by Kim Lawrence
Chloe struggled to hide her dismay and the illicit excitement that made her stomach muscles quiver. ‘You haven’t gone yet.’
‘Ever the gentleman, I have been escorting the ladies to their cars.’ He held up a large umbrella.
Chloe clenched her fingers over her phone, ignoring the little ribbons of warm electricity making her aware of the tingling nerve endings in her skin. ‘I’m just ringing for a taxi.’
He watched as she began to punch in a number, noticing that her face had a fresh scrubbed look as though she’d taken off her make-up. She still looked good, very good, but she looked more vulnerable...delicate, even. He felt an emotion swell in his chest but refused to acknowledge it as tenderness.
‘You don’t need a taxi.’
The harshness in his voice drew her glance upwards. ‘Thanks, but no, thanks,’ she said firmly, ashamed of the moments of self-pity she had indulged in.
‘You’re still here!’ Tatiana’s relieved voice rang out before Nik could respond.
Chloe was glad of the interruption but puzzled by the older woman’s sense of urgency. ‘I was just ringing for a taxi before I came to say goodbye, but did I forget something?’ She nodded to Lucy who had appeared behind her host; the redhead was wearing a denim jacket over the slinky red dress and carrying off the contrast in considerable style.
Tatiana shook her head. ‘Spiros just rang to warn anyone left not to try taking...well, just about any road, I think. The peaceful protests apparently turned out not to be so peaceful, and the police have closed down half the streets. Spiros is stuck, and he saw a car alight too. I really think it would be better if you all stay here for the night. There are reports of the disturbances spreading and even looting.’
‘I’m walking home, so it’s no problem,’ Lucy said.
Tatiana looked alarmed.
Lucy put her hands on the older woman’s shoulders. ‘Relax, I’m not going to my home, I’m booked into the new boutique hotel around the corner. It’s only a hundred yards, so I think I’ll be safe.’ She air-kissed Tatiana and thanked her, landed a kiss on Nik’s cheek and waved to Chloe. ‘Interesting night.’
Chloe didn’t even try and translate this cryptic utterance.
‘And I’m going Chloe’s way so that’s her problem solved,’ Nik announced in a tone that brooked no argument.
Not from where she was standing!
‘How do you know which way is my way? That is,’ she continued, lowering the levels of antagonism in her voice, ‘I wouldn’t dream of bothering you.’
‘Nonsense!’ Tatiana sent her brother a warning glare. ‘He’s fine with it, aren’t you, Nik?’
Chloe clenched her teeth as, with a totally unconvincing display of meekness that made him look even more like a wolf, he tipped his dark head.
‘Absolutely.’ Slower than Tatiana to jump back squealing when he shook the umbrella, sending a spray of cold water droplets that hit everything in the immediate area, Chloe was the only one close enough to hear his not at all meek-sounding addition. ‘My way is whichever way you’re going.’
She brushed her ear where the sensitive flesh still tingled from the touch of his warm breath and glared at him, while he continued to look smugly satisfied with himself.
‘Well, that’s sorted, then,’ Tatiana said, looking relieved. ‘You will text me when you get home safely?’
Chloe promised.
She gave a sigh and rubbed the tip of her nose with her finger. The truth was, there was a part of her, a clearly twisted part of her, that had...enjoyed their flirtation. No, that was the wrong word. It hadn’t been flirtation; that was far too gentle. Combat probably better described the heart-thumping, skin-tingling adrenaline charge of their exchanges tonight.
She had felt what...? Like a woman. Her eyes flew wide with shock as the recognition of her too-long-suppressed sexuality crashed through her.
‘Are you all right?’ Nik asked.
‘I’m fine!’ she lied.
She read criticism in his eyes as they swept her face. ‘You look like you’re in pain.’
‘The only pain around here...’ at the last second she managed to apply the brake to her runaway tongue and lowered her eyes, muttering ‘...is a slight headache.’
Actually pain was pretty accurate for what she felt, as though the circulation were returning to a limb deprived of blood. It hurt and so did this—the part of her that had been in hibernation since the accident had finally woken up and it was tingling!
She wasn’t ready yet; she wanted that part to go back to sleep. It was such awful bad timing! At this point an affair of any kind, let alone the sort of superficial no-strings fling Nik Latsis had in mind for them, was the last thing she needed.
She lifted her chin, defiance sparking in her eyes, as she thought, I deserve more than that! I deserve better than Nik Latsis!
Even if she had been in the market for a man, which she wasn’t, he would not have made the shortlist. If she had needed reminding, and she didn’t, how shallow he was, tonight would have driven the point home to her.
Yes, she was attracted to him, it was actually too exhausting to try and pretend otherwise, but in her defence he had more sexual charisma in a single hair follicle than most men had in their entire bodies. Although attraction hardly came close to describing the visceral reaction he evoked just looking at him... Then don’t look! she told herself.
She needed to stop over-analysing everything. Nothing was going to happen between them because it couldn’t. She brushed her leg with her hand, not that the numbed scar tissue registered the touch. She found herself wishing fiercely for a moment that the numbness went even deeper, that she could anaesthetise the emotions that tonight had reawoken in her.
