Until He Met Meg

by Sami Lee

  Bryce frowned and tried to force thoughts of her body from his mind.

  ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ she said contritely, apparently misinterpreting his scowl. ‘I came up to get something to drink and I couldn’t resist listening in.’

  ‘It’s all right. That sort of playing deserved interruption. I’m very rusty.’

  ‘Really? I thought it sounded great.’ She drew herself to her feet and wandered in his direction, her fluffy white socks swishing softly across the marble floor. Instinctively, Bryce shifted sideways on the piano stool and instantly regretted the move when Meg took him up on his implied offer by settling down beside him. Her closeness enveloped him in warmth as effectively as though she’d draped her arms around him. His stomach clenched in reaction.

  How was it that he found a woman in a fluffy robe and thick socks so sexy?

  ‘It was Mozart, wasn’t it?’

  It took Bryce a moment to get his brain in gear to answer her question. ‘It was an attempt at Mozart, yes.’

  ‘I know some Mozart too, you know.’

  Bryce couldn’t resist the temptation to glance across at her. Her proud expression caused a smile to play with his lips. He gestured toward the keys. ‘Be my guest.’

  She raised a brow at his tone of teasing scepticism and flexed her fingers over the keyboard. She had long, slim fingers, well suited to the instrument, and for a moment Bryce wondered if he’d misjudged her. He didn’t doubt the possibility that she had a wealth of hidden talent he had yet to discover.

  But then she jauntily played the melody to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. When she was done she turned and showed him a smug grin. ‘You thought I was bluffing.’

  ‘I should have known better.’ Bryce returned her smile. ‘Do you take requests?’

  ‘If you’re in the mood to hear Mary Had a Little Lamb or Three Blind Mice.’

  Bryce thought she might very well be able to put him in the mood to hear just about anything. Or do just about anything. He said, ‘I think the former is more cheery.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? I mean, Three Blind Mice? It’s a little macabre for this late in the evening.’

  Once again she set her fingers to the ivories and studiously played out the melody. As she came to the end of its fleece was white as snow, Bryce played from the beginning again at the lower ranges, creating an overlapping tune that soon became a mish-mash of notes that had them collapsing into fits of laughter.

  ‘Oh Bryce,’ Meg said, stifling her giggles behind her hand. ‘This is what you should do.’

  ‘What? I should go on tour with the Philharmonic, belting out nursery rhymes?’

  ‘No I mean you should teach Phillipa the piano. She’s already complaining about her next violin lesson.’

  Bryce sobered, recalling the way he’d flat-out rejected Meg’s suggestion that Phillipa take up a different instrument. He’d been so sure of his stance, so unsettled by his unexpected feelings for Meg that he hadn’t been willing to listen. Now he realized he may have been too quick to dismiss her ideas. She was, after all, Phillipa’s nanny and as such he paid her to have his daughter’s best interests at heart.

  He felt himself relenting. ‘Perhaps I could find her a good piano teacher.’

  Meg made a sound of frustration that had him casting his eyes toward her again. She was staring at him as though he might be a little thick in the head. ‘I wasn’t talking about getting her a piano teacher, dummy. I meant that you should teach her.’

  Bryce frowned at her, wondering why he didn’t reprimand her for calling him a dummy. ‘But I’m not a qualified instructor.’

  ‘There’s no one more qualified than you.’ Something in her eyes softened, matching the quieter tone of her voice. ‘You’re her father.’

  ‘Are you saying…’ his frown deepened as he struggled with the idea that Meg’s opinion of him had become so important, ‘that I don’t spend enough time with my daughter?’

  Meg drew in a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. Bryce made a particular effort to keep his gaze trained on her face and not on the way the action caused her pert chest to shift enticingly beneath her thick robe.

  ‘My dad worked a lot,’ she began. Her gaze flickered over him and her lips turned. ‘Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t well off. He worked just to keep food on the table for my two older brothers and me. He had his own business and he opened it seven days a week. It was okay. Dad is a good man and I had my mother. The two of us were especially close. I thought that was enough. But then Mum died…’

  The faraway, sad look that stole the sparkle from her eyes made something shift uncomfortably in Bryce’s chest. ‘I’m sorry about your mother. How did she die?’

