by Heidi Rice
Cassie’s stomach tensed, the faded scar across his left eyebrow illuminated by the lights of Charing Cross Station. ‘He hit you?’
‘Not too much. I got very good at staying out of his way. And eventually I got big enough to fight back,’ he replied, in a tense monotone. ‘My mum took the worst of it.’
‘Jace,’ she whispered, covering the hand he had wrapped around the gear shift. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids at the thought of what he must have witnessed and endured. ‘That’s hideous.’
He stared at her briefly in the half-light.
‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m all grown up now and it’s over.’
He pulled his hand out from under hers, rested his palm on her knee.
‘How about we change the subject—’ his hand trailed up her leg ‘—and concentrate on something a lot more interesting?’
She forced a weak smile to her lips, swallowed the tears down, as the familiar rush of heat sizzled up her thigh where his hand wandered. ‘Okay, Mr One-Track Mind,’ she joked, trying not to let her wayward emotions overwhelm her.
But as they drove round Trafalgar Square the light flurries of snow framed the giant Norwegian Spruce at its centre and made the view from her window as the car sped past look as picturesque and magical as a Christmas card. Her heart thundered and her mind raced, unable to let go of the image of Jace as a boy and the miserable home life that had been exactly the opposite of a Christmas card.
He didn’t need a friend. He needed so much more than that. Something she knew in her heart she could give him. As soon as the thought registered she tried to push it down and bury it deep. But it was already too late.
She turned to look at the man next to her as he negotiated the steady stream of traffic on Piccadilly Circus. She considered the harsh line of his jaw, the dark concentration on his brow and the closed expression on his handsome face that gave so little away even when they were making love—then pushed out a ragged breath.
Nessa was right. She was falling for Jace. Or why would she have been so devastated by that brief insight into the horrors he’d suffered as a child? And why would she believe she could fix it?
She pushed her head into the deep bucket seat, listened to the purr of the powerful car and struggled to calm her heart’s frantic leaps and pirouettes.
So she was falling for Jace. But what the hell did she do about it?
Should she tell him? Or would that complicate things even more?
‘That’s it, Cassie. Come for me again,’ Jace rasped, sweat popping on his brow, the corded muscles in his arms and neck straining as her hot slick flesh tightened around him. He drove deep, clung onto sanity, the exquisite torture pushing him to the brink. Her eyes glazed over, her body bowed back and the ragged sobs of fulfilment echoed in his ear as he crashed over right behind her.
He drew out slowly, the dull ache in his groin from the intensity of his climax nothing compared to the raw rush of emotion clutching at his chest as she gazed up at him.
Her palm cupped his cheek, her eyes alight with an emotion so pure and elemental a muscle in his jaw clenched. As always her expression was as open and easy to read as a children’s picture book.
Don’t say it, Cassie.
He placed a kiss on her lips before she could speak. ‘That was terrific,’ he said, keeping his voice deliberately flippant. ‘Merry Christmas, Cassie.’
Shifting off her, he slung his arm round her shoulders, tucked her against his side and braced himself to hear the words he feared she was about to say.
She wouldn’t be the first woman to tell him she loved him. He’d seen that look in a woman’s eyes dozens of times before. Women often got sentimental after great sex and—after his momentary lapse in the car when he’d told her about his stepfather, and the dumb way he’d reacted to her present, plus the fact that he and Cassie had been having great sex for nearly a week—it was kind of inevitable that someone as romantic as Cassie would fall into the familiar trap. What did surprise him, though, was that he hadn’t seen it coming, and he didn’t know what the hell he was going to do about it.
She was the first woman he’d ever been scared to hear say it. Because for the first time ever, he knew the usual ploys he used to deal with the dreaded ‘I love you’ moment wouldn’t work.
He couldn’t lie, as he usually did. Just repeat the phrase as casually as possible, or simply brush it off and then forget about it. Because Cassie would see right through it. And if he told her the truth, that as far as he was concerned love was just a gimmick that people used to trap each other, she’d be hurt. And he didn’t want to hurt her. Not only that, but she might walk out on him. And while he knew it was selfish of him—not to mention arrogant and egotistical—he didn’t want her to walk. Not yet. She was good company, she was sexy as hell, and he liked the way she looked at him—with that strange combination of innocence and confidence and understanding. It made him feel lighter, more optimistic than he had in a long time. As if all the mistakes he’d made in his life, all the things he’d done wrong, didn’t matter if he was with her.
‘Merry Christmas, Jace,’ she whispered at last.
Relief washed through him, the lucky escape making him feel like a man who’d just walked away from a firing squad.
She hadn’t said it. Thank God.
He frowned. Had he just imagined that look?
The frown deepened. Okay, too much great sex was clearly making him a little nutty too because why should that bother him? This was good news.
He skimmed his hand down her back, felt her lush body curl against him—and shoved down the stupid swell of contentment that followed.
‘How about we get out of here tomorrow?’ he suggested. ‘Go someplace?’ There were tons of things they could do in London. They’d hardly been out of the hotel suite and—while he was going to find it torture keeping his hands off her—he probably needed to reduce the physical intensity for a while. And after Boxing Day he really needed to get stuck into those meetings that he’d been holding off on too.
