by JC Harroway
Kit smiles, kisses my cheek and introduces me to his girlfriend, Mia.
‘And this is Ashley Morris,’ says Drake, his stare cool but persistent on me. Ashley offers a sickly-sweet smile and sips her espresso, her attention returning to Drake as if staking her claim.
She needn’t worry. He’s obviously just shocked to see me. From the very first time I met him and Sam in that bar all those years ago, Drake’s never looked at me in that way.
I look away from the woman, who is exactly Drake’s type. Although I’m only here for a job, my ribs pinch as if I’ve run a marathon on a full stomach, the second-best feeling confirming I shouldn’t have come to once more have my face rubbed in you’re not good enough.
I struggle to swallow the surge of bitterness. What was I thinking? Drake is no friendlier than when Sam was alive. Less so, in fact. The idea he might help me would be laughable if my eyes weren’t already hot with humiliation.
A familiar helpless panic closes its fingers around my throat. I bite the inside of my cheek, chasing away the stray emotion. I haven’t cried for three years and I have no intention of breaking my dry spell. Forcing the brightest smile possible, I scan the group, latching on to Mia’s open, friendly face.
‘Well, it was lovely seeing you again and great to meet you, Mia, Ashley.’ I need to get out of here before the burn in my eyes becomes liquid, before I’m forced to relive the rejection to my application for the Faulkner’s sous-chef position in person and with Drake’s date for an audience.
‘Sorry for interrupting.’ I back away. In the light of my and Drake’s less than cosy reunion, my long shot now seems ludicrous. I spin on my heel, ignoring Drake’s ‘Wait!’, my strides weaving between the elegant tables as fast as the tightness of my skirt will allow.
I push through the kitchen doors, duck past several actual waiting staff collecting their orders and grab the denim jacket I’d stuffed behind a stack of empty produce crates next to the walk-in freezer.
By the time I hit the alleyway behind the hotel and suck the freezing air into my gasping lungs, my whole body trembles with the spent adrenaline of futility.
What an idiot. Why did I think my reception from Drake Faulkner of all people would be any warmer, any more personal, than the two-line rejection email?
We’re looking for someone with more experience...wishing you luck in your career...
I bite the inside of my cheek, staving off the well of emotion, unsure which rejection has my stupid eyes scalding—that of Drake’s head chef, or that of the man himself.
I scuff the toe of my shoe at a blob of welded-on chewing gum on the road, the shame directed inwards. Drake had greeted me with all the warmth of the strangers we are. Just because I thought I could convince him to take a chance on me with my dessert stunt doesn’t mean he’d be anything but consistently distant and frosty.
With my chest tight and my jumpy muscles cooling in the bitter November chill, I shrug into my jacket and drag my feet in the direction of the Underground.
The slam of the door bouncing off the brick wall behind startles me. I spin, clutching my chest. Drake, his face slashed with a scowl, heads my way with singular purpose and an intent expression, his suit jacket billowing out from his trim torso.
My previously defeated heart picks up the pace. Not only did my deflated soufflé of a plan fail, I’ve also ticked off the man with power to grant me a shot at my dream. When I fled, trailing my dignity, I was counting on him making some excuse for my unexpected appearance and continuing with his date. Now he’ll want an explanation, and, with the humiliation pounding through my bloodstream and facing a wall of his imposing but unfriendly manliness, I’m in no position to present my best argument.
I blurt the first thing that comes to mind, attack being the best form of defence. ‘What are you doing? Aren’t you on a date?’
He ignores me and strides closer, his long, muscular legs filling his dress trousers to perfection, each ominous footfall a clip from his tan leather brogues. My belly takes a nosedive—I’ve always loved brogues.
When he comes to rest in front of me I inhale a gulp of the damp air, wishing it were a shot of Dutch courage.
His thick brows dip over incredulous eyes. ‘What am I doing here...?’ His harsh expression could back me up a couple of paces but I stand still for the face-off. ‘That’s my question for you.’
