It had certainly messed up his own.
He looked at Lizzie, so loving and warm, so where he wanted to be, yet the gap between them was a chasm he could not breach.
‘We’re not fighting, Leo, we’re talking.’
Ah, but about their relationship, he thought.
‘Can you come on Saturday?’ he asked. ‘I have to give Lexi the name of the person accompanying me by the morning.’
She could do it, Lizzie knew that. She could head down to Brighton on Friday instead of Saturday, hit the worst of the traffic, and then race back Saturday afternoon, but they had birthday cake after dinner at the nursing home. Her father would be devastated if she wasn’t there—and for what?
Another night in Leo’s bed, then perhaps another.
For a glimpse of a future, she’d do it, but he denied them both that.
‘Leo …’
As she went to answer he walked over to her. He didn’t want to hear that, no, she couldn’t come, neither did he want the question about where they were heading, because it was a path he’d always refused to take.
So he kissed her.
A kiss that offered more escape than the brandy he’d barely touched.
‘Leo …’ She pulled back a bit and then gave in, because she wanted him so much, wanted that mouth that was on hers, that was kissing her top lip, over and over. Lizzie wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.
They were frenzied as they set themselves free from an impossible conversation. He pushed her down so they were half leaning on the sofa, half kneeling on the floor, so their mouths barely need to part to undress each other. Frantic, deep kisses, till Lizzie was down to her bra and shoes and Leo was kissing her chest and up to her neck. He should rise, should get out of his trousers, but the taste of her skin and her hands pressing into his back were the only things Leo could think of.
His lips trailed a path from her neck to a mouth that was waiting and then he moved back down, over and over, tasting her skin till her neck was arching. Just inhaling her and crushing her as she pulled at his zipper and freed him, and continuing to kiss her. Concentrating on the same areas over and over—the neck he would never again kiss, the breasts that would tease and the mouth that would, from tomorrow, forever taunt him.
He didn’t do for ever, Leo reminded himself, except he wasn’t listening to himself now.
Lizzie wrapped a leg around him and sobbed as Leo stabbed into her. She rose to him, tightened her leg around him, and she almost just wanted this done, because his mouth was driving her crazy. Dizzy and crazy, because how could he kiss her with such passion when soon he would want her gone?
Lizzie curved into him, pressed herself to him, but then he slowed things down, thrusting slowly and deeply inside her, his mouth to her ear as her body urged him on.
‘Please …’ Lizzie said.
She wanted this done.
She lied.
‘Please …’ she begged to a groin that thrust slowly, to a mouth that was roaming her ear. She was coming and Leo refused to and she hated his control. Hated it that he could now look down and watch her come as he still moved deep inside her. Hated how his blue eyes could reproach her as they made love, as if it was she who was messing with his head, rather than the other way around.
Then she saw him, felt him briefly still, and watched the moment when Leo gave in—the grimace and the pleasure and the bliss of escape as he moved now and filled her with the most intimate part of him.
She didn’t want it to end.
It just had.
‘Lizzie …’ He looked down at her. He didn’t even know what it was he was going to say, he had never wanted to hurt her and whatever way it went now, surely he would.
He kissed her eyes and her cheeks and then met her gaze, and he could see the tears in her eyes that he’d put there.
She wriggled from under him, but he didn’t let her go.
The trowel had been passed to him now—it was Leo frantically plastering over the cracks. ‘I was thinking, if you went and saw your parents early and then came back …’
‘Leo, it’s Mum’s birthday on Saturday.’
Leo’s jaw gritted.
‘They do a cake at dinnertime,’ Lizzie explained.
‘Can’t they do it at lunch?’
He let her go then, sat on the sofa as she moved for her clothes, it was all so easy for him.
He tried, though. ‘I’m not saying don’t go, just that you were there yesterday, you could be there for her birthday—you don’t have to drop everything …’
‘But I do,’ Lizzie said, and stood to pull on her skirt. ‘And I will continue to do so. Leo, you seem to think yesterday was an anomaly, a brief inconvenience, but the last few weeks have actually been very quiet for me. Often I’m there every weekend with one drama or another …’
‘You make it harder on yourself.’
