Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  Then she said, “You always call her that; did you realise? Clancy. Not Grandma. Or Granny. Was that an adoption thing? Your choice? Hers?”

  Ben looked to his office door, suddenly hoping Damon would burst through.

  Nora continued. “Sorry. That’s extra nosey, even for me. Just I... I was a foster kid. Never made it to the adoption phase. Blah-blah-blah. So that kind of thing is seriously fascinating to me.”

  Despite the fact that her voice was lilting and cheerful, and her eyes were smiling, he caught the yearning beneath. Recognised it. Understood it. Felt another thread of connection to this bright, unusual, relentless woman on the other side of the planet as physically as if a creeping vine had wrapped itself around his middle.

  “Forget I asked,” she said, her phone shaking as she waved a hand in front of her face. “But give me something. Tell me about the Clancy only you knew?”

  Ben sat back in his chair. Hell, maybe if he just came out with it, the whole damn story, she’d understand why he didn’t want to go “home”. Maybe she’d stop trying so hard to mend things.

  Then again, if she gave up on him, he’d never hear from her again.

  “She made sure I was well fed,” he said, the words coming from some untouched, unbroken place deep inside, “and well read.”

  Nora’s spare hand slapped against her chest. “She constantly plied me books. Though I did the plying with food part.”

  Something snagged on Ben’s subconscious.

  Clancy had been a great cook. And she hated people fussing about in her kitchen. Add that to the fact she’d let Nora do the shopping and the gardening...

  “You cooked for her?”

  “I’m quite the amateur foodie. Baking especially, because yum, but I can make a mean main.”

  Ben nodded, all the while his mind reeled. “Did she ever make you her chilli con carne?”

  “Clancy? Are you kidding? She couldn’t stomach spicy food. As for cooking, I never even saw her boil an egg.”

  The snag gave way with a massive yank.

  “You said Clancy only found out she was unwell a few weeks ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how long ago did you move in?”

  “Eighteen months or so.” Something pinged in the background. “Ooh, washing’s done!”

  Nora angled the phone against a shelf and proceeded to drag what looked like a set of dragonfly-patterned sheets from the dryer and dump them into a big pink washing basket, leaving Ben to mull over the disquiet that had been whispering at the edges of his mind since he’d seen how little rent Nora had been paying.

  Clancy knew. She knew she was sick long before she let on. She’d have hated having a nurse, so instead she opened her home to someone young, and fun, and overconfident. To help. To take care of her. Without giving Nora any warning as to what was to come.

  Dammit.

  She’d done it again. Lied, outright, to serve her own needs. Without any consideration as to how it might impact the other person. For the rest of their lives.

  If he could see Clancy one more time, he’d have some choice words to impart.

  Which was likely why she’d never mentioned Nora in their stilted monthly phone calls. The irony too rich, even for her blood.

  While Nora continued to empty the dryer, singing something about “a mind at work” under her breath, Ben madly scrambled as to what to say. How to say it. Whether to say it. Which made him feel all twisted up inside, as it made him complicit.

  “Done!” Nora said, her eyes bright, her hair a little mussed. “Talk tomorrow?”

  Ben nodded and Nora hung up.

  The image of her grinning at him, soft and sweet and sassy—and totally in the dark—stuck in the back of his mind the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Late the next night, Ben landed on the couch in his lounge with a thud, so spent he didn’t even bother taking off his coat.

  The apartment was quiet, bar the gentle swoosh of the heating. The double glazing of his wall of windows keeping out the sounds of the city, as well as the rain banging against the outer panes.

  He picked up the TV remote and stared at the blank screen, before tossing the remote back onto the coffee table.

  Then he glanced to his phone sitting beside him on the couch. It wouldn’t ring. She wouldn’t. Once a day, she had promised, and that was how it had been. And she’d already called that morning.

  Yet he found himself waiting for it. Willing it. Wanting to see her face as she flirted up a storm. Or told him stories of the neighbourhood as if it might light up some latent poignancy deep inside him. Or demanded he “come home”.

  Ben picked up the phone, turned it over and over in his palm. Checked the time in Melbourne. Then he knocked his head against the back of the couch. Once. Twice. Three times. “It’s just a phone call. You’re a grown-up. You want to call the woman, call her.”

  And, since she was on the other side of the world and therefore it meant nothing more than a port in a storm, he called.

  Nora picked up after several rings.

  For once, no bells or whistles or crowds or music added to the show that was Nora Letterman. This time, it was simply her. And, as was becoming habit, her utter loveliness took his breath away.

  “Where are you?” he asked without preamble, using the opening line that had somehow become a thing. Their thing. Port in a storm, my ass.

  She took a beat to take the bait, a beat in which Ben wondered if he’d overstepped. If maybe he was the only one who’d noticed they had “a thing”.

  But then her face broke into a soft smile. The kind that made his next breath in a little harder to manage.

  Her voice was low, unusually subdued as she said, “Home. You?”

  “Home.”

  “You’re here?” she asked, clearly not meaning it.

  “London. Apartment. The place in which I live. You know, home.”

  “Ah. That home. Go on, then, give us a look.”

