One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  Remembering the morning sex they’d enjoyed yesterday, she hoped so. She got out of bed and wrapped a towel around her torso and opened the door.

  And promptly gaped.

  Because standing there in a very wrinkled three-piece suit, overnight bag in one hand, briefcase in the other, was Martin.

  “My God. What on earth are you doing here?” she said.

  Not the most welcoming of greetings, but he was supposed to be in London.

  “I came to talk to you. Since you didn’t seem to want to talk over the phone.”

  “But…this is Australia!” she said, still not quite able to comprehend his presence.

  “Yes, after nearly twenty-four hours in the air, I’m well aware of that. Might I come in?”

  It was a perfectly reasonable request—if they were still engaged. But they weren’t. And she’d spent the night having sex with another man in the rumpled sheets just over her shoulder. It felt hugely, hugely wrong to invite Martin into the same space that she’d recently shared with Nathan. Especially when she was only wearing a towel.

  “Could you give me a moment to dress?”

  She closed the door before he could answer, feeling both guilty and ungenerous as well as angry and ambushed.

  There was only one person who could have told him where she was: Violet. For a moment she was seized with the urge to call her friend and blast her for first blabbing, then not making contact to warn Elizabeth that she’d blabbed. She sat on the room’s one and only chair and closed her eyes.

  Who was she kidding? She could work up a righteous head of anger at Violet for blabbing and Martin for ambushing her but the truth was that she was swamped with guilt. A week ago, the man on the other side of the door had had every reason to believe that he would be spending the rest of his life with her. She’d given him her virginity at the ripe old age of twenty-three after dating him for four months. Six months ago, he’d asked her to marry him and she’d said yes. They’d had an engagement party and booked the Savoy for their reception and St. Stephen’s for the ceremony and Paris for the honeymoon. And then she’d pulled the rug out from under his feet and run away to the other side of the world before the dust had even settled.

  She owed him a conversation. An explanation. The fact that he’d chosen loyalty to her grandfather over loyalty to her didn’t change that or excuse her actions. Yes, she had been shocked. Resentful, too, although she wasn’t sure that Martin was the right target for her resentment. But she’d had time to calm down now and they needed to talk.

  She dressed quickly in one of her new sundresses and brushed out her hair before tying it back in a simple ponytail. She would have killed for a shower, but it was not to be, not when Martin was standing out in the hall like Paddington Bear, abandoned at the train station.

  She straightened the bed, then let him into the room.

  “It’s a long flight. Would you like a shower?” she asked, gesturing toward the ensuite.

  “Yes. That’s probably a good idea. I suspect my personal hygiene leaves pretty much everything to be desired right now.” He offered her the ghost of a smile. “I won’t be long.”

  She handed him a fresh towel and sat on the bed to wait as he disappeared into the bathroom.

  This was going to be difficult. There was no getting around it. Martin had not flown halfway around the world to find closure. He’d come to talk her into coming home and getting married. And she was going to say no, and he was going to be hurt all over again.

  She stared at her lap. It wasn’t as though she had a choice. She couldn’t marry him simply to avoid hurting him. That would only hurt him far more in the long term, even if she was prepared to sacrifice her own happiness in the name of doing the right thing. And she wasn’t. She’d put a lid on her own feelings, wants and needs for too long, first bowing dutifully to her grandparents’ idea of who she should be, then to Martin’s. No longer.

  The water shut off abruptly and she crossed to the corner counter and turned the kettle on. By the time Martin emerged from the bathroom in a fresh white shirt and a pair of slightly wrinkled, tailored trousers the tea was ready to pour.

  She made him a cup the way he liked it and passed it over wordlessly. He took the lone chair and she returned to her spot on the edge of the bed.

  Martin glanced around the room, taking in the dingy carpet and basic furnishings before focusing on her. She held his eye and took a deep breath.

  “Martin, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m not coming back to London with you.”

  “I understand that you’re keen to meet your biological father—”

  “It’s not that. That’s why I’m here, yes. But that’s not why I can’t go back with you. I’m incredibly sorry that it’s taken all this to open my eyes, but I can’t marry you.”

  Martin looked down at the mug of tea in his hands. “Can I ask…is there someone else?”

  “No.” Which was true. Her decision to call off the wedding had come long before she even knew Nathan Jones even existed.

  Martin drew breath to ask another question and she rushed into speech.

  “I know you’re confused. I know this must seem like it’s come out of nowhere, but it hasn’t. It’s been building for years. Ever since I dropped out of field hockey when I was fifteen.”

  Martin shook his head. “Hockey. I’m afraid I must be incredibly dense, Elizabeth, but I’m struggling to see how your hockey team has anything to do with our relationship.”

  “My grandmother hated the idea of me playing. She thought it was rough and dangerous, but I adored it. Then Grandmama came to the semifinal and I got checked and fell over and she was so upset after the game that I promised to quit on the spot. And I’ve been doing it ever since, Martin. I dropped English Literature and took up Fine Arts as an elective and didn’t accept a full-time teaching position when I graduated because she wanted me to take over her seat on the Friends of the Royal Academy Committee and the other charities she sits on. I didn’t get my hair cut because my grandfather prefers it long. I didn’t go backpacking through Europe with Violet because they were worried about my safety—”

  “You’re saying you feel an obligation to please them.”

