It ought to have been reassuring and a relief. Strangely it was merely acutely depressing. Stitching a bright smile on her face, Blossom turned to Melissa and Greg, her goodbye as light as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Zak put his hand on the small of her back as they walked to the Aston Martin. It was a casual gesture, nothing more, but she felt the contact burn her skin through her thin dress.
He opened the passenger door for her and then shut it once she was in her seat. The good manners had the ring of naturalness about them. She watched him as he walked round the gleaming bonnet of the car, and every nerve in her body responded as he slid into the driving seat, glancing at her and smiling as he said. ‘Safety belt on, please.’
She obeyed automatically. She fancied him. She fancied him rotten. It was a relief to admit it at last. The relief was short lived. In the next breath the realisation that she couldn’t have been attracted to a more wildly unsuitable man if she’d tried swept over her. She’d gone down the route of falling head over heels for a handsome, charismatic swine and look where it had got her. Not that Zak would be interested in her money—if she had any, which she didn’t. When Dean had cleared her out, she’d gone through a ‘hey ho, what’s the point in saving a bean when shopping is such good therapy?’ stage. It had stuck. And of course she’d had to change the sofa and curtains and carpets in the flat to make it look different and avoid bad memories.
Her galloping train of thought came to an abrupt halt when Zak reached behind him and brought out a little box, placing it in her lap. ‘What’s that?’ She stared at it as though it was going to bite her.
‘Open it and see,’ he said reasonably.
Gingerly, her fingers shaking just the slightest, Blossom flicked open the lid. The tiny corsage consisted of two fresh cream rosebuds with just the faintest touch of lemon running through them, secured with strands of fragile fern on a pin. Only the pin wasn’t just a pin, she thought, the colour in her cheeks deepening. It was a brooch with a beautifully worked little bee in crystal and silver. At least she hoped it was crystal. The body couldn’t be a diamond, could it? Not that size. If so, she couldn’t possibly accept it. Perhaps she shouldn’t accept it anyway. What did one do in these circumstances?
‘It reminded me of the story you told me about your and Melissa’s names,’ Zak said quietly at her side. ‘Apt, eh?’
She raised her eyes to his. ‘It’s beautiful, exquisite, but I can’t possibly accept this.’ Her cheeks were on fire.
‘A corsage?’ he said offhandedly as though she was being ridiculous. ‘I really don’t see why not.’
‘But it’s not just a corsage.’ Her finger moved over the tiny brooch. ‘It’s more than that, you know it is.’
‘Essentially, certainly for tonight, it’s a corsage, and when the rosebuds die you will still have something to remember your time here by. A reminder that Melissa recovered, if you like.’
Put like that, it seemed the height of boorishness to refuse. ‘Thank you, it’s exquisite,’ she said again, and then froze as his hands reached for the corsage which he fastened on to her dress, his fingers not transgressing by so much as an inch.
He was so close the faint tang of that delicious aftershave she had smelt once before teased her nostrils, his tanned skin and jet-black hair filling her vision. And then he leant back into his seat again, and as the world slowly righted itself she started breathing once more. Shakily.
Should she have accepted the corsage in view of the brooch? She wasn’t sure. Perhaps he always gave a date something like this. But then, she wasn’t a date. Oh, heavens…She glanced down at the rosebuds and the little bee shone back at her. For all she knew he had a girlfriend anyway, but somehow she didn’t think so. Not that that mattered to her one way or the other, of course. He could have a dozen—no business of hers.
She breathed in very deeply, collecting her racing thoughts. It had been the right thing to make light of the brooch; to do anything else would have been insulting. She couldn’t have refused it. It would have made him feel awkward at the very least.
She glanced at him under her eyelashes as he started the car. Zak didn’t look like the type of man who would allow himself to feel awkward, admittedly.
