It took her a moment to realise he’d finally answered her question. ‘And why is drinking making you sad?’
He looked surprised. ‘I’m not sad. Just taking some time out.’
She ordered a glass of champagne, wondering how many she’d already had. But, hey, if she couldn’t get drunk on her eigthteenth birthday, when could she? Besides, if ever there was a time when Dutch courage was needed, this was it. Her own courage was slipping away by the minute. Taking a deep gulp, she moved in closer to Nick. ‘Well, I’ve got a proposition that might put a smile on your face.’
His deep brown eyes looked wary. ‘Oh?’
Smiling she leaned over and whispered into his ear. ‘I want you to help me lose my virginity.’
A broad grin was what she’d been hoping for. A slight smile would have done. Even a confused look wouldn’t have been a total disaster. Nick did none of these things. Slowly he put down his glass and turned to her, his eyes flat, his expression shuttered. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
Too late to back down, she had to brave it out. ‘I’m deadly serious.’
‘Jesus, Lizzie.’ He shook his head, looking down at his empty glass. ‘Your first time should be with someone special to you. Someone you love.’
‘You are special to me.’ Couldn’t he see that was why she was asking him? Mortified at the way this was panning out, Lizzie wanted to up sticks and run. She hadn’t reckoned on having to persuade him. Blithely she’d assumed he’d want this, too.
He sighed and something flickered in his eyes. An emotion she couldn’t put her finger on. ‘Am I special, Lizzie?’ he asked quietly. ‘Special in the way a man is to a woman. Not a brother is to a sister.’
She wanted the ground to swallow her up. He was making her feel like a silly girl who didn’t understand about sex. Why couldn’t he treat her like a woman? Her cheeks stinging with shame, she retaliated as she always did when cornered. She went on the attack. ‘I’m going to lose my virginity with somebody before I go to the States. If you’re not interested, I’ll find someone who is.’
It was as if she’d struck him. He flinched and his face drained of colour.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he replied coldly. ‘I gave you credit for being more mature than this.’
Ouch, his words hit home, adding to her misery.
‘Sex isn’t something you have to cross off a list in order to make you a woman.’ His eyes narrowed as they bored into hers. ‘I know what all this is about. You’re worried you won’t be able to act sexy to the camera when you’ve not actually had sex. That’s it, isn’t it?’
Maybe there was a grain of truth in his words – but there was also so much more to her invitation than that. She did want her first time to be with someone special. Him. Yet how could she let him see her feelings now? He’d not just turned her down, he’d as good as laughed in her face.
‘So what if it is? Lots of people have sex together for far worse reasons than that.’
Nick hoped to God Lizzie couldn’t see through the cold mask he was wearing and into the emotional pit lying beneath it. She was offering herself to him on a plate, and yet here he was, turning her down. And none too gently, at that. But damn it, this wasn’t how he’d imagined it happening during those restless nights when he tossed and turned, dreaming of her. If she’d told him she loved him. Wanted him, fancied him, liked him even, as a man, not a friend. That was all he needed. Heaven knew, his body was only too game. But this wasn’t anything to do with him. He was just a handy male she happened to trust.
‘Thank you for thinking of me,’ he ground out, ‘but I’m going to decline the invitation to take part in your experiment. You’ll have to find someone else. I’m sure you won’t be short of offers.’
Stiffly he stood up from the bar stool and walked away. Out of the marquee, out of the party, and into the night. He’d begun the evening planning to tempt Lizzie into a date. Maybe even a kiss. Hopefully, the start of a relationship. Though he hadn’t wanted to scare her off, in his mind he’d even pictured marriage and children one day. He was ending the evening walking into the night alone, having just turned down her offer to help rid her of her virginity. As if it was a hurdle to be overcome, not a prize worth savouring, keeping until she could give it to the right man. And God knows, he clearly wasn’t the right man. Not in her eyes. She had her heart set on bigger adventures than him.
With a sigh he pulled out his phone, punching in the number of the local taxi firm. He’d had enough of mooning over Lizzie Donavue. She was off to America to start a new life. It was about time he sorted out his own.