  “That’s it, exactly. I love them enormously, but the truth is I’ve let them dictate too many of my decisions. To the point where I don’t even know what I want anymore.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, but it won’t be like that once we’re married. You’ll be in your own home, your choices will be your own to make. I certainly have no plans to impose my will on you.”

  “Martin—” She broke off, feeling incredibly sad as she looked at him. “Don’t you see? You were their choice, too, in a way. Don’t you remember how they sat us together at the firm Christmas party, and how my grandmother encouraged you to ask me to dance? And how my grandfather kept asking you to drop his papers by at the house when he ‘forgot’ to bring them home from the office so we’d keep running into each other?”

  “Elizabeth, I can assure you that the only reason I have ever been interested in you is for yourself.”

  She could see the devotion in his eyes, the adoration—and she knew she was utterly unworthy of it. Not because she was a bad person, but because he had an idea in his head of who she was, and it had nothing to do with the real Elizabeth.

  She searched her mind for a way to explain the fundamental disconnect between them.

  “Remember that time I wanted to talk about our sex life?” she asked. “Remember how I asked you to, you know, do it differently, and you refused?”

  “I remember Violet putting ideas in your head.”

  “Those were my ideas, Martin. I wanted you to do those things to me. But you said you respected me too much.”

  “You’d prefer for me to throw you over my shoulder or do you in the backseat of my car rather than taking the time to ensure your needs are met, would you?”

  “Well, honestly, yes. Sometimes I would. Haven’
t you ever wanted to do any of those things?”

  He broke eye contact and slid his mug onto the bedside table before smoothing his hands down his thighs. The very picture of discomfort.

  “Of course I’ve wanted to do those things. There are lots of things I’d like to do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cast all other considerations aside and jump in, boots and all. Life isn’t only about what you want, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth put down her own mug of tea. “I’m going to take a guess that when it comes to me the ‘other considerations’ that come into play are my grandparents. Am I right or am I wrong?”

  Martin threw his hands in the air. “Again with your grandparents. Could you please stop trying to equate their values with mine? I respect them enormously, especially your grandfather. He’s a brilliant lawyer and he’s been an incredibly generous mentor to me. I owe him everything. But I’d like to think I have enough native wit and intelligence to make my own decisions.”

  She stared at him, frustrated. How to get through to him?

  “Look me in the eye and tell me that when I asked you to do me from behind like a dog you didn’t once think of my grandfather and what he might think and how much you respect him,” Elizabeth challenged boldly.

  “For God’s sake, Elizabeth. What a question.” His color was high as he shifted in his chair.

  “Okay, fine, answer me this, then—have you ever done it that way with one of your other girlfriends?”

  She saw the truth in his eyes before he glanced away. She leaned forward to capture his hands, forcing him to return his focus to her.

  “Let’s call a spade a spade here. For better or for worse, I’m fixed in your mind as the granddaughter of the man you respect more than any other person in the world. You said it yourself—you owe him everything. When you look at me, you see the granddaughter of Edward Whittaker first and me second.”

  Martin reversed their grips so that he was the one holding her hands. “Elizabeth, I love you.”

  “Martin, the woman you think you want to marry doesn’t exist. She’s a construct, cobbled together by my overdeveloped sense of duty and your desire to be connected to a man who, in many respects, has filled the role of father in your life. I would make a terrible, terrible wife for you.”

  “I don’t believe that. Not for a minute.”

  “It’s true. You might not see it now, but you will one day.”

  He stared at her and she could see realization dawn on him as he at last understood that he would be going home alone.

  “I’m so sorry. I really am. You’re a good, good man. And one day you are going to make some woman an amazing, wonderful, loving husband. But that woman is not going to be me.”

  His eyes were suspiciously shiny. He stood, pulling his phone from his pocket.

  At first she thought he was calling her grandparents, but then she realized he was talking to the airline, booking the next available flight to London. She put her hand on his arm to get his attention.

  “Why don’t you stay for a few days? You don’t have to go straight back, do you?”

  He covered the mouthpiece on his phone. “I didn’t come here for a holiday. I came here for you.”

  So she sat with guilt gnawing at her while he booked a flight home for late that evening, reminding herself over and over that she’d done the right thing for both of them, that whatever hurt she inflicted now was better than a divorce down the road when things would be even more messy and complicated and painful.

  It didn’t make her feel much better.

  Martin ended his call and reached for his overnight bag.

  “Now what are you doing?” she asked.

  “I need to get back to Melbourne.”

  “It’s only an hour and a half away. You can at least stay for breakfast, can’t you?”

  He considered her invitation for a long moment. “I don’t particularly relish being the object of your pity, Elizabeth.”

