‘You don’t understand what that bike means to me.’ He grimaced. ‘My parents...they were druggies, and they didn’t give a damn. Your parents made sure you had support. I was my own support—and Caleb’s. Your parents made sure you had money, but when I was still a child I had to steal it, beg it, or make it—and I did all three! There was never food on the table unless I put it there. So I haunted restaurants around the city, pleading for leftovers. Eventually one of the chefs took pity on me and I got a job in a kitchen, and...’ Shrug. ‘Here I am.’
Sunshine touched his hand.
He looked at where her hand was, on his, with an odd expression on his face. And then he drew his hand away.
‘I’m not telling you all that to get sympathy, just to explain,’ he said. ‘And it could have been a lot worse. We weren’t sexually abused. Or beaten—well, not Caleb. And me not often, or more than I could take. Mainly we were just not important. Like a giant mistake that you can’t fix so you try to forget it. I grew up fast and hard—I had to. The upshot is that I don’t do frivolity. I’m not sociable unless there’s something in it for me. I don’t stop to smell the roses and hug the trees. I just push on, without indulging myself. Except for my bike.’
‘I see,’ Sunshine said. And she did. It was so very simple. Leo had his bike the way she had Moon’s ashes. Something that connected you to what you’d lost—what you couldn’t have: in her case her sister; in his a carefree youth.
She swallowed around a sudden lump. ‘We’re not going to find common ground on this, are we? Because you deserve one piece of youthful folly and I can’t bear what that piece happens to be.’
She got out of bed, grabbed her kimono off the floor, quickly pulled it on, and turned to face him. ‘This means, of course, that we’ll have to call it quits at two.’
‘At two...what? O’clock?’
‘Two times—as in not four. As in assignations.’
‘Why?’
Why? She had a sudden memory of that electri-fried bat. ‘Because the thought of you on that bike already upsets me too much. That’s going to get harder, not easier, to cope with if we keep doing...this.’
‘This?’
‘Sex,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s my fault for starting it, and I’ll cop to that. I threw myself at you when you didn’t want to go there. The blame is squarely here, with me.’
‘If we’re talking blame, I threw myself at you tonight.’
Sunshine dragged the edges of the kimono closed and started looking around for her sash. ‘Well, let’s unthrow ourselves.’
‘Come back to bed, Sunshine, and we’ll talk about it.’
‘Bed is the wrong place to talk.’
‘Four assignations was what we agreed on,’ Leo said.
‘Up to! They’re the salient words. Up to four. I’ve never got to four before. I’ve never got past two! And you can see why. It gets too emotional.’
Leo shoved the quilt aside, got out of bed. ‘I’ll do you a deal on the motorbike,’ he offered, and started tugging on his clothes.
‘What kind of deal?’
Wary. Very wary.
‘I’ll get rid of the bike the day after our fourth assignation. Or when you change your name to Allyn. Whichever comes first.’
She licked her lips nervously. ‘That’s an odd deal.’
‘Is it? I’m offering to give up a piece of a past I never really had—the bike. In return, you give up something you can’t accept is past its use-by date—your sister’s two-year hold over you.’
‘She doesn’t have a hold over me.’
‘If she didn’t have a hold over you the four times thing wouldn’t exist. So—my bike for going where no man has gone before and risking the magic number four.’
‘No.’
‘Then take the alternative option and change your name. You said it might be a way of moving on, so do it. Move on, Sunshine, one way or the other.’
‘I...I don’t know,’ she said, agonised.
‘Take some time and think about it,’ he said. ‘But not too long. Because—in case you haven’t quite figured me out yet—I don’t wait for what I want. I just go out and get it. Even if I have to steal it.’
‘You don’t really want me.’
‘I’m like an immortal lobster—who really knows? Let’s get to number four and see.’
‘Well, you can’t steal me.’
‘Don’t bet on it, sweetheart. I’ve spent my life getting my own way. And I can take things from you that you never knew you had.’
She located her obi and whipped it up off the floor. ‘That’s not even worth a response.’
Leo just smiled and started pulling on his boots.
She tried, twice, to tie the sash, but her fingers were clumsy.
And Leo’s hands were suddenly there—capable, efficient, tying it easily.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly when he had finished, and flicked her hair over her shoulders. ‘I’ll see you out.’
She walked Leo to the apartment door. ‘So!’ she said. ‘I’ll email you about...about the clothes for the wedding and a few other things. And then... Well...’
‘And then...well...?’ Leo repeated, looking a little too wolfish and a lot too jaunty for a man who was waiting for an answer about sex that could, should—no, would!—go against him. And then he leant down and kissed her quickly on the mouth.
She jumped back as though he’d scalded her.
‘It’s just a stolen kiss, Sunshine,’ he murmured. ‘Think of the calories.’
* * *
Sunshine stared into the darkness long after returning to bed.
Leo would give up his motorbike.
