British Bachelors & Conveniently Bedded Bundle

by Helen Brooks, Maggie Cox, Natalie Anderson, Anna Cleary

  ‘What about your father’s mistakes?’ Blaise demanded, sensing his temper rise. ‘It’s clear you’ve been pretty damaged by them. What the hell good does it do to keep on revisiting the past? Answer me that!’

  Across the table, Maya’s shoulders drooped a little in an expression of defeat. ‘You’re right. I probably am damaged by what my father did—the way he lived and the way he died. I suppose I’m just trying to understand it all, really…that’s all. I’m trying to understand it so that if I have children of my own I won’t ever do what he did—put myself and my career and my so-called friends first, so much so that the children are neglected and left to fend for themselves. I’ll show them every day that they mean the world to me, and love them so much that they’ll never have a moment’s doubt that they’re not my top priority—no matter what else is going on in my life!’

  Seeing the determination and distress mirrored in her lovely features, Blaise felt his heart helplessly contract. Recalling his own father’s vile temper, and what the consequences of that had been like for him and his mother, he realised his home life had been a fairytale compared to what Maya had been through. There were no doubts in his mind that she would make a terrific mother one day…not to mention a wonderful wife to some very, very fortunate man.

  ‘I found his body after he’d hung himself,’ she told him softly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHAKING his head in disbelief, Blaise sensed his stomach violently turn over. ‘What?’

  Maya stared down at the table. Her long dark hair fell gently forward, partially shielding her.

  ‘He was in his studio… I’d just returned from buying some groceries—he never thought about food when he was working and the cupboard was bare.’ She glanced up and grimaced. ‘I called out to him but he didn’t answer. I knew he was working, trying his best to get something new going after a long period of not being able to work at all, so I put the food away and made us both a cup of tea.’

  ‘You don’t have to go on if this is too painful.’

  ‘I want to. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it for a long time, and I—and I need to.’

  ‘Then I want to listen.’

  ‘Anyway…I knocked on the door and called out again—not so loud as to disturb him from his train of thought, just clear enough that he could hear me. Still he didn’t answer. I carefully opened the door and glanced in.’

  Her chin wobbled a little, and Blaise’s breath was suddenly trapped inside his chest.

  ‘He was hanging by a rope he’d tied onto the chandelier—it was a fairly hefty, lavish affair—and little shards of glass lay shattered and broken beneath his feet on the table that he’d dragged over so that he could—so that he could—’ Covering her face with her hand, she began to cry softly.

  For a frozen second Blaise couldn’t make himself move. Then he was on his feet, moving swiftly round to her side, pulling her gently upright and guiding her head down onto his chest. Almost immediately her hot tears dampened his shirt, and he rained tender little kisses over her silken hair, breathing in her sweetly perfumed shampoo and feeling her slender body shudder against him.

  ‘Cry as much as you want to, sweetheart,’ he crooned. ‘I won’t let you go. I’ll just keep on holding you.’

  ‘This isn’t what you hired me for…to behave like some emotional wreck and have you take care of me.’

  ‘Are you crazy? Do you honestly think it’s a hardship for me to hold you like this after what we’ve shared?’

  ‘All these years,’ she whispered against his shirt, ‘I’ve kept on thinking that if I’d only got back sooner…or if I hadn’t gone to the shops at all…he might—he might still be here…’

  ‘No, Maya…sweetheart, I think you’re wrong.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Trustingly, hopefully, she raised her face to his.

  Folding his palms round her slim upper arms, Blaise breathed in deeply. ‘It sounds like he’d let himself descend too low into the pit of despair to be rescued by anyone…’ Unable to resist, he traced the tracks of her tears with the pad of his thumb. ‘Least of all you. He was meant to take care of you, Maya…not the other way round.’

  ‘What if he tried his best to take care of me but he just couldn’t? I can’t keep on blaming him for that.’

  Even now she was still protecting him, Blaise realised with incredulity. After all the man had put her through!