As he climbed into the arriving taxi, he was unaware of a willowy blonde figure watching from the house, tears running down her face. Sod Nick Templeton. She didn’t want to lose her virginity to a man who didn’t want her, anyway. She was off to New York, to the career she’d always dreamed of. She didn’t need Nick any more. She didn’t need anyone.
Two Years Ago
It hadn’t stopped raining all day. Perhaps it was fitting. A grim day to match the grim scene in front of them. Not one, but two coffins being slowly lowered into the ground. A simple wreath of white lilies on each. Nick reached out to put an arm round Lizzie’s shoulders, desperate to offer whatever solace he could. She flinched from his touch, just as she had when he’d flown out to New York straight after the accident. His heart tore at her rejection, but he pushed away the pain and continued to hold her, needing to offer the comfort as much as he knew she needed to feel it.
He glanced sideways at her face, wondering how she was still functioning. He knew what it was like to lose parents; his own had died during his first school summer holiday. When he and his sister had gone to bed they’d had parents. When they’d woken up, they were orphans, thanks to a faulty gas fire in the master bedroom. It had left him devastated, and he’d been too young to really understand the consequences.
At twenty-four, Lizzie knew exactly what the two oak coffins meant.
Once the brief graveside ceremony was over, the mourners began to move away. Lizzie stayed, head bowed, not bothering to wipe the tears that streamed down her face. Gently he tugged at her arm.
‘Time to go.’
Vehemently she shook her head. ‘No. I’m not leaving them.’
His heart crumpled. ‘You have to, Lizzie. People are going on to the house. They’ll expect you there.’
‘I don’t care.’ She glared up at him. ‘How can you expect me to leave them? They shouldn’t be there, not in that horrid cold grave.’ Her sobs grew louder.
He fumbled in his pocket for another tissue, but they’d all gone. ‘Look, I understand how you feel—’
She rounded on him before he had a chance to finish. ‘No you don’t. You can’t possibly know how I feel right now.’
‘I understand how it feels to see a parent buried,’ he reminded her quietly. And damn it, he’d loved her parents, too. Not like she had, sure, but he felt their loss.
‘And were your parents coming to see you when they died?’ she railed at him. ‘And was your sister in the car, as my brother was? No. So don’t tell me you know how I feel.’
Briefly he closed his eyes, the pain etched on her face too much for him. Robert had been in the same car as his parents that fateful night, all of them travelling from John F Kennedy airport to visit Lizzie. Her brother, his best friend, had been the only one to survive the crash – if you could call what he was doing surviving. It was early days, but the doctors weren’t hopeful of Robert ever being able to lead a normal life again. After seeing him in the hospital last week, wired up to machines and looking totally lifeless, Nick didn’t think a miracle was likely.
‘Okay,’ he conceded, fighting back his own tears. ‘I don’t know how you feel, but I do know standing here isn’t the answer. You need to say goodbye to your parents and come back to the house. Talk to the people who’ve come a long way to mourn with you.’
He started to pull at her arm, to guide her to the car, but
she yanked it away. ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want you telling me what to do, Nick Templeton. I’ll go when I’m good and ready. You can bugger off.’
He bit back a reply, telling himself her rant at him wasn’t personal; he was the handy punchbag. Hell, he was happy to take the beating if it helped her get things off her chest. ‘I’ll wait by the car.’
Desolately he trudged back to the car, leaving her alone by the graveside: a tall, slender blonde, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
Lizzie couldn’t think, couldn’t function. Her mind was numb. Surely she was acting a role. That of the distraught daughter, the anguished sister. There was no way her parents could be dead. No way her brother could be in a coma, unlikely to ever come out.
But it had to be true, because today she’d watched as two coffins carrying her parents had been lowered into a hole and covered with soil. Relatives she barely knew had trailed through her childhood home, smiling awkwardly and drinking lots of tea. When the last of them had left, she’d scuttled upstairs to her room, looking for the peace and calm she usually found there. After an hour of lying on her old wooden bed, staring emptily out of the window, she still couldn’t find it. The house was eerily quiet, as if it, too, was in mourning.
