by Jennie Adams
Soph clutched her hands together until the knuckles showed white against her skin. With the rabbit now settled, Grey eased one of her hands into his and held on when she would have drawn it away.
‘We’ll be in Melbourne before you know it. In the meantime, you’re quite safe, truly.’ He wasn’t sure if he was, though, and forced himself not to tighten his grip against the moment when he would have to give up her hand.
‘I’m not afraid.’ Her chin was up and she looked determined to face anything. He wondered how often she faced the world like this and pretended she was fine when she wasn’t.
He stared out of the window and watched Melbourne materialise beneath them. Couldn’t he find a way to be with her without risking the kind of emotional fallout his father had brought on in all his relationships?
What sort of question was that, anyway? He would hurt her. That was the only outcome, no matter what he tried. Did he want that?
Before he could think himself into any greater pit of trouble, the helicopter landed. Leanna had her car waiting, and a hired one to see them back to Grey’s apartment.
‘No stress, Grey. We just wanted to get you safely out of there and now we’ll let you get back to resting.’ She disappeared before he could properly thank her.
The car took them to his town house. When they arrived Soph fussed over Alfie and settled him in his cage out the back. Grey watched from a distance and decided the rabbit looked as profoundly grateful to be on terra firma again as it was possible for a rabbit to be.
‘You were kind to Alfie during the flight.’ Soph spoke the words with a soft gleam in her eyes as she came back into the house. ‘And you were kind to me. I’ve never been in a helicopter before. I was a bit concerned it might make me sick and I didn’t want to be a nuisance or cause anyone any bother. I’m supposed to take care of you.’
‘You’re doing fine at that.’ He simply now wanted more from her. The thought of sharing his home with her and not being able to touch her, hold her, was impossible, yet that was how it would have to be.
‘We’re both without a car for now, but I should make a list and pick up some groceries.’ Her gaze slid away from his. ‘I can do that while you make the calls to arrange to have your country house repaired once people can get to it. I’ll take a taxi.’
She made good on her word, and he let her, and he made his phone calls.
‘Your country home is great, but I must admit it’s nice to be back in the city too.’ Soph had slipped into the house and unpacked the groceries while he finished up on the phone. She made the comment now as she started to help him with his physio. Talking to take her mind off their closeness?
She went on. ‘How’s the ankle feeling?’
‘Better.’ His injuries were improving. He hoped the doctor would confirm the same about his stress levels, though he didn’t want to look ahead to the day that her work here would be over. ‘You’ve had no time off since we started. I’d like you to see your sisters, go shopping.’
Do things that make you happy and then come back to me because, even though I know I don’t make you happy, I can’t completely let you go.
‘I’d like to see them.’ She bent and replaced and laced the ankle brace with deft, sure movements. When she straightened, she nodded. ‘I’ll make plans. Does it matter when I take the time?’
‘Whenever suits you.’
‘I’ll keep you occupied while we’re here.’ So committed to her job, despite all that had happened. ‘You’ll have to do your part by avoiding office stuff, including online business courses! But there are lots of things we can do. A matinee movie, the theatre, a trip up the Yarra River…’
Things that at another time could have been special, romantic. Yet he knew he would remember them, anyway.
‘I haven’t been to the movies in ages.’
They went to a shoot ’em up, knock ’em down movie. There, in the darkness, Soph seemed determined to shed the stresses that lay between them. She laughed when the bad guys got foiled, held her breath and let out little screams in the scary bits. Clutched his arm as the movie came to its finale.
But she let go before the lights went up.
Grey remembered it now as he stretched his legs out in front of him. They’d done all manner of things and this morning they were on the sun deck of a cruise boat. He hadn’t seen Melbourne from the water like this for years, had forgotten the sight of the gardens and familiar landmarks. A pity the trip had to end so quickly. He sighed as the dock came into view again.
