‘What if I were?’ she asked with mild curiosity. ‘What if I went to bed at night and was tormented by longing for my ex-boyfriend? Would you be able to produce a cure from up your sleeve?’
‘I’d tell you that you’d be a damn fool to carry a torch for someone who walked away from you.’
‘Well, on that note of wisdom, I think I’ll bid you goodnight.’ She waited for him to step aside. When he showed no inclination to do so she folded her arms, expelled a long, weary sigh and said, ‘No, I am not carrying a torch for Mick, or for anyone else for that matter. I see my friends occasionally during the day. We meet for lunch or for coffee at Covent Garden. I guess I’m a boring little soul who shuns the night life. Satisfied?’
‘There’s no need to jump down my throat simply because I offer you a bit of advice,’ he grated.
‘Just stop thinking that you can get involved in my life! You’re Amy’s father, and we’ve been brought together by an odd twist of fate, but that’s the end of it!’
‘You live under my roof, and you’re related to the daughter I never knew I had. Wouldn’t it be a little strange if I was totally uninvolved with you?’
‘Strange but welcome.’ She tapped her fingers against her arms, and was about to produce a yawn—if only to show him how uninterested she was in anything he had to say about her personal life—when he pulled her arms down to her sides and pinned them there.
‘And you can stop looking so damned bored and blasé!’
The suddenness of his action took her breath away. She stared at him in open-mouthed confusion.
‘What right have you got to tell me how I should look?’
‘No right at all,’ he muttered. He cupped her face suddenly between his hands and a flare of panic ignited in her. She didn’t want this. Last time she had been under the influence of two strong gin and tonics. This time there was no excuse, not even a limp one, and she didn’t want this. She wanted him to leave her alone, to get out of her way so that she could go upstairs to the warm safety of her bed. She didn’t want him touching her; she didn’t need this frightening, gut-wrenching rush of adrenaline.
His mouth crushed hers with an urgency that stifled the protest in her throat. Her mind continued to warn her, to steer her away. Her lips, though, softened to meet his. The words of anger and outrage at what he was doing became a soft moan of pleasure.
She fought and struggled until he was compelled to release her arms. Her hands, which should have pushed him away, coiled at the back of his neck, urging him against her. Every muscle in her body told her that this was what she wanted, what she needed, what she had spent the past few days craving. The desire was so strong and so elemental that she felt as though she had been carrying it around with her all her life.
She could feel him pushing her back, still kissing her as he propelled her towards the rug in front of the fireplace.
It was a thick, Persian affair, very soft and luxurious. They sank onto the floor, and when she surfaced to breathe he caressed her neck with his mouth, wetly tracking down the pale column of her throat.
In the silence of the room their breathing seemed magnified, imbued with an urgency and hunger that she had never associated with making love. He was unbuttoning her shirt, spreading it open. She could feel the quick rise and fall of her breasts and she arched her back, fumbling behind her to unclasp her bra.
It was total madness, but driving need had replaced reason. She just wanted him.
As he pushed up the bra, now loosely lying over her breasts, she let out a whimper and curled her fingers into his hair. She guided him to one pink, taut nipple and shuddered as his mouth circled it, sucking it in, nibbling and teasing it with his tongue.
He was holding her hands apart, and she groaned as his exploring mouth caressed both breasts, licking and suckling on each nipple until she felt as though she would explode.
As soon as he released her hands she began to unbutton his shirt, trembling and eager to feel the firmness of his chest. He yanked the shirt out of the waistband of his trousers, sitting up so that he could remove it altogether, and she took the opportunity to look at him.
He was perfectly and powerfully built. The line of his body was so well defined that he would have been beautiful to sketch. There was an animal grace about him, and she continued to watch, mesmerised, as he removed his clothes, uninhibited by his nudity.
Then he undressed her until she was left in only her lacy underwear.
At the back of her mind, as he eased his body alongside hers, Leigh knew that something was happening, something that went beyond the simple act of making love, but what it was she lacked the concentration to explore. It was a question that hovered tantalisingly in the dim recesses of her brain, visible yet too opaque to be defined.
Not that she was capable of defining anything. Her body had come alive, and the stirring of sensations she’d never known existed thrilled and frightened her.
She turned on her side and wrapped one leg over his, and he kissed her lingeringly and lazily, caressing her breast as he did so. The frantic hunger had been refined into something less rushed and all the more erotic for that. It was as though time had slowed down, as if they were moving in a dream.
He licked her lips and she squirmed as his thumb and forefinger played with her hardened nipple. Pressed lightly against him, she could feel the stiffness of his arousal. She reached down to take it in one hand, luxuriating in his groans of pleasure as she moved her hand rhythmically up and down.
His hand circled her waist, stroking it, then he pushed her flat, and she could feel that craving mounting inside her again, like hot lava rising to overspill, as he trailed his mouth along her flat, firm stomach.
She parted her legs, and she could almost feel herself holding her breath in expectation of his caress.
