Christmas Eve Marriage (HQR Classic)

by Jessica Hart

  Just Rhys and the sudden certainty that she was completely, hopelessly and utterly in love with him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SO IT was Rhys. How about that?

  Rhys. With one peculiarly detached part of her mind, Thea was astounded. It had been odd enough when she had thought that wanting this ordinary-looking man with his slightly greying hair and his reading glasses and his passion for rocks was a purely physical thing.

  And now she had to face the fact that it was so much more than that.

  She had never felt this before—this sense of recognition, of utter certainty that he was the one, the man she could love for the rest of her life. There he was, peering over his glasses, the only man who could make her happy, and, odd or not, no one else would do.

  It was an amazing feeling. Thea felt her heart swell and lift with the simple relief of being able to look at him, to think I love you and be absolutely sure. She shook her head slightly with a kind of dazed and joyful disbelief. All he had done was to put his glasses on, and this had happened!

  Thea looked slowly around, expecting everything to be different and was unable to understand why it wasn’t. The world hadn’t stopped at all. The boys were still showing off on their skateboards, the boats still rocked gently on their moorings, the waiter had deposited a bottle on the next table and disappeared back into the kitchen. Clara and Sophie were listening avidly to Rhys.

  Not one of them realised that her life had changed completely in a single instant and would never be the same again.

  “‘You sometimes feel dissatisfied by everything,”’ Rhys finished reading Sophie’s printout, “‘but you will have a long and happy life.” So that’s all right then.’ He put down the piece of paper. ‘What does yours say, Clara?’

  Clara smoothed the paper out on the table in front of her while Rhys took off his glasses and glanced across at Thea with a smile that turned her bones to water.

  ‘Let’s see if the Mouth of Truth can get to grips with Clara!’

  “‘You could be seriously disappointed by rash ventures,”’ Clara read out loud. “‘You are full of vitality and physical pleasures.”’ Her face changed as she read the next line. “‘Beware of trying to be too clever,”’ she read with an outraged expression, only to grin reluctantly when she saw the others laughing. ‘Stupid thing.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think there might be something in this hand analyser after all!’ said Rhys.

  ‘You have a go, Dad!’

  ‘Yes, go on, Rhys,’ urged Clara. ‘You too, Thea!’

  In the end it was easier to give in. Resigned, Rhys found another couple of coins, and they inserted their hands in the hole in the wall, feeling decidedly foolish.

  ‘I’ll read yours if you like, Thea,’ Clara offered when they were back at the table.

  Her eyes scanned the page. ‘OK…the Mouth of Truth says that you are a very kind and loving person—that’s true, isn’t it?’ She looked up triumphantly. ‘You see, it does work!’

  ‘Sure,’ said Thea, rolling her eyes. ‘What else does it say?’

  ‘Um…you have good health but you often look for love in the wrong place. Well, that means Harry, of course!’

  ‘Who’s Harry?’ asked Sophie, puzzled.

  ‘Thea’s boyfriend. He’s awful.’ Clara made a face. ‘He looks all right and he says all the right things, but you just know he doesn’t mean them.’

  She hadn’t noticed Thea’s expression, but Rhys had. ‘Read mine, Clara,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Oh…OK.’ Diverted, Clara took his printout and prepared to read. ‘The Mouth of Truth says that you are a per…per…a perfectionist,’ she said carefully after a whispered consultation with Thea. ‘With a sometimes obsessive attention to detail. Does that sound right?’

  ‘It’s not too far off the mark,’ he admitted grudgingly.

  ‘Oh, and listen to this!’ Clara looked up excitedly to make sure she had all their attention before she read the next prediction. ‘One of those rare, brilliant marriages which often happens to the really fortunate seems to lie in store.’

  ‘That shows how much the Mouth of Truth knows then, doesn’t it?’ said Rhys. ‘Funny that it didn’t know I’m divorced if it’s so clever!’

