A mocking glint appeared in his eyes. ‘Waiting for me?’
Clem pressed her lips together. ‘I find it hard to sleep when I’m listening out for the door opening and closing.’
He went to the mini-bar and took out a bottle of mineral water. ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘No. I do not want a drink. I want to go to bed to sleep. I’m tired, and when I’m tired I get grumpy, so watch out.’
‘Warning heeded.’
The sound of the mineral water being poured in the glass scraped at her raw nerves. ‘Were you with someone?’ Why did you ask that?
He turned to look at her but his expression was inscrutable. ‘Would it bother you if I was?’
Yes! Clem schooled her features into indifference. ‘You can do what you like. You’re a free agent. I just think it would be decent of you to let me know so I can make my own arrangements.’
Something flickered in his gaze but he quickly covered it. ‘I’ve been thinking about the kids. Even if we agree to them staying on for the summer, I think it would be wise to hang around for a few days just to make sure everything’s as it should be.’
It was a sensible suggestion and one she had thought of herself but it would only continue the torture of being with Alistair. How would she keep her distance? Even now she could feel the magnetic pull of his body. He was a metre or two away and yet every cell in her body ached to go to him, to feel his arms come around her and draw her close, to press that deliciously hot, male mouth on hers and make her forget about everything but how he made her feel. No one had ever made her feel like that. That rush of desire was overwhelming, overpowering, uncontrollable.
‘That’s a good idea. It will give me time to get to know Harriet a bit. It sounds like she could do with a bit of guidance.’
‘I’ll return the hire car tomorrow and pick up my car from the place where Jamie has parked it.’
Clem worried her lower lip with her teeth. ‘If there’s any damage, I’ll pay for it.’
‘While you keep picking up after your brother he won’t learn to take responsibility for himself. He’s supposed to be an adult. Stop mothering him.’
Clem bristled at his tone. ‘I’ve mothered him for as long as I can remember. I had to, as our mother was always too busy reliving her lost teenage years. Do you know what it’s like being responsible for a baby when you’re only eight years old yourself? It’s terrifying, that’s what it is.’
She was on a roll and not even stopping to take a much-needed breath was going to stop her. ‘And it only gets worse when they’re a toddler and into everything. I had to keep him safe from my mother’s boyfriends, who’d think nothing of cuffing him around the ear for the slightest misdemeanour. I had to help him with his schoolwork, wash and iron his clothes and put food on the table. I did my best, and I’m still doing my best, and I resent you telling me any different.’
The silence rang with the bitterness of her tirade.
Clem wished she hadn’t blurted all of that out but it was sore point for her. She had given so much of her life up to protect her brother. She had sacrificed so much to keep him out of trouble. She couldn’t bear anyone telling her she wasn’t doing a good job of taking care of him. She was doing the best job she could; she had always done the best job she could even though it had cost her dearly. She hadn’t had a childhood. She’d had to grow up so fast and take on responsibilities no child should have to take on. But she had done it willingly. She loved her brother. That was what families were supposed to do—stick together, stick up for each other. Be there for one another.
‘I’m sorry.’ Alistair’s tone was two parts gravel, one part honey. ‘You’ve done a great job of taking care of him. But it’s time to step back and let him stand on his own two feet. If you keep digging him out of trouble, he won’t learn to do it himself.’
Clem threw him a resentful scowl. ‘You’re an only child. You don’t even know what it’s like to have a sibling.’
‘Actually, I do.’
She frowned. ‘You have a sibling?’
A shadow went through his grey-blue gaze, dark and pained. ‘Not now, but I did. He died when I was four.’
Clem swallowed a knot of emotion. ‘I’m sorry... I didn’t realise...’
‘Oliver was born with a disability. He wasn’t expected to live much more than a few months but the doctors underestimated my mother’s love. He died two days after his second birthday.’
The knot in Clem’s throat doubled, almost strangling her. ‘I’m so sorry. That must have been so sad for you and your parents.’
