‘One or two… maybe three in the bar. AnothercouplelaterIdunno.’
Loosening her fingers from the bottle, he shook his head at her double-glazed eyes. ‘Try and sit up. I’ll get you a glass of water.’
‘Oh Jack, the night is young… don’t be such a boring old fart.’
‘I’d better get you into bed,’ he said sternly, then regretted it.
‘Woo-hooo. Aren’t you strict?’ she giggled. ‘I’m a big girl now, Jack Thornfield. I don’t need you to tell me what to do.’
‘Be quiet and let me help you up,’ he said gruffly.
Jack was totally pissed off with himself—if he was honest, a bit pissed per se. When he’d offered Beth a brandy, he’d only wanted her to relax, not to get her drunk as a skunk. She’d seemed fine and she’d only had two glasses—but then again, he’d had to go into his study to take a call at one point. He’d only been away about ten minutes but the bottle did look suspiciously low. Maybe she’d been topping up the glass or, more likely, his judgment was distinctly on the hazy side.
She held out her hand and, as he went to take it, pulled him down suddenly. He was a big man but she caught him by surprise and he couldn’t help collapsing on top of her.
‘Oof…’
‘Jeez!’
‘Jack…’
He was going to ask her if she was all right, but there was no need. Her arms were round his neck, her face was next to his, her lips were an inch away, smelling of Armagnac and chili. It was a strange but enticing combination. Raising her head a fraction, she lifted her mouth to his. He let her open lips rest on his closed ones, tasting for a moment, the salt of tortillas. At that moment, he had the urge to lick every salty grain from her full lips, then taste the rest of her. Instead, he jerked his head back and struggled to disentangle her arms as gently as he could. What the hell had possessed him to offer her a drink in the first place? Oh yes, he remembered: he’d wanted to be nice to her. Nice one, Jack.
‘Get up, please.’
Her arm hung limply over the edge of the sofa, her eyes stared at him and a small, slightly deranged smile tilted the corners of her mouth.
‘Mmm… you know what, Jack… boss… I don’t think I can.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
‘OK, boss.’
‘Shit.’
‘Whadidyousay…’
He couldn’t reply because he was grunting with the effort of hoisting her up off the sofa and into his arms. His thighs protested and his biceps quivered as he straightened up. It wasn’t like in the movies; she wasn’t a stick-insect and he was tired. She was also completely out of her tree. The irony was not lost on him. How many times in the past had he fantasized about having Beth spend the night in his apartment? Except this wasn’t Beth, was it? Not really. This Beth absolutely couldn’t stand him and was only here because she was desperate, drugged, and drunk—the latter being his fault.
‘I know your type,’ she slurred, clinging to his neck and bringing her face up close to his as he staggered towards the bedroom. ‘I know you—you’ll have my knickers off before I can say Kilijanmaro.’
‘You’re totally safe with me, I can promise you that. And by the way, it’s Kilimanjaro.’
The sober Beth he’d once known would have socked him one by now. The wriggling vamp in his arms let out a shriek of mirth. He winced as his eardrums throbbed.
‘Ooohhh… get you…’
He managed to open the door to his bedroom with his back, as Beth giggled in his arms. ‘This shuit is a pain in the bum. The skirt’s too tight and I nearly couldn’t get my leg over a bloke’s parcel on the Tube. He was sooooo hairy and he reeked of garlic.’
‘Really?’ he said, laughing, because if he didn’t laugh he’d be crying in frustration at having a half-dressed Beth, willing and up for it, in his bedroom and not being able to do a thing about it.
‘And this blouse,’ she said, looking straight down her cleavage. ‘It’s wayyyy too hot in your sanctum, you know—or is it too cold? Whatever, I hate that air-conditioning. It’s not environmentally friendly you know. It’s an insult to the ozone layer. I should report you to the energy com—commis—the authortish.’
My God, he thought, she was outrageous when she was drunk. God knows what she’d be like in the morning.
‘I’ve already been reported to every commission on the planet,’ he said, plonking her down on the purple suede throw. ‘And you’ve had far too much brandy. I’m putting you to bed.’
