by Linda Miles
‘Like what?’ said Rachel.
‘As if you wished I’d kiss you.’
‘But I do wish you’d kiss me,’ Rachel blurted out. ‘But I know you’re engaged to someone else, so I wasn’t going to suggest it.’
‘All right,’ said Grant in exasperation. ‘I can’t stand to see a woman cry, and I especially can’t stand to see you cry. I’m a teetotaller starting tomorrow, and this is strictly for medicinal purposes.’ And then his mouth was on hers.
CHAPTER NINE
RACHEL knew she shouldn’t enjoy this. In the first place, Grant was only doing it out of pity. In the second place, he was engaged to someone else. She didn’t care. She was being kissed by the man she loved, she was in his arms for the last time in her life, and she intended to make the most of it.
As for Olivia—well, she would be able to kiss Grant morning, noon and night. If Rachel had been in her position it was certainly how she would have spent most of her time—no wonder Driscoll had worried about sex interfering with work. Surely Olivia could spare Rachel just one, from a man who didn’t mean anything by it anyway, when she had such orgies in store?
His mouth was soft, gentling hers, the touch almost as light as breath. Her mouth opened; memory hadn’t exaggerated either the electric shock of the first contact or the wonderful honeyed taste of his mouth. It also hadn’t overstated his technique, which managed to make sheer outrageous virtuosity seductive in itself; in fact it was obvious he hadn’t even begun to exhaust his repertoire. His tongue traced the line of her lips, the tip just pressing inside, and she closed her mouth again to hold it tightly between her lips, forcing him to push harder against her resistance.
He laughed deep in his throat, sliding the supple tip with delicious slowness along her tightly closed lips, then forcing it deeper into her mouth, but still slowly, lingering with obvious pleasure to drag out the sensation, the struggle against the pressure of her lips giving way to free movement within. She softened her mouth again against his, and now her tongue moved along his, imitating every tantalising movement with the same lingering delight.
Rachel’s head was reeling. Her mouth seemed to melt around his tongue, her knees turned to jelly; she had to hold him now for support. It was wonderful—of course it was wonderful. As good—no, better than she’d remembered. But in a remote corner of her mind she wondered whether she had been insane to invite this.
She realised now that she’d never really desired Driscoll; she’d just assumed that would come when the time came, and she hadn’t worried too much when the time kept being put off. Now she seemed to have released a force that was beyond her control; each exquisite sensation left her hungry for more, and her whole body ached with a terrible, unappeasable longing.
She wanted only to hold him closer, to kiss him fiercely until he was as much on fire as she was, to tear his shirt off, or perhaps torment him by undoing the buttons one by one until he, too, lost control and pushed things to their inevitable conclusion.
Except that it wasn’t inevitable at all; even as his mouth caressed hers with inexpressible sweetness, she remembered, chillingly, how he had broken off last time when their kiss had become more passionate. She had probably pushed things already, making the kiss more sexual than he had really had in mind. If she put her hands inside his jacket to feel the hard, muscular back, or, worse yet, raised them to his collar to unfasten the button and kiss the soft hollow at the base of his throat, or, for that matter, did any of a number of things that she would once have considered unthinkable, he would step away at once and that would be that.
She knew he had a soft spot for her; that was why he was doing something he knew he shouldn’t. There was no way he would let it go any further, though, and if she didn’t want him to remember that he shouldn’t even be kissing her she had better watch her step. Though every particle of her being ached to hold him closer she forced herself to stand just as she was. She ached to devour his mouth with hard, hungry kisses, but instead she forced herself to soften her mouth again, to keep it as nearly passive as was possible when she was tempted by kisses of such powerful sweetness.
He raised his mouth, and for one terrible instant she thought he meant to stop. His eyes glittered in the dark hollows beneath his brows. ‘Rachel,’ he said, in a low, hoarse voice. ‘My God, you’re beautiful.’
He raised one hand to her face and traced, with his index finger, the full, sensitive lower lip, then kissed her lightly again. He raised his head again, a fraction of an inch; she could still feel his breath on her mouth. Rachel held her breath. And then his lips brushed the line of her jaw, and found the delicate skin beneath her ear, and kissed her there until she could feel her pulse hammering under the feather-light touch of his mouth.
Rachel felt as if the slightest breath would break the spell. She stood absolutely still. Now his mouth grazed her throat; now it lingered on the filmy gauze which covered her shoulders. Her eyes closed. Her entire being seemed concentrated on a single, almost imperceptible sensation: the movement of his mouth, as light as a butterfly’s wing, down her gauzy sleeve to her wrist. He paused, and kissed the pulse point of her wrist. He kissed the palm of her hand.
Rachel drew in a sharp breath. Her eyes opened. At the sight of his gleaming blond head bent over her hand, the exquisite sweetness of his mouth on the sensitive skin, she felt an almost unbearable stab of desire. ‘Oh…’ she breathed. She had to force herself not to beg, Oh, please.
Suddenly Grant raised his head, letting her hand fall to her side.
All the laughter had vanished from his face. His eyes met hers steadily; his mouth was perfectly serious, with no sign of its characteristic lurking smile.