He executed a neat manoeuvre into the road—an exercise which would have baffled Greg—and they were on their way. Blossom felt as though her bottom was skimming the road, the car sat so low, but it was exhilarating, especially because the interior of the car dripped luxury and the powerful engine just purred along. Zak’s hands on the steering wheel caught her attention. They were big, long fingered and looked very capable, the sort of hands that would always know exactly what they were doing—whether it was driving this animal of a machine or making love to a woman. Making love…
She caught the thought, turning scarlet and jerking her head to look out of the side window. No more going down that route, she told herself feverishly. What was the matter with her?
‘We’re going to a little place I know by the river, it’s perfect on a night like this,’ Zak said lazily. ‘It necessitates a bit of a drive, but I’m not familiar with restaurants round Greg’s neck of the woods so I thought it safer on the whole. OK with that?’
‘Yes, fine, of course.’ Don’t babble. The sort of women he dated would never babble. Taking a deep breath, she said steadily, ‘It was kind of you to come all this way to bring Melissa flowers and champagne.’ Well, it had been.
‘It’s no distance with a car like this, if you pick the right time and let the rush-hour subside.’ The blue gaze flashed over her face before returning to the windscreen. ‘Besides, like I said, I thought you could do with a break from domestic bliss.’
What did that mean—that he had thought of the flowers and champagne first, or seeing her again first?
‘Of course, I wouldn’t make the effort with all my employees, but I like to think Greg is more a friend than someone who works for me, and I know how cut up he was about Melissa at first. It helped a lot, you coming to hold the fort.’
That was her answer, then. It was the regard with which he held Greg that had brought him. Which was fine, just fine. ‘She’s my sister, I’d do anything for her. You know how it is.’
‘Not exactly. I’m an only child, and my parents divorced when I was a couple of years old.’
‘Oh, right. Well, I didn’t necessarily mean a brother or sister, just family as a whole. Blood’s thicker than water, and all that,’ she said quickly, her senses detecting a note in his voice she couldn’t quite discern but which disturbed her.
‘Again, I wouldn’t know. When my mother went off to Texas with the guy she left my father for—he was American, obviously—she took me with her, but I saw more of the domestic help than I did of them. Family life wasn’t an option.’
He had spoken quietly and evenly, and without the faintest shred of bitterness, but perhaps it was the complete lack of expression which made her think he wasn’t as detached as he seemed. Carefully, she said, ‘And your father? Didn’t he try to see you?’
‘I was shunted over to England several times a year, ostensibly to stay with him. It was part of the divorce agreement, which had been acrimonious to say the least. But I think he only insisted on it to annoy my mother. Each time I arrived I was passed round different relatives—the two sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles, that sort of thing. I was lucky if he made an appearance for more than a day or so. I was a reminder of the big mistake he had made in marrying my mother, you see. And of course I didn’t really know any of the family or they me. I was just a weird little American kid who preferred waffles for breakfast rather than cornflakes, and baseball to football.’
She had wondered where the faint accent she detected in his voice had come from. ‘You don’t sound very American,’ she said tentatively, wondering if she was saying the right thing.
‘No? Probably because when my mother died when I was ten years old I was shipped back to England and promptly put in bo
arding school. Then it was university, followed by the big wide world and a series of jobs between which I bummed around Europe. That wasn’t a bad time, on the whole. Informative, anyway.’
‘You didn’t want to work for your father?’
They had just reached a set of traffic lights and now he turned to her, his eyes very blue. ‘My father wasn’t into the father-and-son thing. He preferred to forget he’d got a son most of the time. I didn’t argue with that. It would have been pointless, a waste of my energy and emotion, and I don’t like waste.’
Wow. She could see where the ruthlessness Melissa had spoken of came in now. He was scary. She wondered why his father had left Zak the business if they had been estranged when he’d died, but knew she couldn’t ask. Instead she said, ‘Do you have contact with anyone in the family now?’
The traffic lights changed to green and the powerful car leapt forward. ‘No,’ said Zak quietly. ‘Both sets of grandparents are dead, and I’m not interested in the rest.’
Right. Autonomous, then.
