Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle

by Amy Andrews, Aimee Carson, Avril Tremayne

  But Sunshine—the epitome of high-heeled confidence—didn’t put a foot wrong, and they arrived at the entrance to the house without incident. He opened the door and gestured her in ahead of him.

  The use of glass was similar to what he’d done at South, except that where South had windows the house had full-length glass doors, opening onto a long veranda. The view was just as stunning. But because the house was so much lower, and perched within a cove, it had a more intimate connection with the beach.

  Sunshine was walking slowly, uncertainly, to the glass doors.

  ‘Go out,’ Leo urged, stripping off his jacket and tossing it onto one of the few chairs.

  She put down her briefcase and slid one of the doors open. Stepped onto the wooden deck, walked over to the edge.

  He followed her out, wondering what was going through her head as she looked out.

  ‘My sister would have loved this,’ she said.

  Moonbeam. Quelle surprise. ‘And you?’

  She half turned, looked into his eyes. He could see the tears swimming.

  Because of Moonbeam? Or him and his bone-headed motorbike stunt?

  Whatever! Leo simply reeled her in, held her close.

  So mind-bogglingly easy to touch her now he’d set his course. So easy...

  Her head was on his shoulder, and then she turned her face to kiss the shoulder she had punched earlier.

  ‘I’m sorry for punching you,’ she said. ‘I’ve never punched anyone before.’

  ‘I don’t know how to break it to you, but those punches didn’t hurt.’

  ‘Then I hope it hurts washing my Beige Amour lipstick out of your woollen top. And I won’t be sorry if it doesn’t come out.’

  ‘You can draw a map on the back in Beige Amour, okay? I deserve it.’

  He could feel her breath, her spiky lashes against his neck.

  ‘You made me so mad,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘And you’re supposed to have haphephobia. We shouldn’t be standing like this.’

  ‘I’m supposed to have what?’

  ‘Fear of touch.’

  He swallowed the laugh. This was not the time to make fun of her. ‘But, Sunshine, we are standing like this. Maybe that means I’m making progress on my phobia. So...how’s your phobia tracking?’

  He heard her breath hitch, felt it catch in her chest. She pulled out of his arms and turned back to the view for a long moment. He thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she turned back.

  ‘If you mean my reluctance to get emotionally close to people, that’s not a phobia—it’s an active choice.’

  ‘The wrong choice.’

  ‘The right choice for me.’ And then she gave a shuddery kind of sound that was like a cross between a sigh and a laugh. ‘Okay, you’ve yanked my chain. I’ve punched you. Let’s move on before I start boring myself. We have things to do, so onwards and upwards: let them eat cake! Did you know that Marie Antoinette never actually said that?’

  * * *

  Sunshine took herself off to explore the house while Leo prepared the cakes.

  The house was designed to give most rooms a view. There was a generous living/dining area, a cosy library, which had shelves but no books, and two private wings—the main bedroom/bathroom wing, with an atrium that reminded her of the honeymoon suite at the hotel, except that it was plant-free, and the other with three bedrooms, each with an en suite bathroom.

  Leo had thrown a roll of paper towels at her when she’d poked her head in the kitchen, so she wasn’t sure what that looked like, but she was in love with the rest of the house.

  It just needed interior designing. Because the only decorative item in it so far was a massive ornate mirror on the wall in the living room. Some kind of feng shui thing—reflecting the water view for peace and prosperity? She would have to look that up.

  Leo was looking inscrutable as he wheeled the dining table over to her, which made her suspicious—because what was there about cakes, plates, cutlery, napkins, and glasses to warrant inscrutability?

  Well, she was not going to be inscrutabilised—and she didn’t care if that wasn’t a real word! She was simply going to eat the cake, and later the pizza, like a rational woman who did not care about anything but the state of her stomach, and then drive home.

  She examined the four perfectly decorated cakes. Oh, dear, she was on the cusp of a ten-kilo weight-gain.

  Then she noted that Leo was pouring champagne.

  ‘Careful—I’m fat and I’m driving,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not fat. And driving...? We’ll see.’

  ‘Just cut the cake, Leo,’ she said, not about to get into an argument so soon after she’d punched him. He couldn’t force the champagne down her throat anyway.

  Leo cut and served slices of the first cake. ‘Traditional fruit cake, fondant icing.’

  Sunshine took a bite. It was moist, rich, and utterly delicious. ‘This one, for sure!’ she said, and scooped up another forkful.

  ‘Pace yourself. Don’t vote too soon,’ Leo said.

  She didn’t bother responding—her mouth was too full.

  ‘You can have another piece, you know,’ Leo offered as she scraped up a last smear of icing.

  ‘I have to lose weight or I won’t fit into my dress,’ Sunshine said repressively—and then she realised the absurdity of that, given the state of her plate, and burst out laughing.

  ‘Hey, eat as much as you want! I was just trying to protect the plate—it looked like you were trying to dig a trench in it.’

  ‘Leo!’

  He held up I surrender hands.

  ‘Oh, just cut the next one,’ she said, gurgling.