‘I never said it was hard.’
‘Actually, you did.’ Leo could be a bastard sometimes. ‘Several times.’
‘Oh, I’m to drop everything because you’ve got a dinner on Saturday with the directors of Kate’s?’
‘You drop everything for them.’
‘And I will continue to do so.’ Lizzie was dressed now. ‘For as long as they’re alive I will drop everything if they need me.’
‘That’s your choice.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘If you ask me—’
‘I’m not.’ Lizzie just stood there. ‘I’m not asking your opinion on family. I’m not asking someone who’s so royally screwed up every relationship he’s ever had to tell me how I should handle mine. Yes, my parents are a huge part of my life, yes, I might have not much to show for it, but I’m content with my choices.’
‘Content.’
‘Too boring for you, Leo?’ Lizzie challenged. ‘I happen to like content, I happen to like sleeping and waking and living guilt-free. I’ve always known what I wanted—whether I’ll get it might be another thing, but I wanted to be a nurse and I wanted a family of my own, and a career, not screwing and partying and trying to outrun hell. It catches up, Leo …’
‘Not if you don’t let it.’ Leo shrugged. ‘I was right the first time.’
‘What?’ Lizzie’s head snapped round as she picked up her bag to go, to walk out. ‘Yes, I’m running into the woods, never to be seen again,’ she snarled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine at work.’
Only Leo wasn’t referring to a fairy-tale, he was referring to a conversation that had taken place even before he’d met her.
‘Saint Lizzie …’ Leo drawled, his scalpel sharpened, ready to lance this once and for all. ‘You’re a martyr, Lizzie …’ He could be very scathing at times. ‘You really do need to get out more …’
‘Oh, I’m getting out, Leo,’ Lizzie said. ‘Just a little too late.’
She walked away and he wanted to call her back, to catch her and turn her around, but he just stood there.
He heard the door slam.
The lift bell pinged and he should run and stop her, tell her they could sort something out.
But what?
He looked at the roses, taunting him because romance was the only part he could do. The compromise, the rows, he did not.
Ah, but the making up afterwards?
It had never dawned on him that you could.
Leo wrenched open the door, went to run down the stairs, but for what?
Lizzie knew what she wanted from life.
He walked back into the apartment to the scent of her mingled with roses and he unleashed his anger at himself, slamming the vase from the table with his hand. The crash and splinter of the glass barely registered, such was the noise in his head.
Back to being single.
Again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
STEPPING INTO 200 Harley Street the next morning was amongst the hardest things Lizzie had ever done.
Thankfully the door to Leo’s office was closed and remained so.
> She got through the morning as best she could but, of course, Ethan noticed.
‘Are you okay?’ Ethan checked, and Lizzie forced a smile.
‘Of course I am,’ Lizzie said. ‘Mum’s been a bit unwell,’ she offered, and then halted, very aware she was using her parents as an excuse.
When Ethan had gone she sat at the desk in her office and the tears came, not about the row the previous night but because, damn him, Leo was right. Oh, he’d put it terribly, but she was hiding behind her parents. Of course they could have had cake at lunchtime and, yes, she could have had her mother’s surgery rescheduled, of course she didn’t have to stay overnight. It had been the excuse she’d needed to shield her from the full blaze of Leo, the distance between them necessary if she was somehow to protect her heart.
It hadn’t worked, though.
Her heart, for the first time ever, was truly broken.
Ethan heard her tears from behind her closed door and, incensed, marched into Leo’s office.
‘What’s going on with Lizzie?’ Ethan demanded.
‘Nothing, as far as I know.’
‘Come off it, Leo. I know you two are on together—everyone knows.’
‘Were on,’ Leo corrected him. ‘We just finished.’
‘I told you to back off.’
