by Ally Blake
Glaring at Cat, he kept his voice low. “Because she deserves better than some schmuck who cancels dates, spends half his time on the phone and says ‘fine’ when she tells him she might have to work instead of go away with him!”
“And you think that you can do better?”
Angus ran a hand through his hair.
“That you can be there for her, heart and soul, one hundred percent?” Catriona laughed, the sound completely lacking in humour. “Luc is your assistant. And that’s it. Weird crush dynamic you’ve had going on for years notwithstanding. Her real life is with us. Me and the kid. The people she can count on to be there for her. Always. Unless you can promise me right here and now that you’re in it for the long haul, for better or worse, putting her first, before the job, then cut your losses and move on now.”
Angus’s gut churned at Catriona’s demands. And, while his usual method would be to rock back, to make it clear how little he cared, how little he could be impacted by the whims of other people, this time he leaned in.
“Luc means the world to me, Cat. Her happiness, Sonny’s happiness, are more important to me than my own. And you know it.”
Cat’s eyes flared. Surprisingly in triumph.
But he was too riled to make sense of it. “She’s the closest thing I have to family. I can’t lose her. I won’t. It would do me in. What I’ve achieved, what I’ve earned, what I’ve learned...without her none of it would be worthwhile.”
The world was quiet for a beat, before Catriona coughed out a laugh. Then she crossed her arms and said, “Well, it’s about time.”
While Angus tried to figure out why Cat was looking so bloody smug, Lucinda’s voice floated towards them. “What on earth’s going on out here?”
Angus turned to find Lucinda padding down the hall, wrapping herself in an old, tasselled, dark-green pashmina that fell below her knees. He’d seen her wearing it more than a dozen times before when they’d shared suites at conferences. After she’d taken him in when he’d been sick. In hospital when they’d thought Sonny might have had pneumonia.
He’d thought seeing her in her magical green dress for the first time had been a watershed moment. But this...watching her walk towards him in that ancient wrap, looking flustered, soft and well-ravished—by him—made looking at her in that dress feel like a walk in the park.
He felt himself smiling from way down deep inside. If only she’d look his way, she’d know it. She’d feel it. That everything had changed. And it was all okay.
But, before Cat or Angus could fashion a sane answer to her reasonable question, Sonny was on his feet, bolting into her arms.
Lucinda held the kid tight, running her hands over his head and down his back, before leaning down and lifting his face to hers. Checking with her special mother powers to make sure he was in one piece before planting a big kiss on his hair.
Then she looked up at the grown-ups and mouthed, “What happened?”
Cat moved towards Lucinda and Sonny, putting a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Sonny came looking for you. I went looking for him. And found Angus. Skulking down the hall.”
Lucinda’s brow furrowed, her hands moving to cover Sonny’s ears. But she still wouldn’t look Angus’s way.
“You okay, buddy?” she asked, attention back on her son. “Did you want something? Or did you just miss me? You know if you wanted me you only had to ask Auntie Cat to call and I’d have come to you in a heartbeat.”
“I had a bad dream. That friend of yours, the one who was meant to come away with you, was chasing me and tried to eat me.”
Lucinda’s eyes were wide as she looked at Cat, who bit at a fingernail.
“He asked. When you told him you were going away for the weekend, he asked why he couldn’t come too. I told him you had a friend staying with you.”
“Cat. Seriously?
“I panicked!”
Lucinda held Sonny tighter. “My friend Jameson doesn’t eat meat, so you’re perfectly safe.”
“I don’t want him to be my new dad.”
“Oh, honey bunny. That’s just fine because he won’t be. Is that what you thought was happening this weekend?”
Sonny nodded, fresh tears pouring down his sweet face. “If I have to have a new dad, why can’t it be Angus?”
All three adults held their breath as Sonny’s bombshell landed with what felt like a sonic boom.
“Angus?” said Lucinda, recovering quickest. “Sweetie, Angus can’t be your dad.”
“But why not?” Sonny begged, his bottom lip quivering as he looked to Angus with eyes filled with wishes and tears.
Angus had long since had a zillion reasons lined up as to why he would never be a father, for not a single “father” who’d waltzed in and out of his life had made the job seem appealing, but in that moment he couldn’t think of one. Not when the urge came over him simply to step in, wrap them both up tightly and vow to protect them from anyone who made them sad. Anyone who dared make either one of them cry.
But it was not Angus’s place to have a say. Angus who was now pulling his leg hairs through the pockets of his suit pants to keep from doing something or saying something. It was Lucinda’s job. Only Lucinda’s. If he’d learnt anything from being in Sonny’s shoes, it was that.
“Why?” Lucinda repeated, her face collapsing as she saw the earnest plea in Sonny’s expression. “Because he’s Angus. He, um... He doesn’t cook, for one thing, and a dad needs to be able to cook.”
“You don’t cook.”
“I do! Just not very well. I’d bet the house that Angus can’t boil an egg. And he...ah...he certainly doesn’t clean. And you know how much cleaning I have to do. A dad would have to help me with that. What else? Angus never buys his own groceries. Or answers his own phone. He’s too busy to coach your footy team. Or read to you every night. Angus can’t be your dad, hon, because he’s practically a big kid himself.”