  ‘Salted caramel Mark One. Pastry base covered with a film of sticky salted caramel, topped with chocolate cake layers interspersed with caramel and cream filling.’

  Sunshine took a bite. Closed her eyes as flavour flooded her. She took another forkful from her plate. Sipped champagne. ‘It is so rich and delicious.’

  Leo waited while she took one more bite. Another. One more. A sip. One more. ‘Finished?’ he asked at last, deadpan.

  Mournfully, she examined her empty plate. ‘I told you I had an unhealthy interest in desserts.’

  ‘“A shark’s mouth full of sweet teeth” was how you put it.’

  ‘It may be worse than that. It could be more like a hadrosaur’s teeth. They have nine hundred and sixty—and they’re self-sharpening!’

  ‘What the hell is a hadrosaur?’

  ‘A type of dinosaur.’ She sighed, dispirited. ‘So! I am a dinosaur—and not even a meat-eating one!’

  Leo laughed so suddenly it came out as a snort.

  Which made Sunshine laugh. ‘Let’s get onto salted caramel Mark Two before I lapse into a state of abject depression.’

  ‘You? Abject depression while eating cake? That would be something to see!’

  ‘And you will see it, I promise you, if you don’t look after my hadrosauric teeth and cut me a piece of cake.’

  He cut a slice and handed it over. ‘Your wish, my command! Similar to Mark One, but with butterscotch cake layers.’

  Sunshine ate, interspersing mouthfuls with an occasional moan of ecstasy. ‘Do you have a favourite?’ she asked, forking up the last mouthful. ‘Because I have to tell you this is harder than I thought and I don’t think I’m going to be able to choose.’

  ‘As it turns out, I do hav
e a favourite—but I’m not telling,’ he said. ‘Subliminally, knowing what I like best might sway you—maybe to deliberately pick something that is not my favourite—and that would never do.’

  ‘Oh! I see what you did there! Bouncing my own words about the invitation design back at me.’

  ‘For my next trick I will spout random facts about the mating habits of the tsetse fly.’

  Sunshine laughed. ‘I’m going to look that up, and next time I see you—’

  ‘I beg you—no!’ He slapped another piece of cake on her plate. ‘Coconut vanilla bean cake, layered with coconut meringue butter cream.’

  Sunshine stared at it, not sure if she could actually fit in another bite. But it looked so good. She picked up her fork. Ate. Sipped more champagne, then looked at her glass. ‘Hey—you refilled that.’

  ‘It was empty,’ Leo explained.

  Sunshine huffed, but her concentration was already moving back to her plate. One more forkful. Another. Again. Empty plate. She licked her lips, looking at the rest of the cake longingly.

  ‘See? You didn’t need to know my favourite,’ Leo said. ‘You decided on your own. The coconut.’

  ‘Yes. Coconut. It would almost be worth getting married just to have that cake. Do you think I could have another tiny piece?’

  ‘You can eat the whole damned cake as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Dieting from tomorrow, then,’ she said, holding out her plate.

  Leo cut another slice. ‘Don’t diet, Sunshine. I like the feel of you just as you are.’

  The words, the tone of his voice, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. ‘That’s...that’s...immaterial. But, anyway, wh-what’s your favourite?’

  He smiled. A narrow-eyed smile. She didn’t trust that smile.

  ‘The fruit cake,’ he said. ‘But I have an idea for how we can both get our way. Compromise is my new speciality.’

  Was that supposed to be meaningful? ‘Both get our way with what?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘With the cake,’ Leo said, all innocence, and put the extra slice on Sunshine’s plate.

  He looked at her for a long moment and Sunshine saw that little tic jump to life near his mouth. She was so nervous she almost couldn’t sit still. She stuck her fork into her cake, raised it to her mouth.

  ‘And with our assignations,’ Leo said smoothly.

  Sunshine jerked, and the piece of cake hit her just at the corner of her bottom lip and fell.

  ‘Two, four...there’s a three in the middle,’ he said, in that same dangerously soft voice.

  And then, before she could string a lucid thought together, he leant in and licked the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Just thought I’d...steal...that little drop of cream,’ Leo said softly.

  Dare you.

  Tic-tic-tic, beside his mouth.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said silkily. ‘I’m going into the kitchen to organise the first compromise I was talking about. You sit here, finish your cake, look at the view, and think about the second. Think about why it is that a woman like you, who believes sex is just sex—you did say that, right?—is so freaked out by the idea that a man actually does want to have just sex with her.’

  With a last piercing look at her, and a short laugh, he left the room.

  And, oh, how hard it was to have her words come back to bite her. Because she had said that. Sex was just...sex.

  Except that it seemed in this particular case it wasn’t.

  Because she was thinking about Leo too much, and caring too much, and worrying too much. The motorbike. The damned motorbike. Maybe without the motorbike they would be entwined right now on assignation three and she would be blithely uninterested in anything except his moving body parts.

  So do the deal, Sunshine, and he’ll get rid of the bike.

