selection of blouses.

  The blue silk, perhaps?

  No, Jack had always loved her in blue. She didn’t want him thinking she was dressing to please him.

  The red?

  Good Lord, no! She swished that along the rack. Red and sex were too closely aligned, and that wasn’t the signal she wanted to send.

  The black?

  Low neckline—not a chance!

  What about the grey?

  She pulled it out, but shoved it back into the closet almost immediately. It showed too much midriff. She needed something asexual. She didn’t want Jack kissing her again.

  Liar.

  Even if that lunchtime kiss had only been for show...in case anyone had been watching.

  Don’t be an idiot.

  He’d kissed her because he’d wanted to. End of story.

  A breath shuddered out of her, her fingers reaching up to trace her lips. Lips that remembered the touch and taste of him as if it had been only yesterday since she’d last kissed him. Lips that throbbed and burned with a violence she’d thought she’d managed to quell. That was bad news. Very bad news. She had to make sure he didn’t kiss her again.

  Or if he tried to she had to take evasive measures—not just sit there like a landed duck, waiting and hoping for it to happen.

  Now choose a blouse!

  In the end she decided on a soft pink button-down with a Peter Pan collar. As it wasn’t fitted, no one could possibly accuse it of being sexy. With a sigh, she tugged it on. And not a moment too soon either, as Jack’s knock sounded on the door while she was still buttoning it up.

  How do you know it’s Jack? It could be anyone.

  She shook her head, slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder. It would be Jack, all right. Nobody else knocked with quite the same authority. Besides, he was bang on time. He’d always had a thing for punctuality.

  She took a deep breath and then opened the door, immediately stepping outside and pulling the door closed behind her. She did not want Jack in her tiny flat again, with its temptation of a bedroom a mere door away. The less privacy Jack and she had, the better.

  ‘Hello, Jack.’ She prevented herself from adding a snippy again to her greeting.

  ‘Caro.’

  The heat from his body beat at her. He wore an unfamiliar aftershave, but it had the same invigorating effect as dark-roasted coffee beans. She breathed in deeply, her nose wrinkling in appreciation.

  He gave her a flattering once-over. ‘You changed.’

  ‘Just freshened up.’

  ‘You look nice.’

  She went to say thank you, but he reached out to flick one of her buttons—the second button down...the one right between her breasts.

  ‘These are kinda cute.’

  She glanced down and then groaned. The buttons were bright red plastic cherries! ‘If you knew the lengths I went to tonight to choose an appropriate shirt you’d laugh your head off.’

  ‘Appropriate? You’d best share. I enjoy a good laugh.’

  She moved them towards the elevator. ‘I wanted to choose a shirt that was...demure.’ She jabbed the elevator button and the door slid open.

  ‘So I wouldn’t kiss you again?’ he said, ushering her inside and pushing the button for the ground floor.

  She couldn’t look at him. She moved her handbag from her right shoulder to her left. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You hated it that much?’

  ‘Can...can we continue this conversation once we’re outside, please?’

  They travelled the rest of the short distance in thin-lipped silence. At least, his lips were thin.

  ‘You hated it that much?’ he repeated, once they stood outside on the footpath.

  She pulled in a breath of warm evening air. It didn’t do much to clear her mind. ‘No, Jack, the problem is that I liked it too much.’

  He swung to stare at her, his lips going from thin-lipped sternness to erotic sensuality with a speed that had her tripping over her own feet. He reached out to steady her, but she held both hands up to ward him off. Although he didn’t actually turn around and stare back the way they’d come, she could practically feel his mind moving back to her fifth-floor flat.

  ‘Not going to happen,’ she said, wishing her voice had emerged with a little more resolution.

  ‘We still generate heat, kiddo.’

  ‘What good did heat do us five years ago?’

  A slow grin spread across his face, turning him into a rakish pirate and her insides to molten honey. ‘If I have to explain that to you then—’

  ‘Hey, mister!’ a taxicab driver shouted from the kerb. ‘Do you want the cab or not?’

  Caro gestured. ‘Is that for us?’

  Jack nodded.

  She set off towards it at a half-trot. ‘He wants it,’ she called back to the driver, trying not to run. But she wanted to be away from her flat now.

  Jack followed, a scowl darkening his features. He gave the driver directions, closed the dividing window and settled on the seat beside her.

  ‘We’re five years older and wiser, Caro.’

  Older, maybe—but wiser? She wasn’t so sure about that. ‘What good do you think it would do us? We generate heat. So what? It’s the kind that burns, and you know it.’

  He stared down at his hands for a moment. ‘Maybe this time we could make it work.’

  Their marriage? She wanted to cover her ears. He had to be joking! She gave a hard shake of her head. ‘No.’

  His eyes flashed. ‘You won’t even think about it?’

  She told herself that thin-lipped and forbidding was better than steamy sex-on-legs pirate. Not that she managed to convince herself about that.

  She shook the thought away. ‘Do you really believe I’ve been able to think of anything else since I saw you five days ago?’

  She recognised the quickening in his eyes but she shook her head again, awash with a sorrow that had her wanting to curl up into a ball.