  ‘Cervical cancer. It happened so suddenly. We only had six weeks with her after the diagnosis. It was…hard.’

  Her voice thickened on the last word and Bryce knew ‘hard’ didn’t begin to describe what Meg had been through. A girl of fifteen dealing with that. He was gripped by a fierce urge to pull the adult Meg into his arms, as though he could somehow lend his strength to the teenager inside, the girl confronted with the premature death of her mother. He clenched his fists on his thighs.

  ‘The point I’m making is that when my mother died, it was as though my father and I didn’t even know each other. I realised that every conversation we’d ever had had gone through my mother, had been mediated by her somehow. My dad had no idea what to do with me and we didn’t agree on anything. We might as well have been strangers.’

  ‘I’m sorry Meg.’

  ‘It’s okay, we’ve sorted through most of it — except for the fact that he doesn’t understand why I wanted to leave Karawak Downs, why I won’t just settle down with a local boy and have some babies. He thinks that’s all it would take to make me happy.’

  Bryce felt himself scowl at the thought of all those ‘local boys’ who’d undoubtedly had their eyes on Meg. Had she dated a lot? Did she have serious boyfriends? How many men had known the thrill of her kiss? He spoke with gruff abruptness. ‘Your father probably wants what’s best for you.’

  She started a little at his tone. Her lips pursed. ‘I’m sure that’s true. But how can he think he’s the person to know what’s best for me if he’s never taken the time to get to know me?’

  ‘This is about me and Phillipa.’

  ‘I see her and I see a little girl who desperately needs to know she is loved. That she is good enough on her own. That people will like her if she lets them see the real her, instead of trying to scare them off as some kind of test. I see a girl who misses her mother and can’t seem to please her father.’

  ‘I’ve offered Isabelle a shared custody arrangement.’ A note of derision entered his voice despite his efforts to control his emotions. ‘She prefers being a part-time parent. Oh, she loves Phillipa in her own way,’ he said when he saw the pinched expression on Meg’s face. ‘But Isabelle isn’t particularly maternal. She doesn’t have a sense of how her actions affect other people.’ Like you do.

  ‘I think the term is self-involved.’ Meg’s cheeks blushed pink and she held up a placating hand. ‘That was uncalled for.’

  Had she thought he would get angry at her for insulting his ex-wife? The description was thoroughly apt. Isabelle was interested only in parties and jewellery and trips to the Caribbean on expensive yachts. A child with a tendency toward disobedience had no place in that life.

  What kind of man had he been to marry a woman like that, one so unsuited to motherhood that once Phillipa had come along their union had been doomed? A man who had possessed neither intuition nor foresight, one who hadn’t looked past the apparent suitability on the surface to the person underneath.

  A man as self-involved as the woman he’d married.

  Meg huffed out a breath. ‘I didn’t mean to start a fight with you. I’m really sick of fighting with you.’

  ‘Just say what you want to say, why don’t you?’

  ‘Yes Bryce, I think you ought to spend more t
ime with Phillipa. She needs you so much.’

  Bryce’s irritation changed shape at her honest words. It became something deeper, something that reached inside him with cold fingers and shook the daylights out of his quietude. A sense of dread stole over him as he wondered if Meg was right. Was he failing as badly at fatherhood as he had at marriage?

  His voice held a note of quiet desperation that frightened him. ‘I’m doing the best I can.’ Even as he said the words he wondered if they were true.

  Meg reached out and covered his hand where it rested against his thigh and her touch scattered his thoughts. ‘I know. I’ve seen you with Phillipa and I know you love her dearly. I just think Phillipa would benefit from seeing a little more of you. From finding some common interests with you. Don’t you think?’

  Bryce stared at her pale hand where it rested atop his. He should break contact, slip his hand out from beneath hers. He couldn’t do it. Instead he turned his hand over and laced his fingers through Meg’s, bringing them even closer.

