“She was a nice lady—and made the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted.”
“Better than mine?” Carly asked with mock indignation, pout in place, hands on her hips.
“Even better than yours.” So he remembered her cooking too.
“I’d be cranky with you for saying that if I didn’t agree with you—her lasagna was the best ever,” she said. “Nonna had a secret ingredient she never revealed, not even on her deathbed. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with mine.”
Mentally she slammed her hand against her forehead. Another blunder. She’d never be making lasagna for Dylan again. Thankfully he either hadn’t noticed or had chosen to ignore it.
“So are you going out with friends tonight?” he asked.
Again she shook her head. “This was meant to be a surprise, remember? I really only told Felicity I was coming. Running around after the cats I haven’t had a chance to make other plans.”
“So if not friends or family, who are you spending Christmas Eve with?”
Carly hesitated. She didn’t want to look like a loser in front of Dylan.
“No one,” she admitted. “This trip hasn’t turned out quite as I planned.”
“You’ll be on your own on Christmas Eve?”
She shrugged. “I’m cool about it. I’m tired and still a bit jet-lagged and could do with an early night.” She tucked the towel tighter around herself. “In fact I…I should be on my way.”
Dylan frowned. “I’m not cool about it. You can’t be on your own on Christmas Eve. I wouldn’t be much of a…a friend if I let that happen.”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I happen to be on my own too. Let’s have a meal together.”
She stared at him. Had she heard right? Was Dylan asking her on a date? Or was he taking pity on her, being kind? Carly didn’t know how to read this new Dylan—his eyes weren’t giving anything away.
When she had planned this trip to Sydney, she could never have anticipated this happening. Bumping into the man who’d been the love of her life. Swimming in his pool. Now he was asking her out? It felt like a dream. But she was here in her bikini, the water dripping off her.
She wasn’t sure if the fluttery feeling deep inside her was excitement or trepidation. But she couldn’t pass on the opportunity to spend more time with him. She smiled. “I couldn’t think of a better way to spend Christmas Eve.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dylan gritted his teeth. What the hell was going on here? His brain kept transmitting one thing, his mouth translating it into something else. How had it switched say goodbye to Carly into ask Carly to dinner?
But he couldn’t go back on it now. Nor did he want to. Carly was back in the country and in his house—it hardly seemed real.
They planned to walk down to one of the restaurants on Balmoral Beach but, as it was Christmas Eve and very busy, they had to wait for a late sitting. She’d changed into a simple white dress with narrow straps and sandals. Her hair was still damp and drying into exuberant waves around her face. “I’m afraid I didn’t have any dressier clothes in the van,” she said.
“You look just fine,” he said gruffly. “I’m only wearing shorts.” He wanted to add that he thought she looked lovely in anything she wore but that could be overdoing it. He definitely didn’t say that he’d always preferred her wearing nothing at all. Not when they were now just friends.
She sat on a bar stool in his kitchen, sipping on a chilled white wine while he got some snacks from the refrigerator and helped himself to a beer. Of course she offered to help, but he refused. “You know I’m not good at sitting around doing nothing,” she said. She hadn’t changed at all.
“Everything is under control,” he said. Except for the tumult her presence was causing him.
“So why are you on your own tonight?” she asked.
“I thought I’d need to work. Turns out I didn’t.”
“That was lucky for me, then,” she said.
Did she mean that? Or was it just her way? Carly had an abundance of natural charm and vivacity. It was one of the many things that had appealed so much to him. He wasn’t as socially adept, had been a shy kid and never really grown out of it. They’d complemented each other.
“Also, as my mother and brother will be here for lunch tomorrow, I needed to get stuff ready. That’s done too.” He slid over a platter of olives, marinated feta cheese and crackers. “This is part of the stash of snacks I’ve got in the fridge.”
She popped an olive into her mouth. “How are your mother and Mikey?”
There was an edge of reserve to her voice that not everyone would pick up on. He didn’t know whether his mother had been over-protective because of the hand life had dealt her or it had been a case of personality clashes. But she had never warmed to Carly. “She’s a heartbreaker, that one,” she’d warned. She’d seemed almost vindicated when Carly actually had broken his heart.
“My mother has remarried.”
“What!” Carly spluttered on her drink.
“I know. Who would have thought it? He’s a nice guy she met doing volunteer work. She’s very happy.”
“That’s nice,” Carly said diplomatically. “And Mikey?”
Carly had been the only person his little brother Mike had allowed to call him Mikey. “He’s doing really well. Graduated with honors from his computer science degree and has a good job.”
“His health issues?”
“All that physical therapy and biofeedback training means he’s as good as he can possibly be. He’ll always have a slight limp but that doesn’t hold him back.”
“I’m so glad.” Carly’s smile was genuine. “Give him a hug for me, won’t you?”
“Shall do,” Dylan said through a suddenly choked throat. Carly had showed endless kindness and patience to his brother. Mike had adored her in return. She had taken so much with her when she’d left.