  ‘It could mean a second marriage,’ said Clara and Sophie nodded.

  ‘Maybe it means when you marry Thea, Dad.’

  There was a tiny pause.

  ‘Thea and I aren’t getting married, Sophie,’ said Rhys carefully after a moment. ‘We were just pretending when we told the Paines that we were engaged.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I keep forgetting.’

  Rhys didn’t so much as glance at Thea.

  ‘It’s easy to do,’ he reassured his daughter. ‘Sometimes I do it myself!’

  ‘Can Sophie sleep over?’ Clara begged when they got back to the villa later that evening.

  ‘I don’t know, Clara,’ said Thea doubtfully. ‘It’s quite late already.’

  ‘But it’s our last chance! Rhys says we won’t be able to do it tomorrow night because we’re leaving so early the next morning and we have to pack.’

  It was her last chance to talk to Rhys, too, thought Thea. Once the girls were in bed she would be alone with him, and she could tell him about that incredible moment of revelation on the harbourside that evening, when he had put on his glasses and she had fallen in love.

  Quite how she was going to do that, Thea wasn’t sure yet, but she would think of something. After all, she had seen the expression in his eyes when he carried her out into the sea, and he had told Sophie that he forgot they were only pretending to be engaged sometimes, hadn’t he?

  Of course that might have been a joke, just to make Sophie feel better. Thea’s confidence, ever fragile, faltered and began to trickle away. There hadn’t been so much as a flicker of a meaningful glance since then, had there? No accidental brush of the fingers, no murmured aside that he must talk to her soon, and now it sounded as if he was planning an orderly departure with no fuss and no emotions.

  Having persuaded her aunt to agree, Clara danced off to convey the good news to Sophie, and a few minutes later the two girls reappeared, accompanied by Rhys, who was carrying Sophie’s bedding.

  ‘Just on the off-chance they’ll stop talking long enough to go to sleep,’ he said.

  Thea kissed the girls goodnight and left Rhys to give them a stern five minute warning. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll take much notice,’ he said in a resigned voice as he came downstairs.

  ‘You can get heavy-handed with the discipline when you get home,’ said Thea. Having longed for the time when they would be alone together, she felt incredibly nervous now that it had come. ‘They’re still on holiday.’ She swallowed. ‘So are we. I think we should all make the most of it.’

  There, could there be a better cue than that? Let me make the most of it by taking you in my arms and kissing you until you tell me you love me and want to spend the rest of your life with me. That was all Rhys had to say now.

  He didn’t, of course.

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ he said instead, sounding tired and not in the least romantic. He rubbed his face wearily.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ said Thea. ‘Come and have a drink and relax.’

  Rhys followed her out on to the terrace and took the glass she handed him. ‘Thanks,’ he said as he sat down. ‘This is just what I need.’

  Thea had hoped that it would be easier in the dark, sitting where they always sat, but there was an edginess to the atmosphere that had never been there before. She longed to tell him how much she loved him, but she didn’t know how. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could just blurt out in the middle of the conversation, was it? Oh, by the way, I’m in love with you.

  So she sat and twisted her fingers in her lap and tried to get back that wonderful sense of certainty she had had in Agios Nikolaos.

  ‘You’re very quiet tonight,’ said Rhys after a while. ‘What are you thinking about?’
<
br />   About loving you. About wanting you. About needing you. About how I’m going to manage without you.

  She didn’t say any of those things, of course. She looked down into the glass she was turning slowly between her fingers. ‘Oh…about tomorrow being our last night. I can’t believe it’s over.’

  There, another opening for him. It doesn’t have to be over. How easy would it be for him to say that?

  ‘No, the last two weeks have gone quickly, haven’t they?’ He looked up from his drink with a ghost of a smile. ‘I’ve had a good time.’

  Oh, dear, it was all beginning to sound very final. Thea swallowed.

  ‘Me, too.’