  ‘Hell, Caro,’ he ground out. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

  She dragged her gaze back to the front, not wanting to make him feel bad. She’d never wanted him to feel bad.

  ‘Even though you told me you wanted a divorce, I haven’t been able to stop wondering—what if we came to understand each other properly this time around? Could we make a go of it? Could this be the second chance I craved and fantasised about in those first few months after you left?’

  Her throat closed over. Beside her, waves of tension rolled off Jack in a silent storm of turmoil. She passed a hand across her eyes and swallowed.

  ‘The thing is, Jack, I keep circling back to the same conclusion. I don’t believe I have what it takes to make you happy.’

  ‘I—’

  She held up a hand to cut him off. She met his gaze. ‘And with you I would always be wondering... Is he only with me because I agreed to have children?’

  He slumped back, pain tearing across his features, and she ached to hold him, to wipe that pain away and tell him that they could work it out—but if she did she feared she’d only hurt him worse later, and that would be unforgivable.

  She forced herself to continue. ‘I can’t see things between us working out any better if you were the one to make the big sacrifice either. If we didn’t have the children you want so much I’d be riddled with guilt.’

  She clenched her purse in a death grip on her lap.

  ‘I don’t believe love and marriage should be all about self-sacrifice. It should be about two people making compromises, so they can both be happy.’

  She didn’t think that was possible in her and Jack’s case.

  ‘It’s about both people being equally important.’

  She tried, unsuccessfully, to unclench her hands from around her purse.

  ‘I can’t help feeling that in either sc
enario the things that drew you to me, the things you loved about me, would fade...and in the end you’d leave me anyway.’ She stared at her hands. ‘I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m saying it because this time I want to be completely honest with you.’

  She finally turned to look at him. His eyes were alternately as soft as a kiss and as hard as adamantine.

  His lips finally twisted with self-mockery. ‘You really have thought about it, haven’t you?’

  She wanted to cry. When he’d come searching for closure had he pictured this?

  He turned to gaze out of the window. ‘No amount of mind-blowing sex can compete with that.’

  A chasm opened up inside her. ‘I wish I could have that great sex without paying the price.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t be the case. Not for either one of us.’

  It helped a little to hear him admit it too. ‘Some people subscribe to the view that the loving is worth the losing, but I don’t believe that. It took me too long to get over you the last time, Jack. And I know now it was just as hard for you.’

  ‘You don’t want to risk it again?’

  Did he? He couldn’t! She shook her head. ‘The odds are just too high.’

  He took her hand, pressed it between both his own before lifting it to his lips and placing a kiss to her palm. Her blood danced and burned.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Caro. For everything.’

  The backs of her eyes stung. ‘Me too.’

  He laid her hand back in her lap with a gentleness that had her biting her lip. How could she still want to throw herself at him with such fierceness after the conversation they’d just had?

  ‘I swear I won’t kiss you again.’

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I only want to make things easier for you. Better. It was all I ever wanted.’

  She couldn’t speak. She could only nod. She knew that too. It was why she’d fallen so hard for him in the first place.

  The taxi stopped. Caro glanced at her watch. It felt as if a whole lifetime had passed, but in reality it had been only ten minutes. She slid out from the door Jack held open for her and waited as he paid the cab driver, pulling in deep breaths to try and calm the storm raging through her.

  She’d hoped such a frank conversation would ease the storm. That wasn’t going to be the case, evidently. She was at a loss as to what else to try.

  She glanced around, searching for distraction. She’d paid next to no mind to where they’d been going, but their location looked vaguely familiar.

  Jack moved up beside her. ‘Do you know where we are?’

  The taxi pulled away and drove off into the warm summer evening. She had no right to feel abandoned.

  Huffing back a sigh, she pointed to a sign. ‘That says this is Red Lion Square. So...we’re in Holborn?’

  He nodded. ‘We’re heading for a building on the other side of the park—and then my dastardly plan will be revealed.’

  He smiled, but she saw the effort it cost him. Reaching out, she pulled him to a halt. His warmth immediately flooded her, daring her to foolishness, and she reefed her hand back.

  ‘Are...are you sure you still want to do this?’ She wouldn’t blame him if he wanted a time out. It wasn’t his job to help her find happiness again, her relish for life.

  ‘Of course I still want to do this.’ He stared at her for a long moment before shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘I have no desire, though, to force you into something you don’t want to do. If you want to leave, Caro, just say the word.’

  She didn’t even know what this was yet, but that wasn’t really what he was referring to anyway. He wanted to see her smile and have fun again. She wanted the same for him. And she sensed that by helping her he’d be helping himself.

  From somewhere she dug out a smile. ‘I’m game if you are.’ The force of his smile was her reward. She turned away, blinking. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

  He led her into the headquarters of one of London’s premier Scrabble clubs. Her jaw dropped as she took in the sight of the boards and players set up around various tables.

  A young man brimming over with energy came bustling up. ‘You must be Caro Fielding. I’m Garry.’ He turned to Jack. ‘You’re—?’