  ‘You don’t have to keep on blaming him, but he absolutely did not try his best to take care of you, Maya. Whatever you say, however much you may want to jump to his defence, he didn’t try his best at all. He may have been an incredible artist, but it was his only daughter he should have lavished his love and devotion on first…even before his art.’

  ‘To be honest, I think that sometimes he used his painting to escape the world—but don’t we all do that in one form or another at times of stress or worry? Try to escape? Can I tell you something else? I don’t always feel so forgiving towards him. Sometimes I hate him for what he did…how he behaved, how he put people who didn’t even care about him before me. But the truth is I also loved him very much.’

  ‘Most relationships are that complicated.’

  ‘You know the strangest thing? After his funeral I had the strongest sense that he was looking after me at last. Instead of going to pieces, which is how I feared I might react, I felt this really warm sensation of peace and love wrap itself round me. It stayed with me for months…even when everything had to be sold to pay off his debts and I was forced to leave our home.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘A friend of mine was sharing a house with two other girls and they offered me a room. A couple of months before that—knowing that my father was in financial difficulty—I’d left school and got myself a job in an office, so that I could help support us. Anyway…’

  She shrugged matter-of-factly, and her lips formed a tentative smile. As subtle as the gesture was, the sweet curve of her lips acted like a ray of pure sunlight, dazzling him.

  ‘You’re perfectly right. It doesn’t do any good to keep revisiting the past—it can be an exercise doomed to make you miserable. It’s what’s happening now that we need to concentrate on, isn’t it? I’ve told myself not to keep dwelling on things, and I do want to try and put everything that happened behind me, but still…it was a terrible thing, you know? To witness, I mean…’

  ‘To even imagine it is terrible enough, Maya. And you had to cope with that devastating event all on your own. That takes tremendous courage.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve never thought about it like that before. That I had courage… But I must have had it even to want to continue. And I have continued…I haven’t given up. I’m still here and I have to count my blessings. I’ve got the rest of my life to live, right? I’m determined to put my whole self into whatever I do next—not have only half of me show up, which I think is what I’ve been doing all these years. It’s time to move away from all the sadness—to go forward with a bit more optimism.’

  ‘If anyone can do that, you can, Maya.’

  ‘Blaise?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Listening.’

  Her gratitude almost undid him—particularly when he thought it was singularly undeserved. ‘Any time.’

  ‘If you ever need someone to just listen…I’ll be there for you too.’

  Steadily he rested his gaze on her lovely face, but said nothing.

  ‘I don’t know why, but sometimes I get the feeling there’s something from the past that really bothers you, Blaise. You don’t show it outwardly—I mean you’re very confident and successful at what you do—but it’s just a sense I get. Is it—is it to do with your family?’

  Stultifying mental shadows pressed close, and his usual battle with the tide of hurtful memory gripped Blaise in a vice. ‘Another time,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Another time perhaps I’ll talk to you about it.’

 
Lowering his glance, he saw the doubt in her eyes and knew she had every right to doubt him. Resistance to discussing both his family and his fears about repeating his father’s reprehensible behaviour was so strong in him that he took the path of avoidance every time…every time. Inside, he bitterly despaired that he would ever be any different.

  The truth was that Maya was far more courageous than he could ever hope to be. She was willing to deal with the dark cloud of memory that sometimes enveloped her, had made a pact to try and move away from it, to be more optimistic about life. Perhaps all Blaise could do was keep on pouring his stifled emotion into his work instead? And maybe he should properly confront the fact that in all likelihood he would spend the rest of his life alone because of his inability to face up to things. One thing he was certain of: he would not venture into a long-term commitment with a woman with such a high risk of failure hanging over his head. For who would stay with a man that might potentially harm them? He especially wouldn’t do that to a woman like Maya—someone who had already been hurt almost beyond imagining.

