Almost.
It was only the need to wait for her answer, to understand her better, that held him back. It made no sense and yet he ached to hear her talk to him as though he was someone other than a morally bankrupt tomcat willing to jump on anything in a skirt.
And yet, if she did, was he ready to answer her?
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE GLANCED UP at him, though he got the impression that it cost her dearly to do so. She watched him for what seemed like an eternity and, for a moment, he believed she was actually going to talk. To tell him...something that counted.
And then the shutters slammed down with a clang.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She forced a smile, trying to inch discreetly back a fraction. Not that there was anywhere to go in this tiny space.
‘I don’t believe that.’
She glowered at him, but he didn’t miss the way she swallowed. Hard.
He could push her. He wanted to. But something told Sol that would be counterproductive.
The moments ticked by.
‘Why would I?’ she demanded suddenly.
‘Why would you what?’
‘Why would I talk to you? Open up to you?’ Her voice sounded angry and pained, and raw all at once. It spoke to him in a way he recognised only too well. ‘When you wouldn’t dream of talking to me.’
‘I have talked to you,’ he lied. ‘I’ve invited you here. You’ve spent time with the kids only today.’
He made himself step back, pretending that her soft, plump lips weren’t still imprinted in his mind’s eye. And that the feel of her arms didn’t still sear through his palms. He reminded himself that it was purely physical, sexual attraction, even if it felt alien.
Because what else could it be?
‘You’ve told me lots about the kids, and the centre. Between the gala, and my visit, you’ve given me plenty of information. You’ve explained how there are lots of charities out there for young carers, and lots of volunteers, really good people, and how your charity is different. You’ve shown how it still isn’t enough. These kids need more.’
‘They do.’
‘I agree.’ She lifted her eyes to his, her gaze almost too intense to bear. ‘My point is, Sol, that, in all the talking you’ve done, the one subject you steer clear of is why you care so much.’
He hadn’t seen it coming, but he should have. He should have been ready for the question. In a way, he was. And yet it still had the power to wind him.
His hands dropped from her arms and he swung away—the moment lost.
‘Does it matter?’ he managed, amazed at how calm, how cool, he sounded when inside his heart was pumping blood around his body as though he was a gold medal winning sprinter.
Behind him, she seemed to ponder for a moment. Though whether about how to phrase her questions, or how she had come to ask them in the first instance, Sol couldn’t quite be certain.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose that’s what I’m asking. If it matters.’
‘I don’t think I follow.’
‘No,’ she conceded, pulling her lips together as if she wasn’t even sure what she was saying. ‘It’s just that this you isn’t the image you tend to put forward of yourself. Solomon Gunn the playboy is well known, but it doesn’t fit with all of...this.’
She waved her hand around the construction site that was the centre.
‘I suppose I want to know which version of the man is really you. And if it’s this one, then wouldn’t you rather be Solomon Gunn, tireless advocate for young carers?’
‘No.’
She blinked.
‘Why not?’
Because it invited too many questions, too much scrutiny, his own childhood would inevitably come out and that wasn’t a side of his life he wanted people to see when they looked at him.
As it was threatening to do now.
It was odd the way he wanted her to know he was more than just that playboy—as inexplicable as that was—but when it came to telling her, showing her, the truth, he found he couldn’t contend with that either.
Because the truth made him feel ashamed. Lacking. It was a chunk of his life he would readily burn down, if only he could.
‘Because I like my playboy lifestyle,’ he lied with an aplomb that had been perfected over more than a decade.
And, possibly for the first time, he hated himself for it.
‘Do you really?’ she asked softly. ‘Only, I’m beginning to wonder, from all the things I’ve been hearing about you today, how you have much time at all for quite the number of amorous conquests your reputation suggests.’
‘I’m a skilled multitasker.’ He feigned a laugh.
Anyone else would have bought into it. Anouk stared at him, unfazed.
‘You’d have to be in two places at once. No one is that good at multitasking.’
It was as though she could see down to his soul.
He reminded himself that even if she did know some scraps of truth about him, that was all she knew. Scraps. Not the whole picture, and it would stay that way. However much he might loathe what he was about to do.
‘Trust me, Anouk, you’re not the first woman I’ve slept with who has mistaken sexual intimacy for a more profound connection, and thought it meant they understood me. But it’s just sex, nothing more.’
She blanched, making him feel the cad he knew he was.
Better that than this irrational ache he had to buy into her better opinion of him.
As the silence tightened around him, seemingly weighed down with anticipation, the last thing he expected was for Anouk to rally.
‘I suspect you care about these kids because you understand them better than you’d have your moneyed gala guests believe.’
‘Not really,’ he denied.
‘Of course you do.’ She held his gaze, refusing to cow to him. ‘Because you were a young carer, too, Sol.’