His expression gave little away. ‘It was harder on my mother. I suspect it always is harder on mothers.’ He twisted his mouth. ‘The ones that give up their life for their kids, I mean. My father threw himself into his work. I don’t think he ever truly dealt with the grief of losing Ollie. I think that’s why he went crazy when my mother got sick. He couldn’t handle it.’
Clem wondered why Oliver had never been mentioned before. Her mother had never mentioned anything about another Hawthorne sibling. Had Lionel Hawthorne even told her? Or had he been too interested in having an affair to blank out the pain of confronting the loss of his wife? There had been no photos of Oliver at the Hawthorne house, or at least none that she could recall seeing, but perhaps Lionel had done a clean sweep before he’d invited her mother to live with him. Or perhaps the photos had been packed away long ago. Every family was different in how it handled loss. Every person was different. How had Alistair at the tender age of four dealt with the loss of his little brother?
‘You were so young when you lost him,’ she said. ‘So young to deal with such a huge loss.’
‘It was hard, especially watching my mother grieve,’ he said. ‘But somehow she pulled herself out of the abyss to carry on with life. But it was always there—the sense of something missing from our lives. I wonder if you ever truly get over it. You just learn to live with it.’
Nothing Clem had suffered came close to the pain he had endured. She couldn’t imagine losing her brother. Not at any age, but especially when he hadn’t had a chance to do all the things little boys loved to do. A child of two was a baby. How cruel to have lost him. To have not been able to do anything to save him. There could be no greater torture for a parent than to lose a child. And for an older brother to watch his parents grieve and feel so powerless. ‘Does the loss of Oliver make you think twice about becoming a father yourself?’
He gave a loose shrug and refilled his glass from the bottle of mineral water he had opened. ‘I’m not ready for long-haul commitment just yet. Work takes me all over the world at a moment’s notice. There are not many women who would put up with that—or kids, for that matter. But maybe one day.’
‘So what’s your plan?’ Clem said. ‘Work flat out for years on end and then one day decide it’s time to find a wife? What if you fall in love outside of your time schedule?’
‘If it happens, it happens, but I’m not actively seeking it.’
‘Good luck with your life plan,’ Clem said. ‘Haven’t you heard that saying, “God laughs when we make plans”?’
A series of lines appeared on his forehead. ‘Do you want marriage and kids after what your mother put you through?’
Clem raised her chin. ‘I’m not my mother. I have different priorities. When I fall in love with a man it will be for ever. I won’t chop and change when someone else comes along. I’ll commit everything to the relationship.’
‘So you believe in the fairy tale?’
‘I believe in the power of love.’
His gaze became keenly interested as it held hers. ‘Have you ever been in love?’
Clem wondered if she wasn’t halfway there already. Somehow it was harder and harder to summon up her dislike of him now. It was as if it had been another person who had loathed him so vehemently, not her. ‘No, but that doesn’t mean I won’t know it when I find it.’ If I find it.
‘How will you tell the differenc
e between lust and love?’
Clem’s body quaked when he said the word lust. It was as if he had reached out and touched her. Stroked her. Stoked the fire of her longing for him until it was leaping with tongues of flame beneath her skin. Heat broke out on her flesh; raw, naked heat. Heat she could feel pooling between her thighs. ‘It’s easy to tell the difference. Lust is selfish, love is selfless.’
One side of his mouth tilted as if he found her amusing in a ‘cute kid’ sort of way. ‘So how many times have you been in lust?’
Just the once. ‘I’m not going to discuss my sex life with you.’
‘Do you even have one?’
Clem sent him an icy glare. ‘I suppose you think it’s highly unlikely anyone would be attracted to me since I’m not blonde and beautiful like my mother.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You implied it.’
‘You’re way more attractive than your mother,’ he said. ‘Or you would be if you’d stop hiding your figure under those shapeless clothes and smile a little more than you snarl.’
Clem snorted. ‘Like you can talk. You almost never smile, not properly. The closest you get to it is a smirk. Like you’re doing now.’