I gape wordlessly. His chest seems twice as broad as he slings his hands in his trouser pockets, the fabric stretching across his hips. I lift my stare from his crotch, swallowing the heat in my throat. Hopefully it’s too dark for him to see my blush, and I can always blame the sub-zero temperatures.
‘What was that all about? The dessert?’ He nods at my outfit. ‘You pretending to be a waitress?’ His nostrils flare, his mouth tight with annoyance.
My shoulders sag. I’ve disrupted his date with the delightful Ashley, his bollocks are probably starting to freeze and my pathetic dream for a fresh start lies in tatters.
The adrift feeling, which has plagued me these past few months, returns with stinging force that makes me want to run or hide or fight. But which is the best tactic to convince Drake?
‘I...I hoped to get your attention.’ Hoped he’d see me, not just Sam’s widow or Tilly’s sister—but a woman with her own skills, aspirations, ambition. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I see it was a mistake.’ Drake’s undivided focus, him looking at me in this new, disconcerting way, is potent—like standing too close to a bonfire.
‘Forget it. Go back inside. She doesn’t look the type who’ll wait for ever.’ The damp air has turned into a mist of freezing drizzle—the kind that seeps into your bones. I belatedly fasten the buttons of my jacket, although the front of my blouse has already become transparent.
‘Well, you have my attention.’ His eyes narrow, as if he finds my bullshit decidedly suspect. ‘And what type does she look like?’
Why would he care what I think of his date? Or perhaps she’s his girlfriend. It would be a first for him, but then what do I know? This man is a virtual stranger—despite all the years we’ve known each other. And would he leave a girlfriend to chase after a woman he barely tolerates and hasn’t seen for years?
‘She looks like your type, Drake. Sorry for the interruption. Goodnight.’ My tight smile sticks on my frozen face as I spin away. But then I’m brought to a halt by the touch of his hand on my arm.
‘For fuck’s sake—you can’t just leave like this.’ He peers down at me, his irritation lessened but still brooking no argument. ‘Not until you explain what’s going on.’ He drops my arm, pinning me in place with the force of his intense stare alone.
I tilt my chin, my humiliation already complete. ‘It was a stupid long shot. I should have remembered that you owe me nothing.’ Absence, it seems, doesn’t make this man’s heart fonder. I cross my arms and grip my elbows in an attempt to conserve some heat and hold myself together.
‘Explain. What was a long shot? And why did you run out?’ He waits, his jaw tight and his breath whitening the air as his order echoes in the alleyway.
I press my lips together. I’ve nothing left to lose. I came here determined to seize the day but, now I’m face to face with this somehow different but equally stand-offish Drake, I’m not sure I want to expose myself or justify my fragile fledging dreams to his cool indifference. If he’d treated me to one whiff of welcome, a hint of pleasure at my appearance, perhaps I’d find the extra courage.
When my teeth rattle he sighs as if abandoning his search for answers, shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it around my juddering shoulders.
‘Thank you.’ I look down, too cold to protest, and tug the lapels across my chest. And then I’m hit with his scent, a waft from the fabric, a heady cloud of deliciousness that’s foreign and yet vaguely familiar.
I look up, my breath caught in my throat. W
e’ve never stepped this close before. A rare, awkward, one-armed hug constitutes the sum of our physical contact.
But he doesn’t back away.
‘You’re welcome.’ His voice drops, low enough to sound seductive to my rusty eardrums, although the remnants of the scowl linger behind his eyes.
I roll back on my heels, my frozen toes protesting at the surge of blood with a vicious throb. I should abandon the fight. Walk away from further explanation. But my feet have forgotten the way. I’m frozen with indecision, clinging to the lip of my coveted new life. Not a great position for a woman on an audacious mission...
In a last-ditch attempt to save myself the shame of exposure, I toss out, ‘You know it’s rude to keep a woman waiting, right?’ Since when did fleeing the effect his stare has on my pulse trump talking my way into a life-changing opportunity?
