His Christmas Bride

by Brooks, Helen

‘Yes, thank you.’ Somehow she got the words out of her dry mouth. He had a magnificent body and the black silk emphasised it.

  ‘Good.’ He smiled, then settled the tray on her lap. She held on hard to the duvet. ‘It’s nice to see you first thing in the morning,’ he said softly, kissing her.

  She wished she’d had time to brush her teeth, comb her hair and check she’d got all her mascara off the night before. A panda-eyed scarecrow wasn’t much of a turn-on.

  ‘There’s a full English breakfast under there.’ He pointed to the covered plate next to the rack of toast and orange juice. ‘Geraldine’s a great believer in a hearty breakfast.’

  ‘So I see.’ She had never felt so vulnerable in all her life. At least he had some clothes on. Not much, admittedly.

  ‘Once you’ve eaten and showered, I thought we might visit an antique fair that’s on this morning not far from here. Interested?’ He didn’t seem to notice her agitation.

  ‘Great.’ She nodded carefully. Sudden movement wasn’t an option, what with the tray and her need to keep the duvet firmly in place. Her fingers tightened on the material.

  He looked at her for one more moment, a long look. Then he walked to the door, murmuring over his shoulder, ‘Your ex was the biggest fool out, and it’s galling to admit I’ve reason to be grateful to him.’

  ‘What?’ She didn’t follow.

  He turned after he had opened the door, standing with his hand on the handle as he said, ‘But for his stupidity you wouldn’t be here right now, would you?’ And then he closed the door quietly behind him, leaving her staring into space.

  Once Blossom had showered and dressed she felt more in control. She had eaten every morsel of Geraldine’s delicious breakfast, and now welcomed the fact they were going to go out; she needed to walk off a few calories if she was going to do justice to lunch. The spare tyre was threatening again.

  Zak was waiting for her in the hall when she came downstairs with the breakfast tray.

  ‘You needn’t have brought that; Geraldine would have collected it,’ he said, taking the tray from her when she reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘You’re my guest.’

  ‘Guest or not, I don’t expect Geraldine to fetch and carry for me. My legs are younger than hers.’

  ‘They’re more shapely too.’ He grinned at her, his eyes accentuated by the sky-blue shirt he was wearing. The smile faded as he said softly, ‘But thanks for the thought. She’s no spring chicken, although she’d take me apart if she heard me say that. I’m always telling her to slow down a bit.’

  Once Zak had taken the tray through to the kitchen and they had exited the house into the bright summer sunshine, Blossom said quietly, ‘What will you do, Zak, when Geraldine and Will are too old to work for you any longer?’

  He glanced at her as he opened the passenger door, but it wasn’t until he was seated in the car that he said, ‘The apartment is their home, I built it for them. Geraldine chose all the furnishings and fittings herself, and the garden is Will’s pride and joy. I see them finishing their days here. They’re not employees, Blossom, they’re…’ He paused.

  ‘Family?’ she said very quietly. It was plain how he felt.

  ‘I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘Yes, they’re family to me.’

  She glanced at him, remembering his experience of family life hadn’t exactly been a good one. He looked very big and commanding as he started the car, in control of himself and the world in general. So why did she suddenly want to put her arms round him, not in a romantic sense, but in a desire to comfort the little boy he had once been? The boy who had been rejected by his nearest and dearest and who had been forced to stand on his own two feet at far too young an age.

  She turned her head to the window, willing the compassion to subside. It was too dangerous an emotion to indulge in where Zak was concerned. He was too dangerous.

  The antique fair was fun, or rather wandering round the stalls and tables hand in hand with Zak was fun. And disturbing. For the first time in a long while, she felt like anyone else, the sign on her forehead which read ‘unlovable’ missing for once. In fact she felt young and attractive, and she must have given off some sort of aura which projected this because she noticed more than one male give her a second glance.