‘I must be insane,’ he said. ‘This has got to stop.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Rachel.
‘You know what I mean. It’s not a—I’ve tried treating it as a joke, but it’s not a joke.’
Rachel gave a rather unsteady smile and shook her head.
‘And when you look at me like that—’ He made an impatient movement and turned abruptly, gripping the balustrade with both hands and looking resolutely away from her out into the night. He was silent for some time.
At last he turned back. For the first time Rachel was conscious of the nearly ten years’ difference in their ages; he looked, she supposed, what he was—a man in the prime of life with all the authority of someone who had built up from scratch, and now ran, a multimillion-pound company.
He looked, for once, the way those people always did in the pages of the Financial Times: as though success closed off all but a very few doors, those few being the ones that led to greater success for a multimillion-pound company. Though it was the look of a successful man, it tore her heart to see it. She felt as though she’d somehow made Grant—who always did precisely what he wanted, however insane—see the need to act sensibly.
‘You know, you’re not at all my idea of a femme fatale,’ he told her, with a rather strained version of his old smile. ‘I think I’ve always had a mental image of someone with a lot of mascara and a cigarette-holder. That must be why I didn’t realise what hit me when I got knocked over by a girl in a Spiderman T-shirt.’
There was no mistaking the implication of this, but it was so wildly improbable that Rachel could only stare at him, her eyes enormous under the fly-away brows.
‘I thought you were breathtakingly beautiful the moment I saw you, of course. Somehow it was all the more devastating because you seemed completely unaware of it, wearing that crazy T-shirt and the DMs and carting William around in a box like a boy with a prize beetle.
‘Then it turned out I didn’t know the half of it. It’s not that it doesn’t matter what you wear—each time you wear something new it’s as if you’ve found some new, completely different way to be beautiful. But somehow you didn’t seem—dangerous. You were always the same—funny and clever and set on getting your way; I’ve never met anyone so easy to talk to.’
‘I thought you
were like that with everyone,’ said Rachel.
‘I probably am, but more so with you, if that makes sense.’ He looked at her steadily again, with that same terrible air of responsibility. ‘The thing is, we’ve all heard the clichés about men about to get married. You know—however much a man wants to do it, he starts to feel claustrophobic. Suddenly he meets some girl and becomes obsessed. Maybe she’s really the one. Maybe he’s about to make the mistake of his life. Well, I was convinced—am convinced—that marrying Olivia is the right thing to do.’
Rachel shivered. She supposed she should say something sympathetic or encouraging, but she couldn’t force herself to utter a syllable.
‘So when I met you I thought I’d just fallen victim to the usual syndrome. And it seemed to me that if I resisted it, and avoided you at all costs, I’d just make it worse. I’d build up some image of you in my head, and for the rest of my life I’d go around wondering… Whereas if I got to know you I’d get used to you, and the glamour would wear off; or at least, if I didn’t pretend I wasn’t attracted to you but just treated it as a joke, it would be under control.’
‘And wasn’t it?’ asked Rachel.
‘What do you think?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That first kiss should have put me on guard, but—I don’t know, you were so positive that it could be put in perspective, and anyway it seemed absurd to blow up a single incident like that out of all proportion…’
He gave a reluctant smile. ‘Well, I kept rerunning it on instant replay—so much for not getting obsessed—but I somehow managed to persuade myself that was all part of the joke, having a memory of a kiss like your favourite Test Series highlight. Only, time went on, and every time I saw you I wanted to kiss you again—it was getting to be less and less of a joke. And tonight—well. God knows, you looked miserable and I wanted to make you feel better, but I think as much as anything I hoped that if I stopped thinking about it and just did it I’d get you out of my system. Well, it’s fairly obvious now that that’s never going to work.’
Rachel didn’t know whether it would be worse to agree or disagree with this remark. Considering that she’d just realised that this was the man she loved, and that he now seemed’ to be saying he found her irresistible, she was surprised by just how nervous all these remarks were making her.
‘I think we both know what will happen if we go on in this way,’ he told her. ‘And I think we both know that we’d be good together. More than good. But I’m not going to start an affair three months before my wedding. Olivia is the right wife for me. I have tremendous respect for her; she’ll be a wonderful hostess, and we’ll do a terrific job together, and—’
For the first time since she’d known him Grant really did look like a granite-jawed tycoon: there was a a hard set to his jaw, a flinty look in the usually dancing eyes. Here was a man who could surmount insurmountable obstacles to reach his goal, and if they included marrying a wonderful hostess, so be it.
Rachel frowned. She supposed she should feel crushed. It was not humanly possible to feel miserable, though, when the man you loved had just said you were breathtakingly beautiful, beautiful, funny, clever, easy to talk to and beautiful. He couldn’t say enough about how wonderful she was; the contrast with his efforts to find a good word to say for Olivia was almost ludicrous.
It would have been funny if he hadn’t been planning to marry her in three months. Three months! Even unconventional Grant would probably shrink from backing out once the invitations had been sent and a wedding list started at Harrods. Wasn’t there any way out?