As she allowed him to unwind her arms from his neck, Beth reached for a furry cushion and hugged it. Drowsed with alcohol and exhaustion, she tried to concentrate on him. He seemed to be reaching up into a gaping black mouth which morphed into a walk-in wardrobe. As he came sharply into focus, her eyes were fixed on the combat trousers tautening across his backside. Maybe if she reached out she could grab a hold of him…
Her fingers clutched the air.
‘Jack,’ she mumbled, turning onto her stomach as her world swirled, ‘did anyone ever tell you have the most fantastic arse?’
His retreating voice drifted into her fuzzy brain as she began to drool into the pillow.
‘Go to sleep. For my sake if not yours.’
Later, Jack lay in his boxers on the leather sofa, slithering around under his winter trench coat. As he’d pulled it out of his wardrobe he hadn’t been able to help staring at Beth, cosseted under his duvet. In rest, he could see she looked older but only in a good way. There was depth and character in her still-delicate features and he liked the way her honey-blond hair spread over the pillow, making him want to thread his fingers through it.
He was almost glad the sofa was so uncomfortable—so un-bed-like. He needed the twenty-first century equivalent of a hair shirt to take his mind off what he’d seen when he’d gone into her room to fetch his coat.
She’d thrown the cover and her clothes on the floor, where they lay in a tangled heap. She’d been lying face-down on his bed in only her underwear. She had a deep blue lacy bra and matching thong on, and he had tried his hardest not to remember any more details. Like the little butterfly tattoo on her left cheek that he knew damn well hadn’t been there eight years ago. He felt guilty at even seeing it. Even guiltier that he’d taken a step or two across the room to take a closer look.
Now the design was etched on his mind: a tiny pink and purple butterfly whose wings fluttered forever in the sweet spot where the curve of her bottom met the small of her back. His hand had hovered inches above it for a moment until she’d stirred slightly in her sleep and hugged her legs tighter to her chest. She was cold—and he was a pervert for looking.
Scooping up the cover from the floor, he laid it gently over her body, then walked out of his bedroom, closing the door on her as carefully as he could. He knew damn well that letting Beth get drunk and spend the night in his apartment was a sleazy and highly unprofessional thing to do—hell, she could probably have him sacked for it, whether the contracts were signed or not. But that wasn’t what bothered him. It was the fact he’d made her vulnerable again.
When he’d finally given up on sleeping, he got up, made himself a drink, and pulled a letter and a photograph out of the kitchen drawer. He scanned again the formal black typescript on white heavy bond paper. It was all there in black and white, the end of his marriage:
Dear Mr. Thornfield, we are writing to inform you that your decree nisi has been pronounced…
He read on through the legalese again then added his own twist: … he was officially a statistic. A failed relationship. No longer a husband or a father… Not that he ever had been.
He felt his guts tighten and the letter fell from his fingers onto the wooden floor. He picked up the photograph of a little boy and ran his fingers over it. The boy had dark hair like his and Jack’s insides twisted tighter. He knew he was torturing himself by even looking at Calum now. He knew he’d never see the boy again. He knew he should be relieved that he was free. That his life, from being hopelessl
y complicated, was no longer entangled with a wife and child.
But he didn’t feel free at all. He felt numb and robbed of all that he—and Beth—might have had.
Chapter 9
Beth squinted as sunlight filtered into the strange room and slanted across the big divan she was lying on. For a second, she had been convinced she was back in the ‘granny’ flat perched above her dad’s bike business and that the door she glimpsed out of the corner of a sticky eye led to a little hall, a tiny kitchenette, a one-woman shower room, and a ‘cozy’ sitting room. She’d slept in so many places in her time. Dossing in a tent, on a scuzzy train, in a dodgy hostel—that didn’t bother her. Waking up in Jack Thornfield’s bed did.
In fact, she was lying, virtually naked, on his king-size divan under his purple velvet cover.
‘Oh, shit!’
