by Kim Lawrence
‘If you say so.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘I’m parked just over there.’
‘Uncle Nik would believe me—he’d understand.’
Well, bully for Uncle Nik, Chloe thought, keeping her lips sealed over her resentment. Uncle Nik, who would no doubt have beautiful babies, and was, as far as she knew, somewhere right now trying to make one.
She frowned, rubbing her upper arms through the silk of her already drenched blouse, and pushed the accompanying image away. Wherever he was too busy to pick up his phone, it was bound to be some place nice and warm while she was drenched to the skin and walking on eggshells with a teenager who made her feel about ninety!
Just as she was on the point of deciding that parenthood was clearly a mug’s game, her sulky charge stopped. Impatient, Chloe turned back.
‘Thank you for coming for me,’ Eugenie said in a small quivery voice.
‘You are very welcome.’
Chloe fished her keys from her pocket and opened the passenger door of her own utilitarian hatchback. ‘Sorry you’re slumming it today.’
‘That is your car?’ The girl’s astonishment was almost comical, as was her horror. Chloe strongly suspected that the idea of being seen in anything so uncool worried her more than the idea of parental ire or a jail cell.
‘So what does it do, thirty with the wind behind it?’
‘If we’re lucky.’ Speed had not been a priority when she had first got behind the wheel of a car after the accident, but safety had. Not that she expected the girl, or anyone else for that matter, to understand that this car represented a personal triumph for Chloe.
She could have rationalised it and it would have been easier than admitting her fears. Far easier to pretend that she was doing her eco bit for the planet by using public transport, asking how convenient actually was it to have a car in the City?
Instead she had admitted she had a problem, and her family had been proud when she had conquered her fears, but the truth was her honesty had certain limitations. She’d never told them that her hands still got clammy when she slid into the driver’s seat and her heart rate took a few minutes before it settled into a normal rhythm.
Time, she hoped, would eventually finish the healing process.
‘I thought you were meant to be royal or something...’
‘Or something,’ Chloe admitted with a laugh. ‘You can always duck down if you see anyone you know—’
The sound of a car that was neither safe nor slow made them both turn as a limousine complete with blacked-out windows drew up behind them.
The girl’s pale face lit up. ‘It’s Uncle Nik.’
Chloe already knew that. As he got out of the car her minor palpitations suddenly became critical.
‘He’ll understand.’ The relief in the girl’s face faded away to uncertainty as she realised what Chloe already had. The man striding towards them was furious.
His face set in hard lines, his dark brows drawn into a straight line above his hawkish nose, he stopped a couple of feet away from them. He was breathing hard and looked like a well-dressed version of a dark avenging angel as the wind caught the hem of his long coat, making it billow out behind him.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
As the teenager shrank into her side Chloe wondered if Nik knew he had gone from hero to villain in just one short sentence.
Nik’s narrowed eyes followed the protective hand Chloe slid around the girl’s shoulders, and his jaw tensed as he flashed her an arctic glare.
‘Thank you for your...help.’ The word emerged reluctantly through his clenched lips. ‘I’m assuming that Tatiana contacted you?’
Her chin lifted in challenge. He had managed to make the statement sound like an accusation. No, I just happened to be passing.
It took an effort but she managed to keep her lip buttoned on the snarky retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue, and she dipped her head in acknowledgment, reflecting that surely one of them had to act like an adult in front of Eugenie.
‘Well, I’m here now.’
As if that could have slipped anyone’s notice! So this was Nik in business mode; impressed hardly covered her reaction. His designer-cut business suit didn’t disguise the hardness of the body it covered, but it did emphasise the effortless power he exuded.
Nik dragged his eyes away from the outline of the lacy bra covering Chloe’s breasts, clearly outlined beneath the drenched silk, just in time to see her roll her eyes at him. He wondered why, of all the people she could have turned to for help, his sister had chosen this woman, who was nobody’s idea of a responsible adult. Hell, she didn’t even have the basic sense to leave the house with a coat in a storm!
‘Get in the car,’ he ordered his niece.
‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’ was the response.
If his scowl was any indicator, he only saw the surly expression on Eugenie’s face, and not the fact that her defiance only went about a cell deep despite the dramatic pronouncements. Clearly it wasn’t his incredible insight into female behaviour that got him the girls, Chloe thought sourly.
‘I hate you!’
Chloe sighed. It was a long shot, but she felt obliged to at least make an attempt to smooth things over.
‘Look, clearly you’re both feeling pretty intense...’
Two pairs of antagonistic eyes zoomed in on her face.
She cleared her throat and attempted a smile. As far as feelings went, her own were pretty much all over the place and had been from the moment she’d identified the person getting out of the car and her heart had started fibrillating madly. It had not even begun to calm down when he’d stalked towards them looking deliciously sexy, hard and... She gave her head a tiny shake. This wasn’t about her, or her hormones; it was about Eugenie and Tatiana.
‘Maybe now...’ she continued, channelling sweet reason and calm while wondering if it was all right secretly wanting to do the wrong thing just so long as you actually resisted the weakness.
‘Now what?’ he bit out.