  Maybe he had been selfish to embark on this passionate odyssey with her? She surely deserved better than just enjoying some explosive sex with a man who—despite his genuine concern for her—fully intended to kiss her goodbye some time soon? When she’d talked about her ex he had heard disappointment and hurt in her voice that her imagined happy future with him had come to naught, and in such a cruelly painful way too. Surely a short affair with Blaise would only confirm her opinion that all men were louses? Users…who didn’t give a damn about her as long as they got what they wanted?

  Dropping his hands to rest them lightly either side of her hips in her long satin dress, Blaise couldn’t resist impelling her body closer to his, even though he was in turmoil about his right to intimacy with Maya at all.

  Her scent made him feel hypnotised…drugged. And he wanted her again, with no lessening of the fierce need and burning desire that had seized him from almost the first moment he saw her. Reverently he touched his lips to her infinitely soft cheek.

  ‘Let me take you to bed, Maya. It won’t make the hurt go away, but it might help you forget for a while… And the truth is I need to make love to you…need it more than anything else in the world right now…’

  When he reached out his hand for hers, Maya hesitated only a moment before silently slipping her palm into his…

  Her fingers splayed lightly across Blaise’s hipbone, Maya snuggled closer to his wonderful naked masculine form in the bed. ‘Your skin feels like rough warm silk,’ she told him, smiling up into his handsome face in the lamplight.

  ‘And yours…there are no words to do such delicious softness justice. Except perhaps to say that I think heaven must feel like this. You’re a revelation to me, you know? Yes, a revelation—as well as one very irresistible and tempting woman, Maya Hayward.’

  ‘How tempting?’ She touched him in the place where he was most sensitive and most aroused. Beneath her gently exploring fingers she sensed the warm silken length of his manhood pulse even harder into life. They had already shared some of the most combustible languorous kisses Maya could imagine—her lips still bore the exquisite aftermath of his alternately demanding then gentle mouth. Now she watched him rip open a slim foil packet to release the protective sheath inside, his brief examination of her teasing expression hot, libidinous and hungry.

  ‘Climb on top and I’ll show you, sweetheart.’

  ‘You mean sometimes actions speak louder than words…even for a playwright?’ She grinned.

  Along with her seemingly insatiable desire for this man, there was a new lightness and playfulness skipping through her bloodstream that she hadn’t known was even possible. Loving the sensation of her inner thighs gripping Blaise’s lean, arrow-straight hips, she didn’t take her gaze off his as he thrust upwards inside her with devastating intent. His blue eyes were like living, dangerous electricity, and she immediately felt him fill her to the hilt. He stayed there, rocking her gently, so that she was intimately acquainted with every wonderful inch of him, his hands clasping her hips.

  Her head momentarily falling back, Maya shut her eyes. That sense of lightness pulsing through her body wasn’t just because she’d finally decided to leave the past behind and move on…it was because she was in love, she realised. Her eyes shot open again. Blaise might not yet trust her enough to share whatever it was that troubled him, and he might have clearly hinted that he wasn’t a man who welcomed long-term commitment either, but there it was. She loved him. Hugging the knowledge to her, she gazed down at him with a new sense of wonder and appreciation.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, his seductively low-pitched voice breaking a little, ‘keep on looking at me like that and you may just have to stay right where you are for the rest of the night. Think you could handle that?’

  Leaning towards Maya, he cupped her face, drawing her mouth urgently down to his before she could reply. As the heat and hardness of his demanding kiss avidly claimed her, she willingly returned his passionate fervour with all her heart, suddenly finding herself praying hard that one day, despite her intention to only enjoy a brief affair, he might love her back…that his love might lead to the dream of a happy, fulfilling union with a man that constantly eluded her.