Her hands rested lightly on his head. She feverishly opened her eyes and looked down as he moved lower, only closing them when his tongue began to explore her, plunging deep, lightly teasing, flicking and setting her alight
Her breathing quickened and she moved her body against the dark head pressed close to her. When she thought that she could no longer fight against the need to climax he levered himself over her and their love-making, in deep, urgent thrusts, reached its pinnacle.
It was cool in the room. She only noticed it as the heated passion ebbed away, and she rolled over to her side, sat up and reached for her clothes.
‘What are you doing?’ He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her lazily.
She disregarded the bra, but slung her shirt over her and slipped on her briefs.
She didn’t know how she felt. Confused, elated, mixed up. Conflicting emotions were running through her with such speed that she couldn’t seem to pin any one of them down.
Of course, she knew that making love with him had been an act of sheer insanity, but the bitter regret she should have felt was absent. She felt utterly complete and fulfilled, which, she thought, did nothing to repair the situation. But she didn’t even know whether she wanted the situation repaired.
‘It’s cold in here,’ she said, looking at him and wanting to reach out and stroke his face. ‘I’m putting on my clothes.’
‘I can light the log fire.’
‘Also, I’m tired.’
He laughed throatily. ‘Is that a compliment about my love-making?’ Then he reached out and trailed his finger along the exposed skin under the shirt. ‘Are you feeling better now?’
Leigh’s hand momentarily froze, then she resumed what she had been doing—putting on her trousers.
His question had been amicable enough so why had it started alarm bells ringing in her head?
She knew that one minute ago he would have been able to talk her into removing every item of clothing she had just put on. Now she wanted to leave.
‘I feel good,’ she told him, with a trace of coolness in her voice. He sat up and started to get dressed as well.
‘I share the feeling.
’ He smiled at her and she smiled back, but it was an effort.
Did he imagine, she thought, that that little session had been some form of therapy? He had offered himself as a shoulder to cry on because he had mistakenly thought that, poor, unsophisticated child that she was, she had still been suffering from the throes of some kind of unrequited love. Had he included love-making as his show of kindness towards his daughter’s poor aunt?
Now that the seed had taken root, she discovered that it was growing at a remarkable speed.
He bent to kiss her and she drew back. She felt like ice. More than that, she felt a complete fool because she had given herself to him with abandon and he had made love to her out of pity.
And what about Fiona? He had not once said that they were lovers but, on the other hand, in the face of her oblique questioning he had not denied it either.
Was he involved with the other woman?
Her instinct was to hurl her wounded anger at him, but she knew that that was something she had to keep well under control. Her position in his house was tenuous at best.
‘What’s the matter?’ Nicholas asked sharply, sensing the change in her mood.
‘Nothing.’ She stood back and looked at him. ‘I realise that we can’t turn the clock back, but what happened just then was a mistake.’
‘What?’ The drowsy aftermath of making love had vanished. His eyes, as they swept over her, were hard and penetrating. She could almost feel him trying to get inside her head and work out what she was thinking, and the frightening thing was that she reckoned he could do it—prise open her mind and read her like a book. ‘What do you mean—a mistake?’
If she hadn’t known better, she thought, she might have been taken in by that look of genuine, angry perplexity on his face.
‘I mean we shouldn’t have made love. You’re fond of telling me that I’m a child, but I’m not a child and I’m mature enough to know that what we just did was stupid. I’m your daughter’s aunt and I’m here to do a job.’
‘Why are you running away from me?’ he demanded, his face angled and hard.
‘I am not running away from you.’ She laughed dismissively, but in her own ears she could hear the edge of misery beneath it. ‘I just think that we have to forget what took place for Amy’s sake.’
‘How does Amy come into this?’
‘I have no intention of embarking on some kind of affair with you. I’m not looking for an affair, and I don’t expect you are either.’ Considering, she thought, that you’ve probably got one going in full swing with Fiona. ‘I don’t want to complicate anything.’ She turned on her heel and began to walk towards the door. He reached out and curled his fingers around her arm.
‘You’re talking in riddles—’ he began harshly.
‘I’m telling you,’ she said, ‘that I’m here as Amy’s nanny and I have no intention of romping in the hay with you. I don’t see that it’s going to get either of us anywhere, and I don’t think that you do either.’
‘Don’t tell me what I think.’
‘I won’t. But leave me alone from this point on.’ She didn’t dare look back as she left the room. She didn’t want to read the expression on his face. Most of all, she didn’t want to be talked into something she knew would pose the greatest danger of all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE following day Nicholas told Leigh over coffee in the kitchen, that he would be away for a couple of days.
‘Business,’ he said, and she wondered whether she was imagining the curtness behind the word or whether she was simply over-sensitive to any nuances between them, real or otherwise, after what had happened the night before.
She had not slept well. She had retreated to bed to wallow in the memory of their love-making, going over in her head, in relentless detail, what had inspired him to touch her—attempting to analyse every snippet of conversation she could remember. In retrospect, everything had seemed imbued with innuendo.
Had he asked her to do some typing for him because he’d felt guilty that her role of nanny was so limited? A patronising title for a job that had been invented for her out of necessity? Maybe he’d thought she would feel more worthwhile under his roof if she’d thought she’d been contributing more. Had that been it? Had that been his reasoning?
