When the food arrived, he noticed the way she ate, using her chopsticks effortlessly to flake her salmon teriyaki. She savored each morsel, dividing her attention equally between the food and the conversation. He also had the feeling she knew exactly what every other person in the restaurant had ordered and at what stage the service was at. Her attention flitted about, but with consummate skill. Her observations never interrupted their current discussion. This was a side of her he’d never studied closely before—the mature, sophisticated businesswoman she’d become.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. Carmen Shelby was the director of a company with a healthy turnover, despite the hard times of the recession years. Everything that he’d read about Carmen’s work proved how much she’d pushed the business on, sourcing items everybody wanted for their homes, comfy furnishings, crockery and ornaments. Affordable but at the top end, so that having these items still felt like they were classy and desirable. There was prestige when you carried an Objet d’Art bag among your shopping.
“Have you been okay,” he asked, “since the weekend?”
“It’s been so weird, thinking about what you said, about your dad’s expectations of us.”
The letter was in his mind, but he couldn’t address that yet, not while she was still getting used to the previous information he’d shared with her. “You weren’t aware of his perfect family dream?”
“I suppose I was, and in a weird way I could relate to it, because I’d always wanted a brother.” She looked at him and smiled. “Then you arrived, all stroppy and surly. Stomping around the house with your long hair and your stubble.”
It shamed him that her memory for detail was so good. “I can’t be blamed for my surly self. When I came home after our parents got hitched it was a total culture shock. I wasn’t used to Burlington Manor being a happy place. I was a bit freaked out by what I found there.”
She looked at him as if confused at first, then she broke into laughter. “Oh, Rex, really?”
“Of course. My parents argued the whole time. Bitterly. It was a shock to me to come home and find...well, happiness. Dad was content with Sylvia.”
She studied him. “I never knew it was such a change for you. I mean, I’d guessed it would be awkward, turning up to find us so thoroughly ensconced there.”
“It’s true. And I also felt a duty to my mother. I had to give my dad a bit of grief for upsetting her. It’s in the contract for number-one son.”
She chuckled. “So, to do right by your mother you came home stoned and then proceeded to get plastered on your dad’s best whisky?”
“Like I say, duty.” He lifted one shoulder.
The atmosphere between them felt so easy and warm. And the honesty, it was too good. He wanted to bottle the mood of the moment, to capture and keep it for them to enjoy always.
“Why did your parents split up?” she asked tentatively. “I always wondered.”
Rex shrugged. That wasn’t something he wanted to be totally honest about, not with her and not right now. So he lied. “My mother wouldn’t talk about it, said it was in the past. Everything changed after that, when you came into our lives. That’s why Dad was so keen to be the family unit, I guess. He’d made such a hash of it the first time around.” He’d be able to show her that in the letter, soon.
He smiled and tried to break the tension, hoping to steer her away from the more troublesome question. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that his parents had split because Charles Carruthers had a mistress on the side while he was married to Rex’s mother. Carmen didn’t know, and he preferred to keep it that way. It would tarnish Carmen’s image of Charles, and Rex didn’t want to do that. Rex’s mother had blurted it out when he was a teenager, and he’d been reminded of it when he read that letter in the library. When he did share the letter with her, he wanted them to be comfortable with each other. They were getting there, and meeting like this, on neutral ground, was helping. “So you noticed that, me being a git?”
“I couldn’t fail to notice, obsessed with you the way I was.”
Rex wanted to respond with something easy, something witty, but her comments affected him so intensely he couldn’t do anything else but reach out for her hand across the table.
Touching her that way felt precious.
She wasn’t fighting. She also wasn’t submitting. Instead, she was meeting him on equal ground. As much as he adored her when she offered herself like a gift—sacrificing all control to him—he also treasured these moments where they were stripped bare to each other. The honesty they shared was what counted most of all. They needed this time together, to edge it forward. I want this. I need to be with this woman.
“I was confused by you,” she continued. “I’d wanted a brother, you see. But what I got was you...a stroppy, brooding bloke who somehow turned me into a puddle of lust every time he turned up and prowled around the house.”
A puddle of lust? That triggered his libido dangerously. “Like I said last night, it’s a good job I didn’t know that at the time. You wouldn’t have been safe.”
She gave him a faux warning glance. “You did know.”
Why did that make him feel like he hadn’t done enough back then? He hadn’t been mature enough to talk to her about their weird situation and the undeniable attraction between them. “I knew how it felt to be around you, and I knew that it wasn’t just me.”
The look in her eyes when he said that made him want to hold her, badly. They needed to excise the demons that had been put in place around their sexuality and their desire for each other.
“The whole brother/sister thing.” He shook his head. “I hated my dad for trying to enforce that on us. Both of us were the only child. Even if there hadn’t been physical attraction between us, neither of us was equipped to take on a new sibling at that late stage of being a teenager.”