  She was just going to have to say something herself. If only she didn’t feel so ridiculously shy. It was so silly, too. They were friends. She had never had any problem talking to him when she hadn’t known that she was in love with him.

  The silence began to twang.

  OK, Thea told herself. Take it easy. Begin by saying that there’s something you want to say to him, and take it from there.

  Shoulders back. One deep breath. Two.

  She had just opened her mouth when Rhys put down his glass with a click and stood up.

  ‘I should go.’ He sounded terse and so unlike himself that Thea, already thrown off by being interrupted just when she had plucked up the courage to tell him how she felt, could only gape at him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  He couldn’t go yet. Not now, just when she was ready to tell him the truth.

  ‘Nothing…well, something, I suppose.’ For the first time he seemed unsure of himself. ‘But it’s nothing to do with you,’ he assured her. ‘That is, it is about you, but—’

  Rhys broke off and swore, raking his hands through his hair in frustration.

  Thea had never seen him like this before, and it helped her to pull herself together.

  ‘Rhys, sit down,’ she said.

  He stared at her for a moment and then sat abruptly.

  Thea shifted round in her chair so that she was facing him. ‘Now, tell me.’

  ‘I was thinking about what you said,’ said Rhys after a long, long pause.

  ‘Something I said? What about?’

  ‘About making the most of what was left of the holiday.’

  He looked squarely into her eyes, and it was as if all the air had been sucked out of Thea’s lungs.

  ‘And I thought about how much I wanted to kiss you today,’ he went on, his voice very deep and very low. ‘I know it’s just a holiday thing, and you’re still confused and hurt about Harry, but today in the sea, when I was holding you, I wanted to forget all that and kiss you anyway.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ asked Thea, her mouth so dry that the words came out as barely more than a husky whisper.

  Rhys sighed and leant forward to rest his arms on his knees, looking away from her. ‘Because it would have been a mistake.’

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘We’re going home tomorrow, Thea. You know what these things are like.’

  ‘What things?’ she asked unsteadily, but she knew what he was going to say already.

  ‘Being on holiday. You get thrown together, the way we have been, and everything is much more intense than it is at home, but it’s not real. This is a time out of time. Right now, with the stars and the smell of the garden and the warm breeze, this seems like the only reality there is, but when we get back to London and our separate lives we’ll realise that that’s what real life is, and all this will be like a dream.’

  She hadn’t wanted him to say it, but he was right, wasn’t he?

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  Rhys’s head came up at the sadness in her voice. ‘I’m sorry, Thea, I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t want to spoil things, especially now. You’ve been so wonderful.’

  He dropped his head back into his hands. ‘It’s not as if I don’t know how you feel about Harry. You probably can’t wait to get back to London to see him. I’ve been there myself. I know what it’s like to keep on loving someone and needing them, even when they’ve hurt you.’

  Was that a way of telling her that Kate was right, and that he’d never got over Lynda?

  Thea opened her mouth to put him right about Harry, but she had hesitated too long while she thought about what he had said, and Rhys was carrying on.

  ‘It’s not even as if I want to get distracted by a relationship with anyone. I came back to be a better father to Sophie, and that’s what I need to concentrate on when I get home. I haven’t got time to think about anybody else right now. Sophie hasn’t had enough of my attention as it is over the last few years.’

  Right, so now she knew. Thea stared out at the velvety sky embedded with stars and felt her heart constrict.

  No more doubt, no more confusion. Rhys had told it like it was. He had no room in his life for her once they got home. He might want her now, but not for ever. Not even next week.

  Thank God she hadn’t blurted out that she loved him. It was all she could think.

  And really, did she love him? Or was it, like he said, just a holiday thing? She had wondered herself for long enough, after all.

  She had thought she was in love with Harry, too, and look how different the two men were. Rhys had none of Harry’s dash and glamour. There was no reason to fall in love with him other than the fact that he wasn’t Harry, and maybe that was all it was. She had turned to him because he was there and because he was different, just as Harry had turned to her after his relationship with Isabelle fell apart.

