by Ella Hayes
Her throat closed. She’d been trying to reach out, but his reply had almost felt like a rebuff. She turned to look through the window. It was still raining, drops ticking against the glass, running down. She swallowed hard. She was being too sensitive. Projecting! The house was undoubtedly an excellent investment and just because she couldn’t imagine herself rattling around in it for three years didn’t mean that Theo minded. As he’d said, he was away a lot.
She folded her arms, paced slowly towards the table, watching him. He was busy spooning coffee into a cafetière, getting cups out. What was Ash always saying? Men are from Mars, women are from Venus... Maybe he hadn’t been deflecting. Maybe he just hadn’t caught the drift of her question because she hadn’t phrased it properly.
She drew a breath, ignoring her thumping heart. ‘Theo, why are you alone?’
He paused for a beat, then turned around and leaned against the range. For a long second his eyes glittered with shards of something that looked like bitterness but as he held her gaze his expression softened. ‘I’m alone because my ex-wife soured the milk and it’s stayed sour for a very long time.’
It made sense. Not that he was divorced—far from it—but that he’d been married. What would turn a wife against a man like Theo? He was handsome, caring, protective. Clearly, he saw himself as the injured party, but then again everyone saw themselves that way. Hal would probably say that she hadn’t given him a chance to explain, that she’d thrown her engagement ring at him and cut him off completely.
She pulled out a chair, sat down at the table. ‘So the house. Was it...?’
‘No; it’s not a sad relic of my marriage. Eline and I divorced five years ago. I bought the house for myself because it’s on the best street in Amsterdam.’ He faltered, a glimmer of vulnerability in his eyes. ‘When I said it was an investment, I wasn’t talking about money...’ He pressed his palms to his thighs, smiling sheepishly. ‘The pathetic truth is that it’s a status thing.’ His gaze seemed to turn inwards. ‘I suppose I’ve never been able to shake off the poor kid’s desire for a smart address and a fast car...the feeling that in a house like this nothing bad could ever happen.’
She felt tears budding behind her eyes. He was confiding in her, trusting in her, and it was disarming; it made her want to wrap her arms around him.
He hooked his thumbs into his trouser pockets and cast his eyes around the kitchen. ‘The trouble is, now that I’ve got the address, I don’t know what to do with the inside.’
She stowed her emotions and took a steadying breath. ‘It’s a huge project but at least you’ve found some colours you like.’ She plucked at the neckline of her dress, threw him a little smile. ‘It’s a start.’
He chuckled, turning to tip boiling water into the cafetière. ‘You’ll have me making mood boards next.’
‘Pinpoint’s the way to go—you can do it on the computer—it should be right up your street.’ He was putting the cafetière and the cups on a tray. She tilted her head. ‘Are we going somewhere?’
‘Yep.’ His smile was mischievous. ‘I’ve saved the best till last. We’ll take our coffee upstairs, in the observatory. Follow me!’
CHAPTER SIX
HER EYES WIDENED. ‘You definitely saved the best till last!’
The only thing this space had in common with the rest of the house was the colour of its panelled walls—but this white was fresh and crisp, its expanses punctuated with bright abstract paintings. It took her a full minute to assimilate everything: the pale, plush carpet; the huge burnished-leather sofas; the imposing desk and bookcase; the wall-mounted television which was larger than the screens she’d seen in some small cinemas.
He set the coffee tray on a low table. ‘I pretty much live in here.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ She smiled. ‘I’m relieved, actually.’
His eyebrows lifted.
‘What I mean is that I’m glad you’ve got somewhere comfortable. I don’t like to think of you...’ She pressed her lips together.
‘What?’
A blush tingled in her cheeks. ‘Not being...’ He was doing it again, looking at her as if he could see right through her. She swallowed. ‘Not being comfortable...’
She broke his gaze. She might as well have told him straight out that she cared about him. How had that even happened? He was practically a stranger...and he was divorced! He might seem inordinately kind and noble—not to mention sexy—but it was entirely possible that his marriage had fallen apart because of him. That bitterness in his eyes...
