Passionate Protectors?

by Anne Mather

  ‘Everything—everything’s happened so fast.’ Rising slowly to her feet, she was shocked at how weak her limbs felt beneath her robe. ‘I think maybe I’ve got into this relationship without—without really thinking things through. Maybe what I need is some time on my own to work things out. Maybe it would be best for both of us…’

  ‘You’re running away.’ Kyle glared at her accusingly.

  ‘No, I’m not. For once in my life I think I’m being sensible. You obviously don’t think me capable of making a smart decision for myself, and that’s not how I want to conduct another relationship. I can’t afford to make another mistake.’

  ‘Is that what you think this is? A mistake?’

  ‘No!’ Distressed, she put her hand up to her face. ‘I didn’t mean—I know you were only trying to protect me by not telling me about your fame, but if I hadn’t appeared so weak in the first place you would never have felt that. Well, I don’t want to be weak any more, Kyle. I need to sort my life out from a position of strength.’

  ‘Megan, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled or said what I did. I love you. I think I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you. All I’ve ever wanted is the best for you. Oh hell!’ Scraping his hand roughly through his hair, Kyle shook his head in despair. ‘You have every right to be angry with me. It was wrong of me not to tell you the truth about myself, to assume you wouldn’t be able to deal with it. But I was scared…’

  ‘Scared?’ Megan’s brown eyes widened in double surprise. She was still reeling from the idea that he loved her, as well as his stark admission that he was scared. It was almost impossible to imagine the virile and supremely confident specimen of manhood standing in front of her being frightened of anything.

  ‘Scared of losing you, Megan.’ The gaze he levelled at her now tore at her heart like nothing else. ‘I am losing you, aren’t I?’

  ‘You’re a good man Kyle…the best. You don’t need someone like me complicating your life. Not when you already have everything you need.’

  ‘I won’t have everything I need if I don’t have you.’

  His words hung in the air like an anvil about to drop down on her from a great height and crush the living breath from her body. It was almost impossible for Megan to swallow across the huge aching lump in her throat. Tears filled her eyes and spilled unheeded down her cheeks. ‘I’ve got to do this, Kyle. I’ve got to leave. It would be so easy to lean on you, let you make decisions for me, show me the way…and you’ve already done so much. But you deserve better than that. I respect you too much to let you settle for anything less than the best. I mean it.’

  Kyle found his hand at his throat, his fingers closing around the silver and turquoise amulet on the worn leather lace that Yvette had given him on his eighteenth birthday. His throat burned and his heart ached at her memory, at the void she’d left in his life when she’d died. But that pain was infinitely more bearable now than the pain he was feeling at the thought of losing Megan.

  With starving gaze he stared at her, standing there in her robe, her dark eyes huge and shimmering, tears tracking down her face, and it felt as if some gigantic invisible hand had reached down from the heavens, wrenched his heart out of his chest and stamped on it at his feet…He felt weak with the hurt, disorientated, faint, his brain swirling with the implications of her leaving. But even in the midst of his agony, he knew he had to let her go.

  More than his loving her, more than his need for her, Megan needed to know that he put her wellbeing first. And part of that wellbeing would be the realisation that she was stronger than she thought she was. Strong enough to stand alone and make a good life for herself. Maybe it was the ultimate gift from their union that he could give her—to let her go with his blessing? If she was meant to come back to him then she would. If she didn’t…then he would just have to learn to accept it, just as he had had to learn to accept his sister’s untimely death all those years ago…

  ‘Come here.’

  She hesitated for only a second before flying into his arms. Tilting her face up towards him, Kyle tenderly stroked back her hair, then wiped her tears with the pad of his thumb.

  ‘Did I ever tell you just how incredible I think you are?’

  Megan tightened her arms possessively around his waist, distraught that it might be for the very last time, knowing she had already set wheels in motion that might take them far away from each other…maybe for ever.

