by Lucy King
It wasn’t her fault that they’d been so undeserving of the role. However much she might have wondered over the years what she’d done wrong or what she could have done differently, the answer to that was nothing. The responsibility for her well-being had been entirely theirs.
Well, she was done with them and with looking back. She had to look forward. Her family was Josh now. Maybe even Finn too, who was perceptive and clever, who’d just shone a spotlight on the knotted mess of emotion she’d lived with for years and unravelled it in an instant and who was not a man to be underestimated. In any department.
Feeling strangely lightheaded while at the same time all warm and fuzzy, Georgie sat back and watched as he drained his glass, her gaze snagging on the strong column of his throat and the tantalising wedge of flesh that his open-necked shirt revealed.
‘So what was growing up like for you?’ she asked with a touch of huskiness that she cleared with a tiny cough. ‘It must have been tough not having a mother around.’
As he lowered his glass she saw a shadow pass over his face and a flash of bleakness in the depths of his eyes. ‘It wasn’t the easiest of times.’
‘Before that?’
‘I don’t really remember.’
‘How did your father cope?’
‘As well as could be expected.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I’d rather not.’
Fair enough. She was more than happy to back off. The afternoon was far too sunny for such sombre conversation and there was no need to push a topic that was clearly off limits. She and Finn had plenty of time to talk about histories and dreams. Years, in fact, she thought, the reality of what she’d agreed to hitting her suddenly and making her head swim for a moment. ‘Will you tell me about your business, then?’
‘Which bit of it?’
‘Well, how did it come about?’ she asked, thinking that, honestly, getting him to open up was like trying to get blood from a stone.
‘When I was eighteen and had left school I started working behind the bar of a club in the centre of the city.’
‘I bet you were good at it.’ With his darkly devastating looks and brooding charisma she had no doubt that people—well, women mainly—would have been tripping over themselves to be served by him.
‘I was,’ he said with the glimmer of a smile, the tension she could see gripping his shoulders easing a little. ‘I was very good at it. And more importantly I got a massive kick out of it.’
‘You didn’t want to go to university?’
‘I had a place at Oxford to read Maths but I gave it up.’
‘That was brave.’ University for her had been a lifeline and she’d loved it.
‘It was the arrogance of youth.’
‘Which in your case was justified.’
‘So it turned out. Six months later the club had become a go-to destination and hit all the A-lists. Soon after that the manager, who also owned it, fell ill. He had to take some time off and I stepped in. I started doing the books, figured out where savings could be made and margins improved, and wound up increasing the profits by fifty per cent. When it eventually came up for sale I bought it. I worked bloody hard and I expanded and diversified and things went from there.’
Admiration and awe surged through her. ‘And you did it all on your own.’
‘With the support of my father,’ he said, his mouth twisting slightly as his smile faded. ‘He lent me the money to buy the club in the first place, and gave me endless advice. He was an accountant and very shrewd.’
‘You must miss him.’
He didn’t answer, just looked so tortured for a moment that it tugged on her heartstrings. ‘Was it quick?’
‘It took around a year,’ he said, his voice oddly flat. ‘I received his diagnosis the night you and I met.’
She gave a slow nod of understanding. ‘That was why you looked so sad.’
‘Did I?’
‘Well, desolate really.’
‘I was drowning my sorrows.’
‘And then I rocked up and intruded. Sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘You were the perfect distraction.’
Her breath caught and a hot shiver ran through her. ‘You were the perfect birthday present,’ she said huskily. ‘It was a good night.’
‘It was better than good.’
His dark, glittering gaze remained locked onto hers and scorchingly vivid memories suddenly poured into her head. The air surrounding her thickened. The hustle and bustle of the restaurant faded. Up until this point she hadn’t realised how much of a chaperone, a shield, Josh had been. Without him, she felt wild and carefree and she suddenly wanted to stand up and lean over and kiss the man sitting opposite her looking at her so intently. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding, and deep inside she ached. She wanted to grab his hand and take him home and have him seduce the hell out of her all over again.
But none of that would happen. It couldn’t, even if the heat and desire had been mutual, which it clearly wasn’t. What with the risk of pregnancy and the chance that it might induce another psychotic episode, she was never having sex again. It was vaguely ironic that her libido had returned when it was of least use but she had to ignore it. Starting now, she thought, shifting to alleviate the ache only to accidentally knock his knee with hers and jolt as though electrocuted.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, blushing fiercely while mentally throwing her hands up in despair.
‘No problem,’ Finn replied, unlike her, completely unmoved by the moment, if the inscrutability of his expression was anything to go by. ‘We should order.’
* * *
Despite appearances, Finn was anything but unmoved by his brand-new civil partner. Theoretically, the ceremony should have changed nothing. The whole event had been a legal and bureaucratic process designed to bind Josh to him permanently, and that was it. He hadn’t given Georgie a ring or planned a honeymoon and the lunch they’d had afterwards had hardly been a celebration.