Had he thought that she would accept his kind offer to do some occasional work for him because they both knew, without anything being said, that the decisionmaking process when it came to his daughter was steadily going into his hands now?
Or maybe he was regretting the inflated salary he had initially agreed to pay her. After all, he had needed her then, but that situation was altering daily. Maybe he felt that he could get a bit more out of her by way of doing work for him.
True, he had perfunctorily offered to increase her salary if she accepted his offer, but he must have known that she would have refused any such thing had she agreed. She was paid way too much as it was for something she enjoyed doing and would have done for nothing.
Was that it? Was it? She spent hours lying on her bed, labouring at the problem, until she finally closed her eyes at a little after four-thirty, only to reawaken, bleary-eyed, at seven in the morning.
‘But you will be back before Christmas Eve, won’t you?’ Amy stopped eating her toast to ask in an anxious voice.
‘Of course I will.’ His voice had softened, and Leigh felt a stab of idiotic jealousy, followed by bewilderment at her own reaction.
‘Where are you going?’ Leigh asked him, not quite able to meet his eyes, but not quite able either to keep her gaze totally away from him. He stood at the kitchen sink, drinking a cup of coffee, impeccably dressed for work in a charcoal grey suit. He looked depressingly refreshed.
‘New York.’
Amy stopped eating completely at this and her eyes opened as wide as saucers. ‘Wow!’ she said, impressed, and he smiled at her. ‘Will you bring me back something?’
‘Amy!’ Leigh said in a sharp, warning voice.
Wasn’t that a clear indication of how far the relationship between father and child had developed over the weeks? She could remember the dubious suspicion with which Amy had greeted his initial present in that restaurant in Covent Garden. Now here she sat, asking him to bring her back something, with the insouciance of someone fully confident of the reaction they would get to their request Whether Amy was aware of it or not, Nicholas had already slipped into the role of father.
‘What about Santa?’ he asked with a concerned frown. ‘I wouldn’t like to put his nose out of joint.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s true.’ Amy carried on with the toast. ‘It is a bit close to Christmas Day for extra presents. You could always get my present from New York,’ she said coaxingly.
‘Like what?’
So far, Leigh thought, Nicholas had not once looked at her. He did not appear to be ignoring her, merely indifferent, and that hurt, even though she knew that she could hardly have expected an effusive response after what had happened between them.
‘A computer game?’ she suggested. ‘Or a costume?’
‘Nicholas will be busy, working,’ Leigh said gently to her niece. ‘I don’t think he’ll have time to go shopping.’
He did look at her when she said that, a long, cold look that spoke volumes. ‘Why don’t you go and write me a list, Amy?’ he said, still looking at Leigh. ‘But be quick. I leave in about half an hour for the airport.’
Amy darted out of the kitchen, and as soon as she was out of earshot he said in a hard voice, ‘Don’t tell Amy what I will or will not have time to do.’
‘I was not telling her what you will or won’t have time to do!’ Leigh snapped back. ‘If anything, I was giving you some leeway so that you didn’t commit yourself to something you might not physically be able to do.’
‘How thoughtful of you.’
‘Yes, I think so!’ She could feel tears spring to the back of her eyes, and she concentrated on drinking some more coffee.
It was ridicu
lous but she had become accustomed, she now realised, to a certain lack of animosity between them. True, there was not a complete absence of tension, but the times when he had smiled, had turned on his charm, had made her laugh, more than made up for that.
She took a deep breath. ‘I know you’re angry with me about last night...’ She had resolved not to mention it. She had been utterly determined that wild horses would not drag it out of her mouth. She would never, she had told herself the night before, refer to that episode again. So much, she thought, for her will-power.
‘Angry?’ He gave a short, cold laugh. ‘You flatter yourself. Why should I be angry with you?’
She shrugged and miserably contemplated the dregs of the coffee in her cup.
‘Well?’ He had crossed the room swiftly and positioned himself in the chair next to her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his hand on the table, and she felt a little shiver of nervousness. ‘Don’t make statements like that, Leigh, unless you’re prepared to back them up.’
‘OK. You’re not angry.’ It seemed the easiest way to avoid a confrontation, but her placatory voice only enraged him further.
‘I didn’t bring the subject up,’ he told her harshly. ‘You did. So don’t think that you can now shy away from the topic because you find it uncomfortable.’
‘You’re angry because you didn’t get your own way,’ she flung at him. She glanced up at his face and then looked away again to the uninteresting brown liquid, now quite cold and showing signs of cultivating a disgusting film over the surface. ‘I don’t know what you wanted, what you expected...’
She felt herself becoming a little bogged down. She didn’t want to make sweeping assumptions about what he had expected after their love-making but, on the other hand, he was forcing her to defend the stance she had taken, and she could have kicked herself for having mentioned anything at all.
‘I’m sorry that I’m not interested in cultivating an affair with you. Or even,’ she added hurriedly, just in case she had misread the situation and he wasn’t at all interested in anything of the sort, ‘another one-night stand.’
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