‘My ex-wife soured the milk...’
Her instinct was to believe him, but she’d trusted her instincts before and it had cost her dearly. She touched the sofa back, eyes drifting as she tried to stop the doors in her mind revolving. At the far end of the room there was a short flight of steps that she hadn’t noticed before. She turned, caught his eye. ‘What’s up there?’
‘The dome—where the telescope lives!’
She felt her brow creasing. She’d thought this was the observatory. She scanned the room again. No telescope. How could she not have noticed? Too busy tying herself in knots over Theo and his big empty house, that was why. She pressed her teeth into her lower lip. Maybe if she got him to show her his observatory it would divert him, make him forget that she’d expressed care and concern about his comfort.
She turned to look at him. ‘Can I see it?’
He seemed to hesitate, and then he smiled. ‘Of course.’ He walked across the room and she followed, trying not to notice the breadth of his shoulders, the way his hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck.
At the top of the steps was a small landing, just enough clearance for the door he was opening. He stood aside. ‘After you.’
There was a moment of disorientation. Going from the vast white room into the compact circular pod was like stepping into a different world. In the centre, a huge white telescope sat on its mount like a king on a throne. The ceiling was domed, like the observatory at Greenwich, but much smaller—a diameter of ten feet or so. There were various gizmos, pieces of electronic hardware and a laptop computer connected to a black box.
She turned. ‘When you said you owned a telescope...’
He was right there, barely a foot away. The floor seemed to tilt. She caught the clean smell of his skin, felt the heat radiating from his body. She tried to step back, but her heel struck the telescope mount. She swallowed hard. ‘I thought you meant a telescope on a tripod...’ She swallowed again. ‘Near a window or something. Not like a whole dome with...’ Green eyes were locked on hers. She waved her hands about, drowning not waving. ‘This is some very serious kit.’
She thought he might have stepped back a bit, but he seemed to be rooted to the spot. She moistened her lips, trying to ignore the butterflies taking flight in her stomach. He looked very much like he was going to...
‘It is. Very serious.’ For an instant, his gaze dropped to her mouth, then he lifted his hand, stretching his fingers to her cheek.
Her heart exploded softly then a gentle warmth flooded her veins. She wanted to close her eyes, melt into his touch, but she was supposed to be keeping her head... Wasn’t she? It was why she’d had mineral water at lunch instead of wine. It was why she’d asked him to show her the dome. It was meant to distract him. She shifted her foot, felt the immoveable bulk of the mount behind her heel.
‘It’s a research-grade telescope...very powerful.’ His eyes held hers as he slid his fingers along her jawline to her neck. ‘On a clear night, you can see the Sombrero Galaxy...’ His voice was a lullaby, his touch unhurried. She hadn’t been touched like this for a long time and his fingertips felt so warm, so perfect, that she couldn’t not surrender a little. She took a baby breath, resting her hands lightly on his chest.
He bent his head so that their foreheads were almost touching. ‘The rings of Saturn...’
&n
bsp; She could push him away, but he was stroking her cheekbone with his thumb and it was making her weak.
‘Sometimes the Horsehead Nebula...otherwise known as the Nebula of Orion...’
There was no keeping her head now. She was undone. She lifted her face so he could close the infinitesimal distance between them, and instantly his lips were on hers. She closed her eyes, lost herself in the warm, sweet taste of him, the scent of him, the sensation of his mouth taking over hers. When he pulled her closer, deepening his kiss, she pressed her body against him, sliding her hands up the hard barrel of his chest and over his powerful shoulders...and all she could think was that she didn’t want it to stop. She didn’t want to think, she only wanted to feel, because nothing had ever felt like this.
When he broke away, his breathing was ragged. He stepped back, eyes burning into hers. ‘Do we need to talk about this?’
His eyes were full of everything. Talking... Thinking... They could do that later. She shook her head, somehow found her voice. ‘No.’