Angus knew Lucinda was trying to soften things for Sonny, to bring him down from the ledge, yet with every reason she gave it felt like death by a thousand cuts. Everything she said was true. To a point. But the fact that the litany of reasons why he could never take on that role in their lives had been on the tip of her tongue spoke volumes.
Sonny sniffed. “But you tell me all the time the most important ingredient in making a family is love. And you love Angus. And I love him. And Cat loves him.”
Cat snorted.
“We do, hon,” Lucinda said, flicking her sister a look. But not Angus. If only she’d look at him. Just for a beat. Her smile could include him, temper her words. Maybe this was salvageable. But no. Her attention went right back to her son. “Angus is one of our very best friends. But it takes more than tickles and bad jokes and a mad footy boot to be a dad. It takes patience and compatibility and commitment. He would have to want it more than anything else in the world. And you know how much Angus loves his job and his nice clean apartment and his me-time. Besides, Uncle Angus has to learn how to take care of himself before he can be entrusted to take care of anyone else.”
Even Cat flinched at that last twist of the knife.
While Lucinda smiled down at Sonny as if delighted at having navigated a potential disaster.
“Come on, kid,” said Cat, holding out a hand to Sonny before leading him down the hall to their room. “Let’s order something gross and sugary from room service. Mum will be along in a minute.”
And soon it was just the two of them. Angus and Lucinda. And finally, she looked his way. Her eyes heavy. Her mouth soft. The weight of the night before once more wrapped itself around him like a siren song.
“I’m so sorry about all that,” she said, twisting and untwisting a corner of her wrap.
“You have nothing to apologise for,” he said, his voice sounding as if it was coming from someone else.
“Yeah, I do. I ought
to have seen that coming. And I never wanted you to feel uncomfortable, or beholden, or put in a position where—”
“I didn’t. I don’t. He’s a great kid, and I... I love him right on back.” The moment the words left his mouth, Angus felt light-headed, as if he’d been blowing up a balloon for too long. But he was still grounded enough to see Lucinda startle.
“I know,” she said. “I know you do.”
But when she smiled he saw only flashes of the Lucinda from the night before. Heat and desire and such sweetness it made his skin hurt. And the deeper feelings they’d both secretly held onto for years.
But there was a resoluteness there now as well. Her mind was with her son now, or it very much wanted to be.
Her son. Her number one priority. From day one she’d made that clear. And it was one of the reasons he was so taken with her.
Long-ago promises he’d made to himself and to his own mother kicked in, and instead of hauling Lucinda into his arms and attempting to unravel all that he was feeling, sensing and experiencing that morning he did what he’d always done.
He deferred to her.
He slid his hands into his pockets and causally leaned against the hallway wall. “You’re okay for a lift home?” he said.
He hated himself when she flinched. When she finally seemed to pick up on the coolness in his voice.
“I drove, remember?” she said. “Cast aside last minute, as I was, by my date.”
He nodded. “Head off early, if you’d like. I can finish up here. Sonny looks like he needs you.”
“Right. Thanks. No reason to stick around any longer now, I guess.”
No, he thought, with chagrin, none at all. Not the fact you admitted that you’ve wanted me for a long time. Not the fact that we just spent all night in one another’s arms. And not the fact that it’s taking every single ion of power I have not to haul you into my arms and beg you to stay.
But no one would be any the wiser. For he was an expert at concealment. At hiding such strong feelings. It was safer that way. Easier for all.
“I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I?”
She swallowed, her eyes bright, conflicted and beautiful.
They could get past this. They were friends. They were practical. They were too enmeshed in one another’s lives for it to be any other way.
“See you tomorrow?” she said.
“Tomorrow,” he returned, then he pushed away from the wall and strolled away.
CHAPTER TEN
ANGUS COULDN’T GET his head straight on this, the day he needed to more than ever before.
He’d been back at work for a couple of days, every second spent implementing the complete about turn on the Remède rebranding.
Louis Fournier and his team were due at the Big Picture Group offices in less than two hours. And he had to convince them to throw out the ideas they’d okayed a week before.
He knew he was right, his instincts on song. The kintsukuroi method was a perfect fit for the Remède ethos, as well as following the current trend in beauty being all about wellness and authenticity. It had real potential to turn the company around.
It was just every other single aspect of his life that felt jagged, ill-fitting and wrong.
And if he couldn’t focus, couldn’t demonstrate absolute certainty, couldn’t be the man in whom Louis had seen all that potential and convince them that they were right to put their faith in him, to trust him, it could yet all go up in smoke.
The phone rang on the other side of the smoky glass and his gaze was drawn that way as it had been a hundred times a day since he and Lucinda had come back to work a few days before.
Who was he kidding? His gaze had always been drawn that way. He’d convinced himself it was because Lucinda was his good-luck charm, his guard at the gate, his anchor.
When the truth was, she was all that and so much more.