‘That was wonderful, wasn’t it? Peaceful and full of life all at once.’ Soph leaned down to pull her bag from beneath her feet. The curve of her back and shoulders seemed so vulnerable beneath the turquoise cotton shirt. How would he survive without her brightness?
He stood and moved to the railing. Gripped it so he wouldn’t reach for her. Since they’d returned to the city, they’d lived in a kind of nowhere land. They did things together. Sometimes he thought they both wanted to soak in the presence of the other without acknowledging the need.
Did Soph feel that way? He just knew he did and, though he cherished her company, he was also struggling with increasingly taut emotions because of that company, because he no longer knew what he wanted from her, with her. Even that thought wasn’t exactly right. He wanted Sophia. That was simple enough. But he didn’t know how he could have what he wanted.
He’d got tickets to the theatre for that night. Soph visited her sisters in the afternoon and came home with a dressmaker’s bag in her hand. They ordered in a restaurant meal again and then she disappeared into her room to change clothes.
Grey wore evening trousers with a loose-fitting black shirt. He chose the outfit because he could put it on without help.
When Sophia emerged from her room, he glanced up as he rose from his seat on the sofa. ‘You’re ready? The taxi should be here any—’ The rest of the words stopped in his throat. ‘My God, that’s… you’re…’ He lifted one hand towards her, dropped it back to his side and his fingers slowly curled as he took in the picture she made.
Her dress was a midnight-blue ankle-length sheath, bare on one shoulder with a wide ruffled band holding it on to the other. It cupped every curve and flared at her ankles. Bare toes painted red peeped from five-inch stiletto heels. She carried a wispy spider web shawl of silver lace and had curled her hair into waves that caressed her face and drew attention to her soft, generous mouth. Chandelier earrings brushed her neck as she moved her head.
‘You look incredible, Sophia.’ How would he keep his hands off her? It was difficult enough at any time.
Her smile was tentative, cautious, but pleasure lurked in the depths of her eyes. ‘Thank you. Bella designed the gown for me. She’s so successful now. Once, we used to all dress in her creations and go to the theatre and pretend we were posh superstars out for a night on the town. That was when she sewed on a machine in a corner of her room at the flat.’
A horn sounded outside. Grey wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. It was probably best to get out of the seclusion of the town house. ‘I wish I’d had a car and driver for tonight so you could arrive in appropriate style.’
She laughed. ‘I’m still just the girl employed by the We Work for You agency to help you out for a while. A taxi is perfectly appropriate, at least until our cars are returned to us when the flooding at your country house recedes.’
He wasn’t convinced, but he let it go. When she curled the shawl around her shoulders and moved towards the door, he couldn’t have spoken anyway. The dress wasn’t immodest. It left only that one shoulder bare and a hint of back on the same side. Her shawl covered even that much, but he found even the slightest glimpse of her skin affected him. Her back was soft and feminine. Her shoulder gently sloped where it met her arm.
He wanted to strip her bare and just look at her, look at every beautiful inch.
‘Grey? Is everything all right? Are you ready to go?’ She stood with the door held op
en and looked over her shoulder at him.
‘Yes.’ No, I’m not ready. ‘Yes, let’s go.’
The performance was probably faultless. Grey couldn’t have said because ninety-nine and a half per cent of his attention was focused on Sophia where she sat beside him. The evening was torturous and interminable because of that nearness and over too soon because he didn’t want it to end.
‘Perhaps a drink…’ He made the suggestion as they emerged on to the street. Others crowded around them and Soph had a frown on her face and her elbows out like a mother hen determined to keep people away from him.
Something inside him melted. He hadn’t anticipated it and couldn’t have stopped it; it had simply happened.
‘Nobody’s going to hurt me, Soph, but I appreciate you wanting to stop it anyway.’ He took her arm and tugged her away, the only thought in his mind to get her alone so he could kiss her.
‘Your ankle—and your arm.’ She was a little incoherent.