  ‘You do what you have to do, baby,’ he whispered huskily against her ear. ‘If you ever want to come back…you know where to find me.’ Pressing her cheek close into his chest, Kyle filled his arms with the warmth of her, her scent invading his senses as evocatively as the honeysuckle on his Greek island after a rainfall, praying he would have the strength to really let her go—but, more than that, praying for the strength to survive it.

  Chapter Twelve

  HE POACHED a cigarette from a youth lounging outside a pub after closing time, then made his way to a bench by the harbour, hunched into his leather jacket, took a couple of long drags and stared darkly out to sea.

  Because he’d given up smoking years ago, the now unfamiliar pull on his lungs, along with the slight giddiness in his head, made him throw the offending smoke onto the cobbled stones, then crush it disgustedly with the heel of his boot.

  Pushing himself off the cold slatted bench, he walked head down, grimly resolute against the force of the tremendous gusts of wind that pressed him back as he negotiated a somewhat steep incline in the road. Kyle had no idea where he was going because he had no particular direction in mind right then. All he knew was that he needed to get his thoughts together. To try to deal with the swell of unwanted emotion that was threatening to grip him by the throat as it always did when he thought of Megan, the woman he couldn’t seem to forget, no matter what he did…

  Squinting grimly into the rain as he walked, he shrugged off the biting cold that lashed against his face and stung his skin. It was summer, but you’d never know it by the weather. He blew out a breath as his long legs strode uphill, dispassionately watching the plume of warmth from his body dissolve in the sharp cold air.

  Megan. The thought of her dispersed the icy tension in his belly and replaced it with sizzling heat. He’d never been so enamoured of a woman. So besotted. So in love…Neither had he ever experienced such blinding driven need to claim a woman as his own. To be her lover night and day, to imagine her as the mother of his children—loving and working side by side together in their chosen passion, raising their children in a home full of love and joy and never-ending warmth. It didn’t matter that Megan couldn’t have children naturally. They could adopt.

  Except that was where his little fantasy broke down. Icy tension came back, cramping his insides. The lady in question had walked out on him—three months ago, to be exact. Too scared to contemplate deepening their relationship into a life-long union because she’d spent years in marriage to a neanderthal who’d somehow convinced her she wasn’t worthy of anything better. Why else would his wealth and fame have bothered her so deeply?

  He wondered what she was doing now, if she had started to do something about that sublime talent she possessed. He hoped so. If nothing else came out of that brief intense time they had spent together, Kyle prayed she wouldn’t give up on the idea of making art her life’s work.

  Digging his hands deep into his pockets, he stopped abruptly, glancing back the way he had come. In the distance the dark, barely discernible outline of the sea twinned with the night, while in the street itself the little terraced houses huddled together against the elements as they had done for perhaps a hundred years or more. Each of them furnished with their own enduring stories of the families that had lived and died there and the ones that lived there still. Family. That was what Kyle wanted. But it wasn’t likely. Not when the one woman he wanted as the mother of his children had long gone and didn’t look like coming back any time soon. Damn. He should never have returned to this place, but he was lo
oking for connections. The ghost of Megan’s smile, the sound of her voice, the passion that had inflamed them both and driven him to take her out here in the open—uncaring of anything but his desire to lose himself in her completely. But he found none of these things, and his fruitless search only served to remind him more painfully than ever just how much he had lost.

  ‘Megan—another drink?’

  ‘Tonic water with a slice of lemon, please.’

  ‘Boy!’ Barbara Palmer’s slender brows shot up to her hairline. ‘You’re pushing the boat out!’

  ‘She’s been designated driver for the night,’ Penny interjected, with a deliberately sweet smile across a table already laden with empty glasses and dishes of olives. ‘Brand new set of wheels outside.’

  ‘I saw. “Compact” is the word I think I’m looking for.’ Barbara made a face that transformed into a huge grin as she drained the last dregs of her Bacardi and Coke.

  Megan laughed out loud. As far as she was concerned, her new mode of transport was as exciting as any top of the range sportster, and she could cope with a little mickeytaking. The main point was that it was all hers—no more relying on buses or cabs or Penny’s goodwill to get her around. Freedom!