Today had got way too intense, for a number of reasons. Letting her simple Christmas gift get to him had been bad enough, but then blurting out all that stuff about his childhood and letting the sympathy and compassion shining in her eyes get to him too had only compounded the problem. Cassie had slipped under his guard somehow, and it was a mistake he would have to correct, and fast. They only had six more days before his flight back to New York and by then he was letting her go.
She lifted up, propped her elbows on his chest to look down at him, her full breasts distracting him as they swayed enticingly.
‘Mr One-Track Mind isn’t seriously suggesting we do something other than sex, is he?’
He choked out a laugh, then grasped her hips and neatly reversed their positions, nestling his hardening erection against her stomach.
‘Don’t push your luck, Cassidy. Or you may find yourself imprisoned here for another six days.’
Much later, after the storm of passion had passed a second time, Cassie lay awake listening to the steady rise and fall of Jace’s breathing and blinked back the foolish tears.
She’d nearly blurted out the words. Nearly declared her feelings earlier. But then she’d seen him flinch, almost as if he knew what she was about to say, and she’d managed to hold back, the frigid chill settling in the pit of her belly.
Just because her heart went out to the boy Jace had once been and she was tumbling into love with the man he had managed to become. Just because she had convinced herself that his life could be richer with her in it, and vice versa, she had to remember that Jace had never asked her for a thing.
And until he did, until he gave her some sign that his feelings had deepened too, she’d be mad to tell him how she felt and risk ruining what little time they had left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘IT’S time for some candy floss,’ Jace announced, gripping Cassie’s gloved hand and hauling her throug
h the milling crowd towards the confectionery stand.
‘No more food, I’m begging you,’ Cassie groaned comically, rubbing her belly. ‘We had hot dogs half an hour ago. And my stomach’s still in revolt after the Big Dipper.’
‘See, I prove my point.’ Jace laughed, stopping at the stand. ‘Women make rubbish dates at funfairs.’
He ordered a large helping of candy floss from the vendor.
‘That is such a load of crap.’ Cassie slapped her hands on her hips in mock outrage as he took a huge bite of the giant helping of spun sugar. ‘I had my brain scrambled on the Twister, took the Helter Skelter at close to sixty miles per hour and nearly swallowed my own tongue on the Power Tower,’ she declared, still shuddering at the memory of plunging a hundred and fifty feet in free fall. ‘And I didn’t make a single complaint.’
He wrapped one arm around her hips, yanked her close and gave her a sugar-coated kiss. His devastating green eyes twinkled with humour. ‘You screamed like a girl in the Haunted House.’
A smile edged her lips, the bud of hope that had been building for days blossoming in her chest at the affection on his face. ‘A severed head flew past my ear,’ she muttered, trying to sound stern. ‘I should get a pass on that.’
He touched his nose to hers, the cold tip sending little shivers of excitement down her spine as the smell of burnt sugar and man engulfed her. ‘You didn’t hear me screaming, did you?’ he murmured, his low voice intimate and amused.
She shoved him back, laughing. ‘You definitely flinched.’
‘A manly flinch is permitted. My ears are still ringing from that scream.’
She cocked her eyebrow. ‘So now who’s complaining?’
Taking her hand, his fingers closed around hers as he chuckled. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I guess you make a pretty good funfair date,’ he added magnanimously, swinging their joined hands as they strolled through the thoroughfare of Christmas-themed market stalls at the entrance to the funfair that was set up every year in Hyde Park. ‘For a girl,’ he finished.
She socked him on the arm, making him laugh. Then shuddered as the brittle winter wind found its way through the bare chestnut trees sheltering the fair and whipped at her hair.
He slung his arm over her shoulder, hugged her against his side as he dumped the last of the candy floss in a rubbish bin. ‘How about we head back to the hotel? Get you warmed up.’
She circled his lean waist, leant against him as they strolled out of the park together. But she knew she didn’t need warming up, the spark inside her that had ignited days ago now burning like a log fire and giving her a golden glow inside and out.
The last five days had been magical. He’d handled all his business meetings with ruthless efficiency first thing in the mornings, leaving the afternoons and evenings free to play. And play they had.
They’d gone ice-skating at the crowded rink in front of the Natural History Museum. Feasted on fine French wine and steak and pomme frites in the stark Mayfair elegance of Quaglino’s and on champagne and oysters in the Italian gothic splendour of Bentley’s Bar and Grill in Piccadilly. They’d taken long walks with his arm around her shoulders through the frost-bitten parklands of Kensington Gardens. And she’d even managed to drag him to the Boxing Day sales along Oxford Street where he’d endured over an hour of bargain hunting before he’d made her spend almost as long genuflecting over the newest gizmos in the gadget store on Regent Street.
And every night they’d made passionate love in the seclusion of his penthouse suite. Her senses and physical awareness of him were so acute now, all he had to do was look at her with hunger burning in his eyes and she became moist, her body readying itself to indulge in all the pleasure she knew he was about to give her.
She was falling in love and she wasn’t scared of her feelings any more.