A light tap on the door broke the silence. ‘Are you okay in there?’
Nick. Since she’d left to go to America she’d rarely seen him, and certainly not without the buffer of her brother or parents. Her anger at his rejection had cooled over the years, but the brush off still stung and the memory of it hung like an unwanted weight between them. A tension that, so far, time hadn’t been able to shift. Yet in those bleak moments straight after the accident when the kind policeman had asked if there was anyone they could call to stay with her, Nick’s had been the first, the only name her dazed mind had thought of. Later, waking from a sedative induced sleep, she’d been horrified and called him, interrupting his halting words of sympathy. ‘Thank you but I’m fine,’ she’d told him. ‘There’s no need to drag yourself across the Atlantic.’
He’d exhaled a long, deep sigh. ‘You’re not fine. And I’m in a cab, ten minutes away.’
Of course he’d already dropped everything and flown to see her. That was Nick all over. Kind, loyal. A man who put duty and responsibility before anything else. Even it meant having to deal with a grieving woman, one who’d once asked him to take her virginity.
‘Lizzie?’
His voice cut through her thoughts and with a sigh she sat up on the bed. ‘It’s okay, you can come in.’
The door creaked open and his tall frame moved hesitantly into the room. ‘You’ve been up here a long while. I was getting worried.’
‘I was just thinking how the house feels too quiet.’ She felt a crushing pain in her chest and pressed her hand to it, despite knowing there was nothing that would soothe it. ‘Any minute I expect to hear Mum singing, and Dad laughing at her singing. Or Robert dashing in to ask me, for the hundredth time, when I’m going to introduce him to Kate Moss.’
A small, understanding smile flickered across his face. ‘I’m more of a Claudia Schiffer man myself.’ He nodded to the bed. ‘Do you mind?’
The way he perched carefully on the end furthest from her tugged a wry smile from her. ‘Finally I get you in my bed.’
Immediately his face flushed scarlet. ‘Look, about that—’
‘No.’ Horrified, she held up her hand. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. We’re not talking about it. Not now, not ever.’ Why the blazes had she mentioned it?
‘Well, obviously, I’d rather not talk about that sort of stuff, either, but …’ He sighed. ‘I hate the awkwardness between us now.’
‘They say a girl never forgets her first love. I guess she finds it hard to forget her first rejection, too.’
His eyes rested, dark and expressive, on hers. ‘It was six years ago. And surely, you have to know, turning you down hurt me far more than it hurt you.’
Then why do it? But she was far too emotionally unsteady to have that conversation. In fact, she doubted she’d ever be ready for it.
The quiet she’d started to hate descended on them once again. Outside there was a bird twittering on as if all was well with the world. If only it was. A chill shot through her and she began to tremble, her body juddering uncontrollably. ‘Would you mind holding me?’
He didn’t hesitate. One minute he was sitting at the end of her bed, the next he was beside her and cradling her in his arms. He smelt like Nick: classic, male, outdoors. He felt like Nick: warm, comforting, steady. ‘Thank you for being here,’ she whispered into his chest.
His arms tightened. ‘Where else would I be?’
He didn’t understand her gratitude. He couldn’t see how, in his quiet way, he’d got her through the last two weeks. Holding hands with her by Robert’s bedside. Arranging the transfer of her parents’ bodies to England. Helping her arrange the funeral. Others had pitched in, on both sides of the Atlantic, friends and relatives keen to help. Yet throughout it all, Nick had been the one constant. A rock in the storm of her heartbreak and loss. ‘Others came and went,’ she told him quietly. ‘You stayed.’
‘I’m waiting for you to kick me out.’
She smiled against his chest, soothed by the steady beat of his heart. ‘I thought I already did that earlier.’
‘What, telling me to bugger off? It will take a lot more than that to get rid of me.’ She felt his lips as they placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. ‘A lot more.’
Nick rested his chin on her soft blonde head, holding tightly onto the haunted woman he’d watched like a hawk all day. He desperately wanted to cry, but she didn’t need his sadness, too. She needed his strength.
