‘I don’t know, Blake. I haven’t given myself the chance to entertain even the possibility.’
He nodded. ‘And if I promise to...to be open with you, too. Would you entertain the possibility then?’
Her heart accelerated. ‘Maybe.’
‘Okay.’ He held a hand out to her. ‘Can I take you home?’
She laughed, and nodded. ‘I guess so. I just need to put my shoes on.’
She slipped her left shoe on her foot, and was about to do the same for her right when Blake knelt in front of her.
‘Let me.’
He took the shoe from her hand and fitted it onto her right foot. For one ridiculous moment Callie felt as if she was in a fairy tale. Her Prince Charming was kneeling in front of her, fitting onto her foot the shoe that would make her his princess.
But then he looked at her, and all fairy-tale notions fled from her head. There was a heat in his gaze that made her burn from the place where his hand still lay on her foot right up to the hair follicles on her head. For a moment she wondered what would happen if she pinned him against the wall and continued where they had left off a few nights ago...
She shook her head and he smiled at her. But his smile was a wicked one, as though he knew exactly what her mind had jumped to as he’d slipped her shoe on.
He straightened and held out a hand to her. ‘Shall we?’
She exhaled shakily and took his hand. ‘Yes.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
BLAKE OPENED THE car door for Callie and felt his body tighten when she brushed past him to get in. He supposed he hadn’t recovered from their interactions earlier today. That kiss at the restaurant... Whatever it was that had happened in her office...
He didn’t know what had possessed him to put her shoe on for her, but he was glad that he had. If he hadn’t he wouldn’t have seen the way her eyes had sparked with a desire that matched his. She might not know if she had feelings for him, but she definitely wanted him. And that meant they were on the same page.
He watched as she typed her address into the GPS on his dashboard, and when the voice gave him his first direction he followed it. He glanced over at her, and frowned when he saw that her arms were crossed.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I think so.’ She didn’t look at him.
‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, almost immediately, and then she sighed. ‘Everything. I’m just not used to this.’
‘To...us?’
She ran a hand through her hair. ‘To any of it. This is all new territory for me. Worrying about work. About whatever’s going on between the two of us. I don’t know—I guess I just feel...raw.’
Blake forced himself to keep focusing on the road, even though he wanted to pull over and hold her in his arms. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that everything was going to be okay. Instead he settled for saying the one thing he thought she might need to hear right now.
‘You’re not alone, Callie.’
He took a right and didn’t look at her, even though he knew her eyes were on him.
‘I worry about what’s going on between us, too. But you don’t have to worry about work, okay? Everything is going to be fine.’
He wanted to ask her if he’d made her feel worse—about her worries over them, about the things she had just told him—but he forced himself to wait. She was opening up to him again and he wanted to earn it. So he just said it again.
‘You’re not alone.’
The rest of their trip was quiet. Blake didn’t know what she was thinking about, but her hands now lay on her lap, and he took it as a sign that maybe she didn’t feel so vulnerable any more. He wanted to kick himself for making her feel that way in the first place, but there was nothing he could do about the past. When he’d realised he’d made a mistake about Callie—when he’d realised that the failure of his relationship with Julia had had very little to do with them working together—he had wanted to call her immediately and tell her that he was sorry, that he wanted to make it up to her.
But his words wouldn’t have meant anything at that point, he had reasoned, and so instead he’d tried to show her through his actions. He’d made an effort not to keep up the act of being the boss she expected—the hard, cold act he had clung to in order to keep his professionalism with her. Instead he’d acted as he did with every other employee. Well, perhaps not exactly the same way, but he figured she’d earned some preferential treatment since her standard of work was higher than most he’d encountered.
He’d also enjoyed the way her eyes widened every time he engaged with her without the cold formality that had coloured his interactions with her before.
When his GPS announced that their destination was on the left, Blake pulled up in front of a light-coloured house with a rush of flowers planted in flower beds along the pathway.
‘I’m not sure who to compliment on your garden. You for choosing the flowers, or your gardener for planting them.’
She laughed and unlocked the door. ‘Both, I suppose. Thank you. I’ll pass the message on to Ernesto.’
He frowned. ‘Your gardener’s name is Ernesto?’
‘Yes. He’s from Italy. What are the chances of finding a young, attractive male from another country to do your garden for you?’
He couldn’t quite keep his face neutral when he thought about it, and she took one look at him before bursting out into laughter.
‘I’m just kidding, Blake. My gardener is a lovely man in his fifties called George.’
Her eyes twinkled, and he felt himself relax. And then she gestured to the door.
‘Do you want to come inside?’
He barely took a second before saying, ‘Sure.’
Her house was spacious, filled with light and bright flowers from her garden. The open plan meant that the lounge, dining room and kitchen led from one room to the other, and all the furniture complemented the warm and rustic theme of her house.