  He thought he heard Meg’s breath hitch and he raised his eyes to hers again. The brilliant blue had chased the grey tinge away and her eyes looked startlingly vivid in the dim light. Her lips were parted as though in shock, the opening a tempting invitation to a man who had a sudden urge to take advantage. If he kissed that mouth, just once, maybe his nagging curiosity about her would be satisfied. Perhaps he could stop fantasizing about taking those lips between his teeth and nibbling…and licking and…

  Oh crikey, he’s going to kiss me. Meg’s heart fairly leapt out of her chest at the thought, at the look of lethal intent in Bryce’s dark eyes. His gaze trailed over her face, leaving heat behind, and focused on her mouth with an interest that was far from idle.

  She shouldn’t have touched his hand. She’d known it the second she’d reached out, but she’d been unable to curb the impulse. He’d looked so upset when she’d dared to broach the subject of his relationship with Phillipa, and she’d been devastated to think he might interpret her need to help as criticism of his fathering skills. She’d meant every word of what she’d said — he was a wonderful father. He was a wonderful man, a man who was staring at her with the kind of avarice she reserved for caramel fudge ice-cream. A man whose thumb was twining with hers in a sinuous dance, whose other hand was rising to cup her chin.

  Oh Bryce, please kiss me, her heart screamed, even while her brain countered, please don’t! Hadn’t they both, just this afternoon, vowed that their relationship would remain strictly impersonal? And now she’d gone and gotten very personal again by touching him, by sitting beside him at the piano when he was trying to get some alone time. He must think she was throwing herself at him, and was merely responding in kind. Hardly surprising given that the man lived here without female companionship and here was a young single woman snuggling up to him…

  Dear Lord. She’d made an awful fool of herself. Again.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ In her rush to stand, Meg’s knee connected hard with the underside of the piano. She winced and instinctively grabbed at the injured spot.

  Bryce shot to his feet. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, it’s just a bump. My fault.’

  His frown was full of self-recrimination. ‘I think it’s mine. I obviously scared you.’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t,’ she rushed to assure him, but found she couldn’t offer an alternative explanation. All she had was the truth, a truth much too embarrassing to admit aloud. You didn’t scare me, you excited me. You made me long for things I have no business thinking about.

  Bryce cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t forgotten what you told me the day we met. About your previous employer…expecting things from you in return for an easier time at work. I promise you that’s not what was happening just now.’

  ‘I never thought it for a minute,’ Meg said quickly. The very idea was absurd. Bryce was a man of honour, of integrity. He would never take advantage of her like that, even though she might wish, occasionally, that he wasn’t quite so upright about that kind of thing.

  She was the problem here, not Bryce.

  Absolutely mortified at her behaviour, Meg began to back away from the piano. She had to get away from Bryce before she said or did something else to humiliate herself. Mary had a little lamb indeed! ‘Please, can we pretend I never came up here? That I never joked about Mozart or nursery rhymes, or told you how to raise your daughter?’

  His lips compressed into a grim line. ‘I’m not sure that’s possible. You’ve given me a lot to think about.’

  ‘Oh. Well I’m —’

  ‘If you dare say you’re sorry for sharing an honest opinion again I swear I might throttle you, Meg Lacy. Or worse.’

  His vehemence startled her. She wondered what could possibly be worse than a throttling, but then she saw the glittering edge to his dark gaze, something that spoke to a longing for things unattainable that she understood all too well. His attention snagged on her lips again and she understood what he meant.

  What terrible, wonderful torment it would be to steal one illicit kiss from the man she secretly admired. He looked so formidable standing there in his black robe and pants, the fine silk looking amazingly masculine hanging from his wide, powerful shoulders. The robe had loosened down the middle, exposing a strip of hard, lightly haired chest, and the thought that Bryce slept shirtless was almost too much for her self-control. She gripped the banister that bumped against her back, fighting the urge to sprint across the room and bury her face in that warm, sturdy flesh.

  ‘Go to bed, Meg,’ Bryce told her, his voice a dangerous, guttural rasp. ‘Now.’

  Meg turned and fled.