He wanted to make her a whole lot more so. ‘Forget the drink. Let’s go home.’ The words rasped out. ‘I want you where the world can’t see us and I’m going to strip that beautiful dress from you an inch at a time…’
‘You can’t do that. We agreed—’ She looked trapped and terrified and hungry for him all at once. But her hand rose and she laid her fingers over the sleeve of his shirt and the look in her eyes reflected the frustration and desire that must be shining from his own.
‘Sophia.’ Grey stepped forward to close the distance between their bodies, even the crowd around them now forgotten as he growled out her name.
‘Grey? How—how lovely to see you out tonight.’ The words came from his stepmother as she drew to an abrupt halt almost on top of them. ‘I didn’t realise it was you at first.’ Leanna’s face lit up for a moment before her smile slowly faded and uncertainty replaced it. Her gaze moved from him to Soph and back again and she stammered, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted your evening. I’m with friends, anyway. It was a little stuffy inside and I came out ahead of them. I’ll go back.’
‘It’s lovely to see you again, Leanna.’ It was Soph who spoke, who stopped his stepmother’s headlong flight away from them. ‘You haven’t interrupted anything. We were about to flag down a taxi and leave, that’s all.’ She drew a breath and, without catching Grey’s eye, went on. ‘It’s been a long day and it’s time to end it now.’
Grey’s brows snapped down. She had dropped her hand away from him. It slowly dawned on him that he had lost all control in her presence yet again, this time in front of a hundred witnesses. And that she had saved him from that lack of control.
Leanna chewed her lip before she spoke to Grey again. ‘You really didn’t have to pay for that helicopter. We had it covered.’
‘I know.’ He looked past his frustration and into Leanna’s eyes. He took her hand in his for the first time since he was a child and squeezed. ‘How are you spending your days, Leanna? Are you happy? Enjoying life? I know you loved my father, but maybe there’ll be someone else.’
Her eyes filmed with moisture and she blinked rapidly to dispel it. ‘We all loved him, all three of us. People might think it’s odd that we’re now good friends, but somehow we turned to each other.
‘I wish we could have drawn you in too, but you were so determined to keep everyone out and each time he left one of us…we let the hurt cloud our eyes and didn’t see you needed us.’ His stepmother drew a shaky breath. ‘I regret that I let you down, Grey. I truly am sorry for that.’
Soph’s hand gripped his arm again. This time Grey knew it was because she felt Leanna’s emotion, felt sad for her.
And he acknowledged his part of the blame in the only way he knew how. ‘I had my share of prickles out. Maybe we could try to change things.’
‘All of us? Sharon and Dawn—’
‘Yeah, all of us.’ He cleared his throat.
Leanna smiled and some of the old sparkle came back to her eyes. ‘Thank you, Grey. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we’ll welcome any involvement you might like to have.’
His stepmother melted into the crowd while Grey was still battling with a suddenly tight throat. When he turned back to Soph her eyes were soft.
Her mouth trembled when she tried to smile at him. ‘I knew they loved you. I knew it right from the start, and I knew you loved them.’
Grey nodded acknowledgement because he couldn’t really say anything. But it pleased him. It did. He felt hope for the future with his stepmothers, gratitude for the chance to try again and maybe manage to forge some kind of bond with each of them.
But it wouldn’t be like that with Sophia. As far as that relationship was concerned, nothing had truly changed or would change. She was still light and laughter and happiness, and he would still take all that from her because he would inevitably let her go. He didn’t know how to do anything else.
‘I’ll be glad when I’m rid of my physical impediments.’ His frustration rang in his words. ‘I need to get back to work.’ He needed to take control of his life again.
She moved towards the kerb as a taxi cruised towards them from down the street. ‘And when you’re better I’ll move on to my next assignment, the next person I can help.’
The taxi stopped at her hail. She let Grey open the rear door for her and climbed inside, waiting for him to join her and give the address to the driver.
Grey did so and refused to look at the vulnerable line of her back, the tensed shoulders.