He grins a humourless grin and looks away, shaking his head as if he can’t believe my obstinacy. And yet here we are, his evening in tatters, my plan abandoned, standing in the rain at a stalemate.
‘Come back inside. We’ll talk in the warm.’ He scoops up my elbow in one of his big hands and directs my stiff form towards the kitchen’s entrance.
I dig in my heels, heart hammering. The last thing I want is to return to the scene of the crime. To explain my sad, lonely, unemployed status to both loved-up couples... But I’m too cold, damp and bone-weary to put up much of a fight beyond backtracking.
‘Look. I’ll call you tomorrow. Explain everything then. That’s probably what I should have done in the first place,’ I wheedle. Yeah, that would have been a better plan. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? ‘Go. Enjoy what’s left of your evening.’
He sighs, casting me a withering look. ‘I sent her home. I sent them all home.’
I gasp. ‘Why?’ A stupid flare of hope flickers in my chest, gooey and warming.
‘Because dinner’s over and I want to hear your explanation.’ He pauses on the top step and I want to look away from his semi-transparent shirt, which clings to the defined muscle he hasn’t lost since leaving the army.
He wants to hear my sob story—isn’t that why I came?
Of course, now my elevated heart rate and clammy palms have less to do with nerves or humiliation and more to do with hormones. Because his hand on my elbow, even through two layers of fabric, is deliciously alien enough to remind me I’m a woman.
A woman on a mission to reclaim her life.
All areas of her life...?
I bite my lip, stifling a groan. His innocent, non-sexual touch—strong, in control, commanding—is that good. Because it’s been three long years, and something about Drake—his confidence, the control he wears like the discipline of the soldier he was—it’s sparked my long-dormant body to life.
I slide my arm free of his hand, my fickle stomach rolling at my traitorous turn of thought, and he keys in the entry code on the panel beside the door.
The breath judders into me, delivering another dose of warm, Drake-scented air from his jacket. But there’s no margin for whimsical flights of sexual fancy here. I’m here for a job, and he’d never think of me in that way.
He’s Sam’s best friend.
Sam, my dead husband.
I swallow acid. I’m simply overwhelmed, my body’s reaction to his dismantling looks and his warm touch a product of too long without any sort of male contact. Or perhaps I can blame the stress of formulating and then executing my plan, the chance of new purpose in my life now my sister is grown.
The electronic click sounds and he swings the door inwards. ‘Let’s get you inside.’ His stare slides over my face and then dips lower, taking in my sodden clothes. ‘Get you warmed up. And then we’ll talk.’ Those green eyes of his penetrate. ‘You’ll talk.’
My belly rolls again, bossy, commanding Drake not something I’ve ever experienced. That it warms me more than irritates makes me snappy. ‘Huh? What is this, an interrogation? Gonna shove bamboo skewers under my fingernails? You’re not in the army now.’ My petulance forces heat to my stinging cheeks. I need to get a grip before I blow this chance to smithereens. The ultimate in self-sabotage.
‘Yes, but I still have the moves.’ Drake smiles, an unguarded twitch of his lips an expression I’ve rarely seen directed my way.
My breath turns to thick syrup. Is he...flirting?
The flare of warmth in his eyes and the mischievous twist to his full mouth thrusts my neglected body into meltdown. I expect a cloud of steam to start rising from my head.
He holds the door open, the welcoming light and warmth beckoning. ‘It’s your call, but we can do this in comfort or out here where it’s pissing down.’ A shrug. ‘I’m happy with either.’
He waits, as if he has all the time in the world. As if he’s immune to the sub-zero drizzle. As if he’s still used to the discomfort and discipline of the army.
Now I’m not certain if the shivers racking my body are temperature-related or a tug of war between my conflicted urges—to run from his dark, unfathomable looks or to follow him and prolong the conversation, which is already our longest and most addictive.
I step inside, dragging my attention from the wet shirt plastered to the contours of his chest. I shouldn’t find this man in any way attractive. He doesn’t need me, would never want me, and just acknowledging his good looks and the effect they have on my only-human pulse floods my throat with the bitter taste of betrayal.