Zak switched the car’s CD player on and music filled the brief pause. ‘What do you like?’ he asked, his eyes on the road. ‘Blues, rock, jazz?’
Clearly the end of that brief glimpse into his life. ‘Anything and everything, except heavy metal. This is fine.’
His background explained a lot. As they drove on, Blossom started dissecting their conversation. The reluctance to get involved with any one woman for long, the self-governing, independent lifestyle, the air of detachment that hung about him and made him more attractive if anything. Being treated like that as a child by the very people who should have loved and protected him must have been terrible.
Then she caught her errant thoughts. Hang on, he might have been like that anyway, she warned herself silently. It might not be a case of little boy lost who needed a good woman to change his life, but more one of plain old-fashioned genes. And he was incredibly handsome, wealthy, successful and intelligent. That combination would be enough to prompt any man’s ego to get out of control, and once that happened it was emotional suicide for anyone foolish enough to care about them.
‘Your turn to tell me about you.’
His voice had been soft, but it still brought Blossom up straighter in her seat. Help. Did she tell him she wasn’t prepared to discuss her past? But how could she? And what if he got the hump and turned the car around and took her back to Melissa’s? She wouldn’t find out another thing about him then, and she was surprised how he’d whetted her curiosity with what he’d revealed so far.
Curiosity killed the cat. The warning was as clear as if someone had spoken it. Don’t even think about going there.
Yeah. She gave a mental nod of acknowledgement. Crazy to mess with this man. Even crazier to have agreed to come out with him tonight. Especially as she fancied him without liking him. She’d never been in this position with anyone else. Before Dean she had been quite cautious about her boyfriends, and definitely the liking thing had had to be in place before she’d allowed herself to be attracted physically. With Dean she’d literally been swept off her feet, and it had been tinsel and stardust, and riding off into the sunset together. It wasn’t until he’d left she’d realised she hadn’t known the real Dean at all, just a romantic image he’d projected to entangle her.
‘Blossom? It can’t be that complicated, surely?’ His voice, teasing now, brought her out of her reverie. ‘Start with you and Melissa as little girls growing up and go on from there. Was it a happy childhood?’
‘Tremendously so.’ She wondered how long she could spin out the time of pigtails and gymslips. Long enough for them to reach the restaurant, perhaps?
She tried to focus her gaze on anything but his hard thighs and the way his trousers stretched over a certain part of his anatomy as she spoke. She made a meal of her time at university and then the battle to get noticed in the career she’d chosen once she’d finished the childhood years.
Zak said very little, interjecting the odd question now and again but letting her ramble on. She kept her conversation light and entertaining, focusing on her work and the goings-on in the fashion world, and feeling a sense of accomplishment all out of proportion to the deed when she succeeded in making him chuckle once or twice. His sense of humour was very like hers. After all, she told herself reassuringly, Zak had not mentioned anything about his love life, so why should she go down that path? And to be fair he probably hadn’t even expected her to. She was super-sensitive about what had happened with Dean, she knew that. Prickly even. And long after the hurt and pain had vanished the feeling of intense humiliation had remained.
They arrived at the river-side pub on the outskirts of London in warm summer twilight, the air hazy and carrying the scent of the myriad window-boxes festooning the building. The restaurant was at the back of the pub and was clearly a later addition to the original building, although the ‘olde worlde’ charm had been maintained. Large French doors opened on to a green sloping lawn which led to the river bank. Lots of couples and families were sitting at the tables and chairs dotting the lawn or lying on the grass, and the scene was a relaxing and lazy one. Very English, very normal.
Blossom felt out of sync with the rest of the world, being anything but relaxed as she gazed out of the doors from the small table for two where she and Zak had been seated. When they had left the car he’d done the hand-on-the-small-of-her-back thing again and she knew her cheeks were still burning. Which was absurd, and so gauche of her. It wasn’t as if she did breathless and blushing, she never had.