Carly put down her glass and walked over to the Christmas tree that took up a whole corner of the informal living area adjoining the kitchen. He should have taken bets on how long she would be able to sit still.
“You’re all set up for Christmas,” she said. “This tree is magnificent.” She feathered her hand across the pine branches. “There’s not a bauble or an ornament out of place. It must have taken hours.”
Dylan took a swig from his beer then followed her. “All kudos to Mike’s girlfriend, Rachel. She’s a stylist at a party planning company.”
Carly looked around the room. “Rachel is a talented girl,” she said. “She hasn’t missed an opportunity to put something elegant in just the right places.”
“The party planners are supplying the food for tomorrow too,” he said. “This is my first Christmas in this house. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”
She whipped around to face him. “Oh, I wish I’d known. I could have helped with—”
“The food? I don’t think so,” he said. “Besides, if it hadn’t been for Morris the cat, I wouldn’t have even known you were in town. Would you have got in touch otherwise?” He realized his legs were braced for confrontation, his hands gripped by his sides.
She paused for a long moment before she replied. “No. I daresay I could have tracked you down. But as you’d made it so clear you didn’t want anything to do with me, I wouldn’t have dared. Much as I might have wanted to.”
Her stricken expression struck right to his gut. “You were too scared? Scared of me?”
“Not physically scared. Never that. Fearful of more rejection. You made it very clear if I left you, you’d never forgive me. I believed you.”
“That was four years ago.” Since then he’d learned to see life less in terms of black and white. But how would she know that?
Her chin tilted upward. “I had no reason to think you’d changed your mind about me. You were quite horrible towards the end, you know. While we were still together you started telling me what to do, giving me ultimatums, being rea
lly rude to André—which in light of what he turned out to be was probably justified, but I didn’t know that at the time.”
Her words were like daggers, the pain they inflicted reminding him of how angry and hurt he had felt then. “Because I was terrified of losing you, could feel you slipping away from me.”
“You were pushing me away.”
“I was showing you how much I cared.”
She gestured with her hands. “I didn’t see that. I saw you thwarting me in something I really needed to do. Refusing to compromise. Oh, I was at fault too, letting my Italian temper get the better of me. I said things I shouldn’t have said. That I didn’t really mean. And I shouldn’t have left without a proper goodbye. But when I realized what a mistake I’d made, how much I lo—missed you—you didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”
“I told you exactly what that lecherous Frenchman was planning, yet you still took off with him.”
“But I had to learn that for myself, didn’t I?”
He set his jaw. “I suppose you did.”
She turned and paced away from him. The light fabric of her dress swished around her legs. It did nothing to disguise her lovely curvy behind, her slim thighs. Had he ever stopped wanting her?
She turned back to face him again. Her eyes were bright. With unshed tears? No. Pent up anger and resentment. “Can you imagine what it was like to rehearse a phone call where I intended to beg for forgiveness, to practice over and over what I was going to say to the man who had been my first love, my only love, my best friend, to find he’d disconnected his phone number?” She clenched one hand into a fist. “Then to pour my heart out in an email—only to have it bounce back because he’d changed his address?”
“No,” he muttered. There weren’t many moments in his life where Dylan had felt shame. This was one of them.
“It seemed cruel. And I never thought you were cruel.”
“I didn’t mean to be cruel. I was being strong. Sticking to my word.” Protecting himself.
“Stubborn more like it,” she said with a twist of her lips. “I should have flown back here and tracked you down then and there.”
“I wish you had,” he said. Although he couldn’t guarantee what reception he might have given her at the time.
“Apart from the fact I couldn’t, as I was on a contract on the super yacht, I didn’t know what I might find back in Sydney.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
Carly picked up one of the glittering silver baubles from a glass bowl on the console. She swapped it from hand to hand without seeming to be aware she was doing so. “Things had got so bad between us. We hardly saw each other and when we did we only argued. You were working at that bank where I didn’t like the people. Remember?”
“I remember,” he said.
“I disliked one person more than all the others put together. That Monica woman. The gorgeous redhead. You were always telling me how smart she was. I saw the way she looked at you. She was just waiting for me to be out of the way to get her claws into you.”
Dylan stared at her. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I admired Monica as a professional. But I didn’t find her attractive at all.”
“You…you didn’t?”
“No. Besides, why would I ever have looked at her when I had you?”
“What about when you didn’t have me?”
“I still didn’t look at her.”
Carly narrowed her eyes. “So she never made a move on you?”
“Of course not.” He paused. “Though now you point it out…”
“Hah,” Carly exclaimed. “So she did pounce.”
“I wouldn’t call it pounce. We were at a conference at a hotel. We’d all had drinks after dinner. I went up to my room earlier than the others. She made a mistake with the rooms. Tried to put her key-card in my door. When I pointed out her error, she suggested she come in for another drink.”
“And did she? Come into your room?” The silver bauble in Carly’s right hand was in danger of being crushed. Dylan took it out of her hand and placed it back in the bowl. She scarcely seemed to notice.