‘And I chose not to listen.’ Leo shrugged, guilt at his handling of things making him more cutting than usual. ‘Anyway, what does it have to do with you?’ Leo frowned. ‘Is there something I’m missing here? Because you seem terribly attached to your little nurse. Did a bit more than dressings go on during the home visits?’
‘You know they didn’t.’
‘Was she taking care of more than your legs?’ Leo jeered, and, war hero or not, injured or not, Leo had his brother against the wall.
‘What does it matter to you?’ Ethan taunted. ‘You just said you two were finished.’ They were stepping into very dangerous territory, the same anger and jealousy that had ripped through Leo when he’d found out that the woman he had fallen hard for had been on with Ethan was coming between them again. ‘Go on,’ Ethan goaded, ‘hit me.’ Leo raised his fist. ‘We both know you won’t.’
‘You’re not worth it,’ Leo snarled, dropping his fist.
‘Backing off, are you, Leo?’ Ethan’s lip curled. ‘Let’s see how you smooth this over. Let’s see you charm your way out of it, or,’ he said, talking now about Leo’s handling of their father, ‘why don’t you pour me a drink?’
Leo nearly did hit him then, but instead he fought with his mouth.
Ethan would have far preferred his fist.
‘You know what, Ethan, for all that you loathe me, your anger’s misdirected. I stopped him—I wasn’t enabling him, I preferred him unconscious at times. Do you really think I wanted that drunk bastard’s temper unleashed on you?’ Leo had him back up against the wall again but this time with words. ‘You’re my brother—my younger brother. Do you really think I’d just step back and let you at him?’
Ethan’s face screwed up in fury but Leo didn’t relent. ‘Hate me all you like, Ethan.’ He thought of Lizzie, there wasn’t a moment that he wasn’t thinking of her but right now it was as if she was in the room, her words replaying, Leo’s truth coming out now. ‘At least you’re alive. You blame me for talking him down or knocking him out with his beverage of choice, instead of letting the whole mess blow up. Would you light the tail of a lion and send someone you love in to deal with it?’
Ethan stood there as Leo said, in the most backward of ways, that he loved him. ‘Would you?’
Still Ethan said nothing, so Leo answered for him.
‘No, you’d do everything in your power to keep someone you love safe. Hate me if you must, get your kicks that way if it suits you. Just know I stopped that drunk from exploding, not because I’m ignorant or a fool. Instead, I played him, I smooth-talked him round, not because I wanted to appease the drunk but because I was trying to protect you.’
‘Okay, I get it …’
‘Sure about that?’ Leo stepped back. He was breathless. He felt as if his head was exploding, not just from all he had revealed but at the taunt from Ethan about Lizzie.
Ethan was a bit stunned himself to find out that behind Leo’s mask there were feelings, and perhaps not just for him. He’d never seen Leo explode like that. Oh, he’d come close, but beneath the vitriol there had been real anguish in Leo’s voice. At least there he could put him out of his misery.
‘Nothing has ever happened between Lizzie and I,’ Ethan said.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re finished.’
‘Because?’
‘Lizzie’s a bit busy with her parents for the next decade.’
‘She’s not going to change things for someone who’s not going to change.’
Leo gave a bitter laugh. ‘Since when did you get so wise?’
Ethan wasn’t going to answer that question. Instead, he answered the other one. ‘I promise you there has never been anything at all between Lizzie and I. I think of her more like a sister—I care about her because she was there when I was in a dark place.’
‘It’s looking pretty black now,’ Leo said, looking at his brother who worried him so.
‘Yeah, it’s black now but I was in hell then, Leo, maybe I still am. Lizzie used to come over to do my dressings and she’d talk and I wouldn’t answer, but I did listen. She’d tell me about her parents, little things, normal things, real things. She brought me back to a world that I’d forgotten existed.’ Leo wanted to know more but knew better than to push for now—it was the most Ethan had ever spoken about the effects of Afghanistan. ‘You know what? You can’t keep going like this, Leo.’