  Buying herself a car was one more step towards shaking off the shackles that had chained the old Megan Brand to a life without hope. That girl—thank God—had been given her marching orders. Walking away from Kyle might possibly turn out to be the worst decision she’d ever made, but at the very least it had spurred her on to finally change her life for the better. He had been right: everything did come down to choice and Megan had at last made the choice to live a different life.

  A very different life, she mused, as her dark brown gaze roamed the small but select Mayfair nightclub. They had come to celebrate Penny’s twenty-ninth birthday, and celebrate they would. But for one or two brief but excruciating seconds Megan recalled what it was like to have woken up every day for the past three months knowing that the man she loved more than life itself was no longer hers to love. Afraid to commit, afraid of her own jealousy, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to handle the demands of his fame—even vicariously—she had walked away. Her eyes shut briefly tight with the pain of it.

  ‘Hey, Megan, isn’t that your ex over there? At the end of the bar with the redhead—the one in the leather skirt with the big—’

  ‘I see her.’ More to the point, Megan saw Nick. Propping up the bar, his face pressed up close to the buxom redhead with the dangerous cleavage, he still had that swagger about him that he wore like a tired old suit. As she got to her feet Megan popped a couple of buttons on her pink coral silk jacket. It immediately exposed the black lacy edge of her push-up bra—and a whole lot else besides. Now she had some dangerous cleavage of her own.

  ‘Meg—’ Penny’s fingers curled anxiously round her wrist. ‘Meg, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m only going over to say hello…’ She gently extricated herself, a confounding dimple at the corner of her shimmering peachy lips. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  ‘I’m coming with you!’ A little too intoxicated, Penny teetered alarmingly on her stylish two-inch heels.

  Barbara clamped her arm around the blonde’s waist and yanked her firmly down beside her on the red velvet seat. Her blue eyes were wide with speculation as she watched Megan straighten her matching coral skirt, then stroke aside the slit in the material to expose a tantalising slash of tanned brown thigh—legacy of her recent trip to Rhodes with Penny.

  ‘Nick.’ Across the other side of the room, Megan raised her voice a couple of notches to make herself heard above the sultry sax that was playing on the sound system. When the man she addressed swivelled at the sound of his name she registered the stunned expression in his eyes with a deep shaft of purely feminine satisfaction. Good—she already had the element of surprise in her favour. Now to execute part two of her impromptu little plan…

  ‘Fancy seeing you here.’ Megan dimpled as provocatively as she could, her little ruse much assisted by the glass of wine she had imbibed earlier, before switching to tonic water.

  The redhead beside Nick aimed silent daggers of dislike Megan’s way, then slid her arm possessively round Nick’s, as if to stake her claim. You can have him and welcome, Megan thought fiercely, a slither of revulsion sliding down her spine.

  ‘Well, well. This is a surprise. What? No boyfriend in tow to jump to your rescue and shove me up against a wall?’ He gave an exaggerated glance over her shoulder, but Megan stood her ground, even if her heart felt as if it was pounding right out of her chest.

  ‘I’m here with some girlfriends. It’s Penny’s birthday.’

  ‘Good ol’ Pen. Be sure and wish her many happy returns from an old friend, won’t you?’ His lip curled and a trickle of sweat gleamed on his brow.

  Megan stemmed the urge to slap that sneer right off his face, but there was more than one way to skin a rabbit, as she was quickly learning.

  Taking a deep swig of his light beer, Nick let his gaze rove across Megan’s cleavage with a primitive leer. ‘Anyway, I have to say you’re looking even more gorgeous than ever. What have you been doing to yourself?’

  She replied without hesitation. ‘Living, Nick. Something I should have done years ago, when I was merely existing as your wife.’

  The steadiness with which she held his gaze, her directness never faltering, seemed to faze her ex-husband completely. ‘Yes, well. You know what they say.’ He tipped back his glass and drained it before continuing. ‘Let bygones be bygones and all that. You got your money, didn’t you? I don’t owe you a damn thing any more.’