His eyes held hers in a tense little lock. ‘Say something funny.’
Too easy. ‘I love you.’
He threw his head back and laughed. It was a rich, deep sound that did strange things to her backbone and other parts of her anatomy. Even after he’d stopped laughing his smile lingered, giving him that youthful, carefree appearance she found so lethally attractive. ‘You’d better go to bed before I change my mind about kissing you.’
‘If you so much as put one finger on me I’ll scratch you.’
‘With what?’ The teasing slant was back on his mouth. ‘Your fingernails?’
Clem balled her hands into fists. ‘Try it and see. I dare you.’ Try it. Try it. Try it. The words were a chant inside her head in perfect time with the ranting need of her body: I want you. I want you. I want you.
He came up close, close enough for her to see the flare of desire in his eyes. The smoky smoulder of lust that made everything female in her shiver in excitement. He didn’t touch her but he might as well have done. Her body thrummed with need. With longing so intense it made her lean towards him as if her flesh had a mind and will of its own. Her breasts brushed his chest, her hands unfurling to grasp him by the waist, her mouth opening for the downward descent of his.
But this time he didn’t kiss her. He left her hanging. Waiting for her to make the first move, his warm breath teasing the surface of her lips, promising but not delivering until finally she could bear it no longer. She closed the distance, sealing her mouth with his, moving her lips along its hard surface as if it was her only source of sustenance. She pushed her tongue through to meet his, tangling with it in a feisty duel that made the liquid of her lust spill in her core. His lust rose in a hard ridge against her belly, thrilling her senses, exciting her beyond anything she had felt before. His unshaven skin rasped against her smoother skin but she didn’t care. It only made her feel all the more feminine and desirable.
He took control of the kiss, delving deep within her mouth as if he longed to do the same to her body—the body that was already aching, seeping, weeping with longing for him. He cupped her face with his hands, splaying his fingers out over her cheeks, securing access to her mouth, plundering it as ruthlessly, as wantonly as she was plundering his. His teeth nipped at her lower lip, then his tongue swept over it in a salving movement. He did the same to her top lip, pulling it into his mouth, sucking on it, releasing it so he could stroke it with the sexy glide of his tongue.
Clem shivered as he trailed a pathway of fire down the side of her neck, the skin lifting in goose bumps at his expert touch. He instinctively knew her sensitive spots. It was as if he had secret code to her body. He could read it, tune it and play it until it sang with pleasure.
‘God, I want you so damn much.’ His voice was rough and urgent against her mouth, his words a blessed echo of her silent ones.
Clem whimpered. It was all she was capable of at that moment. Speech was beyond her. She was running on some other programme—a programme of lust that had no room for rational thought or moral judgement. She wanted this man like she had wanted no man before. She couldn’t imagine wanting any man more than this. It was like a raging fire in her body. It was consuming everything in its path, knocking over her standards like cheap plastic ninepins, scattering her common sense until she was mindless and breathless with need. She gripped him by the front of his shirt, nipping at his mouth, stroking it with her tongue, swallowing his deep animal groan of pleasure.
His body surged against her, but suddenly he pulled back, breathing hard, his eyes glazed. ‘Wait. Let’s not rush into something we might regret.’
Wait? What for? Clem wanted him. Now. Not later. Not when she had time to think about it and list a whole host of reasons why she shouldn’t indulge in an affair with him. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to feel. To feel beautiful, desirable and irresistible. ‘Too low down on the social ladder for you, am I?’ Damn. You’re broadcasting your insecurities again.
He stroked a finger down the slope of her cheek. ‘We really have to do something about your self-esteem. Have you had any relationships with men that were positive?’
Clem shifted her gaze to the open neck of his shirt, her shoulders beneath the gentle weight of his hands slumping on an almost soundless sigh. ‘I find it hard to be...intimate with a man. I can’t help feeling they’re looking at my body and seeing all its faults. Let’s face it. I’m never going to be a size zero.’
