They were supposed to live or die together. He hadn’t kept his part of the deal. Had she known, when she slipped away, that he wouldn’t be joining her? Not yet.
Which was the worst betrayal? That he hadn’t died with her or that she hadn’t lived with him?
Had she forgiven him? He wasn’t sure he had forgiven her yet. Or himself.
‘Gabe?’
He jumped, a shiver running down his spine at the softly breathed words.
‘Gabe!’ No, not a ghost. Not unless Marie had developed a clipped English accent in the last ten years, had swapped the Converse low tops for high-heeled sandals that tapped smartly on the old cobbles.
He stopped and turned. Waited. Relieved to have the present intrude on the past.
‘Claire was so busy I didn’t like to disturb her.’ Polly stopped as she reached the tall figure, her hand automatically going up to nervously knot her hair, only to fall away as she spoke. ‘I wondered if maybe you wanted some lunch, if I could buy you some lunch. I...er...I crossed a line earlier. I need to apologise.’
She let a shuddering breath go and waited.
Lunch, work, an excuse not to face up to the past, to push it away for another decade.
‘That would be nice,’ he said after a long moment. ‘But there’s somewhere I need to go first. Polly, I’d really like it if you came with me.’
* * *
The river rushed along, white-topped as it bubbled over rocks and dropped over mini falls. The path along it was flat, easy walking. Left the mind free to wander.
Polly wasn’t entirely sure that this was a good thing. She searched for something to say.
Nothing.
Now didn’t seem appropriate to discuss work and she had already ventured into personal territory once that day. Look how well that had gone down, a clear indication to mind her own business.
Only... It was just...
He had asked her to come along.
She hadn’t gone all the way into the rather macabre cemetery with its carved headstones, statues and family vaults, as different from a tidy Church Of England graveyard as a Brie from Cheddar, rather she had waited by the wall as Gabe had walked steadily to a white marble gravestone, topped with a carved cherub, and dropped to one knee in front of it. He had stayed there for five minutes, head bowed. Polly couldn’t tell if he was weeping, praying or just frozen in silent contemplation. Either way discomforting shivers had rippled down her spine.
She had witnessed something deeply personal.
So she should say something, right? Wasn’t that the normal thing to do when someone allowed you to see a part of their soul?
Only it had never happened before. She had no compass for this kind of thing. No guidance.
Even at her very proper boarding school there hadn’t been a lesson on how to handle this kind of situation.
How to greet an ambassador? Yes. Royal garden party etiquette? Of course.
But this? She was clueless. She was going to have to go in blind.
‘Are you okay?’
Not the most insightful or original icebreaker in the world, but it was a start.
‘Oui.’ Gabe turned, looked at her, the dark eyes unreadable. ‘Thank you.’
Polly stopped, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. ‘What for? I didn’t do anything.’
He shrugged. ‘For being there. I needed a friend.’
Her eyes dropped; she was suddenly, oddly shy. ‘I owe you.’ Unable to resume looking at him, she started walking again and he fell into step beside her. ‘Who was it?’
He sighed, low and deep. ‘Who was your first love, Polly?’
‘My what?’ Flustered, she pushed her hair away from her face. ‘I don’t know. I thought we’d already covered that I don’t really do love.’
‘But there must have been someone, a crush, a passion. Someone who made your world that bit more exciting, your pulse beat that bit faster. Someone who made your blood heat up with just the thought of them.’ His voice was low, his accent more pronounced than usual; each word hit her deep inside, burning.
You.
But she didn’t say the word; she couldn’t. That wasn’t who she was, what they were. They might have crossed a line from colleagues to friends but the next line, from friends to lovers, was too far, too high, too unattainable.
And Polly didn’t have many friends. She didn’t want to screw this new understanding up.
First love? She dragged her mind back, to her lonely teenage years.
‘I had a huge crush on my school friend’s brother,’ she admitted. ‘I was sixteen and staying there one Christmas holidays. He kissed me on New Year and I went back to school convinced we were an item. When I next saw him he was with his girlfriend and barely acknowledged me.’ She grimaced. ‘I wept for a week. What a silly idiot I was.’
‘Non.’ To her surprise he reached over and took her hand. His long fingers laced through hers. Every millimetre where his skin touched hers was immediately sensitised, tiny electric shocks darting up her arm, piercing the core of her.
She shivered, all her attention on her hand, on her fingers, on the way he was touching her, the light caress.
It wasn’t enough.
Just friends, remember? she told herself sternly. But who was she fooling? As if it were enough.
‘That’s how we learn, that complete single-mindedness of the teenage heart.’
‘Learn what?’
His fingers tightened on hers. ‘That feelings are not always worth the price.’
‘Gabe.’ Her voice was husky with the unexpected need. ‘Who was she?’
‘Marie.’ The sound of loss and regret pulsed through her. ‘She was sixteen.’
‘Like I was,’ she breathed, absurdly glad to find some tenuous link between her teenaged self and his ghostly lover.
‘Same age as you were,’ he agreed. ‘Only I didn’t find someone else. She left me.’
‘You met in hospital?’ It was all beginning to fall into place.
