Too bad. Breakfast was going to have to wait.
* * *
Shea hurried the length of the ballroom clutching her clipboard. As Brando wandered back in, she grinned at him, hitching up the oversized sweatshirt he’d lent her, and fingered a pile of CDs on the table. Weird how her chest tightened every time she set eyes on him. Still breathless in the face of the rugged hunk meets brooding pin-up looks – guilty as charged.
‘We’ve made great progress since the film guy did the “before” shots. Your staff have done a wonderful job clearing up. It’s such a lovely room now it’s clearer, those tall French windows down both sides make it almost transparent.’
‘It certainly had its share of partying back in the day.’ He gave a rueful shrug. ‘The band hung out here pretty much all the time for two years, when we weren’t touring. I only moved to London after the accident.’
‘Talking of which, shouldn’t you be going back to work?’
He snorted and looked aggrieved. ‘This is work, or don’t you count collecting ten bin bags of empties as working? And you’re the one who said I should stay in the ballroom and face my demons. I hope you think this is doing me good, because my back is killing me.’
‘Your aching back is down to overwork in another area entirely, and you know it.’ She rubbed a sympathetic hand down his spine, trying to forget how easily she touched him now and how the feel of his taut muscles through his t-shirt sent prickles of desire zithering through her, even though it was barely four hours since she’d last had him. ‘I’m not talking about here, I meant in London.’
Today was Wednesday. And something about Wednesday had set her alarm bells ringing. If it was Wednesday, what the hell was she still doing in Brando’s house?
‘They’re managing fine without me. I have a very good team in place back there, and it’s high time I gave them a break from the big bad boss.’
Not what she wanted to hear.
She should never have allowed herself to come back for seconds, because every day she became more used to him, and more used to being here. And this morning she had woken up with the strangest realisation – she was happy. How long had it been since she felt that? She’d given in to the feeling and was trying to ignore that it made her feel guilty as hell. But how hard was it going to be when this was over?
She watched his profile as he idly flipped through the CDs, spreading them across the table. Insane. No-one had a right to have a jaw-line that beautiful. As for lower down … She sighed, as her eyes wandered lower, catching on the delicious thrusting curve of his fly, and her knees turned to jelly, dammit. Her own fault; she should know better by now.
‘Here you go!’ His tone was almost triumphant as he waved a plastic case in the air. ‘Take a Bullet, Live in Leeds of all places, from 1996. A blast from the past for you.’
She took the CD and examined it. Another photo of the band. She was getting used to seeing Brando looking baby-faced. But was Brando getting used to seeing the photos of his dead best friend beside him? Shit. She hoped this was going to help him.
She turned the CD over and baulked at the image on the back.
‘Lobster Telephone … ’
‘Yep, it’s Dali.’ He eyed her with amusement, one eyebrow raised. ‘And?’
She winced slightly. The memory was sharp in her mind; her friends, their anxious faces raised towards her, as they clocked that she was serious about sending off her own postcard. The way she’d hurtled to her room, grabbed a card from her notice board, hurtled back to the living room.
‘You do realise that picture of the phone with the lobster receiver you’re sending has a load of sexual undertones?’ The words her housemate Guy had said were clear in her mind.
‘Trust you to point that out.’ She’d grinned at him over her shoulder. ‘It’s Dali, it’s art.’ But she didn’t even care. She was only doing this to show that she could. Nothing else mattered.
She’d scribbled on her card, and dropped it into the envelope Tash was holding out. At the time she was sure what she’d written would guarantee there was no risk that she’d be chosen. All she’d felt was a surge of triumph rising in her chest as she grinned at her friends, and the certainty that she’d just shown everyone she was finally ready to move on with her life.
Maybe not quite in this way though.
‘It’s nothing important. It was just on the postcard I sent in to Country House Crisis.’ Something about this had jolted her heart to a stop.
‘Well there’s a surprise.’
