by India Grey
‘Unfortunately not.’ He put down the letter he was reading and pushed a hand through his hair. It was still wet from the shower, but she could see that it had been lightened by the sun, giving the kind of tawny streaks only the most expensivehairdressers could produce. ‘A man in my unit was badly injured yesterday. I flew home with him.’
‘Oh, Kit, I’m so sorry.’ Filled with contrition for thinking such shallow thoughts, Sophie went over to stand beside him. ‘How is he?’
‘Not good.’
His voice was flat, toneless, and he looked down at the letter again, as if the subject was closed. On the other side of the kitchen the kettle began its steam-train rattle. Sophie touched his cheekbone with her fingertips.
‘What happened?’ she said softly. ‘Was it an explosion?’
For a moment he said nothing, but she saw his eyelids flicker, as if he was remembering something he didn’t want to remember; reliving something he didn’t want to relive.
‘Yes …’
His forehead creased into a sudden frown of pain and for a second she thought he was going to say more. But then the shutters descended and he looked up at her with a cool smile that was more about masking emotion than conveying it.
Sophie pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, turning to face him. ‘How badly hurt is he?’
‘It’s hard to tell at the moment,’ he said neutrally. ‘It looks like he’ll live, but it’s too early to say how bad his injuries will be.’ His smile twisted. ‘He’s only nineteen.’
‘Just a boy,’ she murmured. The kettle boiled in a billow of steam and hissed into silence. Aching for him, Sophie took his hand between hers, feeling the hard skin on the undersides of his fingers, willing him to open up to her. ‘It’s good that you stayed with him. It must have made a huge difference to him, having you there, and to his family, knowing that someone was looking after him …’
She trailed off as he got abruptly to his feet, giving her no choice but to let go of his hand.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes, please.’ Hurt blossomed inside her but she didn’t let it
seep into her tone. ‘Sorry—there’s only instant. I was going to go shopping today to get things in for when you came back.’
She thought of all the plans she had made for his homecoming; the food she was going to buy that could be eaten in bed—olives, quails’ eggs, tiny dim sum and Lebanese pastries from the deli around the corner—champagne and proper coffee, piles of croissants and brioche for breakfast. And the X-rated silk nightdress, of course. Now they all seemed to belong to a silly, frilly fantasy in which Kit took the part of the Disney Prince, doe-eyed with adoration.
The reality was turning out to be slightly different.
‘What on earth have you been living on?’ he said, his voice an acerbic drawl. ‘I was going to make you breakfast, but the cupboard seems to be bare.’
‘I usually eat on the go,’ she said lightly, getting up and going over to the designer stainless-steel bread bin. ‘But look, there’s bread. And …’ she opened a cupboard and pulled down a jar with a flourish ‘… chocolate spread.’
Splinters of guilt lodged themselves in Kit’s throat. She was making a good attempt to hide it but behind the show of nonchalance he could tell she was hurt. She’d tried to reach out to him—to talk to him like a normal human being, and he’d behaved as if she’d done something indecent.
It must have made a huge difference to him, having you there, and to his family, knowing that someone was looking after him …
How she overestimated him. In so many ways.
He looked at her. She was putting bread into the toaster and her glossy hair was tousled, her legs long and bare beneath an old checked shirt she must have taken from his wardrobe. He felt his chest tighten with remorse and desire. He wasn’t brave enough to shatter her illusions about him yet, but he could at least try to make up to her for being such a callous bastard.
Gently he took the jar from her and unscrewed the lid. He peered inside and then looked at her, raising an eyebrow.
‘You actually eat this stuff?’
She shrugged, reaching for a knife from the cutlery drawer. ‘What else would you do with it?’
‘I’m surprised,’ he said gravely, taking the knife from her too, ‘that you need to ask that …’
Looking at her speculatively, keeping his face completely straight, he reached out and undid the buttons of her shirt. He felt her jump slightly at his touch and she let out a little sound of surprise. But as he took hold of her waist and lifted her onto the countertop her green eyes glittered with instant excitement.
Slowly, with great focus he dipped the tip of the blade into the jar, loading it with soft, velvety chocolate. The moment stretched as he turned the knife around in his hand, then turned his attention to her, moving the edge of her shirt aside to expose her bare breast.
It took considerable self-control to keep the lust that was rampaging through him from showing on his face, or in his movements. His hand shook slightly as he cupped her warm, perfect breast. Behind them, the toast sprang up in the toaster and she jumped, giving a little indrawn breath. In one smooth sweep, Kit spread the chocolate over her skin.
Abstractly, as he parted his lips to taste her, he thought how beautiful it looked—the chocolate against the vanilla cream of her skin. But then all thoughts were driven from his head as he took her chocolate-covered nipple into his mouth and felt her stiffen and arch against him.
His tongue teased her, licking her clean. The chocolate was impossibly sweet and cloying and it masked the taste of her skin, so without lifting his head he reached behind her and turned the tap on, running cold water into the cup of his hand. Straightening up, he let it trickle onto her, watching her eyes widen in shock as the cold water ran down her skin.
‘Kit, you—!’