  Sex twice more. Or change her name.

  She touched the corner of her mouth, where he’d licked the cream, and her skin seemed to tingle.

  Restless, she got to her feet, walked out onto the veranda.

  ‘Look at the view,’ he’d said.

  But even that wasn’t simple.

  He had no idea what the view did to her. And here the beach was so disturbingly close...

  She hadn’t been on a beach in two years.

  Leo was right: Moonbeam did have a hold over her. A hold she seemed unable to break. A hold she was too...scared...to break. Well, she would go down to the beach now and yank her own chain and see what happened. And then she would tell Leo. She would tell him—she would... God, she didn’t know what she would say. Or do.

  But one drama at a time.

  Deep breath.

  Beach.

  Heart hammering, she bent to remove her shoes. Took the first step before she could think again, kept going until the sand was beneath her feet.

  It felt strange. And good. Comforting, almost, to have her feet sink into the sand. The scratch of salt on her face, the roar and rush of surf sounding in her ears.

  Sunshine felt her sister in the wild, careless, regal, lovely essence of the place. Pulling at her, drawing her closer and closer, until she was at the water’s edge and the waves were slapping at her ankles.

  She let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding on a long sigh.

  This tiny private beach was it.

  What she’d been looking for. Waiting to find.

  Leo’s beach was her sister’s final resting place.

  She felt tears start, and swiped a shaking hand over her eyes.

  And then she felt Leo behind her.

  EIGHT

  ‘I’m not vain enough to think you’re crying over me, Sunshine—so why don’t you tell me what the big deal is about the beach?’ Leo asked.

  Heartbeat. Two. Three. ‘Moonbeam.’

  ‘I thought we’d get around to Moonbeam. Everything always circles back to her.’

  She turned sharply towards him. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Just the fact that she’s dead.’

  She covered her ears, gave an anguished cry, and the next thing she knew she was in his arms.

  ‘I’m sorry. Sorry,’ he said, and kissed her temple. ‘But, Sunshine, your sister doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would have wanted you to freeze, to mark time just because she wasn’t there.’

  ‘She—she wasn’t. But I can’t help it, Leo.’

  Long moment. And then Leo said, ‘So let me help you. Tell me—talk. About Moonbeam and the beach.’

  She waited, shivering in his steady hold, until the urge to weep had passed, and then she pulled out of his arms and stood beside him, looking out at the horizon.

  ‘Sunshine?’

  ‘She told me that when she died she wanted her ashes scattered at the beach—to mix with the ocean.’ She turned to look up at him. ‘Why would she say that when she was so young? Do you think she knew what was going to happen?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sunshine.’

  ‘I didn’t do what she wanted. I couldn’t. Can’t.’

  ‘So...where is she?’

  ‘In an urn in my office. You were looking straight at her—that night you cooked me dinner. I was scared you’d guessed. But it was just my guilty conscience getting the better of me. Because why would you ever guess?’

  ‘There’s no need to feel guilty, Sunshine.’

  ‘I’ve got my sister in an urn in my office—the exact opposite of what she wanted. What does that say about me?’

  ‘That
you’re grieving.’ He smoothed a windblown lock of her hair. ‘You’ll find a way to do what she asked. But even if you never do it won’t matter to Moonbeam. It’s not really Moonbeam in that urn. She’s in your heart and your head. Not in the urn, Sunshine.’

  She turned back to the ocean, gazing out. ‘A full moon. A quiet beach. She said it would be up to me to do it on my own—no friends, no family. Just me and her.’ The tears were shimmering and she desperately blinked them back. ‘I think she knew how hard it would be for me. I think she knew I would take a long time. I think she didn’t want to pressure me into doing anything before I was ready. I want to do it, Leo. I do. But...’

  ‘Well, we have a beach,’ Leo said slowly. ‘And a full moon coming up. You’ll be here...’

  He let the words hang.

  She was still. So still. And then she turned to him again. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’ Haltingly. ‘You’d let me do that?’

  ‘Yes, I would let you. And, no, I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I’ll...I’ll think about it. I’m not sure... Not yet...’

  ‘That’s fine. The beach will always be here, and there are plenty of full moons to choose from.’

  She shivered.

  ‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘Come back to the house.’

  She could feel him behind her as she walked across the sand and up the steps. Like a tingle inside her nerve-endings. She could feel him watching as she brushed the sand from her feet, slipped on her shoes, retied the ankle laces.

  And then, ‘What next?’ she asked, breathless. Wanting, wanting... What?

  But Leo merely gestured for her to go into the house.

  He’d cleared the table and positioned in the middle of it a small white cardboard box with Art Deco patterning. ‘Open it,’ he said.

  Sunshine lifted the lid to find a one-portion replica of one of the wedding cake choices. Except that on top was a decorative three-dimensional love knot formed from two men’s ties.

  ‘Compromise number one,’ Leo said. ‘Fruit cake—for the wedding favours. It lasts longer than the other cakes, so can be made in advance. The ties will be identical to what Caleb and Jonathan are wearing on the day.’