He nodded, his fingers almost painfully tight but Polly didn’t care, welcomed his grip, anchoring him to her. ‘It’s not like anywhere else,’ he said. ‘Everything is distilled down. You’re defined by your illness but underneath? Underneath you’re still a person, a teenager desperate to act out and find yourself, and the steroid bloating and the hair loss and the bruising and burns? None of it changes that. Marie and I met and we knew each other. Instantly.’
A shocking, unwanted jolt of jealousy hit her and Polly swallowed it back. It was unworthy. Of her and of the story he was confiding in her.
‘Tell me about her.’ She wanted to know everything.
‘She was understanding and acceptance. She was anger and rebellion and gallows humour. Just like me. It was...’ he paused, searching for the right word ‘...intense. I don’t know if we’d met in normal life if we’d have even liked each other. But then? Then she was all that I wanted, all that I needed. We were going to make it together or fail together.’ He laughed softly, bitterly. ‘The hubris of youth. But it didn’t turn out the way we planned. I was so angry that she left me behind.’
‘And now?’
‘And now I am a decade older. That time is a memory, and Marie...’ He swallowed. ‘I don’t even think of her day to day. I don’t think of the boy I was. I took that time and I locked it away. I got well, I left Provence, left France, went away to college and I reinvented myself.’
‘You’re a survivor.’
She stopped and turned to face him. One hand was still held tightly in his; she allowed the other to drift up, to touch his cheek, to run along the defined line of his cheekbone and along the darkly stubbled jaw.
‘You did what you had to do to survive. That makes you pretty darn amazing.’
He looked down at her, a pulse beating wildly in his cheek, the eyes almost black with pain. ‘I forgot how to feel,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It hurt too much. Loss and pain and need. It was easier to smile and flirt and work and leave all that messy emotional stuff locked away. With Marie.’
‘I know,’ Polly whispered. She stared up at him. ‘Emotions hurt.’
‘Coming back, coming home, I can’t forget. It’s in every look, every word. My parents see me and they remember it all, all the hurt I caused them. And I see her, on every street corner, in every field. I see my broken promises.’
‘You must have loved her very much.’ Polly could hear the wistfulness in her voice and winced inwardly.
‘Love?’ He laughed softly. ‘We were too young and fiery for love. I needed her, adored her, but love?’ He looked right at her, gold flecks in his eyes mesmerising her. ‘I don’t know what love is either, Polly.’
She took a step towards him, eyes still fixed on his. The one small step had brought her into full contact, her chest pressed against his, hips against hips. She slid the hand cupping his face around his neck, allowing her fingers to run through the ends of his hair.
‘Neither do I,’ she said. ‘I know want.’ She stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss on the pulse in his throat. He quivered. ‘I know need.’ Emboldened, she moved her mouth up and nipped his ear lobe. ‘I know desire. Sometimes they’re enough, they have to be enough.’
Her mouth moved to his, to drop a light butterfly kiss on the firm lips. She had only meant to comfort him, to take his mind off the past but one small step, three small kisses, three dangerous words shifted the mood, charged the air.
‘Are they?’ he asked, his eyes burning a question.
Polly couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak, could only nod as he continued to look hard into her eyes, into her soul.
She had no idea what he saw reflected there, all she knew was that she was boneless with desire, burning up with the unexpected, unwanted, but very real need pulsing through her, his body branding her, claiming her at every point they touched.
She didn’t want him to think, didn’t want any regrets, she just wanted him to hold her tight, wanted to taste him. She pulled her hand out of his, the momentary loss of contact chilling her until she slid her arm around his waist, working her hand under his T-shirt to feel the firm skin underneath. There under her fingers was the tattoo. She traced it from memory feeling him shudder under her touch.
‘Goddammit, Polly,’ he groaned. ‘I’m trying...’
‘Don’t.’
It was all he needed. With a smothered cry of frustration, of need, he gave in, his arms pulling her in tight, one hand on her back, the other tangling in her hair.
He looked one last time, searching her face and whatever he saw there was enough because he lowered his mouth to hers. Claimed her. And she allowed it. Allowed herself to lose herself in his mouth, his hands, his hard, strong body. Today at least, in this moment, it was all she could give him.
And she would give all that he could take.
CHAPTER NINE
‘OH, NO!’
Polly had barely waited until the plane had landed and the seat-belt light was switched off before she had pulled her phone out and switched it on.
Keeping busy. Avoiding conversation. Just as she had done all last night, all morning. Chatting to his mother, going on yet another guided tour with Claire, bathing Mathilde.
Avoiding conversation. Avoiding physical contact. Avoiding Gabe.
Gabe closed his eyes. It wasn’t as if he had been trying to get her alone either.
It was all too real. The taste of her, cinnamon spicy and sweet. The softness of her hair, the warmth and smoothness of her skin. The exquisite torture of her hands, roaming over him as if she could learn him by heart...
He took a long, deep breath, willing away the evocative memories. Willing away the urge to reach over, take her hands and draw her back to him. To lose himself in her again.