‘Good.’ He smiled, and then she was being swept up, being carried down the steps, through the room and down the stairs to the vast, empty bedroom; that vast, empty bed.
* * *
He hadn’t planned it, only thought about it. At lunch he’d had a vision of Mia in this bed and now she was beside him, wrapped in white sheets, her hair long and loose around her face. She was lying on her side, gazing at him, cheeks flushed, eyes glowing softly. He wasn’t used to being looked at like this, as if he was someone special, but it was how she made him feel. The way she’d kissed him, the way she’d touched him, the way she’d given herself to him so tenderly. Two hours ago she’d asked him to show her the dome, and he’d hesitated, because it was yet another small space. In the car, coming back from the restaurant, it had been almost impossible not to slide his hand over hers, not to lean in and kiss her when the engine died.
He’d known being in the confined space of the dome with her would challenge his self-control. He’d failed, hadn’t been able to stop himself reaching for her. If she’d stilled his hand, he would have stepped back, but she hadn’t. They’d collided like stars, exploded like meteors.
He touched her hair, winding a tendril around his finger. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen your hair loose.’
She smiled. ‘There’ve been lots of first times today.’
Her smile was full of light and he felt lucky to be the one bathing in its warmth. If fate had twisted in a different direction, she might have been married by now. Could he afford to break his own rule, permit himself some curiosity? There’d undoubtedly be fallout, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to know everything about her. He leaned in and kissed her softly. ‘Tell me about Hal.’
‘Hal?’ The light in her eyes drained away and two little creases appeared on her forehead. She took a breath, hesitated, then exhaled slowly. ‘He was Ash’s business partner.’ She lowered her gaze and for a long moment she was silent. When she looked up again, there were tears behind her eyes. ‘He was...the kind of person who made you believe in possibilities. He was good for Ash...in the beginning, anyway. They were a good team. Friends as well as colleagues. The three of us spent a lot of time together.’ She smiled softly. ‘We were already like a family when Hal asked me out. When he asked me to marry him, it felt like we were completing the circle.’
She seemed to lose herself for a moment. Rain pattered on the windows. He held his breath, listening. Waiting.
‘But Hal wasn’t what he seemed.’ Her fingers clenched the sheet. ‘He was cooking the books, stealing from the company.’
‘Stealing?’
She met his gaze. ‘He was massively in debt: gambling; high-stakes poker... I didn’t know he gambled, had no idea he was in debt, because he was always splashing money about, booking trips for us to lovely places. His family was well-off, you see. He told me he had money in shares, trust funds, investments. He once said he’d had a surprise bequest from a distant family member, but he hadn’t been to any funeral.’
Her mouth wobbled. ‘I should have worked it out, especially after Ash told me that there were inconsistencies in the company accounts. At the time it caused friction between us. I couldn’t believe he would doubt Hal’s honesty.’ She chewed her lip. ‘But then I realised I’d never seen a single bank statement of Hal’s—only the statements from our joint account. He told me that his family’s accountant always handled his finances and I’d just accepted it.
‘I decided to test him. I said that we ought to be looking for a place to buy for after we were married; that we ought to be lining up a mortgage. I told him that I’d arranged an appointment with the bank. He got flustered, started saying that there was plenty of time, that we shouldn’t be rushing into anything. I saw it then, the blind panic in his eyes, and I realised that Ash had been right all along.’
She pressed her fingers to her eyes. ‘It all came out after that. The gambling, the debts. He’d cleaned out his trust fund, sold his shares, and when it was all gone he’d started stealing from Ash. I broke off the engagement. Hal’s family settled out of court, but Ash and I took a real knock over it. We mended our fences, but I felt terrible. For so long, I’d been telling him that he was wrong about Hal, and he’d chosen to believe me. If it hadn’t been for me, he’d have challenged Hal much sooner.’