His mouth was on hers before she could finish. Sitting on the granite countertop, she was the same height as he was and he put his hands on her bottom, pulling her forwards so that her thighs were tight around his waist, her pelvis hard against his erection.
God, he loved her. He loved her straightforwardness, her generosity. He loved the way she seemed to understand him, and her willingness to give him what he needed. He didn’t have to find words, not when he could show her how he felt this way.
Her arms were around his neck, her fingers tangling in his damp hair. He was just about to lift her up, hitch her around him and haul her over to the table where he could take her more easily when there was a loud knock at the front door.
He stopped, stepping backwards, cursing quietly and with more than a hint of irony, given his choice of word.
‘Don’t answer it.’
It was tempting, so tempting, given how utterly, outrageously sexy she looked sprawled on the kitchen countertop, her wet shirt open, her mouth bee-stung from his kisses. He dragged a hand over his face, summoning the shreds of his control.
‘I have to,’ he said ruefully, heading for the door. ‘It’s breakfast. I ordered it when you were sleeping, and since they only agreed to home delivery as a special favour …’
Left alone in the kitchen, Sophie pulled her shirt together and slid shakily down from the worktop, her trembling legs almost giving way beneath her as she tried to stand. Through the thick fog of desire she was dimly aware of voices in the hallway—one Kit’s, the other vaguely familiar. Dreamily she picked up the chocolate spread and dipped her finger into it, closing her eyes and tipping her head back as she put it in her mouth.
‘In here?’
The vaguely familiar voice was closer now and she jumped, opening her eyes in time to see an even more familiar face come into the kitchen; so familiar that for a moment she thought it was someone she must know from way back—a friend of Jasper’s, perhaps?
‘Hi. You must be Sophie.’
Grinning, the man put a wooden crate stacked with aluminium cartons on the table and held out his hand. Sophie shook it, feeling gui
lty that she couldn’t quite place him and managing to say hello without making it obvious she couldn’t remember his name.
Kit came in carrying a bottle of champagne.
‘Thanks, I appreciate this.’
‘No big deal—it’s the least I can do considering you’ve spent the last five months being a hero. It’s good to see you back in one piece—or nearly.’
He gestured to the shrapnel wounds on Kit’s face. Sophie noticed the tiny shift in Kit’s expression; the way it darkened, tightened.
‘How’s the restaurant?’ he asked smoothly.
‘Good, thanks, although I don’t get to spend as much time there as I’d like, thanks to the TV stuff. I just got back from filming for a new series in the US.’
Horror congealed like cold porridge in Sophie’s stomach as her eyes flew back to the man. She now realised why he was vaguely familiar. Suddenly she was aware that she was standing in the same kitchen as one of the country’s top celebrity chefs wearing a wet shirt that barely skimmed her bottom and clung to her breasts, eating chocolate spread with her finger straight from the jar.
Surreptitiously she put the jar down and tried to shrink backwards behind the large vase of flowers she’d bought in Covent Garden. Luckily the Very Famous Chef was engrossed in a discussion about business with Kit as they headed back
towards the door, but he did pause in the doorway and look back at her.
‘Nice to meet you, Sophie. You must get Kit to bring you to the restaurant some time.’
Not on your life, thought Sophie, smiling and nodding; not now he’d seen her like this. As soon as he’d gone she picked up the jar of chocolate spread and was eating it with a spoon when Kit came back in.
‘You could have warned me,’ she moaned between spoonfuls.
‘Sorry,’ Kit drawled, ‘but I was pretty distracted myself.’
‘He’s a friend of yours?’
‘That depends on your definition of friend. I know him reasonably well because his restaurant is just around the corner from here and I’ve been there enough times over the years.’
Sophie took another spoonful of chocolate spread. People didn’t go to restaurants on their own. She pictured the kind of women Mr Celeb-Chef must have seen with Kit in the past, and the contrast they must have made with her, now.
Kit was looking at the foil trays in the crate. ‘Put down that revolting sweet stuff; we have smoked-salmon bagels, blueberry pancakes, almond croissants, proper coffee, oh—and this, of course.’ He held up the bottle of champagne. ‘So—do you want to eat here, or in bed?’
Sophie’s resistance melted like butter in a microwave. She found that she was smiling.
‘What do you think?’
Sophie walked slowly back to Kit’s house, trailing her fingers along the railings outside the smart houses, a bag filled with supplies from the uber-stylish organic supermarket on the King’s Road bumping against her leg. She felt she had some ground to make up after the incriminating chocolate-spread incident this morning.
The thought of chocolate spread drew her attention to the
pleasurable ache in her thighs as she walked, and she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering ahead of her, to the house with the black front door at the far end of the square. From this distance it looked the same as all its expensive, exclusive neighbours, but Sophie felt a little quiver inside her at the thought that Kit was there.
She had left him going through yet more of the post that had arrived while he’d been away, and she reluctantly had to admit it had been almost a relief to have an excuse to get out of the house. They had eaten breakfast and made love, slowly and luxuriously, then lain drowsily together as the clouds moved across the clean blue sky beyond the window and the morning slid into afternoon. Then they had made love again.