He gave her shoulders a little squeeze and then dropped his hold. ‘You should be proud of your curves. Own them instead of apologising for them all the time.’
Easy for you to say with your cut-and-carved muscles and rocket-speed metabolism. Clem put more distance between them, gathering up the edges of her bathrobe as if it were her pride. Her armour. She couldn’t think clearly when he touched her. She was close to throwing herself at him and begging him to make love to her. ‘I wouldn’t have slept with you. I was just testing the waters, so to speak.’
‘You should be more careful. They might be a little hotter than you anticipated.’
No doubt about that. Clem wandered over to the mini-bar. She wasn’t much of a drinker but right now she needed something. She poured a small measure of whisky and sipped at the fiery liquid until her throat burned. She was conscious of him still standing, watching her. She could feel his gaze like a penetrating probe. Assessing. Measuring. Could he sense how close to turning around she was? That everything that was female in her was screaming, writhing, twisting in sexual frustration?
‘I’m going out again for a bit,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait up. I might be a while.’
Clem swung around, her heart sinking like a stone. ‘Where are you going this time?’
‘I want to check on Harriet and Jamie’s accommodation to see if it’s suitable.’
Was that really his motivation or was it because he was tempted to act on his attraction towards her? His expression was as unreadable as a blank wall but she got the sense he was under as much of a struggle to conceal his desire as she was.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ she asked.
‘No, you stay here and get some rest. You look done in.’
I’m not the least bit tired. I’m wired. For you. ‘But Harriet might not appreciate you turning up unannounced while Jamie’s at work,’ Clem said.
‘I won’t disturb her. I’m just going to do a walk-by.’
Clem couldn’t help thinking how lucky Harriet was to have someone like Alistair watching out for her. No one had ever checked her accommodation to see if it was safe and secure. She could think of a few places she had lived in which had left a lot to be desired. ‘Alistair?’
He turned at the door to look at her. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s really good of you to
be so concerned about Harriet. I mean, I hope one day she thanks you for it.’
His mouth tilted in a vestige of a smile. ‘My track record with handling teenage girls isn’t great. But thanks anyway.’
* * *
Once Alistair had gone, Clem took herself to bed but it was impossible to sleep. If she was more confident and more experienced she could well be in his bed right now, rolling around with him in the wild throes of making love. Her body resented the missed opportunity. It throbbed with a lonely ache, a hollow ache, a relentless ache that no amount of twisting and turning and pillow-punching would ease.
She turned over on to her back and blew out a breath. It was weird how she’d felt comfortable enough to tell Alistair about her first experience of sex. He had listened with such compassion, such understanding. It made her feel as if he was less of an enemy and more of a...a what? A friend? A confidante?
She and Alistair Hawthorne as friends?
Now, that was weird. She’d always seen him as an enemy. He represented ‘the other side.’ The rich and powerful side. The sophisticated man of money and privilege who didn’t care a jot how the other half lived.
But there was another side to Alistair. She could see that now. The softer side, the compassionate side, the side that put his work on hold in order to find a teenage runaway and make sure she was safe. A teenager he was not related to other than she was the abandoned daughter of his father’s latest lover. That showed Alistair was a man of honour, surely? He could so easily have involved the police when he’d found out Jamie had taken his car and the money. Yet he had contacted Clem and given her the option of helping him track the teenagers down without involving the authorities. Yes, he had been autocratic and demanding, but he had listened to her about giving the kids some leeway. He showed a willingness to compromise as long as he was sure Harriet was safe.
And he had treated Clem with tenderness.
She couldn’t remember anyone treating her that kindly. The way he looked at her—the dark flare of his pupils; the way his gaze kept drifting to her mouth as if he couldn’t stop himself. The way he’d touched her... Oh, dear God, the way he’d touched her. He’d made her body quake with sensations she had never hoped to feel—couldn’t imagine feeling with anyone else. His touch had evoked a response that was primal, powerful and passionate.
His Mistress for a Week Page 8