However, for some baffling reason things had changed. A week in and there now seemed to be an inexplicable intimacy about living with her that somehow hadn’t existed before. At night he’d started imagining her in bed and what he might do to her should he find himself ever in it with her. In the mornings, when he heard the sound of the shower running, he now envisaged her in it, wet and naked.
He seemed attuned to her every movement. Her scent lingered even when she wasn’t around. When home, she’d taken to wandering around the apartment in tiny shorts and T-shirts that drew his gaze to her long legs and spectacularly returning curves. When going out she did at least put on proper clothes, none of which were either particularly tight or revealing, but that didn’t provide much relief. He knew what lay underneath regardless, and to his immense irritation he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And then there were the little things that he’d noticed and now couldn’t un-notice, such as her habit of nibbling the end of the pen that she used when writing in her diary. The extraordinarily expressive delight with which she savoured the food she ate. The way she gathered her hair up and then with a sort of flick of her fingers twisted it once before letting it go.
He couldn’t stop thinking about any of it and he existed in an agonising, limbo-like state of wanting to back her up against a wall and slake his desire yet not being able to do one damn thing about it, of yearning to escape her mind-scrambling orbit but needing to be as close to his son as possible. At least she had no idea of the battle raging inside him. She couldn’t. If she did she’d never prance around the place so scantily clad. She wasn’t that foolish.
Nevertheless, everything else about the situation was driving him demented, and despite his best efforts to contain it his mood of recent days had not gone unnoticed. From time to time he’d caught her looking at him, her eyes
on him searing his skin and burning through him, as if deliberating whether to question him about it.
She was doing it now, sitting out here on the terrace that overlooked London, staring at him from over the rim of the mug she drank coffee out of every morning, which had ‘world’s sexiest lawyer’ emblazoned across it, as if he needed a reminder.
‘If you have something to say, just say it,’ he snapped, unable to stand the scrutiny and the suspense any longer.
‘All right,’ she said, putting her mug down. ‘I’ve been thinking. What would you say to spending your evenings up here with me instead of disappearing off to wherever it is you go?’
What? No. No way. He barely trusted himself with her in the presence of their son and Mrs Gardiner in broad daylight. He and Georgie in the evening alone with soft lighting and an even softer sofa was not happening. ‘Work needs me,’ he said, which was a big, fat lie, since the team to which he’d delegated everything was doing just fine.
‘It would be good to spend some time together without Josh.’
‘Why?’
‘There are things we should discuss.’
‘Like what?’
‘How we move forward.’
‘Josh is having a nap. We can discuss that now.’
‘He’s due to wake up any moment and I’d like to know more about you without distractions.’
That wasn’t happening either. Talking about himself wasn’t something he was particularly fond of doing at the best of times. Right now it was the last thing he wanted to do. And she was the distraction. ‘You know everything there is to know.’ Everything that was relevant, anyway.
‘OK, fine,’ she said with an exasperated huff. ‘You know what? Forget it. I do think we need to talk about the future, but really, I’d just like the company. It’s lonely up here on my own every evening. It’s quiet.’ She gave a careless shrug. ‘I dare say I’ll survive, though.’
Well, now, how was he to respond to that? Just when he thought he’d successfully shut her down, along came guilt to hit him in the gut like a ton of bricks. He had no excuse really, and to persist with pretending he did would simply be cruel. He wasn’t having her feeling lonely because he had an issue with self-control. He’d just have to cope. Because hadn’t he vowed to provide her with what she needed whenever she needed it?
‘All right,’ he muttered, nevertheless slightly wishing that he had less of a problem with breaking promises. ‘I’ll make some adjustments.’
‘Thank you,’ she said with a smile so dazzling that it blinded him to the realisation that she’d got up and was walking over to him.
By the time he did register what she was doing it was too late. Before he could brace himself, she’d come to a stop right in front of him and bent down, her scent and her warmth scrambling his senses. The world skidded to a halt and every inch of him froze. Then she reached out and touched her hand lightly to his head, threading her fingers through his hair, and for one heart-stopping, delirious moment he actually thought that she was going to lean in and kiss him.
‘What are you doing?’ he said hoarsely, his mouth dry and his body aching unbearably.
‘You have a piece of toast in your hair.’
She removed her hand and stepped back and he didn’t know whether to be gutted or relieved, what to think or what to do, although breathing would be a good start. Followed by getting the hell out of here before he completely gave in to temptation and turned some of his wilder imaginings into reality.
‘Where are you going?’ she called as he leapt to his feet and stalked back into the apartment as if he had the hounds of hell at his heels.
‘Meeting.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
EYEING FINN WARILY as he paced up and down his sitting room one evening several days later, Georgie frowned. Up until a few days ago she’d thought that everything was going really rather well. He seemed pleased with their civil partnership and, although it was a struggle, she was just about keeping a lid on the attraction that she felt for him. She’d had a slight blip when she’d discovered that he’d added tuna steak to the menu of dishes that continued to be sent up, and gone all breathless and gooey inside at the realisation he’d remembered what she’d told him at that lunch, but she’d recovered well enough. It hadn’t meant anything. She needed building up, he’d told her when she’d thanked him. She needed the protein. That was all.