  ‘A friend,’ he supplied, with a wink at Caro. ‘I rang yesterday.’

  ‘I remember. You said Caro might be interested in joining our club.’

  He had, had he? ‘I—’

  ‘She’s a brilliant player,’ Jack inserted.

  Good grief! ‘I haven’t played in an age. And he exaggerates.’ She elbowed Jack in the ribs but he just grinned down at her, utterly unrepentant.

  ‘Well, why don’t we set you up with Yvonne? She’s pretty new to the club too.’

  Before Caro knew it she found herself deep in a fierce game of Scrabble. She’d loved the game once. She and Jack used to play it—though he’d never really been a match for her. He’d only ever played to humour her. But when had she stopped playing?

  When Jack had left.

  Her heart thudded.

  At the end of the game she sat back and stared at the neat rows of tiles. ‘You just wiped the board with me.’ A thread of competitiveness squirmed its way to the surface. ‘Again?’ She wanted a chance to redeem herself.

  They started another game. Caro was vaguely aware of Jack strolling around the room, watching the other games, but she had to block him out to concentrate on the game in front of her.

  ‘You might be rusty,’ her opponent said, ‘but you’re picking it up again at a fast rate of knots.’

  Caro lost the second game as well—but not by a margin that made her wince. An old fire she’d forgotten kindled to life in her belly. ‘Best of five?’

  Yvonne simply grinned and started selecting a new set of tiles.

  Caro was amazed to find that three hours had passed when a bell sounded and they were instructed to finish up their games. Where had the time gone?

  She glanced about, searching for Jack. When she found him, leaning back in a chair at a neighbouring table, he grinned at her, making her heart pitter-patter.

  ‘Ready?’ he said, standing and ambling over to her.

  ‘Just about. I have to hand in my registration form and pay my club dues.’

  He started to laugh. ‘You don’t want to think about it for a bit, then?’

  ‘Heavens, no.’

  For some reason that only made his grin widen.

  ‘Do you know they hold competitions—and there’s a Scrabble league? Did you know there are world championships?’

  ‘You have your eye on the main prize?’

  ‘Not this year.’ She tossed her head, a little fizz of excitement spiralling through her. ‘But next year could be a possibility.’

  ‘C’mon.’ Throwing an arm across her shoulders, he led her outside. ‘Let me buy you a burger.’

  ‘Ooh, yes, please! I’m starved!’

  ‘And I owe you a meal.’ He grimaced down at her in apology. ‘I didn’t realise until much later that I’d left you holding the bill for lunch today.’

  They both remembered the reason why Jack had left so abruptly.

  He removed his arm from her shoulders and she edged away from him a fraction. She cleared her throat and tried to grab hold of the camaraderie that had wrapped itself around them so warmly just a few short moments ago.

  ‘It’s a small price to pay for this.’ She gestured back behind her to indicate the Scrabble club. ‘I had a great time tonight. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed Scrabble. It was an inspired idea, Jack. Thank you.’

  * * *

  The burgers were delicious, but while they both did their best to make small talk the easy camaraderie had fled.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked him afterwards.

  He named a hotel in Covent Garden. ‘Oh, Jack, you could walk there from here. Please—you don’t need to see me home.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘T
ruly! I’d prefer it if you didn’t.’ She wanted to avoid any fraught goodnight moments on her doorstep. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d flag me down a cab.’

  ‘You insist?’ he asked quietly.

  She gave a quick nod. He looked far from happy, but he didn’t argue. He hailed a cab and insisted on paying for it.

  As he helped her inside he said, ‘Tomorrow. Six p.m.’

  A ripple of anticipation squirrelled through her. ‘Again?’

  ‘Wear a dress and heels. Small heels—not stilettos.’

  She did everything she could to prevent her breath from hitching. ‘Will we be cabbing it again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll wait downstairs for you. Goodnight, Jack.’

  With that she sat back, before she did something daft...like kiss him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘SALSA CLASSES?’

  Caro’s mouth dropped open, but Jack kept his concentration trained on the expressions flitting across her face rather than the temptation of her lips, shining with a rose-pink lipstick.

  Lips he ached to kiss fully and very, very thoroughly. Lips he wanted to tease, tempt and taste. The longer he stared at those lips, the greater the need that built inside him.

  Who was he trying to kid? What he wanted was Caro, warm and wild in his arms, wanting him just as much as he wanted her.

  Except he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that!

  He dragged his attention back to her expression, trying to decide whether she was excited or appalled. Maybe a bit of both.

  ‘What do you think?’ he found himself asking.

  They’d attended dance classes once—back before they were married. At the time he hadn’t been all that keen—except on the thought of holding Caro in his arms. He hadn’t let on, though. He’d been too intent on wooing her. To his utter surprise, the dance classes had been a blast.

  She frowned up at him. ‘I’m really not sure this is such a good idea.’

  She was afraid of the physicality of the dance, afraid of where it would lead...and maybe a little afraid of herself and her own body’s yearnings. He needed to put her mind at rest and reassure her that they could survive one dance class together.