She dragged away her eyes, which were showing a disastrous tendency to drift up and down his long, lean, loose-limbed frame without her permission, and cleared her throat. What she needed right now was cool thinking, logic and maybe a bit of inspiration. What she didn’t need or, for that matter, want was this animal attraction, insane sexual chemistry or a vivid imagination supplying her with memories of how he’d looked naked.
‘Now is not the right time to—’
The teen shrugged off the arm across her shoulders and, with hands on her hips, took a defiant step towards her uncle. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
Chloe sighed and wondered why she had even bothered to try. If she had any sense, which she did, she would get in her car, drive off and let these two slug it out, but then she reminded herself that Tatiana was her friend, and she had promised her she’d look after Eugenie.
Nik felt his grip on his temper slipping, but he breathed through the moment.
It had not been a good morning. He’d had a breakfast meeting with a guy the normally reliable firm of headhunters had sent, and in the space of thirty minutes the candidate had broken every unwritten rule in the book: drunk too much, confided personal problems, bad-mouthed colleagues and talked politics. Then Nik had returned to the office and found all the messages on his machine his stand-in secretary had not seen fit to respond to.
But compared to his present situation, faced with a niece who appeared to loathe him while challenging his authority, and the woman who hadn’t been out of his head for more than three consecutive seconds ever since they’d parted company nearly forty-eight hours ago, he was extremely frustrated and close to snapping point!
He’d spent the last two days considering the best way to seduce Chloe Summerville. Seduction had never had much to do with the kind of recreational sex he enjoyed; usually it wasn’t about anything but slaking a hunger and for a short space of ti
me blocking out everything else. Mutual attraction was certainly involved, but comparing it with what had sparked into life between himself and Chloe would have been like comparing a light shower with a monsoon!
And the attraction between them was mutual, he knew that without question, which made her rejection of him all the more teeth-grindingly frustrating.
He didn’t make the mistake of reading anything deep and meaningful into their attraction; it was more to do with the timing and circumstances of their first meeting than anything else. Those circumstances had just intensified the chemistry that existed between them, that was all—a chemistry that would inevitably fade.
If when it did, so did his nightmares, that was only an added bonus. Getting her into bed was definitely going to happen; it was just a matter of when. His instincts could not be that far out, surely?
‘Get in the car,’ he repeated to his niece, digging into reserves of tolerance that had already been seriously depleted.
Chloe took a deep breath and came to a decision. Stepping forward, she put herself between the angry male and his niece. ‘Actually, I promised Tatiana that I would deliver her personally, so, Eugenie, get in my car.’ The slam of the car door told her that the girl had obeyed. Chloe felt a stab of relief; she would have looked pretty silly if Eugenie had ignored her.
Nik growled. He wasn’t used to having his decisions challenged or his instructions ignored and suddenly the emotions that ran rampant through him had nothing to do with their natural chemistry and everything to do with the fact that Chloe was a pain in his backside! He made to move past her but Chloe mirrored his move.
She held up her hands, her expression determined.
‘You think my niece needs protection from me?’ he demanded incredulously, his voice pitched to a low, private rumble.
Not half as much as I do, Chloe thought, despising the part of her that couldn’t help but notice how incredibly good he looked clean-shaven. ‘Don’t be absurd!’ she snapped, fighting the urge to follow his lead and respond in kind. Instead she modified her tone. ‘Of course I don’t! It’s just that in a situation like this—’
‘And how many times have you been in a situation like this, Lady Chloe?’
‘You might be surprised,’ she retorted, but as the antagonistic glitter faded from his eyes she admitted, ‘Fair enough, I’ve never been arrested, but I think you’re the last person in the world to be throwing my life of imagined privilege in my face.’
‘You’re encouraging Eugenie to think this is a joke.’
She flung him a pitying look; for an intelligent man he was being pretty dense. ‘She doesn’t think it’s a joke. She was scared stiff. I just think you’re making a big thing out of this when—’
‘My niece has been arrested. I call that a big thing!’
‘She was only cautioned, and according to the sergeant I spoke to—’
A hiss of impatience left his clamped lips and she changed tactics.
‘Look, Tatiana wants to keep this low-key, so you could force Eugenie to travel with you, but what would be the point? I mean, do you even know what you’re letting yourself in for? Teenage girls tend to have a taste for melodrama and, I can assure you, she’d make the journey hell for you.’
‘Is there a problem here?’
Chloe turned to see the policewoman from earlier standing looking at them. Well, actually she was looking at Nik and her mouth was ajar.
Chloe cleared her throat and gave the girl time to recover, as she had some sympathy for her dilemma.
‘You know what it’s like—you wait for a bus and two come along at once. This is Eugenie’s uncle and we were just discussing it.’ She turned to Nik. ‘So is it OK if Eugenie comes with me?’
He didn’t miss a beat. ‘Absolutely and we can catch up on the way. Fred, my driver, can follow us.’
Her air of complacence vanished in an eye blink. ‘You want me to give you a lift to the airport?’ she squeaked, forgetting to avoid his eyes. They were shining with malicious amusement as if he knew perfectly well that the very thought of being confined inside her car with him for an hour was already making her break out in a cold sweat.