Into her head popped an image of Moonbeam—laughing as they left the party that night. Giving a wild shout as she started the bike. Zooming off with Sunshine on the back, gripping her tightly.
And then darkness. And that feeling. Waking up in hospital and knowing, without needing to be told, that Moonbeam was gone. She never wanted to experience that desolating ache again.
Leo didn’t understand what it would do to her if something happened to him. And that said it all, didn’t it? She’d only known him for one week, and already she was terrified that something would happen to him.
What a conundrum. She could get him to give up his bike if she slept with him twice more. But if she slept with him twice more she would be getting dangerously close to him. And she couldn’t risk that.
Or...
She could get him to give up his bike if she changed her name. And she just wasn’t sure what that would mean. Maybe it would help her accept Moon’s death. But maybe it would be a betrayal—taking a twins’ decision and making it a solo decision. Moving on when Moon couldn’t.
And did anything matter more than keeping Leo safe?
Sunshine threw off the covers—what a restless night this was turning out to be!—and yanked on her kimono, leaving it fluttering as she raced from the room and into her office.
There, on the high-gloss blue bureau, was her sister. Her sister, who had wanted her ashes to be scattered at a beach under a full moon.
Instead here she was. Beautifully housed in a stunning antique cloisonné urn featuring all the colours of the rainbow.
But an urn—no matter how beautiful—wasn’t the ocean.
And the ocean was where Moonbeam belonged.
* * *
Leo stared into the darkness, thinking about the simple pleasure of touch.
It didn’t take a psychologist to work out what his issue was—the fact that his parents had never touched him the way other parents touched their children. Because there had been more important things to do than give their son the affection he craved. Like shoot up. Suck in the crack. Snort up the meth.
; It had been different for Caleb, because Leo had made it so. Leo had looked after Caleb, put his needs first, fought his battles, protected him. And so Caleb wasn’t reserved, wary, driven, and damaged—like Leo. Caleb attracted affection and gentleness and love. Leo attracted people like Natalie, for whom his remoteness was a challenge and his celebrity something to use.
‘You’re choosing wrong,’ Sunshine had said—but what if he was choosing right and he was getting exactly what he deserved?
It wasn’t as if he could choose Sunshine Smart as an alternative. She didn’t want to be chosen by anyone.
So why he was offering to give up his motorbike for her was a mystery.
So what if he never had sex with her again?
So what if she went on grieving for her sister for the rest of the life?
Leo punched his pillow. Forced his eyes closed.
And there she was, warning him about her scars. So beautiful. And damaged, like him. But wanting to stay damaged—unlike him.
His eyes popped open and he punched the pillow again.
God, but she irked him.
Her perkiness irked him. Partly because he wanted to think that it made her shallow...and yet she’d learned the Heimlich manoeuvre and wasn’t afraid to use it.
The way she chucked crazy facts into her arguments—about the sexual habits of praying mantises, the questionable immortality of lobsters, regenerating livers, and so on and on and on—irked him. Because most of the time that stuff was fascinating. And even if it wasn’t, it was fascinating to watch those unique eyes glow with the wonder of it.
Her boring living room irked him, because it shouldn’t be like that. Not that her décor was any of his business. And the fact that he could be bothered to think of her apartment irking him irked him too.
Her pink bedroom irked him. All right, it didn’t—because it was kind of amazing. But it should irk him, and the fact that it didn’t irk him irked him.
Her propensity to kiss and touch and pet him irked him. And it had irked him even more when she hadn’t kissed him hello at the restaurant.
Her four-times maximum irked him. And the fact that he’d refused to accept that they were stopping at two irked him.
Two times. Two. Not three, not four—two! Her terms. Everything on her terms, right from the moment she’d ambushed him on the couch.
Well, he’d picked her as a wily little dictator from Day One. But she was not going to dictate to Leo Quartermaine. He would have her as many damned times as he wanted to have her.
He punched his pillow again. Hard.
SEVEN
TO: Leo Quartermaine
FROM: Sunshine Smart
SUBJECT: Wedding update
Hi Leo
I’m attaching a photo of my dress. If you can send me one of your suit and tie—I’m assuming a tie?—I’ll know if this is okay or if I have to go back to the drawing board. And I can get your shoe design finished too.
So, the shoes. You’ll need three fittings—twenty mins each time—and you can schedule these to suit yourself as I won’t be needed. I’m attaching Seb’s business card—Seb is the shoemaker—and once you’ve approved my design all you need to do is call him.
And, trust me, once you’ve had custom-made shoes you’ll never go back. Which might not be good, now I think of it, because they’re hellishly expensive (not these particular shoes, of course, because it’s a special deal for me, as well as being a present).
The other attachment is of some floral arrangements for the restaurant. I think the all-white ones, so as not to distract from the view. What do you think?
I’m going to scoot down the coast on Sunday to check out some hotel options for guests who want to stay overnight. I know you’re super-busy so I can handle this and email all the info to you.