Ow. She laid a hand on her forehead. Expletives hurt too much. Thinking hurt too much. The light that was filtering between the white Venetian blinds was making everything painfully clear. She had got drunk, blindingly, toe-curlingly drunk, in her new boss’s apartment and he had put her to bed.
She lay back on the pillow. Turning her head to one side, she noticed her suitcase sitting, accusingly, by a chair. Thrown over the seat of the chair were her blouse, skirt, and jacket. Her stomach swished dangerously. Jack must have undressed her because she definitely didn’t remember getting undressed.
And what on earth had she said last night? Oh God, what had she done? What if she’d… no, she wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have taken advantage of her like that. Surely not—though it hadn’t stopped him before.
Grabbing her clothes from the chair, she scuttled into the shower room and locked the door. The creature from the black lagoon stared back at her from the mirror. Clumps of day-old mascara clogged her lashes and streaked the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair, always unwilling to submit, had defied gravity and stuck up on one side only, giving her a crest like the cockerel in their neighbor’s garden. Her face matched the white tiles and she vowed never ever to touch alcohol again. At least, she consoled herself, as she turned on the shower controls, Marcus would never find out.
***
In the kitchen, Jack heard the distant whoosh of the shower and cursed himself again. He was sitting at the breakfast bar, toying with a slice of toast and wondering just when he’d be hauled up before the board and sacked for inviting an employee into his apartment. Or when Beth would sue him for sexual harassment. Jeez, she had every right to sue him, no matter what his intentions had been. At the end of the day, his new employee had ended up in his bed, half naked. She could claim he’d done almost anything to her while she was under the influence.
Some time later as he refilled the coffee machine, he heard heels tapping on the wooden floor. Beth was standing there, looking a bit fragile and very pale. Her downcast face told him she’d rather be at the bottom of the sea than within fifty feet of him.
‘Morning,’ he said gruffly, as she lingered in the sitting area. ‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘Could I just have tea, please?’
‘Sure you can. Toast?’
She climbed onto a stool at the far end of the breakfast bar. ‘No thanks.’
He plonked a tea bag in a mug, poured hot water on top of it, then reached for a carton from the fridge. ‘Milk?’
She nodded her head and he could see the wince from the other side of the kitchen.
He handed her the mug.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, keeping her eyes on the tea. Her hair was damp and fluffed around her head like a blond halo.
‘You got the shower working, then?’ he said.
‘Um… after a fashion.’
‘Good. That’s… very good.’
‘Yes. Um… do you have any sugar?’
‘Sure,’ said Jack, sliding a packet over the granite countertop.
As Jack shoved the milk back in the fridge, Beth was wishing for a hole to open up in the floor and swallow her down. She was still angry with him, still hurt at what had happened, and there was also another, stronger feeling: fear. What if she had, actually, slept with him? Imagine how many times more excruciating this morning would be? She watched him push a crust of toast around his plate and swallowed hard as he caught her looking at him.
‘Beth, I know I shouldn’t be saying this…’
Her stomach churned.
‘I shouldn’t even be thinking it, but when your résumé dropped onto my desk, I thought, maybe, that us meeting like this—as colleagues of course—was fate…’
As he spoke the words, half awkward, half wistful, a wave of panic washed over her. If she had slept with Jack, her position this morning would be impossible rather than just excruciating. She might have destroyed the new job she had fought so hard for, and she’d have betrayed Marcus. He was a good man and he certainly didn’t deserve that kind of treatment—especially not with the likes of Jack. The lines had to be drawn even more clearly between them; thick, indelible lines that neither of them would ever dare cross.
Her heart beat out a tattoo as she spoke. ‘You know what? I’m one of those people who doesn’t, actually, believe in fate. I applied for the job, you needed someone. It’s just a coincidence. Despite what we may like to think, this is a very small world and our paths were bound to cross sometime. I mean,’ she said, placing her mug on the counter-top and smiling a smile she didn’t feel one bit, ‘come on. It’s not really fate, is it, how we meet our future partner? It just… kind of happens. No one up there is waiting with a bow and arrow aimed at our hearts. People meet in a practical way through friends and at work—like we have now. It doesn’t mean it’s been ordained in the stars or anything.’