‘Can I get you a drink while you look at the menu?’ A smiling waitress who was all pert breasts and fluttering lashes and couldn’t have been a day older than eighteen was busy giving Zak the eye as she spoke.
He didn’t seem to be aware of it, to be fair. His eyes on Blossom, he said, ‘Shall we toast Melissa’s recovery with a bottle of champagne, considering they’re probably doing the same thing at this moment?’
‘Lovely.’ She would actually have preferred a glass of still wine—she had always found champagne a little dry for her taste—but she didn’t like to say so with Little Miss Come-and-get-me standing there. She felt awkward enough as it was.
Once the waitress had disappeared, Blossom quickly buried her head in the huge embossed menu. She had already worked out this was not your average pub, and the vast choice of superb meals on offer, not to mention the prices, confirmed this. She had always been a girl who lived to eat, unlike Melissa who ate to live—hence her sister’s sylph-like shape and her own more generous curves, Blossom thought ruefully. Now the fabulous array of perfectly delicious-sounding options made her mouth water despite her nerves.
‘Can I suggest the truffled salad of confit spring-chicken with chicory, scallions and pancetta to begin with?’ Zak murmured after Blossom had scanned the menu umpteen times without coming to a decision and had become thoroughly confused.
She lowered the menu and looked at him. The piercing blueness of his eyes took her breath away. How did other women feel when they woke up beside a man like this? She’d felt inadequate with Dean, always trying to slip out of bed before he was awake to at least brush her teeth, get some mascara on and do something with her hair. She had felt she needed to try all the time. Perhaps that should have told her something, in hindsight? Yes, if she thought about it, it definitely should have. She’d never felt quite good enough for Dean, and it had been he who had made her feel that way. She just hadn’t realised it at the time. She had blamed it all on herself.
‘The chicken?’ she repeated a little vaguely before pulling herself together. ‘Yes, that sounds great.’ She smiled her first natural smile of the evening. ‘I’m afraid looking at all these fantastic dishes has blown my mind. I’m bad enough at deciding if there’s just three or four options, let alone a dozen and more for each course. And they all look so delicious.’
He grinned. It increased the sex appeal by about one hundred per cent. ‘In that case, the grapefruit-and-mang
o sorbet to follow clears the palate wonderfully for the roast rib of beef with kumquats, or perhaps you’d prefer the organic salmon with cannelloni beans? I’ve had both and can recommend either.’
‘The beef sounds delicious.’ Who’d been with him those other times?
‘It is, trust me.’
Looking like you do? Never. Blossom nodded. ‘The beef it is, then. Decision made.’ She smiled brightly.
The waitress was back, more goo-goo-eyed than ever. Blossom found herself focusing on the baby-soft complexion, blonde curls and bright, eager eyes. The girl was little more than a child, and yet clearly possessed of a self-confidence that was daunting. He would have babies like this, full-grown women and perhaps even mature matrons throwing themselves at him all the time. How could one female ever hold the attention of a man like him? She’d have to be nothing short of Aphrodite.
The champagne wasn’t the fizzy, dry, somewhat acidic stuff Blossom had had in the past, but a mellow, effervescent wine that sat on the tongue presenting strawberries and honey and the essence of summer days. She didn’t like to think what it had cost, but it certainly wasn’t your average common-or-garden variety. Now she understood why some of the top models she worked with drank champagne and nothing else. Of course they were also aware that champagne, unlike all other alcoholic beverages, didn’t put any weight on. A big plus in the world of stick insects they inhabited, she thought wryly.
‘So…’ As though she had just finished talking a moment ago, Zak said, ‘You and Melissa lost your parents four years ago. Any other close relatives?’
‘Not what I’d call close, as such. We tend to get together with various aunties and uncles and cousins at weddings and funerals and special occasions and such like. My mother’s parents died some time ago, but my father’s are still alive and living in New Zealand. They emigrated just before Melissa and I were born and we’ve only seen them a few times. We don’t really know them.’
‘But you and Melissa have each other.’
His Christmas Bride Page 5