by Liz Fielding
‘And I thought I was paranoid.’
She didn’t take the phone, and he placed it on the small table that he used as a desk. ‘You put yourself in my care, Nyssa. If you’re having second thoughts, say so now and I’ll call you a taxi.’
‘A taxi? I don’t even get a lift? What happened to Sir Galahad?’
‘If you don’t trust me, you shouldn’t put yourself at that kind of risk.’ She didn’t respond. ‘It’s okay, Nyssa. I understand. It’s a tough call.’ He opened the drawer of a small work-table tucked in an alcove and took out his spare door key. ‘Maybe you’ll feel safer with this.’ He took her hand, placed the key in her palm and wrapped her fingers about it.
She opened her hand, looked at the key and frowned. ‘This is the key to your flat?’
‘It’s not much, but it’s safe. For now.’
‘Matt, are you warning me not to trust Sky?’
‘I’m simply advising you to take the simplest precautions. All I know about Sky is that she’s got a nice smile. It’s not much of a character reference.’ He could see that she didn’t like what he was saying. He’d scarcely begun. ‘You’d better put that in your pocket,’ he said, and when she didn’t he took it from her and tucked it into the change pocket at the waist of her jeans. The wear-softened cloth was warm from her skin, and his fingers were tempted to linger, but Nyssa pulled away.
‘This is silly. I don’t need to hide from Sky.’
‘Probably not.’ Then, ‘How long have you known her? Where did you meet? Did she approach you?’
‘What—?’
‘Just how far would you trust her? Or any of your group?’ As he piled up the questions, making a point, putting the doubts in her mind, he could see that, far from planting doubts about Sky, he was the one she was suddenly wary of. Well, that was no bad thing. She should be wary of everyone right now. Close enough to feel the nervous catch of her breath against his neck, he reached up and stroked his thumb against her cheek, a gesture at once gentle and threatening. ‘With your life?’ he asked, pressing home the message.
She flinched, shivered, but stood her ground, lifting her chin with a touch of bravado. ‘You’re being overdramatic,’ she declared. ‘This isn’t about life and death. It’s about money.’
‘There’s a difference?’
She shook her head. ‘I trust Sky. Absolutely. I know her. You’re the only mystery in my life.’
He offered a wry smile. ‘You’re learning fast.’
‘Am I? I’m here, alone with you.’
‘And are you afraid?’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘Oh, yes, Matt.’ And it was her turn to raise her hand to his face, rub her palm against his jaw. ‘I’m afraid that you’re going to hurt me a lot more than Parker’s bullies ever could.’
‘Not if I can help it.’
Her mouth hinted at a smile, no more. ‘Is that why you lied about the coin toss? You did lie, didn’t you?’ she persisted. His silence was all the answer she needed. ‘We could share that bed, Matt. We shared in Delvering.’
‘We didn’t have a sofa in—’
‘Shhh,’ she said, stopping the words with her fingers to his lips. Then she put her hands on his shoulders, raised herself onto her toes, leaned into him and touched her mouth to his.
The kiss began innocently enough. It was a real old-fashioned, girl-next-door kiss; nothing at all for the censors to get into a lather about. And for a moment he thought that was it. Maybe that was all she meant it to be.
But her lips parted softly on a sigh and she breathed her sweetness into his mouth, her slender body swaying against his, light as thistledown. He felt a tremor sweep through her and the sigh became more, much more.
His arms, with a will of their own, encircled her waist, holding her, keeping her close. Keeping her safe, he promised himself, even as his hands spread across her back, his thumbs brushed against the swelling of her breasts beneath the thin cotton of her shirt.
From one of them there escaped a soft, urgent sound, and then the tip of her tongue touched lightly against his teeth, a hammer-blow at the door to his soul. Their tongues briefly tangled, bittersweet torture as he fought to hold back from the swirling, tearing need she could provoke with a look. She was tempting him, urging him to accept all that she was offering, sweep her away on the roller coaster she seemed hell-bent on riding to oblivion. Begging him to forget his good intentions and count the world well lost for a night with Nyssa Blake.