  “I didn’t actually turn the lights on when I came home so all you’d see is the rectangle of light from the microwave clock. Just imagine a minimalist aesthetic. Then take away half the stuff.”

  “Done,” she shot back. Then, yawning wide enough he had a fine view of her tonsils, she tipped onto her side, the phone now taking in a pillow and a dragonfly-patterned sheet over her shoulder.

  “You’re in bed.”

  “That I am. While you walked in the door. Sat on the couch. And called me.”

  Ben was too tired to come up with a better story. “Pretty much.”

  Again with the soft smile. Again with the tightness in his chest.

  “I’m calling because I wanted to make sure you got my package.”

  “If by package you mean the big, burly dude from the security company who banged on my front door at six this morning, scaring me half to death, to the point I spat out my cornflakes, then yes, I got your package.”

  He slid down a little lower in the couch, let his feet rest on the coffee table, shoes and all.

  “Wait,” she said, “I didn’t mean my front door, I meant your front door. I’m just keeping the place warm for you, till you come.”

  That, Ben thought, had to be the most apt, and loaded, statement of his life. Him here, the heating only just starting to take the edge off the chill of the night. Her, all the way over there, the living embodiment of sunshine.

  “So, the package,” he said. “It came with a dude?”

  “It came with a dude.”

  “And did that dude fix the alarm system and set you up with a new pass code?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t ask. I just invited him in and gave him a bowl of cornflakes. Nice guy. Lactose intolerant, though.”

  “Nora—”

  “Yes. Well. That was the plan. But appare
ntly there’s an issue. So he couldn’t do it, but he’ll be back. I told him there was no rush.”

  Ben rolled a shoulder and let out a sound that felt something between deep frustration and...whatever this feeling was he always felt when he was talking to Nora. Restlessness. Edginess. As if everything he wanted to say and do was just out of reach.

  “Hey, Ben,” she said, her mouth mid-yawn, the rough languorous notes in her voice scraping against his insides.

  “Yes, Nora.”

  “I like it when you growl at me.”

  Ben stopped fidgeting. “Do you, now?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, on an outshot of breath, her phone suddenly moving every which way, flashing wall, and wood, and more wall, as if she was changing position. “I do. I do like it.”

  “And why’s that, Nora?”

  “Because, Ben, it shows you care.”

  “Is that right?”

  She smiled. Shrugged. And stirred again, the view through the phone flashing and tumbling as she settled into a new position.

  Ben ran a hand over his mouth in the effort to wake himself up, and shifted his legs to make room for a sudden telling discomfort.

  It was his own fault; allowing her to control the narrative. She might look as though butter wouldn’t melt, but she was astute, and savvy, and not afraid to push his buttons for her own ends, which were different from his own. Something he could pick from a mile away, thanks to Clancy.

  That ability had put him light years ahead of the game when starting his own business, but had made interpersonal relationships trickier. He considered himself fair and direct, but had been accused of being hard, cold, unforgiving, his people too in awe of his reputation to offer an opinion contrary to his own.

  Which was how he’d let Nora in. She was the antidote. In fact, she’d begun to feel...essential.

  “I do care, Ms Letterman,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “I care that the ‘dude’ I hired will do what I’ve paid him to do. And can only hope that you were kidding about the cornflakes, in case he’s some psycho killer. I’d hate to come home to a crime scene.”

  “You’re coming home?” she asked, her voice husky and laced with hope.

  She’d said the same words a thousand times, it was practically the soundtrack to their relationship. But whether it was the darkness of the room, the city lights creating a shimmer out of the corner of his eye, or the slumberous note in her voice, Ben found himself blanketed in the warmth of unexpected, unwarranted, unsought intimacy. And want.

  “You’re a pushy broad—you know that, right?”

  Nora scoffed. “To think I was just starting to like you.”

  She settled deeper into the pillow till half her face was buried in its softness, her hair now tumbling over her shoulder. His mind went to wondering what it would feel like to be lying there beside her rather than on his stiff couch, mattress sinking beneath him, her warm skin mere inches away.

  Bennett breathed in, then out, fully aware that he was well past beginning to like her too.

  “Sorry if I’ve been a little off my usual game,” she said through another yawn. “The cornflakes were more of a late-night snack than early brekkie.”

  Yawning even wider, she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, her palm curling softly towards the phone. It was such a vulnerable thing, the inside of a woman’s palm. Secret and warm and intimate. He imagined himself capturing her hand, turning her palm face up. Tracing her lifeline. Pressing his lips to it.

  Ben dragged himself back to sitting, the phone pointing at the floor to give himself a break. And he asked, “Big night?”

  “A little rough actually.”

  “How so?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I have nowhere else to be, nothing else to do, but sit here in my big, empty apartment, and listen.”

  He heard the ragged letting-go of her breath before her voice came to him, monotone and dry. “Matt, one of my foster brothers, called; head in a bad space. I kept him on the phone till his partner was home from her night shift. It’s not easy for some, coming from where we came from. Struggling to form relationships, to trust, to believe they deserve to be happy. I’m one of the lucky ones. Totally well adjusted.”

