by Maggie Cox
‘No…no, I don’t.’
‘One o’clock okay with you?’
A little shudder of heat rippled through her. ‘That’s fine.’
‘See you then.’
Before either of them could come to their senses and fully realise the sheer stupidity of such an arrangement Jack quickly walked away in the opposite direction, and didn’t once glance back…
Nicholas rang. He told her he had something important that he wanted to discuss. Fearful that he might be going to reiterate his warning to her about Jack, Caroline found she wasn’t looking forward to the prospect.
Having agreed that he could drop round that evening to see her, she tried to focus on work. But—between serving customers and trying to put her piling paperwork into some kind of helpful order—her thoughts inevitably returned to Jack, and that promise of his to stop by at lunchtime…
The shop was empty, and there was a sign on the door that read ‘Closed for Lunch’. Not entirely certain that Caroline hadn’t decided to go out for lunch and stand him up, Jack hesitated for a long moment before pressing the bell at the side of the door. If she was out, he told himself, she would be doing them both a huge favour. One of them should come to their senses and put an end to this…this suicide mission.
But, even though he prayed she would be out, so he could walk away from her relatively unscathed, Jack knew that it was already too late. From the moment he’d bumped into her the other day, and they had stood face to face after a lapse of time that should have permanently erased all want, need, or desire for ever, Jack had known that trying to resist Caroline Tremayne was like trying to resist a life-saving drink of water when you’d been stumbling through the desert for days without one. He was fatally infatuated by her…always had been and probably always would be. It was an infatuation that was surely destined to bring them both nothing but further agony of spirit.
He pressed the bell.
‘Come in.’
Jack both cursed and thanked God at the same time for her almost immediate appearance.
Watching him warily from beneath her dark blonde lashes, worrying that she had answered the bell too quickly and might appear over eager to see him, Caroline stood back to let Jack enter. Once inside the colourful interior of the shop, she carefully shut the door again, and turned the latch. Glancing up guiltily as he watched her perform this action, she witnessed the merest glimmer of a mocking smile touch the corners of his mouth.
‘If I don’t lock the door we won’t get any peace while we’re eating,’ she remarked nervously, endeavouring to keep her voice light.
Pulling the knitted edges of her long dove-grey cardigan closer together, so that they overlapped the plain black sweatshirt and jeans she wore underneath, Caroline was glad she had donned these nondescript items of clothing, because they lent her psychological protection against the man who was currently putting her so helplessly on edge. She would not have him imagine for even a second that she was hoping to appear alluring or appealing in any way, to resurrect potentially hazardous long-dead feelings between them. All she planned for them to do was eat the sandwiches she had bought from the bakers, have a cup of tea, and keep the conversation as neutral as possible—because they were both mature adults…and then Jack would leave.
But when she glanced across the room, and her anxious searching gaze fell beneath the spell of his dangerously irresistible blue eyes, Caroline knew with devastating certainty that the supposedly ‘long-dead’ feelings they had once passionately felt for each other still simmered perilously close to the surface, and weren’t going to go away any time soon. Surely she’d been mad to think that they might do something as ordinarily mundane as share some sandwiches and tea together, as though they were two old friends catching up on old times? Especially when the Jack Fitzgerald who stood before her today had the kind of imposing presence that was hardly conducive to relaxation of any sort. Everything about his expensively groomed appearance quite frankly put him completely out of Caroline’s league. He was a far cry from the wild passionate boy who’d willingly shared his dreams with her, who she had fallen in love with so long ago…
‘We’ll go into the back room, if you like,’ she said breezily, sweeping past him. ‘I usually eat my lunch there. I’ve got the kettle on and I—’
Before she got any further Jack swung her round, captured her head between his hands and kissed her ruthlessly on the mouth. When she drew back, stunned, his hands slid down from her face onto her shoulders, and Caroline was immediately aware that he intended to keep her right where she was until he decided different. His nostrils flared a little as he swept her with a heated, ardent stare, and such a feeling of hunger raged through her blood that she wondered how she didn’t immediately succumb to it—completely abandon all common sense and caution and simply let the most basic of primal longings have its way.
‘What is this…this hold you seem to have on me, Caroline?’ he asked gruffly, the palpable tension he exuded holding her spellbound.
Her mouth aching from his avidly voracious assault on her lips, Caroline barely knew how to answer him. His words had astonished her, because the very idea of her having any kind of hold on such a man seemed completely preposterous. He was angry with her, that was all. Still furious because she’d had an abortion instead of going through with the pregnancy. Anger could easily spill over into passion, and Caroline knew with certainty that that was all this was about. There’d been no mellowing towards her over the years, and certainly no forgiveness now that Jack had seen her again. Did she dislike herself so much that she’d willingly let him walk in here and treat her with such demoralising disrespect?
‘I don’t have any kind of “hold” over you, Jack. It’s all in your imagination. I didn’t ask you to come back here. I’ve just been minding my own business and getting on with my life, never once looking to contact you or see you again. Do you know how upsetting it is for me to have you walk in here and kiss me like you just kissed me? As if—as if I still owe you something? I think it’s probably best if you just go. Having lunch together was an insane idea.’