At that moment Matt knew she was wrong. Dead wrong.
That they would be lovers seemed as inevitable as breathing. Only not now. Not here in this miserable little flat. Not if he could help it. But soon—and for a while she would be his. She’d lie in his arms and he’d give her everything he had. Heart, body, soul and finally her freedom. Because once she looked up, having broken free of the past, and saw all the possibilities that life offered a woman like her, she’d soar away into a new, golden future.
And he was the one who would be left on the ground, hurting.
From somewhere he found the strength to break off a kiss that he never wanted to stop. For a long moment she clung to him, as if she didn’t want to ever let go. Then, her fingers slipping from his neck to lie against his chest, she leaned back, looked up into his face.
‘Who are you, Matt Crosby?’ she asked, her voice cobwebby with unfulfilled desire.
‘I’m nobody,’ he said harshly. ‘Just a hack journalist doing a story on the great Nyssa Blake.’ Trust me, he’d said. And had lied without hesitation. But for her sake he had to stick to the plot. ‘A hack journalist who’s going to collapse from hunger if you don’t write that shopping list.’
One who might go crazy if he didn’t soon get a blast of cold, fresh air to clear his head. But there was no hope of that. He’d have to make do with warm, Sunday-night-in-the-city air, stale with traffic fumes. Anything, just as long as he put some distance between them.
‘I haven’t got anything to write with,’ she said.
He finally released her and, taking a ballpoint pen out of his jacket pocket, he clicked it and handed it to her. His hand appeared steady enough, he noted. Maybe it was the rest of the world that was shaking.
Nyssa lifted one corner of her lovely mouth, tucking it into a smile as she took the pen from him. ‘Or anything to write on.’ He found the hand-out he’d been given by Sky in his pocket and gave her that. ‘It must be tough, being a good guy,’ she said, as she began to jot down the list.
He didn’t feel good, far from it, but since she clearly didn’t expect an answer he wasn’t obliged to own up.
‘Oh, and for your information, I met Sky on that first demo—’
‘The one where you were arrested?’
She looked up, clearly irritated that he’d remembered. ‘Do you like risotto?’
‘Sure.’
She added a couple of items to the list. ‘She took me under her wing, took care of me, showed me the ropes.’ She looked up. ‘Sky’s one hundred per cent committed to saving the world from the vandals, Matt. It’s her life.’
‘And what about you, Nyssa?’
‘Me? What about me?’
‘Well, if you carry on like this, in twenty years from now you’ll be just like her. How do you feel about that?’
Startled, she held his gaze for a moment. Then she handed him the list.
It wasn’t true, of course. Nyssa Blake was nothing like her lieutenant. She had joined in with the nearest protest not out of passion for a cause, but as a cry of pain at the hand life had dealt her. The loss of her father. A youthful infatuation that should have been long outgrown but which fate had conspired to hold her in thrall to.
As he crossed the road, heading for the corner shop, Matt reached in his pocket for his own cellphone and checked his messages. They were all from Charles Parker. So much for being one of the good guys, Matt thought as he called back.
The only claim he’d have to that title rested upon his ability to rescue her f
rom the mess she was in. And perhaps, in the process, help her break the ties that were holding her back, stopping her from becoming a complete woman.
If he had to live with the backwash of pain, well, so be it. Sacrifice was what made the difference between lust and love.
Nyssa was perched on a stool at the tiny breakfast counter, staring at the screen of her laptop, when she heard a key in the door. Despite her earlier bravado, Sky’s e-mail had shaken her. Matt had seemed like her white knight. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure, and a quick look around the flat did nothing to reassure her. It was anonymous, almost, she thought, unlived-in. Except for a wardrobe full of expensive clothes, a stack of books and a locked steel filing cabinet hidden away in a cupboard and bolted to the floor.
Matt appeared in the kitchen door, his arm around a grocery sack, a smile on his face. ‘Sorry I was so long. I’ve got everything. Even your Earl Grey teabags.’
