At No Man's Command

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Aiesha swallowed a mouthful of panic. Staying in a hotel. One suite. One bed. All night. What if she had another nightmare? What if she...?

  ‘I’m not going. I want to stay here. I hate Paris.’ Romantic couples everywhere, walking hand in hand through the city of love. It was enough to make her want to puke.

  He leaned on the handle of the shovel, his eyes meeting hers. ‘You’re the one who kicked this charade off. By the way, I did an electronic transfer of the funds into your bank account last night. Think of this as a job. You and I are engaged until such time as I call it off.’

  He wanted to call the tune now, did he? Well, she was going to call her own. She planted her hands on her hips, straightened her shoulders and upped her chin. ‘I want my own room.’

  He stabbed the spade in the snow again. ‘That would cause way too much speculation.’ He tossed the snow before he gave her a crooked smile. ‘Can’t have everyone tweeting about that, can we?’

  Aiesha threw him a caustic glare. ‘I always sleep alone. I hate sharing a bed. I hate being disturbed by someone snoring or groping me when I’m trying to sleep.’

  He leaned on his shovel to look at her with that penetrative gaze of his. ‘Do you often have trouble sleeping?’

  She tried to keep her game face on but she could feel it crumbling around the edges. ‘Just because I get up to get a drink now and again doesn’t mean I’m an insomniac. This house makes a lot of noise at night. It’s creepy.’

  He continued to study her, his gaze unwavering. ‘Just as well I’m here with you to keep you safe from all the ghosts and ghouls then, isn’t it?’

  Was he mocking her? It was hard to tell from his expression. She let go of the inside of her lip and changed the subject. ‘What about the dog? Who’s going to look after it?’

  ‘Mrs McBain has a nephew who said he’d take care of her for a couple of days.’

  Aiesha tried another tack. ‘I promised your mother I would do it. She was relying on me to house-sit until she gets back because Mrs McBain wanted to visit her daughter in Yorkshire. I don’t want to let her down. Not after all she’s done for me.’

  His look was still searching. ‘Have you heard from her since she left?’

  Aiesha rolled her lips together. She hadn’t heard a peep from his mother. She couldn’t decide if Louise was annoyed with her or too preoccupied with worry over her friend’s health to be concerned with what was going on—or not going on—at home. ‘No, but I’m sure it’s because she’s busy looking after her friend. She might be in a remote area or something without a proper signal for her phone.’

  ‘Do you think she cooked this up?’ He pointed to her and then back at himself. ‘You and me, stuck here together like this?’

  Aiesha gave an uncomfortable little laugh. ‘Surely you don’t think your mother has the ability to summon up a blizzard to suit her own ends? And why on earth would she want you and me to hook up? She knows how much we dislike each other.’

  Those dark blue eyes were still holding hers in a lock that made her spine feel like molten wax. ‘What if she’s playing fairy godmother?’ he said. ‘Waving her magic wand around to make everything turn out the way she wants it.’

  ‘I hardly think your mother wants a Vegas lounge singer as her future daughter-in-law,’ Aiesha said, trying to ignore the strange little pang below her heart. If her circumstances were different, Louise was exactly the sort of mother-in-law she would’ve liked....

  ‘She has a soft spot for you. She always has.’

  Aiesha kicked a little mound of snow away with the toe of her boot. ‘Doesn’t mean she wants me to be the mother of her grandkids.’

  His gaze flicked to her abdomen as if imagining her swollen with his child. When his eyes reconnected with hers Aiesha felt her cheeks grow warm and her heart gave a funny little jolting movement that all but snatched her breath away.

  James would be a wonderful father. He would be upright and steady, reliable and sensible. Kind and loving. He would be patient and yet firm. He would take the time to understand his children, to get to know them. He would provide for them and never exploit or abuse them or the trust they had in him.

  A vision slipped under a barrier inside her head...a vision of James holding a newborn baby. A tiny pink, dimpled little baby with scrunched-up eyes and a rosebud mouth. Ten tiny fingers, ten wriggling toes, a little button nose and ears like miniature shells.

  Something tightly wound up inside her belly began to loosen, unravel. Break free. Could James see the nascent longing she was fighting so hard to hide? The longing she hardly realised she possessed until now. It was a hunger that was buried so deep inside her she hadn’t heard its voice above the babble of activity with which she had filled her life thus far.

  The yearning she had for a family she could call her own.

  To belong.

  To be part of a family unit that was so strong nothing and no one could ever break it apart.

  To be loved and to love in return.

  Aiesha berated herself for her silly little pipe dreams, for those ridiculously fanciful imaginings that had no foothold in the real world. What sort of mother would she make? She couldn’t even keep a dog safe from harm.

  She swung away to go back to the house. ‘I’m going to have breakfast.’

  ‘How about making me some?’

  She threw him a frosty look over her shoulder. ‘Make it yourself.’

  * * *

  James came into the warm kitchen where Aiesha was sitting huddled over a mug of tea. She gave him a sideways glance that was two parts glower and went back to staring at her tea. He looked at the bowl of porridge she had set aside on the cooker and gave a private smile. He was right. She was not as tough on the inside as she showed on the outside. It was all bluster and posturing. She had a soft heart but it was hidden where no one could reach it.