Hearing her words, Jack didn’t dispute the sense in them. Yet still he lingered, still his fingers bit possessively into her slender shoulders, as if waiting for some kind of divine inspiration that would tell him what to do about this—this compulsion he had for this woman.
Thinking about her accusation, he couldn’t deny that he did have a sense of Caroline ‘owing’ him. She’d dispensed with their unborn child as though the decision were hers and hers alone…as if he’d had no rights and no say in the matter whatsoever. According to her father, only people from their class had those kind of rights. That thought alone had kept his animosity towards her simmering beneath the outward show of his material and professional success all this time.
Releasing his grip, he stood back and breathed in deeply through his nostrils. He thought about all that had happened in those intervening years since he’d left Caroline. First travelling to the States, working and studying at the same time, to gain an understanding of the world of finance, putting his cast-iron determination to good use in helping him rise above his difficult beginnings and make money…a lot of money…so that he would never be poor again, never be shown the door by anyone who imagined themselves better than he was ever again.
And, besides the money that had started to rain down on him in ever-increasing abundance, there had been other compensations too. There had been the undoubted admiration from the financial world in which he worked—the ‘movers and shakers’ in that world often holding their breath as they watched him accomplish success after success, until eventually he usurped theirs. And there had been the accumulation of beautiful homes—in New York, California and Connecticut, and lately Paris. He’d just signed the lease on a fantastic penthouse apartment in the heart of that lovely city.
Then, of course, there had also been the women. Over the years Jack had dated models, actresses, socialites, and women who were
as ambitious in their careers as he was. He’d had some good times, some reasonably exciting sex, and led the life of a highly ambitious, successful and rich man about town. But no woman had really touched his heart since his youthful passion for Caroline Tremayne. Not even Anna—the stunning ballerina from the Russian ballet whom he had met and married after a surprisingly swift courtship just three years ago, and to whom he had vowed he would stay faithful even if he didn’t—couldn’t—love her as she deserved. When he’d discovered that she was having an affair with the interior designer he’d hired to redesign their Manhattan apartment Jack had felt deflated, resigned, but not devastated by her betrayal. How could he when he had known where the fault really lay? It wasn’t necessary now, at Jack’s level of success, to put in the working hours that he did, and he certainly didn’t need any more money than he had already, but any woman would eventually become frustrated by a husband who was never home.
And then had come the heart attack. Thinking of it now, Jack automatically laid his hand against his chest and winced, wishing he could demolish the fear that gripped him for good. Seeing the slight drawing together of Caroline’s dark brows—a frown that might spell concern—he quickly moved his hand away and shrugged.
‘Why didn’t you ever marry?’ he found himself asking.
Snapping out of the spell she had fallen under, Caroline felt her fingers clench a little round the edges of her wool cardigan. ‘I wasn’t aware that getting married was on the statute books,’ she answered a little coolly.
‘It must have disappointed your father that you didn’t wed,’ Jack remarked. ‘No high-powered and ambitious son-in-law from the right class to welcome into the fold?’
Hearing the undoubted bitterness in his tone, Caroline shivered. ‘Did you ask that question just so that you could have another pop at my father? What’s the point, Jack? He’s long dead.’
Turning away from him, Caroline moved towards the door she’d just locked and unlocked it. Clearly upset, she opened it and carelessly brushed back a pale frond of golden hair from the side of her cheek.
The gesture made her appear far too vulnerable for Jack’s liking, and he deliberately stayed where he was…almost but not quite despising himself for his next question. A question that had troubled him often over the years and caused him many a ‘dark night of the soul’.
‘Did it make your life any easier, going through with the abortion?’
Witnessing the convulsive swallow in her throat, and the immediate sheen of tears covering her liquid dark eyes, Jack decided he did despise himself after all…
‘Get out.’
There was no fury in her voice, just a quiet dignity and a deep, abiding sense of heartbreak that cut Jack to the quick and made him feel like an utter bastard. Unable to do anything but regard her with equal parts longing, regret and rage swirling inside him, Jack nodded his head—as if in complete agreement with her decision for him to go—and swept past her without saying another word…
‘What happened to your lip?’
Before she could duck away, Nicholas had tilted Caroline’s chin towards him and examined the slight swelling at the right-hand corner of her lip with a concerned and at the same time professional eye.
‘I—I must have inadvertently bit it, or something…I don’t know. It’s hardly important.’
Pulling away, Caroline tempered her irritable response to Nicholas’s concern with an apologetic smile. She too had been slightly shocked to see the damning evidence of Jack’s furious kiss when she’d seen it reflected back at her in the bathroom mirror. She certainly didn’t want to tell her friend the truth about the cause of her tender abrasion. He’d already warned her against seeing Jack again, and she had ignored his advice and visited nothing but heartache on herself once more.