‘Terrific.’ She deleted Sky’s note with a touch to the keypad, and hoped he didn’t pick up the slight wobble in her voice. She had no reason to fear him, she reminded herself. He had rescued her from heaven alone knew what…but he was lying to her about being a journalist. ‘The kettle’s boiled,’ she said, not moving from her perch.
‘Is that a hint that I’m supposed to make the tea?’
She grinned. She was good at hiding her feelings when she wanted to. ‘I run an equal opportunities campaign group.’
‘Terrific.’
He dumped the bag on the draining board, made the tea, and then leaned over her to look at the screen of the laptop as he handed her a mug. ‘That’s the list from Sky?’
‘Yes. She says she’s already checked it out for obvious phonies. There was only one name that didn’t check out.’ She held her breath. ‘Yours. Apparently you’re not a member of the National Union of Journalists.’
‘I’m changing careers. My membership form’s in the post.’
‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba.’
He glanced sideways at her, his face just inches from her own. The creases at his eyes and mouth, the kind made by smiling, were close enough to count. She could almost feel the soft shadow of his five o’clock shadow grate against her skin.
It was unnerving to be this close to a man, to desire him not in her imagination but with her entire body, to want him in a way that was real, earthy and not in some fantasy dreamworld.
He thought she was looking for a substitute for Gil, but he was wrong. Gil was a storybook hero, untouchable, unreachable. Matt was real; her mouth softened as she looked at him, her breasts felt heavy and there was an ache between her thighs…
She wanted him so much. And she wanted him now. She’d leave Sky to worry about Matt’s hidden agenda. As for the rest…
‘Do you have any immediate plans to tell me exactly who you are, Matt Crosby?’
He’d been waiting for the question. Had his answer all ready. ‘Me? I’m nothing.’ Only Nyssa mattered. That she was safe.
‘You said that before. It isn’t true. No one can ever be just…nothing.’
‘You’d be surprised how easy it is.’ He looked at the screen, tapped a key to scroll down the list. ‘One day I had a great job in the City, lived in two thousand square feet of prime Docklands real estate and took three holidays a year in any exotic location that took my fancy. The next day…it was all gone.’
‘That happened in one day? What did you do? Rob the Bank of England?’
‘If I’d robbed the Bank of England I’d be some kind of folk hero, at least in the media.’ His smile was genuine, if fleeting. ‘What I did was far worse. I uncovered fraud in high places and I wasn’t prepared to keep quiet about it while it was all tidied up, swept under the carpet. That made me dangerous, so I was neutralised. Overnight I became invisible. Nobody.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘Whistle-blowers win no prizes. I knew that. But you’re right, of course; the process wasn’t that swift. And it certainly wasn’t painless. It was like being shot and then bleeding to death very slowly. It only takes a second to pull the trigger, but…’
‘Hence the new career.’
His gaze, for a moment rock-steady, faltered, and he turned quickly away. ‘I hope she didn’t take offence at having her efficiency doubted,’ he said. ‘Sky?’
Nyssa forced herself to concentrate on the screen. ‘No, of course not. She assumed Gil had offered to go through it for me. He’s in the security business so he’s got access to all kinds of information. She was sure he’d find out who you really are…’ She ground to a halt, transfixed by his hands, by his long fingers as they worked at the keyboard
She clasped her hands tightly to prevent herself from reaching out to touch his grazed and bruised knuckles. She reached out anyway, brushing her fingertips over the damage. ‘Does it still hurt?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer, looked up. ‘Not now, Nyssa,’ he said sharply. ‘Not here. Please.’ He snatched back his hand, turned his back on her and reached for his mug, his shoulders rigid with the effort of keeping his distance.
So, despite his Galahad act, he felt the tug of desire just as strongly as she did. She’d thought he did, hoped he did, but this was all so new to her that she couldn’t be certain. Until now. Not now, he’d said. Not here. Did he think it would matter that it wasn’t his Docklands penthouse? Was it just pride?