Lucinda was also strong, soulful, warm and kind. She was trusting, unsure, loyal and lovely. She was his friend, his confidant, his favourite person on earth.
And when she’d taken him by the tie, pulled him in and kissed him every fibre of his being had cried out in relief.
This, a voice had whispered inside his head. This is everything you have worked towards. Everything you’ve ever wanted. Being the kind of man Lucinda Starling could want.
Then Lucinda had taken such pains to explain to Sonny why Angus was her friend, her confidant and one of her favourite people on earth and why he could never, ever be more.
He’d had no armour to protect himself. He’d felt the slice of every word—just as he had as a kid, told constantly by his mother’s line-up of deadbeat boyfriends that he didn’t matter, that no one would care if he’d never been born. That he wasn’t enough.
And now she was out there, smelling of that damn Someday perfume that made his head spin. Wearing that skirt that fit so right it looked as if it had been sewn on. Her hair was tucked over one shoulder, sleek and dark and tempting. He remembered how it had felt sliding through his fingers...
Damn it.
Angus sat forward, sinking his face into his palms, then he gouged his finger through his hair, tugging hard enough to hurt.
This was why he’d resisted all these years. This ache. Deep. Physical. Knowing her, being with her, opened up in him wants and desires he’d never let himself entertain. Hopes of a future, a partnership, a family—managing to carve out a life his own parents had never been able to.
He’d followed her to the damn resort for fear of losing her and somehow it felt as though it was happening anyway. Leaving him brimming with a kind of psychic pain he couldn’t control. Or name. And sure as hell didn’t want.
Well, enough was enough.
“Lucinda!” he shouted, forcing himself out of his chair.
He saw her shoulders square. She took a moment before slowly pressing her chair back and making her way through the smoky glass door between her world and his.
Without saying a word, she stood there with her fancy notebook and her cheap pencil, chin tilted, knees locked. She appeared cool. Unmoved.
And utterly lovely.
But, the closer he looked, he could see how her ankle jiggled. How she nibbled at the inside of her lip. The smudges under her eyes.
If he was disoriented in this new landscape, then so was she.
The only way forward, as he could see it, was the one that had got him where he was today. Disengagement.
His strength was in his ability to compartmentalise. It had helped him through the very worst parts of his childhood. And it had helped him deal with the temptation of having this woman sitting just outside his office for the past six-and-a-half years.
It had to help now.
“Angus?” she said. “Did you actually want me, or were you shouting my name for the fun of it?”
“I wanted you,” he said.
Some strong emotion fluttered across her deep, brown eyes.
But she pulled herself together, moved to the pink velvet chair he’d bought her as a gift, sat on the edge, crossed one ankle over the other and held her pencil over her notebook. “Shoot.”
Angus moved more slowly to the front of his desk, his feet knowing what his mind refused to admit—that more than anything, more than having things back to the way they were, he wanted to be near her. Needed to be. And he always had.
She looked up, her brown eyes wary. And beautiful. And sad.
It was the sadness that finally got him—as if she too was battling with the knowledge that a seismic shift had happened this past weekend. It shook him. Made him buck up and damn well pull himself together.
“Remède,” he said, his voice so gruff he barely recognised it himself.
She lifted her chin. “The boardroom is set. Food is on its way. Champagne is chilling. The IT team are working on the last la
yout changes to the website. It’ll be close but they’ll get it done in time. They have tickets to Comicon riding on it.”
“Great.”
“How about you?” she asked. “Are you ready?”
And despite the fact they’d tiptoed around one another for days, far more clumsily than after the Christmas party, the care in her voice—honest, real and clear as day—shone through.
And Angus’s heart dropped into his chest as if it had fallen into a well.
“I am,” he said. “You?”
She blinked. “Me? Ready to flirt and charm and flitter about? Always.”
“You do more than that, Luc.”
Her face crumpled at his use of her nickname. “I know,” she said, voice soft. “I was kidding.”
“No. You weren’t.”
She swallowed. A conversation like this would have felt different a week before. Full of banter, sass and good-natured ribbing that would have left them both feeling as if they were floating an inch off the ground.
Now every word had weight. Now every word mattered. Stacking up against him, building a wall so large soon neither would be able to see past it.
Before he could kick the damn thing down, Lucinda was already on her feet, heading back towards her door.
If this was the way things were going to be from now on it would be untenable.
“Luc,” he said, stopping to clear his throat. “Lucinda.”
She stopped, turned. “Mmm?”
I want you. I adore you. I need you. I can’t lose you. You are a part of me. The best part of me. You took a shell of a human being and made him whole.
Some deep, undamaged part of himself, some sliver of light and good, took him by the throat and gave it a squeeze. Made him check himself. To be truly sure. For Cat was right—there was no lower scum on earth than a man who would mess with a single mother unless he was in it for the long haul.
“You know I couldn’t do any of this without you,” he said.
Lucinda looked at him, right at him, her warm brown eyes like a laser.
“I know you say that, Angus, and some part of you might even believe it,” she said, with a flicker of a humourless smile. “But the truth is, you always could.”