He seemed startled. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘You see,’ she continued, trying to avoid his eyes, ‘no one shot an arrow at me and my partner. It wasn’t thunderbolt city or anything. We just happened to live in the same village, we liked each other, and we got together. Nothing fateful about it; it just happened naturally.’
‘Your partner?’
‘Yes.’
‘So it’s serious, is it? With you and him?’
‘We’re practically engaged,’ she murmured.
‘Who is he?’
‘Does it really matter?’
‘I’d like to know.’
She shook her head, feeling goose bumps pricking her skin. ‘I’m sure you don’t want every gory detail of my love life,’ she said, smiling in what she hoped was a casual, light-hearted way.
‘Gory? That’s a funny way of describing your future husband.’
‘You know what I meant…’
‘Surely there can be no harm in telling me his name?’ he said, smiling but also folding his arms across his chest. His jaw tightened.
‘Does it really matter?’
‘Well, I have no right to pry, of course. But hey, at least tell me his name. I’m bound to be hearing about him in the office if you’re going to get married. I might even be asked to add to the collection… maybe get an invite to the evening do…’
‘I said we were almost engaged.’
‘Almost?’
A pulse beat in her temple. ‘Well, there’s no date fixed yet but I’ve—known him a long time.’
‘Then you can tell me who he is?’
She looked away from him over the Ansel Adams print and took a deep breath. ‘It’s Marcus. Marcus Frayle.’
Jack was used to surprises. You didn’t get where he was without being able to cope with the unexpected. But the idea that Beth could be getting married to another man had dealt him a body blow. Yet he also knew he had no right to be shocked. How could he have assumed she hadn’t got someone else? After all these years? Now he came to think of it, it was ludicrous to think she wouldn’t have been pursued by lots of other men.
‘What will Marcus think of you spending the night with me in my apartment?’ he said softly, not adding that she’d been practically begging him to make
love to her. The vision of her lying, half naked, in his bed turned him on even now.
‘He won’t be angry. Why should he be? I mean, we haven’t done anything wrong, have we? We couldn’t help what happened with the bomb scare and the hotels—not that he needs to know. No one needs to know I stayed here. Do they, Jack?’
‘No, of course not. We’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing at all.’
Thrusting his mobile phone into his trouser pocket, he headed for the bedroom. ‘I need to get my laptop,’ he said, knowing he looked calm, because he could see himself in the polished chrome of the fridge. But, like his reflection, he felt distorted and strange and not quite real. He’d lost her again, let her slip away, even though he’d never really come close to having her in the first place.
He raised his coffee mug to her. ‘Well, congratulations to you and Marcus. I hope you’ll both be very happy,’ he said. ‘Now, do you mind very much if we get to work?’
Chapter 10
It was late when Beth finally got home to the Lakes. The last of the daffodils were still out in a tub by the door and the April evening was raw rather than mild like in London.
‘Hello, love,’ said her dad, opening the door and kissing her cheek, as she reached the front door of the shop.
‘Dad, you shouldn’t have got up to come to the door. I’ve got my key.’
‘No trouble. You look a bit rough, love.’
‘Well, thanks, Dad!’ she said, raising her eyebrows. Actually, she thought, he had a point. She’d seen herself in the loo on the train and reckoned she could give Shrek a run for his money in the green-stakes.
‘You’ve been OK without me, I see,’ she said, catching sight of a vase of fresh flowers on the kitchen windowsill. There was no pile of washing up in the sink, and by the sparkling windows, it seemed as if the cleaning fairy had dropped by. A fairy by the name of Honor, if she wasn’t mistaken.
‘Louisa’s out. She left you a card,’ said her dad as she flopped down on a chair. The card was propped up on the kitchen table against a milk carton, stuffed in a pink envelope bearing her name in Louisa’s bold handwriting. She tore open the envelope and grinned.
Wish You Were Here Page 6