‘Oh, Mia...’ She wasn’t to blame. It had been an impossible situation; loyalties divided between lover and brother. He understood that situation all too well. He touched her shoulder, running his fingers lightly along her arm. ‘Now I understand why you came to my hotel that day, why you interceded so compellingly for Ash.’
She sighed. ‘Atonement.’
He pulled her close. ‘A little, maybe, but mostly you did it because you love your brother, and you wanted to help him. It’s what you do, Mia—you help people. You push back, you shape fate.’
‘Is that what you think?’
He kissed her hair. ‘Let me see... You convinced me to meet Ash in Greenwich, which secured him development funding and will conclude in a valuable contract for both of us. You saved Lotte from a serious assault. You saved me from having my picture taken as well as saving me from septicaemia. As for Cleuso...’
She lifted her head. ‘You have a nice take on things.’ A smile touched the corners of her mouth. ‘I haven’t helped much with your interior décor situation, though, have I?’
He glanced at the silk dress on the floor. ‘That’s a work in progress, and I can say hand on heart that there’s absolutely no rush.’
‘It wouldn’t wash if you did... I mean, three years!’ She shifted a little and ran a slow finger over the back of his hand. ‘Seriously, though, until I saw I your man cave I was feeling sorry for you...living here, in all this emptiness.’
‘Man cave?’
She nodded. ‘It’s a thing!’ She flattened her hand over his and fixed him with serious eyes. ‘Where did you live before...when you were married?’
His felt his shoulders stiffening. She’d told him about her parents; she’d told him about Hal. He’d known she’d come back to him with questions about himself. It was the contract of conversation, only natural, but it was the kind of conversation that made his temples throb. Sweet, brave Mia. She wanted to open him up, she wanted to know him, but all he could think about was how he was going to dodge the bullet that he knew was coming.
‘We had an apartment near the river.’
‘Furnished?’
In spite of himself, he chuckled. ‘Yes.’
‘What was it like?’
Eline had done it all. Modern, clean, elegant. She’d had a thing about elephants—sculptures, paintings, small ornaments. They had to face the right way—towards the door, towards the window. Ironically, he couldn’t remember. He’d had his hands full with caring for Bram.
‘It was...streamlined.’ He thought of the old
Dutch range in the kitchen downstairs. ‘Very different to this, although Direk’s trying to persuade me to go for a modern streamlined look in the kitchen. He’s rather fond of black granite.’
‘Black? You mustn’t do that. You’ve got that lovely old stove. I’d start with that. You could have it reconditioned; re-enamelled. It’s such a lovely blue. Very Delft.’
‘And it works well, as long as you’re not in a hurry.’
She smiled. ‘I know what you mean—my grandmother had one.’ Suddenly she was sitting up, wrapping the sheet around herself. ‘What did your wife do that hurt you so badly?’
For some reason his heart didn’t shrink at the mention of Eline. Maybe because his focus was elsewhere. Mia looked so lovely in the fading afternoon light, loosely wrapped in white, hair tumbling around her shoulders. He felt the fresh stirrings of desire but pulling her down, losing himself in her again, was too obvious a diversion tactic. And, after everything she’d told him about Hal—the secrets and the lies—he wanted to trust her with something real.
‘She had an affair.’
‘Why?’
Wide eyes held his. He drew in a slow breath. Neglect. That was what Eline had accused him of. But if he told Mia that, then he’d have to tell her about Bram: the drinking, the drugs, the despair. He’d have to explain why he’d bought the isolated beach house, why he’d spent weeks at a time there with Bram, drying him out, trying to keep him away from his addictions.
Wide eyes held him gently. She’d understand, and he wanted to trust her, but something was holding him back. Perhaps the roots of his pain ran too deep after all.
Eline had been sweet and understanding at first, but she’d grown impatient with him, and with Bram, and then her impatience had turned into bitterness, and the bitterness had turned into cruelty. She’d taunted him, fanned the flames of his shame.
‘For pity’s sake, lighten up, Theo. Have a drink!’
He shuddered inwardly.