  Last night had shown him how much she cared. She had been genuinely worried about Bonnie going missing. She had come flouncing in with her usual you-fix-it-it’s-not-my-problem manner but it was all bluff. She had acted childishly under pressure but rather than mock her for it, he felt drawn to her. She brought out every protective instinct he possessed. Getting to know her was proving to be the most fascinating and moving experience of his life.

  What would it take for her to trust him enough to drop the mask? Would she ever feel safe enough to show her true self? Or would he have to be satisfied with rare glimpses, leaving him feeling frustrated and manipulated and dissatisfied?

  ‘Is this for me?’ he asked.

  ‘I made too much.’ Another hard little glare. ‘No point wasting perfectly good food.’

  He pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Stop scowling at me. It’s ruining my appetite.’

  Her fingers fidgeted with the handle of her mug. She had slender fingers, with nails that were short but neatly manicured. The first two of her knuckles on her right hand were faintly bruised. His chest felt strangely tight, as if someone was turning a spanner on each of the valves of his heart. He hadn’t realised she’d hurt herself when she’d landed him with that punch the other night. She hadn’t said a word.

  So many layers...

  So many secrets...

  ‘Is your hand OK? It looks bruised. Did you—?’

  She slipped her right hand beneath the table. ‘It’s fine. I bumped it against something.’

  ‘Aiesha.’

  She gave him the sort of look an unrepentant delinquent did a correction officer. ‘What?’

  ‘Give me your hand.’

  She looked as if she was going to refuse his command, but then she rolled her eyes and shoved her hand out to him. He took her hand gently in his and began brushing his thumb over the back of it. Nothing moved on her face but he felt her fingers shift inside the cup of his, a soft l
ittle trembling movement that made his body spring to attention. His groin throbbed as he remembered how those fingers had wrapped around him. Holding him. Caressing him until he had to fight every instinct to explode. She was blowing cold on him now but how long before she switched back to sultry siren? She was so complex, so deeply layered, like a lake or a pond that had hidden caves and canyons below the surface.

  James released her hand and sat back and picked up his spoon. ‘We need to get you a ring.’

  She blinked at him. ‘What?’

  He pointed to her left hand with his spoon. ‘An engagement ring.’

  And, bang on cue, she did it.

  One of her slim eyebrows arched and her grey eyes sparkled with her usual cheekiness. ‘Do I get to keep it after we break up?’

  ‘Sure.’ He sprinkled some more brown sugar on his porridge. ‘Think of it as a consolation prize.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘It’s not the one you bought for Phoebe what’s-her-face, is it?’

  He looked up from his breakfast to give her a lazy smile. ‘No point wasting a perfectly good diamond.’

  Her eyes hardened as she leaned across the table and pushed his spoon down away from his mouth. ‘Listen up. I don’t wear other women’s cast-offs. Got it?’

  James felt the tingle of her touch run all the way up his arm. The fire in her gaze lit a blaze in his pelvis. He could feel the blood surging through his veins, thickening him with lust that was like a raging fever. Her mouth was set in an intractable line but it still looked lush and plump. It was impossible for such a beautiful mouth to look anything else. He remembered the taste of her, sweet and hot and sinful. Her tongue swift and seductive as it mated with his. He wanted to feel her tongue, hot and wet, on his neck, on his chest, his abdomen, stroking and licking all the way down to where he throbbed the hardest.

  ‘I’m not wasting my money on a ring you’ll only be wearing for a couple of weeks,’ he said. ‘What would be the point?’

  She pushed back her chair and got up from the table. ‘Fine. Whatever.’

  James frowned as he watched her stalk over to put her mug in the dishwasher. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She slammed the dishwasher door. ‘Nothing.’

  He rose from the table and went over to where she was standing with her arms folded across her body. Her expression was stormy and resentful and her eyes marble-hard.

  ‘What does it matter what ring you wear when all of this is a sham?’ he asked.

  Her eyes glittered at they met his. ‘Do you know how insulting it is to be given something that was intended for someone else?’

  ‘Are we talking about engagement rings or something else?’

  Her chin came up. ‘What else could we be talking about?’

  ‘Who gave you something that was meant for someone else?’

  ‘No one.’

  He studied her expression for a moment, watching as her grey eyes locked him out as surely as if a shutter had come down. ‘Talk to me, Aiesha.’

  ‘About what?’

  He stroked a fingertip along the curve of her jaw, from just below her ear to her chin, but surprisingly she didn’t jerk away. ‘Tell me why you’re upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset.’ Her lips barely moved as she spoke. ‘I’m angry.’

  James quirked an eyebrow. ‘Angry about a few days in Paris, all expenses paid?’

  She pursed her lips, firing another glare at him. ‘I packed in a hurry to get here. I don’t have the right clothes to wear.’

  He stroked the underside of her chin, pushing it up so her embittered gaze couldn’t escape his. ‘So I’ll buy you some clothes while we’re in Paris. That’s what sugar daddies and rich fiancés do, isn’t it?’

  ‘How are you going to explain that black eye to your business friend?’