How could Jack believe for one moment that her life could possibly have been made easier because she’d had an abortion? Caroline wanted to die every time she recalled him asking that wickedly cruel question. But she expressly didn’t want to discuss Jack Fitzgerald this evening and make herself feel even more blue. She really hoped that that particular subject was not on Nicholas’s agenda.
Shaking off the gloom that kept clutching at her heart, she decided to try and keep the conversation as light as possible. ‘Will you have a glass of wine?’
Moving across the room, Caroline lifted the bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape she’d left on the tray next to two sparkling wine glasses.
Settling himself into the studded Chesterfield-style armchair by the fire, Nicholas smiled warmly in agreement. ‘That would be lovely, darling…thank you.’
Thinking how at home he appeared, sitting there by the crackling open fire on this chilly almost winter evening, in what had been her father’s favourite chair, Caroline wondered why, for the first time ever, she wished he didn’t make himself look so at home there. Telling herself it was because she was still feeling on edge and unhappy from yet another upsetting encounter with Jack, she dismissed her slight feeling of unease and poured out the wine.
Handing a glass to Nicholas, she lowered herself into the fawn-coloured chair opposite and took a sip of her own drink. The alcohol immediately warming her, Caroline told herself that everything was going to be all right…that there was no need for her to be worried about anything.
‘So…what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’ she asked, leaning forward in her chair.
Nicholas took a sip of his wine, savoured it for a moment, then regarded Caroline with a deepening of the kindly smile she had long grown used to.
‘I suppose I may as well get straight to the point.’ Still smiling, Nicholas leant back in his chair with a relaxed sigh. ‘I wanted to talk to you about something that has been on my mind for quite some time now.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’ Caroline gulped a little too much wine and felt the alcohol hurtle through her veins with fierce heat.
‘It’s a personal matter, actually,’ Nicholas replied.
When she didn’t immediately comment, he frowned.
‘Shall I go on?’ he asked.
Caroline wanted to say no. She was all of a sudden very tired, as well as feeling emotionally bruised, and she wanted to say she had a headache and didn’t feel up to spending the evening with him after all. But good manners and gratitude for the man’s friendship to both her father and herself prevented her from going with her natural instincts.
‘Of course…please, do go on.’
‘We’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we?’ Briefly tapping his wine glass with his fingernails, Nicholas stopped the action almost immediately he realised he was doing it—as if inadvertently revealing a displeasing character trait he’d much rather keep hidden.
Watching him, Caroline was surprised by the tension in him that she’d immediately picked up. For some inexplicable reason a sense of acute alarm arose inside her. His question not really requiring a reply, she nodded her assent instead.
‘It was hard losing Meg after being married for so many years…I can’t begin to tell you how hard. I’ve discovered that I’m not a man who likes being alone, Caroline. I need conversation, stimulus, after a long day’s work, and Meg was always there for me…come rain or shine. A man gets used to that kind of care from the woman in his life. Anyway, at the risk of making myself sound too foolish…I have decided that I would rather not be on my own any longer.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE WASN’T…He couldn’t be going to ask her to—
Sitting straight-backed in her chair, Caroline stared hard at Nicholas, almost willing him to change his mind and not say another word on the topic that was clearly presenting him and now her with such unease. Besides…it was too ridiculous, too preposterous to even—
‘I’d like us to become engaged to be married—if that’s acceptable to you, Caroline?’ Nicholas pressed on, reaching up to his shirt collar to pull it slightly away from his neck, where it had suddenly clearly become uncomfortably tight.
&nb
sp; Oh God…He was… Leaving her wine glass on the coffee table between them, Caroline got up from her chair and put her hands together, almost as though unconsciously praying. The heat from the fire feeling suddenly more akin to the heat from a roaring bonfire, she tried to smile at the man waiting patiently in her father’s old chair for her reaction.
‘Engaged Nicholas? You and I? Are you serious?’
‘Perfectly!’
‘But it’s—this is such a shock!’
‘A pleasant one, I hope?’
He didn’t rise from the chair, as Caroline had half expected him to. Instead he regarded her from it, as though his greater age and experience, his profession, dictated he had the right.
She tried to imagine being married to this man she had long regarded as a family friend. Apart from the age difference, which wouldn’t have been an issue at all if she had been in love with him, she knew no matter how desperately alone she felt at times she could not, would not, simply marry a man to fill the void left by the death of his wife—or because she might end up on her own if she didn’t. Nicholas didn’t love her either. He might genuinely be fond of her, Caroline mused, but all he really wanted was a companion and housekeeper—someone to be there to listen to the events of his day, someone to cook for him and clean his house, and, yes…someone to pour him a glass of good red wine while he sat by the fire on a cold winter’s evening.
And when she thought about going to bed with him…Caroline felt herself grow alternately hot then cold with embarrassment. She’d known this man since she was a teenager. At her father’s behest she had looked upon him as a kind of ‘uncle’. But—more pertinent than that—how could she even contemplate sharing the intimacies of marriage with a man she neither loved nor desired? And especially after becoming so shockingly reacquainted with the one man she’d given her heart to so long ago?