  Her laughter was soft, self-deprecating. Raw.

  Ben pressed a thumb into his palm and closed his eyes. For all of her light and loveliness, this was the Nora he found hardest to deny—candid, genuine, vulnerable. If she asked him, right now, to come home, chances were he’d be on a plane by morning.

  He turned his phone so that he could see her face once more. His voice was like gravel when he said, “I should let you get some sleep.”

  “Only if I’m keeping you,” she said, her voice coming to him like a memory. “Do you mind if we keep talking for a bit? I don’t know why, but hearing your voice somehow makes it seem like everything’s going to turn out okay.”

  Ben nudged his shoes off with his toes, grabbed a cushion and popped it behind his neck as he lifted his legs onto the seat, and lay back. “I can bore you to sleep, if you’d like, by telling you about my day. A day filled with meetings and financial statements and cold takeaway for lunch.”

  “That sounds just perfect.”

  And so, Ben kept Nora on the phone, talking about the raindrops slithering down his apartment window, about a girl in the coffee shop downstairs from the office whom Damon had his eye on, about why he liked working with numbers: the clarity, the truth.

  “You got a girl out there, Ben?” Nora asked, when Ben stopped talking for a minute.

  “No one special,” said Ben, his voice starting to grate from overuse.

  “Mmm...” Nora murmured, the sound sending waves of sensation rolling through him. “I bet there are plenty who wished they were. The clever ones, who see past your stubborn, grumpy outer shell.”

  “Dozens,” he deadpanned. “Maybe even hundreds. Did you want me to make a list?”

  “Sure. Have at it.”

  A few moments later Nora’s phone dropped to the side and all Ben could see was ceiling. All he could hear were her soft even breaths.

  And if Ben kept the phone line open for a few minutes while he closed his eyes and let himself rest, and breathe, and be, as he felt the tension of his day slip right away too, no one ever had to know.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BROW TIGHT, SHOULDERS tense as he navigated the heavy crowds spilling out of the shops, Ben took a quick bite of the beef and salad roll he’d nabbed from the Marks & Spencer downstairs, when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

  Please let this be good news.

  Damon had been instructed to call if they heard from the lawyers, after having put together a tight, last-minute plea to extend credit and hold off a final decision on Metropolis Air’s involuntary administration for another six weeks.

  Tucking the food under his arm, he juggled the umbrella staving off the misting rain and pulled his phone from his inner jacket pocket. Despite the fact it wasn’t the news he was after, warmth skidding through him when he saw Nora’s name.

  He knew he needed to keep the phone line clear; his thumb still pressed answer.

  “Where are you?” she said, in a voice of pure sunshine.

  “Walking the streets of London.”

  “No video today? I wore a new hat and everything. Picked it up from Vintage Vamp. It’s very fetching.”

  Ben’s cheek tugged. “I can imagine. But while I might have Instagram now, walking and video chatting feels a step too far.” He stopped under an awning at the edge of a hidden underground car park, lights flashing as a truck pulled slowly up the driveway. “What can I do for you today, Ms Letterman?”

  “Well, Mr Hawthorne, for once this is not a personal call.”

  The way she said the word personal made the warm feeling sizzle a little. Till hi
s wool coat, his double-layered scarf, felt too heavy.

  “Business?” he asked. “Or pleasure?”

  “Why, Mr Hawthorne,” she chastised. “Business, of course.”

  He imagined her sitting in the swing chair in his office, the view of the Thames a blur behind her, legs crossed, hair tumbling over her shoulders, wearing her new hat, and not much else. Maybe he should be trying to get her to visit him, instead.

  “Mate,” a voice called behind him, jostling him back to the here and now. The crowd behind him pressed forward and he stepped back into the rain.

  “So,” Nora’s voice continued to sing in his ear. “You know how we talked about you helping some of my locals with your business amazingness?”

  “I remember you talking about it.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “The Fleur de Lys florist. Family owned. Their gear is gorgeous. But their rent is astronomical, a deal they put in place a decade ago. I thought, perhaps, you might represent them in their renegotiations.”

  “Unfortunately, my team has to turn more clients away than we are able to take on.”

  “Really, Mr Big Shot?”

  “I’m not tooting my own horn, Nora. I’m merely pointing out my business model. I don’t offer myself to clients, they come to me.”

  “Huh. And there I was, thinking you were some ambulance chaser. Was it the cheap haircut, perhaps? Or the polyester suits?”

  The feet ahead of him kicked dirty puddle water onto his Savile Row suit pants, yet he couldn’t help smiling. Laughing really, at his own hubris. Nora had a way of making everything he’d ever believed about himself shift. Just a little. Just enough. To think that maybe there might be, could be, more out there than the life he’d built.

  “Then there’s also the local restaurant,” she went on. “Ambrosia. I think their chef enjoys the fact he’s spending other people’s money. Last time I spoke with the owner he looked like he’d aged a hundred years. When I mentioned I knew a guy who was a whizz with finances he practically fell to his knees in gratitude.”

  Ben turned the corner, the entrance to The Shard in sight.