Of all the things he’d expected Anouk might say, that certainly wasn’t one of them. For one brief, heart-stopping moment, he wondered if he could bluff her.
He had the oddest sensation that he wouldn’t be able to. She would see right through his façade. The realisation needled him.
Or was he more galled at the idea that some traitorous element of himself wanted her to see through it?
He had no idea how he kept his tone neutral.
‘You’ve been talking to Barbara.’
She shook her head but he didn’t believe her and determined to make no bones about it.
‘I’ve warned her about sharing personal information before,’ he growled. ‘No matter who it’s about, or who to.’
‘It wasn’t Barbara.’ Anouk raised her eyebrows.
‘Of course it was. It had to be.’
‘Actually, Libby told me,’ Anouk bit out finally. ‘She also told me that you and your brother were young carers. For your mother.’
He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even speak.
‘What else did she say?’ he gritted out when he felt as if he’d finally managed to work his tongue loose.
‘That it was your story to tell, not hers,’ Anouk admitted.
His short, sharp laugh—if that was what it could be called—bounced off the freshly plastered walls.
‘That sounds like Libby.’
There was another beat of silence, which Anouk only broke after it had become more than awkward.
‘So, it’s true?’
He didn’t answer. If he denied it he would feel as though he was betraying a six-year-old girl. At the same time, he had no idea what else to say.
‘How young?’ Anouk added at last.
He’d answered this question a thousand times to different kids over the years, or considered it not to be the business of any of his hospital col
leagues. But somehow it was different with Anouk. He couldn’t bring himself to send her home, yet he had no intention of sharing something so personal with her.
Even if a component of him wanted to.
All of a sudden he had to get out of there. This conversation—or perhaps the last few—with Anouk had left him feeling battered and bruised, as though he couldn’t work out what he wanted from her.
It was an unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation.
Mostly.
He should leave, but he found that he wanted to spend more time with her and therein lay the issue. The more Sol thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that he only wanted her because he hadn’t had her yet.
As distasteful as it was, there was no other explanation. No other reason why she should have him tied up in such knots.
The solution was to remedy that situation. To convince Anouk that it was in both their interests to finish what they’d started the night of the gala. Once they had indulged their mutual desire, the sweeping need would at last abate.
Surely it was inevitable?
‘There’s no electricity in this place yet,’ he stated abruptly. ‘Except for the temporary generator powering the heaters. But there’s a decent coffee house on the high street.’
She stood still as they watched each other for a beat too long. He waited for her to make her excuses and leave, and he told himself that he didn’t care either way.
And then, abruptly, she grabbed her bag and threw it onto her shoulder.
‘Let’s go, then.’
* * *
‘I swear I’ve heard this Christmas song in the shops since November,’ Anouk muttered as they opened the doors to the coffee house only to be blasted by the heat, the gorgeous smells, and the music.
She wasn’t even sure what she was doing here. Only that her chest was tight with some nonsensical notion that Solomon Gunn might actually...open up to her. As much as she knew it was ridiculous, she couldn’t eject it from her head.
‘Or October.’ Sol laughed, his earlier unease having apparently melted away as soon as they’d left the centre and she’d dropped her questions. ‘Okay, you get the table, I’ll get the drinks. Just tell me what you want.’
Anouk tried not to feel deflated. It shouldn’t matter that he didn’t want to trust her. She shouldn’t let it bother her. Just as she hadn’t let that moment back in the new centre get to her. When he’d held her so close that she’d been convinced he was going to kiss her again.
When she’d ached for him to kiss her again.
But he hadn’t. He’d just dropped her as though the moment hadn’t crept under his skin even a fraction of the way it had slunk under hers.
And then she’d badgered him about his life, his childhood, being a young carer. As if that could reveal a side of him that she could understand, relate to, trust. But to what end? It wasn’t as if she wanted a relationship with him. She wasn’t naïve enough to think any woman could tame a perennial playboy, and yet...there was something about him that simply didn’t seem to fit with the reputation.
Or perhaps that was what she was telling herself to justify her incongruously wanton forwardness the night of the gala. The night she still couldn’t bring herself to regret. Even though she knew she ought to.
Maybe wanting to trust him was more about herself than Sol. Perhaps it was her wanting to vindicate that uncharacteristic one-night stand—if you could even call it that—to explain her sudden foray into seductress territory.
And still, it ate away at her that the Sol whom the kids at the centre loved so much was so very different from the bad boy the hospital knew.
She coveted knowing that man, too.
Yet she couldn’t push him. The harder she tried, the more she could see the shutters coming down and still she couldn’t seem to make herself walk away.
‘I’m going for the Christmas cinnamon roast coffee,’ he concluded after perusing the board for a moment. ‘What would you like?’
‘Tea. Nothing fancy, just a plain one, please.’
He raised his eyebrows at her.
‘This can’t be a manifestation of your aversion to Christmas?’