Maybe, but his words were a promise that he would make love to her, with her. Soon. That he’d complete what had begun in that moment when she’d looked around the Assembly Rooms at Delvering and their gazes had collided, held, locked…
She wanted to tell him that ‘where’ didn’t matter. It was ‘who’ that was important. Already she’d learned that much. Instead she said, ‘I didn’t tell Sky anything, Crosby. You asked me not to.’
‘I wasn’t sure you were listening.’
‘I heard you.’ But there was something that he wasn’t telling her. He was hiding something, she knew, and a tiny shiver went through her. Doubt, for all her brave thoughts, was corrosive. ‘But since you’re about to collapse from hunger,’ she said, slipping down from the stool and very firmly changing the subject, ‘I suggest we leave this for now and start cooking.’
‘We?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘You said you loved to cook.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But?’ she prompted, and when he didn’t respond, continued, ‘But you were just pandering to the feminine need to nurture? But cooking is women’s work and, being a man, you have a great many more important things to do?’
‘Of course not. It’s simply a question of priorities.’ He didn’t embarrass easily. ‘Besides, it’s really cramped in here. I thought you’d prefer to be left in peace—’
‘While you relocate to the sofa and play detective with the laptop?’ Nyssa picked up the bag of shallots he’d bought and pushed them into his hands. ‘Your concern is noted. Now, start chopping, macho man.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
NYSSA thought he was going to argue, but after a moment he took the vegetables from her with a shrug that suggested she hadn’t thought it through.
Working around one another in the little galley kitchen, getting under one another’s feet, trying not to touch each other as they passed vegetables, pans, knives, compelled her to admit that Matt might have had a point.
But there was a reckless part of her that wanted him this close, wanted to tempt him to indiscretion, to provoke an unstoppable chain reaction. She was undoubtedly stupid beyond belief. Behaving in a manner that in anyone else would have had her throwing up her hands in despair at her stupidity.
Yet the truth was that she had never felt so alive. Her entire body was buzzing in the dangerous, touch-me-not atmosphere, and the rising temperature in the kitchen had little to do with cooking and everything to do with body heat.
It was, she thought, a bit like playing with matches. Reckless, foolish and you could so easily get burned… ‘Have you got a wooden spoon?’ she aske
d.
‘I can’t remember ever seeing one.’
‘Have you ever looked?’ He glanced up, then quickly looked away to open a drawer. There was one lying beneath a jumbled heap of kitchen cutlery and they both reached for it at the same time, their fingers colliding. Spoons, a fish slice, a carving fork clattered noisily to the floor.
Matt picked out the wooden spoon, rinsed it under the hot tap and then, holding it carefully by one end, offered it to her.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
The politeness was razor-edged with tension, but eventually the preparations were completed without anything more disastrous than a plate wobbling out of her fingers.
Matt cleared up the broken china without comment, although his rigid shoulders were practically screaming I told you so. She smiled to herself, and blew a kiss at his back before pouring olive oil into a pan and putting the vegetables to soften over the heat.
Stirring the mixture slowly, Nyssa glanced across at him as he dumped the broken pieces into the bin, and finally asked the question that had screamed at her from every corner of his flat.
‘Are you divorced, Matt?’
‘Good Lord, no.’ She’d startled him out of his carefully maintained distance. ‘Whatever made you ask that?’
‘Lived with anyone?’
‘Not recently.’ He shrugged. ‘Not here.’
‘You didn’t need to tell me that. This place has never had a woman’s touch.’ She glanced around, her gaze flickering quickly over the anonymous fixtures and fittings. ‘How long have you been here?’
Matt concentrated on opening a bottle of wine he’d bought, even though it hadn’t been on her list. ‘A few months—a year, maybe. Why?’
Nyssa was sure he could have told her to the minute how long he’d lived there. And she was equally sure he hadn’t meant that ‘why’ to slip out, giving her an opening. She took it mercilessly. ‘Well, you haven’t taken much effort to make it comfortable, have you? In fact you might have moved in yesterday for all the impression you’ve made on it.’