It wasn’t just a question of compliments. Rachel had stared despondently at her funny face too often not to have a pretty fair idea of its merits. A man who thought she was breathtakingly beautiful had to be either mad…or madly in love.
Besides, hadn’t she herself spent months trying to remind herself of Driscoll’s good qualities, in the face of Grant’s wit, charm, intelligence and overwhelming physical attractiveness? She knew, only too well; how easy it was to talk yourself out of seeing the obvious. But would Grant recognise that in time?
‘Are you planning to have children?’ she asked abruptly, trying unsuccessfully to imagine Olivia as a mother. She could imagine Grant as a father, all right—or, at least, she could imagine the Grant of the past few months in that role, though quite what the steely-eyed man beside her would make of it was another matter.
‘Of course,’ said Grant. ‘That is, we haven’t discussed it, but obviously…’
‘Well, it may be obvious to you,’ said Rachel. ‘But it might be a good idea to make sure it’s obvious to her before the ceremony. You don’t want any nasty surprises on your wedding night.’
‘Of course,’ Grant said stiffly. ‘The point I’m trying to make is that I think you and I should have a more formal relationship in future. I don’t want to hurt your feelings—it’s nothing against you personally; in fact I’ve never met a woman I liked so much—but I think it would be better if I kept you at arm’s length.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything very formal about putting your hands on my shoulders,’ Rachel said pertly. ‘I suppose it might help if you called me Dr Hawkins.’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ said Grant.
‘Would you like me to call you Mr Mallett?’ she asked helpfully. Clever, funny, determined to get her way—mat was what he’d said he liked about her. So if she said what naturally came to mind he’d be amused.
The old Grant would have been amused. Mr Gimlet-Eye was not so easily entertained.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said drily.
‘Shall I promise to keep you at arm’s length?’ she asked, raising one of her elfin eyebrows. She laid one of her arms, in its filmy gauze sleeve, along the length of his, resting her hand on his shoulder, and looked up at him quizzically.
Grant took her hand in his free hand, took it off his shoulder and dropped it, ‘We both know what the situation is,’ he said even more drily. ‘There’s a very strong physical attraction between us; but the kind of—flirtatious friendship we’ve had is just as dangerous. I thought we could discuss this like adults. It seems I was mistaken.’
Looking on the bright side, at least she hadn’t said that if he ever wanted to have another try at getting it out of his system he knew where to come. Something told her that would not have been well received.
His expression was stern, almost forbidding. In fact, she realised rather helplessly, she had no idea what to say to this grim individual. Reason protested that he was simply trying to make a virtue out of undergoing a lifetime of unnecessary unpleasantness, but reason didn’t allow for how daunting he could be when he set aside his usual easygoing manner and revealed the formidable will-power beneath.
‘I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other,’ he said. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’ And without another word he walked off down the balcony, his heels ringing out on the tiles.
CHAPTER TEN
AFTER going through this emotional wringer, it came as a surprise to Rachel to remember that she was actually still engaged to Driscoll. Somehow the decision to end that already seemed so obvious, so remote, that it seemed astonishing that the necessary action hadn’t already taken place.
She knew she should be trying to think of the right way to break the news; instead, she found herself going over and over everything Grant had said. ‘Breathtakingly beautiful’ was still her favourite phrase, though she also liked the part about finding some completely new way to be beautiful every time he saw her—but unfortunately the horrible, cold tone of his voice at the end kept coming back to haunt her. There had been something close to contempt in his voice at the end, as if Grant, who’d always preferred a light touch, had suddenly decided it was frivolous.
She tried to tell herself that it didn’t mean anything, that he was trying to force himself to do something against his will, but it was impossible to hear that terrible tone of voice from the man you love
d and just shrug it off. Whenever she did manage not to think of it, the most terrible words of all came to torment her: ‘Three months before my wedding.’
She had been agonising over this all night when Driscoll called the next morning.
‘How—how are you?’ she asked. She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question that would have been natural in the circumstances, to ask how the interview had gone when she knew he hadn’t had one.
‘Terrible,’ said Driscoll. ‘I think this has been a waste of time, to tell the truth. Apparently Ferguson is the inside candidate; the interviews are just a matter of going through the motions.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Rachel.
‘You haven’t happened to hear whether they’ll be needing someone again next year to teach the freshers?’
’N-no, I’m afraid I haven’t.’
‘You really should make more of an effort to keep your finger on the pulse, Rache,’ said Driscoll. ‘I hope you see now how disastrous it was taking those six months off. You seem to be completely out of touch these days.’
‘Could be,’ said Rachel.
Her tone lacked the warm sympathy which usually greeted Driscoll’s setbacks. ‘Is there something wrong?’
Rachel had meant to wait until they were together again, but suddenly she couldn’t face the alternative—a conversation in which she pretended everything was fine, perhaps even expressed sympathy over an interview she knew hadn’t taken place.
‘It’s just—I don’t think this is working out, Driscoll,’ she said in a rush. ‘We’ve tried to make it work, but I don’t think this is right for me.’