The slightest tilt of his head, one sardonic smile, a lazy drawl. No clue at all. She had no idea if he was he being serious or sarcastic, let alone if he’d been the one who picked out her card. Thinking about it, it was much more likely to have been Bryony who had decided. A stab of disappointment stung her. Ridiculous. Why should it matter to her who made the selection? Why did it suddenly matter that it was Brando who chose her?
He was staring out of the French doors now, looking across the distant vista of the park, and his mouth twisted into a bitter grimace. ‘We’d argued, you know, the night Nick was killed. Just before he left.’
Just like that. Straight out of left field. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply. It was probably better that he talked about it. She’d started this. She couldn’t back away now.
‘That’s awful.’ She watched him swallow, saw his jaw flex as he gritted his teeth, followed the shadows which haunted the hollows of his cheeks. Waiting. Dared.
‘You don’t blame yourself?’
‘Of course I bloody do.’ His face contorted, and he spat out the words. ‘It was completely my fault and I’ve lived with that guilt every hour of every day since then.’
She shuddered, hesitated, pulled on a strand of hair, as she struggled to think what to offer him.
‘There’s no point in ruining two lives. Nick wouldn’t have wanted that. You owe it to him to live your life to the full.’ She paused, but his only response was an impassive scowl.
‘Isn’t that what you would have wanted if you had been the one who died?’
He was still stone-walling her.
‘Have you talked about this to anyone?’
Third time lucky.
‘No. Only to myself – when I run.’
‘Maybe you should try. I think it’s time for you to forgive yourself. It’s the only way you can move forward.’
‘You sound as if you know.’ He spat the words, his voice acid, accusing, hollow.
Maybe I do.
But none of that belonged here. Here was where she was practising, trying it out, seeing if she could live again. This was where none of it mattered, nobody knew, and nothing was for real. She wasn’t about to spoil all that with her own revelations.
‘I’ve known people who died, Brando. And people who lived, and pieced things together afterwards and tried to move on. It’s the only way.’
‘Easy for you to say that.’
She took a shuddering breath, gulped away the sour saliva that had rushed into her mouth, aimed for a lighter tone of voice.
‘I was just thinking, given how beautiful the ballroom is looking, maybe you should be thinking of changing some of the other rooms too. I’ve heard that change is good. There are some lovely sunny spaces at the front of the house, and you’d enjoy it here so much more if we changed them to your taste. We could move out the depressing stuff and make them more funky, get a few new things. It wouldn’t take a lot.’
Just for a second he looked as if he wanted to kill her. Then slowly, the stormy furrows on his brow melted away.
‘Shea Summers, sometimes you are a complete pain in the butt, do you know that?’
She heard the smallest nuance of humour in his voice as he sidled towards her. He rested his elbows on her shoulders and studied her through narrowed eyes. Just one lazy action sent her heart into overdrive. Then he gave her a half smile, pulled on her tumbling hair, yanked her head back as far as it would go, and held it there.
/> ‘You know the punishment for that, don’t you?’
* * *
‘You do realise my lungs are about to burst! This is so beyond my remit!’
Shea’s gasped breaths formed billowing clouds as her protests collided with the cold morning air.
Brando, jogging along the track beside her, stifled a smile as she tugged up her tracksuit bottoms and brushed wild strands of hair off her deep pink cheeks. Not the only thing way beyond her remit.
He peeled his eyes away from her bobbing boobs and launched himself into another flip. ‘If you complained less, you’d have more energy for running!’
She groaned. ‘Putting me in trainers is like putting you in stilettos!’
‘It’s our deal – if you insist I’ve got to come shopping to look for furniture for the house, it’s only fair that you suffer too.’ He had to admit she was still turning him on, even in this unlikely situation.
She gave a loud, disapproving grunt. ‘So have you phoned your Mum yet?’
That put his libido on temporary hold. It was obviously a revenge question and the only answer to that was another question.
‘Have you?’