They hadn’t had any more conversations about serious stuff, like her past or his. They hadn’t discussed what would happen in two days’ time when he returned to New York. And he hadn’t said anything specific to her about continuing their affair. But sometimes actions spoke louder than words. The appreciation and affection and approval that shone in his emerald gaze whenever he looked at her. The way he couldn’t stop touching her: the hand-holding, the fleeting kisses, the impromptu hugs, the palm brushes down her hair or the knuckles he skimmed across her cheek whenever they were in public. And then there was the way he made love to her, sometimes two or three times a night and often in the morning too, with a power and a passion and an urgency that increased in its intensity with each passing day.
All those things could only mean one thing.
Jace was falling for her too. Although she suspected, given his past relationships with women, he didn’t have a clue.
Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve and he’d arranged for them to watch the countdown and the fireworks from the balcony of an exclusive nightclub overlooking the Thames.
As his arm tightened around her shoulders, and the garish sights and sounds of the winter funfair faded, she made her own special New Year’s resolution. If he didn’t say anything by tomorrow night, she would take the initiative.
Nessa had told her she should fight for what she wanted. And she intended to do just that.
She wasn’t going to put undue pressure on him and make some lavish declaration of undying love. But why shouldn’t she see if they had a future together? It seemed foolish to let what they had slip away, just because both of them were too scared, or too cautious or too clueless about love to admit their feelings for one another went deeper than a Christmas fling.
‘Only ten minutes to go, then we can make our getaway,’ Jace murmured against Cassie’s hair as his hands skimmed over her waist.
He heard her draw in a quick breath, his palms settling on the cool silk covering her hips.
‘I don’t think so,’ she whispered, her eyes connecting with his in the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the Thames. The Millennium Wheel stood proud and glaringly modern, spotlit across the choppy water as the anticipation of the well-off crowd rose with each incremental movement on Big Ben’s clockface to the right of the terrace. Cassie’s lips edged up in a nervous smile. ‘We have to see the fireworks. The view from here is incredible.’
‘I’ve got a much better view.’ He nuzzled her ear lobe as he caressed the sensuous silk. ‘And I’ve got some much better fireworks in mind too.’
She giggled, covering his hands with hers, to halt his increasingly insistent caresses. ‘Stop it. You didn’t pay five hundred pounds a ticket to miss the main event.’
He chuckled. ‘Cassidy, as far as I’m concerned, tonight’s main event does not involve us being cooped up on a terrace with a hundred other people.’
She turned in his arms, lifted her hands around his neck and sent him a saucy smile. ‘Well, you’ll just have to be patient. This is our last night together and I want it to be special.’
He tensed slightly, his hands settling on the small of her back. She’d given him the opening he’d been waiting for. He’d been thinking about his options for days, made the final decision that morning. But now he had the chance to say the words he found himself hesitating. Evaluating the situation and the best way to handle it—and her—one last time.
Everything had worked out perfectly in the last few days. He’d had more fun in her company than he could ever remember having with another person. She seemed to understand him in ways no other woman ever had. She was bright, lively and sweetly optimistic and had no need to cling to him. In fact, her lack of expectation had made it possible for him to relax and enjoy himself without fear of having to deal with the suffocating prospect of commitment. Maybe the plan to reduce the physical intensity hadn’t quite worked out, given that the instant, insistent need had turned to a constant, growing ache that he had found harder and harder to control. But he wasn’t too worried about that any more. Because the ‘I love you moment’ he’d been dreading hadn’t materialised. He’d kept things light and non
-committal—even forcing himself to take time out every morning to handle the meetings his PA had rescheduled—and Cassie had gone along with it. She hadn’t made any demands, or any requests even. And while part of him had been relieved, as the time drew close for him to leave he’d actually begun to find it a little galling.
Because now he was the one who was going to have to do the asking. But as she looked at him expectantly, her eyes shining with excitement, the compelling look of acceptance on her face, he knew he couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘About this being our last night.’ He paused. ‘I was thinking …’ His voice trailed off.
Come on, Ryan, spit it out. It’s not that big of a deal. If she says no, it won’t be the end of the world.
‘How busy are you right now, workwise?’
She tilted her head to one side, the shine positively glowing now. ‘Why do you ask?’
His hands rode up her sides, tightened. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but the desire to hear her say yes was still pretty damn acute.
‘Why don’t you come back with me tomorrow?’ he said, as casually as he possibly could. ‘For a few days? Or a week. Or even two. I’ve narrowed down a buyer for the business. I’m planning to finalise the sale tomorrow. So I figured I’d take a break from work when I get home. I can show you around New York. It’s an incredible city.’
He clamped his mouth shut, realising with horror he was starting to babble.
For God’s sake, shut up, you sound like a boy asking a girl on a first date.
But then a huge smile spread across her face, and the panicked ticks of his heartbeat calmed.
‘That’s …’ she began. ‘I don’t know what …’
‘Don’t say anything yet.’ He pressed his lips to hers as the noise of the crowd, shouting down the final seconds of the old year, rose to a crescendo outside on the terrace. ‘We’ve got all night for you to make a decision,’ he finished.