“I told her I needed to go over some figures before the meeting in the morning and wanted to be on my own.”
“Hah! I would have liked to have seen her face. And you didn’t see anything significant in that?”
He grinned. “I did wonder why she didn’t seem to have anything on under her wrap. But seriously, I never gave the incident—or her—another thought.”
Carly slowly shook her head. “How naïve were you? The woman was obviously intent on seduction.”
“Not naïve. Just not interested enough to see the signals.”
“And to think I spent so much time torturing myself with thoughts of you together with her. I imagined myself flying over here and you telling me to turn right back around because you’d found somebody else.”
“I didn’t date anyone else for a long time,” he said. Some nice women. But no one who ever came anywhere near Carly.
“Stop right there.” She put up her hand in a halt sign. “I don’t want to hear about you with another woman. Even though we’re technically just friends now, I feel sick at the thought of it.”
“I can’t bear to think about you with another man.” It was like a stab to the gut and he nearly doubled over with the pain.
Her eyes were huge, her mouth quivered. “Oh Dylan, we made such a mess of it, didn’t we?”
“That we did,” he said hoarsely.
To think he’d been torturing himself with thoughts of that jerk André while she’d been worrying about bossy Monica whom he’d never much liked. What a fool he’d been—arrogant, unbending and, yes, cruel.
He reached out and smoothed the hair back from Carly’s face, cupped her chin in both his hands, looked deep into her eyes. “Carly, I’m sorry that I hurt you so much. You didn’t deserve that. I was an idiot.”
“You…you mean it?” she said.
“If I could turn back time and not disconnect those phone and email accounts, I would.”
“Thank you,” she said in small, broken voice.
He had hurt her in a way he had never imagined he could hurt someone he’d loved so deeply. Somehow, he had to make four years’ worth of amends. Starting now. He dropped his hands from her face. “Now I want you to take a step back from me,” he said.
“What?”
“Please,” he said.
“If you can’t bear to have me this close I’ll move right away from you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said but he didn’t want to ruin the moment by explaining.
Obviously miffed, she stomped one step and then another back from him, until he stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“Now look up,” he said.
This time she didn’t do as directed. “Dylan, what do you mean, ‘look up’?”
He nodded up at the ceiling beam where Rachel had draped a bunch of dusky green leaves tied with generous loops of silver ribbon.
Carly stared at it for a very long moment. “Oh,” she said. “That’s what you mean. We’re standing under the mistletoe.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Carly stood under the mistletoe and thrilled to the look in Dylan’s eyes—excitement, impatience, and something fierce that made it suddenly difficult to breathe. She didn’t dare try to read anything further into it. Except to know it went beyond mere friendship.
She swallowed hard against a sudden lump of emotion in her throat and managed to choke out a few words. “So what are the rules about kissing in the house?”
“Just the usual rule about mistletoe.” His voice was husky and deep and sent shivers of awareness down her spine.
“You mean that thing you have to do when you’re standing under it?”
“Yes,” he said, his gaze intent on her face.
“I…I don’t want to break that rule.”
“Me neither,” he said, as he dipped his head to ki
ss her.
His mouth was warm and firm and tender on hers. She stood very still and closed her eyes, scarcely able to believe she was with him—and not in one of the many dreams she’d had over the years when she’d woken, her pillow wet with tears because he was not there. Dylan.
But when she opened her eyes this time he was there and he was real and he was kissing her.
With a throaty little murmur of joy she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She couldn’t count how many times she’d kissed Dylan in the past, from their first fumbling attempts outside the restaurant to the heady kisses of a physically fulfilled relationship. But this kiss felt like a first. She opened her lips beneath his and melted into bliss.
She was so lost in the delicious sensations pulsing through her she wasn’t sure whether the kiss lasted minutes or seconds before he broke away. He pushed her hair away from her face, combing it with his fingers, just like he’d always done. “Merry Christmas, Carly,” he said, his gaze locking with hers.
“Mmm… yes…mistletoe, M…merry Christmas,” she managed to stutter out before she pulled his head back down to hers and took passionate possession of his mouth, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth before sliding her tongue between his lips to tangle with his. It had been four years since his last kiss, and she wanted something more than sweet and tender.
Dylan moaned somewhere deep in his throat and pulled her closer. He tilted her head back to deepen the kiss and pulled her tight against him. He felt familiar, yet not familiar, his body bulkier with muscle, his scent nearly but not quite the same—salt from the pool, a different aftershave, but the same spicy maleness unique to him. His afternoon stubble scraped pleasurably against her face. She remembered he was a twice-a-day shave man, his beard strong and dark in contrast to his lighter hair.
The intense chemistry that had always been there between them reignited in a sudden flare of desire, fueled by four years without him. Her nipples tingled and tightened as he slid his hands down the soft side swell of her breasts, caressed her back, came to rest below her waist, cupped her bottom hard. What had started slow and gentle erupted into something urgent and demanding. She arched against him, felt the evidence of his desire jutting against her, the ache of her own need. She wanted him.
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