And then we need to confirm the music—Kate is amazing—when you have a minute.
Hope all is well.
Sunshine
Oh, no, Sunshine Smart-Ass, you are not going down the coast without me.
That was the first thought to leap to Leo’s mind after he read the email.
The second was that she had a bloody nerve adding the ‘Hope all is well’, because she had to know all was not well. Not by a country mile was all ‘well’. ‘All’ wouldn’t be ‘well’ until he had her exactly where he wanted her.
A sudden image of her naked, in his arms, had him erect and almost groaning. Even though that was not what he’d meant. What he’d meant was on her knees and—
Argh. Another image.
Figuratively speaking on her knees, not physically.
But—nope, the image wouldn’t budge.
He took a steadying breath and forced himself to open Sunshine’s attachment, hoping it wouldn’t be her in the damned dress—which, of course, it was. Looking very hot. And, of course, she had her foot stuck out so he could see her amazingly sexy shoes.
And, since he knew he had to see her in the flesh in that dress, he would up the ante on his suit so that he matched the formality—and send her the damned photo so he could get his shoe design.
And he would tell her that he would most definitely meet her at South on Sunday, when they would discuss flowers and confirm music and go and see the hotels together.
Ha!
Hope all is well.
Bloody, bloody nerve.
* * *
Sunshine, who had laboured long and hard over the wording of her email to Leo to give it just the right sense of moving-on friendliness, opened Leo’s reply with some trepidation.
She wasn’t sure what to expect—but the three terse lines certainly hadn’t been laboured over.
Meet you at South at two p.m. Sunday. Will confirm everything then. Suit pic attached.
So! She guessed she’d better start working on getting rid of the horrible fluttery feeling in her stomach before Sunday. Surely she could be her normal carefree self in four days!
Cautiously she opened the attachment he’d sent.
And—oh—flutter, flutter, flutter. And he wasn’t even in the photo!
The suit, photographed on a dummy so she got the full effect, was in a beautiful mid-grey. Three pieces, including a waistcoat, which she adored. The pants were narrow and cuffed. The two-button jacket was ultra-contemporary, but also sexily conservative. A white shirt, a tie in a fine black, silver and white check, and a purple and silver pocket square shoved insouciantly into the left breast pocket.
That suit, his physique, his dourly handsome face, his hair... He would have all the female guests drooling over him.
Maybe she shouldn’t have made him grow his hair... And where did that unworthy thought come from? If three centimetres of hair snares him a new bed partner—good!
Well, every woman might be drooling, but only one woman could design his shoes. All right, that sounded incredibly lame. But so what?
She was going to do the design right now. And give it to him on Sunday. And he was going to love—not like, but love—his shoes, dammit!
* * *
The motorbike was in pole position when Sunshine pulled up outside South. He couldn’t have made it more visible if he’d had it on a dais under a spotlight.
She knew right then that he would be yanking her chain all day. Stealing her sanity!
Her stomach, which had finally started to settle into a relatively stable buzz, started rioting again. She sat in her car, taking some deep breaths and giving herself a stern talking-to: he was not a teenage hothead and he would not kill himself; she didn’t care if he di
d kill himself; she’d kill him if he didn’t get rid of the bike. And so on.
Not the most intelligent conversation she’d ever had with herself. And completely ineffectual, because her stomach was still going crazy.
If only she’d had the nous to call it quits with Leo after the first time she might still be a properly functioning adult.
Well, spilt milk and all that. She would just have to find a way back to normality before it affected the wedding preparations. Because the wedding was what was important. Not her, not Leo—the wedding!
She straightened her shoulders, flung open the door, and scrambled out of the car. She would have liked to have disembarked from the car, in case Leo was watching, but she was wearing her most complicated shoes and a too-tight dress! Compensating, she practically glided to the boot and, with what she considered great panache, swung her portfolio out. She left the briefcase behind, though—it was hard to look cucumber-cool when you were carrying a briefcase and a portfolio. Not that it usually bothered her, but... Well, but!
She took another deep breath as she entered the restaurant and saw Leo.
His hair was at Number Three buzz-cut stage. His jeans were black. He was wearing a fitted black superfine wool sweater. Sex on a stick. Even the black biker boots didn’t have the power to dampen the desire that hit her like a punch.
He walked towards her—a purposeful kind of prowl that made her tongue want to loll. Not that there would be any tongue-lolling going on today.
She went to give him a reflex kiss on the cheek, but pulled back as it hit her that this was now fraught with difficulty.
His slow smile told her he’d registered her state of confusion. And then, to her shock, he leant down and kissed her. Sweet, slow, warm brush of lips against her cheek.
‘Oh,’ she said inanely.
He simply raised his eyebrows. And she knew what he was doing. He was playing the Dare You game! Dare you to question that. Well, she would not be dared.
Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle Page 51