‘No. I promised I wouldn’t speak to my mum and I haven’t. I’ve been good.’ She flashed him a smug smile. ‘I keep my promises. How about you?’
‘Actually, as it happens, I have.’
He watched in satisfaction as her jaw dropped.
‘Oh my! Well done!’ She gave him a congratulatory slap on the back.
‘She was out, but I left a message.’
‘Awww, Brando, I’m so proud of you. You won’t regret it – I can’t believe things were so bad between you.’
He snorted loudly. She didn’t need to know. ‘If you’d ever tried living with my step-father you wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Was he awful to you?’ She turned to him, with a wide-eyed concern that made his stomach catch.
‘I guess, if I’m honest, he wasn’t. Maybe I resented him taking my mother’s attention. I was thirteen. I kicked off, that’s all’ He tried to sound matter-of-fact, head her off.
But this was Shea. There was no heading her off. She was already rounding on him.
‘You mean you were jealous?’
Bang! Got it in one. Jealousy. The Achilles heel that had derailed his life, not once, but twice. That fierce need he had to possess for himself, when it came to love, the thing that made him vile, unreasonable, and impossible, whenever he cared.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ He gritted his teeth, drummed his feet against the ground and shot ten yards ahead of her before he knew, shouting back to her. ‘Tell you what, I’ll run on, let you get your breath back. See you back at the house in a bit.’
Even from here he could feel her astonished disappointment.
Damn. He didn’t wait for a reply. He was already pounding down the road. How had he thought running with her was a good idea?
Jealousy; the reason he could never be with anyone ever again.
And he certainly wasn’t going to talk about it.
* * *
‘Jealousy is a very destructive emotion, you know.’
Shea tossed that out across the cream leather back seat of the limo, in the hope that it would reach Brando. At least in a car he couldn’t run away. Maybe it was going to be hard, but now she’d brought his difficulties to the surface, she owed it to him to talk about them. She knew from experience that burying problems didn’t make them go away. If you were brave enough to confront them, at least you stood a chance of getting over them.
He looked up from his laptop, and sniffed irritably. ‘Haven’t you got an itinerary to organise?’
Damn that his sulking didn’t diminish the effect he had on her lust levels. They were still disgustingly out of control.
‘Pretty much got that covered thanks.’ She grinned at him, and tried to concentrate on plans for the day. ‘I got a tip for Bath’s hottest shop from my housemate who does interiors. So long as you like the style, we should find everything you need there and minimise your suffering.’
‘Just the kind of news I like to hear!’
‘So now can we can talk about how jealousy isn’t good please?’ Priority number one here, after all.
He closed his eyes, exhaled loudly, shook his head distractedly.
‘As you obviously refuse to give up you may as well know – the argument I had with Nick before he died was caused by jealousy.’ His voice was low, his jaw hardened, his hands clenched into bitter fists. ‘If anyone knows about the destruction it can cause, it’s me. Don’t you think that’s lesson enough, without your preaching?’
Oh sweet peanuts! That should teach her. ‘I’m so sorry! Putting both feet in it, again! I wasn’t judging, I just thought it might be good – to talk, I mean.’
‘Don’t worry about it. You weren’t to know. Here, look online and show me some sofas. I brought the limo so you could do that on the way.’
A sting of unexpected disappointment hit her. Damn. Why had she been ridiculous enough to imagine the limo was for en route clinches. Why should she care anyway?
‘Trips in the limo will give you practice for later.’ She had no idea where that came from other than a need to hit out. ‘You’ve cracked the dating now. You’re way beyond your five-hour limit. I’d say you’re pretty much all set for a relationship.’
‘Why?’ He flipped a lazy leg across hers, eyed her with a laconic smile. ‘Are you offering?’
Liquorice sticks! Her stomach did a dizzy triple flip. She ignored the out of control skitter of her heart, swallowing hard to quell the fizz.
‘No way! I’m entirely not available!’ It came out five times louder, ten times more emphatically than she intended.