She squared her shoulders. If he had been the Nik who had vulnerabilities, and not this insensitive, slick predator, she might have been in trouble, but he wasn’t, so she was completely safe.
As safe as being circled by a tiger, she thought, injecting as much grateful insincerity into her smile as she could.
‘I hope it’s not too far out of your way, Nik.’
It was Tatiana who replied. ‘Don’t be silly, Chloe...’
‘Looks like that’s settled, then.’ Nik walked ahead and left Chloe to walk beside his sister. When they reached the open front door she realised with a stab of shame that she didn’t have a clue what the other woman had just been saying to her.
This had to stop, she told herself. Nik Latsis was the past, not a mistake because the last few months had taught her that thinking about mistakes meant you couldn’t move forward. She had moved forward and she would continue to do so.
‘It’s stopped raining.’ Nik, who had walked outside ahead of the women, lowered the umbrella he had raised and held up his hands to the sky. He grinned, twirled the umbrella and stamped in a puddle.
Fighting the urge to run out and join him, Chloe was conscious of an ache in her chest. She snatched a quick breath, knowing that the image would stay with her, but not knowing why...or at least not asking herself why.
‘You’re welcome to stay over if you like.’
Her friend was looking concerned as she reiterated her offer; if Tatiana had picked up on her distress, Chloe just hoped she hadn’t picked up on the cause! She was tempted, she really was, but accepting the offer would mean she was afraid to be alone with Nik. And she wasn’t, because nothing was going to happen between them. Chloe gathered herself and turned with a smile that felt stiff and forced, although she was unwilling to admit that even to herself.
‘Thanks, but no, it would be good to get home.’ She raised her voice a little to make sure that Nik could hear what she was saying and get the message. ‘I’d like to sleep in my own bed.’ The way her mind was working overtime she doubted there would be much sleep for her tonight.
After a pause, Tatiana nodded and kissed her cheek. ‘Take care...and drive carefully, Nik,’ she called after her brother, who lifted an arm and waved.
* * *
Chloe trudged on head down, Nik beside her, not touching her but close, close enough for her to be aware of the tension that stopped him dead in his tracks at the sound of distant sirens.
He stood there, head sharply angled, his lean, tense stance making her think of a wolf sensing danger, nostrils flared, scenting it in the air.
The sound retreated and he shook his head as though clearing it before glancing down at her. ‘I’m parked over here.’
It took Chloe a moment to recover from the expression she had glimpsed on his face before she fell into step beside him.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked softly. Haunted; he had looked haunted.
He glanced down at her, the sounds of war, the explosions, the disembodied screams and the discordant staccato peal of shells still sounding in his head. ‘The silences in between the shelling were the worst. Somehow they tapped into a man’s primitive fears...the calm before the storm.’ He stopped and the street light above them showed the shock reflected on his face...as if he’d only just realised he’d spoken his thoughts out loud.
Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.
Another time his car, a low, gleaming monster, would have drawn a sarcastic remark from Chloe about macho power statements, but all she did was slide into the passenger seat when he opened the door.
She ached for his pain but she knew she couldn’t let him into her life...every instinct of self-preservation told her this. The memory of that morning waking alone, when she’d waited for him, imagining the reasons for his absence—he’d stepped out for coffee, he’d gone to find a red rose—made her cringe, but even worse was when the penny had finally dropped and she had acted like someone heartbroken.
The memory she filed away as water under the bridge. Mistakes were fine—it was repeating them that was unforgivable! He was a fragment of her history and, after all, you were never supposed to forget your first lover. Well, only time would tell and she was an optimist.
‘I need to stop off at the office first...there are some contracts I must sign tonight,’ he said.
Any delay, any reason to prolong the time she spent in this enclosed space with him filled her with dismay, although it was mitigated with a relief that he was sounding normal again. If he was acting she was glad...she simply couldn’t deal with his trauma and her own reaction to it. A vulnerable Nik was a very dangerous Nik to her peace of mind!
‘At this time of night?’ Her voice sounded calm but her agitation revealed itself in the smooth stroking motion of her hands as she moved them up and down over her silk-covered thighs.
‘I think they’ll let me in,’ he said, thinking about how her legs had wrapped tight around him as he’d thrust inside her.
‘Of course,’ she said, feeling stupid...then something more uncomfortable than stupid when she realised his eyes were following the mechanical motion of her hands. She stopped and folded her arms defensively across her chest.
He cast a glance across her face and was distracted for a moment because she was chewing her plump lower lip and all he had to do was bend in a little closer to taste it for himself.
‘Look, Nik, tonight I think I might have... If I seemed like I wanted you to...’ She swallowed and stopped; if she really hadn’t wanted Nik to flirt with her, why hadn’t she just told him straight out about the scars that remained after the operations, the puckered, discoloured patches of flesh on her right thigh? It would have been amusing to see how fast he retreated.
Except it wouldn’t have been amusing.
She told herself that people’s attitudes to her scars were their problem, not hers, and most of the time she believed it, but there was a world of difference between theory and fact, not to mention a world of humiliation, and she wasn’t ready for that yet.