What had he been thinking? Necking like teenagers on a riverside path! Gabe couldn’t remember the last time he had been content to hold and be held. To kiss, to touch with no expectation, no hurry to move on to the next stage. It wasn’t just their admittedly exposed location. It was as if they were the teenage selves they had exhumed, armed with all that shy and explosive passion. No need to take it further. Content just to explore, to be.
No need to go further. Not then. And not since either.
It was probably all for the best. Every reason he had listed against getting involved with Polly still stood. Was valid. Even with the memory of the kiss thudding through him.
He opened his eyes and stared at the back of the airline seat. Yep, definitely all for the best.
‘Honestly, does he never think?’ Polly was still muttering as she glared at her phone as if it could answer her.
‘Problems?’ Gabe swung himself out of his seat and opened the overhead locker to collect their bags.
‘Grandfather.’ It was said expressively. ‘He wants to meet us at the house when we get back. My house. He’s asked Raff. It hasn’t even occurred to him that we might be tired.’
‘Why should it?’ Gabe swung Polly’s neat overnight bag down and set it onto his seat. ‘It’s not even three in the afternoon. It’s the middle of your working day. Besides, have you ever put tiredness before business before? It’s not like he knows that you’re pregnant.’
‘That’s not the point...’
‘Polly.’ He put his own bag onto the floor and turned to face her, taking in the dark circles under her eyes. She looked as if she had slept as well as he had. Was it the heat or the baby keeping her awake—or was she, like him, taunted by the memory of soft lips and caressing hands? Had she got out of bed several times, determined to creep down the landing hall to tap at his door only to fall back onto the bed unsure what to say, what to do?
‘You need to tell him.’
She turned the full force of her glare on him but Gabe simply shouldered her bag and collected his own. ‘It’s time, Polly. Everything’s looking good. You’ve accepted it. You need your family.’
She blinked, the long dark lashes falling in confusion. ‘My family isn’t like yours. We don’t do unconditional love.’
‘Then it’s time you changed that,’ he said and walked off along the nearly empty aisle.
She didn’t speak to him again as they exited the airport and found their way to her car and this time, when Gabe held out his hand for her keys, she didn’t protest, handing them over almost absent-mindedly. He had expected her to spend the journey back to Hopeford as she had every other moment that day, tapping on her laptop or phone or scribbling in her notebook, but she simply laid her head back on the headrest and stared out of the window.
It didn’t take them long; the small airport was conveniently close to Hopeford and it was less than an hour later when Gabe turned into the narrow lane and parked outside the cottage. An old red Porsche was already parked there along with a Mercedes saloon.
‘Great, the cavalry are already here.’
Gabe shot her a concerned look. Where was the cool, collected Polly, in charge of everything and everyone? Where was the insistently questioning Polly, forcing him to face up to some unpalatable truths?
‘Is that Raff’s car? The vintage one?’ Surely a mention of vintage cars would cheer her up.
‘It was our father’s. He got Daddy’s car, I got Mummy’s jewellery, the bits she left behind anyway. Never say that the Raffertys aren’t conventional.’
She opened the door and slid out. ‘Let’s do this. Leave the bags, Gabe. We’ll get them later.’
Gabe slowly exited the car and watched her. It was incredible seeing the way she breathed in, the mask slipping over her as she tilted her head up, straightened her back. She was every i
nch Polly Rafferty, CEO. On the outside at least.
He fell into step beside her but she didn’t look at him as she marched up the small path that wound from the road through her flower-filled front garden to the wooden front door.
Twisting the handle, she made a face as the door opened with no need for a key. ‘Hello,’ she called as she pushed it open. ‘If you’re burglars then there isn’t anything worth taking. If it’s Raff how the hell did you get in?’
‘Ah, that’s my fault. I abused my position as your concierge service but I thought you would prefer to come home to a prepared dinner and a settled-in grandparent.’ A woman with a heart-shaped face, wavy red-gold hair and the greenest eyes Gabe had ever seen came through from the kitchen, smiling a little shyly. ‘Hi, Polly. I’m so sorry I haven’t been round before today. Good trip?’
Polly stood stock-still for a moment and Gabe felt her take an audible deep breath as if steeling herself before she moved forward, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘Clara! I should have known. It’s so good to see you. Let me see...’ She grabbed Clara’s left hand and stared at the antique emerald ring on her third finger.
‘I know it’s customary to say congratulations but as Raff’s twin I can’t square it with my conscience if I don’t first say run. I lived with him for eighteen years and you are far too good for him.’
Clara was glowing with happiness. ‘It’s too late. Summer would never forgive me. He’s promised to take her to two theme parks in Florida this year.’
Polly shook her head. ‘That’s my brother. He always targets the weak spot! Congratulations, Clara. I hope you will be very happy. Have you met Gabe yet? Gabe, this is Clara, my brother’s fiancée.’
‘No, we haven’t met but I know Raff, of course. Please accept my felicitations.’ Gabe shook her hand warmly and smiled down into the green eyes.
‘Polly, I am so sorry,’ Clara whispered. ‘I said you would probably be too tired for a meeting now, and the last thing you would want was your house invaded, but your grandfather was so insistent. I got Dad to make some food I can heat up, just a lasagne and salad, and Sue will clean it all up tomorrow so, really, all you have to do is eat.’
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