  Chapter Seven

  Bryce spent the next week avoiding any and all contact with Meg.

  Not an easy task when they were sharing a house. Three floors, five bedrooms and several expansive living spaces yet he still managed to keep running into her. Usually it happened in the kitchen first thing in the morning, after another night of interrupted sleep. She would be fluttering around in there, chatting amiably with Phillipa and cheerily offering him tea and French toast.

  Perhaps he ought to start ordering breakfast at the office.

  The last few days he’d noticed the change in her wardrobe, too. In apparent response to his crazed invective about her attire, she’d gone out and purchased an array of ordinary-looking shift dresses in a range of colours that didn’t make her look ordinary at all. Today her dress was pink, which she’d teamed with a soft chocolate brown cardigan and open-toed sandals.

  The outfit was as roomy and sensible as Bryce had requested, yet it did nothing to diminish her appeal. If anything the sight of her bare legs was more distracting than her tight jeans and Disney T-shirts had been. She wore her hair in a ponytail, but a few strands had escaped the band to curl against the back of her neck. Bryce was mesmerised by the way the morning sunlight played through the tendrils.

  Why couldn’t he stop staring at her?

  ‘Good morning, Bryce.’ Meg trilled the greeting when she turned to see him standing in the kitchen doorway. She gestured to the teapot resting on a ceramic coaster on the bench. ‘English Breakfast?’

  ‘Not today. I have an early meeting.’ He frowned at the lie, at his unintentionally gruff tone. Meg was being nothing but solicitous and he sounded like a riled bear. Because he was so blinded by her that he couldn’t get his bearings, which wasn’t her fault.

  He felt even worse for taking his anger at himself out on her when some of the liveliness went out of her expression. ‘Would you like me to pack you something to take?’

  ‘Take where?’ Phillipa asked as she flounced in behind him, carrying her school bag.

  Meg explained. ‘Your father has to leave for the city early today.’

  ‘But I want you to look at my maths homework.’ Phillipa directed wide, disappointed eyes up at him. ‘Please Daddy. Mrs Thompson gave me extra because she says I haven’t mastered multiplication yet. I don’t know if I did it
right.’

  Great. Not only was he barking at Meg, but his need to avoid the woman was now affecting his daughter. Fortunately, pretend meetings were much easier to reschedule than real ones. ‘I suppose I could spare some time after all.’

  Phillipa beamed. Meg said jovially, ‘I’ll bring some tea and toast into the dining room.’

  Twenty minutes later he leaned down and kissed his daughter on the forehead as she packed her maths book back in her bag. ‘I think I can safely say you are mastering multiplication peanut, and I dare Mrs Thompson to contradict me.’

  Phillipa giggled at his praise. ‘Meg said so too, so I must be getting it right.’

  ‘Meg already checked your homework?’ He turned and caught sight of Meg. She ducked her head to avoid his scrutiny as she cleared his teacup and plate.

  ‘She said I should double check with you because you’re so smart.’

  The compliment passed on by his daughter shouldn’t have had the power to affect him. He already knew he had a head for figures, after all. But he could swear his chest puffed out a little. ‘That was very nice of Meg to say.’

  Yes, Meg had been nice all week, while he’d been a veritable ogre.

  ‘I wasn’t being nice — merely truthful.’ She glanced at him then and their gazes held for a moment that had Bryce wondering if the thermostat had been turned up a few degrees. Meg’s cheeks darkened to a shade of pink not dissimilar to the fabric of her dress and she busied herself once again with the dishes. ‘I hope we haven’t made you too late for your meeting.’

  Bryce made a noncommittal noise as Meg dashed from the room and Phillipa went to clean her teeth. He felt like a lowlife, when all he’d been trying to do all week was the right thing. Keeping his distance from Meg, asking her to dress more conservatively so he wouldn’t be tempted to do something hideously inappropriate, like slip his fingers beneath one of those T-shirts of hers and touch bare, smooth skin.

  But nothing felt right about the results. Meg’s new clothes were as alluring as her old ones, and he still thought of that near kiss by the piano last week with a fierce longing that scared him.