  ‘I think I could handle anything you wanted to give me, Mr Walker,’ she murmured, nuzzling her face deep into the beguiling warmth of his neck…

  He was outside walking by the wall again, with the wind in his hair and—it had to be said—a spring in his step. He didn’t waste time speculating why. The reason was back at the house, eagerly continuing research for the play on Blaise’s behalf and by all accounts loving every minute of it. It had taken a monumental effort on his part not to say to hell with it and keep Maya in bed for the rest of the day. But the plain fact of the matter was that he had a play to write, and it wouldn’t progress any further if he lost himself in any more distractions…delightful and engaging as they might be.

  No, he needed to delve deeper into his protagonist’s character, needed to see what else it was besides a dream of a more exciting future that drove him to leave his family and join up with the Roman army, to travel to a foreign land and guard a border he had never even seen before.

  After an hour and a bit of walking across the uneven crags, he felt the wind pick up and become ever more gusting as he passed the odd intrepid fellow walker on the way. Then finally, his head down and his mind intent on developing the storyline, Blaise had his answer. When it came he sucked in a breath and sensed his insides roll over.

  It had been there all the time, hovering on the edge of his consciousness from the moment he’d come up with the play’s concept, but unbelievably he had been playing the avoidance game again. Now it seemed there was no longer any place left to hide…

  ‘How’s the play going?’

  ‘Hello, Jane.’ Blaise rocked back in his chair with the phone receiver next to his ear and grinned. ‘How’s life in the great metropolis?’

  ‘Answer my question first, and then I’ll tell you.’

  ‘The play’s going fine. For the past two weeks I’ve hit a real blue streak.’

  ‘Inspired, no doubt, by your visiting muse? How is she, by the way? The fact that she’s still with you after two weeks and hasn’t high-tailed it back to London tells me a lot.’

  ‘Does it, indeed?’

  ‘Yes—it tells me about her tenacity, for one thing…as well as about her resilience in continuing to work in the face of how temperamental and demanding you artistic types can be.’

  Blaise frowned. ‘Her father was an artist,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘That explains it, then. You’re utterly charming and beguiling, darling, but we both know that when you’re working sparks of artistic temperament are apt to fly!’

  ‘I’ve changed!’ he said jokingly. Then a second later realised he meant it. He had changed since he’d been around Maya. She’d definitely been responsible for bringing out a much more
mellow side in him—a side where he was a little less angry when things didn’t immediately go his way, where he could actually relax in a woman’s company and not feel the need to escape and be on his own at some point.

  ‘She’s great, by the way,’ he remarked, finally answering Jane’s question. Even just thinking about Maya made him grow warm. Right now she was in the adjoining office, typing up yesterday’s work, and later that afternoon he was taking her into town so that they could enjoy tea at a five-star hotel.

  ‘My, my…’ Jane’s voice lowered meaningfully. ‘How the mighty are fallen.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you falling for this girl, Blaise? I mean…really falling?’

  He rocked forward again, feeling the skin between his brows pucker. ‘You know I don’t do happy-ever-after, Jane, so don’t go getting your hopes up and looking at hats to wear to my wedding, will you?’

  ‘You sound happier than usual—that’s all I meant. When you talk about this woman your voice lights up.’

  ‘Happiness doesn’t last…especially where romantic relationships are concerned. Living with someone day after day is apt to take the rose-tinted edge off the illusion…or so I’ve heard. Why can’t I simply enjoy what I have right now with Maya without it necessarily having to lead somewhere?’

  ‘That’s your prerogative, of course. Speaking as a friend, I just don’t want to see you grow old and lonely on your own, I guess.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate your concern, but do you honestly believe there won’t be pretty and obliging women around to keep me company—even into my dotage?’ Blaise chuckled, but the sound had a definitely hollow ring to it, even to his own ears…

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MAYA stared at the pretty watercolour of violets on the wall by the door to Blaise’s office, feeling stunned and faint. She wished she could erase from her mind the words she’d just heard Blaise speak but knew that it was impossible. It was obvious now that she’d merely been deluding herself that he was beginning to feel something deeper for her because they’d been spending more and more time together. The bond she’d imagined they shared was nothing but a foolish and ridiculous pipe-dream on her part!