  Zak dived on a beautiful little Meissen model of two recumbent Dobermanns on the very last stall they visited, the price of which made Blossom blink. The model was naturalistically coloured, and had been lovingly restored in parts, the two dogs the very image of Thor and Titus. After a few minutes of haggling with the somewhat scary-looking matron manning the stall, Zak got a couple of hundred pounds knocked off the asking price and bought the model. He looked very pleased with himself.

  ‘For Geraldine and Will,’ he explained as they strolled away. ‘It’s their golden wedding anniversary at the end of the month, and I’ve been looking for something special for weeks. Geraldine started collecting Meissen a few years ago, but she hasn’t anything like this. They’ll love it; those dogs are their babies.’

  She smiled. His generosity to the old couple touched her, but made her feel a little uneasy too. It was easier to keep him at arm’s length in her emotions when he was the coldhearted, ruthless, ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ boss of Hamilton Electronics as portrayed by Melissa. The fact that Melissa’s opinion was based largely on hearsay she chose to put to the back of her mind.

  Once in the car, Zak didn’t start the engine straight away. Instead he leaned forward, not touching her with any part of himself, yet enveloping her with his male warmth. ‘What happened with your ex?’ he asked very softly. ‘Don’t tell me if it’s still too painful to talk about, but I’d like to understand.’

  She stared at him, utterly taken aback, then rallied enough to say flatly, ‘I thought you knew all about it from the person you hired to find me.’

  ‘No, just bare facts, that’s all. You married, he left seven months later and there was another woman involved. He was a model, and according to my source his star began to ascend when he met you. I take it that wasn’t coincidence?’

  Blossom looked down at her hands in her lap. ‘No, it wasn’t,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I was a means to an end to Dean, that’s all. Our marriage was a sham from the start. Of course, I didn’t know that until he walked out on me after clearing my bank account for him and the woman he’d been living with when he met me. She was another secret he kept well hidden.’

  She raised her eyes, looking him straight in the face. ‘The funny thing is, I thought we were perfectly happy. I was convinced I had a great marriage. Looking back, I can see all sorts of cracks, but at the time…’ She shook her head. ‘Gullible doesn’t even begin to describe it, does it?’

  ‘No.’ He looked at her searchingly. ‘What describes it is a trusting, warm good person being taken in by a lying, shallow cheat. You weren’t gullible, Blossom. Not in the way you mean. You believed in someone because they projected an image they wanted you to see. And if someone is cunning and immoral enough, if they are without basic human dignity and ethics, they will always be able to fool the sweet and honourable who want to believe the best in folk. But only for a time. Dean will reap what he’s sown one day. I’ve seen it time and time again, both in business and life.’

  Blossom shrugged. ‘I don’t think I believe that—with regard to Dean, I mean. He could charm the birds out of the trees without even trying. The original golden boy. You know?’

  ‘And when the charm gets a trifle worn? When the good looks fade, and the jowls sag, and the six-pack turns to fat? There are no real-life Peter Pans, Blossom. Just embarrassingly and increasingly desperate no-hopers chasing an illusion.’

  ‘He’s got years and years before that will happen, if it ever does.’ She shook her head. Dean would always come up trumps.

  ‘Oh it will, you can count on it. And in the meantime what does he have—really have? He’s thrown away the one thing in his life which would have taken him out of the norm and made him a king. One da
y he’ll realise it, and it might be sooner than you think. My informant told me he’s not been doing so well the last year or two. Did you know that?’

  She shook her head. His words had fallen like balm on the scars on her self-esteem and confidence, but strangely they had made her heart ache. The feeling was similar to the one she’d experienced the night before, when she had stood at the window and looked out into the fragrant twilight, but this time she understood it a little better. The pain was for what might have been. If she had met Zak before Dean, if she had never got married and been betrayed so completely, if she was still the person she had been then…But she wasn’t. She had changed, she knew she had. Irrevocably. She would never know a moment’s peace with a man like Zak, and having clawed her peace of mind back inch by agonising inch she wasn’t about to throw it away. It was more precious to her than anything. Or anyone.

  ‘What would you do if he contacted you again?’ Zak asked quietly, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Would you meet him?’