‘Like what?’ Leo said. ‘You’re the messed up one, remember?’ And then let out a mirthless laugh. He was through talking his way out of it, through fighting it, through pretending that everything was okay. ‘I think it’s far safer for Lizzie that I carry on as I have been, rather than testing my heart out on her. I should have listened,’ he conceded. ‘I should have stayed well away.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TOO LATE, LEO stayed well away.
A pale-faced, red-eyed Lizzie did her best to avoid him as he threw himself back into work and his social life, got straight back on the horse and asked a favourite blonde who knew the rules to join him on Saturday.
And Lizzie did the same.
Or rather she checked herself into the bed and breakfast and spent a weekend trying to assuage the guilt that she’d rather be with Leo than with her parents.
She walked on the beach and remembered getting a text from him, recalling all the thrill and excitement that had been there then, and, instead of crying, she lugged her broken heart into a wheelbarrow and left it sitting there for a little while as she thought about Leo without pain in the mix. She walked and thought of dancing and dressing up and the bliss of that night and every night she had spent with Leo.
With her heart on hold she could examine it without pain. Their time together had been amazing, for the first time she’d had a glimpse of freedom, had tasted exhilaration—how could she possibly regret that?
So she fetched the wheelbarrow and replaced her heart and, yes, she was still better for her time with him.
One big cry, Lizzie decided.
Tonight, after she’d had birthday cake with her parents, she’d head to the shops and get supplies. With chocolate and wine and her favourite movie, she’d lie on nylon sheets and howl, but on Monday, if she valued her job, she’d better work out rather quickly how to face him better.
‘I’ll be up on Friday.’ Lizzie kissed her father goodbye.
‘We’ll look forward to it, won’t we, Faye?’ Thomas said to his wife. ‘Lizzie’s coming up early next weekend. We’ll have three days of her.’
‘No.’ Lizzie’s face was on fire. ‘I’ll be going home on Saturday morning. I’m just coming up for the procedure.’
‘I just thought …’ Thomas huffed. ‘We
haven’t been seeing so much of you lately.’
‘I’ve got a new job, Dad,’ Lizzie said. ‘Sometimes I have to go to work functions …’ And she just stopped making excuses to her father for actually having a life. ‘I need to catch up with some of my friends too.’ She gave him a kiss. ‘I’ll see you on Friday.’
No, she would not be a martyr, Lizzie told herself on Monday as she walked past Leo’s office. The door was open and there he was, looking a little seedy.
‘Busy weekend?’ Lizzie smiled.
‘Er, a bit.’ He was caught unawares. She’d been busily avoiding him late last week and Leo had been only too happy with that, but it was a very together Lizzie who greeted him now.
She saw his slightly guarded expression as she unbuttoned her coat. ‘It’s okay, Leo, I’m not going to do a Flora.’
He was surprised at how easily she still made him smile and he bit back his response because he’d been about to say, ‘Pity.’
‘You’re okay?’ Leo settled for instead.
‘I’m fine.’
‘I mean …’ Leo wasn’t brilliant at apologies. ‘I was a bit harsh,’ he admitted. ‘The things I said about your parents …’
‘Were spot on.’ Lizzie rolled her eyes. ‘I just want to be clear about one thing—you won’t get a better head nurse than me.’
‘I know that,’ Leo said. ‘Ethan’s worried I’ve upset you.’
‘You can tell Ethan to call off the firing squad. I just needed a few days to lick my wounds.’
‘And you’re really okay?’ Leo checked, not sure if he was actually pleased that she seemed to be.
‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘I know it sounds like a line, but it really was good while it lasted.’
‘I hate it that it ended in a row,’ Leo admitted.
‘It didn’t.’ Lizzie did the hardest, bravest thing she had ever done. She went over to Leo and with a smile she bent over and gave him a very brief kiss.
‘That’s how it ended,’ Lizzie said.
‘How?’ Leo frowned. ‘Show me again.’
‘Nope.’ Lizzie stood straight and then headed to her office and breathed out loudly. Yes, it had been amongst the hardest things she had ever done but it had been necessary.
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