‘Did you do the interior of the house?’ he asked, walking past a shelf that held pictures of the McKenzie family.
His eyes were drawn to a picture of Callie and Connor, standing next to a woman and a man who looked so much like them he thought that if he’d met them on the street he would have recognised them as Connor and Callie’s parents. They looked so happy, he thought, and his heart broke for reasons he couldn’t describe. Somehow it made him think of his own family, and the fact that Callie wouldn’t ever see a picture like this anywhere in his place.
‘Some of it.’
He turned when she answered him, and the compassion in her eyes tugged at his heart. How did she continue to see through him?
‘But mostly I’ve kept it as it was when my parents were alive,’ she pressed on, and took off her jersey, throwing it over one arm. ‘My mom had great taste.’
‘Yeah, she did.’
He was still thinking about her family when she said, ‘I’m going to change. It shouldn’t take too long, but feel free to make yourself comfortable.’
She walked through a doorway in the kitchen and he heard her footsteps on the floor and a door closing. He turned back to the shelf with the pictures and tried to keep his mind off the thought of her changing in the next room. But his thoughts kept shifting back to how she would be slipping off those heels that made her legs look as if they never ended. And she was probably taking off that dress that had done nothing to hide the curves that had been in his thoughts ever since he’d touched them.
He swallowed, and walked to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.
There was an empty glass in the sink, and he rinsed it and filled it with water from the tap. As he drank he looked up through the window that was just above the L-shaped kitchen counter. It overlooked a tidy little yard which was completel
y free of flowers, but had a large palm tree that shadowed a swing seat just beneath it. But the real view was of the mountain just above it.
‘That’s Lion’s Head.’
He turned back to see Callie looking past him through the window. She had changed into a long floral skirt and a mint-green T-shirt, and had loosened her hair so that it fell in waves down her back. She looked so effortlessly beautiful that his heart stopped for a few minutes just looking at her. She walked towards him until she was next to him and then pointed to the right of the mountain he’d seen.
‘Table Mountain is over there.’
But he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and her proximity overwhelmed his senses. When she looked back to him her eyes widened in that way they did whenever something she hadn’t expected happened.
He put his hands on her waist, cautiously, asking permission without saying a word, and she took a step towards him so that there was barely any space between them. His arms slipped around her and his body heated at finally being able to feel hers again, and then he leaned down to her until his mouth was next to her ear.
‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ he whispered, and felt her shudder. He moved his head back so he could see her face, flushed and beautiful, and asked, ‘Is that okay?’
* * *
‘Yes.’
She had barely said the word before his lips were on hers. She had expected hunger, passion—everything that had burned with their first kiss. But there was none of that. Instead it felt as though he was trying to make up for that, to show her there was more to whatever was going on between them than just pure lust.
She thought vaguely that this might be the way their kiss on the rooftop would have felt if they’d let it continue for a while longer. And as the sweetness of their kiss swept through her she felt her heart open and be filled with it. He pulled her closer, and her heart beat at double its speed as she let her hands explore his body.
As soon as she did, the sweetness turned into need and she deepened their kiss, wanting more.
‘Callie.’
Blake had ended the kiss, but he didn’t let her go. She opened her eyes to see his own were closed, and he leaned his forehead against her.
‘Do you want to give me a heart attack?’
She laughed breathlessly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I had that in me.’
He lifted his head and smiled, and for the first time she noticed the crinkles around his eyes. She’d never really seen them before, she thought, and brushed a thumb across one of them.
‘I think you have a lot in you that you don’t realise,’ he responded, and then took a deliberate step away from her.
As he did so she suddenly realised where she was, who she was with. Where had all this come from? Why was he was saying all the right things? About how she wasn’t alone, how she shouldn’t worry about the hotel, how they would deal with whatever was happening between them together. She had let her guard down enough to invite him in, and now he’d kissed her—in her own kitchen.
She turned her back to him and braced her hands on the sink as the uncertainty of the situation overwhelmed her.
‘Hey,’ Blake said, and moved to next to her. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’ She turned to him and forced a smile to her face. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’
‘Callie, come on. I thought we agreed we were going to be open with one another.’
‘Yeah, we did. So tell me where all this is coming from. How are you so calm and determined to be open with me when the last time you did this you pushed me away?’
The words had rushed from her mouth and she sighed, wishing she had some semblance of control over it. Especially when she saw the pain on his face.
‘I’m sorry, Blake. I told you I was feeling a bit raw. And kissing doesn’t help.’ She resisted the urge to touch her lips.
He nodded. ‘You’re right. We should probably straighten things out before we do that again.’
Her heart accelerated even at the thought of it.
‘Is that drink still up for offer?’
‘Sure. Would you like some wine? I have a really good red.’
‘Yeah, that’s great.’