Lately, however, Finn had become weirdly distracted, frequently grumpy and anything but friendly. Physically he was around as much as ever, more so now he spent the evenings with her, but spiritually and emotionally he seemed to be on a whole other planet. He volunteered little in the way of conversation and his answers to her questions were monosyllabic.
The tension that now radiated off him had to come from somewhere and she didn’t think it was caused by Josh, since being with him was the only time Finn didn’t seem stressed. So maybe it was her, she’d begun to think. Maybe he was more annoyed by her habit of leaving the milk out than she’d realised. Maybe she was doing something else wrong. It wouldn’t exactly be a first.
Whatever it was, though, Josh was picking up on it now and she’d had enough.
Closing the journal she filled in nightly, and setting both it and the pen she used on the ottoman, Georgie tracked his restless movements for a moment and then pulled her shoulders back and went for it. ‘OK, Finn, what’s wrong?’
‘Why would anything be wrong?’ he said, shooting her a glare, which did rather prove her point.
‘You’re wearing a permanent scowl these days and you’ve taken to prowling around the apartment like a caged animal.’
He stopped mid-pace and with what looked like a Herculean effort cleared his expression and shot her a tight smile. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Hmm,’ she said with a sceptical frown. ‘Is it work?’
‘No.’
‘Is it me and Josh?’
‘Why would it be you?’
‘I’m very aware that this has all been a huge upheaval for you. The noise and the mess, I mean. It would be completely understandable if you were finding it hard. Your life has changed immeasurably.’
‘That’s nothing new.’
Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing,’ he said curtly. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything you want to talk about?’
‘No.’
In the face of such intransigence Georgie gave up. She could try till she was blue in the face and she wouldn’t get anywhere. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘It’s your call. I rather feel that if you carry on like this sooner or later you’re going to burst a blood vessel, but have it your own way.’
‘Have it my way?’ he said with a bark of humourless laughter. ‘You have no idea.’
‘Then tell me.’
She shifted to make herself more comfortable, just in case he did want to talk, and suddenly something inside him seemed to snap.
‘All right,’ he said, his eyes blazing and his hands curling into fists. ‘You’re right. There is something.’
‘What?’
‘Do you think, for once, you could put on a bloody dressing gown?’
And with that he turned on his heel and strode out, leaving Georgie staring after him, reeling and agape.
What on earth...?
What was wrong with what she was wearing? There was nothing immodest about the baggy T-shirt or the board shorts that she had on, yet what he’d just said and the way he’d glowered at her while saying it implied that not only did he consider it to be the skimpiest outfit he’d ever seen but also that it bothered him.
However, why would it? He wasn’t affected by her. Unless he was, of course, and that tension he was obviously feeling could actually be some kind of sexual frustration because, contra
ry to what she’d assumed, he was still attracted to her.
But no. He couldn’t be. She’d seen no evidence of it. There’d been no long, heated looks, no off-the-charts chemistry and no sizzling subtext to their conversations. If that was the case, surely there’d have been signs...
But maybe there had been, she thought suddenly, her heart quickening as the clouds in her head parted to reveal possibilities that had hitherto been hidden. What if some of the looks Finn had given her over the last few weeks, some of his expressions that she hadn’t been able to decipher and some of the strange things he’d done, were in fact cases in point?
Take, for example, the way his gaze dropped to her lips pretty much every time they ate together. She’d always vaguely assumed he’d been staring at a stray crumb or perhaps a bit of parsley stuck between her teeth. But what if instead he’d been bombarded with thoughts of kissing her the way she always thought about kissing him whenever she caught herself looking at his mouth? And what about his habit of taking a step back whenever she approached? Could he be doing that because he found her proximity somehow disturbing?
He appeared to have such a tight grip on his control, but maybe the absence of a reaction hid a very different kind of response. What if when she’d barged in on him that night and found him naked save for a towel he hadn’t been as unmoved as he appeared? What if when her knee had brushed against his the day they’d had lunch, he’d been as affected as her? And what if his disappearance every night was less about catching up with work and more about avoiding her?
Or was she seeing signs where there were none?
It was entirely possible, but, if she was right and these were signs that she’d missed, then she was not only an idiot but she was also not as back to her old self as she’d imagined because that Georgie would never have missed anything.
But that wasn’t important right now. Assuming she hadn’t got things completely wrong, Finn appeared to want her and she might as well admit that she wanted him. She’d tried to ignore it and treat him like a flatmate, as if she were back in her old flat in Kensal Rise that she’d shared with three others, two of whom had been men she’d had no interest in, but that hadn’t exactly worked. Despite her best intentions, she hadn’t been able to entirely stop fantasising about him naked, about what they might get up to if she should happen to find herself in his vicinity naked too.