  Megan could argue differently but what would it achieve? You couldn’t put a price on damaged limbs, or lost babies.

  Ignoring the sudden swell of emotion cramping her stomach, she determinedly lifted her chin. ‘I didn’t come over to ask you for anything, Nick. I agree we should let bygones be bygones. Let me buy you a drink and wish you well.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’ Loosening his tie, he looked immediately relieved—cocky, almost. Same old Nick. ‘In that case, I’ll have a vodka Martini. Make it a large one, there’s a good girl.’

  Megan duly ordered the drink from the handsome Australian barman who had been eyeing her and her friends most of the evening. Because she was feeling good she even returned his smile, and saw hope leap in his eyes before turning back to Nick with the cocktail. As he reached out to relieve her of it Megan took a sip, registered the intoxicating burst of alcohol on her tongue, then tipped the entire contents of the glass over Nick’s head.

  ‘Bitch!’ He lunged towards her with a string of expletives littering the air, moisture dripping from his hair and down his face, but Megan had already stepped back a pace, her heart racing as the young barman vaulted the bar and expertly pinned an astonished Nick heavily against it. With impressive ease he imprisoned one of Nick’s flailing arms painfully up behind his back.

  The redhead seemed to take it as her cue to promptly retreat into the crowd, clearly concluding her prey was no longer worth the hassle.

  ‘Is he bothering you, love? I’ll have him escorted off the premises in two seconds flat if he is.’

  Megan looked Nick up and down, tension and long-held resentment seeping from her spine as though an old wound had finally been cauterised, and slowly shook her head. ‘For him to bother me I’d have to acknowledge his existence. And as far as I’m concerned this man ceased to exist as a decent human being a long time ago. He’s nothing but a bully and a coward. I wasted nine long lonely years of my life on him and I don’t intend to waste a second more. Whether he stays or whether he goes really makes no odds to me.’

  And with her head held high Megan walked back to her friends through the throng of curious onlookers who parted like the Red Sea to let her through.

  The sound of screeching tyres and loud pulsating dance music shattered the early-morning stillness that Kyle had fondly believed to be his right as he sprinted up the steps to hi
s front door with his regular Sunday newspaper. Three young lads in a white sports car were standing up in their seats, whistling and calling to a shapely young woman in red who was crossing the road in front of them. She’d lost a shoe and, intent on retrieving it, was bent over in her tight red skirt, long black hair shielding her face as she struggled to put it back onto her foot. Her neckline plunged as she leant forward, giving a heart-stopping glimpse of voluptuous tanned flesh encased in sexy black lace.

  Shock and heat and got to have slammed into Kyle’s gut as he stood and stared. Megan? What in God’s name…As the three young lads in the car continued to vie with each other for her exclusive attention his pulse started to race and the blood in his head pounded with a vengeance. His jaw slackened, his mouth dropping open as he watched her reaction to the young men in the car.

  Clearly exasperated with their behaviour, her shoe finally cradling her foot once again, she stood in the middle of the road, hands on hips, and told them in no uncertain terms that they should be ashamed of themselves for acting like a bunch of mindless football hooligans. Who did they think they were, causing such an almighty racket on a Sunday morning when most people were trying to relax? Why didn’t they do themselves and everybody else a favour and just grow up?

  The Megan he had known would never have had the confidence to deliver such a lecture. Astonishment pooled in his stomach. With his mouth clamped tight and his jaw now firmly clenched, Kyle observed the scene with a growing sense of disbelief and admiration as the disappointed young men sheepishly apologised, then finally drove reluctantly away, defiantly blowing kisses her way as Megan walked up the street towards him alone.

  Amazingly, she hardly limped at all. That was the first thing he noticed. Followed closely by the fact that the woman was simply—without a doubt—stunning. How could he have forgotten just how stunning? She was tanned, slim, and sexy as hell, and that red suit she wore did everything to highlight the fact. A strange sense of déjà vu descended on him. She was the girl in the photo again—the one that had made his blood slow and thicken when he’d seen it in her bedroom.