She poured the wine and joined him on the couch. It overlooked the garden when the curtains were open, and the amount of light it offered the house meant she kept them that way most of the time.
She handed him his glass and took a sip of her own wine as she snuggled into the corner of the couch. There was enough space between them that she felt safe from doing something she would likely regret if she were any closer.
‘The last time I messed things up between us it was because of my ex-wife.’
He spoke suddenly, and Callie didn’t know what to make of the way her stomach clenched at his mention of the woman. So she just nodded, and waited for him to continue.
‘She was one of my employees at the Port Elizabeth Elegance Hotel. I met her a few years after my father retired, when I realised that the hotel in PE was losing staff at an incredibly high rate. I arranged a meeting with HR and they sent Julia.’
Callie watched as the tension on Blake’s face tightened. She wanted to reach out to him, but she resisted. He needed to tell her about this without any help. But he had stopped talking.
She waited, then finally she asked, ‘What was it that made you fall for her?’
He looked at her, and she saw a mixture of emotions in his eyes. Emotions that almost mirrored her own. She didn’t really want to hear about what it was that had attracted Blake to this woman. But she needed to if they were going to make any progress together.
Then he exhaled sharply. ‘I don’t exactly know, to be honest with you. I guess it was because she had all the ingredients of the perfect woman. She was smart and beautiful, and I was attracted to her. But I didn’t want to date her because—well...’ he smiled wryly ‘...I was her boss.’
He continued now without any help, and she thought it was almost a compulsion for him to tell her.
‘But professionalism didn’t really mean as much to me back then, so after about six months of resisting I asked her out. And it felt good. But what drew me in was Brent—her son.’
Blake didn’t look at Callie but he paused, as though letting her process what he was telling her. She already had so many questions, but she refused to speak. Especially when she didn’t think she would have the voice to do so.
After a few more moments he continued. ‘She had always been honest with me about him. She’d told me that his father hadn’t been in the picture from the beginning and that she’d been raising him by herself. And the way she told me that...’
He leaned forward now, bracing his elbows on his knees, and Callie realised he had long ago placed his wine, untouched, on the coffee table in front of them,
‘That was, I think, what made me fall in love with her. She had this softness about her when she spoke about Brent that seemed so out of place in this woman who was all sass all the time.’
Callie didn’t realise she was holding her breath until he looked at her, and the torment she saw in his eyes made her untangle her legs from under her and move closer to him. They sat there for a while in silence, and Callie thought about what he’d said. She remembered the way his eyes had dimmed when she’d spoken to him of his mother on the boat, what felt like a lifetime ago. It was quite simple for her to come to a conclusion then.
‘She was a good mother. So different to what you’d had.’ She hadn’t realised she’d spoken out loud until he took a shaky breath.
‘Yeah, I think that was it. And when I met Brent I fell in love with him, too. He reminded me a lot of myself.’ He frowned, as though unsure of where that had come from. ‘In hindsight, I suppose I fell for Brent more than I did for Julia, but they were intertwined. And t
hen one day I found her crying in my office. She told me that she didn’t think she was a good enough mother to Brent, that she wasn’t giving him stability because he didn’t have a father. And just like that she had me.’
He pushed off from the couch so fast that Callie felt her heart stop.
‘I thought she was being honest with me. That she was being unselfish, thinking of her son first. Maybe she was. But the way she did it...’ He shook his head.
She’d shown her son all the things Blake hadn’t had growing up, Callie thought, and wished she could have been there for him then.
‘I fell for it. I comforted her, told her she was an amazing mother, and started making plans to propose. I’d only known her for a year then, had been dating her for six months, and I married her.’
He looked at her, and she thought she saw embarrassment in his eyes.
‘I married a woman I barely knew because she pulled at my heartstrings. My father insisted that we sign a prenuptial agreement, and we did—though she made some noise about that. The right noise, too. About how we didn’t need a prenup when we were going to last. We were a family, and we were going to make it work. And for a year we did.’
He joined her on the couch again, and Callie took his hand, wanting to provide as much comfort as she could.
‘Callie, I didn’t think I would ever be as happy as I was being a husband and a father. We were a family. I had a family.’ He rubbed a hand across his face. ‘But I was in a bubble, and I only noticed the way Julia had changed when it began to affect Brent. She had become snarky and mean. Only to me, luckily, but she was doing it in front of Brent, and I could tell that he hated it. When I challenged her on it she told me it was none of my business because Brent wasn’t even my son.
He looked at her, and then lowered his eyes.
‘I tried to save the relationship—I really did. I even went so far as to look into adopting Brent. I hired an investigator to find Brent’s father so that I could ask him to relinquish his parental rights to me. I was going to surprise Julia with it. But then one night she told me it wasn’t working, and that what was happening between us was hurting Brent. That was the last thing I wanted, so I agreed to a divorce. I had just wanted to give Brent a home, a family.’
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