It had been wonderful. More than wonderful—completely magical. So why did she have the uneasy feeling that it was a substitute for talking?
There was so much she wanted to say, and even more that she wanted him to tell her. She thought of the contraceptive pills she’d thrown in the bin and felt a hot tide of guilt that she hadn’t actually got round to mentioning that. But how could she when it felt as if he had put up an emotion-proof fence around himself? There might as well be a sign above his head: ‘Touch, but Don’t Talk.’
She was being ridiculous, she told herself sternly, reaching into her pocket for her key. They’d spent whole days in bed before he’d gone away and gone for hours without speaking a word, lost in each other’s bodies or just lying with their limbs entwined, reading. It wasn’t a sign that something was wrong. If anything, surely it was the opposite?
She slid the key into the lock and opened the door.
The house was silent, but the atmosphere was different now Kit was home. There was a charge to it. An electricity, which both excited and unnerved her. Going into the sleek granite and steel kitchen, she remembered what she’d said to Jasper about wanting a home. The flowers she’d bought in
such a surge of optimism and excitement stood in the centre of the black granite worktop, a splash of colour against the masculine monochrome.
She put the kettle on.
For the last five months this had been her home, around the time she’d spent in Romania filming the stupid vampire movie, but now Kit was back it suddenly seemed to be his house again, a place where she was the guest. Even her flowers looked wrong—as out of place as her low-rent white sliced bread in his designer bread bin and her instant coffee in his tasteful Conran Shop mugs.
Dispiritedly she spooned fragrant, freshly ground Fairtrade coffee into the coffee maker, hoping she’d got that right at least. Taking down a tray, she set it with mugs, and milk in a little grey jug, but then wondered if that was trying too hard? After a moment’s indecision she took them off again. Pouring the coffee straight into the mugs, she picked them up and went to find Kit.
He was upstairs, in the room at the front of the house that he used as a study. Outside the half-open door she hesitated, then knocked awkwardly.
‘Yes?’
‘I made you some coffee.’
‘Thank you.’ From inside the room his voice was an amused drawl. ‘Do I have to come out to collect it, or are you going to bring it in?’
‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ she muttered, pushing the door open and going in.
The surface of the desk in front of him was covered in piles of letters, and the waste-paper bin was full of envelopes. Sophie felt a fresh wave of lust and love and shyness as she looked at him. The cuts over his cheekbones were still raw-looking, the bruising beneath his eyes still dark, making him look inexpressibly battered and weary.
‘Hmm … that’s a good point,’ he murmured wryly, trailinghis fingers up the back of her bare leg beneath the skirt of her little flowered dress as she bent to put the mug on the desk. ‘You are very disturbing.’
Desire leapt inside her, inflaming flesh that already burned. She doused it down. Turning round, she leaned her bottom on the edge of the desk and looked at him over the rim of her mug, determined to attempt a form of communication that didn’t end in orgasm for once.
‘So, is there anything interesting in all that?’
Picking up his coffee, Kit shrugged, his expression closed. ‘Not much. Bank statements and share reports. Some more information about the Alnburgh estate.’ He stopped and took a mouthful of coffee. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, picked up a letter from one of the piles and held it out to her. ‘And this.’
Scanning down the first few formal lines, Sophie frowned in confusion.
‘What is it?’
‘A letter from Ralph’s solicitors in Hawksworth. They received this letter to forward on to me.’
He slid a folded piece of paper out from the pile and tossed it onto the desk beside her. Something in the abruptness of his movements told her that it was significant, though his face was as inscrutable as ever, his eyes opaque.
Warily Sophie picked up the thick
pale blue paper and unfolded it. The script on it was even and sloping—the hand of a person who was used to writing letters rather than sending texts or emails, Sophie thought vaguely as she began to read.
My Dear Kit—
I know this letter will come as a surprise, and after all this time am not foolish enough to believe it will be a pleasant one, however I must put aside my selfish trepidation and confront things I should have dealt with a long time ago.
Sophie’s heart had started to beat very hard. She glanced up at Kit, her mouth open to say something, but his head was half turned away from her as he continued working his way through the pile of post, not inviting comment. She carried on reading.
I’m sorry—that’s the first thing I want to say, although those words are too little, too late. There is so much more I need to add to them. There are things I’d like to explain for my own selfish reasons, in the hope you might understand and perhaps even forgive, and other things I need to tell you that are very much in your interest. Things that will affect you now, and will go on affecting your family far into the future.
A pulse of adrenaline hit Sophie’s bloodstream as she read that bit. She carried on, skimming faster now, impatient to find out what it all meant.
The last thing I want to do is pressure you for any kind of response, so on the basis that you have my address at the top of this letter and the warmest and most sincere of invitations to come here at any time to suit you, I will leave you to make your own decision.
Know, though, how much it would mean to me to see you.
Your hopeful mother Juliet Fitzroy
Slowly Sophie put down the letter, her head spinning.
‘So your mother wants you to go and see her?’ she said, admittedly rather stupidly.
Kit tossed another envelope into the bin. ‘So it would appear, Mr Holmes.’