“That’s true.” She blinked, and it was an accepting look she wore. “Just your average dysfunctional family, hmm?”
“Absolutely.” He swigged from his iced Asahi. “I couldn’t deny it felt good, though, what you and Sylvia brought to the house. And I didn’t deny it for long. It was a new age. I began to enjoy it. Like I’m enjoying us there, together, now.”
She didn’t respond and to his surprise she seemed to pull away.
“Why can’t we be like this all the time?” He asked the question because as soon as she pulled back he felt crazy for her, desperate to hold on to her.
“Rex, please don’t spoil it.”
Was it a plea, or a warning? She’d shut off from him. It felt as real and stark as if she’d physically pulled a screen into place between them.
“I’m spoiling nothing. I’m asking a simple question.”
She shook her head. “We’re not at the house, so we’re not weighed down by it all. That’s all it is.”
“But you love the house.”
“I do. And you found out that you do care about the place, after all.”
“Maybe.” That was about her, but he didn’t want to pressure her too much on that point, especially not now when she’d seemed so happy. Or was that beginning to dissolve before his eyes?
“You’re going to renege on our deal,” she accused, “aren’t you?”
“No.” Even as he said it, he wasn’t sure he could stand by that deal. It was because he wanted her and in his mind he couldn’t take the two things apart. Even though it was illogical, he was stubbornly fixed on it now. If he signed the house over to her, he might never see her again. That was a risk he couldn’t afford to take.
“You found you do care about the estate and your sense of responsibility has dropped into place.” She sighed. “I can’t blame you for that, but I feel duped.”
Rex felt incredibly frustrated by that. He shifted, closing his hand around her wrist and holding her forearm to the
table. “I never set out to dupe you. The first thing I said to you was, why can’t we share the place? Carmen, we want each other.”
She glared at him. Even though she didn’t pull away from his grip, there was vehemence in those eyes. “What? You want to come and go at weekends and use the shared ownership as a ticket to screw my mind as well as my body?”
Frustrated, he spoke very deliberately. “No. That’s not what I want. I want something better than that, something normal, for both of us.”
She stared at him for a moment, and he thought she was going to accept it, but her eyelids lowered, closing him out. “It’s all too...”
“Too what?”
When she looked at him, he was taken aback by what he saw. Her eyes shone with withheld tears. “It’s taking me back to my mother’s death and all the pain that went down between all of us.”
It hit him hard to see her hurting, but logic held him steady. “And you didn’t think that would always be there in Burlington Manor when you wanted it?”
“I suppose I ignored the possibility. I don’t know. It’s not being there so much as it’s talking about the past that makes me think about it all again.”
“But we’re both remembering the happy times, too. We remembered those first. I don’t think talking about the past is creating this situation. We have to put the pieces together, the good and the bad. It’s just something we have to get through, to get past it and be together.”
She hung her head. “I don’t know if we can ever do that.”
“Carmen, I want you, and you can’t deny you enjoy being with me. Why can’t we do this?”
“So many reasons.” She sighed and turned away.
Rex gave a wry smile. “The fact you haven’t denied you enjoy our time together is a good start.”
Her expression softened and she met his gaze. “I can’t deny that anymore, can I?”
“Not since you tossed aside the keys to the manor to get to me, no.”
She wagged her finger in warning. “Don’t take advantage.”
“What else is there that I need to know, tell me?”
She took a deep breath. “Specifically, when we talk about the past, it makes me remember how I felt after the car crash. I hadn’t bargained for that.”
He covered her hand with his.
“I didn’t feel it when I arrived at the house. It was after you told me why you fell out with your dad. It made me think about when we were all closer, and why I chose to leave.”
“It must have been a terrible time for you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“So am I.” She moved her hand, meshing her fingers through his.
The action was so simple yet so significant.
“I thought about you a lot,” he said.
She gave a gentle smile, but the pain was there. Why hadn’t he seen this aspect before? He hated himself for missing it.
“Your dad locked himself away.” Pausing, she seemed to be picturing it. “I don’t think we were in any state to comfort each other, though, so I went to my aunt’s. I felt closer to Mum that way, with her sister. I wrote to your father every week at first, and he wrote back. I used to ask his advice about Mum’s business interests, and he always offered an opinion.”
“She’s always with you.”
Carmen nodded. “There’s something else, though. Something I haven’t told you. I didn’t think it was an accident. I told the police that. She was a good driver. She never exceeded the speed limit. They looked into it but they found no evidence to suggest her car had been tampered with. I’ve never been happy with that, though, you know. It always felt as if there was more to it, and that suspicion never really went away.”
Rex felt as if a window had been opened, and the view wasn’t good. Why didn’t I think about this? Because he’d been busy courting the racing circuit when it happened, most likely. Guilt crept in. “Did you tell my dad?”