  It would be easy to accept that.

  But Thea couldn’t. Deep down, she knew that moment in Agios Nikolaos was the only reality that meant anything. She did love Rhys, she was certain of it in the very core of her being, and for someone normally so wavering and unconfident and easily swayed it was a comfort to have for once such an unshakeable belief in her own feelings. It was real. She just had to accept one thing.

  Rhys didn’t love her back.

  Thea drew a deep breath. She couldn’t change his mind, not now. But there might be a chance to see him again when they got home. He might miss her.

  Perhaps it was a mistake to think too much about the future. He was here, next to her in the dark, and he had said that he wanted to kiss her. And she wanted to kiss him too. Why deny that for the sake of a bit of pride?

  She didn’t need to tell him how she really felt. She didn’t need to think about the future, how life would be without him. For now, all she needed was to kiss him and hold him and feel his arms around her. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she would worry about the rest tomorrow.

  ‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ she said slowly. ‘I know what you mean about this being a time out of time. You’re right, it’s not about real, or for ever, but the truth is that I wanted you to kiss me today too.’

  He jerked round at that and his eyes fixed on her face.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘This is our last night. Let’s not waste it. You want to kiss me, and I want to kiss you. We both understand that it doesn’t mean anything, that it’s not about for ever.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ asked Rhys slowly, without taking his eyes from her face.

  ‘A celebration of the last two weeks?’ she suggested, getting up and going over to his chair. ‘Clearing the air? A moment that’s just for now, just between the two of us.’

  He took her by the hand and drew her gently down into his lap. Taking a lock of her hair, he rubbed it between his fingers. ‘Are you sure, Thea?’

  Instead of answering, she shifted so that she could lean down and touch her lips to the pulse under his ear, the way she had fantasised about doing all day, all week.

  ‘I’m sure.’ She sighed into his throat. Now that she was here, close to him, with his arms around her, she couldn’t stop kissing him. ‘I’m sure,’ she murmured again, nibbling little kisses along his jaw. ‘This is just for us, just for now.’

  And then he w
as turning his head and their lips met at last and the love and the longing shattered inside Thea. She melted into him with a tiny sigh of release. At last, at last, they were kissing, kissing properly, kissing not because Kate was watching, but because they both wanted to.

  She couldn’t get close enough to him, couldn’t feel enough of him. Her lips and her fingers drifted over his face, his hair, his skin, those lovely sleek muscles in his shoulders, and all the while Rhys’s hands were moving hungrily over her, exploring her, sliding under her skirt, smoothing over her thigh, until Thea thought she would dissolve with pleasure.

  She clung to him, loving him, loving the feel of him, and their kisses grew deeper and more desperate. It was the first time that they had kissed like this, and the last time. However much Thea tried to shut the thought out, she couldn’t.

  This was the last time she would kiss Rhys. She couldn’t bear it to end, couldn’t bear time to have moved on to a time when it was over and all she had was the memory instead of this surge of sensation, this feeling of coming home, this sense that her life had been all about getting to this place and this time and this man.

  But it did end, of course. Rhys’s hand was tugging down the zip of her dress, his mouth burning along her clavicle when he forced himself to pause.

  ‘The girls…’

  Girls? What girls? Thea pressed closer and he drew a ragged breath.

  ‘We need to stop while I still can.’

  No, thought Thea. We need to not stop. We need to go up to the big white bed upstairs. We need to kiss each other all over. We need to never let each other go. But stop? No.

  Girls…Rhys’s voice reached her through a haze of desire, and a dullness crept over her as reality filtered back at last. Sophie and Clara were upstairs, probably still talking. Of course they had to stop. There would be no making love. It would be all letting go from now on.

  Slowly she straightened. ‘Of course, you’re right,’ she said, and from somewhere found a wavering smile for him. ‘It was nice while it lasted, though!’