He twisted his jaw, scrunched up his lips, contemplating her.
‘Then I don’t understand – what the hell are you here for? I thought you were desperate for a husband?’
Kerching! Home-truth time, it had to be done. ‘I’m here because my work had fallen through, I couldn’t face going on holiday, and I couldn’t bear the thought of having nothing to do. The last thing I want is a husband. I don’t even want a relationship.’ Her words tumbled out in one desperate gush of honesty.
‘I see.’ His slow response and impassive frown gave no clue about the level of his annoyance.
‘I only played along to challenge you, because I could see you were so against the idea of a wife. It was a wind up, I didn’t mean to lie.’ She rushed on, shooting him a placating glance, wishing it didn’t sound so bad. ‘To be honest it was a shock to find you here. Bryony told me you hardly came. She wanted some film footage, I needed to be occupied. It seemed like an ideal arrangement.’
‘Well, thank you Bryony.’ He shook his head, rolled his eyes, then turned to her with a stare that drilled to her core, tapping his teeth with a finger. ‘Sounds to me like your work obsession is like my compulsive running. It takes one to know one, Shea-rhymes-with-play. So what exactly are you blocking out?’
She shrank under his scrutiny. A desperate marriage at eighteen to a terminally ill husband who disintegrated while she stood by helplessly. Then four years as a widow, trying to piece her life back together, while everyone danced around her at arm’s length, too scared of upsetting her to get near her. How about that for starters?
Poor, sweet Greg, and his brain tumour.
It was no business of Brando’s. Even if he had inadvertently helped her take a step towards reclaiming a normal life, there was no way she was letting him rake over her memories. Greg belonged in the other part of her life. No cross over was how she was surviving here. She was keeping the guilt and the betrayal at bay by telling herself that nothing here counted. If Brando knew about Greg he’d see her differently, and that would be certain to change things between them. Whatever it was they were enjoying now would be finished. A judder turned her insides cold, because she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Not yet.
‘I’m trying to leave the p
ast behind, you already know that. I’m not up for emotion.’ She tried for a radiant smile, struggled for an upbeat note, as she tried to assimilate her shock at that last realisation. ‘We’re burning out heat here, if I remember rightly. And we both know we’ll soon be done.’
‘Too right! ’ He gave a short, hollow laugh, and sent her a weird look that implied she’d misunderstood him entirely. ‘Who the hell said anything about emotion? Grab the laptop and show me some sofas!’
* * *
‘Oh sugar! I’m not sure I’m the best person to do this.’
Shea gazed, wide eyed, around the lofty furniture showroom, with its startling array of furniture and accessories, suddenly bemused. ‘I’m good at helping you decide what you’d like to keep, what you need to make your home work. I’m not a designer.’
‘Hey, you can’t get me this far then run out on me! That’s not how it works!’ His retort was playful, yet chidingly indignant. ‘I’ve already told you a designer makes it too clinical. This time I want to choose things for myself, buy sofas I’m comfortable sitting on and I need your help because you know me.’ He shot her a grin he hoped was reassuring. ‘I’m not asking you to be Kelly Hoppen!’
He watched her take a deep breath, smooth down that delectably tight pencil skirt that accentuated her curves so perfectly, and visibly pull herself together with a tug of her peplum jacket. He loved it when her confidence ruptured and he caught a glimpse of the vulnerability underneath. When she turned back to him she’d recaptured her radiant smile, and one flash of it sent his stomach into the tailspin he knew to expect now, but still hadn’t quite worked out how to handle.
‘I guess I was the one who said cushions were more meaningful if they had history. Caught out by my own blarney yet again.’ She gave a momentary grimace, and took a monumental deep breath. ‘So, bearing in mind that your favourite colour is grey and you have a pathological hatred of florals, let’s try out some seats. Whatever we choose, if it makes you want to spend time at Edgerton, it can only be good.’
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 63