“Yes. Well, actually, the police did.” She had a faraway look in her eyes as she spoke. “He agreed they should investigate any concerns I had, but he couldn’t think of a good reason anyone would do such a thing. I brought it up in our letters, and he reiterated that. He told me he felt guilty for bringing her out there to the country, where she died so tragically.”
That was more tenderness than Rex had ever witnessed in his father, but he didn’t resent it. He was glad they’d had the connection, before and after the accident. Had it been part of his father readdressing their own split, a cause for the letter he’d read?
He leaned forward, drawing her attention back to him. “You’re bound to wonder exactly what happened, that’s only natural.”
“I know. I suppose it’ll always haunt me. The important people do.” She smiled then, and although her eyes shone and her lashes were damp, she looked at him with genuine affection.
“We’ll talk more over the weekend, at the manor. We need to be there to address these issues and move on.”
“I suppose you’re right. I expected it to hurt, but walking in there, I mostly remember the happy times.”
“You can’t just blot it out. We need all the pieces of the jigsaw to make sense of the world. I hated that my parents split, but I can’t pretend it didn’t happen, just as much as I couldn’t deny how happy Dad was with Sylvia.”
“You know, sometimes you are so sensible I barely recognize you, Rex Carruthers.”
“That almost sounds like a compliment.”
“Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my senses completely. I’m well aware that you’ve rather cleverly got me lined up for another weekend of kinky sex at the manor.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“You’re shameless.”
“Utterly.”
And this time there would be no partygoers to mess things up. Just him and her, the letter to discuss and the past to put to rest. Rex was ready to deal with it all, in the hope they could finally be together.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BY FRIDAY, REX was counting the minutes.
He’d had a lot to deal with at Slipstream that week and was currently on his way back from a meeting with a supplier. A draft came down the tunnel into the tube station. Hopeful that it heralded a train, Rex glanced back at the electronic information boards. One minute until the next arrival. He checked his watch. The business meeting he’d had to attend had taken longer than he’d planned and now he had to get home to pick up his car and drive north to Burlington Manor for his weekend with Carmen. After what had passed between them the weekend before—the understanding, and the mutual desire—all he could think about was being with her again. Weekends only was getting to be a burden. After his first call, they’d proceeded to speak on the phone every night that week. Carmen drew a line when he asked her out to eat with him again, reminding him she needed the weekdays apart to stay sane, but it was driving him insane being apart from her.
The sound of the train approaching brought him back to the moment and he edged forward on the platform. It was crowded and he didn’t want to have to wait for the next train.
Behind him the crowd thickened.
Rex felt a hand on his back. He was turning his head to tell whoever it was to back off when the hand punched him. Hard, between the shoulder blades, jolting him forward.
The ground went from under Rex’s feet.
The train loomed close.
Instinct kicked in. He scrabbled, keeling sideways.
A scream rang out and the crowd shifted.
The screeching of the brakes entered his consciousness as he hit the concrete platform. Grasping the edge of the concrete slab, he levered himself back before he could fall to the tracks below. The train ground to a halt, but not before he felt it, a mere breath away from his knuckles.
Bounding up, he stared through t
he crowd toward the stairs and he saw a figure racing away. Male, tall, wearing a hoodie. He was about to go in pursuit, but the crowd thickened again and he was surrounded by people quizzing him as to what had happened. Had he fallen? Did he intend to jump?
“I was pushed,” he stated, anger fueling him.
“Sir, I need to make a report!” a uniformed supervisor shouted across as Rex headed off, but Rex shook his head.
Taking the steps two at a time he raced to ground level, and vaulted over the turnstiles, craning his neck to catch sight of a navy blue hoodie as he went. Out on the street he looked both ways, but the late-afternoon commuters were thick on the sidewalk and his assailant had vanished.
Hands on hips, Rex caught his breath, taking a moment to absorb what had just happened. He’d acted on instinct, and he’d got lucky because he was already aware of the hand at his back and was twisting around to check the guy out. As a result, he’d gone down sideways instead of head-on.
What was the likelihood of it being random? Could be. He was unlucky and took a hit courtesy of a run-of-the-mill nutjob.
Then again, maybe not.
And the disconcerting event made him want to be with Carmen even more than he already did.
He hailed a taxi.
* * *
WHEN REX ARRIVED at Burlington Manor he discovered a strange car parked on the forecourt outside the main entrance. He caught sight of the silver Audi and immediately wondered who was here, with Carmen.
It could be her taxi. She was due in much earlier than this, though, so that cab would be gone now. This didn’t look like a local cab. A delivery, perhaps? If so, it was after hours.
Parking next to it, he leaped out of his car and skirted the other vehicle to check it out. The only clue to the identity of the driver was a parking permit from the local hospital. With his sense of caution on high alert, he memorized the number plate before he went inside.
The Burlington Manor Affair Page 19