  James had wondered that himself. ‘I’ll tell him I walked into a door.’

  Her look was scathing. ‘Not very original.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  Something shifted in her gaze, a fleeting shadow, but then she was back to her street-smart sass. ‘I could give you some concealer to put on. Or I could do it for you. I’m a bit of an expert. Bruises are pretty easy to disguise. Cuts and swelling less so.’

  He frowned. ‘You’ve used concealer before? For covering bruises and cuts?’

  ‘I should’ve been a make-up artist.’ Her tone had a cynical edge to it. ‘I had a long apprenticeship patching up my mother from all her sicko boyfriends beating her up. Should’ve put that on my CV. I wonder if it’s too late for a career change?’

  James’s stomach contents churned, his heart contracting in disgust at what she must have witnessed. At what her mother must have suffered. ‘Did any of them hit you?’

  She pushed her tongue into the side of her cheek before she answered. ‘Couple of times.’

  He swallowed a mouthful of bile. He thought of her as a child, all skinny legs and arms, being assaulted by someone huge and threatening. How could she possibly have defended herself? Violence in general was abhorrent to him, but violence against women and children sickened him to the core. Was that why she was so restless at night? What horrors had she locked away in her mind? What abuse had she seen or experienced first-hand?

  ‘Is that why you ran away from home?’

  She directed her gaze to the left lapel of his collar. He saw her draw in a breath, hold it for a beat, before slowly releasing it. ‘A couple of days after my mother died of a heroin overdose, nobly supplied by her latest de facto, he decided I would make a good substitute in his bed. I declined.’

  James swallowed thickly. Painfully. ‘He tried to...to rape you?’

  She didn’t meet his gaze but kept staring at his lapel. ‘I got out before it came to that.’

  ‘So that’s why you ran away.’

  She nodded. ‘Yep.’

  James sensed there was more to it than that but she wasn’t saying. He could read her better now. She put on that shield of brash armour, the tough-girl exterior that hid a world of pain. He heard it in the tone of her voice. He saw it in the brittleness of her eyes. It was a barrier she put up to make people back off from getting too close to her. She was like a junkyard dog, all bluster and bluff for self-protection. ‘How long were you on the streets?’

  ‘I couch surfed for a few nights but people soon get sick of freeloaders.’

  ‘But you were fifteen, for God’s sake!’

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, they say charity begins at home but it wasn’t at any of the homes I stayed in...except maybe your mum’s.’

  James frowned harder. ‘Then why did you sabotage your stay with her?’

  She met his gaze then. Hers was hard as steel. Cordoned off. Impenetrable. ‘Your father was cheating on her. I overheard him talking to his mistress. I decided to show your mum what type of man he was. She deserves better. Much better.’

  James looked at her in puzzlement. ‘But surely you could’ve handled it without involving the press. You hurt my mother more than you hurt my father.’ And me.

  She gave another careless shrug of her shoulders. ‘As you say, I was fifteen. I didn’t know any better at the time.’

  ‘What about the jewellery?’ he asked. ‘You do realise you could’ve been charged with theft if my mother hadn’t pretended it was a gift?’

  The tight set to her mouth softened a fraction. ‘Yeah, well, I sent it back to her after I got paid for my story.’

  James looked at her in a combination of frustration and admiration. She was a survivor. She fought her corner and fought hard. She used whatever weapons she had at her disposal. Wit. Charm. Artifice. Seduction. She was wily, as cunning as a vixen and as cute as a kitten, whichever suited her needs best.

  But underneath all that he coul
d see something else. Someone else. Someone who didn’t let anyone get too close. Someone who didn’t trust others not to exploit her or harm her. Someone who felt more than she cared to show.

  ‘You said your mother died. What about your father?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since I was eight.’

  ‘His choice or yours?’

  She gave him another cynical look. ‘Her Majesty’s choice.’

  ‘He’s in prison?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘For being a jerk.’

  James let it go. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it. He was surprised she had told him what she had. He wondered if his mother had got as much out of her. He felt annoyed with himself for not understanding Aiesha better. Was that why his mother had resumed contact? She had understood there was much more to that brooding teenager with the challenging behaviour. His mother had seen the potential inside Aiesha to become a beautiful swan if only she had a chance to shine. She was not used to letting people in. His mother had been patient, spending the last eight years keeping in contact with Aiesha, letting her know there was a safe haven for her if ever she needed it.

  ‘You don’t have to feel ashamed of where you’ve come from, Aiesha,’ he said. ‘None of that was your choice.’

  She pushed her lips out in a what-would-you-know manner. ‘I’m going to have a shower. Talking about my background always makes me feel dirty.’

  * * *

  Aiesha was still agitated after her shower. She stood staring out of the window at the whitened fields and forest, wondering why she had told James so much. She wasn’t used to talking about her past. She never talked about it. Not to anyone. She’d didn’t want people to think any less of her for being the daughter of a criminal and a heroin addict. She had spent most of her life trying to hide it.

  It was hardly something you brought up as small talk at a cocktail party: What does my father do, you ask? He’s a career criminal. Armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Drugs. Breaking and entering. You name it. He’s either done it or has a mate who has.