But Sam’s not here. I’m twenty-eight. This reaction to Drake proves I’m not immune to the charms of the opposite sex...or at least the charms of this man. Am I going to remain celibate for the rest of my life?
Yes, I haven’t wanted anyone else these past years, but I’m a woman and Drake fills his suit the way he used to fill his uniform—fit, virile, a man at the top of his game. I’d have to be dead to not feel the zing of electricity through the cobweb-strewn parts of my nervous system.
And there’s no escape from him. From his deep stare, dark and penetrating, from the past we share, convoluted and confusing, or from my aborted plan and the explanation I owe him.
I try to slow my breathing as I follow his long strides, his broad shoulders and dominating height obscuring our direction. This is what I wanted—his attention. All I have to do is plead my case and hope to salvage something, even if it’s just my dignity. So why do I feel ready to concede the fight and flee the ring?
CHAPTER TWO
Drake
MY PULSE SPRINTS like an excited fucking puppy as I lead her from the staff entrance and along the corridor towards the lift and the Faulkner’s private suites. That I’m even taking her to the hotel rooms I only use if I’ve been working late or if I’m entertaining a date sounds an air-raid siren in my head.
A warning the glutton for punishment in me shuts out.
But Kenzie and I going upstairs isn’t a date. The selfish part of me wishes ‘us’ were that simple.
In truth, there is no ‘us’.
The achingly familiar visceral blow provides a perfect reminder to my dick, which had perked up the minute I’d seen her in the restaurant.
My army discipline helps to dispel images of all the filthy sexual things I’d like to do with her—things she’d run from if she knew. As it is, I’m tempted to drop to the carpet and pump out a hundred push-ups to put myself on the safe side of exhaustion.
Because the woman standing across the narrow corridor from me, her guarded hazel eyes shooting me cautious looks, may as well be a nun, she’s so untouchable.
And pissed.
I’m a bossy bastard when the need arises, and McKenzie Porter ignites that need like no other. I slowly inhale. A fucking stupid move that drags her subtle feminine scent into my head, where it has no place being and maximum potential to test my restraint.
Why is she here, in the flesh? Not just the dream version—the one I’ve s
pent considerable time with over the years. And what the hell was tonight about?
I open my mouth to ask again and then clamp my lips together. She’s freezing, her body still trembling. At least I can no longer hear her teeth chatter.
Instead I scrub at my hair and try to work out her stunt with the dessert. She’d wanted to get my attention, she’d said. Well, all she had to do was walk into the same room. If I were a heat-seeking missile, she’d be the sun...
‘I’m sorry I messed up your date.’ A flash of vulnerability, of bravery, ghosts her eyes and I want to tell her she can gatecrash all my dates.
Whoa... I haven’t spent all the years I’ve known her keeping her at arm’s length just to screw it all up in one move.
‘You didn’t. It was pretty much over.’ She interrupted the tail end of a satisfactory evening of good company, excellent food and the potential for meaningless sex. Pity a five-minute conversation with Kenzie eclipses a hundred meaningless encounters, as evidenced by the surge of testosterone I’m currently battling, my body as attuned to her presence as high-voltage power lines to an approaching rainstorm.
I force my mind to the mundane, willing my libido to obey orders. Sharing army barracks and tents with thirty other men helps to master control of the body parts that have a life of their own. And the technique, one I’ve practised a thousand times in her presence, reminds me of the first time I saw her, a mere thirty seconds before my best mate caught her eye.
I swallow the bitter taste with a silent curse. I’ve tried, but I’ve never been in control of my feelings for this woman—the intervening years, her falling for and then marrying Sam, and then losing him, may as well count for zilch.
I want her.
I’ve always wanted her.
And it’s never been an option.
That’s why I’ve stayed the hell away. Not only have I always coveted my best friend’s woman, but Sam is no longer here to punch me in both of my two faces, as I deserve.