‘You were saying...?’ he prompted, wondering if she knew how expressive her face was. The drift of emotions across it was almost like watching a silent film.
‘I think it’s a very bad idea to try and relive something that happened in the past. Much better to remember it as it was.’
‘So am I a happy memory or a bad one?’
‘A bit of both,’ she admitted, thinking that she had reached the stars with him and discovered the depths of despair. She buckled her belt, reminding herself that self-pity was for people who did not have a life and she did. She was not going to waste her time thinking about what she’d lost; she was going to celebrate what she had.
Nik watched her, the knot of frustration in his belly tightening the muscles along his jaw. He enjoyed a challenge as much as the next man but this was different... He swore under his breath as he started the engine.
‘So how long have you lived in London?’ he asked in an attempt at a normal conversation.
‘I went to college, but I wasn’t very academic...’
‘You dropped out?’
‘More like I was invited to leave, which was fine because I had begun to make money with the blog, which seemed so amazing at the time. I’ve always been lucky.’
‘And accident prone,’ he commented.
‘People died in that accident so I was still lucky,’ she retorted.
‘I’m guessing you are a glass-half-full kind of person.’
‘I really hope so...’ She turned her head to look at the glass-fronted building he had pulled up in front of.
* * *
‘I won’t be long.’ He leaned across and snatched the phone she was nursing on her knee.
A moment later he tossed it back to her. ‘My number’s in it, and if you see or hear anything, call me,’ he directed sternly.
It took her a few moments to realise what he meant. Some of her antagonism faded, but she remained sceptical that his caution was warranted.
‘I think Spiros might have been exaggerating the danger.’ Other than the initial couple of distant sirens, which was not exactly unusual, they had encountered nothing that suggested widespread rioting.
‘You might be right.’ He gave a concessionary nod and slid out, closing the door behind him with a decisive click.
Chloe leaned back in her seat, relaxing enough for her shoulder blades to actually make contact with the leather, and she watched him walk away, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, up the shallow steps to the building. He paused for a moment and she heard the decisive click of the car doors locking.
‘I don’t believe it!’
There was no one to hear her exclamation, and her angry bang on the window went unnoticed. Then there was nobody but the uniformed security guard, who’d come out when Nik went in, who just stood there ignoring her, his eyes constantly scanning the areas to left and right.
When Nik reappeared exactly three minutes fifteen seconds later, the two men shook hands and exchanged a few words before the man walked back into the building and Nik got into the car.
Chloe stared stonily ahead as he flung some files onto the back seat. ‘You locked me in.’
‘I didn’t want any looters stealing my car.’
She compressed her lips. ‘That man ignored me—’
‘That man is an ex-marine. He knew what you were doing.’
‘Oh. Do you have a lot of ex-marines working for you?’
‘The transition is not always kind to men who have given their lives to protect us. Dave, back there, flung himself on a landmine and saved three others in his squad, but he lost a leg below the knee.’
Their eyes connected and in his dark gaze she saw something she didn’t want to acknowledge. In seconds the heat banked inside her burst into life, starting low in her pelvis and spreading out until her entire body was suffused by the same blazing fire. The instant conflagration scared her witless... It was a warning, she told herself, a warning that said if she had an ounce of self-respect she’d get the hell out of that car right now.
Panic hit her hard. ‘Stop the car.’ She used the anger when he ignored her to drag herself free of the last of the dangerous languor that lingered in her brain. ‘I said
, stop the car,’ she said calmly.
He took his eyes off the road to briefly glance at her face and she could hear the irritation in his voice. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
The only stupid thing she had done so far was getting into this car with him and Chloe had every intention of keeping it that way.
‘You’re acting as though we have unfinished business, but that’s not the case. Look, I spent the night with you, end of story. It is not something I have any wish to repeat.’
‘So you want to pretend it didn’t happen at all.’
The suggestion, his tone, his attitude they all struck a jarring note inside her, so she counted to ten and fought to dampen the resentment she knew she had no right to be feeling.
‘I’m not pretending it didn’t happen; I’m admitting it shouldn’t have.’
‘I—’
‘Get down!’
It was the tone as much as the terse instruction that made her stomach clench. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just do it. There’s a blanket there, cover yourself with it and duck down.’ The odd instruction was delivered in a light, calm tone, but when she leaned forward and saw what he had already seen, she didn’t feel very calm at all.
Ahead of them the road was filled with crowds of people. Some had banners and some carried dustbin lids, which they were banging.
He wound down the window and the suggestion of noise became a loud, discordant din.
‘They sound mad.’ Fear fluttered in her belly.
‘They are a mob.’ And it was the nature of the beast, anger and unpredictability, the pack-animal mentality, that could make the whole group do things that as individuals they would never dream of doing.
‘I don’t like this,’ she said, once again gnawing at her plump lower lip, a nervous habit she’d never managed to break.
‘I would be more concerned if you did. Duck down and pull the cover over your head.’
If he had faced this situation alone he would not have broken a sweat, not because he was brave or fearless, but because he had been in far worse situations, and as far as he could see the only thing he stood to lose was a car.