  She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I do know I have no feeling left for him beyond disgust. I hated him at one point, and I clung on to that for a long time. It was a weird sort of comfort—it told me I was still able to feel. You know?’

  He nodded. He said nothing, but continued to watch her face.

  Blossom didn’t know if he understood or not; she barely did herself. ‘But then I realised I was hurting no one but myself. I was becoming something I disliked. So I went for therapy, as Melissa had been asking me to do since it happened. I poured out my soul to my therapist, wrote letters to Dean which I read out to her and then we burnt them. We even went to a quiet spot on the Thames one day, and I threw stones into the water which represented all my feelings of rage and hatred and hurt.’ She smiled a small smile. It all seemed so long ago now, and yet it had only been a few months since she’d stopped seeing her therapist. All the bitterness finally had gone.

  ‘Did it work?’ Zak asked gently.

  ‘Amazingly, yes.’ There was a tenderness in his eyes, which was increasing the ache, and she had to look away. She focused her gaze on a huge oak tree some distance away, its leaves lit by the sunshine. It was a magnificent tree, probably over a hundred years old, Blossom thought. It had been standing in the same place all the time, and below its spreading branches the lives of men and women had gone on. Births, marriages, deaths. Heartache, happiness. All fleeting.

  ‘I’m glad.’ Zak bent over and kissed her full on the lips. He didn’t prolong the embrace—they were in a car park outside the antique market, after all—but when he settled back in his own seat their eyes met. The gentleness had gone from his gaze; now there was a deep glow which turned the blue to dark violet, and she couldn’t look away. It held her, shaking her to the very core as something deep within herself leapt to meet the banked desire. A warmth trickled through her blood, frightening and exciting at the same time. The atmosphere within the car had become electric, quivering with something unnameable, something elemental, something terrifying.

  Blossom wrenched her eyes from his, panic uppermost. Whatever he wanted from her she couldn’t give. She didn’t want to give. She wouldn’t give.

  Before she lost her nerve, she said quickly, ‘So now you know why I’m a career girl. And that won’t ever change because I won’t let it. I don’t want or need a man in my life, Zak. I think it’s only fair to spell that out, in case I’ve given you the wrong impression over this weekend. Nothing has changed in my mind. Nothing.’ She stared at him defiantly.

  He sat there, looking at her with his blue eyes, not saying a word. After a moment or two her gaze fell from his and returned to the oak tree. There, she’d said it. Before things went too far. He couldn’t say she hadn’t played fair. All along, she had told him.

  ‘Feel better now you’ve said it?’ His voice was quiet, and she couldn’t read what he was thinking in the measured tone.

  No, she felt awful. Worse than awful. ‘I just wanted to—’

  ‘Spell it out. Yes, you’ve said.’ The interruption was without heat. ‘So, now you’ve done that, how about we go home and overindulge on Geraldine’s beef and Yorkshire pudding before dozing the afternoon away in the shade of the garden—sound good? Maybe take the dogs for a walk when it’s cooler?’

  It sounded heavenly. Which meant it was certainly off limits. ‘I need to get back to the flat, I’ve loads of work to do.’ She forced a smile. ‘Things that won’t wait.’

  ‘Which will be dealt with all the quicker if you’ve had a relaxing weekend recharging your batteries,’ he said quietly.

  Her batteries were fine, it was her libido she was having trouble with. Blossom made one more token protest. ‘I’ve several hours’ work waiting for me.’

  ‘Tough.’

  She was shocked into looking up. His face was expressionless, his tone pleasant when he said, ‘I need to protect you from yourself, I can see that. I shall take you back after tea, OK? And Geraldine does a good old-fashioned high tea, complete with several different kinds of sandwiches and cakes, and home-made scones with lashings of cream and jam. The sort of country feasts previous generations took for granted.’

  Blossom mentally resolved not to do open battle with Zak again. She couldn’t win. He had an answer for everything. ‘Don’t you ever think of anything beyond your stomach?’ she said tightly, aiming for acidity.

  ‘Do you really want me to answer that? I wouldn’t want you to run from the car screaming.’ He grinned at her expression.