She closed her eyes and breathed out through her nose as she subdued her panic; he’d called her bluff and now she’d have to live with it. An hour was only sixty minutes, she reminded herself, yet somehow the maths wasn’t particularly soothing so she decided not to work out the seconds as she watched him speak to the driver of the car.
* * *
Maybe it was wishful thinking but lately she liked to think that she was not quite as tense behind the wheel, but either way this journey was going to put her back months.
Nik was not a relaxed passenger; she could feel the tension rolling off him. Maybe he didn’t like women drivers...or perhaps it was just her... He certainly couldn’t be comfortable as he had to draw his long legs right up in order to squeeze himself into the space.
Served him right, she decided uncharitably as she stared doggedly ahead, ignoring him and the subtle spicy notes in the male fragrance he used.
The expression on her face when Nik had invited himself had seemed worth it at the time...but the decision had come back to bite him. The physical discomforts aside, and there were several—he had intermittent cramp in his left leg, and was losing the feeling in his foot, and the torture didn’t look like being over any time soon, if ever—she drove at a maddeningly slow speed that he found at odds with her personality.
He suspected that if he mentioned it she’d go even slower just to annoy him, but when a caravan overtook them he lost the battle with exasperation. ‘You drive like an old woman.’
‘Sexism and ageism in one sentence...wow, impressive.’
‘You haven’t even got out of second gear yet.’
‘Enjoy the scenery. Is he going to follow me the entire way?’ She glared into the rear-view mirror that reflected the limo that was following close behind.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Is your driver ex-army too?’
The question startled a surprised look from him. ‘What makes you say that?’
She shrugged. ‘He has that look, you know, tough, hard...the catch-a-bullet-in-his-teeth type.’
Nik grinned, thinking Fred might quite like the description. ‘He’s a veteran.’
‘You do employ a lot of ex-servicemen.’
‘I’m not being charitable...’
He said it as if being considered charitable was an insult.
‘I simply employ people I can rely on.’
And where he’d lived and worked, she supposed, you had to trust and rely on the people around you. ‘Do you miss it...?’ She bit her lip. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of...anything...’
‘So Ana has been talking.’
‘She mentioned what you used to do and—’
‘Relax, you haven’t reminded me. Losing a friend is not something you ever forget.’ Or forgive, he thought as once again the familiar sense of guilt settled its suffocating weight over him.
She glanced in the rear-view mirror again. Eugenie had her eyes closed, and even over the engine the muffled bass boom coming from the music she was playing through her earphones was audible. ‘Of course not...sorry.’ She winced—the response to what he’d said seemed painfully inadequate and she pressed a hand briefly to the base of her throat where a blue-veined pulse was pounding in the hollow.
The action drew his eyes to the vulnerable spot, and the arrow-piercing thrust of raw desire caught him off guard and fed into the resentful anger he was feeling. ‘If Ana has recruited you to her cause, please don’t bother—’
‘What cause?’ She felt the suspicious brush of his dark hostile eyes over her bewildered face.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said after a moment. ‘My sister is overprotective and a great believer in talking about everything.’
Comprehension dawned. ‘Oh, she wants you to talk through your...experiences with...someone.’ And for
a proud man, a man used to being in control all the time, that would be anathema. She wished Tatiana good luck with that endeavour, but she didn’t envy her the task of persuading her macho brother it was not a sign of weakness to talk about his feelings.
Nik’s lips twisted into a cynical smile. ‘How delicately put,’ he mocked. ‘But I don’t want to forget.’
‘Therapy isn’t about forgetting. It’s about living with the memories.’
‘What would you know about it?’ he jeered.
‘We plan to use the services of therapists in our centre; it’s an intrinsic part of the recovery process.’
‘An intrinsic part of my recovery process is a glass of whisky and a night of f—’
‘Nik!’ Pretty sure what he’d been going to say and equally sure he wouldn’t want to risk his niece hearing him say it, she jerked her head towards the back of the car, her eyes wide in warning.
Dark strips of colour stood out darkly against the uniform gold tones of his olive skin, emphasising the slashing angle of his high cheekbones.
In the back Eugenie began humming off-key to her music, her eyes still closed. The sound broke the awkward silence that had settled in the front of the car. ‘She’ll probably be deaf before she’s twenty. I don’t know why Ana allows her to use those things,’ Nik muttered.
‘Maybe you won’t sound quite so disapproving when you’re the parent of a teenager.’ Her smile faded. The idea of Nik with children of any age was quite a depressing thought.
‘Ana’s a great parent,’ he agreed.
Chloe was surprised to hear an unusual tone of humility in his voice, and she was even more surprised when he added, ‘So is Ian.’
‘I’ve never met him.’
‘He’s a nice guy, and they made a great couple. If they couldn’t make it work I really don’t know why anyone tries.’
‘Love, maybe?’
His laugh was hard and cynical...leaving little doubt in her mind about his opinion of love.
For some reason the sound brought back a memory of another laugh, soft instead of harsh, a laugh she’d heard when her tongue had been moving across the hard pebble of his nipple, his fingers tangled in her hair, his body hot as he’d collapsed onto the bed, pulling her on top of him.