Or to think how few days he had left with her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SOPH couldn’t do this any more. She climbed out of her bed in Grey’s guest room at his town house the next morning with the conviction absolute in her mind.
She dressed and prepared him a healthy breakfast. When he came into the kitchen, she smiled and gestured him to a chair and bent to put the brace on as she had done so many times before.
It didn’t matter if her smile felt strained and every touch or gesture or expression made her heart ache. She had a job to do.
‘I popped out and bought the papers from the corner store so you can do the crossword puzzles and read the news and business pages.’ She stepped away from him and brought the Welsh rarebit and frothed nutmeg milk drinks to the table.
He waited until she was seated before he spoke. ‘I appreciate that. I’ll look at them later. I’m going out this morning; I have follow-up appointments with Doc Cooper and the physio.’
‘Oh, then I’ll—’
‘Leanna’s going to drive me.’ He dropped his gaze to his food. ‘I rang her this morning and mentioned it and she offered.’
‘That’s great.’ Soph chewed a piece of the toast and forced herself to swallow it. Her throat had tightened and she had to clear it before she spoke again. ‘I’ll find something to do, then. Actually, I’ll stock your freezer with some meals for…for after I’m gone.’ She barely stumbled as she said it.
He lifted his gaze but she couldn’t read his thoughts. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to work undisturbed,’ was all he said. ‘I don’t expect to be back until mid-afternoon.’
Soph nodded and they continued the meal in silence until Grey excused himself to finish getting ready.
When a horn tooted outside, he glanced back at her once as he stepped through the front door. His face was unsmiling, his green eyes turbulent.
It was as the door closed that Soph acknowledged that she had fallen utterly and completely and hopelessly in love with him. She had loved Grey the night of the rain storm—had probably loved him before that—loved his growl speak and his irritation and his stubborn struggle because he didn’t want to cede control to others.
Grey was still fighting that battle. His doctor’s appointment might end in fireworks again this morning. This time she wouldn’t know unless he chose to say something about it, but she was glad that he wanted to let his stepmothers back into his life. Soph sniffed hard and went into the kitchen and dragged food items out o
f the fridge until the bench was covered with them.
There was no point in dwelling on any of this. Soph started to mix ingredients.
‘The ankle is improved enough that the physio says I can ease back on the exercises. The ones he still wants done, I can manage on my own.’ Grey was in the living room. Soph had joined him there and asked if he needed to exercise his ankle.
Her mouth pursed and she nodded. She had Alfie the rabbit on her lap and she stroked his fur absently. ‘That’s good news. At this rate you’ll be better in no time.’
Grey had looked forward to the day that would be the case. He hated the restrictions, the need for someone else to drive him places, all the things that impeded him. He wanted to have Soph’s touch on his arm and be able to close his fingers over hers with his other hand. But that wasn’t going to happen, whether he had the use of two arms or not.
And getting better would also mean Soph would leave. ‘My blood pressure is also dropping, as are the other readings.’ He growled the news.
She didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she lowered the rabbit to the floor. ‘Thank you for telling me. You’ll be back working those long days and thriving on them before you know it.’
‘That’s right. It’s what I want for my life.’ Actually, the doctor had warned him about that, had said he couldn’t just go back to the way things had been.
They had argued almost nose to nose until Grey had realised he was being a horse’s rear and had apologised. Then the doc had suggested he figure out some way to realign his working life and his attitude overall.
Try trusting the people around you a little, the doctor had said. You might be surprised how easy it is to take a more balanced outlook to your work and life.
Grey had attempted to recuperate from the conversation by visiting his company. He’d spent three hours there before Leanna had collected him and returned him to his house. She hadn’t seemed to mind his silence, had said rather wistfully that it might be nice to have satisfying work to fill her days.
That was the thing—Grey did like his work. The doctor wanted him to take a whole new attitude towards it, not simply ease back for a short time and then dive back in as before.