‘I’ve decided, I’m going back to the States tomorrow.’
He loosened his grip so he could look at her. ‘So soon? Are you sure?’
Suddenly restless, she shifted away from his arms and jumped to her feet. ‘I can’t stay here, in this house, any longer.’ Her voice sounded thick, as if she was on the verge of further tears. ‘I need to get back to my life. Working again will do me good. Give me less time to think.’
‘Don’t you need time to grieve properly first?’ Or was he just thinking of his own selfish needs? It might have taken a tragedy to bring her back into his life, but he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.
‘You really think it will help me to stay here and do nothing but think about what I’ve lost?’
‘I think it might help if you took time off work, yes. You don’t need to stay here, you can stay with me.’
Her eyes widened. Shock? Horror? It certainly wasn’t pleasure. ‘I need to go home. Robert is there.’
Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t argue with that one. ‘What will you do about the house?’
She sighed deeply and gazed around her room. When her eyes rested on his, they were filled with pain. ‘Would you take care of it? Sell it for me.’
Still the besotted fool of six years ago, he found himself nodding. Walk across burning coals? Sure. Sell a much-loved family home and all its contents? Yes, ma’am. ‘Is there anything in particular you want to keep?’
Her eyes clouded as she fought against further tears. ‘I don’t need things to remember them by,’ she replied brokenly. ‘They won’t be coming back. I have to accept that and move on. This isn’t home any more.’
As pain lanced his heart, Nick realised with a terrifying feeling of finality that this might be it. The last time he’d ever see her. Now her family was no longer around to keep their tenuous friendship intact, were they fated to drift out of touch?
‘You’ll still come back, though?’ His words sounded desperate, but he couldn’t stop himself. ‘Or am I destined to be only a name you write on a Christmas card once a year?’
She gave him a wan smile, but didn’t contradict his statement. And why would she? He was, and always would be, a reminder of her old life. One she clearly wanted to forget. She was now a high earning superm
odel, moving in a glamorous world filled with show business stars and celebrities. It wasn’t hard to see why she’d want to focus on that instead of the pain and tragedy of her past.
Especially when that reminder came in the form of a dull English accountant who’d once had the stupidity to turn her down.
The following morning he drove a deathly pale Lizzie to the airport, his mind crammed full of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be putting her on that plane. He loved her. He wanted to help her. No, he needed to help her. But what she needed was to return to America. To her work and to her life there. She didn’t need him.
As they stood in the departure lounge, just outside security, Nick dropped her small holdall on the floor. ‘I guess this is as far as I can go.’
With a glimmer of a smile, she leaned up to kiss his cheek. ‘Thank you, Nick, for being there these last two weeks. I couldn’t have got through it without you.’
With his heart breaking apart, Nick squeezed her tight. ‘I’ll always be there for you. Whatever you need, no matter how big or small, call me. Do you understand?’
She nodded and bent to pick up her bag.
Just before she went through the barrier, he called out to her. ‘And don’t be a stranger, Lizzie.’
She waved and disappeared out of sight.
CHAPTER ONE
Lizzie drew the duvet back over her head in a pitiful attempt to block out the sound of the buzzing intercom. Three days ago she’d turned off her mobile phone and pulled the landline out of its socket. Why the heck hadn’t she worked out how to dismantle the intercom? At least it was only the security desk phoning up. Never had she been so grateful to have moved to this eye-wateringly expensive, but highly secure, apartment block. Pulling the duvet tighter round her ears, she waited for the noise to go away.
When at last it was quiet, she hauled herself out of bed. She needed to take another shower. It was fast becoming an obsession. Something even she, in her shock-numbed mind, could see. Despite the number of showers she’d had though, the stench of sex still surrounded her. It filled her nostrils and clung to her mind, stubbornly determined to hang around. A constant reminder of what had happened. What must have happened, even though she couldn’t remember any of it. Shivering with disgust, she turned on the spray, putting it up to maximum heat. If it was hot enough, the steam would surely blast the stench away.
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