  OK, she’d asked for that one. It confirmed it was futile to try and argue with him, though. ‘I shall need to leave straight after tea,’ she compromised. ‘I’ll be working all night as it is.’

  ‘No problem.’ In view of the fact he had just railroaded her into staying at his house against her will, his grin was insultingly unrepentant. So was his mouth when it took hers again.

  His lips were warm and firm, stamping their claim on hers, and she felt too spent by her revelations about Dean—not to mention Zak’s larger-than-life persona—to resist their sensual persuasion. They moved along her cheeks, her closed eyes, her ears. She shivered, capitulating fully to the sensations he drew forth with such effortless skill.

  ‘This is real.’ When she opened her eyes he was looking at her, all amusement gone. ‘What we feel when we touch and taste. That can’t lie.’

  ‘Dean made love to me.’ She hadn’t thought about what she was going to say; it came out all by itself. ‘And it was all lies.’

  ‘Wrong. He had sex with you.’ As she reared up against the harsh crudity, he let her shrink from him. ‘And that was all it was. And, if you tell me that what we have is the same as what you felt with him, I don’t believe you. Because I tell you one thing, Blossom—I’ve had women, more than I care to remember right at this moment, and not one of them has made me feel like you do. I’ve slept with them and experienced pleasure, but not one of them has made me feel what I feel with one kiss from you. Now, how do you explain that?’

  ‘I’m…I’m a challenge.’ Her chin lifted.

  ‘Rubbish.’ His voice was soft. ‘Young lads who are still wet behind the ears might be turned on by a challenge; I left my teenage years behind some time ago. Before I met you, I admit all I was looking for was shared pleasure and satisfaction. I didn’t want any clinging violets, no complications or messy entanglements that might end in tears. Just women of like mind who were happy with the freedom they had, freedom where they could choose to stay or walk away and we’d still remain friends. My childhood was an antidote against love. I saw what it did to my father. He loved my mother; however much he fought against it, he loved her at heart. Maybe that love turned to hate—he certainly wanted everyone to think so, but I’m not so sure. What I am sure about is that she messed up his life so completely there was no room in it for anyone else, not even his son.’

  She sat very still, silent, not speaking. The look on his face was painful to see.

&n
bsp; ‘And I told myself I would never allow such a thing in my life. That it would be the height of foolishness. I would make my way in the world by my own efforts, and I would carve out a future that I wanted. One where I had to consider no one, where I was as free as a bird.’

  He paused, studying her face. ‘Am I frightening you?’

  Her throat was locked, she couldn’t utter a sound. She wanted to say no, but it would have been a lie.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he said quietly. ‘But the way I see it, you’ve made your views clear and I’m doing the same. It sounds the oldest line in the book to say you’re different, but that’s how I feel. I don’t know what it is about you that hit me like a ton of bricks the first moment I saw you, but it happened. Just like that—wham. The door opened and a warm, tousled woman with food all over her T-shirt and something questionable on the side of her face looked at me with great brown eyes, and I was hooked.’ He shook his head as though it still surprised him.

  She didn’t want him to say these things. This wasn’t how it should have been. She stared at him, her heart thudding so hard it actually hurt.

  ‘And I knew then I had to see you again. Whatever it took. I had to know.’

  She didn’t ask what it was he had to know. She wanted the conversation to end. If she went with this, if she got in any deeper, it would kill her when it ended. And it would end. A man like Zak was not for her; she could never keep someone like him. He met gorgeous women all the time, in his work, social life, everywhere. Sooner or later he’d wake up to the fact that he’d been mistaken, that there was nothing special about her. Of course, he wouldn’t be like Dean. When it ended he’d be gentle, perhaps even sorry, but he would walk away and get on with his life, and she…She wouldn’t.

  ‘You’re as white as a sheet,’ he said at last. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘I’m…sorry, Zak.’ She forced the words out through numb lips. ‘But I can’t be what you want me to be. You have to understand that. It’s not you, it’s me.’

  ‘I want you to be yourself, that’s all.’