‘It isn’t an aversion,’ she denied awkwardly.
‘You really hate this time of year that much?’
He was turning the tables so casually that she couldn’t be sure if it was deliberate or if he really couldn’t help it. Nevertheless, she opened her mouth to tell him that of course she didn’t.
‘Pretty much.’ She shrugged, the words popping out of their own volition. ‘I know you don’t feel the same. With your home-baked mince pies, and your gorgeous tree, and the Christmas village scene.’
Instantly his face changed and she sucked in a breath, not sure what she’d said.
‘What about the Christmas village scene?’
His tone was too careful.
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘I don’t actually know what Libby meant, she just told me that the kids from the centre do all they can to get together enough money to buy you and Malachi a new piece every year.’
She waited for him to push her on the subject, but instead his expression cleared and he dipped his head before striding to the counter, leaving her to find an available table. And remind herself to stop reading too much into everything that concerned Solomon Gunn.
‘What are we doing here, Sol?’ Curiosity made her drop the question even before he’d finished sliding the tray onto their table. ‘I can’t imagine you bring dates here. At least, not after you’ve already stripped them bare on the desk in an opulent study. Though perhaps before, when you’re still trying to seduce them.’
He didn’t answer straight away, sliding his coat off and dropping into the seat opposite her to stir his drink thoughtfully.
‘I find myself as mystified as you are by this continuing...draw,’ he answered enigmatically, sending her mind into a whirl analysing what he might mean by it.
So much for not reading too much into everything he said or did, she snorted quietly to herself.
‘Which means what, exactly?’
‘I’m debating that,’ he told her. ‘And I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that these drawn-out, skirting-the-issue games don’t appear to be getting us anywhere.’
‘I’m not playing games.’ Her indignation wasn’t as sharp as she might have expected it to be.
‘Therefore, I would like to propose something else,’ he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘I contend that allowing it to play out seems to be the most logical conclusion.’
She couldn’t quite dislodge the pocket of air blocking her throat.
‘Play out?’ she asked faintly. ‘As in...?’
His smile was lethal enough to make her fear for her sanity.
‘Sex.’
The statement sliced through the air between them, its simplicity robbing her of all thought for a moment; sending delicious shivers all the way down her spine.
‘One night of pure, unrestrained pleasure,’ he repeated, as though she might not have understood his meaning the first time—but for the wicked smile carved into his handsome face. ‘A conclusion of that night at the gala.’
It was useless to pretend that a restlessness didn’t roll right through her at the audacity of the man. Along with the rudest images of the hot, devilish expression on his face moments before he’d dipped his head between her legs and greedily drunk her in.
It was why, although every grey cell in her head was screaming at her to decline, she could only sit there, her body tense and...needy, as she stared at him in silence.
‘But if we do, Anouk. Then there will have to be ground rules.’
‘Ground rules?’ she echoed faintly.
‘To avoid confusion at a later date.’
‘Avoiding confusion is good,�
� she conceded, her voice sounding thick and slow.
She felt as though she were outside her own body.
She ought to be telling him no. Instead, she just wanted to get the so-called ground rules agreed so they could get onto the meatier portion of the conversation.
Who was this strange woman inhabiting her body? And what had Sol done to the real her that night? She should be disgusted with herself; at how easily she seemed to be falling in with what Sol was suggesting.
Her weak acquiescence was all too reminiscent of her desperate mother.
And yet something niggled at Anouk, even if she couldn’t quite place her finger on it.
Something in the way Sol sat, slightly more upright than usual. Or the way he appeared to be choosing his words deliberately. Or the intent look in his eyes. It all gave the impression that he wasn’t nearly as blasé about it as he wanted her to believe.
Or possibly it was just in her imagination.
Either way, Anouk made the decision there and then to accept it at face value. When would she ever get the chance to act so daringly with someone who thrilled her the way that Sol did?
‘Let me guess, the ground rules are that it’s just sex?’ she managed hoarsely. ‘That it’s just for the one night? That there are no troublesome, wild emotions complicating things afterwards?’
‘Yes, to all three,’ he growled. ‘Except for the wild part.’
‘Oh?’ she managed.
‘I intend it to get very wild,’ he promised, his voice low and practically pulsing through her. ‘And very hot. And very lustful.’
She thought she might have swallowed her tongue for a moment.
‘I’d be disappointed if it was anything less,’ she managed, at last.
She didn’t quite recall moving, but suddenly they were both standing and Sol was helping her into her coat before enveloping her hand in his and leading her outside. They didn’t stop, or debate it any longer, but he pulled Anouk close to him and began threading his way through the streets spilling over with Christmas shoppers.
Streets that were still slick and wet from the rain that had fallen whilst they’d been inside but that had now stopped. As if just for them. The darkness enclosed them, the coldness not able to bite into her.
Unwrapping the Neurosurgeon's Heart Page 9