  “I don’t pity you, Martin. How could I? You’re one of the smartest, most honorable men I know. I feel bad about the way things have turned out. I wish I’d found the courage to stand up for myself before the business with the birth certificate. But I don’t feel sorry for you. Somewhere out there is a woman you’re going to want to throw over your shoulder, and nothing in the world is going to stop you from doing it. I look forward to hearing about her when it happens.”

  He stared hard at the floor for a few beats, then he put down his overnight bag.

  “Where do you recommend for breakfast, then?”

  NATE HITCHED A LIFT out to Woolamai in the morning. The swell was high and the water crowded with fellow surfers keen to take advantage. He spent an hour in the water, got sandbagged twice and relentlessly drilled when a wave shut down with him in the curl. His brain felt washed clean and he was starving by the time he hit the beach.

  A couple of New Zealand surfers were heading into town and he caught a ride with them. He thought about Elizabeth as he sat in the back of their pickup. The silk of her skin. The taste of her. The smell of her hair.

  He’d had her three times last night, and still he wanted her again. He wasn’t sure what was up with that, but he wasn’t going to question it. Far better to have his head filled with visions of soft white skin and pretty pink nipples and pale blond hair than what he’d been living with for the past few months.

  He wondered if he’d see her again tonight. Then he smiled to himself. He’d make sure he did. Why leave it to chance, after all?

  He spotted the thick white envelope sticking out of his mailbox as he lifted his board off the New Zealanders’ roof rack. His mood soured. Just what he needed—a reminder of everything he’d turned his back on.

  He tugged the envelope free on his way past, not even glancing at the red-and-black logo in the top left corner. He dumped his board by the back door and threw the envelope into the corner of the kitchen as he entered. It slapped against the stack of other envelopes piled there, all of them unopened. One day soon he’d get around to dumping the lot of them in the recycle bin.

  He took a quick shower, threw on fresh clothes, then did a lap of the house, trying to decide what to do next, feeling off-kilter thanks to that damn envelope. Pathetic that that was all it took these days.

  Thoughts of Elizabeth flashed across his mind again, but he could hardly go looking for her so soon after leaving her bed. He needed to watch himself where she was concerned as it was.

  He did another lap of the house, anxiety nipping at his ankles. He didn’t do alone time without a beer in his hands and it was definitely too early to drink. Making a quick decision, he grabbed his wallet and walked out the door. He’d head into town, get something to eat, maybe grab some groceries for the next few days. That ought to kill an hour or two.

  The first person he saw when he hit main street was Elizabeth, sitting at one of the tables on the sidewalk outside the Euphoria Cafe. All his self-strictures about being careful where she was concerned went out the window. She looked so soft and cool and he could practically feel her skin beneath his hands. He was about to cross to her table when a tall, dark-haired man exited the café and sat with her. There was something about the way the guy looked at her that got Nate’s back up. The feeling only intensified when the guy picked up her hand and held it. And she let him. She even laughed at something he said and squeezed his fingers.

  Elizabeth had told him she was single. She’d lain down on the beach with him and tangled his sheets and a few hours ago had taken him in her mouth and made him a little bit crazy. So who the hell was this guy? This pale, overdressed stiff with his ridiculous pants and business shirt and banker’s haircut?

  He was already striding toward their table when it hit him that his reaction was way over the top. Elizabeth owed him nothing. They’d slept with each other twice. They’d made no commitments to each other, tacit or overt.

  So why the hell was he standing at her table, glaring down at her?

  “Lizzy. Lo
ng time no see,” he said.

  Her eyes widened with shock. “Nathan. Hello. Um. Yes.”

  Nate could feel the other guy checking him out and he straightened to his full height. Hard to tell with the other man sitting down, but Nate figured he had a couple of inches on him. He met the other guy’s eye and offered his hand. “Nathan Jones.”

  “Martin St. Clair,” the guy said, his accent a perfect match for Elizabeth’s clipped tones.

  “Nathan shares a house with my father. He’s helping me make contact with him,” Elizabeth explained. She flipped her teaspoon over and over nervously.

  “I see. It’s nice to know Elizabeth has friends to help her out when she’s so far from home,” St. Clair said.

  It was such a pompous, stiff little speech that Nate couldn’t help smirking. St. Clair didn’t look much older than him—early thirties—so what was with the big stick up his ass?

  “I’m more than happy to help Elizabeth out. In fact, it’s been my pleasure,” he said.

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, even as her cheeks turned pink.

  That was the problem with that creamy English complexion of hers—it was a dead giveaway every time.

  St. Clair was looking back and forth between the two of them, a frown on his face.

  “Have you known Blackwell long?” he asked.

  “About ten years or so.” Nate could elaborate, but he chose not to. Knowledge was power, after all.

  He switched his attention to Elizabeth, who was positively glowering at him now.

  “I’m free to talk about that thing again tonight, by the way,” he said. “What time suits you?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you.” Her accent even more cut-glass than usual.

  He shrugged. Then, because he was far too aware of her English lover or whoever St. Clair was, Nate slid his hand onto the nape of her neck and ducked his head to kiss her goodbye. She tasted like coffee and she jerked her head backward when he slipped his tongue inside her mouth.